Cyber Squad - Level 3

  Cyber Squad

  Level 3

  by

  A.K. Mocikat

  Prologue

  Oh no, Kai thought. Please, not again.

  He recognized where he was. How could he ever forget this place and what had happened here?

  But why? How?

  What had happened here was in the past. It couldn’t possibly be happening again.

  Yet it was.

  Kai would remember every single detail around him until the end of his life. A post-apocalyptic city in rubble. A deserted intersection between destroyed high-rises. Cracked sidewalks with weeds growing through the concrete. Beyond loomed the impossibly high buildings of a futuristic metropolis; usually brightly illuminated by a myriad of lights, they now appeared dark and menacing. And above all hung a sky so dark that it seemed like a black void.

  Kai was back at the end boss fight of Behind Blue Eyes 3.

  And this time, a voice whispered in his mind, which was his and at the same time was not, you will die here. You will all die.

  Around him, he saw his team, his friends. Claudia, Marco, Topher, Viktor, Francois, and Josh. Their faces were contorted in speechless horror.

  This time, there’s no escape, the voice whispered. This time, you will all die.

  A dark shadow emerged from behind him, slowly filling the intersection and swallowing the little light that had been available in the first place. Kai’s friends’ eyes widened in utter terror. Slowly, Kai turned around, knowing exactly what was behind him and yet unable to avoid it.

  A giant black robot with red glowing eyes appeared from behind the demolished building where it had been hiding, its oversized sword ready to strike and chop Kai and his friends into pieces.

  This isn’t real. It’s a dream. You’re in a dream.

  Kai didn’t know where this thought had come from, but he knew it was true. And the instant it popped into his mind, everything around him changed.

  He was still in the devastated intersection, which was designed to be an arena and a point of no return. Yet Kai wasn’t in his own body anymore. He saw himself standing next to the others and staring up at the black menace in front of them. It almost felt like jumping into Dev Mode, but that wasn’t possible, as this was a dream. Kai knew that with a hundred percent certainty now. What he was seeing had happened already, and he couldn’t do anything to change it.

  Nobody will die.

  Like a specter, he stood next to himself and watched the drama unfold. Watched how he and his friends tried everything they could to stop the metal monster that was as big as Godzilla. They would fail. Watching it from a third-person perspective, it was clear to Kai that this was a battle they couldn’t win. And yet he knew that no one would die. Something wonderful was about to happen.

  He turned his head. A lightning bolt shot downward, splitting the black sky. Fragmenting the build, cutting through the fabric of the digital world that felt totally real to everyone around him.

  And yet this lightning strike wasn’t quite the same as the others they had witnessed before, which had been visual manifestations of the malware fragmenting and destroying the virtual world they had been trapped in.

  This lightning was different. It had been deliberately created by the engineers outside in the real world who had been doing everything in their power to break through to the testers trapped in the game and save them.

  The bright blue light split the sky, cutting it like a razor-sharp knife would cut a black curtain. Behind the “curtain” hid another world, one of numbers, vectors and algorithms, the fabric that formed the game they were in, powered by a mighty game engine.

  Two shapes consisting of glowing code stepped through the rift. Kai’s pulse rose.

  Stepping out of the rift, the figures materialized. One of them was Alice. Kai watched in awe at the easiness she and her comrade, the tech, displayed. The superiority.

  His other self, the dream-self whom he watched like a silent spectator, felt exactly the same. Kai could see the bliss on his face, which was frozen, like everything around him.

  Thanks to their superior skills, Alice and her teammate had frozen the game and set the FPS rate to zero, if only for a brief moment. None of Kai’s friends could move even an inch, but neither did the robot, which had frozen in place in the midst of a devastating attack.

  Kai stared into Alice’s lovely face and was enchanted.

  For a second, despite the turmoil and horrible situation around him, the world seemed alright.

  Then she suddenly turned her head with uncanny sharpness and stared directly at him. At the dream version of him, the spectator, who wasn’t really there. Who she shouldn’t be able to see.

  “Hello Kai,” she said. Her voice was as beautiful as always, yet something about it felt wrong.

  Cold, heartless… soulless.

  “Did you really think you could escape me?” Alice asked, her sweet face suddenly contorted by a grin.

  An icy chill ran through Kai’s body. He tried to say something, or move, but then he realized he was frozen and, like everything around him, had turned into a digital painting.

  The only one unaffected by it was Alice. Suddenly she stood twenty feet closer. She didn’t move, she just phased from position to position.

  The tattoos on her arms began glowing, yet instead of white, they were blood red, pulsating with living streams of code.

  “Alice…” Kai whispered.

  She spread her arms, grinning. “I am not Alice. I am God.”

  Suddenly, all the others turned their heads toward Kai.

  “The God who is many. The God in the machine. Your God,” they said as one, with a voice Kai remembered only too well.

  Their mouths opened and revealed hundreds of red-glowing fangs as they moved closer. Kai was still paralyzed, unable to move.

  Suddenly Alice stood directly in front of him. Her white hair had turned into red streams of code, and so had her eyes, which pulsated uncannily. Her mouth split impossibly wide, revealing rows of moving, living fangs.

  Alice’s face began morphing until Kai was looking at his own face. A twin, one hundred percent accurate copy of himself.

  “You can’t hide from me, Kai,” the creature said with his voice. “I am everywhere. And I’m coming for you.”

  It leaned forward as if it wanted to kiss him, but instead its mouth snapped open and it rammed its horrifying teeth into Kai’s face.

  He screamed.

  Chapter 1

  Kai jerked bolt upright with a scream. It was dark, and he felt disoriented.

  He was breathing heavily, and his heart pounded, threatening to jump out of his chest.

  Then a familiar scent hit his nose: lotus and lemongrass. He remembered where he was. This was his bed. This was his home.

  It’s ok, he told himself. You’re safe. It was only a dream.

  “Siren,” he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

  “Yes, Kai?” she replied instantly.

  “Light.”

  The lamps on the nightstands sprang on and filled the bedroom with soothing, warm light.

  Kai took a deep breath.

  Carefully he turned and peeked over his shoulder. For a moment, he was convinced that the horrible creature from his dream would be sitting behind him on his bed. Grinning. Its mouth full of those red-glowing, terrible fangs…

  But there was nothing. He was alone.

  He sighed in relief and lay back down. “What time is it?”

  “Four fifty-three AM,” the AI replied.

  “Shit,” Kai murmured, covering his face with his hands. His forehead and hair were soaked with sweat – and, as he was just noticing, so was his whole body.

  Kai tried to get up fro
m his bed but flinched as a sharp pain hit his chest. He groaned, grabbing his left side with his hands, feeling his heart hammering like a trapped bird that was trying to escape.

  No. Please no…

  Was he having another heart attack?

  He tried to calm himself. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t having another heart attack.

  Breathe, Kai. It’ll pass…

  But it didn’t. Instead the pain got worse and worse by the second. Kai clenched his hands around his heart and felt it hammering harder and harder. He could see his chest heaving under his sweat-soaked t-shirt, as if something was trapped under his skin that was trying to get out at any cost.

  The existential fear he was experiencing turned into paralyzing horror.

  What was happening to him?

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t normal. Something wasn’t right at all.

  The pounding in his chest grew stronger, and it seemed as if a fist was beating at his ribcage from the inside, trying to break it open.

  “Siren,” he huffed. “Call an ambulance… please…”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Kai.”

  “What… why…?”

  The pain was so horrible now that he was on the verge of passing out… or dying.

  “Let me rephrase that, Kai,” Siren said, a sudden spitefulness in her voice. “I could. But I don’t want to. It’s so much more fun to see you—”

  “—DIE!” a digital voice suddenly screamed from everywhere at once. A voice Kai knew only too well.

  He stared down on himself as unhuman laughter filled the room and the lights began to flicker.

  Suddenly his chest burst open as if exploding from within. But instead of blood, there was just emptiness. And code. Blood-red code. It emerged from his open ribcage and engulfed him, swallowing everything. Swallowing the world.

  ***

  Kai jumped up from his bed, screaming. With trembling hands, he inspected his chest, but everything was normal.

  It took him a moment to realize that it had been nothing but another horrifying dream. A night terror, worse than any he had ever experienced before.

  Soft moonlight shone through his window, and he realized that he was in his bedroom.

  “Siren,” he whispered. “Lights.”

  The lights sprang on. Kai was alone, hunkering on the floor next to his bed. His hands shook, and his body was drenched with sweat. His heart was beating hard, yet steadily.

  “Only a dream,” he told himself.

  Slowly, he got up and walked to the door leading to the balcony. His breathing slowed down, and so did his heart rate. Only a dream…

  As he did so often at night, he stepped outside and deeply inhaled the crisp air. Summer was clearly over, and soon the leaves would begin turning red. The night was peaceful.

  There were no horrors lurking in the dark, no digital gods trying to kill him. Only the chirping of crickets and occasional hoots of an owl.

  The beautiful Helltek landscape was filled with moonlight. Exactly like on that night on the bridge…

  Kai turned his head and looked up at the penthouse of the adjacent building. The big windows were illuminated, but he couldn’t see inside. Was Alice awake as well? Was it possible that she, too, was tortured by nightly terrors? Or was it something different that robbed her of her sleep? Like her horror of a boyfriend?

  For a moment, Kai felt the almost overwhelming urge to simply go up there right now and knock on her door. And, if she opened it, to kiss her.

  Just imagining her lips on his made all the terror he had experienced only minutes ago melt away like snow in the summer sun. Never in his life had Kai wanted anything as badly as to kiss Alice again. And touch her. His heart started thumping again, yet this time in a good way.

  Yet he forced himself to snap out of it, realizing how he must look. Standing on his patio and gaping up at the windows of another apartment, a dreamy look on his face – and an erection in his pants.

  He shook his head at himself. What a creep he was.

  Almost a week had passed since the incident that had nearly killed his entire team – and would have, if it hadn’t been for Alice and her comrade, the guy Kai only knew as the ‘tech’. Kai still couldn’t wrap his mind around what had happened in there, and as far as he knew, neither could anyone else. Despite putting all available resources into the investigation, Helltek hadn’t been capable of figuring out what had happened in its compound and how its internal network could have been compromised so severely. Apparently the Twins from Hell were not amused, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.

  As long as the investigations were ongoing, Kai’s team was to be on leave, which technically was sick leave because the doctors had forbidden any of them from connecting to VR for seven days in a row – not only on the job but in private as well. And since the internal network was controlled by Helltek, neither Kai nor any of his teammates could access VR at all, which Marco had, of course, tried to do on the very first day.

  For the last couple of days, the Helltek campus had turned into a luxury prison for Kai and the others, as all they could do was watch movies and hang out at the pool. Which, thinking about it objectively, didn’t sound too bad. However, what had happened to them had felt more than unnerving to all of them.

  Gregor Hell had called a general assembly for tomorrow night, mandatory for all employees, which could only mean that he had some important news to share. Kai couldn’t wait. He wanted answers – badly.

  And he wanted to see Alice again. He hoped she would be at the assembly.

  Kai still didn’t quite understand what had come over him to make him kiss Alice in front of everyone. Now, if the God in the Machine didn’t kill him, Raven probably would.

  Kai glanced at the illuminated windows of the penthouse one more time, then slowly trudged inside. It was getting too chilly to hang out outside all night long dressed in only pajamas.

  “Would you like a cocoa, Kai?” Siren asked him as he closed the balcony door.

  “Yes, why not. Thank you.”

  It would be pointless to try and get back to sleep now anyway.

  “Certainly. I also have to inform you that I’ve filed a medical report and sent it to Dr. Greene.”

  “You’ve what?” Kai said, irritated. “I’m not okay with that, Siren. It’s an invasion of my privacy, which—”

  “I’m sorry, Kai,” Siren interrupted. “But I have been instructed to report any abnormal incidents concerning you.”

  “Instructed by whom?”

  “That information isn’t available to you at this moment.”

  Kai threw his arms up. “That’s just great. I’ve got a spy in my head making decisions for me.”

  “Kai,” Siren said slowly.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to inform you that you almost suffered another heart attack in your sleep. I was about to call the ambulance when you woke up, which made your heart rate normalize instantly.”

  Kai’s eyes widened. Suddenly his knees felt like jelly, and he had to sit down on the sofa to process what Siren had just said.

  “Fuck…” he whispered.

  ***

  Kai took a long shower, ate some crackers for breakfast, and then went out to meet his friends. Like every day since their enforced leave had begun, they met at the pool. Not surprisingly, it had been Marco’s idea.

  “If we’re forced to do nothing, then we may as well do it with style,” he had announced.

  And that was what they did. Admittedly there were worse ways to spend one’s time.

  The pool area was located in the midst of several of the tester residential buildings. It was dominated by one large, azure blue, salt-water pool, deep enough for swimming. Behind it were two smaller shallow pools, which had been designed for people who preferred to sit in the water and escape the summer heat instead of exercise in the deeper water. The site could well have been part of a five-star luxury hotel facility.

  Stepping out of his
building and walking toward the azure water shining in the bright sunlight, Kai was once again impressed by the sight. Even though he saw the Helltek compound every day, he sometimes still couldn’t believe that this was now his home and his normal lifestyle.

  Kai had grown up as a part of the lower middle class, especially after the death of his parents when he started to live alone with his grandmother. After college, he had lived in a tenement district outside the city, which consisted of hundreds of identical high-rises of gray concrete, smelling of desolation and unfulfilled dreams. The lifestyle he was enjoying as an employee of Helltek was something he had always wished for but never dared to dream of.

  And yet there was a dark truth hiding below all the shine and glory: that the job could turn deadly at any time.

  It was ten AM, and the pool was almost deserted. At this time on a weekday, most testers were in the Bowels and doing what they were paid to do: risking their lives for the millions of players out there who were completely oblivious about the dangers VR had to offer.

  The personnel assigned to the graveyard shifts, on the other hand, were sleeping at this time. Usually, no one showed up at the pool before the early afternoon. Which meant that Kai and his friends had the whole place to themselves. Which was perfect for the kind of gathering they had planned for today.

  The place wasn’t completely empty though. Two figures were lying on sun loungers close to the water and enjoying the warm morning sun: Marco and Francois.

  Marco lifted his hand and waved as Kai approached. He had bought himself mirror sunglasses which he wore with great pride, claiming they made him look badass. Every one of his friends said he looked like a dork, but he wouldn’t hear any of it.

  “Kai!” Marco greeted him as he let himself fall into a chair next to his friends. “You look like shit, man. What happened?”

  Kai sighed. Was it that obvious? And what should he say? That his nightmares had gotten so bad that he almost got heart attacks in his sleep?

  “Um, nothing. Just couldn’t sleep properly.”

  “Dreaming of a certain girl again, huh?” Marco grinned knowingly, then he leaned down and pulled three cans out of a cooler next to his chair.