Chapter 22

Slampa, Lozano, Miller, and I moved as quickly as we could toward the west. The small forest was sparsely populated with vegetation, thankfully, but the uneven ground made it a bit tricky to traverse. I found myself on the brink of tripping more than a few times.

As we neared what looked like an opening in the trees, I could make out what looked like another recon squad in the trees about 100 yards away, across what looked like a small clearing with a rocky outcropping. There had to be two, maybe three, and there was one on the ground within a small clearing obviously dead; blood pooling around his body, his weapon laying in the dirt. They were firing at out direction toward the outcropping, and we could see the crouched forms of two people in fatigues. As we watched, they took turns, firing a few rounds from behind their cover, then ducking back. It was just a back and forth game, and it seemed like whomever ran out of ammunition first would lose.

We slowed, taking cover behind some trees. “So uh… you think those are our guys?” I asked, peeking around what little cover the tree provided.

Slampa made a grunting noise, “No clue. Only way to tell is being able to examine them. Maybe we can flank to the north and south, and maybe get close enough to see?”

I nodded, “I uh… got a skill that lets me inspect from a bit further away. I can always go by myself, take a look, and report back?”

Lozano shook his head, “I dont think we have enough time for you to go all secret-agent man; at this rate if the guys behind that hill there run out of ammo they’re probably dead. If we split up…” he paused, a blank look coming to his face. I realized his assistant must be talking to him, and suddenly I received a message myself;

DIONDRE TO ADMIN CHAT: James, now is the perfect time to start a party. Partying is the backbone of operations within Babylon; it allows small groups of members to coordinate closely, and it even opens up text chat and comms channels only available to your group.

JAMES TO ADMIN CHAT: Ok, how do I do that?

DIONDRE TO ADMIN CHAT: Everyone is getting this same tip, but go ahead and think ‘Party Menu’. Give it a few seconds.

I did as instructed, and after about 5 seconds, a new menu popped up. It had a few options; ‘join existing party’, ‘start a party’, ‘disband a party’, and oddly enough… a friends list.

DIONDRE TO ADMIN CHAT: Good, go ahead and start a party. Once you do, you will need to just mentally ‘click’ on anyone you wish to add. A party is limited to 5 slots. Later on, things such as Units, Squadrons, and even Wings will unlock; you can look at these as larger parties. Generally you will be assigned to a Wing, and commanders can further delegate these larger parties down. Each Unit, Squadron, and Wing is led by an officer, while Party leaders are whomever holds the most ‘Rank’. You’ll learn about Ranking later, but if a party does not have a Ranking member, the person who started the party will be the leader at the time of creation.

I quickly clicked ‘start a party’ and invited the other three to it.

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DIONDRE TO ADMIN CHAT: When you invite someone, they’ll see an invite box and can click accept or decline. You can leave a party at any time. You’ll find yourself joining and leaving parties often, as generally these small teams are built for specific purposes.

As I was reading Diondres message, suddenly a small row of boxes began populating on my HUD in the top left, just under my health. Each box said a name, had a small red bar underneath the name, and a large X to the left of the name.

DIONDRE TO ADMIN CHAT: Great! The X you are seeing will be later replaced by badges when you are all assigned jobs; so it would be prudent you study up and learn the badges. For example, an eagle with what looks like bullets under its claws is an ‘Air Force Security Forces’ job, while one that looks like a Bomb is an ‘Ammunitions Expert’.

Suddenly, Tays voice echoed in my head;

TAYS TIDBITS

Congratulations! You are started your first party! Now lets break out the karaoke machine, I know how much you Humans love to horribly sing off tune renditions of your favorite artists! You have unlocked PARTY CHAT, the PARTY STATS window, and EMOTES.

I blinked. What's an emote?

DIONDRE TO ADMIN CHAT: Awesome, that was expected. Party chat is exactly like this, you just send your mental messages to that chat. It will populate in the same window as this chat, just as a different color. Party Stats allows you to check the physical status and location of a party member; you can adjust the settings to show you a location of everyone to the right of their health box later. Its useful to coordinate attacks. Lastly… well, emotes are… uh… basically a pre-set list of actions you can have your body do. Like a victory dances, flips, and more. They have no functional use, but if you unlock an emote, you can think of a command and do what that action entails - for example, you can do a Moon Walk without actually knowing how to.

You can assign your emotes under your status menu and set what mental command triggers it. Theres literally thousands of emotes. You don’t even need to use them if you don’t want to, but a lot of people get a kick out of some of the ones they’ve unlocked.

Once again… what the fuck, man. This has to be a joke. As I started processing this information, a new message popped up; instead of being a bright yellow like the admin messages, this was a neon green hue.

TRAINEE SLAMPA TO PARTY CHAT: Can you guys see this?

TRAINEE LOZANO: Yeah. Wild.

TRAINEE MILLER: Why didn’t they mention this earlier? We could have been a party when we met Watson.

TRAINEE SLAMPA: No idea. This will make splitting up way more effective. Lets get to it, Miller you are with me south, Lozano you go with Watson north.

TRAINEE LOZANO/MILLER/WATSON: Copy.

I didn’t say it at the time, but why the hell did we split the two with guns from the two guys with knives? This felt like a stupid idea. Lozano and I darted from tree to tree, trying to keep as low of a profile as possible. It was at this point I realized the white tunic and red turban I was wearing wasn’t very… camouflaged here. Even if the fatigues were grey, that would have been much more stealthy than this get up.

However, despite the lack of proper stealthy attire, the engaged combatants didn’t seem to notice us at all. As we crept around the fight, we slowly and steadily got closer and closer to the two behind the hill. When we were about 100 feet away, I could finally inspect the guy on the left side.

NAME: TJ ADAMS (NO ALIAS ASSIGNED)

CURRENT SQUAD: THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC - RED TEAM

TITLE: NONE ASSIGNED

BIOGRAPHY: NONE ASSIGNED

TRAINEE WATSON TO PARTY CHAT: The guy on the right is named TJ Adams, hes on the red team. So I have to assume whomever hes fighting with is also on our team. I can’t really get a good look at him from over here.

TRAINEE SLAMPA: Copy, lets support them then; lets engage the enemy. Looks like three of them, all armed with M-4’s.

TRAINEE LOZANO/MILLER/WATSON: Copy.

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