Alpha Agent: A Post Apocalyptic LitRPG

Li

Once again, Li found himself in circumstances where he was separated from the team. This suited him just fine. As he shut the door behind him, Li used his x-ray eyes one last time. And he needed to keep this brief. He had been warned that any prolonged use of this vision mod would result in permanent blindness.

The entire world around him transitioned into a mess of blacks with white outlines and occasional heat signatures sporadically positioned around the rooftop. The roof of the hotel was a spacious open area with an elevated landing pad for aircraft raised three meters above the ground of the roof. Li dropped down to his stomach and continued surveying his environment. He found two giant anti-aircraft cannons at opposing corners of the roof. Judging from the idle rotations from both, they were sentries powered by a rudimentary AI. Li would have to disable these two guns along with eliminating all the Kodak guards in the area, which he counted four.

Li remained still where he was as he watched two Kodak agents run to one side of the roof to join the two others. All four of them stood looking over the edge of the roof, clearly allowing themselves to be distracted by something. The level of sloppiness on the job could only come from Kodak agents.

Along various parts of the roof, Li noticed large umbrella stands. He watched as such structures prevented any of the dead razor hail shards from penetrating. Li quietly made his way under one such umbrella and watched as water and razor hail splashed and shattered against the tough nano glass. He looked upon the landing platform and didn’t see any such structures placed that would protect them.

If they were to hold out on this roof and attack any incoming Kodak forces, they needed the high ground the landing platform provided. But without the overhead protection from razor hail, the position would be useless.

Li inspected one of the legs of the umbrella protecting him. To his surprise, he found that merely clicking a button on the leg detached it from the ground it stood on, releasing it. Assuming he could do this with all the umbrella’s poles, he could at least take one or two umbrellas and place them on the landing pad, providing him and his team cover while also occupying the high ground.

After he dealt with these immediate Kodak threat, he needed to disconnect this umbrella from its position and move it over to the landing pad. Only then could that have a reliable hold out spot while they awaited their transport.

Li’s HUD popped up with an incoming call from Dan.

“Good news buddy,” an said with an upbeat tone. “Michael says comms are no longer jammed. He’s dealt with Kodak’s signal jammers on the ground.”

“Some good news at last,” Li said. “But I’m sure you didn’t call me just to tell me that. How’s the barricade coming along?”

“Dragging furniture is boring. Granted, with my enhanced strength it isn’t as tiring, but moving shit around in the confines of these spaces isn’t what I call fun,” Dan said. “There’s more. Michael says he had to activate his last resort to make sure Kodak forces would be preoccupied during our escape.”

“Which is?”

“Somehow, Michael has lured a small group of agents from the Church of Nano-Evolution over to the hotel and now, Kodak and the Church are battleing it out on the streets. Now Kodak’s attention and forces are split between trying to stop us and repelling the surprise invasion.”

Li looked up at the four Kodak idiots watching over the edge of the roof. They were watching the battle unfold outside the hotel. But something didn’t add up. It seemed all too convenient for an enemy shard to suddenly invade and give he and his team a break. He deactivated his x-ray vision.

“I have full trust in our leader, but assuming we get out of this alive, I’d like to question Michael on how he managed that,” Li said bluntly. “Michael claims he lured those Church agents over here and somehow now those fanatics and Kodak are battling?”

“What’s your point? I mean, they might both be enemies, but now they’re distracted. That’s good for us, right?”

“It is, but it’s suspicious. I know just as much about Michael as you do, which isn’t a lot. I would love to ask him how he managed that sort of miracle. How do you just lure an enemy shard over to distract another enemy shard? It couldn’t have been that easy.”

“I guess we’ll have to survive up here so you can ask him,” Dan said. “What’s the roof looking like?”

Li smiled beneath his mask, still looking at the four Kodak agents staring down over the edge. “Manageable. I’ll take care of the fools I have with me. Li out.”

While it was true Li could handle the situation up here, he preferred not having his concentration divided, thus abruptly ending the call. He slowly got himself off the wet ground and slowly walked beneath the landing pad towards the Kopdak agents. With all the heavy rain and hail hammering the area combined with these agents being distracted, there was no chance for Li to be spotted. Li grabbed an impact grenade from his coat and tossed it toward the agent furthest away from him.

The grenade hit the agent in the back and exploded, sending the agent flying off the edge and down falling to his death. The blast staggered another agent anbd he fell backward. Li ran up to the nearest Kodak agent and wrapped his arm around the agent’s neck. He knew this agent happened to be a tier zero, even without pulling up stats. Any Kodak agent who didn’t have razor blade os spikes on their armor were new recruits.

Li had the Kodak agent in a headlock while whipping out his silenced pistol and blasting another agent in the back of the head. He brought his attention back on the agent he had in a head lock and shot out the agent’s ankle.

The Kodak agent fell to the ground on his hands and knees and Li kicked him over onto his back and slammed his boot down on the enemy’s torso. Li watched as one of the last renaming Kodak agents who was staggered by the impact grenade tried standing back up. The agent locked gazes with Li and tried to raise his rifle at him. Li had a simple response to the agent.

He raised and aimed his silenced pistol and shot a round into the agent’s forehead, knocking the agent back to the ground, permanently. Li looked down at the inexperienced agent pinned beneath his boot and saw he was still squirming trying and failing to get free. He aimed his pistol and silenced him for good with one last trigger pull.

As for the two anti-air sentries, Li had something in mind for them. Li reached into his coat and found his last two impact grenades. Because of the slow and predictable rotation of these big guns, this was the easiest in an already easy process of clearing the roof of enemy activity.

The barrels of the giant gun slowly swivelled in Li’s direction and he simply tossed an impact grenade right towards the barrels. Li watched as the explosion blew apart the gun barrels and rendered the entire sentry useless. It’s targeting system might still work and lock onto an enemy aircraft, but with blown apart barrels, it wouldn’t be shooting at anything.

Li ran over to the second sentry at the opposite corner and did the same, rendering Kodak’s paltry anti-air defense systems inoperable.

“That should do it,” he said.

***

Dan

Dan dragged the last couch he could find over to the main hallway. From Angie’s instructions, he placed the couch directly next to an explosive charge that would be triggered once it detected movement.

“Okay, we’ve spent enough time in this hall,” Dan said. “Let’s get to the roof.”

“Right,” Angie said behind him.

The two turned and ran back to the staircase leading up to the roof entrance. Dan had also dragged whatever he could find to clog up the passage. Tables, chairs, pouring lotion and shampoo on the steps, anything he could think of. Dan grabbed the handle of the container and dragged the entire thing with him. He could only shove so much crap into the staircase before presenting room for the container to fit through.

Angie almost fell victim to the slippery stairs when Dan caught her in his arms.

“It’s okay, I got you,” Dan said. Somehow, even with all the running and sweating on Angie’s part, her hair still had a fruity aroma.

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Huh?”

“You barricaded the steps too well with all of this crap in the way. How are we supposed to get up?”

In the brief moment of calm and quiet, Dan gave a candid reply. “I guess you’ll have to hold my hand the whole way up.”

Angie sighed. “I guess it could be worse. Come on, let me help you with the container.”

It didn’t exactly go that way. Dan took point and navigated his way through his own obstacles on the stairs.

Remaining true to his word, he helped Angie up the whole way through the mess of the stairway while also somehow squeezing the container through.

Dan and Angie were still only halfway through the staircase while fidgeting around with the container. The container was somehow able to fit through a few gaps along the way, but Dan more than often had to use brute strength to pull the container through while Angie helped push from the other side.

“Well, at least I know who to call when I need someone to help me move,” Angie said.

“That’s if we get out of here alive first,” Dan replied. “But I’m open to that.”

As the two inched their way through the cramped staircase with the container, Dan’s ears picked loud bangs behind him.

“Well, looks like someone set off the traps I set back there,” Angie said with a gleeful smile.

While Dan was unsettled at how much pleasure she took in blowing people up, he brushed those feelings aside. He hoped that explosion slowed down their pursuers. He lifted his leg and crossed over the couch he had planted on the stairs, then lifted his other leg.

“We got one last obstacle in our way,” Dan said.

“Right,” Angie said.

The sound of screeching metal filled the staircase and Dan looked down at what the hell made that noise. Dan saw small pockets of light beam in through the door they just came in. His heartrate spiked.

“We need to hurry up,” Dan said. “I’ll pull this container up further and I’ll pull you through too Angie.”

Dan pulled with all of his strength and managed to get the container over the couch and rested the bulky payload onto the steps. He gritted his teeth at not resorting to his berserk mode for the strength boost, but he knew he needed to save that for a much more urgent scenario. He could encounter more high tier Kodak agents that needed to be dealt with.

Dan glanced down at the staircase and saw blades cutting through the obstacles he had placed to dam up the passage. Shotgun blasts blew apart the small pieces of furniture and chunks flew in various directions. Their pursuers were gaining on them.

He grabbed Angie’s hand next and pulled her over the couch. Dan’s desperation caused him to pull Angie too hard and she ended up face-planting into the container. Her arm inadvertently smashed into his face and he fell backwards, hitting the stairs.

Dan tried to get himself back on his feet when he came face to face with a shotgun barrel.

“Got you now, fuckhead!” the Kodak agent said. His partner also came up the staircase and aimed his own shotgun down at Angie.

“I bet you’re the bitch who’s been blowing shit up,” the other Kodak agent said. “I got a few dead buddies that would love a word with you.” The agent pulled back the handguard of his weapon to load a new shell.

To Angie’s credit, she didn’t whimper or beg for her life. She stared down the barrel of the shotgun with a straight face.

The agent who pointed his shotgun at Dan jerked his head to his partner and briefly took his eyes off him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

The agent took his eyes off Angie and looked at his comrade with a raised eyebrow.

“Idiot! If you had pulled the trigger, that slug would have ripped through that bitch’s body and damaged the container.”

“Even so, better it be destroyed than for these Alpha agents to whisk it away and make us look stupid,” the other agent spat.

You already look stupid, Dan thought.

During the time these two bickered, Dan had his silenced pistol in his hand and fired a shot straight into the chin of the agent in front of him, then followed up with firing another round into his comrade’s face, killing both of them.

Angie exhaled in relief, then she shoved her elbow into Dan’s side. “You couldn’t have done that earlier?”

“I needed them to be distracted,” Dan said. “They were both on top of us.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Angie waved.

She placed one last set of charges on the ceiling above them.

“Oh shit, I just realized something,” she said, both almost making it to the roof entrance.

“Yeah?”

“If we’ve set all of thes barricades and explosive traps, how’s Michael supposed to get to us?”

“Huh, good point,” Dan said. “I would assume that Michael himself could bulldoze his way through this crap without problems. But it could still be an issue for him. I’ll let him know.”

Dan opened a channel to Michael.

“It’s Dan. If you’re taking the stairs all the way up, you might encounter barricades and explosive traps on the second to last floor before you reach the roof.”

“Noted Dan,” Michael said calmly. “Those explosive traps might get triggered my additional Kodak forces trying to get to the roof to stop you. If not, my energy shields should hold up against such explosive yields.”

“Alright sir. We’ll see you up top.”

The call ended and Dan opened the door to the raging storm on the roof. As Dan stepped out with the container behind him, his face and hair took the full brunt of the shower of rain and a piece of hail hitting him in the forehead.

“Well, at least the air is still clean,” Dan said.

“What?” Angie said behind him.

“Where I come from, it rains a lot and the air is still filled with smog and other crap. So shit air quality combined with dampness from the rain. Not a good combo, trust me,” he said.

Dan and Angie walked towards the elevated landing pad and spotted Li on top of the pad. Li crouched down and pressed something. The barriers first appeared flat on the landing pad and folded themselves upward, providing cover. Now, the landing pad had metal barriers at chest height along the edge.

“The hell? How did you do that?” Angie said pointing at the cover Li had created for himself up on the landing pad. Li had also set up an umbrella to protect a part of the landing pad from getting bombarded by razor hail.

“Once again, I make observations while you think about blowing shit up,” Li said.

Angie narrowed her gaze at the agent, then looked back at Dan. “Why is he always an ass to me? Why can’t Li be a gentleman like you?”

Dan just stared at her. “By your definition, if I’m a gentleman, then I must also be equal to Jane Sunheiser in combat ability.”

Dan couldn’t hold back his own laughter at his bizarre joke. Neither could Li as they both found the time to finally laugh a bit during the harrowing escape.