Multiplayer by John C. Brewer

just claimed him ? Izaak glanced at Darxhan. “Well, uh,” he stammered. “I guess I better get going then. I think I know where I can find Vera.”
    Hector’s cell phone buzzed with a text from Deion: Gore’s lost it!
    “That sniper rifle will just have to do,” Gore replied offhandedly. “You will travel with me in the second wave.” He turned away from Izaak. “Darxhan, you will lead the initial assault against the Acropolis. As soon as you capture it –”
    “I don’t think so,” squeaked Darxhan in a voice that was one hundred percent Deion.
    “What?” menaced GoreFiendHell, and the auto-cannon whirred again.
    Darxhan recovered his voice and growled, “I don’t think so.”
    “I wasn’t asking.” Darxhan and Gore faced off. After a tension-filled instant, Gore spun around shouting orders.
    “Now” hissed Deion and they made a break for the door, maneuvering through the milling throng of vanguards, mercs, smugglers, and cybertechs.
    Where are you going?” Gore’s voice thundered behind them before they’d reached the exit.
    “Keep going,” Darxhan hissed. They were almost to the tunnel.
    “I said, where are you going?” raged the huge merc, wading through the sea of characters, trying to get out of Gore’s way.
    Izaak turned around but kept backing away. “You guys are going to get slaughtered.”
    “No one can defeat Reaver Clan, not even the Archons!”
    “The Archons aren’t even players, dude. They’re NPCs. You can’t win!”
    “Non-player characters do not concern me, Izaak Ersatz.”
    “You know,” Izaak said, having had enough. “You are F-ed up! I quit.”
    “Bad timing!” Darxhan squeaked.
    “You can’t quit the Reavers,” said GoreFiendHell. “We are the most powerful clan on Earth!”
    Around them, the crowd started to back away, forming a circle.
    “I’m going to start my own clan,” said Izaak, pushing past characters. “We’ll go on hikes. Have picnics. It’ll be fun. I’ll send you an invite.”
    “Picnics,” Gore sneered, and turned to Darxhan. “And you?”
    “You’re weird, man,” Darxhan answered.
    “This is all your doing,” GoreFiendHell snapped at Izaak in a high-pitched sneer now reminiscent of a New Jersey twang. “You’ve been trying to usurp my throne. You want Reaver Clan for your own!”
    “I really got to go,” said Izaak. They were almost at the entrance to the tunnel.
    “The only place you’ll go is into a rep tank!” GoreFiendHell pulled the plasmace from his back. The end of it lit up in a ball of crackling, blue energy. Characters shrieked and scattered in all directions. He raised it high over Izaak’s head, so focused he didn’t notice when Darxhan slipped in behind him. There was a distinct whang and Gore spun around in surprise. “What the –”
    On his back, one of Izaak’s magnetic limpet mines was beeping in synch with a flashing red light. Beeping faster… and faster.
    Darxhan spun past him on the other side and he and Izaak each activated a nano-particle smoke grenade and ran back up the tunnel. They could hear GoreFiendHell screaming behind them “Get it off! Get it off!” as the beeps merged to become a continuous tone. It exploded and the screaming stopped.
    Then the nano-smokes went off and the tiny particles formed a thick, opaque mass.
    “You know,” said Darxhan, as they ran for the tunnel entrance, “in about ten seconds half of Reaver clan is going to come pouring out of here!”
    Izaak dropped a laser-activated sentry mine at the tunnel entrance and they sprinted for the gate. The gate wardens probably didn’t know what had happened yet but Zerg would never let them through with fifty mercs chasing them. The thought of taking him out made Izaak smile.
    From a quarter mile out, he saw the guards at the gate look straight at them and start his direction. “Word’s out,” said Izaak, staring through the scope of his rifle. He took aim, and fired. And missed. Vera had loved this range! The