Dream Drive: Yuri Ch. 01

Yuri bent forward and slammed his shoulders into their midsections. Their breaths exploded from their lungs. His momentum carried them all towards the far railing.

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He straightened up when he came close to the railing and both his assailants went over the side. They let go of their rifles and grabbed at anything they could to keep from falling. The militiaman grabbed the railing. The soldier tried to grab Yuri's arm. He failed and fell.

Yuri leaned over the side. The soldier fell to the concrete, head-first. A ball of essence left his body and flew up into Yuri. His essence counter read 114. His hit points were at 399/447.

The men at the end of the street saw what was happening. The members of the Militia raised rifles at Yuri. The soldiers stopped them from shooting, pointing out their colleague hanging off the railing. They all ran towards Yuri's building, instead.

"Goddamned son of an infidel whore," the Militia member spat. He was holding onto the railing with one hand, retrieving his sidearm with the other. He got it out of its holster and brought it up to try and blow Yuri's brains out again.

Yuri grabbed the man's gun hand and pressed down on his thumb. The man grit his teeth against the pain, but let go of the gun. Yuri took it and then grabbed the man's other hand by the wrist. He started pulling the man up. The man spared a look down and quickly looked back up. His brow bunched up in confusion as Yuri pulled him up by a few inches. He tried to grab the railing with his free hand.

Yuri let go of the man's wrist and he fell, his grip on the railing undermined by the brief lift. Yuri watched the man's head slam into the concrete with a tiny splash of red. He grinned.

Gunfire made him flinch. The men in the street had stopped and were shooting at him. Bullets whizzed by his head, even as some slammed into the concrete side of the balcony right in front of his legs. A sharp pinch on his shoulder prodded him into action.

He crouched and rolled to the staircase. He stepped over the side of the railing and hopped down to the next one. He landed with his feet on the few inches each stair protruded past the railing, and his hands gripping the railing for dear life. He hopped that way to the ground floor in seconds. A ball of essence flew into him on the way, bringing his essence total to 129. He jumped even lower, taking refuge in the building's basement. Right after he ducked inside, combat boots started stomping up the stairs. Over a dozen men were yelling in Zibar. The militia men were swearing to rip Yuri limb from limb, while the soldiers were reprimanding them to stay in formation and clear the corners and doors first.

Yuri moved over to one of the small windows that were set high into the walls to provide some light to the basement. The basement was made up of five large, interconnected rooms. They were filled with fenced-off enclosures, one for each apartment, to serve as storage space. Most of them were open, their contents already tossed.

Yuri stood under the small window and drew what felt like his first real breath since he had logged out of Isis. As he let it go, he became aware of the sidearm in his hand. He looked at it. It was an HS2100, which had been distributed to the Islamic Militia along with AKM assault rifles. Both weapons were old designs, but they had remained in production until a few decades ago and made up most of the old kingdom's infantry weapon stores. Yuri had been trained with either.

He checked the safety on the weapon and then popped the magazine. It was only missing two rounds. He replaced the magazine and partially pulled back the slide to check the chamber. He safetied the weapon and lowered it. After the nightmare tableaus he had been greeted with, the presence of the gun in his hand was comforting. It was a known quantity, a familiar friend from a few years back.

He drew another slow, deep breath and tried to process what had happened. His mind refused to acknowledge what he had just seen. To force himself to get a grasp on his situation, he started whispering his situation aloud.

"I'm in the far corner of the basement, holding an HS2100 automatic pistol. I'm in uniform and there's a hole in it. I am unhurt. My family..." He blinked his vision clear. "I'm in the far corner of the basement, holding an HS2100 automatic pistol. I'm in uniform and there's a hole in it. I am unhurt. My family..."

He bent over and nearly repeated his breakfast dumplings. The past few minutes of hell were crashing down on him. The sight of his family lying dead, Malia's vacant eyes and sad face, the blood, his people cut down in the streets like vermin...it was drowning him in rage, sorrow and shame. Why were all of them dead while he lived on?

As the maelstrom of emotions threatened to drive him insane, a tiny, analytical part of his mind noted a safe harbor and immediately sailed towards it. While the guilt of telling the elders off about the massacre and the shame of being so stupid that it took the extermination of his people for him to see the light were stealing the breath from his lungs, a theory was growing in the back of his mind. It stood up to more and more evidence, even as his rage and sorrow warred for supremacy inside of him.

All of a sudden, it became as clear to him as the sight of his status bar in the corner of his vision. None of the horrible things he had seen had really happened. His Dream Drive had fried his brain. He was hallucinating.

He smiled and nearly fainted from the relief that was washing through his body. He had heard of it happening before. About one in a million people had something poked wrong inside their brain the first time they tried the Dream Drive. It usually left them catatonic. That was what must have happened to Yuri, too.

Granted, Yuri had been using the Dream Drive for months now, but not on this new Crux server he had logged onto earlier. That was his first time on that particular server. What's more, Yuri was probably the first person that had ever logged onto it. The rest of the quarterfinalists were probably too busy playing the final, or offering live commentary for a fee. Obviously, there was a major flaw in the Isis beta version that no one had spotted before and it had fucked up his mind, somehow.

He leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to sit on the cold concrete. As the flood of emotions receded, his limbs were left shaking in the aftermath.

He gave himself a few minutes to recover and just enjoyed the relief of knowing his family was alive and well in the real world. His health bar was steadily ticking back up to its maximum value of 447 hit points. He turned his attention to what he guessed was the real state of things. Very quickly, the corners of his lips turned down.

The good news was that, in reality, he was lying on his unslashed bed with the helmet on his head. The bad news was that he had clearly explained to his family that his latest project at work required him to do that for long stretches of time and that he was not to be interrupted while he was lying down with the helmet on. He could be lying catatonic for a very long while before anyone suspected there might be something wrong.

His autonomous nervous system was in control of his bodily functions. He had urinated less than half an hour before going into the game. He would probably not need to urinate again for a few hours. He didn't know if being unconscious would mean that he would pee himself as soon as his bladder was full, or if his bladder would refuse to let go without a conscious effort until the sphincter got overwhelmed.

He sincerely hoped it was the former. Not only would it reveal his predicament to anyone that bothered to check in on him sooner, rather than later, it would also keep him from getting a bladder infection. Or something even worse.

His mother would look in on him quietly before she left for work, but she'd retreat without a sound as soon as she saw the helmet. Yuri didn't know his dad's plans for the day. Some days, he lounged at home all day, programming, or screwing around. Other days, he was out until the evening, chasing job leads, or hanging with friends. It could be either.

"Shit," he quietly said when he vaguely remembered Malia had mentioned making plans with friends. They were going to go someplace outside the enclave. He forgot the particulars as soon as he had heard them, but he felt sure it was today. "Of all the days..."

Grandmother was going to do her usual tour of the enclave to stop by all her friends and gossip about everyone and everything, speaking many words, but not saying anything. Even if she was home, she'd never dare interrupt Yuri. Aside from the military mission everyone believed he was still on, she deeply distrusted all new technology and didn't want anything to do with the Dream Drive.

He was going to lie on his bed, in his own piss and shit, undisturbed by anyone for God knows how long. He dearly wished he had said "I'm on leave" yesterday. Just three little syllables and he'd have had a way out of this predicament.

He took comfort in the fact that he had not covered himself with a blanket when he had logged into the infernal game. His green uniform will show urine stains quite clearly. The next time his mom checked in on him, she was definitely going to spot it. Yuri had to concede the fact that his mother wasn't the calmest of people once things went badly, but her screams would bring Dad to the scene and Yuri felt sure he'd call an ambulance in seconds.

Yuri grinned, feeling hope, an emotion that felt like the sweetest of fruits after all the horrors. Even before an ambulance came to get him, Yuri's dad would likely put in a call to the Cipher School to tell them Yuri was out of commission. Houdani had unofficially promoted Yuri to priority personnel ages ago. Any communiqué concerning him would be placed on the general's desk within minutes. Yuri didn't think for one second that Houdani wouldn't immediately come to his aid. The General would have him airlifted to the military hospital and placed under the care of the best medical minds in the Caliphate.

If need be, Moussa Houdani would arrange for some containers to be shipped to the hospital. Inside the containers? Emil Mohammed and his top engineers and programmers, snatched from their beds and dragged halfway across the world to help save Yuri's mind.

"Fuck, yeah."

Yuri knew that last bit was an exaggeration, but not by much. Houdani would piece together what happened to Yuri in no time. After that, all the Service's American assets would be re-tasked. Emil Mohammed and his crew would be watched even as they defecated. All their secrets, personal and professional, would be laid bare in the search for a cure for Yuri's condition.

He leaned his head back against the concrete. He just had to wait and hope for the best. He knew that time spent inside the Dream Drive was identical to the time which passed in the real world. It could only appear to pass faster depending on how much fun one had. If he was bored, it would drag on and on.

He had to wait out this day until his distress would be noticed and then...who knows? Maybe he'd be snapped out of it in hours, maybe it would take days, or even weeks. Maybe he was beyond salvation. The cases where people's brains got fried by the Dream Drive were hushed up and the media were financially encouraged to overlook them, so Yuri had nothing to go on.

He didn't feel like this was an irreversible loss of mental abilities, or anything like that. Everything around him felt real. The smell of the air, the glare of the morning sun, the sounds of gunfire were realistically distorted by the buildings, everything was identical to objective reality. Yuri knew it couldn't be objective reality. For one thing, his body was as invulnerable as it had been inside Isis. A bullet to his head hadn't exploded his skull and sprayed his brains every which way; it had been a quick, sharp pinch followed by temporary weakness.

He frowned. Maybe this was another level of the game? A tasteless prank from the guys at the skunkworks? Maybe he just needed to log out again? "Game menu."

A bright light stabbed at his eyes from the direction of his hand. When he blinked his vision clear, the inverted pentagram from the game was on the back of his hand again. The translucent menu was in the center of his vision. It showed him standing in his uniform. The HS2100 was in his avatar's hand, clearly marked as such. Labels "Encrypted phone", "Butterfly knife" and "Wallet" were connected to his pockets.

"Log out."

Error. Yuri Yanuk is already in Overworld.

"Motherfucker."

He reached up with his hands and started rifling through the various options in the menu, looking for another way to log out, or disconnect. All he found were some fairly standard video game display options and a list of Skills. Apparently, every time he had been given a notification of creating a new skill, the skill in question was listed here. Each of them had an essence price to be paid whenever they were used, as well as a level rating and a progress bar.

He waved the list away. He turned on a minimap that showed up in the lower right corner of his vision. It was also a fairly standard video game feature. He turned everything off and exited the menu. His health bar and essence counter remained in the corner of his vision. His pentagram tattoo was still on the back of his hand. He glared at it. "Stupid fucking game."

He sat in the twilight of the basement and suppressed a bitter chuckle. He had gone into the game to while away a few hours and now he needed to find a way to while away a few days until he got healed.

Nowthat was irony.

His flash of mirth faded away. He wasn't certain if he could be healed from this.

He started to feel antsy. He couldn't just sit there, mulling over which horrible fate had befallen him. He needed answers. He needed to do something about the situation.Maybe if I logged back into the game and tried to log out again?

"Game menu." The menus showed up before his eyes again. He couldn't see the right option anywhere, so he said, "Uh, log in." Nothing happened. Yuri cleared his throat and said, "Log into Isis," a bit more loudly. He was met with silence. The menus were unchanged. "Isis. Access. Now. Grant."

Yuri rolled his eyes. If all bets were off, why would his hallucination require him to don a helmet with the right chip to access Isis again? Wasn't he lying on his bed with the stinking helmet already on? Wasn't the chip inserted? Shouldn't he be given the option of re-entering Isis at any moment?

His breath caught in his lungs as he realized that he probably should. He probably wasn't lying on his bed. He probably was in reality and-

He shut the door on those bad thoughts.My family is fine. They're still asleep in their beds. Maybe someone at Crux detected whatever had happened to Yuri and had shut him out of the system?

That was probably it. However, if he still wore his helmet, he should be able to log into the Hub. "Log in. Hub. Dream Drive menu. Display connectivity options."

Again, nothing happened. Yuri told himself that the lack of the Dream Drive's automated replies meant nothing. His brain had been poked the wrong way and that was that. Maybe it was now incompatible with the Dream Drive. His Dream Drive was on his head, but the inputs were misinterpreted as this nightmare he had woken up into.

Yuri was soon distracted from his brooding by a loud, but distorted voice. It sounded like it was speaking Zibar. He got to his feet and looked out of the tiny window. The light was on the outside, so no one could see into the dark basement. He could see green pants and white robes milling around. A number of militiamen and soldiers were standing in front of Yuri's building. One of them was holding up a radio.

Yuri decided to carefully crack the tiny window open. He didn't want to step outside and listen with the men. They were proven enemies and he didn't want to chance his hit points reaching zero. He didn't think it was a wise idea to challenge the boundaries of his delusion in such a way. Perhaps, later, he'd go to a place he had never been before, just to see how the delusion would fill the empty space, but for right now, he settled on just listening in.

The sound of the Caliph's voice became much clearer as soon as the window was opened. The man was speaking fluent Zibar, further reinforcing the theory that this was all Yuri's delusion. The man spoke of the great deed that the members of the Islamic Militia were doing in the Capital and the south of the nation.

"God is greatest," some of the men shouted in fluent Zibar.

Yuri listened to the Caliph speak of the great trial that awaits their nation. He called the GAU invasion forces a "crusader army come to destroy us and our Faith".

Now I know I've listened to too many of his speeches, Yuri thought.Even in a deluded state, my mind can think up of an original speech that sounds just like something the Caliph would say.

The Caliph fervently espoused the need to purify their nation in every way possible, so that they would be favored by God to prevail in this coming hardship.

"God is greatest," the men chanted in agreement.

Yuri frowned. That was not how he interpreted the takbir in his mother tongue. It was the official, as well as the literal translation, but not the one he had internalized. Ever since he had been a boy, he had considered "Alahu akbar" to mean "God is ultimate". He could never sign up for the philosophy which was prevalent in the Caliphate; namely that only God and the divine can be great and that all humans and all their works upon the earth were, at best, not as awful as pond scum. Yuri had always considered greatness to be a virtue that people should strive for every day of their lives and that it was a quality that they could achieve.

For Yuri, God was beyond the physical world, an incomprehensible being. Calling God great was practically an insult, in Yuri's mind. God was much more than great, regardless of which form the adjective was in. Alexander was Great. Genghis-Khan was greater still. God was so far above the two of them, it was a whole different word.

That tiny linguistic difference started weighing on Yuri's mind. If this was his delusion, then all those imaginary maniacs out there should be chanting "God is ultimate".

They kept chanting, "God is greatest," instead.

This meant that somebody, or something else was doing the translations that Yuri was hearing. He was not hallucinating these words that he was hearing; someone, or something else was inputting them into his mind.

Yuri's hands started shaking. His mind, trained by years of intelligence work, started to use that fact to try and disprove the delusion theory. Yuri closed his eyes and fought back against what was happening but, try as he might, the evidence of the delusion started to neatly stack up against it, instead.

Him being left unhurt on his bed, playing in the Dream Drive, while his people were being slaughtered was proof positive of this being a delusion, but what if he had really been physically teleported to another Earth?

Of course, there were no other Earths and teleportation was only feasible for electromagnetic waves and microparticles at short distances. And even that kind of teleportation cost more energy than the entire Caliphate spent in a year.

He refused to seriously consider magical teleportation. He had always thought that once a person started saying something was magic, that person was murdering their own intellect. Everything could be comprehended and reasoned out, so long as one stuck to verifiable facts and took whatever people were fervently claiming with more than a few grains of salt.