The Black Daggers Chapter 6

Basic premise of the story - a group of teenagers who play video-games - a lot. the story weaves the game sessions in with their outside lives, their romances, fights and friendships. Halfway through, the stakes are raised, and they become trapped in the game, and must fight for their lives, in a quest to turn it off.

Chapter 6

         The game the Black Daggers were famous for was called Apocalypse: Online. It was a constantly evolving story, and it reacted to the players. It had started with all the players emerging from bunkers underground and being attacked by zombies, who, as they quickly found out, could use weapons, and seemed to have evolved into almost-humans. No-one had any real idea what had led to the “apocalypse”, but they were quickly introduced to a group trying to fight the zombies, and were given missions by them. The game had been running for about two years, and the fight against the zombies was moving into its final stages – the missions were now enormous attacks, delivering crushing blows on them. But you did not have to do what you were asked to – and the way you went about the game determined whether you were a hero, a survivor or an anti-hero – all had their advantages and disadvantages.
The Black Daggers were an example of heroes. In fact, they were the prime example of heroes. The game tutorial footage used them extensively. They had a base in London, where a merchant had taken residence; so many people came there for shelter, it was “good for business”. The base was equipped with machine gun bunkers, hospital bays, electric fences, searchlights and towers. Whereas most peoples’ bases were underground or hidden, the Daggers might as well have had a neon sign outside saying “Bring it on, we’re ready for you!”
Inside the perimeters of their base there were vehicles for hire; not vans and buses (although there were a few), but Ferraris and tanks, attack helicopters and Yamaha super bikes, there was even a nuclear submarine that they owned. That was their main source of income after they had stolen it from the Los Illuminados. They rented it out to rich survivors, who sat in the middle of the ocean, firing infinite torpedoes at attackers. It had been Pedro’s idea to charge per missile and with some gullible customers it worked. That was as far was they went towards anti-heroism.
The Biting Bullets were anti-heroes. They controlled Paris; their followers had cleared out the streets and built walls around it with multiple machine gun bunkers. To use the base as shelter, you had to pay a high price. Each time a merchant entered the city, he was forced to give 10% of his profit to the Bullets. When they came under attack, the Bullets had an “every man for himself” policy. In London, the Black Daggers pulled together and often lent people weapons to help the defence.
The game’s organisers were arranging a tournament, no prizes, just honour… The aim was to return as many civilians to your base as possible within the time limit of two hours.
Robert ducked under an axe and squeezed the trigger on his riot gun, an ultra modern shotgun. A shell spat out and destroyed about three zombies’ heads. There was a group of civilians standing at the centre of the crowd, poking desperately at them with rakes and spades. The Black Daggers were blasting away at the crowd and thinning it down. Natalie aimed her grapple gun at a building behind the crowd, fired and as she flew over the civilians, retracted the cable, dropping her into the middle of the crowd. The rest of the Daggers followed her example and soon they were firing outwards, surrounding the civilians and taking fire for them.
But they weren’t taking much fire. Robert had discarded his riot gun, and was using a modern automatic rifle to pick multiple enemies off quickly. Peter and Pedro had Uzis. Natalie was firing her Striker, a small shotgun with a wide spread, while Peter took down the leaders with his Magnum. The Black Daggers really were the elites in this game. They fired accurately and often took advantage of zombies who were close together, to blow them apart and Michael’s Magnum, with one bullet, memorably killed six zombies. They were very careful not to stand in lines after that, but the Daggers tore the crowd to pieces, and they fled after that.
“Helicopter backup squad, Daggers ready for extraction!” Robert muttered into his microphone. Very soon, two large helicopters flew towards them and two ladders unravelled to the floor from both helicopters. The Daggers climbed up one quickly, and the civilians took their time, much to Robert’s distress. It wasn’t like this game to let a team win so easily. More zombies would be along soon and Robert was anxious to get back to “Camp Dagger”.
With everyone loaded up, the helicopters soared away, out of the small village and over a forest. Robert looked down pensively, across the beautiful pine forest. The Daggers were the world best team, but speed was everything, and someone like the Bullets had probably found a cheat to win the competition.
A small, bright object broke Robert from his pensiveness. An army of zombies had noticed the two helicopters and shot one down; the one carrying Robert and his friends. The pilots, two of the Black Dagger’s allies, were killed instantly; Robert made a mental note to compensate them.
Meanwhile, the Daggers were clambering out of the helicopters, looking in horror at the wreckage. Their favourite guns, guns that had become their friends in a way, were trapped inside there melted and warped. So was all their ammunition, except for the handgun ammo. They had become so used to seeing it on each other’s legs; they had forgotten the handguns they carried in case of emergencies. But they only had about fifty rounds each. If they fired perfectly, headshots all the time, they would be able to take out about two hundred of their enemies, two hundred and fifty if they were lucky. There seemed to be about double that number. Robert levelled his handgun and pointed the laser in between the eyes of the zombie who had shot the helicopter down in the first place.
“Guys, when I say-” the rest of his words were drowned out by four handguns firing at the same time, in the same direction.
“Shoot a path!” Pedro cried, realising it was their only chance. “We’re never gonna kill this lot!”
“My Butterfly!” Michael sighed, looking at the helicopter wreckage sadly. The loss of the weaponry was hardest on him. He had had his weapon since the Black Daggers started playing Apocalypse. He had used the extensive modifying feature to personalise the gun, make it an extension of himself. He had multiple spares, all upgraded to the maximum; but none of them were as unique as his first Broken Butterfly.
         Robert fired the decisive bullet. He hit one of the zombies at their waist, right on the bundle of dynamite strapped to it. There was a massive explosion, and all the other zombies with dynamite exploded too. In the confusion the Black Daggers sprinted through the crowd, slashing at throats with their knives where they could.
         They ran as fast as they could through the forest, dodging thrown weapons and every now and then firing over their shoulders, grunting with pleasure when they managed a hit and one of their pursuers fell, dead.
         They were gaining ground on the zombies, when disaster struck. The game featured a fatigue system. If your character sprinted for too long, he would make mistakes and lose balance. This happened to Robert, who was leading the group. It was almost comical. He tripped and flew forwards into a pool of mud, and almost all the team either fell over him, or tripped in the mud.
         Robert wiped the mud from his eyes, gun already aiming at the air above him. When his vision cleared, he saw an enemy with a pitchfork at his throat, and another one above Pedro who had shown less restraint and had already killed him – they would have to fight with four Daggers.
“Get up!” ordered his captor. He stood up, dropping his gun as he did so. The others did likewise. Robert didn’t know where they would take his team and he didn’t want to find out. He pulled out his knife and slashed the pitchfork carrier’s throat. The other zombies went into uproar, waving their weapons angrily. The Black Daggers grabbed their handguns and began shooting, taking down a handful of their assailants. But their stand was a doomed one. Already, their enemies were approaching, despite their losses. Just as a zombie with a large axe was about to decapitate Natalie, a knife hit him in the throat and he toppled over backwards. Everyone froze, turned round and saw Lisa, carrying a TMP in each hand.
“Hi, guys. Need any help?” She threw TMPS to each of them, and then took her specialised pair, much like Michael’s Broken Butterfly. When all of the friends were ready to fire, the zombies seemed to wake up and charged again. But their attack was short-lived. They were met with round after round of hot lead, coming from five extremely vengeful expert game players; none more so than Michael. He charged into the middle of the crowd, knocking down zombies then shooting them. He used his feet and fists as much as his gun.
“Destroy my gun, will you? Die, you useless-” He carried on muttering under his breath, getting ruder and ruder, angrier and angrier. When he ran out of ammunition he pulled out his knife and settled into a comfortable position, ready to take any comers with the game’s excellent martial arts system.
         When the last zombie had its neck broken by Michael’s kicks, the six friends looked around them at the forest glade, carpeted with bodies.
“That messes up the competition a bit doesn’t it?” Lisa commented sympathetically. Peter leapt up,
“Can we borrow the TMPs, Lisa?”
“Sure, why?” The Daggers were gone.
“While we were running I noticed some of the zombies run down this tunnel,” Peter explained, as they jogged down it. They were delighted to see that there were only a handful of guards, guarding a lot of civilian prisoners. Robert sprayed bullets at them, and then roundhouse kicked each one of them, while the others freed the prisoners. Robert looked at the Daggers’ score. With this discovery it was at the top of the table, just. If they could return this crowd of prisoners back to Camp Dagger safely, they would be above all the competition.
“Oh my God, you guys are so lucky!”
“Yeah, but we need transport to get back,” Natalie moaned, instantly in a bad mood due to their spoiled triumph and Lisa’s presence.
“We’ve got one hour. Camp Dagger is an hour away on wheels, half an hour in the air,” Michael said pensively.
“I came here by helicopter. You can fit about half of this lot in here. If you call as many helicopters from Camp Dagger as you can to pick the rest up, then you’ll probably win, maybe” Lisa suggested.
“Yeah, but by the time they get here and load up the civilians, then go back there, we’ll be out of time,” Natalie snapped angrily.
“I was just making a suggestion to help you, you know, like friends do,”
“We don’t need your help, that’s why we’re top of the tables!”
Before Lisa could speak, Robert stepped in between them, much as Lisa had done to him and Cedric,
“Shut the hell up, the pair of you, we haven’t got that much time! We’ll try Lisa’s idea, it’s better than nothing and we are ahead anyway,”
“Suck-up,” Natalie muttered sulkily, glaring at Lisa, furious that her friend had taken Lisa’s side. Robert, unaware of Natalie’s anger, was talking down the radio to the pilots on standby at Camp Dagger.
“Helicopter crews, send out as many as you can to the beacon we’re gonna place. As fast as you can, got it? Speed is of the essence here,” Robert ordered, placing a small blue light on the wall. The blue light was a GPS beacon, and it would show up on the helicopter pilot’s maps, showing them where to go.
Robert’s equipment chose that moment to spill out, another element added just for the competition, to make it easier. He swore loudly
“Lisa, lead the way,” Peter said, not waiting for Robert to pick up his equipment, thinking he would be there soon. He was very wrong. Not wanting to make this cave an easy way to win the competition, the game designers had placed an El Gigante- Spanish for “The Giant”- inside.
Robert sighed and radioed Lisa, “Leave me behind, I’m gonna be a while. I’ll leave with the next helicopter crew,”
“OK, whatever,” she replied lightly.
Robert picked up the beacon, realising that because of the setting, it wouldn’t show up, and stuck it to one of the civilians.
“Wait outside!” he ordered, starting to gather up his equipment. They rushed out, and watched as the helicopter left.