Chapter 5: Chapter 5 – Arena (3)

Impact eyed Wave, who was squatting in the cover of the bushes in just an undershirt and a pair of long medieval underpants.

"Are those real?" he asked, with a hint of awe in his voice. "I - I mean the scars."

Wave imagined Impact blushing behind her, thinking Wave might have misunderstood him. If he could blush at all. His skin had that dark tone that always made him look so enviably tanned, no matter what season they were in.

"Yeah, souvenirs of my time in the outside world."

"That's rad. But, why don't you hide them?"

"It's nothing I'm ashamed of. They remind me of what I've already survived." And of the fact that she would survive the city, too. That she could return to the wilderness if her plan, to stand up for the people out there in a peaceful way, failed. "You're not hiding your arms either, are you?"

"No, but ..."

"Listen, Impact. I don't care what the fashion or beauty standards of the city dictate. When I show myself to the world, I do it in an honest way, not under three layers of digital makeup."

It had taken her a while to realize how fake everything was in the city. Everyone was perfect, camouflaged by the image they wanted the lenses of others to see. That's why the first thing you looked at when you met someone was their data. And hers was a bigger blemish than her scars ever could have been so the guys she met took off as soon as they found out who she was. Or they were some freaks who were into Wave climbing up the citadel without belaying or doing a standing somersault.

They were all like that. Almost all of them. Hammer and she had had a very brief spark. But he always said that relationships were the number one reason for breaking up a team and had backed out. By now it was too late for that. Instead, he had become her best friend and she had been the maid of honor at his wedding. Like in a bad script.

The other guys on the team were just too young for her. At 26, she was the oldest, followed closely by Hammer. If she had no success with the men at all, the ladies on the team were unfortunately too young, too.

"Watch out!" Ember whispered, pointing in the direction of the tower in front of them. There, standing wide-legged, was a guy standing guard, his huge axe casually slung over his shoulder.

Wave indicated with an arm motion that she was going to arc behind the tower and that they should charge at him in - she closed and opened her palms twice - twenty seconds. Then she silently darted away.

She reached the back just as Ember rushed out of cover, yelling loudly, answered by a long-drawn-out 'Oh, shit!' from the guard.

Even though Wave was supposed to make her way up immediately, she paused briefly to watch Ember work.

The axe man, as she would call him for now, grabbed the handle with his second hand and tried to heave it up somehow, but this wasn't his day. Still running, Ember leapt at him, legs drawn up ahead. With full force, she kicked him in the chest. The impact must have been strong enough that Ember had squeezed the air out of the poor guy's lungs even in his synth because his robot transmitted how he gasped loudly for air.

The axe, for which he had no more strength, landed on the leafy ground with a dull sound, swirling leaves and dirt into the air. Ember was already on the ground as well, bracing herself with her hands and whirling around in a circle. She kicked the axe man's legs away, he followed his axe and hurled even more leaves into the air.

Before the autumnal shower of leaves had even reached the ground again, Ember was already sitting on her opponent's chest, knees pressed firmly on his upper arms, and punching him in the face with such force that the robot's teeth cracked. Perhaps the player's teeth as well.

Wave had expected a fight, not a massacre, but the axe man was out cold and she certainly wouldn't complain about that.

She squared her shoulders once and was already on her way up, grasping the stones that protruded from the stonework with a practiced grip. Her feet found sure hold, and by the time she heard the shouts of the other two enemy guards, she was already so far up that they no longer posed a threat to her.

She peeked around a corner of the tower and saw her own towers in the distance, still dark. No beacon had been lit and that would remain the case, knowing Hammer. But that was no excuse to rest. The match still had to be won. She reached for the next stone.

"Wow!" it hummed right in her ears. "That's pretty high."

Wave winced and couldn't get a good grip on the stone. Her fingers slipped, scraping across the hard masonry, and numbness set in abruptly.

"Oh, Bronto shit!" she grumbled, cursing the game's developers. "Haven't you guys ever been climbing yourselves or heard of adrenaline? I don't want to feel how broken I am until I get to the top!"

And what was that voice about? She had turned off CCR, and because her mission was set in the Middle Ages, admins had also turned off the ComNet, the city-wide communications network. Was there perhaps someone above her on the tower? She looked up. The top was not far away. But she spotted no one. Wave grabbed the stone again, with all her strength. She gritted her teeth and let pain and the numbness wash over her.

"If we fall down here," it echoed in her ear, "we'll break every bone! Are you trying to kill us?!"

The shock ran through all her limbs, electrifying her, and Wave stiffened. The robot's feet lost their grip and the fingers of her other hand, still securely clutching a rock, could no longer hold her weight.

While falling, she pushed herself off the wall and the world turned by 90 degrees. As she stared up at the sky on her way down, a thousand thoughts ran through her mind. Okay, actually there were only three. How had the enemy team gotten into her channel, why were they using Aki's voice, and...
She scrapped the last thought and logged out before hitting the ground. She didn't want to have to crawl to work tomorrow.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I hope you still win."

The sky and clouds disappeared and Wave stared at the walls of her synth.

"Hello," he breathed into her ear. A hot shiver ran through Wave. Aki's voice again.

She held her breath. Was someone in her apartment? "Is someone there?"

Yes, she was completely sure, now that she was back home in silence. But he sounded exactly like Aki.

"I don't see anything ..."

There! The voice was crystal clear! Was it coming from her lens? She turned CCR on and off again. No moderation, still music.

"If this is supposed to be a joke," she shouted, "I don't think it's funny, at all!" Wave gasped. The synth's jelly squeezed the air out of her, and black dots danced on her pupils. "Empty the cylinder! Mute!" she ordered.

Her heart pounded as she tried to understand what was going on. She had uploaded the picture of her accident .... had she let her guard down by doing so? And now someone was on to her? A stalker, perhaps, who knew she had a crush on Aki? What was worst, he somehow had access to her lens.

Once her arms were free of the jelly, she fumbled for her contact lenses and fished them out of her eyes. If she was lucky, only the lenses were hacked and none of the other equipment in her apartment.

The synth removed the remaining jelly and gave her another cleaning before allowing her to leave. Did it always take this damn long? She pushed open the door, fists raised for battle. Without lenses, the gray of the bare walls seemed oppressive. But without lenses, no one could hide from her either.

With a few steps, she had crossed her apartment once. There really was no one here.

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Wave leaned against a wall and her pulse slowly came to rest. Now she faced the problem of having to tell the others what was going on, why she had logged out, and ask whether they had won after all. But no amount of veloceraptors would get her to put her lenses back in.

She looked around her living room. With no decorations, she found the media panel immediately. Standard equipment in every home. Before the boom in data glasses, there was at least one in every room. Wave pushed herself off the wall and tapped the display surface.

The old thing actually came to life, whirring and clacking.

"Bear with us for a moment," she was greeted by an electronic female voice. "We're checking your bio ID ... Welcome, Anna Nethuf."
There it was again, her real name, which she wanted to get rid of along with her bullshit past.

"We'll set up your media panel for you. Please be patient for a moment."

Yeah, she'd never used that thing in her life. Why would she? In her early years in the city, she had touched as little unfamiliar technology as possible. Much of it had simply been suspicious to her. That had only changed when she met Ember.

Wave drummed her fingers impatiently on the panel and the woman's voice repeated her request for patience.

"The update has been completed," came the redemption at last. "More media devices have been found in the area. Should they be synchronized?"

"No!" Wave replied hastily. She couldn't risk whoever was targeting her getting access to the media panel as well.

"Welcome, Anna Nethuf!"

A user interface filled with a myriad of animated icons appeared. She did the first and most important thing, even before considering what steps to take against the intruder, and changed her username to Wave. Now the thing felt more like it belonged to her.

"Okay, now what?" she asked herself. Informing the team that she was unavailable?

"Contacts."

Wave sighed. The list contained only service contacts. Without syncing with her contact lens, that was no surprise.

"Search a contact."

A series of options on how she wanted to search for the contact appeared. Hammer would be the first one. She was asked to enter his bio ID.

"How am I supposed to know his damn bio ID?"

That eliminated the fastest option. Who could remember an eight-digit number for all the people he knew? That left searching by his real name. After all, there couldn't be that many Svens. It was almost embarrassing that she had forgotten his last name, although she had heard it at least once before, at his wedding. A list of profile pictures appeared.

"Whew, this is going to be tough."

Wave nibbled her lower lip as she eyed one picture after another. Then she had to grin.

"Cute. It must have been ages since you didn't wear a beard."

Wave hesitated for a moment, wondering if she really wanted to do that to herself, then added Ember as well.

"Group call with Ember and Hammer," she ordered. An old-fashioned toot sounded from the speaker, was interrupted in the middle of one of the tones, and the media panel's voice came back on. "The parties you are trying to reach have set their status to 'do not disturb'. Would you like to leave them a message?"

Unavailable. Probably they were still in the Arena. "Yes," she decided, "Hammer, Ember, this is Wave. Sorry that I just disappeared, but some asshole hacked my lens while I was in the arena."

She took a breath. "Thanks to my past, I seem to have caught myself a stalker. He talks with Aki's voice. Really creepy. I ditched my contact lenses for now but can be reached through this account instead. Hope you still won the match without me."

With a touch, she ended the call and her eyes fell on CCR's icon that was prominently placed in one of the corners of the screen.

"It's really me."

Wave winced and wheeled around. She had searched the whole apartment after all! And there was no one standing there, either.

"I'm really Aki."

She hurried through the apartment again. Opened cupboards and even looked under the bed. Where could he have been hiding?

"I need your help, Wave, please."

Was Wave going crazy after all? Ember had said that earlier just as a joke, but ... could she have been right? Would she turn into a bloodthirsty monster like her father if she went crazy now? No, she wasn't related to him, at all. Then why was she hearing voices?

Wave crouched down on the floor and buried her head in her hands. As she did so, she touched her ear. And it dawned on her.

The hearing aid! The reason she hadn't found it in the synchronization list was that someone else had already synched it. And he must have been listening to her listening to CCR together with the med.

"Nice try," she said dryly, as if she hadn't just been running around the apartment like a maniac, and pulled off the hearing aid. She listened. It was quiet in the apartment. The ruptured eardrum made no difference here.

"Hello?" she asked cautiously into the silence.

She listened to the dull throb of her pulse as blood pumped through her ears. Seconds passed, but no one answered.

Tired, she shuffled into her bedroom and eased herself onto her bed. The accident, a stalker, and no decent Arena game to bring her compensation. Wave sighed aloud, wishing all the neighbors could hear her distress, feel it, and despair along with her. What a day. In fact, she should also contact the service now. Without a contact lens, the next day would be insanely exhausting. Maybe she would just take the day off. She'd inform her boss at work tomorrow. And then ...

Her head had barely touched the pillow before she had already fallen asleep.

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