The cold in this new world didn't just bite. It subtracted.
Jake watched his breath mist in the air. The vapor didn't dissipate; it hung there, frozen in a jagged, polygonal cloud before shattering onto the snow.
"My hands are shaking," Menzhinsky chattered, clutching his coat. "Why am I so hungry? We ate before the jump."
"We didn't eat," Taranov corrected, gripping his newly crafted wooden spear. "We uploaded. Your stomach is empty because your file was reset."
Jake looked at his own interface. The holographic display hovering over his chrome wrist was simple. Brutal.
CALORIES: CRITICAL.
BODY TEMP: DROPPING.
"It's a resource drain," Jake realized. "Being here costs energy. Just standing still is killing us."
"We need fire," Valentina said. She pointed to a cluster of twisted pines. The trees were wrong—their needles were perfectly straight triangles, looped in a lazy animation.
"Taranov," Jake ordered. "Crafting menu. Make a fire."
The big bodyguard stepped up to a tree. He punched the trunk.
THUD.
Wood chips flew off. They glowed blue for a second before turning into solid logs on the ground.
"It works!" Taranov grinned. He punched again.
THUD.
This time, Taranov groaned. He grabbed his stomach.
"What is it?" Jake stepped forward.
"I feel... drained," Taranov gasped. He looked pale. "Like I just ran ten miles."
"Action points," Oppenheimer whispered, staring at the tree. "Every interaction requires calories. If you harvest the wood, you burn the fuel inside you."
"So if we work too hard, we starve to death?" Menzhinsky horrified.
"Welcome to survival mode," Jake said grimly.
He picked up the logs. They were light, almost weightless. He piled them in the snow.
He focused on his chrome arm. The menu popped up.
- Campfire (Requires: 3 Wood, 1 Flint)
"I don't have flint," Jake said.
"Use the spear tip," Valentina suggested. "Friction."
Jake struck the wood with his metal hand. Sparks flew.
CRAFTING SUCCESS.
The fire roared to life instantly. It wasn't a gradual flame; it snapped into existence, fully formed and burning hot.
They huddled around it. The warmth was aggressive, stinging their frozen faces.
"Yuri," Jake spoke to his wrist. "Status report."
The pixelated face of his son flickered on the chrome plating.
"Scanning local sector," the wrist-Yuri droned. "Threat level: Elevated. The local fauna has detected the heat source."
"Fauna?" Taranov raised his spear. "Bears?"
"Wolves," Yuri corrected. "But the texture mapping is... incorrect."
A howl tore through the forest.
It sounded like a wolf, but layered with the screech of dial-up internet.
"Eyes!" Valentina pointed into the dark.
Two glowing red spheres floated between the trees. Then two more. Then a dozen.
They stepped into the firelight.
They were wolves, but they had no fur. Their skin was a smooth, grey plastic mesh. Their mouths didn't open; the teeth just clipped through their lips when they snarled.
"They look unfinished," Oppenheimer backed away toward the fire.
"They have hit points," Jake noted. A red bar hovered over the lead wolf's head. Lvl 5 Mongrel.
"Form a circle!" Jake ordered.
He raised his metal arm. He didn't have a weapon, just the limb itself.
The lead wolf lunged. It moved with a jerky, strobe-light animation.
Taranov thrust his spear.
The wood tip hit the plastic skin.
CRACK.
The spear snapped.
"Durability!" Taranov cursed, staring at the broken stick. "The weapon broke!"
The wolf slammed into Taranov. It didn't bite him; it merged with him. Its grey mesh head sank into Taranov's chest.
"Get it off!" Taranov roared, punching the creature.
His fist passed through the wolf's head.
"Collision error!" Oppenheimer screamed. "You can't hit it!"
Jake charged.
"Yuri! Collision override!"
"Processing," the wrist comped.
Jake's chrome arm glowed red. He swung a haymaker at the wolf.
His metal fist connected.
BAM.
The impact sounded like a car crash. The wolf didn't bleed; it shattered. Polygons of grey flesh exploded outward, dissolving into light before hitting the ground.
+50 XP.
The text floated in Jake's vision.
"The arm works!" Jake shouted. "It's an admin tool!"
The rest of the pack hesitated. The AI was recalculating.
"Valentina, the fire!" Jake yelled. "Grab a brand!"
Valentina kicked the campfire. Logs scattered. She grabbed a burning branch.
She swung it at the nearest wolf.
The fire terrified them. The wolf yelped—a distorted audio clip—and scrambled back.
"They hate the light engine," Yuri analyzed. "It overloads their sensors."
"Push them back!" Jake ordered.
He waded into the pack. He was a whirlwind of black chrome. Every punch shattered a wolf. He didn't feel fatigue. He felt the cold efficiency of the machine part of him taking over.
Left hook. Delete.
Right hook. Delete.
The last wolf turned to run. It glitched into a tree, getting stuck for a second, legs spinning wildly in place, before popping free and vanishing into the dark.
Silence returned to the forest.
Taranov lay in the snow, breathing hard. His chest was uninjured, but his jacket was torn where the wolf had clipped through him.
"I hate this patch," Taranov spat.
"We need better weapons," Jake said, wiping digital dust off his arm. "Wood is useless."
"Look," Menzhinsky pointed at the spot where the lead wolf had died.
Floating in the air, spinning slowly, was an object.
A pistol.
It was a Makarov, but it glowed with a faint green outline.
"Loot drop," Oppenheimer realized. He scrambled over and grabbed it.
"Is it loaded?" Jake asked.
Oppenheimer checked the magazine.
"Full," he said. "But look at the bullets. They aren't lead. They're... light."
"Energy weapon," Jake nodded. "Keep it. You're the shooter now."
"I'm a physicist!"
"You calculate trajectories," Jake said. "Shoot straight."
"We need to move," Valentina said, kicking snow over the dying fire. "The fire attracted them. If we stay, bigger things will come."
"Where?" Menzhinsky asked. "The forest goes on forever."
"Yuri," Jake spoke to his wrist. "Give me a waypoint. Where is the nearest civilization?"
The holographic arrow appeared again. It pointed North.
"Distance?"
"Two kilometers," Yuri said. "Detecting a structure. Designation: Outpost 1."
"Let's go," Jake said.
They marched. The snow got deeper. The hunger pangs returned, sharper this time. Jake felt his vision tunneling at the edges.
"My calorie count is at 10%," Taranov grunted, trudging through a drift. "If I don't eat, I'm going to pass out."
"We'll find food at the outpost," Jake promised.
The trees began to thin out.
They crested a ridge. Below them sat the structure.
It wasn't a cabin. It wasn't a bunker.
It was a gas station. An old-world, Soviet-style refueling station with rusted pumps. But the roof was thatched straw, like a medieval cottage.
"Asset mashup," Oppenheimer noted. "The algorithm couldn't decide on a time period."
"Is it occupied?" Valentina asked.
Jake squinted. The windows were boarded up with glowing red planks. Smoke curled from a chimney pipe that stuck out of a Coca-Cola sign.
"Someone is home," Jake said.
He led them down the slope. They moved quietly, avoiding the patches of glitching snow that flickered black.
They reached the pumps. The display read: FUEL: NULL.
Jake approached the front door. It was a heavy steel slab from a submarine.
He raised his chrome fist to knock.
The door flew open before he touched it.
A shotgun barrel poked out.
"Variable check!" a voice rasped from the darkness. "State your faction!"
"Survivors!" Jake said, holding his hands up. "We just spawned."
"Spawned?" The voice scoffed. "Fresh meat."
A man stepped into the light.
He wore a US Army helmet, a Soviet greatcoat, and neon-pink sneakers. He had a beard that looked like steel wool.
"You got credits?" the Stranger asked.
"No," Jake said.
"You got food?"
"No."
The Stranger racked the shotgun slide.
"Then you got problems."
Jake looked at the shotgun. He saw the level floating above it. Lvl 10 Boomstick.
He looked at his own arm. Admin Tool.
"I have a chrome arm that deletes code," Jake said calmly. "And I have a physicist with a laser Makarov."
Oppenheimer raised the pistol, his hand shaking.
The Stranger looked at Jake's arm. His eyes went wide.
"Dev tech," the Stranger whispered. "You're a Hacker?"
"I'm the guy who broke the server," Jake said. "Let us in. Or I start deleting your walls."
The Stranger hesitated. He looked at the starving, frozen team.
"Fine," the Stranger spat. "Come in. But don't touch the vending machine. It bites."
Jake stepped inside.
The warmth hit him. It smelled of grease and stale tobacco.
It wasn't much. But it was a save point.
"We made it to level one," Jake muttered.
He walked to the counter. He needed answers. And he needed a sandwich.
But mostly, he needed to know why the map of the world on the wall showed America as a giant black skull.