Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (novel24 .txt) 📕

the still air, which her brain makes her smell even though it is not really there. To her, the bodies are rendered as gruesome and violent urban-assault carnage. But in reality, she is stepping over eliminated players lining a green, brightly lit, plywood-paneled hallway—all of them silently watching the endgame play out either through her eyes or through Prime’s.

Yūgen can move through the passage without fear because she now knows exactly where Prime is. Players have maps in the corners of their HUDs, and all in-range motion registers as red dots. Prime took up a position in a corner conference room up ahead, then went dark. Which means he is waiting. He is ahead on kills, so if the match ends with them both alive, he wins. There is no reason for him to risk open confrontation. Prime is doing exactly what Yūgen would do: waiting for her to come to him.

Strategy and location are not all Yūgen knows about Prime. She also knows that he is the top-ranked player in the world; that he makes significantly more in sponsorships than in prize money; that he is left-handed, which throws a lot of opponents off; and that he is a little over eighty kilos and 180 centimeters tall—a nice, broad chest to target and just the right height for a quick, twitchy headshot.

But it is Prime’s intelligence that interests Yūgen most. Not necessarily his gameplay, but his former life. Before he became a professional v-sports player, he spent his first few years out of school as a biomedical engineer. Was accused of something that the courts kept sealed—worked out some kind of plea deal. Wealthy parents, an expensive team of attorneys. His handle comes from the fact that he is obsessed with prime numbers. The word PRIME is tattooed, one letter per finger, across his right fist. Across his left, the sequence 76543—one of only two prime numbers with digits in consecutive descending order. Apparently, he believes there is some kind of power in primes. Fundamental, cosmic meaning. Encrypted messages rippling through spacetime.

One minute of gameplay remaining.

Yūgen is at the end of the catwalk. The conference room is to the left, halfway down the hall, opening on the right. But that would mean breaching the room from her weak side. She is capable of firing off both shoulders when she has to, but not against Prime. She knows she would be dead before she could even register his presence.

So she turns right instead. Lowers her rifle and jogs. Circles around so that she can take the conference room from her strong side. She knows she is broadcasting her plan, but she doesn’t have a choice. Only forty seconds left. No time for planning, and no time for tricks. She knows Prime will already have pressure on the trigger the moment she exposes her head, so all she can do is rely on her instincts.

Last corner. She is now right outside the conference room. On her strong side now. Back pressed against the wall. Ten seconds left. She knows that he knows her exact height, and that he will have a headshot all lined up. So she crouches. She will be slightly less steady, but that fraction of a second to readjust could make all the difference.

Nine.

She wishes she had a frag she could bank off a wall and into the room.

Eight.

Or a flashbang. But by this point in the game, if you’re alive, you’re out of grenades.

Seven.

She can feel her heart through her haptic suit. Hear it in her ears.

Six.

It is beating so hard she knows it could throw off her shot.

Five.

He is probably expecting her to wait for the last second, so she knows she should go now.

Four.

Deep breath. Hold it in. And then a quick pivot.

Two rapid taps at head height shatter glass. She waits for the haptics in her chest or helmet to tell her she’s been tagged, but nothing happens. She finds him on the ground, crouched beneath the table, sights all lined up. Motherfucker is playing with her—savoring his victory.

Instinctively, Yūgen drops her muzzle and puts two rounds in his face.

In her ears, the v-sports theme, and a deep, authoritative voice: GAME OVER. YOU HAVE WON.

But something is not right. She unlocks her visor, retracts it back up in her helmet, staggers at the context shift from skyscraper at night to bright green surfaces and plasma light. And red. Blood getting dark. Coagulating. Mostly done spreading already. Her first thought is that she somehow killed him, but she immediately readjusts. Knows that’s not possible. Feels the other players gather behind her—running up to congratulate her, then stopping. Hears them, but does not understand. Sees the splatter patterns on the wall. Left hand outstretched, assault rifle just out of reach. Entire trigger finger missing, reducing the five-digit number to four.

4

  FALSE POSITIVE

ALL THE DEAD bodies on the wall make it hard to concentrate on talking.

Quinn is sitting across from her boss, Vanessa Townes. The floor-to-ceiling sheet of plasma glass to her left is like a macabre mood board of violence and murder. Puffy white fat bursting from an opened throat, eyes wide and terrified. A lean, young, dark male body, hideously crushed, twisted, and disfigured. The impact of a young woman against a city sidewalk, her arms and head askew, two robotic legs detached, one entirely smashed and scattered.

And numbers. All of them four digits. Imprinted on different body parts. Burned, stamped, and carved.

“I’m sorry,” Van says. “Do you want me to turn that off?”

“It’s fine,” Quinn tells her boss. In truth, the collage of carnage is making her nauseous, but she does not like the idea of being coddled. So she focuses on the shattered laptop on a shelf behind her boss, displayed among various service awards. “Did that thing really stop a round from an AK-47?”

“At a very generous angle, as anyone with a background in ballistics is quick to point out,” Van says. “But yes, it really did.