Into the Real by Lydia Sherrer

Author:Lydia Sherrer [Sherrer, Lydia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781982126001
Amazon: 1982126000
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2022-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Cedar Memorial cemetery might have been a macabre meeting place to some but in Lynn’s opinion, it was perfect. She’d seen a couple other TD Hunter players with their electric blue batons hunting the green spaces in front of the mall complex. But none of them seemed inclined to venture farther afield. The only people around to witness what might be the biggest mistake of her life were dead and buried. Plus, since Edgar and she had hunted there before, she knew where all the TDM hot spots were. That would come in handy later if…well, if things didn’t turn into a complete “Charlie Foxtrot,” as some of the former military Tier Ones in WarMonger liked to say.

Despite having made her decision on what to do, she’d still barely slept last night. She’d risen before the sun, run through her daily exercises and training simulations, then was out the door for a day of hunting before it was even fully light. She’d left a message for her mom that she was meeting up with the guys to play TD Hunter, so her mom wouldn’t worry. Whether or not the guys would actually stick around was a completely different matter.

Ronnie, Dan and Mack, being teenage and male, would likely not even be awake until noon to see the ping she’d sent them. Lynn had plenty of time to kill before they—hopefully—arrived. Edgar, of course, had his landscaping job, which took up most of his mornings when things were still cool.

Lynn spent her spare time in the cemetery fighting the highest class TDMs she could detect, leaving the imps and ghosts and grinder worms for later. When she hit Level 5, she breathed a deep sigh of relief to hear Hugo’s congratulations on her high scores and to see the familiar Skadi’s Glory augment appear in her inventory.

So far, so good.

She was halfway to Level 6 when noon rolled around and she took a break to order food via delivery drone. She found a shaded spot beneath an elm tree to sit and eat. It was near the center of the cemetery where she’d told the guys to meet her. She barely tasted the food she ate as her eyes kept a sharp lookout. By one o’clock, the agreed upon meeting time, she was getting twitchy. She went back into combat mode in the hopes that some monsters would come along and distract her as she paced.

The guys were late. Maybe they weren’t even coming. A part of her dreaded the possibility; another part hoped for it.

She was so busy worrying that she almost didn’t hear the sibilant hiss in her earbud. By the time it registered and Hugo was sounding his proximity alarm, she was already spinning, her newly unlocked Plasma Blade slashing at chest level to hit the Ghast sneaking up on her. Even as she struck, she was shifting her weight, redirecting her momentum from the spin to leap backward and avoid the Ghast’s retaliatory strike. But she didn’t keep backing up.

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