Dream Drive: Yuri Ch. 01

For instance, the fact that Yuri was hearing everyone speaking in Zibar. One could claim that universal translators were features of all video game characters, but Yuri knew that this was not the case with him since he had entered Isis. The guys at the skunkworks had translated his copy of the game and...

Pinpricks ran up and down Yuri's limbs as his stomach reeled. There was no way he was listening to their translations at this very moment. They would never, ever, not in a million trillion years, program anything to show him a vision of his family having been slaughtered. And they could not be translating anything beyond what had already been written into the game of Isis. There are no Zibar speaking apps, not online, not anywhere. Whenever the Intelligence Service chose to wiretap a Zibar, they simply had Zibar-speaking Arabs transcribe the recordings.

If what he was hearing wasn't scripted by his friends, or Crux Software, and it wasn't his delusion, then he was faced with only one option.

This was real.

Yuri was bent over by a forceful contraction of his abdominal muscles. Some liquid remains of his breakfast shot out of his mouth, leaving him with the taste of his stomach acid. An Isis alert showed up in his vision, along with his health bar and essence counter.

Adverse emotions have left you feeling nauseated. You will experience a penalty to Agility and Strength until the condition resolves itself.

A vomiting green emoji showed up under his status effect bar.

Yuri straightened up and wiped the bile from his lips. He cleared his throat and swallowed a few times. He felt like a glass of water. His eyes watered instead. His family was dead. Malia had been raped and murdered.

He flinched at the loud sounds of gunfire. The men outside the window were shouting "God is greatest" and firing their guns in the air to celebrate their success.

He couldn't deal with that. He couldn't accept the fact that he had been told, over and over again, that this was going to happen one day and that he had discounted it all with absolute certainty. He couldn't accept the fact that he had told the elders not to worry last night, that the trash pickup and bread and medicine deliveries had been his fault, when they had simply been dropped in the face of the imminent massacre. He couldn't accept the fact that these monsters were going to get away with butchering his people.

The rapid fire from outside stoked his adrenaline. He looked down at the gun in his hand. A tiny, orange box showed up in his vision, bracketing each part of the weapon as Yuri focused on it.

No, he really couldn't accept that last thing.

He left the basement and went outside. He held his gun close, halfway between his hip and his shoulder. His eyes placed the orange box on the skull of the first man he saw. His arm kept the gun pointed at the box at all times, tracking it with subtle moves of the wrist and elbow. Yuri fired. Pink mist and bone fragments erupted from his target.

They didn't even notice him at first, they were too busy shooting in the air and shouting. Only when the fragments and blood would spray into their faces did they look over and meet Yuri's eyes. At that instant, the box would settle between their eyes and Yuri would squeeze the trigger. For half the men there, the last thing they ever saw was his face. Balls of essence rushed out of their fallen corpses and into him.

The last few tried to take cover, or shoot back, but their magazines had been emptied and Yuri's bullets were faster. Fourteen dead lay at his feet. His gun's slide was locked open, the chamber empty. A faint wisp of smoke rose from the end of the barrel.

His gun hand was glowing in a familiar way. He looked up and saw that his essence counter read 634. It was ticking down fast. He willed a hundred into Spirit. He was still glowing and his essence was still ticking down from 533. The blue bar was only a little over the limit. He called up his statistics menu and willed another fifty essence into Spirit, to round it off at two hundred. The glow stopped and the counter was no longer ticking down from 482. The blue bar now sat at a little over four fifths full.

Now that he felt magic had really turned him into a video game character, he definitely needed to figure out his new statistics and come up with a winning strategy. should he put essence into his statistics, or save it for the skills he had on his list?

His veins were still full of adrenaline. Gunfire was still heard in the distance. The street was still littered with the corpses of his neighbors and friends. His family was still dead.

But Wada might not be.

All thoughts of video game mechanics fell by the wayside. The love of his life might still be alive and he was going to save her if she was. She had made him promise to come see her last night. He had stood her up. He had broken his promise to the love of his life and now she might be dead because of it. He pushed the guilt aside and let the rage fuel him. He couldn't stop to cry at this time. Every second counted.

He bent over and retrieved two fresh sidearms from the soldiers. They were Colt .45 pistols from the New Springfield Armory. They were an updated version of a tried and true design and were standard issue for the Caliphate's armed forces. Like every other soldier, Yuri was trained to use and maintain them. They only held thirteen rounds each, but they sat nicely in Yuri's hands. He popped and checked the magazines, re-inserted them and chambered a live round. Then he safetied them and put them in his pockets. He picked up another pair of Colts and checked and chambered them.

He jogged towards the end of his street. He saw some green in the corner of his vision. He stopped and looked. Four soldiers had been coming out of a building. They nodded in greeting when they saw him. One saluted, saw his face and froze. "Zibar!"

They gasped as one and dove for cover. Yuri's eye was faster. The orange box sat on one forehead and Yuri squeezed the trigger of the gun in his right hand. The soldier's head exploded. Yuri's eye landed on the second soldier. With hardly a thought, his left arm took over tracking the box with the gun. He felt his left arm adjust its aim and fired. The second man's head exploded even as the slide of the gun in Yuri's right hand was stripping the next round from the magazine. He caught the third man before he could get behind cover.

The fourth man took cover behind the doorway and poked his rifle out a second later. He only exposed his right arm under the elbow, one eye and half his forehead, but that was more than enough for Yuri. The man's head exploded before he could aim at Yuri. He fell dead and four more balls of essence rushed into Yuri.

Yuri's skin glowed again. His essence counter was at 650 and dropping. The blue bar wasn't all that much over the line. He doubled his Spirit statistic to 400. The blue bar was now less than half its full capacity.

He jogged on towards Wada's place, skipping over the corpses in the street. He knew most of these people and he couldn't bear to look down at their faces, but he forced himself to look at anyone that fit Wada's general description. He didn't see her among the dead.

Not yet.

He could hear more celebratory gunfire, but he could also hear sporadic shots. The massacre wasn't over yet. He could still save someone. The thought made him pump his legs faster than he had ever ran in his life before.

He considered going back and taking a comm unit from one of the soldiers he had killed. If he could get in touch with Houdani, then... Yuri remembered the sad, uncomfortable look on the general's face yesterday. The inexplicable leave of absence while a crisis was brewing.

He knew! The old bastard knew this was coming! And he let it happen! I'll kill him! I'll rip his fucking face off his skull and show it to him!

When he remembered the stink-eyed glares half the brass had given him and the Captain at the checkpoint who looked like he desperately wanted to say something to him, he realized that the military had known about this all along. They had probably planned it, too. Everyone knew what was coming and they all chose to keep him in the dark about it. They all chose to have him killed with his people. They all acted as cool about it as if they were taking out the trash, not committing genocide.

Yuri's breath caught in his throat. His blood burned in his veins. He had warned them of an imminent GAU invasion and they repaid him with murder. His family was dead. His neighbors were dead. Any friends he had in this world were lying dead in the streets. He would never count an Arab as a friend again.

He couldn't believe the sheer stupidity of their actions. He had proven himself to be an important asset to the Caliphate. Killing him was wasteful. Evil agenda, or no evil agenda, you don't kill the guy that can tell you what your enemies are talking about in private.

He cleared a bend in the road. Half a dozen members of the Militia were standing in the shadow of a building, smoking and laughing. Yuri didn't even stop as he raised his arms their way. The orange box skipped from one surprised face to the next. Yuri squeezed his triggers and made their heads explode. The last two managed to chamber rounds before they died, but they fired from the hip, missing Yuri by a mile as he ran past.

His essence counter was now at 630 and the blue bar was almost two thirds full.

As he got closer to Wada's street, he could hear he was approaching a source of celebratory gunfire. He came to a stop at the corner and peeked out. Over two dozen of the Militia fucks were firing into the air and chanting "God is greatest".

Yuri poked his left hand out of cover and took down ten of them with rapid movements of his eye, timed to coincide with pulling his trigger. He withdrew behind cover and dropped the empty gun. The militiamen were screaming in outrage and panic. Yuri drew another gun from his pocket and worked the safety. Ten balls of essence rushed around the corner and into his chest. His blue bar was almost full.

He flinched when the corner of the building began to shower chips of concrete everywhere, accompanied by the sounds of automatic gunfire. Yuri stepped away from the corner. He wasn't going to step into a hail of bullets. Either they came into his sights, or he'd wait for them to all run out of ammo at the same time.

When the fire stalled, he popped out of cover and shot three more of them. Then he jumped back to avoid getting hit. The militiamen had terrible aim and no discipline, but they were quick at changing their magazines. His skin started glowing again. He tossed another hundred into Spirit. His skin stopped glowing and his essence counter read 940. The blue bar was about ninety percent full.

While Yuri was waiting out their second bout of suppression fire, some green uniforms showed up from the opposite direction. They peeked around their corner and saw Yuri. Yuri tried to place the orange box on their heads, but nothing happened. His guts churned. Did he have a limited number of shots for the auto-targeting? Without that, he was fucked. As he looked down, the orange box reappeared, bracketing the nearby corpse his eye had landed on.

The soldiers started yelling at the militiamen to hold their fire. "You're shooting at one of ours, you idiots!"

After a brief pause, the militiamen started splitting their fire between Yuri's corner and the trio of soldiers in the distance. While this was going on, Yuri was looking at things far and near and willing them to be targeted. He realized that his auto targeting had a range limit. He guesstimated it at a hundred feet.

The three soldiers took cover and began to shoot back at the militiamen. Yuri nearly chuckled at the development. As soon as his corner stopped receiving fire, he pivoted around it and picked off another six militiamen before the rest reloaded and returned fire.

Six more balls of essence rushed around the corner and into his chest. The soldiers down the street didn't notice, but the remaining militiamen did.

"What was that?!"

"Gimme ammo!"

"What the fuck was that?!"

"I need more ammo!"

All three soldiers popped out of cover. Yuri watched them advance from cover to cover, never letting the militiamen pin them down behind the same cover. Two would provide suppressive fire, while the third advanced to the next cover. They dropped their magazines on the run and replaced them with fresh ones, before they could shoot them dry. For Yuri, watching them advance was like watching a ballet troop perform.

They got halfway to Yuri when they stood up and casually walked out of cover. There was no more fire being returned.

Yuri poked his head around the corner and looked. The militiamen were all dead. None had taken cover during the firefight.Idiots.

Yuri turned back towards the soldiers and nodded in appreciation. He could see them clearly, now that they were closer. They bore the insignia of an urban combat brigade and their leader was a captain.

"Zibar," cried one of the grunts. All three immediately shouldered their rifles and aimed at Yuri.

They were within range and the orange box instantly responded to Yuri's will. It bracketed the captain's face and Yuri dropped him before he could get a shot off. The other two fired at Yuri and his whole torso erupted with sharp pinches, front and back. He shot the soldiers as fast as he could. The exchange lasted less than a second.

Three balls of essence flew into him. He looked down at himself. There was no blood. He felt no pain. The front of his ruined uniform bore ten distinct bullet holes. He couldn't see the back of his uniform but, as he turned around trying to look, he saw ten tightly grouped bullet holes on the wall behind himself.

His eyes sought out his health bar. He had 286 hit points out of 447. His essence counter was ticking down from 1268. He put two hundred into Vitality. That added a hundred hit points to both his current total and his maximum total. The assault rifles had ripped his hit points away from him with ease. Each had fired five shots in the one second it took him to kill their wielders. He needed to get to Wada's, but he needed to keep to cover while he was going there, or he'd never make it.

He poked his head around the corner to check if it was all clear and resumed jogging towards Wada's street. One of the militiamen groaned in agony and moved. Yuri paused to blow his brains out and collect another thirty points of essence. He also took the man's sidearm and stuck it into his pocket. He resumed his run unmolested, but kept to the sides of the streets, where he could dive behind cover in an instant.

As soon as he peeked out onto Wada's street, his heart leapt into his throat. The three story building was issuing thick, black smoke out of all its windows. "No!" He abandoned cover and sprinted towards it. He came to a halt right in front of it. "Wada!"

He ran inside. The smoke was so thick that it rendered him blind within moments. He still had an idea of the interior layout of the place in his head and he moved to where he guessed her door was. He felt it. It was busted open and on fire. He coughed like crazy. Even though he kept clear of the flames, his health bar was continuously taking small hits. He willed another three hundred essence into Vitality.

He remembered his gas weapons training and got down on all fours. He hugged the right hand wall as he crawled into the apartment. He felt his way all around, but found no trace of any corpses. Only burning furniture. He screamed for Wada between his forceful coughs. He got no reply. He checked the other apartments, but found only the corpse of a small child huddled in a closet on the top floor. At last, he had to leave. The heat had felt oppressive, even though he didn't feel burned by it. It still managed to shave his hit points down to 438.

When he came out, he took a walk around the house, checking every corpse he saw. He found no sign of Wada. His eyes teared up in relief.

Suddenly, he was deafened by a great noise and sent flying through the air. Powerful pinches erupted all over the right side of his body. He smacked against the side of a building with a dull thud. His body crumpled to the ground below and he rolled over to look back at were he had been standing a moment ago. A small, smoking crater was there. He looked up.

A green-clad figure was standing in an open window of a nearby building, staring back at him. The soldier was holding a spent RPG launcher. Yuri tried to target the man, but he was well out of range. The soldier let go of the launcher and put a finger to the side of his throat as he ducked out of sight.

Yuri shook his head clear and got to his feet. He had just gotten hit by an RPG and didn't even have any ringing in his ears to show for it. His uniform was shot to shit, though. The right sleeve was missing and the entire right side of the jacket was smoldering. He still had 347 hit points left. He could take three more RPGs to the face and keep going. He wasn't leaving without Wada.

He looked around. There were no other soldiers, or militiamen, in sight. He knew they would be there before long. The bastard with the RPG was already on the horn, telling everyone about Yuri. Yuri quickly plotted a logarhythmic search pattern over his mental map of the enclave and got to work at full speed.

He searched the neighboring buildings. They were devastated and full of corpses, but Wada wasn't one of them. Twice, he came across a young woman's body with her face mutilated, but both times he managed to summon the strength to look down the dead woman's shirt and check for Wada's mole. He didn't find it.

He went back to the streets and resumed his search there. A rumbling noise started reverberating all over the place. He couldn't quite tell what it was, but he ignored it as he kept turning over women's corpses. Every few minutes, he'd come across a familiar face, usually a girl he had known since they were kids.

Suddenly, he got pinched hard on both sides of his head. He spun around to see where the shot had come from. He saw no one. A second pinch brought him to his knees.

Repeated critical hits have overwhelmed you. You are stunned for two seconds.

The alert, stickman and counter vanished practically as soon as Yuri saw them. He ducked behind a corner. When he leaned over to peek out and try and spot his shooter, the wall exploded in a shower of dust right where his head had been a moment before.

"Fuck!"

He sprinted across the street to take cover there. He still couldn't tell where the sniper was, but he now knew which direction the shots were coming from. He decided to keep moving and continues his search on the next street, where he couldn't take fire from the direction of the sniper.

As soon as he turned the corner, the rumbling noise got much louder and lost most of its distortion. His attention was drawn, however, to the ten militiamen he suddenly came face to face with. His guns roared and the men were dead in seconds. He only took a few glancing bullets and got his essence counter up to 1075.

The loud rumbling stopped. In the ensuing silence, Yuri finally recognized what it had been.

Tank treads on tarmac.

He spun on his heels to see a tank down the street. Its turret was turning Yuri's way, the barrel dipping lower. Yuri launched himself through the nearest door with all his might. He was barely inside it when a hot wind threw him across the room with a deafening roar. He was slammed against the far wall, even as his body erupted in strong pinches. Thick pieces of debris started raining down on him, giving him a sharp pinch wherever they landed on his body.