1st Quarter: 15:13:42

  Warriors: 4,288,671

  There was no time to celebrate or rest. Unlike American football, I didn’t have the luxury of taking a seat on the sideline and watching the defense go out and take care of business. Slayer Bowl was all about offense. Once you scored, the next job was to score again.

  “Hey, ERNI—“

  I didn’t get to finish my sentence. A swirling field of green energy swallowed me whole. I punched and clawed at it, unsure of whether this was an enemy attack.

  “What the hell is happening?!”

  Teleportation Initiated.

  The green shell crystallized around me and the world fell away, dissolving into a blur of space and dimension. I skyrocketed through star lines and the twisted kaleidoscopic passageway of what looked like a wormhole.

  I thought of the tagline for the original Alien movie: “in space no one can hear you scream.” I begged to differ. When I screamed, I could hear it. ERNI heard it too.

  ERNI: Try to remain calm. Take deep breaths. Your blood pressure is elevated. As is your heart rate, which is currently 168 beats per minute.

  Yeah. I thought to myself. Maybe that’s because I’ve never teleported before.

  My insides felt jumbled and shaken, like the contents of a blender being chopped into a frenzy. The green chamber spun through the astral tunnel, rising and falling, shifting left and right, like some sort of twisted amusement park ride. We did several loop-de-loops, as if we were getting sucked through the inside of a giant cosmic, silly straw. I puked all over the chamber, splashing around in it as we tumbled through the void.

  The star lines receded, the blur sharpened and the green chrysalis suddenly stopped in place. The jolt was so sudden, I slammed face-first into its side. I had to peel myself off its interior surface, lips flared and nose flattened, like a kid smooshing their face against a window for comedic effect. Only, I wasn’t laughing.

  The chamber evaporated, and I found myself on the ground, in a completely new environment. I knelt there, pissed, flinging vomit off my armor.

  Teleportation Complete.

  “I should have warned about the disorienting effects of teleportation,” ERNI commented. “I will add that note to my database for the future.”

  “Yeah. That would be good,” I said, rising to my feet and wiping off my lips.

  Mission: Retrieve Orb.

  I glanced around at the horizon, grey and wet. It looked like the center of an endless marsh. A dense fog lingered in the air. I was standing about a foot deep in a body of murky, stagnant water. Gnarled, twisting trees reached up into the fog canopy. Dense vines hung like curtains, masking whatever horrors lay further off in the bog.

  “All right, ERNI, where are we?”

  My face shield closed, sealing me in an airtight protective mask.

  “According to my sensors, we are in a toxic swampland.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. Any idea where?”

  “The trees are beautiful… The trees are beautiful… The trees are beautiful…”

  I looked at the gauntlet. ERNI was glitching again. I tapped the screen a few times and it flickered with an error.

  Faulty Capacitor Detected! Rebooting Interface…

  A moment later, ERNI blinked, looking up at me.

  “According to my sensors, we are in a toxic swampland.”

  “Right. Can you pinpoint where?”

  A notification flashed.

  Location: Pantanal, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

  “Great. Always wanted to visit.”

  I had no clue where that was. I goofed off a lot during geography.

  “Can you automatically display our location the next time I have to take a ride in one of those green thingies?”

  “Certainly. Going forward, I will auto-announce our new location after teleportation cycles. Speaking of which… I also have the location of your next orb.”

  A pulsing white dot appeared on the northwest periphery of my map. It was 10 kilometers away.

  “A 10 click hike through this crap? Where’s a damn hovercraft loot crate when you need one?”

  The biggest problem was visibility. I couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. I double-checked the map to ensure the ghost detector was still enabled. It was, indicated by a slow, sweeping circle overlay. There were no yellow or red dots—so, that was good.

  “All right. These orbs aren’t going to collect themselves.”

  I took a few steps through the water—if you can call it that. It looked more like a diarrhea milkshake. My footfalls were slimy and soft. Several times, my legs sank up to my knees, and it took a good bit of doing to wrench them free.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “There’s got to be a better way to get through this. Any thoughts?”

  “Unfortunately, without a jetpack or a vine-swinging upgrade, this is the best available method for travel in this environment.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.”

  I tried to find enough of a solid footing so I could use the leaping abilities of my armor, but that was a colossal failure. A few times I tried it. Rather than springing me forward up into the air, the recoil of my leg boosters drove me deeper into the soft, muddy bed of the marsh floor. Several times I lurched forward, landing face-first, completely submerged in the brownish liquid.

  It smelled like a dumpster orgy between expired mayo and burnt hair—and I was completely soaked in it. Thick, goopy streaks of swamp water spilled down my face. It reminded me of how drenched in blood Sola and I were back in that department store bathroom.

  Sola.

  I wondered where she was and if she was okay. Blady had said she was “safe and sound on his ship.” But what the hell did that mean? Was she being held at gunpoint? Was she being threatened by hideous creatures? I hoped not. All I could do to calm my mind was to imagine that maybe, mercifully, she was peacefully asleep and unaware of her surroundings in a cryo-pod.

  I had to make it to the Slayer Bowl final. I had to get at Dom Blady, and find a way to rescue her.

  I brushed a clump of mud off the side of my neck, and my hand raked across the necklace and video game charm my mom gave me. I thought about her and all of the things that Slayer Bowl had cost me. All of it, in a single day. My birthday.

  I picked up my pace, trudging through the mud with a newfound grit and determination. No matter what I faced going forward in this tournament, I was determined to find a way to make Blady pay. And if I could find a way off-world, one day to make Krivlax answer for his crimes as well.

  “Shit, that hurts!” I barked.

  I looked at my map, which was suddenly sprinkled with dots. I reached inside my armor and clawed at something that was attached to my inner thigh. I pulled it out, a bit of blood seeping between my fingers. I opened my hand and looked at the wriggling, glowing black creature in my palm.

  Mission: Kill Monster Mob.

  I examined the info box above it.

  Murk Leech. Level 1.

  “You little fucker!”

  I chucked the creature away and watched as it landed with a splash back into the soupy water.

  “Ow!”

  There were more bites beneath my armor. It felt like forks being jabbed into me.

  I dug beneath several areas of my armor, tearing off three more Murk Leeches. They didn’t go easy, teeth, pulling away strings of skin and flesh.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow! Oh, fuck this!”

  SPLOOSH!

  I slashed my pizza cutters through the water—hacking and chopping until every last one of the little bastards were dead.

  Mission Complete: Kill Monster Mob.

  Reward: +60,000 Points!

  New Trophy! Savage Slasher.

  Reward: +10,000 Points!

  Auto-Looted Murk Leeches.

  Items Acquired:

  Bog-Slime Lube.

  Energy Leech Play.

  I stepped onto a fallen log and used the footing to launch myself onto the side of the nearest tree trunk. Hook-like, tarsal claws sprang from my armored hands and feet. They sunk into the damp bark, allowing me to climb with ease.

  I felt like Spider-Man! I even busted out a few of his poses, just for the hell of it.

  I reached out a free hand and pressed my middle and ring fingers into my palm, flashing that famous web-slinging pose. I even uttered the sound effects—

  “Psyeewww! Psyeewww! Psyeewww!”

  Then, I remembered that I was still being simulcast across the multiverse.

  “Heh… well…”

  I got back to the business of climbing and scaled my way up into the dense fog.

  Caution: Toxic Gases Detected.

  ME: Hey, ERNI, how long can I breathe inside this mask?

  ERNI: Your armor’s rebreather technology enables up to 60 minutes of unimpeded respiration before needing access to external oxygen in order to reset.

  ME: Got it.

  I kept climbing, and the tree trunk kept going.

  “What the hell is this?” I grunted. “A redwood?”

  “I am uncertain of the specific genus and species classification of this tree.”

  I passed by several critters that fled, spooked from my presence. I also encountered a huge coiled snake that wasn’t in the least bit intimidated by my appearance. It arced its head back, preparing to strike. I anchored myself with my left arm and used a pizza cutter with my right to make quick work of it. Its coiled body hung there, writhing as its head tumbled down through the mist, no doubt snapping in the throes of death.

  I finally breached the fog, hoping to get a bird’s-eye view of my situation—some way to orient myself in this new terrain. Unfortunately, all I could see was the blanket of mist stretching out in all directions. The sun was barely peeking through a shroud of dark clouds.

  “Okay, looks like we go instrument-only approach.”

  For years, flight sims had been my favorite type of game. I nerded out learning all of the various radio, radar, and air traffic control systems. Some of the best and most challenging flights I took were rife with bad weather and terrible visibility. And I always found the most difficult landings the most thrilling.

  Landing a jumbo 747 in zero-visibility, with crosswinds, rain, and fog—relying completely on my instrument panel— made me feel like a total badass. Though, no one at work thought that when I told them.

  All Todd had to say was, “Do you ever get laid?”

  I dropped back down onto the marsh floor with a splash. I was thirsty, but cycling through my inventory, I realized I didn’t have any water or sports hydration drinks.

  If this was an intergalactic sport, then where were the tubs of Gatorade? Where were the water boys?

  All I had in my playbook to drink was:

  1x Can: ‘Hold My Beer’ Ale: Lowers Inhibitions 50%.

  Lowering inhibitions couldn’t be a bad thing, slogging through this environment, right?

  “Fuck it.”

  I guzzled it down and damn, did it taste good. Best beer I’d had in my entire life. I chucked the can and watched it disappear into the fog, hearing a splash a moment later.

  I felt a subtle buzz coming on and wasn’t mad at it.

  SHIIING!

  I drew my pizza cutters and used them like machetes, hacking through dense sheets of crawler vines. I swore a couple of times I heard them hiss in response. But, that might just have been the effects of the beer.

  “Hey, ERNI… you said you’ve been in what, like thirty something Slayer Bowls, right?”

  “37, to be exact.”

  “Well, you ever lose any of your users? I mean, you know… did they die?”

  He was quiet for a moment, and I knew he didn’t need to think about the answer. It made me wonder if ERNI was capable of actual emotion or at least some synthetic variant of it.

  “None of my previous users successfully completed the tournament.”

  The words hung there between us for a moment. I was going to ask a follow-up question but knew that I didn’t need to. I already knew the answer.

  “Are you capable of feeling sadness or happiness?”

  “While I am programmed to understand the physiological and chemical impacts of such impulses, I am unable to actually experience the human equivalent of emotions.”

  “Right, I pretty much figured that. But would you want to?”

  ERNI was quiet again. This time, I truly believed he needed a moment to think of his answer.

  “Because I am programmed with an innate curiosity, I would respond in the affirmative.”

  Yes. ERNI wanted to know what emotions felt like. The very things that separated humans from AI. Feelings. A soul. A sense of purpose greater than ourselves. An organic connection to the universe, rather than a networked one.

  “Yeah,” I pondered. “well maybe there’s an upgrade for that.”

  “Perhaps so.”

  Our conversation was interrupted by a notification.

  Ghost Detector Alert!

  Ghosts Detected!

  I looked at the map. There were three yellow dots, approaching from separate angles—all headed right towards me.