James Osiris Baldwin

Brute Force: Chapter 2

Added 2021-03-20 22:03:45 +0000 UTC

So, yeah. I wasn’t Isekai’d, but I was definitely, one-hundred percent dead.

EdenFRAMEs were post-mortem virtual realities, heavily regulated by governments and corporations. Living people couldn’t upload to EdenFRAMES, and gladiatorial combat starring tentacled shark-panthers was definitely not a feature. That meant this was an illegal, unofficial FRAME run by a hacker… or worse, an organized crime outfit. Logically, that implied that not only was I un-alive, someone had forcibly uploaded me here.

Tail lashing, I opened my menu and searched for some hint, some clue as to why I had been sent to Sorvival of the Fittest. There were three menu tabs along the top of my character information window: Odds, Channel, and Messages. I clicked Channel first.

The requested tab appeared above the other three screens. It was a video streaming management interface with an active livestream in focus. The video gave the viewers a magnificent view of my sandy black ass, complete with a long whippy tail, a cat-like butthole, and a nice pair of peach-sized nads. At least they hadn’t neutered me. There were other features of the interface. A clicker, a live chat, but no option to turn the video off. Three people were watching my stream, and one of them had even left a super-helpful comment: <TF man??? Their doing killcams 4 Brutes now????>

“Hey, you! Captain Spelling Bee! Can you tell me what the fuck is going on?” I tried telepathically posting to the channel.

[Your comment has been rejected. Reason: Breaking Immersion and compromising Spectator experience.]

Ugh. I tried again: something neutral this time. “Hi! Hello!”

[Your comment has been rejected. Reason: Breaking Immersion and compromising Spectator experience.]

The fact I couldn’t post on my own video feed pretty much cinched it. Somehow, I knew that there was a high probability that I’d been murdered, and that my brain data—my consciousness, my personality, my memories—had been trafficked.

Next up were Messages. I wasn't expecting anything to be in there, but there was one message, already opened and read. That explained the lack of alerts. The message was titled: 'Ur mine now Сука'.

"The hell...?" I hadn't read any messages. Nostrils flaring, I opened it up and scanned the interior. It was written in Russian, which I could read and understand fluently.

"If you're reading this, you've arrived in Arcadia, the Fourth Realm of Survival of the Fittest. MY world. Hope your cage is nice and cozy. We made sure to make it just the right size.

You can't get out. You can't leave. You're stuck here. We cut your body into chunks and threw them out into the Sound. We ripped your brain data out and crushed your head under the front wheels of my BMW, and then we sent what was left of you to your little 'agency' in a box. Probably the first and only time you flew first class in your life.

Yeah. We know who you worked for. Everyone you knew, everyone you served, everyone you loved, we pulled all of that from your mind. My guys found your dogs and shot them. Then we burned your house down, with your dogs inside. By the time you read this, we're tracking down everyone else. 'Valkyrie', whoever she is. Your dad. Your fucking krav maga coach. And most of all, your sister. You really cared about her, didn't you? Well, don't worry. I'll make sure you get to see to her again.

This is what pig bastards get for fucking with me. With the Solonovs. I want you to think of this message as I put the control collar on you. I asked the Society to leave your mind intact so you could read this.

Bitch.

Love, Dimitri."

I read it again, and as I did, my head began to throb as fleeting, sharp memories lanced up behind my eyes, blinding me with brief flashes of the past. Darkness and pain. Me, staggering out of a warehouse into a parking lot, holding my guts in with one hand. Me, hands bloody, behind the wheel of a black SUV. Other SUVs closing in from either side, slamming into my vehicle, driving it off the road. I could feel my mouth moving as I yelled at someone over a comm link, but I couldn't hear the words.

The car went off the road, rolling and smashing. When I opened my eyes, a man was leaning over me, leering, a cigarette clamped in the side of his mouth. He was slim, with a face so perfect it could only have been sculpted by a surgeon. White hair, worn short and slicked. Elegant inlaid platinum cyberlines on his face, sweeping back to his datajack. Piercing golden eyes, bright with cruelty. His nose was bloody, dripping as he leaned over me. He had tattooed hands. I fixated on the symbols on his knuckles as he made a fist, reaching for my neck with the other hand.

I flinched, dragging myself back to the present. Yikes. Big yikes. On a scale of one to crazy, we were sitting at a big fat ten.

"If you're reading this, you've arrived in Arcadia...?" I tilted my head. Chorus had just told me I was in some place called Malae. The 'first realm', not the 'fourth realm'. "Damn. Someone needs to lay off the cocaine."

Disturbing as the message was, it gave me valuable information. I now knew I'd been law enforcement, someone working for an 'agency' against these ‘Solonovs’ and possibly the ‘Society’, whoever they were. The word Dimitri had used to describe the people I’d worked for was important: 'agency', not 'precinct' or ‘office’. That meant I'd been a fed, maybe FBI. So putting it all together, I was a Fed who did Krav Maga, spoke and read fluent Russian… and who had been undercover in a Russian Mafia outfit? That would explain why this crazy motherfucker killed my dogs and burned my house down. Now he was going after my family, and possibly my girlfriend – if that’s who ‘Valkyrie’ was.

"Well. Fuck." Frowning, I started a third re-read. I was about halfway through when my Odds tab beeped and flared bright yellow.

My stomach twisted with nausea as I opened up the third tab. Yup. It was a betting panel with a list of odds. People were gambling on me. Needless to say, virtual blood sports with real human data wasn’t legal in any country or territory.

First up were my odds on making it alive through the night. The next was the chance I’d be ‘tamed’ within my first day of being ‘on the island’. All the odds were shit. One person had made a bet anyway—they thought I’d live through my first twenty-four hours. That was big of them.

Even as I watched, another bet description appeared. “Killed by a Hyperboar in the next ten minutes.” The odds on that one were good. Four, then five, then six people joined my channel. The clicker kept turning, and people started laying money down on whatever a ‘Hyperboar’ was.

It was the closest thing to a warning as I was going to get.

I got all four feet under me and stumbled forward into an awkward run up the beach. Made it about fifty feet before a piercing squeal tore the air behind me. Still running, I switched the camera so I could see over my shoulder without needing to turn my head. A huge royal blue razorback—a pig bigger than an SUV—exploded out of the jungle, ropes of drool swaying beneath its jowls. The monster fixed blazing white eyes on me, and as it did, a bright red highlight appeared over its head: [Hyperboar (Lvl 10)].

[You have identified a new Legion: Hyperboar.]

[The universal, wild and unfortunately powerful Body/Air/Fire Legions are known for their fearlessness and strong build.]

Before I could puzzle out the poorly translated description, the giant porker bucked and squealed. Electricity rippled up along its legs, frying the sand black and blowing the burned-plastic stench of ozone into the air. Snapping and crackling harder than a bowl of Rice Krispies, it charged after me, and I did what every sensible tentacle-beast who’d just woken up on Crazy Murder Island would do.

I put my head down, tucked my tail, and ran like a schoolgirl.

The tentacles still had a mind of their own as I blundered down the sandbar, sprinting for the tree line. Ferns and rotten logs crushed under my claws as I tore a trail through the ass-end of the jungle, flapping around like a whacky inflatable arm-tube man. Behind me, the snapping and squealing grew closer.

I charged through vines that would have strangled the real me, tearing them from the trees. Birds whirled up in a screeching chorus from the branches. Birds with teeth and clawed wings, and long lizard-like tails. Dinosaurs. I got one startled look at them before the Hyperboar came crashing through the ferns behind me, throwing smaller trees to the sides with its tusks.

Panting, I floundered up a hill, my stamina meter dropping from green to yellow. As it did, a huge heartbeat filled my ears, double pulse tripping beneath my tongue. I charged through the undergrowth, barely able to see, until some instinct brought me to a skidding halt just before the hill dropped off into a steep ridge. There was a dry gully full of rocks below. No water.

“SQUEEE! SCREEEEE! WREEEHH!” The Hyperboar was closing in, surrounded by the stench of burning hair.

Before I thought about it too hard, I put my shoulders down, charged the cliff, and took the leap of faith.

I soared toward the nearest tree and smashed into it with all the elegance of a deer carcass blowing off the back of a truck into a telephone pole. I didn’t know what to do, but my new body did. All eight limbs wrapped around the trunk and boughs as the tree swayed, raining debris. A confused snake hit me on the face and bounced away. To my surprise, I didn’t fall. My claws dug through the jungle hardwood like it was made of soft butter, and when they cooperated, the tentacles let me clamber around like Doctor Octopus from Spider Man.

“Okay. Instincts, go!” Whatever a Reaper was, it was a monster made for climbing. I tried to clear my mind and relax, letting my body take over. As long as I didn’t think about it too much, I found I was able to climb almost as quickly as I could move on the ground. Birds chattered in terror as I haltingly shimmied up the trunk and flopped onto the biggest branch I could find. It was awkward. I still didn’t know where to put my tentacles, so I let them dangle over the side and watched as the Hyperboar charged through the brush toward my perch.

“C’mon, man. The fuck you gonna do?” I growled as the enraged pig launched itself at the tree and slammed its head into it, scattering bark everywhere.

“WEEE! WRREEE!” It screeched. “WREEEEE!”

Something wasn’t adding up. This Hyperboar was supposedly a Greater Legion, like me, but it wasn’t acting like a person in a monster’s body. It was acting like a mindless animal. I remembered Dmitri’s little quip about ‘leaving my mind intact’. That implied that Legions with self-aware minds were not the norm.

The Hyperboar pranced and bucked and squealed, then turned to ram the tree again. This time, it discharged a bolt of lightning. The tree was fine. The tinderbox of ferns and old bark at the base was not. It instantly caught fire.

“Oh, come on…” Before I had time to react to that exciting development, there was a flash of red and a hiss to my left. My head snapped around: it was a praying mantis the size of a small dog. It had its scissor arms held wide open, swaying from side to side. My vision tunneled, and an icy chill gripped my guts as I abruptly remembered something else about myself.

Bugs.

I fucking HATED bugs.

“Woah-woah-WHAT THE-!” The mantis lunged at my face. Before I realized what I doing, my nose darted forward and I bit the thing in half. It seemed about as surprised as I was as its arm and torso split under my jaws with a crunch. A wave of bitter ichor flooded my mouth.

[You have identified new creature: Dire Mantis.]

[You gain 1 EXP.]

“NYAARGH! AGGH PFFT!” I gagged, pawing at my tongue, and almost fell out of the tree as the Hyperboar rammed it again. “Fuck you! Fuck me! Fuck this thing! Fucking MAN TITS! MANTIS! SAME THING!”

The tree shuddered under the impact of another blow, and an ominous groaning sound vibrated through the trunk.

“Punkass Russian gangsters, punk ass murder-pigs, punk ass motherfucking giant BUGS...!” I clutched back onto the trunk and shuffled around until I spotted another tree big enough to support my half-ton weight. I tensed, wiggled my butt like a cat, and leaped out. It was easier than the first jump, but I landed awkwardly on the big Y-fork branch, jamming one saucer-sized paw into a hole and nearly twisting my ankle. Still, there was no time to lose. I wiggled, aimed, and bounded to the next tree over. Then the next. Every time I jumped, my legs and tentacles coordinated to grasp and anchor me. Every time, I got a little better.

I cut a big circle around the boar so I could observe it, slinking into a shadowed canopy of leaves and crouching down to regain some more Stamina. The bar was orange now, refilling with painful slowness. While I was checking it, a new symbol appeared in my HUD: an eye with a cross struck through it. A Stealth icon? As long as I didn’t move, I was Concealed. The was great, but why the hell was my Stamina refilling so slowly?

[You are Hungry. Stamina regeneration -50%.]

“Oh. Right.” I jumped at the sudden voice, then sighed and laid my chin down. I’d barely dared to relax when a chorus of shrill screams pierced the air, carrying from the direction of the beach. A chilling sound, like the laughter of hyenas.

I groaned. This was nuts. Electrified rage-hogs. Dumptruck-sized bugs. And now what? Rabid hyenas?

Said rage-hog was still ramming and shocking the first tree. It didn’t know or care that I wasn’t there. The leaf litter around it was letting off plumes of thick white smoke. Unsure of what to do, I checked my Channel tab again. To my surprise, there were now over fifty people watching me play Tarzan, and the comments were flying thick and fast:

[You have 3 new Followers!]

“We’re comin’ for your pork, lil’ hoggy!” A man’s voice hooted through the hyena-giggling, bouncing off the trees and stones. Other men shrieked encouragement. Guttural, deep-bellied roars added to the cacophony. I risked peering through the vines to get a visual, and when I spotted them, the corner of my eye started twitching.

The posse looked like outlaws from some bad post-apocalyptic porno. Their suits were cobbled together out of leather, rusted plate, bones, and sheets of giant insect chitin. They had grease smeared all over their faces and cheek piercings that looked like tusks. The leader of the gang rode a collared Greater Legion, a sabertooth cat bigger than a polar bear with red fur the color of fresh blood. Its rider had better armor than the other guys. A crude chain shirt, a breastplate over that, and a coif decorated in bullet casings. His tusks were big enough to push his mouth up in a double-sided sneer. The other five mounted members of the gang rode feathered dinosaurs that my HUD flagged as [Raptors].

Somehow, I was pretty sure these were the Hell Pigs.

I closed the Channel screen as viewers screamed at me to go down and fight them, watching warily. Yeah, no. Just because I was some kind of edgelord Pokemon didn’t change the fact I was sitting on 16% health at Level 1. I wasn’t regenerating HP or Stamina fast enough to take on fifteen dudes by myself. My viewers could suck my giant black dong.

The Pigs attacked the Hyperboar without mercy. The furious animal got off one jolt of lightning, which barely even singed the fur of the sabertooth as it charged in. The leader stuck the boar with a crossbow bolt, but it was his Legion who did the work. It shrugged off a direct lightning strike and launched onto the boar’s vulnerable back, ripping at it with its fangs. The dinosaurs followed, and pretty soon, they’d torn the squealing boar into bloody chunks. The sabertooth left the raptors to snarf up the meat and guts, until there was nothing but blood, singed leaves, and a small loot bag left on the forest floor.

“Fuck me.” The leader hawked a glob of chewing tobacco, vaulting from his saddle to the ground. “BIRCH!”

One of the raptor-riders hauled on his reins, spinning his mount around. “Yes sir!”

“You better not have been messing with me, boy.” The older man narrowed his eyes.

“I know I saw the Reaper on the beach! Sir!” Birch squeaked. He was a skinny kid in patchy hide armor that didn’t look half as good as his boss’s gear, and was a fair bit younger than the other men in the gang.

“Legendary Brutes ain’t inclined to spawn on fucking Noobie Beach.” Bullet Hat whirled on the others. “Y’all go start searching for this Reaper! Big black dragon-lookin’ thing with tentacles! Can’t miss it!”

I bit back a growl and held position. The eye and cross symbol in the corner of my eye began to pulse like a heartbeat. I was pretty sure that meant I was still concealed, but there were people actively searching for me.

“I’m checking the guild channel, bossman.” One of the guys – skinny, rangy, with a short blond mohawk – reined his raptor in beside his boss. “None of our subs know where he went. If they do, the A.I is wiping out the comments.”

“No one can confirm Birch’s sighting?”

“No sir.”

The Boss sneered. “Well it didn’t just disappear in a puff of logic, did it, Rooster?”

Rooster made a face. He looked up into the trees, shading his eyes as he scanned the boughs. I clenched a little as his gaze swept over my hiding place, but he didn’t spot me. “You think the boar got it?”

“Might’ve done, if the Reaper didn’t spawn at full health.” Bullet Hat’s mouth sloped to one side as he glanced around the gully. His heart clearly wasn’t in it. “Or it might’ve been a load of horse shit all along.”

“I swear, boss. I saw it from the trees, weaving around before the boar chased it off.” Birch was looking nervous now, all white rolling eyes. “It was acting all wonky-like out on Noobie Beach, like a fresh spawn.”

“I didn’t see no damn Reaper tracks. And if—IF – it spawned in the damn Jungle, that means it was a real low level. Maybe even Level 1.” Bullet Hat grimaced. “In which case, guess it was useless to me anyway. Razor’s stupid Osteoth is, what…Level 11 now?”

“Something like that,” Rooster agreed.

“Then Blaze here is gonna have to do the job.” He clapped the fire-breathing sabertooth on the shoulder. “Not the best type match against an Osteoth, but hell. We’ll play it up for the audience. Everyone loves a good underdog fight.”

“We’re really gonna hit Razor at Vanara’s?” Rooster asked nervously. “Boss, why not train Blaze up for a couple more days?”

“Because Razor, that son of a bitch, looted my goddamn corpse!” Bullet Hat snarled back. “He took my goddamn Blue-ranked Iron Shield, and I’d choke on your dick before I let that jackoff reach Sergeant before me! I’m gonna erase him, if my name ain’t Clive Magazine!”

Rooster deflated slightly. “Right. And what about Vanara?”

“We don’t need to worry about him, because here’s what we’re gonna do.” Clive puffed himself up and spat. “We’re gonna go to that temple with a sacrifice to help Razor summon Vanara, watch the boss kick his ass up and down the arena, then move in and kill whichever one of them is left standing.”

“You sure he’ll be there?” Rooster asked.

“I guarantee it. He had one sacrifice ready to go in the jail, plus he captured those two Centurion bitches this morning. He only needs one more. So we bring him the fourth sacrifice, like we’re taking a peace offering. But once we’re in that arena? We ain’t lifting a finger. We let Vanara soften him up, then we kill him and the Reavers.”

“If you think we can take him.” Rooster rubbed the back of his neck. “My channel says one of the girls Razor caught isn’t just any old piece of scenery, though. She’s an Centurions officer.”

“Anyone we know?”

“Dunno.” Rooster stared off into space, reading an unseen HUD channel. “Oh. Here we go. ‘Sam Seven-Lives’.”

… Sam?

The voices of the Pigs faded to an unpleasant drone as another blurry memory intruded into my head: the silhouette of a woman surrounded by traceries of movement. Her hands, her fingers, her face… she was speaking ASL. Signing at me, frantically.

Somehow, I knew that name. A deaf woman named Sam. Wasn’t sure about the ‘Seven-Lives’ part. But I knew a Sam. And I knew I was supposed to be helping her.

“Shit!” Clive’s sharp curse shook me out of my daydreaming. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. My channel says we have to get back to the Temple ASAP. Razor’s scouts have found a fourth sacrifice and are stalking them near the volcano. The Reavers are getting ready for the ceremony. We have to go now, while half of them are out in the jungle. This is our best chance at getting the sumbitch.”

“Where are we going to get a sacrifice in time?” The nervous kid, Birch, sidled up to the sabertooth on the other side.

“Eh? Oh.” Clive waved toward Birch. “Boys! Grab this lying little wankstain and truss him up!”

“What- NO! HEY!!” Birch began shouting as his comrades turned on him like a pack of dogs. His mount put up a brief fight, but as soon as one of the other guys took the reins and hauled on its mouth, the raptor calmed right down. They dragged Birch off kicking and screaming and put him to the ground.

“Clive! No! Anything but the altar!” Birch yelled, struggling under ten pairs of hands. “C’mon, man! I wasn’t lyin’!”

“So? This is Survival of the Fittest, and you’re the freshest fish in the pond,” the older man drawled. “Welcome to the jungle.”

Birch screamed. I flexed and sealed my nostrils, watching his gang truss him like a lamb roast. They gagged him, then threw him over the back of his own mount. The raptor seemed unconcerned about its rider’s fate. Dinosaurs were jerks.

“We need to get back before Razor summons the damn boss with.” Clive pulled a tin from his belt and peeled out a new wad of chew, stuffing it in his mouth before raising his crossbow high. “C’mon, boys! HELL PIGS!”

“Hell Pigs!” Clive’s words bought up a chorus of cheers from the others. They slapped hands, then rode past my tree, hooting and hollering as they thundered into the forest.

I sunk down against the branch, rumbling softly to myself. I didn’t know who these fuckers were, or what the ‘altar’ was, but if that Sam was my Sam, I had to stop them from hurting her.

And maybe – just maybe – she’d be able to tell me why we were here.