By David C. Daoust
‘Just a lot on my mind, I guess,’ he said.
And continued to say- in her brain- over and over again. Not like Harper didn’t have a lot on her mind as well. Ratchet was not the only one effected by the current upheaval on the moon… Her big sister was beaten black and blue, stuck in a med bay for a full day… Their home was stolen in some crazy bid to impress a bunch of gamer brats. Harper had to look out for her sisters. Let’s see, she had to do some other stuff too, like, like, clean up–that she didn’t really bother with. But she still had to deal with it, at some point. What’s his problem?
‘Just a lot on my mind, I guess,’ he said.
‘Yeah right,’ Harper thought. ‘Just being a jerk.’ She felt him cast her question aside like she didn’t matter. Like she was dog barking at him in passing. She was not going to forget it either. And she didn’t forget it- every time she blasted another Battle Drone into oblivion, she tore apart that stupid string of words that was: ‘Just a lot on my mind, I guess,’ said the jerk.
Her arachnid like drone swung back around the last isle of parked ships, having destroyed as many enemy drones as she could with this pass, she planned to circle around for more. She dipped low under the wing of one such ship and happily targeted another Battle Drone representing that next reiteration of those words. She pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. She grimaced. Harper considered that maybe she was out of ammo. Checking the display- it said it was full. In fact, that particular weapon, Pulsar Fire, had that sideways eight mark—usually stands for infinite rounds.
“Wait!” Dicey’s light voice suddenly erupted over comms as she asked, “Why can’t I fire?”
Harper almost shared that she had the same issue, but Ferguson spoke up before she could.
“That’s me,” Ferguson stated, “You’re targeting me!”
“Oh! But…” Dicey, backed down a little, though explained, “I thought you were that one over there…”
“That’s him too!” Margo chirped in, “He’s got a bunch—he’s like crazy good!”
“These are mine,” Ferguson stated as a cascade of pings encircled random targeting reticles, marking them out from the rest.
“You’re flying all those?” Harper asked, incredulously.
“Yes, and a couple Dicey and Grace ambushed and destroyed,” Ferguson explained. “I had to come up with a way to save me from you. So, I rigged a safety through the servers…”
“You made it so we can’t shoot at our own spiders?” Harper reiterated.
“Right, it’s like friendly fire is turned off kind of thing,” Dicey explained in her own way. Clearly comfortable with the idea, having dealt with such things in past games.
“Well, why don’t you turn off their ability to shoot?” asked the jerk, Ratchet, who suddenly jumped into the convo.
“Because they are not running through my systems,” Ferguson answered simply. “Err, through our local server.”
“Oh,” was all Ratchet said in response.
“Here, I’ll mark all ours for the group,” Harper volunteered, “Ping them again– we should have enough marks to cover…”
“Don’t bother,” Ferguson interrupted, “I have already come up with a better way. I just needed a minute to set it up is all.” Suddenly, all their reticles shifted to a purple color on her display, while the enemy drones stayed that familiar hostile red. Harper felt it was safe to assume everyone’s readout changed to match as Ferguson explained, “Purple is us! Only destroy those still hostile.”
“So, is the friendly fire still off?” Dicey asked. “Yup,” she answered herself a moment later.
“Did you just try to shoot him, Dicey?” Grace asked, exasperated.
“I wanted to see if it was off…” Dicey explained with a kind of a duh, in her voice.
“And if it was on… you would have destroyed another one of our spiders,” Grace explained.
“Oh, right,” Dicey laughed a little. “Good thing it was off.”
Harper, satisfied with the explanation of why that string of words was not once again blown to hell via the drone she was unable to fire on, hunted for a hostile drone to take her frustration out on.
It was found and destroyed before she even reiterated the words: ‘Just a lot on my mind, I guess.’
“Said the Jerk,” she inadvertently said this bit over the comms. It went undetected by the rest as Dicey let out a series of ‘woots’ at the same moment; Harper wouldn’t have cared if they did hear her.
These drones were stupid, they did not fight back. They did not even try to stop them from destroying them. No evasion, no nothing. It was actually scary, considering they were so intent on killing humans that they did not try to preserve themselves.
Harper’s drone suddenly dipped a little, out of her control. She could not explain what happened, though she veered off sideways. Something was weighing her spider down; she could not see what. A red arrow flashed on the side of her display denoting an enemy behind her– she turned her head back, to try and get a look. It was pressed so close that she could not tell what it was at first. She realized it was a Battle Drone, clamped onto her spider from behind.
Harper had not seen this before.
Suddenly red text appeared on her screen, ‘Splice detected’.
Harper silently raged as a small bar started to fill up. She could not bring herself to ask for help. Mainly to avoid the chance that the jerk may be the one to step in, or just witness her in distress. Ultimately, it was all too quick. She could not believe that it would happen, that it could happen. By the time she realized it was imminent, it was too late. She had underestimated the enemy, and found herself expelled from her own drone!
“Well, damnit!” The frustrated First Wave teen announced as she pulled the now disconnected visor off of her head, “I got spliced!”
“Oh, nice going, Ace,” Ratchet mocked her from under his visor, with a derisive little chuckle.
Harper, bright red, could have throttled him then and there.
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