When I leave my room after a long restless night, my mouth is so dry it feels like a desert has spawned on my tongue. I actually stick my tongue out so the wind stirred up my Stratoskimmers' engines to cool it down. 

Wait a minute. There was a water tap when Hachiyo brought me and Yoona to meet Tokoshima, right?

I take the elevator shaft to the ground floor and step into the city of tents. Barely any time has passed since I joined, but there’s already five to six people to a tent now compared to the average number of four faces I caught peering out of their tents as Suki strolled by.

I’m not stupid. CyberWorld may have given rise to tons of jobs, but it won’t do much for places affected by the War without a stable network connection.

A hyperrealistic virtual world loses its charm when it begins to mirror the real one.

When I catch a glimpse of her distinctive dark hair, I realise Yoona is here too. She looks like she’s guiding a fellow player on the various attachments that make up his rifle. He takes apart his weapon and puts it back together, receptive to Yoona’s advice.

“Kinergy becomes more reactive when you shake it, right? Why don’t we just do that to make the weapon more powerful?” He asks.

“Oh. No, you don’t do that. It’ll explode in your face in a few seconds..” She says.

There’s several players huddled around mini folding stoves for warmth. They lean with their arms wrapped around their guns, relying solely on the weapon’s stock to avoid sagging to the dirt ground. As my legs pass the barrel of a player’s rifle raised to the top of the mountain, a cooling warmth radiates across my thigh, giving me a taste of the bloodshed that stretches beyond the Town Square.

I almost slip when I nearly step into a crater in the ground spanning around 2 metres long and half a metre deep. A shovel’s head plunges into the ground above the hole and drops a pile of dirt into the crevice. When I look up, I recognise the shovel’s owner. 

It’s Brianna Welsh, the girl with the yellow poncho. Her jacket has been sullied until it looks like manure churned into batter with urine and mouldy cheese. More dirt falls from the shovel’s head and lands onto a hand sticking out of the dirt, its fingers clenched with the finality of rigor mortis.

Around its wrist is a familiar-looking bracelet with spikes.

Brianna bends over and unclips the spike-lined bracelet, dropping it into her pocket. Next, she drives the shovel into the dirt like a stake meeting a vampire’s heart. She drops to his knees and hunches forward, watering the grave with her tears. Then, she slumps over on her side while tears stream along her cheeks sideways. I scan the tents for anyone taking notice of her. Some players are looking up from their stoves, but no one’s coming to help her. There’s no telling what they might have lost too.

Brianna finishes smoothening the barren piece of land, her face sinks deeper into the ground as her fingers claw into the dirt, desperate for a final parting touch.

“We can’t win,” She says to herself. “They’ve been stockpiling resources for years. They could go at this for decades for all we know.” She hoists himself up and wipes the snot from her nose, smearing her cheek with sickly green mucus and grime. 

“You hear that? They’ve taken our water, our weapons. My boyfriend! ” She yells so everyone around us can hear. “What was Suki Hachiyo talking about an attack? We’re not soldiers.”

Without even bringing up her Wristool, Brianna pulls out a pistol that appears in the arm lying limply at her side. Now, his outburst is drawing warranted attention from the players around the stoves including Yoona, who cuts her conversation short to check on the commotion. Realising what the guy might do next, she tip-toes over to Brianna from behind and catches sight of me being frozen into place, but she doesn’t break eye contact. The look on her face is akin to watching a cat get mutilated and tossed into a hellish inferno, its cries of anguish only muffled by the dancing flames.

Use it, She mouths. I stare back with the narrowed eyes of a cat ready to pounce on its prey, feeling that numbing sensation pulsing in king palms.

“Screw this game,” Brianna  mutters. “I’m leaving on my own terms.”

As soon as Brianna’s arm twitches, Yoona leaps forward and nabs her wrist, but his hand is adamant on the path to her head. 

“NOW!” Yoona yells.

I dash towards Brianna and raise my hand above my head. Then, I activate Chronocease, entering that trance-like state where the period between thinking and acting becomes so short that they practically become synonymous. Unlike my duel with Hachiyo on Natsukashii, I only have to make a single mental command.

Forward.

It’s like stepping onto ice without skates. The soles beneath my feet feel practically frictionless when my fingers meet the pistol and wrap around its side, tilting it away from the guy’s temple. 

At that moment, it occurs to me that I haven't accounted for what happens after I take the pistol. 

The force of the Skill is so overwhelming that Brianna is knocked to the ground as the weapon discharges a bolt into a stove of an unsuspecting player. When it explodes, flames burst to the sky and light his food on his fire, turning the meat on his skewer into a charcoal paste. While he blows on the stick to put out the blaze, I ram into Yoona with the vigour of a bull charging at a red flag, knocking us several feet from Brianna until we rebound against the side of a tent and tumble to the ground.

We lie there while Yoona is struggling to catch her breath. I’m not. I can feel the adrenaline catching up to my actions as my heart pumps hard, eagerly anticipating my next move.

“You could tell Tokoshima and Hachiyo about this,” I say. “It might warrant a promotion.”

Yoona gets up and brushes dust from her clothes. This time, she doesn’t help me up.

“I didn’t do it for them,” Yoona says coldly, picking up the gun that has fallen from my hand. 

She approaches Brianna and pulls her up from the ground. Then, she passes the pistol to her, but her fingers stay locked on its slide.

“If I give this back to you,” Yoona says. “Do you promise to stick it to those Apostle assholes?”

Brianna glances around the crowd that’s gathered from the ensuing commotion. 

“Yes,” she murmurs.

Yoona nods. “Good.” She walks away from the crowd without bothering to look back.

…

As per Hachiyo’s instructions, I’m gathered with the rest of the crowd under the Natsukashii and the other Skimmers. Right now, the ground is so packed that members have taken down their tents and laid them flat on the floor.

Under my feet rests a hard rectangular lump under a thick canvas sheet coupled with metal poles for scaffolding. I think it’s a mess tin, not unlike the one Dad used to teach me cooking in the woods. You’d be better off flying over the crowd to get to that miserable tap rather than squeezing through. If you even practise Takut, that is.

Thirsty. So, very thirsty.

When I start wondering if dying in that room in Yunon would have been mercy, light flickers from the Natsukashii’s underbelly, materializing until it forms a digitalised projection of Hachiyo. Some gasps come around, but reactions are nowhere as overblown as they were on Resonance Day.

“Good evening,” Hachiyo says, her voice reverbing through the base. “As directed, Operation Thirstquencher begins tonight. We will leave Headquarters tonight and commerce our first assault on the Apostles.”

I can feel shoulders from all around shifting with unease, but Hachiyo continues. I doubt she can see everyone’s reactions from up there, anyway.

“Over the last month, our Modders have picked up on strange signals coming from all of CyberWorld’s regions. We haven’t found an exact match, the closest utility it bears a resemblance to is the Straightdead grenade, which, as some older players may know, contained a bug that allowed it to wipe data from the simulation.”

Weak laughter comes from behind. “I was seeing black patches for days.”  a player says.

“Although we removed Straightdead from the weapon pool, we have reason to believe the Apostles got hold of the game file and exploited this bug by copying the data over into a new weapon. This is how they plan to take down the simulation–from the inside. However, we have tracked the nearest signal to a forest on Lekisha. Next to it is a giant lake, one that will provide us with the water supply we need.”

The crowd murmurs amongst themselves at this revelation Hachiyo has given us.

“Make no mistake–this battle may not succeed. But let it be known to our enemies that we did not cower and die in defeat. If Takut beckons us to fail, let us do so as one Resistance.”

The hologram shifts as Tokoshima steps into view and takes her place. She winks at the camera and puts up a peace sign inches from her face.

“Give ‘em hell, guys!”

It’s a cringe-worthy gesture, but it’s successful at igniting the spark of hope we all need. A war cry booms through Headquarters, and I’m nearly shoved to the left as players on my right jump for joy. The crowd begins to disperse, finally letting me receive a semblance of air as a female voice comes onto the base’s loudspeakers.

“Operation Thirstquencher will commence at 20:00 hours. All personnel, please report to the Armory for weapon distribution. Melees, proceed to Silverback 07. Trajectiles, proceed to Silverback 08 for boarding—player Monochrome is required to join them. For frontliners including Commander Han-woo and the C.R.D, please report to the Silverback 09…”

…

“Hey.” I say.

On Stratoskimmer 03, aka the Katsuragi, I step under the roof of a canopy spanning as long as my school’s courtyard. Yoona’s seated on a equipment box of equipment several feet from where the main action is taking place with her arms crossed. In between rows of weapons presented on shelves not unlike Yoona’s weapons store, a series of questions are directed towards players by the Modders behind counters, who then present a different firearm to them based on their answers. Most players are already decked out in full body armour, albeit more black than navy like the C.R.D’s. The level of enthusiasm is mixed—some players rush out of the place like their life depends on it, others simply trudge out, reluctant to undergo the mission.

“I’m not in the mood to talk, so I’ll keep it brief,” Yoona says. “Since you haven’t learned to wield a Kineblade yet, you’re gonna go with the Trajectiles. That means we’ll be supporting the C.R.D with ranged attacks.”

My blood runs cold.

“No, behind them. The C.R.D will take most of the heat, but you’ll be close enough in case we need Chronocease. She leans forward. “Let’s hope you pull through.”

My eyes narrow. “Let’s hope you do too.”

“Hmm.” Yoona hoists herself off the box with her arms. 

“See you on the ship.”