Free Multiplayer by John C. Brewer Page B

he’d stood here, his father told him how the defenders would pour boiling oil on would-be invaders from the guard towers on either side of the gate. And how the attackers would just back up and wait for the defenders to starve to death or die of thirst. But now, only a half-dozen unarmored characters with small arms stood guard.
    “I think we can take ‘em,” said Darxhan. “What do you say?”
    “This is really weird,” answered Izaak. “A limo? A bunch of unarmored cops? Does any of this make sense to you?”
    “No, but neither does bringing me here and not letting me kill anyone.”
    “Mercs,” Hector laughed. “You’re all the same.”
    Staccato gunfire erupted from inside the castle at that moment, followed by explosions. Smoke billowed over the wall. Darxhan surged forward but Izaak stopped him, watching intently. An instant later, a convoy of vehicles roared up the road. Figures leapt out and fought with the guards as more poured out from inside the castle.
    “I’m going to go see what’s going on inside,” Izaak said, ignoring his friend’s annoyance. “There’s a tower on the west side at the top of a cliff. It’s climbable there.” Izaak paused for a moment, remembering the steep bluffs. “I don’t think a merc could make the climb.”
    “I guess I’ll just wait here, then. Clean my guns,” Darxhan grumbled.
    “That’s why you’re always ready. And if I’m not back in ten minutes,” Hector stammered, “you get in there and save my butt.”
    Darxhan laughed. “Good luck with that one.” Izaak jogged off.
    The path at the base of the cliff was exactly as Izaak remembered, too. Above him, on his right hand, the cliff rose to dizzying heights. To his left, waves crashed against boulders hundreds of feet below. The beach stretched out in the distance with the town sprinkled along the shoreline.
    The sun was sinking into the Mediterranean and Izaak stopped, mesmerized, as the water turned sparkling orange. He and his father had walked this same path together, talking and throwing rocks over the edge, down into the sea.
    He kicked a loose stone over the side and watched it plummet toward the sea. Looking down gave him a surprising, peculiar tingling in his stomach. In some ways, Omega Wars was all too real. If only real life were just a simulation. He just needed to figure out how to respawn in the real world. Or go back to the last save-point. But not now. He turned to the cliff and began his ascent.
    Vanguards and smugglers were optimized for climbing. One of the reason’s Hector played vanguards. Mercs were huge, powerful, and armored, which made them formidable in melee, but limited their mobility. Going from one handhold to the next, listening to the gunfire coming from above, Hector inched Izaak upward as the ground below him shrank. The realism was staggering, making Hector’s palms sweat. More than once he let go of his controller and fanned his hands in the air.
    It wan’t long before Izaak crawled over the edge of a wide platform made of large, tan flagstones. His memory overlaid the virtual experience and gave him a disturbing sense of déjà vu. He had actually been in this very spot. But there were differences. There had been birds the last time and, more importantly, there had not been two dead vanguards lying on the ground in front of him. The shooting had ceased a moment ago and it was now quiet, so he crept across the tower and peered over the other side down into the courtyard.
    This was as he remembered, too. The ruins of a tiny Byzantine Church, the ruins of a slightly-larger mosque, walls, guard towers, and handicap access ramps. It was the same place he’d battled Mal-X the day before; the same place he’d visited with his family, now littered with bodies. In the center, the limousine was burning. The gates were open and people – or rather characters, he realized, were all headed toward the exit. It was as if the gamers who’d been fighting had simply stopped