Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) (15 page)

The blade master strafed to his left, narrowly avoiding the flash
of electricity. Now the Drakkenborn came crashing through the brush,
his sword drawn.

“Get the hell out of there,” a voice sounded in the blade
master’s ear. It was his dark elf mentor, communicating with him
via an enchanted gemstone he wore around his neck. The dark elf wore
an identical one magically bound to his own.

Executing an about-face, the blade master ran toward the
shard. If he could make it in time, the poison would do the rest.
Slinging the crossbow over his shoulder helped him run faster. He was
going to need all the help he could get.

Dodging around the overgrown war machine, the blade master
cringed as another bolt of lightning hit a tree just in front of him,
setting it ablaze with fire. The ferns were waist high, leaving an
obvious trail in his wake, not that any was necessary. The
Drakkenborn was nearly on top of him. The blade master climbed on top
of one of the war machines and slid down the oversized metallic face
on the opposite side.

His enemy was still in pursuit, cursing at him in some foreign
language.

The shard was right in front of him in an open clearing, glowing
with ancient magic. The blade master sprinted toward it. Halfway
across the clearing, a dagger stuck into his back. The Drakkenborn
had depleted his reserve of magicka, but was not out of the fight.
Another throwing dagger sank into his shoulder.

Without looking back, the blade master dove into the shard.

The world blinked and he rolled into a dusty dirt road. A village
full of small houses with thatch roofs was laid out in front of him.
His hand went to his katana, and he drew it from its sheath. A dead
body fell out of the shard at his feet. The Drakkenborn had succumbed
to the poisoned quarrel.

Normally, poisons only degraded an enemy’s abilities
during a battle. They could be lethal if they went untreated for more
than a day, but that was almost always enough time for those stricken
to seek intervention at an apothecary shop in a village. The blade
master has utilized the unique time dilation effect that took place
when the shards teleported them across the world. While it happened
instantaneously for those going through the slipstream, several days
passed back in base reality. The Drakkenborn had been upset and did
not think this through before chasing the blade master into the
shard.

“Not bad, but you got lucky.” The gemstone around his neck
glowed with each word.

“Luck is one of my skills.”

The blade master sheathed his sword and yanked the two throwing
daggers out of his back.

“That remains to be seen. I’ll be more interested to
see how you deal with the next target.”

“Where is he?”

“Head west through the village.”

The blade master crouched down next to the corpse of the
Drakkenborn and got some mad loot off of the body. Walking through
the village, piglets and baby goats parted as he walked between them.
Pollen floated through the air as the townspeople worked at the mill
and merchants sold their wares from stalls alongside the road.

“Dwarven armor for sale!”

“Magicka elixir, plus ten mana!”

The hustle was unreal, even in such a small village.

“Hey,” a tinkerer said as he approached the blade master.
Half of his teeth were made of wood and he carried a heavy load on
his back, pots and pans strung into his pack. “Want to watch Kim
Kardashian suck a cock?”

“Goddammit,” the blade master cursed. “Get the fuck away
from me!”

Climbing over a wooden stake fence, he walked through someone’s
farm and then out into the countryside. Lazy white clouds floated
through the sky. Cows were not supposed to have horns and farms were
not supposed to have jackalopes, but they were here in spades.

The blade master slid down an embankment and disappeared into the
forest.

“I’m going to love seeing how you will pull this one off.”

He spun, the katana materializing in his hand.

The dark elf threw his hands up in front of him.

“Hey, take it easy.”

“You take it easy.”

“You are going to love this. The next one is a barbarian.
Maxed-out legacy status. Level 150.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Luck is one of your skills.”

“Shit.”

“Listen, it’s working,” the dark elf said through
cracked lips. “A lot of people are looking for the new blade master
who’s burst upon the scene on the PvP server. You are getting
attention, and that is exactly what we want.”

“And here I was thinking I was just helping you guys level-up
your RPG character.”

“You are making fast progress, not to worry. You have already
killed seven of their people. If you take down this barbarian, you
are going to be on their radar in a big way.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Time will tell, but your unorthodox methods are working in
your favor. Still, about this barbarian….”

“Just show me where he is.”

“Follow me.”

The blade master did. Climbing up a steep cliff, the duo crossed
a rickety rope bridge over a gushing whitewater river a hundred feet
below them. On the other side was a clearing. Another shard floated
in the air, glowing white light.

“Where are we going now?” the blade master asked.

“You’ll see,” the dark elf replied as he disappeared into
the light. The blade master followed and found himself in a windswept
tundra. He squinted as wet white flakes of snow stung his eyes.

“Icedale? I really don't need any more of this shit in
my life.”

“I thought it might be growing on you,” the dark elf said,
once again taking the lead.

“My balls still haven’t emerged from hibernation.”

“What the hell do you need those for?”

“You have no idea.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry I asked.”

After few minutes of walking, they found the player
character they were looking for. He was of the barbarian class,
nearly seven feet tall and wearing heavy bear furs tied around his
body. Swinging a massive broadsword, the barbarian split open a
griffon’s skull, painting the snow crimson.

“One of the legends of Infinity Blade,” the dark elf said.
“King Krag.”

“Great.”

“So what’s the plan, hotshot?”

The blade master scoured the terrain.

“Hmm. Wait here.”

The dark elf watched the blade master go into stealth mode and
keep a distance from the non-player character monsters. Icedale was
an expansion pack for Infinity Blade and had only been released a few
months prior for the most high-level players in the game, allowing
them to advance to level 150. His protégé wouldn't last long
tangling with the ice giants and frost spiders, not to mention King
Krag.

As the blade master advanced toward a cave opening he had
spotted, the dark elf could see King Krag cast a spell, surrounding
himself with blue light as the healing potion took effect. Then he
charged at one of the ice giants. Behind Krag, the blade master slid
down a snowy slope and disappeared into the opening of a cave.

“What in the hell is that guy doing?”

King Krag continued to swing his broadsword, blocking the ice
giant’s club with his shield and then slashing again until finally,
the giant collapsed with a thud. In the meantime, a mammoth had
stormed across the tundra and joined the fray, engaging Krag with his
tusks.

Minutes went by with Krag turning the tundra into a bloody
killing ground of dead NPCs. The blade master suddenly burst out of
the cave, running straight toward Krag, who was now fighting it out
with another ice giant. Right on his tail, a long line of ghouls,
ghosts, and orc lords chased the blade master.

“A dungeon train,” the dark elf said to himself. “Son of a
bitch.”

The blade master bumped right into Krag as he parried an attack
from the giant, then cast a potion of invisibility on himself and
disappeared. The entire dungeon train then crashed right into Krag.
He was surrounded by a dozen high-level NPCs and was soon taking a
beating. He cast another healing potion on himself, but there was no
way he was fighting his way out of this one.

“That should do it,” the blade master said, reappearing at
the dark elf’s side as the potion wore off. Krag was hacking and
slashing furiously. The ice giant was down, but Krag was getting
pounded by dark magicka from the ghouls and from the war hammers
wielded by orc lords.

“But you need to get credit for the kill. It won’t
count if he gets slain by NPCs.”

The blade master drew his crossbow and loaded it with an
explosive quarrel.

“You sneaky bastard.”

He hefted the crossbow to his shoulder and sighted in on King
Krag as he was knocked down to his knees. Staggering back up, he was
now covered in his own blood.

“Wait for it.”

The two watched as Krag's HP points diminished. The blade master
waited until the final moment, then let the quarrel fly. It struck
Krag right between the shoulder blades and exploded in a brilliant
phosphorus flash. Krag fell
face-first into the snow, dead.

“Let’s get out of here before he respawns and comes looking
for us,” the dark elf suggested.

The blade master was silent.

“Hey? You hear me?”

He just stood there, not saying a word.

“Hello? What the hell is going on?”

Chapter 13

American Arctic

“What the hell is going on?” Deckard asked as he
looked up from the computer screen.

Off in the distance, the ocean was glowing orange.

“I thought it was the Northern Lights at first,”
Squirrel said. “But that’s a different kind of light. We’re not
far off the coast of Alaska now, and those are the offshore oil
fields.”

“Holy shit.”

Engineers and scientists had demonstrated that the Alaskan Arctic
contained 40 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil and in the
neighborhood of 210 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.
America’s long-term energy plan to become less reliant on the often
unstable Middle East only helped speed up the process of drilling off
the coast.

Companies like Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, Gazprom, and
their own employer, Xyphon, had developed crash programs to build
offshore oil rigs all over the Arctic, a region reputed to hold up to
a quarter of the world’s fossil fuels. While Saudi Arabia’s oil
reserves amounted to about 260 billion barrels of oil, the Arctic may
have as much as 580 billion barrels. Like the Middle East, the Arctic
was now ripe for conflict.

“They did this because of us,” Deckard said.

“What?”

“Just like Saddam set the oil refineries ablaze to try to delay
the coalition advance during the Gulf War, the enemy blew up at least
one of the oil rigs to try to prevent our pursuit.”

“We're on their tail, then.”

“Probably closer than we suspected, and they are out of
options. Get us around the fires. We’re going into the northeast
passage.”

The radio bolted above the helm suddenly chirped.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the surviving crew of Hillhorn
platform! Mayday, mayday, may—”

“Shit,” Deckard said. “I'm going to wake up the boys and
get Otter up here. Then we’re going to find out where the hell
Global Hawk is and hunt these bastards down.”

Squirrel looked into the looming flames, his eyes filled with
uncertainty.

* * *

Jeff Dombrowski was the junior driller on the Hillhorn gas and
oil platform, or at least he had been until an hour ago. Huddled
under the plastic tent that protected them inside the octagonal
inflatable life raft, he stared across at Alan, the assistant rig
manager; Roger, the senior toolpusher; and John, their rig
maintenance supervisor.

The wind had shifted, and now the four men watched helplessly as
their life raft was pushed back toward the sea of fire. The Hillhorn
and the Fitzpatrick platforms had both exploded at the same time,
something that wasn’t supposed to be possible outside of sabotage.
As far as any of them knew, they were the only survivors.

A wave lapped over the side of the raft, cold ocean water seeping
inside. Roger was staring into space. Somewhere else. Anywhere but
here.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” John cried into the handheld
emergency radio.

A burst of static emitted from the radio.

“Roger, Hillhorn,” a scratchy voice said on the other end.
“This is the Carrickfergus. Give us a grid, over.”

Jeff nearly jumped out of the raft as he grabbed the GPS.

“It’s not working,” he said as he played with the settings.

“Satellites have been acting weird for a couple of days,”
John said. “We have a hell of a big Roman candle out there to act
as a beacon, though. I’ll try to guide them in.”

Jeff unzipped and tossed open the plastic covering. The sea
slapped against the side of the raft, spilling more water inside that
sloshed around and gathered around their feet.

John poked his head outside.

“Carrickfergus,” he said into the radio. “GPS is a no-go.
What is your current heading?”

* * *

The exhausted survivors of the Hillhorn blast were pulled aboard
the Carrickfergus nearly an hour later. Their beards were soaked and
frozen, their eyebrows drooped. Each of them walked around like a
zombie, not even aware of the strange ethnicities of the crew members
who pulled them onto the ship.

“Hey,” a tall American with a chiseled jaw said. Jeff looked
up at him.

“I’m Pat. The boss wants us to get you in some warm clothes,
and then he wants to see you four on the bridge.”

“Yeah, OK.”

He looked up above the ship. Fluttering in the wind and glowing
orange as the oil rigs burned in front of them waved the Jolly Roger.
Looking back down, he then noticed the pistol and spare magazines Pat
had strapped to his belt under his open parka.