*Me* This chapter should be simple I have in mind a very defined beginning and end. I will also skip a fragment in the beginning to go directly to the most interesting parts.
*Also me* Dedicating a whole page for character description.
*Also me* Turning the supposedly idle chit-chat into revealing crucial dialogue for the plot.
*Also me* Making whole paragraphs of internal character self-reflection.
*Final me* Well... I broke my record again. 3300 words. Enjoy!
*Superfinal me* 10 chapters and am I still introducing characters? T_T
I WANT TO REACH THE SECOND ARC OF THE STORY ALREADY!
Thanks God there are only 3 more introductory chapters and then I can start with the fluff, humor and angst part.
*Future me* Don't hurry the Second arc, you don't have it completely planned yet!
CHAPTER 10 - 22 PhDs
"Why in Sam Hill did ya do that?" The RED Engie asked, horrified, to the other RED Engineer standing in front of him.
Without any apparent reason, the other Texan had just released his wrench, walked towards him from the other side of the room with an unreadable expression in his face, stolen an innocent and perfectly fine beer from his Rancho Relaxo, gave it a long swig and then, threw it against one of the RED's intel safety glass.
The legitimate owner had only been able to turn his head around to witness the unfortunate victim exploding into several pieces from the impact and splashing its content all over the glass and floor.
"'Cause I can." His doppelganger responded with a psychotic sharp-minded grin and a deep throaty tone that unsettlingly carried a sinister humour.
That wasn't how Engineers were supposed to sound like.
The aggravated Texan frowned at his partner in profession and examined him in more detail, slowly propping himself up from the commodity of his lawn chair.
The offender was wearing a Tin-1000, a metallic version of their default hardhat, and the lenses of his goggles, which were bolted to the hat, were seemingly glowing in synchrony with the chest plate of his Iron Lung metallic vest, creating a creepy unnatural red gleam. Complementing his cyborg appearance, his left leg had also been replaced by the Roboot, a robotic prosthetic, similar in style design to the Gunslinger.
Although, what it really stripped him from the amicable attitude of the common Engineer was his atypical body language. This metallic man held himself in a hostile pose, slightly crouched and visibly surly, ready to use violence without any apprehension. Paradoxically, he also seemed to be enjoying the present situation but on his own terrible, twisted way.
It was clear that this mercenary was nothing like the humble friendly canon Engineer he was.
Peculiarly, the mad Texan's train of thoughts shared the same overall nature of his alternative version but his impressions were completely the opposite.
He believed that this naive Engie couldn't be more cliché.
The fake cowboy, to whom the Rancho Relaxo belonged, was wearing a Texas Ten Gallon hat and a Teddy Roosebelt was snugly fit into his ammo pouch. The only cosmetic that could be considered slightly original was the Tools of the Trade, a vest with straps, brass buckles and a series of tools; but from the insane Engineer's point of view, it made him look even more mundane.
However, what really instigated his most deepest revulsion was that samaritan aura he emanated. He loathed that gentle concerned expression the other was wearing, like he was actually worried about him. He was so young and therefore, so blind, that he was spending these precious seconds analysing his "Texan pardner" with the aim of fixing him, instead of appreciating the extraordinary circumstances they were living.
It was clear that this mercenary was nothing but the incarnation of the stereotypical canon Engineer.
The cyborg genius profoundly pitied and envied him, both at the same time.
Despite supposedly sharing the same basal code, neither of them could recognize himself in the man in front of him.
After the moment of judgmental contemplation was over, the belligerent Engineer materialized a Frontier Justice from nowhere and began shooting the previous safety glass as he advanced in its direction with resolute steps. When the three initial shots only let behind a disappointing web of scarred marks, he reloaded his shotgun and fired again at completely point-blank without even blinking in the process. He frustratingly obtained a similar result, being unsuccessful to break the window glass.
A sane man would have given up.
This Engineer wasn't a sane man.
He unloaded two more rounds of ammunition against the not-so-anymore transparent invincible opponent, laughing like an evil maniac. There was no way to tell if he was infuriated or delighted at doing so. His laugh was too degenerated to properly distinguish his emotions.
When it finally became obvious that bullets were completely fruitless, the psychotic Texan magically switched for a few violent swings to his wrench until he stopped, at last, with a final head bump.
The window was tremendously scarred but against basic laws of physics, it had no apparent intentions of breaking down as logic demanded.
For a few seconds, the silence returned to the intel room only disturbed by the high pitched beeps of their sentries.
"He needs more gun." The humble Engie thought to himself, after being unable to lift his eyes from the degenerated gun show of that savage.
"I need more gun." The hostile Texan grumbled out loud and turned away from the unbeatable glass, theatrically hoisting a Wrangler over his head.
After all, they weren't that different.
When the demented Engineer reached a prudent distance, he activated the secondary weapon and pointed the aiming dot of his sentry to the most affected area of the glass. Then, he pushed the button of its joystick and admired how his lovely killing machine fired rockets and bullets against the offending piece of glass that refused to be shattered.
This time, he didn't laugh. He enjoyed the vision of the impacts, the noise of the explosions and the smell of gunpowder with a lopsided sly smile. An smile to which the wholesome Engie found himself surprisingly relating to.
After a long minute of ceaseless shooting, the sentry ran out of ammo but the glass remained unbroken, completely opaque white by the endless internal cracks, but unbroken.
The friendly Engie expected his insane counterpart to go into an brutal rampage as he did in the beginning. But instead, the other man raised his gaze to a specific point in the ceiling and stared at it for some unsettling long seconds, like if a higher entity was speaking to him.
And, as a matter of fact, it was.
The cyborg mercenary shrugged pretty disconcertingly, dropped his Wrangler and grabbed a new beer as he walked off of the intel room without saying a word. However, when he reached the doorframe, he detected an odd tingling in the pit of his stomach that prevented him from taking another step.
What was that annoying feeling?
No... It couldn't be...
No...
...
Fuck! It was!
After all he had gone through... How in the damn bloody hell could he still care for others? Especially for that sanctimonious Engie?
He attempted to fight back that vestige from a forgotten man when his voice of consciousness assaulted him.
"He's stupidly oblivious. Ya can't leave him alone. He needs guidance. Your guidance."
"Shut up! You died! I buried ya long ago!"
"It ain't that easy to kill Dell Conagher, son. I'm a resilient mother hubbard."
The surly Engineer wanted to slowly choke to death that self-righteous voice in his head but in the end, he resigned himself and asked in a idle tone, hiding from the other man the exasperation of his own feelings.
"Are ya gonna stay here all day or are ya commin' to explore, boy?"
The mercenary being questioned frowned in slight confusion. Had the other Texan just invited him, in his own raving way, to joining him?
He stopped to consider it for a second. If he let him go alone, he would be a danger for himself and anyone who encounter him.
He threw him a miffed glare before responding.
"I'm commin'. But ya better not call me boy, pardner." He said showing a glimpse of his own temper and walked by his side as they abandoned the intel room. "I don't like it a bit and we're the same physical man with the same age." He emphasized that last part because despite sharing a similar body, they clearly had different personalities.
The insane Engineer snickered.
"No, we ain't. Ya're 1 year, 6 months and 11 days and I'm 8 years, 1 month and 29 days. Ya're still a kid for this world's standards."
The younger hardhat looked at him baffled by the confidence of his tone. It almost gave the impression that he was reading the dates from somewhere.
"Don't tell me ya haven't figured out yet how to access digital profiles?" He made a pause. "By that face. No, ya haven't." He chuckled at his expense and the cordial Texan didn't appreciate it. "Ya're slower than the average Engineer. Too much brains and lil' hunches." He mocked him again but at the other's bad face and twitchy fingers, he added. "I don't feel sorry for ya but I'll give ya a tip 'cause ya might not get the chance to learn it by yourself. Feel my silhouette and reach for it. Mentally. Don't be worth spittin' by touchin' me with your hands or I'll gladly smack ya."
The amicable cowboy seriously put in doubt the veracity of that advice but he sighed, as the other drank from his beer, and gave it a try.
As a result, a considerable big tap opened in one side of his visual field. It had a similar nature to the player's taps, because it stayed fixed on the same spot despite moving his head around, but the colours and style were completely different. It was elementarily basic, with a black background and an rudimentary white word type, suggesting that nobody had dedicated half a second to make it look visually attractive.
He quickly scanned the information on it and then, reached for his own profile to compare the differences.
At noticing the other mercenary's focused expression, the mean Engineer derided him with a sarcastic tone.
"Ya did it! Congratulations! Ya ain't as dumb as I thought."
The new enlightened Texan instantly closed all the taps and gave his senior counterpart a piercing glare.
The nice Engie was aware that his class possessed an intellect way superior than the average population but he had always done his best to carry that gift with utter modesty. In any other circumstances, by any other mercenary, he would have not even feel a pinch of anything at being called dumb. That insult would have neatly ricocheted against his infinitive patience and solid self-esteem without leaving any trace behind. However, in the present moment, being ridiculed by this detestable individual, who was possibly the only man on digital Earth that could outsmart him and was clearly more familiarized with this world than him, made him want to punch him in the face. Several times.
Through the years, the rude Texan had developed this personal satisfaction in pushing other people's buttons to the limit. What in past times had served him as a useful tool to empathize with his coworkers, now he used the power of his observant skills to enflame other men's emotions for his own wicked delight. One might believe that due to being mentally unstable, he couldn't recognize what a restrained furious face look like but that wasn't true, in particular if it was his furious restrained face. He would have never confessed it but, he was only elongating this tense moment in hopes of extinguish that rebel speck of compassion that he had felt moments before.
Honestly, he didn't desire to start a fight. At least, not right now. If the corrupted update allowed it, he would have plenty of time to go berserk later after having access to better weapons.
The disrespectful cyborg snickered again but strangely, extended an olive branch.
"Mercenaries' profile ain't the only thing ya can inspect. Objects and weapons also have info taps and if ya use your gut feelin', ya might be able to access the world's code. But I don't recommend it right now. It'll just confused the shit outta of ya with all the mutating code that's going on. Not a great startin' point for learnin' elementary programmin'."
"Mutatin' code? What d'ya mean by that?" The polite cowboy inquired doing his best to not sound completely lost.
"Today's update really fucked up our virtual world. We ain't supposed to move by ourselves. It has never been allowed it before by any other update. This is the first time in the game's history that we can walk by our own. Drink by our own." He took a long swig from the beer and smashed it against the wall when he finished it. "Destroy by our own." He laughed sinisterly joyful. "Someone corrupted the new update to be introduced in the superficial code of the game and it's mutatin' our digital environment at any decision we take. By interactin' with the things around us, demandin' them to behave in way they never did before, we're instinctively rewritin' this reality. And I can tell ya, 'cause I know plenty of this programmin' shit, that the universe's code is already startin' to look very ugly."
Incapable of explaining exactly why, the gentle Engie had assumed that being able to suddenly move freely was some type of usual event for updates. He didn't properly remember any other major update as today's one so he lacked any prior reference to compare to his current experience. The name of Jungle Inferno rang a bell in the back of his mind but he couldn't tell with absolute certainty if he had been born by then or not.
In fact, he couldn't remember either his first battle or when exactly he had started realising that he wasn't the one commanding his body. The farther he tried to remember, the blurrier everything became. It was like he had been slowly waking up from a dream. A dream where he had being tossed around like a puppet without being self-aware of the complete picture. Being frank, he still felt like he was half asleep.
How hadn't he thought before about anything related to what his elder version had mentioned? If he had accepted that they were made by code, that they were artificial intelligences. Why hadn't he tried to inspect that code before? It sounded so painstakingly obvious in retrospective.
Clearly, his perception of this reality was being heavily clouded by something beyond his comprehension but at least now, he was cognizant of the tremendous unknown bias he carried. It was a step towards progress.
Challenging himself to be more thorough, the modest Engie carefully mulled over each one of the words he had been told, trying to formulate a reply of the same intellectual level.
"Wouldn't that rewritin' eventually lead to the general collapse of the game? We're prone to leave errors behind and at each edition we trigger, the complexity of the world's code will increase. Even if the game proofreads itself, it'll reach a point when the code will make no sense." He hypothesised rather concerned.
"Most likely. But I couldn't give any less of a damn." The brutish Texan eerily chuckled and shrugged. "This digital free world is gonna go down with our participation or without it. Either by the degeneration of the corrupted update or by the successful reset of Valve's servers. Whatever comes first and I recommend ya to make the most of it, 'cause we might not have a second chance ever again."
The affable Engie stared at his mad counterpart.
This alternative version of Dell Conagher was profoundly mentally disturbed. His husky tone, the aggressive choose of words, his psychotic ecstatic outbursts, the hostile manner he carried himself, the eerie flickering behind his goggle's lenses, his smile. His unsettlingly creepy smile.
All of them were little indications of how severely had he drifted apart from his original personality.
And despite them all, here he was. Giving him some genuine advice.
Here he was. Being thoughtful with another human being. Or virtual human being to be precise.
Was it real or was he projecting his own humanity on his inhumane counterpart?
"And here we are!" The insane Engineer exclaimed once they arrived at the gates of the RED Spawn's room, the one next to the corridor that connected with the balcony.
He stopped one exact step before the door's automatic detector and added with a mischievous smirk.
"Infants first." He waved his arm, inviting him to get into.
The sound cowboy huffed, irritated, but nevertheless, took the lead and walked forwards.
He should have never been that trusting.
The moment the roller shutter was lifted up, an unexpected inferno burst out of the Spawn's room and engulfed them both with its excruciating fire.
The friendly Engie was efficiently fast in his reaction and backtracked his last step, allowing the entrance to be shut down again. Immediately after, he threw himself to the ground and rolled his body in frenetic fear to put out his burning clothes.
Fortunately or strangely, the fire didn't spread to the potentially very flammable wood and straw around them and after some dreading seconds, the cordial Engie managed to doused himself. It was then, while recovering from the fright, that he finally acknowledged the nasty guffaw of the other Texan.
With a enraged grunt, he searched for him with his eyes and horror joined his anger at finding him.
The psychotic Engineer was still on fire, laughing like the maniac he was, without giving the minimal impression of the pain that he was enduring. As if the flames were just an illusion floating around him, he kept burning for a couple of more seconds until the fire inexplicably extinguished itself.
"Rule number 1: Always examine info taps before interactin'." The crazy Texan explained in a condescending tone and passed next to his younger version as he put some distance from the Spawn's door.
"Ya big son of a bitch! Where d'ya think are ya goin'?" The not-so-cordial-anymore Engie snarled at his nuts counterpart and got up to his all four.
The lunatic cyborg snickered again in that particular provoking way the other hated so much and facing the Spawn's room, he crouched his body in a racer pose.
"To hell and heaven, boy." He excitedly replied with a terrifying grin from ear to ear.
Following next and without any additional explanation, the crazy Texan rushed at full speed towards the Spawn's room, armed only with his delirious laughter for a battle cry.
As the tentacles of fire broke loose again, the sane Engie could only but to rapidly crawl backwards to put himself out of the range of the jumping blazes and witness in slow motion how that mad man willingly dove into the scorching hell.
Instantly after that psychopath was swallowed up by the flames, a metallic thunderous blast deafened the kind cowboy and a tsunami materialized from inside of the Spawn's room, generating a wave of water that pushed him against the opposite wall.
Straw, wood planks and pieces of shatter glass were carried along with him and he bumped against them all. As the water escaped away through every open entrance, a meaty object also impacted against the inferior part of his body but it wasn't until he was set on the floor again, that he realised that a RED Pyro had been also spat out with the sudden flood.
The gentle Engie coughed up some water, that had accidentally gotten into his lungs, and at lifting his eyes, they met with his daredevil counterpart.
His demented version was triumphantly standing at the interior edge of the Spawn's room with some kind of metallic turtle shell attached to his back. Four shinny canon sprouted out of the device, two over his shoulder and two around his thigh, and water was visibly dripping from them as if they had been recently used.
He was soaked from head to toe but it didn't seem to matter to him because his goggle's lenses were shinning with an intense spine-chilling red glow and he was smiling with a hideously evolved version of his regular terrifying grin.
For a second, the calm sound of water slowly leaking was the only thing that filled the silence.
Until the demoniacal cyborg broke it.
"I'M A GOD!" He proclaimed in a delighted roar worthy of the insane genius he was.
By the way, I have assigned some songs to this chapter's characters. Enjoy listening to them, I believe they are pretty appropiate.
Insane Engineer: Sin Shake Sin - Can't Go To Hell
Polite Engie: Chicken Fried - Zac Brown Band