Armory of the Masses
Chapter One: Unfortunate Events
It's strange, really, just how fast a life can be screwed up, and through no fault of that individual, either. My name is John Carnegie, and not related to anyone famous. A Halo fanatic and an avid learner, I could safely be called an average person. A little richer than most, though, as one of my hobbies is to build props for different people in my neighborhood; who could afford it. My current favorite was when a friend asked me to convert a scrapped Bug into a Warthog. Took three months, but looked awesome at college.
Anyways, my tale begins during a prolonged browsing period, looking for a job a.k.a. something cool to replicate. Pictures streamed by. How about a Needler? Nope, I already made one. How about that-
A crash from the front door announced the arrival of my best friend with his couple hundred figurines that we had built over the years. Today we were somewhat planning on making a few dozen more, but I really wasn't in the mood. Those things were small. As I was turning from the screen, a small ad caught my eye: Virtual Worlds. The address was… three miles away. Now that seemed like something worthy of attention, and I proceeded to bound down the stairs separating my room from the front door. Kyle stretched his arms, making a show of how heavy the case had been. I slapped him backside the head.
"C'mon. Let's go out tonight. A new place opened in town, looks rather cool." He looked rather suspicious of the idea, but let me drag him out the door in my wake. The drive was rather quiet, at least by our standards. Kyle had hooked up his iPod to the radio in my truck, and was blasting out music while we were both singing along. Coming into town, I caught sight of two men in grey coats. They seemed to be carrying groceries back to an apartment next to a warehouse. Coming into the parking lot of a large imposing building, I put the truck in park. Kyle hopped out the broken window on the passenger side (so what if my truck is broken? I have better things to spend money on) and we walked up to the front door. In a bit of a miracle, the door was unlocked, so we entered. There was nobody present, lending to an air of spookiness that pervaded the area. We passed several rooms full of chairs and machinery, and a large open area. Feeling rather winded, I whined "Can we sit? I still haven't got over that board you threw at me." That was a long story, but suffice it to say that being hit by an eight foot long two by four bruises thing. We took a seat in the creepy chairs that were covered in wires. I must have hit something looking through the chair, as it uncoiled like a snake, wrapping various patches across my head and body. I could see Kyle in a similar predicament across the aisle/walkway. A sudden burning sensation, along with a solid hit caused me to black out.
Waking up is usually fun. Now imagine it when it is accompanied by the most intense pins and needles sensation you can imagine. Add that to temporary paralysis, mind block, serious stink and someone shooting nea- Wait…What? You can't shoot inside city limits, so how…? Now feeling much better, almost like I could walk, I sat up.
And was kicked in the face for my trouble. I heard a small crunch as an overly large boot impacted my face. Even as I flopped back down, the unknown attacker gave a grunt of surprise as he fell past me. I gained a little pleasure as he hit something hard. Then a few more shots flew by, luckily going past me. During one year in high school, there was a Marine who had been discharged and was looking for a job. Imagine the surprise when he had been hired as a PE teacher. While the previous teacher had been hard, this man acted like we were on duty boots. At the time, I had hated the guy, at least during the running sessions, but now his exercises might save my life. Army crawling over to a wall, still holding my face from where that idiot had run into it, I peered around it. I just as quickly withdrew, eyes wide and breathing hard. I looked again, beginning to make sense of the situation. Three men in futuristic armor and holding equally futuristic weapons were frantically firing at an oversized lizard wielding a machine gun and a couple more humanoids following in its wake, bunching together as if for protection. The three humans had a logo of an electrified sword in front of an arch on their left arms. While I was watching, one of the humans grabbed something that suspiciously looked like a grenade and lobbed it at one of the smaller aliens. Apparently, it wasn't that bright, as it caught it and tried to give it a bite. I withdrew my head again as the patented BOOM went off out in the street, leaving a smear of red where the stupid critter had been, and his comrades had decorated the walls. A smashing sound, followed by a grunt, notified me that one of the humans had been hit. Although, what was the crash before the grunt? I crawled out of cover, freezing when the two soldiers did a small "tactical retreat" to an alley on the far side of the road from me. Moving to the… now obviously dead guy (and it was gross, by the way) I snagged the rifle he had been holding, as well as two grenades. As I found the trigger, another blasted creepy alien jumped at me. What the heck, spray and pray, right?
As it turned out, the thing got the barrel to its gut, and I pulled the trigger, blasting a rather large hole in the unprotected… thing. To make sure it had met its maker, I popped a round into its forehead, and staggered to my feet. Luckily, my nose hadn't actually broken. It just felt like it. One of the soldiers waved me over, and I limped to them, the giant lizard having left.
If this was a game, I was thought it was both really cool and really excessive. It felt like life on the frontlines.