Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium (28 page)

“
We
have to cut them off at the source!”

The
cultists push toward the stairwell, entering they find several
animatrons coming down to them. They mow down these robots and head
up.

“
Let's
spawn camp these bastards.”

Peter
wakes up in a new animatron. The animatronic floor is in total chaos
as cult members mow down every animatron they find.

With
the angels and demons standing still, unpiloted, the remaining
survivors, some of them hacked in half, some flattened into a pile of
skin, all make their way slowly to the televators, ready for revenge.

Lazarus
holds a gun on Percival/Nellie's brain suspended in the vat.

“
Do
it or I'll kill her,” Lazarus says.

“
You
mean him,” Renee says defiantly.

“
Bullets
don't care about semantics.”

Renee
stares at him. “You won't do it,” Renee says
dismissively, “You can't kill, you'll go to hell.”

“
Turn
it off!” Lazarus screams.

“
No!”
Renee yells. Some animatrons make their way into the Comatorium, only
to be struck down by gunfire from the retreating cultists. There's
only three ways to get in: a stairwell at each end, and the control
room door and windows. Each way will be met with a hail of bullets.
It's simply a matter of attrition. Animatrons keep attacking, first
in a trickle that's easily shot down, but they quickly learn and hold
back, assembling a large group before attacking all at once, hoping
to overwhelm the cultists.

Lazarus
puts the gun up to Renee's face, “Turn it off or I'll kill your
mother, your father, I'll eventually find someone you care about. No
human being I know would sit there and let me kill their father,”
Lazarus says. He taps the gun against the glass of Percival's vat.
“Turn it off,” Lazarus says calmly. A wave of animatrons
jumps through the Solipsis Control Room windows. Maimed robots keep
coming, dragging themselves along relentlessly.

“
You
can either be a compassionate human being and save his life. Or you
can be a lifeless robot and tell me again how I can't change your
mind,” Lazarus says. She doesn't want to listen to his
bullshit. “Five, ” Lazarus counts down.

It's
one thing to know that the good of the many outweighs the good of the
few. It's another thing when a gun is put to your father's head. Is
letting him die moral? What would a human being do?

“
Three,
two, one-”

“
Wait,”
Renee says at the last second. Lazarus kicks the touch screen toward
her.

“
Turn
it off.” Renee starts entering the password, but doesn't finish
it. “Do it!” Her finger hovers over the final character.
This wave of animatrons is finally dispatched, every last one. It's
quiet in the Comatorium again, save for the Xenon-deepened voices of
the cultists as they quickly try to reload. If Renee can hold out,
their victory is inevitable.

“
Three,
two,” Lazarus counts quickly. He's not going to let her keep
stalling. He stares her down. Her finger remains hovering over the
pad. She looks up at Lazarus.

“
One,”
he fires. The bullet rips through the glass of the vat, cuts a path
through cerebro-spinal fluid, and strikes the edge of Percival's
brain, just scratching the surface. The vat empties its fluid in a
wave washing over Renee. Nellie's brain hangs in the broken vat,
exposed to air. Her brain is slowly dying.

“
But...you'll
go to hell,” Renee says, stunned.

“
I
didn't kill anyone, I'm merely exposing what's left of her to the
elements. She did this to herself. God wants her dead,” Lazarus
replies. He stands over Renee. “Put in the password.” He
presses the gun to her metallic chest, “It seems that you don't
have a soul, it won't be murder if I pull this trigger.”

Behind
the Solipsis Control Room, Medved and Nellie's animatrons wait with
other animatrons to attack. A few of them have guns they've taken
from dead guards.

“
We
can overwhelm them here,” Nellie says, “but we all have
to go at the same time, keep running, take cover. Once the first few
are through, you two will sneak into the control room and use your
guns to shoot those bastards. If they fall, I want you two in reserve
to pick up their guns and keep shooting. Make sure you watch your
background.”

Nellie
is a natural leader. More animatrons of freed minds join up, readying
for the attack. Peter sits against the wall in this dark corridor and
gets mentally ready to kill again. With plans made, waiting just mere
moments to go, Nellie stand in front of Peter.

“
You
ready?” Nellie asks.

“
Those
bastards deserve everything they got coming,” Peter says.
Nellie nods, then stumbles, putting her hand against the wall. She
falls down almost like she had a stroke. She clutches her head, in
pain.

Medved
rushes to her, but immediately knows the severity of the situation.
Nellie looks up at Peter and they share a moment of recognition. She
clutches her head in agony.

“
A
Xenon Shock,” Peter says quietly. He lets out a bear-like roar,
the speaker in his throat is overloaded and cracks. He charges for
the window, the others follow.

Lazarus
jams the gun into Renee's chest. “This is your last warning. I
will end you if you don't put that password in.”

“
Go
ahead and do it. I'm the only one that knows the password. Killing me
will doom you,” Renee says defiantly.

“
God
dammit!” Lazarus screams. He aims at Seth. “What do you
think about this? I'll kill him!”

“
You
won't kill your own son,” Renee says matter-of-factly.

“
You
clearly don't know men of God,” Lazarus says coldly, “If
God commands me to kill him, then it's the right thing to do.”

“
Are
you hearing god command you to do things right now? You're a crazy
person. You're delusional!”

“
I'm
going to shoot him in the head in ten seconds if you don't enter that
password. This is on you, ten, nine.”

“
You
idiot, why would I let you kill my father and change my mind when you
threaten some boy I barely know,” Renee says. “He means
more to you than he does to me.”

Medved's
charge begins not far away. The cultists fire incessantly at the wave
of animatrons. The animatrons start firing back for the first time.
The
animatrons are inside. The bomb ticks down, hidden beneath a rubber
panel not far away.

“
Do
it or I blow his fucking brains out,” Lazarus says, jamming the
pistol to the side of Seth's head.

“
You
won't do it,” Renee says coldly. Renee looks into Seth's scared
eyes. Seth isn't so sure that he won't. The retreating cultists get
closer and closer as the attacking animatrons overwhelm them.

“
Remember
what happened the last time I counted down,” Lazarus says,
staring at Renee. “Three,” he says, kicking the control
panel to Renee with the password prompt.
Would
he really go through with it?

“
Two.”

Seth
starts to tear up, his glassy eyes lock with Renee's. He
hyperventilates. He thinks he is about to die.

“
One.”

“
Wait,”
Renee says.

“
Then
put it in!” Lazarus shouts, walking over to Renee. He nudges
the control panel closer to her nearly lifeless hand. Hydraulic fluid
drips from her shoulder. He aims back at Seth, knowing she's
stalling. “Put it in.”

Renee
takes her hand away from the control pad, she stares defiantly at
Lazarus. She won't do it. Lazarus raises the gun, taking careful aim
towards Seth, handcuffed to the central node. Lazarus is ready to
shoot. He waits for Renee to falter. She doesn't. Seth's terrified
eyes look to Renee for help, but she won't offer any. She's calling
the bluff. It's just up to Lazarus now.

An
animatron breaks through the line of retreating cult members,
body-checking a guard, sending him flying, his gun clatters to the
ground.

The
animatron races toward Renee.

“
Renee!”
Patrick shouts.

The spherical Earth hangs
against a pitch black sky. The vibrant planet silently rotates. The
sun, completely white, not a hint of yellow, shines extra brightly.
An astronaut raises a metallic visor, revealing a young Renee. She
wears a red space-suit that has many small jets incorporated into it.
She holds something that looks like a metal hockey stick. “Ready?”
a voice crackles over her headset. She stares at the beautiful planet
rotating beneath her.

“
Ready.”
Small jets fire, rotating and then thrusting her to an assembly area.
There is a series of ethereal lights making up something that looks
like a giant hockey arena floating in space. The lines, blue and red,
create something like a tunnel, with goals clearly marked at either
end. The court, if you can call it that, is about a hundred meters
long, and forty meters in diameter. The goals at each end are much
smaller, about the size of a backboard of a basketball goal. The
boundary marked by the lights is a kind of force-field.

Renee floats towards the center
space. Another astronaut floats, waiting for her. A striped
referee-astronaut approaches, holding a ball of purple plasma.

“
This
is the championship match. First to reach five or more points while
holding a two-point lead will be the victor. Shake hands.”

The astronaut clad in blue keeps
his visor closed. They extend their gloved hands and shake, they each
fire tiny jets of air that shoot them apart, then stop, hovering at
opposite edges of the face-off circle. The referee holds the plasma
ball out, indicating ready. They hold their metallic sticks at the
ready. The occasional jet fires a small burst to keep them still.

The referee pushes the plasma
ball away from him and it floats across the face-off circle toward a
small ghostly red sphere in the center. The instant the purple plasma
hits that orb, both sticks meet, slamming into the ball, sending it
careening upward.

They thrust upward at breakneck
speed. Blue takes a slight lead but Renee, in red, hooks her stick
around his foot, yanking him down and sending her up. For every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The ball bounces off
the force-field barrier faster than it hit the wall, picking up
speed. The two combatants fight for positioning as the ball comes
flying quickly back at them. They elbow and push each other, bursts
of nitrogen gas keep them planted against each other. Renee wins the
battle for positioning, smacking the ball toward his goal. The two of
them immediately rocket off in that direction. Her one-time shot put
the ball into his zone, but not quite on goal. The plasma ball heads
for a rounded corner. They each head for a spot where they think the
ball will rebound. Renee plants her shoulder against him, fighting
for position. Then Renee disappears. She surreptitiously maneuvers
around him in a zero-gravity pirouette. From her advantageous new
position, she slaps the rebound on goal. From this short distance, a
quick shot is still very difficult to do accurately. The plasma ball
heads for the goal, there's nothing they can do for this quick
moment. The ball hits one side of the goal and ricochets off, but
it's a glancing blow and it goes in. Laser beams go off, celebrating
the goal.

They head back to center-space,
waiting for the ref to restart play. Their tiny thrust jets fire to
hold them in place. These jets are all controlled telepathically in
six axes of motion. A certain brainwave can push you forward or
backward, left or right, up or down. Another set of brainwaves
doesn't thrust, but rather rotates you: pitch, roll, yaw. All of
these controls and their intensities are controlled by thought. You
can think of a brain as holding a remote control with hundreds of
joysticks and switches, one lever for each muscle. Renee can just as
easily thrust or yaw as she can snap her fingers. The brain just has
to learn to control this new joystick. And young Renee is one of the
best at this new game: First Person Pong. The game was released only
a month ago, but became a huge hit. This match is the final in a
large tournament of Solipsis dwellers. Though Solipsis began out of
necessity, saving lives, it became a mecca for game development. Many
competitive gamers reside here, but the final match doesn't pit any
of those pros against each other, but instead, it's two kids,
natives. This final match was well attended, though the crowd
watching isn't visible.