Tunnel Rat

Chapter 317: Run, Run, Tallsqueak

Tallsqueak didn't bother following Icarus, he knew the route he would take from listening to a hundred other Icarus talking for hours. If he followed, the tools, food, clues, and coffee vendors would be gone. He took the other route which led to a small drop. It went down for 10 levels and ended in the whirling fan blades of a poorly-placed are handler. The shaft went upward 52 levels using a rusty ladder with loose bolts which would eventually break away from the wall and plunge you into the blades. Across the way was a short hallway with a T-intersection. One door held a dozen ration packs, a taser, a wrench, and a security baton. The other held a hungry tunnel-beast. The huge, mutated squirrel had crawled into a food storage area, but grown too large to get out. It had eaten all the food long ago and was ravenous. Sadly, it was also sleeping and made no noise. It was a 50-50 chance of death, and which door the squirrel was behind randomly reset each game. Icarus had learned the hard way that 50-50 chances were a horrible risk, no matter the reward. Milo agreed with him.

Tallsqueak went down the ladder instead. At the bottom, just above the whirling death, was an access hatch to a mechanics break room. It was also normally out of reach unless you got a tarp from the next level and backtracked. The tarp would clog the fan blades and allow a careful explorer to walk the edge of the fan casing. Tallsqueak felt certain Icarus had taken the tarp from the closet it was hidden in. He'd know to trade it on Level 5. 'Normally out of reach' didn't take into account people with tails. Holding on with one hand and a foot, he stretched out and opened the door with his tail, pulling the door toward him. Hopping atop the open door he could climb down the other side and into the break room.

He was cautious, as there was a chance the flesh-eating beetles that got the two mechanics would still be here, but he didn't hear the low buzz and munching sounds they made. The skeletal remains of two mechanics were seated at a table, cards in their hands. Both held a full house, kings over aces and aces over queens. Anything organic besides the bones was gone, but the small set of tools and nylon tool belt were still in good shape. The original owners didn't argue as he took them. He left by grabbing hold of the open door and pulling himself up to balance on top, then leaped for the ladder. Every six feet he stopped to tighten the bolts holding the ladder to the side of the drop and slowly made his way up to level 137 where an air duct gave him a handy way to exit. Further up the drop was a nest of wire-spiders that he didn't want to tangle with. The air duct took him a hundred feet and back to a main corridor.

Things would only get tougher from here. Time and the game's progression were working against him. The difficulty level increased as a player climbed the levels, and with Icarus above him, the lower levels would be spawning much tougher encounters, not taking into account he hadn't had time to accumulate potions, weapons, and other gear that would let him deal with them. On the other hand, this was his game, and even with randomly generated levels and encounters his knowledge would let him take shortcuts and avoid most fights.

Two hundred yards ahead and three left turns would take him to an elevator shaft. It too was a trap. Killer cyborgs rode the elevators, and when the doors opened, instead of a speed run to the top, a player would be confronted by Roger or one of his clones. Milo had no chance to fight them and didn't plan to. But he did want to use the elevator. He saw that it was on its way back up from the lowest levels. He had just enough time to hit the emergency disengage for the doors, pry them open manually, and leap for the top of the car while it was ten feet below him. He landed silently and avoided a spray of bullets from inside the elevator car. Roger angrily opened the doors further and looked for prey, seeing none, he headed for the next floor. Milo rode along with him past two-thirds of the habitat, all the way to Level 45. He could avoid most of the worst encounters from here, especially if he was ahead of Icarus.

That word 'most' bothered him. He'd much rather avoid all the fights, but that wasn't going to happen, especially on level 42. There was no easy way past the hordes of feral Roomba that Icarus would have woken on his way to Level 43. The Roomba were meant as a block to the lower levels. He'd placed them there after he saw that Sidney's strategy had involved going to Level 40, then dropping back down to the bottom of the Habitat and clearing everything she had missed on her first run, to score the maximum points and find every secret. She became obsessed with clearing things out and her games stalled as she looked for secret coffee enclaves. She'd screamed when level 42 became populated with sleeping tribes of feral Roomba and she couldn't revisit the lower levels, then adjusted her strategy and gotten back to playing the game. It was later that week that she beat the game, the first person to do so. She'd been thrilled to find out the prize was a version of herself in the game. She still held the record for most hours played and had been killed by her avatar, CoffeeQueen, several times. Milo wondered how to score Icarus, and then went with 'Rules as Written'. To the outside world, Icarus had less than 1 hour's playtime.

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If he wasn't pressed for time and racing against Icarus, he could gather information on the movement patterns of the Roomba packs, find the pattern, and avoid them. By then Icarus would have won, and his chance to get to his kernel would be lost. He was going to have to make a run for it and use speed instead of stealth. Moving as quickly as he could he approached the first crossroads. Straight led to a locked door that would take thirty seconds to bypass the security system and open. If a pack pinned him in the corridor, he wouldn't get that time. He used a piece of broken mirror, old bubblegum, and a piece of scrap aluminum to make a spy stick. Sticking it into the corridor was better than looking himself. The Roomba looked for recognition patterns. A bit of debris moving slowly might not trigger them.

What he saw was bad. Not one, but two packs were in the corridor. Neither seemed likely to leave, with weapons and optical scanners pointed at the other pack. Roombas were territorial, and these two packs were both claiming the intersection. He couldn't simply race for the door. One or the other of the packs would chase him, or worse, both of them. Once they saw him, the Roomba would acquire him as a target and not worry about the other pack until he was destroyed. He needed a way to take himself off the top of their list of enemies.

A plan popped into his head, the risk was assessed, and he acted, rolling forward into the intersection and making a rude gesture toward both packs. They reacted as he expected, and fired at him. Or rather, fired at where he had been. Instead of running for the intersection, he leaped for the ceiling and grabbed hold of a small air outlet. Too small to climb into, but it provided a handhold. The shots meant for him crossed at the intersection and slammed into both packs. The pack alphas reassessed the situation and moved the enemy Roombas to the top of their enemies list. The small rodent on the ceiling moved to last place.

Milo timed the exchanges and leaped to the hallway taking only a small hit to his shoulder. It was painful but only knocked his health down by 10%. Clawing off the security panel, he had ten seconds to rewire the door, easy for him with no one shooting at him. Then an agonizing twenty seconds until the security system rebooted and he could open the door. He slid through just in time, sliding out of view and hugging the wall as the winners of the small war rounded the corner, looking for him now that their enemies had fled or been reduced to scrap.

But the door wouldn't close from this side. He needed to rewire this side as well. When had that changed?! He wasn't going to have time, and turned to run further into Level 42 and lose the pack chasing him. That plan failed when he made it only 60 feet down the hallway and a large pack of ferals rolled silently around the corner like a hunting pack of wolves. The other packs had a dozen members each. This pack was twice that, looking far more ominous. Their armor was pitted with bullet wounds and laser strikes. Repairs had been made using the parts of fallen foes. Milo vaguely remembered a dream about a veteran pack of hard-core Roomba warriors that would be the Boss of the new level 42. But he didn't remember adding the code.

Their leader was immense, with thick armor and powerful weapons. Even as it was moved in his direction it deployed two heavy-duty multiple-barrelled laser turrets that wouldn't have been out of place on an anime mecha. Two of the pack deployed cables and plugged themselves into the leader, supplying power to the boss. The pack chasing Milo entered the hallway, rabid from their wounds and the losses the pack had just sustained.

The larger pack reacted. Thunderous music played from speakers on two small Roombas in the back as the opening guitar riffs of Hammer to Fall blared. The battle-scarred alpha Roomba took aim and the lights on his carapace flashed at Milo. It made one sound.

"Boop."

Milo froze in place, not moving. The twin laser turrets fired, a stream of focused light streaming by him on either side. The lesser pack stood no chance as the later strikes melted armor like wax and their power packs exploded. Two seconds later, nothing was left of them.

The pack of veteran Roombas emitted beeps, boops, and whistles as they cheered their leader, General Maximus.

Milo looked at Max. "I'm not going to ask how you pulled this off. I need to get to the top and don't have any time for finesse."

Max began issuing orders and his pack began moving out, Milo running beside Max. After they cleared Level 42 and were heading to Level 40 Milo's curiosity got the better of him. "OK, how the hell did you get here?"

All he got was a mechanical chuckle made of beeps and boops.