Carnival - A LitRPG Apocalypse

John appeared in the lower levels of the Bunker. It had turned out that the limitations on his permanent portal power weren’t as bad as he had thought at one point. Sure, there was only so much land where he could place a portal within the area encompassed by the barrier at Normanby but if one thought vertically, the problem resolved itself.

The hundreds of surface portals that now made up Blue Street were all dedicated to civilian traffic and trade. However over the last decade Bob had turned the stone and soil beneath the former town of Normanby, now Wayfaire, into a honeycomb of tunnels and caverns. Most of the vast space he had hollowed out was dedicated to his manufacturing facilities or the Nest that Shelly II occupied and used to breed her fighting monsters.

There were several floors deep in the Bunker, as Bob referred to his subterranean complex, dedicated to portals with a much more restricted user base. The sound of hustle and bustle washed over him, a blend of voices and clanking machinery. John had blipped himself into a vast cavern lit by an eerie blue glow. People in various types of uniform or -John shuddered- costumes were scurrying about. Some were troops deploying to the Line or the Wall, moving with smooth coordination and efficiency. Others were logistics types or other support staff who moved far more languidly, without any sense of urgency.

“So what's the prob, Bob?” he said aloud despite standing on his own. A small drone, a fist sized egg with no discernable form of propulsion floated down from the stream of similar machines flowing overhead.

“Got a collapse on Mars. I need a new portal to bring in the clean up bots and allow us to clear the debris effectively. It’s going to take about two weeks if I can’t get the Earth Movers Guild on board as well but they’re busier than the three titted hooker in Total Recall,” complained the drone.

“The Wall needs a lot of attention. Bloody constantly. Evie hasn’t made much of a dent in the swarms,” John muttered. “Where do you want the exit to be?”

“Follow me. It needs to be in the industrial section.”

John followed the tiny drone as it led him down the side of the cavern to a lift. As they descended deeper into Bob’s labyrinth John glanced at the drone. It was much more advanced than Bob’s old drones. The collaboration between Pete and Bob had led to the kind of technology that had previously been the province of science fiction. No doubt the tiny thing was made with exotic alien materials refined from monster parts and the anti gravity devices Pete’s processor bugs converted themselves into. The hybrid of biology and technology often left John feeling queasy. It seemed wrong somehow.

As John was himself a hybrid of Bob’s tech and Pete’s biotinkering, a result of a near death experience, he didn’t feel like he could complain about it too much. He still did though whenever it got too weird for him.

“What caused the collapse? Another gas pocket?” he asked to pass the time as the lift descended into drone-only territory.

“No. It was him again. I’ve no fucking clue how he’s doing it boy, but mark my words that bastard is glitching my drone control somehow.”

“Ah the phantom.” John didn’t sound as though he found Bob’s theory of some mysterious person able to mess with his drones terribly plausible. “Look, remember when the B-800s started getting all peculiar? Funky paint jobs, fake mohawks and whatnot? They went all Short Circuit Two. Is it maybe a bit like that? How many drones are you running now?”

“Millions. I’ve got about a hundred thousand server-Bob’s that run them and then fifty thousand mobile drone loci. Your point?” demanded Bob acerbically.

“Well, when you only had a few thousand it got to be a strain until you put the first Bio-Bob online, right? That kind of reunified you. Maybe you’re just bumping up against the limits of what your mind can handle? Do you need more Bio-Bobs?”

“I’ve got fifty running about.” This was news to John. He had thought there were only a couple but seeing as they were essentially identical cloned bodies with a drone loci grafted into their skulls he supposed they were hard to tell apart. “It’s not that, John. My class two enhancement fixed that issue anyway. I’m telling you someone is messing with me.” John suppressed a sigh. The last thing they needed was Bob, who ran pretty much all of Earth's data services, was an economic powerhouse and by himself was the largest and most effective military on the planet, going a bit paranoid-android.

The lift stopped and dinged politely as the doors slid open. On the other side was a sea of drones. Big ones and little ones all flowing around each other with near perfect synchronisation.

“Come on,” the little drone grunted and it stepped out into the wall of mechanical bodies. A circle six feet across opened around it and John stepped forward into the gap. They moved across the cavern, every other drone leaving them just enough space until they reached the portal Bob wanted and they stepped through.

On the other side was a similar environment. A dark cavern, barely lit as the drones didn’t need light, stretched out around them and it was teeming with drones. A bubble of space opened as they stepped through and the drone he had been following led him through the maze of caverns and tunnels to where he needed to be.

When he arrived he found a Bio-Bob smoking a cigar and examining a piece of rubble that a large spider-drone was holding up for him. He grunted and turned before extending his free hand for John to shake.

“Good to see you in the flesh again mate. Look at this!” Bio-bob pulled John over and pointed at the lump of rubble. John was strong enough to resist, despite not being a bruiser and having no system enhanced strength, as a result of the “upgrades” he had been subjected to. Most of which had been voluntary. Then again, the Bio-Bob’s used the same cybernetics and organic augmentations he did. John hadn’t visited the Dragon for a few months so if this was a new Bio-Bob it probably had some boosts that put it a step above him in that regard.

“What am I looking at mate? It’s a rock.”

Bob sighed and tapped some ash off his cigar. “See this cut here? It veers off by two centimetres right there!” Bob ran down the line to where the smooth edge jumped slightly to one side. “That is what caused this cock up and it shouldn’t have been possible! None of my drones would deviate that much unless someone had messed with it somehow!”

“How did that cause all this?” John asked, waving a hand at the tunnel blocked with rubble.

“The EMG are too busy with the Wall to support me properly, despite how important the Mars base is going to be when the time comes. So I- well look, I’m running everything very close to tolerances. As the tunnel expands the cuts and supports are just strong enough until I can get one of Stu’s people up here to reinforce everything. It’s not like there are any lives in danger so it’s fine.”

“Let me sum that up for: you were playing fast and loose with safety margins and something went wrong. Naturally the logical conclusion is some nefarious wizard is messing with you? Is that about right?”

“No. I know how it sounds but this kind of mistake cannot happen. These drones are fully automated,” he slapped a hand down on the spider-drones limb. “They are literal machines and shouldn’t make mistakes like this. It’s bloody sabotage! If someone can get to me here… what the hell can they do on Earth?”

“Dude, machines cock up all the time.” John shrugged. “Mine bloody don’t! How much of the economy back home is based on various me-drones? Almost all non portal travel is on my blimps and flyers, a huge amount of the manual labour is done by drones, either mine or one of my competitors.” Competitor was said with a slight sneer. John knew Bob had a low opinion of almost all other tinkers with a couple of notable exceptions. “It’s my automated defences built into the Wall that keep the wasps back, my B-1945s holding the Line. Dammit John, if there is even a chance someone can fuck with my drones remotely that’s really bad news!”

“I see that, Bob. Why would they want to set back the Mars Project though? This is going to be our redoubt when the Void comes. Nothing on the surface, everything buried a mile underground and with space for millions of non combatants. Mars is our lifeline.”

“You’ve seen the talk online. People don’t like being limited to level twenty four or having to join the Accords. ‘It’s encouraging humanity to cap our strength’, ‘our dependence on the heroes will be our undoing, we should all be that strong!’. There is growing dissatisfaction and we’ve still got fifty bloody years to prepare! If they boil over all hell would break loose!” Bob snarled.

“Anyone can keep levelling now. You know they don’t realise what you have to go through to hit level forty. It’s just people being people and having a whinge online!” John replied calmly.

“They kind of do have to join the Accords if they want a chance to get past twenty five, John.”

“Sure, I guess, but it’s not that hard to join. We’ve only turned away half a dozen and that was because once Mindscar had a look in their heads they were freaking monsters! I’m not a huge fan of the Accords either, I’m the bloody headsman who goes after the ones who break the rules, but they are kind of working. People don’t want to think about what’s coming. No one likes living with a sword of Damocles hanging over them.” John was beginning to seriously worry about his friend. Bob had always been a bit strange, all of them who had adapted quickly to the system were odd in one way or another and had only grown more so as the years went by. However this was starting to feel like something more than “Bob being a weirdo”. He had died, kind of, and been trapped in his machines for months before the first Bio-Bob was created so he did have good reason to be strange.

“What do you want me to do about it Bob?” John asked, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Just keep an eye on me. On everything. We need to get ahead of this if it’s what I think it is. For now: just open a portal back to the drone floor we came through, next to the one we used please.”

John nodded and created a new portal. It flickered into being behind him throwing a blue glow across them. Bob looked genuinely worried. While John found the idea preposterous he would trust his friend's judgement and remain vigilant for any oddities in Bob’s behaviour.

More drones spilled out of the new portal as though they’d been waiting on the other side, which they probably had. Various forms moved up, some cutting and removing chunks of the collapse and others carting away the rubble. John stepped to the side with Bob and watched as the machines worked with ant-like unity of purpose.

“This lot seems fine now. Did you have a look at the drone that messed up the cut?”

Bob pointed to the legs of a drone sticking out at the base of the rubble, crushed beneath the tons of debris.

“It’s trashed. Once we clear this section I’ll take a look but I don’t think it’s going to yield anything. The control hub is wasted so there are no records to pull.”

“What about remote backups? A server-Bob would have been running it?”

“No, I said already: these are fully autonomous. They feedback to a Me but there is nothing in the telemetry. It was operating perfectly normally, reported a correct cut and then went dead. It’s mistake chained down the section we cleared this week and led to a widespread collapse. Hence two bloody weeks to clear it,” grumbled Bob.

“I’ll keep an eye out mate. I need to head off. I’m sweeping on the Line today.”

“No worries John. Thanks.”

John waved and walked back through the portal. As soon as he was back on Earth he teleported away, clearing the space for the drones to flow through.

He appeared hovering over El Roto, the main base of operations for the Northern Line in South America. It had been a ghost town, abandoned long before the system arrived but now it had been transformed. A dozen portals linked to the military floors of the Bunker were constantly disgorging troops, drones and ammunition to reinforce the ever desperate fighters who held back the ants.

The Line stretched along the banks of the Atrato River in northern Columbia all the way down to Peurto Salazar, a third of the way south from the old northern border. Then it cut across to the coast in the form of heavily manned fortresses.

John watched as a squadron of Eggs took off, loaded with fresh troops and ammo to fly along the line and provide fresh fighters to hold back the tide of insectile monsters. The Eggs were Bob’s version of helicopters and John had been surprised they hadn’t been named Bobcopters or something equally vain. The size of a school bus, the things flew via anti gravity devices and sported an array of plasma and projectile weaponry slung beneath the nose.

He switched to the sweeper net via his implant before reaching out with a voice chat.

“Starfall, how are you doing?” he asked.

“Traveller, all ok. Just little packets of them this morning but it’s been long enough they should be ready to push again. The Brazilians are reporting seeing scouts so we need to complete the next phase before we have to reorganise and properly defend along the Rio Negro line,” replied the man now known as Starfall. He had been an American before signing the Accords and spoke with a slight hint of a southern accent.

“Ah the wanderer returns! You’re a bit late!”

“Unterbrecher, I thought you were at the Wall?” asked John.

“Nein. Your daughter has freed a few of us up to help out over here. I’m glad I won’t have to walk back to Roto!” the German hero chuckled.

“Surely Bob would send you an Egg if you asked?” muttered Starfall.

“I prefer to use my own feet!”

“Well that’s just masochism, hang on, you won’t use an Egg but you're happy to be teleported? You know what, never mind Willem. I don’t care enough right now to bicker with you!” said Starfall. “I could use a break, John. Can you cover me?” Unterbrecher could be heard chuckling happily at having gotten a rise out of the American.

“Where are you?”

“Just north of Campo Alegre.”

“That’s past the Line, mate. What are you doing out there?”

“Looking for queens. I’m fine, I’ve got some Bobs in support.”

“We need to be able to push them back John and that means finding the damn nests,” Bob chimed in. It was strange to think his friend was running most of their extraplanetary projects, several massive industrial complexes on Earth and conducting combat operations all across the globe simultaneously. No wonder he was getting a bit twitchy.

“Update my map, Bob. I'll relieve Starfall.”

A ping appeared on his HUD in a location he had never been to before so he blipped as close as possible, south of Puerto Salazar, then made his way in a rapid series of short ranged teleports.

As he got closer it was easy to see where his colleagues were operating. Starfall wasn’t exactly subtle. Columns of light fell from the sky every second or so, blasting and burning anything on the ground beneath the flying man. Starfall was a member in good standing of the Accords so had received a full suite of biological upgrades and was wearing a red white and blue version of John’s own Carnival pattern armour.

John appeared next to Starfall and called out. Starfall turned, his chiselled features visible through his mask and making him look like he belonged in a shaving product advert.

“Nice of you to join us!” the man grinned. His flight power was relatively weak, he could hover and move about at a sprinting speed through the air but he lacked versatility or real speed. Starfall wasn’t worried about that though. It’s hard to feel insecure when you are a one man orbital laser.

“Any hints on the nest?” John asked, nodding to his friend.

“Reckon it’s a bit further on. Seeing more and more of the little shits so I think we’re getting close.” Another pillar of light obliterated some of the moving shapes highlighted on his HUD.

“What levels?”

“Only twenty but there’s a lot of them!” Starfall said with a shrug.

“Ok. I’ll plough the road to the south, see what we shake loose. You want to go back to Roto?”

“Nah, drop me at Salazar. I just want to spend ten minutes with the mask off and have a smoke.” Starfall vanished as John ported the man back to the end of the Line.

A flight of drones closed in around John as he switched to their private comms channel.

“Your bots on the ground digging in?” he asked.

“Yep. Give them a minute,” Bob replied.

John ported a dozen 100 ton rocks up above him and waited for them to build up some momentum. A few moments later he ported another dozen. 100 tons was not much for him now. His last ten levels had left him capable of far more than he could manage when he signed the Accords.

He waited patiently, slightly annoyed as ever that his most powerful attack had such an annoying lead up time. Once he knew the rocks were moving at a good clip he brought them down on the jungle below in two lines of six, spaced half a kilometre apart. The ground seemed to shake and columns of dust and debris flew into the air as he brought down the second dozen rocks, extending the line of devastation another three kilometres southwards.

He checked his reports and found he had slaughtered a few thousand ants but none of them were a high enough level to warrant any Essence. That was mostly the story of his life these days. The remaining tribulations and swarms were either simply too numerous to exterminate despite low levels or too bloody dangerous to go near due to their very high levels. A type of siege warfare had developed culminating in the Lines in South America and Africa and the Wall in east Asia.

As the dust began to settle he heard another rumbling below him.

"Bob, did I trigger an earthquake or something?” It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.

“No John. You hit the jackpot! And really pissed it off at the same time! Cap troopers are incoming and K.E.W.s from the bombardment pods are enroute. You need to hold this lot for half an hour. There’s a shitload of them!”

John flicked through the vision options on his mask and saw there was indeed a shitload of them. Hundreds of thousands of ants were swarming up from the ground to the east of where he had brought down his rocks.

The monsters varied, being one of the rare species that had multiple forms. Smaller scouts, the size of a Great Dane, led the way and the larger workers followed behind them. To the rear was a tide of warrior ants the size of elephants.

“Oops. Still, I’ve been meaning to try this out for a while. Now seems like a perfect opportunity,” John murmured as he checked the topography was right for this idea. It was perfect as the ground sloped down towards the entrance to the nest, exacerbated by the holes he had once again blasted into the surface of his homeworld.

Three temporary portals opened up at their maximum size, which was now fifty metres in diameter. A torrent of sea water poured out of each of them, shooting out under intense pressure. He turned the portals and aimed them carefully towards the onrushing tide of ants so he could meet them with a tsunami of his own creation.

“Where’re the other ends of the portals?” asked Bob as they watched the ants stumble and get washed away. The swarm was broken for now and this would buy the time they needed to mobilise to purge the nest.

“Halfway down the Mariana Trench.” John grinned evilly as he hosed away the monsters.