The Carnival

[Piper Juunanagou]

One moment Piper was manhandling an army of undead corpses, and the next, she was back in the fantastic realm of Gamer’s carnival. Once the initial confusion wore off, the soldier was quick to locate the nearest reflective surface. In this case, it was a small puddle on the side of the pathway that had enough clear water to let her see that she was no longer a brunette.

“Splendid,” the Sentinel muttered beneath her breath as she reached up and grabbed a handful of her messy blonde hair. Glancing down at her clothes, Piper grinned upon realizing that she was wearing the same outfit she had been prior to her trip to the zombie-infested city. “Much better,” she remarked out loud as she reached into her back pocket and yanked out her beret. Plopping the army green hat over her unkempt hair, the woman patted it down so it wouldn’t slid off, and then she began to make her way down the paved walkway.

“I wonder if that rodent was a prisoner or just some really good programming,” Piper asked herself as she passed a series of robot-operated convenience stands. Each time she made eye contact with one of the chipper, bright-eyed robots they would try their damnedest to coerce the woman into playing their game, whether it was hitting a target, tossing a ball through a hoop, or another in a seemingly unending supply of rigged carnival games.

As Piper continued to casually trek across the paved walkway, the numerous stands and small tents gave way to larger tents and theme-park rides. The first notable rides that the woman passed were the toddler and juvenile rides: The spinning teacups, the kiddy coaster, the parasols, and something where the kids would sit in giant kangaroos and be bounced up and down across a track. The large tents that coincided with the kid rides housed numerous jungle gyms, ball pits, and inflatable bouncy castles of all assorted sizes and shapes. Furthermore, the entire pre-teen nirvana was capped off by the numerous stands selling all sorts of tooth-destroying candy that were peppered throughout the area. Despite all the effort put into the area, there were absolutely no children running around frantically dashing about.

If Piper had been about twenty years younger, she probably would be in heaven right now. Instead, she simply found herself walking a little bit faster as she started to note the larger, more adult rides that were looming ahead of her. After power walking a couple dozen more yards, the woman passed a sign that indicated she was entering the rides section of the carnival, and much to her amusement, the rides were not limited to the normal assortment of rundown machines one would normally expect to find at a local fairground.

Roller coasters of all shapes and sizes filled the area almost to bursting, and between the giant goliath’s of steel (or wood), there stood just about every single amusement park ride that Piper had encountered as a child. There was everything from the Pirate Ship to the most terrifying pitfall ride she’d ever witnessed and then all things that fell between the two extremes. To the woman’s far left, she saw the giant mountains that were actually the log flume ride that served as the centerpiece of the neighboring water park. Despite knowing that this was all part of a simulation, Piper couldn’t help but be enamored by the enormity and diversity of the place. With wide eyes and her jaw still hanging open, Piper took her first few steps into the amusement park. Almost immediately, she was greeted by one of the numerous robots that helped operate the virtual reality carnival.

“Welcome to the ‘rides’ section of our illustrious carnival, my lady,” the robot said—his tone and demeanor far less grating than his coworkers. “Would you like to purchase a ride ticket?” He inquired, prompting Piper to furrow her brow at the short, bipedal machine.

“I wasn’t given any actual money,” the soldier muttered as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of the ‘monies’ she’d been awarded for not dying in the zombie city. “Just this crap,” she remarked as she extended the handful of sprockets, gears, and other assorted crap toward the robot. “Am I supposed to turn this junk into cash or something?” Tilting his head, the robot seemed to take a moment or two to ponder the situation before he let out a mildly terrifying chuckle.

“My dear lady, what you have there is for purchasing special prizes over in the concession region,” the mechanical humanoid remarked as he placed a hand on Piper’s shoulder and seemed to look at her like she was somehow mentally challenged for not knowing what to do with her ‘prize monies.’ “A ride ticket costs nothing but a smile and a warm disposition!” He decreed as he gradually began to revert back to the unsettling and somewhat unnerving personality that the other models had displayed.

“Oh, I have that…” Piper muttered with forced happiness as she smiled with her teeth for the robot. Clapping his metal hands together, the robot reached up for his right ear, and with an almost jarring ping, a ticket slid halway out of the attendant’s head. Still smiling as if he hadn’t been bothered by the whirling machines in his skull, the robot snatched the ticket out of his head and handed it over to Piper, who was by this point vowing off any future interaction with robots.

“…Thank you,” the soldier muttered as she snatched the ticket out of the robot’s oversized, mitten-shaped hand. “See you later!” She added with mock enthusiasm as she spun around and began to jog toward the nearest attraction. When she reached the front of the line at the large building simply labeled ‘The Alien Invasion!!1’, Piper—against all better judgment—glanced over her shoulder and saw that the robot was still staring at her from the entrance to the amusement park.

Gamer should have really just kidnapped some people to serve as the staff here… Piper remarked internally as she turned and stepped over the threshold into the large, warehouse-shaped structure that housed the attraction. After a few feet, she was forced to step through a black curtain, and on the other side, all of the hall’s surfaces had been painted and designed to look like the inside of a spaceship. The only objects that were out of place were the wooden signs that had displayed the various warnings and hazards that the attraction contained and the dangers they posed for the elderly, pregnant, and anyone else with poor constitutions.

Seeing as how she wasn’t elderly, suffering from heart problems, or pregnant (as far as she knew), Piper continued to stroll down the winding hallway until she came to what she guessed was supposed to simulate the bridge. For the most part, it was accurate to the limited exposure to space-faring vessels she’d had during her initial training with the military; however, there was one major difference. Instead of a large view screen along the far wall, the set dropped off and was replaced by the track that housed the mobile carts designed to carry the carnival patron through the attraction.

“Hello, Cadet Juunanagou, are you ready to brave the final frontier and help secure our world from the alien menace?” A robotic voice asked from a nearby comm. panel. Although she wasn’t aware of whether or not she should interact with the set, Piper nonetheless reached over and pressed the button on the elaborate machine before she issued her response.

“You bet’cha,” the Sentinel shot back in an accent eerily reminiscent of a hockey mom. “What’d I do?” She asked after a slight pause.

“Just put on the gauntlet, Cadet,” the voice replied as a metal gauntlet attached to a harness suddenly dropped in from the ceiling. “You’re going to need it if you intend to fight those dastardly alien invaders!” With a raised eyebrow, Piper reached up and unhooked the heavy steel glove and took a quick moment to revel in how authentic it looked. In fact, the woman would be surprised if something similar to the high-tech gauntlet wasn’t lying around in the Sentinel’s science building.

Although she was opposed to the idea, Piper was forced to remove one of her gloves to make room for the strange piece of equipment. Stuffing the leather glove into her pocket, the blond slowly slid the gauntlet over her hand. Once she had it on the whole way, the several metal rods inside the device tightened until it was snug against her flesh. Despite how cold it had felt when she had held it a few moments earlier, the gauntlet actually felt warm against her skin.

“When you are ready, Cadet, please board the shuttle for takeoff,” the robotic voice spoke as a large, two-seat vehicle emerged from the darkness at the back of the room and whirled forward to the end of the queue. Quite amused at the quality of the simulator, Piper took one last glance at the silver gauntlet and began to march toward the ‘shuttle.’ Although there was no one there to educate her in proper seat etiquette, the woman was nonetheless intelligent enough to know how to operate her seatbelt and the pull-down bar. The moment that the bar clicked into place against the woman’s waist, the vehicle began to slowly lurch forward.

“Officer!” Piper shouted as she turned to face the boarding platform that was beginning to disappear behind her shuttle. “How do I work this?” She asked as she lifted the gauntlet and wagged it toward the bridge of the ship. Instead of a response from the dapper robotic voice, a glass disc imbedded slightly into the palm of the glove began to glow red. At the same time, Piper suddenly felt the strangest sensation of warmth flush over her body. Glancing down at the screen at the front of the makeshift shuttle, the woman saw a quaint animation displaying a stick figure wearing a similar glove. A caption below the animation read ‘Remember to focus your ki!” The next frame showed a very happy stick figure shooting a giant beam of light out of the glove.

“Really?” The Sentinel chuckled as the wall in front of the vehicle opened up to reveal a star-filled room. The track was designed so that it looked like Piper and her space shuttle were flying through the cosmos, but it was easy enough for the soldier to see that the floor was never more than two feet below her.

“Die, stupid earthling!” The screeching voice was accompanied by a giant, cardboard alien popping out from a nearby wall. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the tip of the alien’s gun—what looked to be no more than a laser pointer—flashed red. An instant later, Piper was jolted with a small burst of electricity and her entire shuttle shuddered violently on the track.

“Painful, much?” Piper shouted to no one in particular as she clenched her bare hand against the safety rail. A moment later, another alien popped out from the wall and repeated a similar insult. This time, however, the woman threw out her gauntleted fist toward the cardboard alien. Unfortunately, absolutely nothing happened and Piper was hit by an even stronger jolt of electricity a few moments later.

“What the hell am I supposed to do!” The Sentinel screamed as the same caption popped up on her shuttle’s screen. “‘Remember to focus your ki’ … what does that even mean?” The woman muttered as she glanced down at the palm of the gauntlet. ‘Ki’ was supposed to be life energy or something fancy and philosophical like that. Piper knew it was also something people could manifest as a destructive force. After all, it was what Kaden tossed around like snowballs but as far as Piper knew, she wasn’t capable of such feats.

Well I guess this is a simulator within a simulator, so who the hell knows what’s plausible and what isn’t? With that thought in her head, Piper sucked in a deep breath of air and tried to focus her mind. Several yards ahead of her shuttle, the soldier heard one of the cardboard aliens pop out and issue another demeaning insult, but she ignored it as she clenched her eyes shut and tried to ‘focus her ki.’ As ludicrous a notion as it seemed to her, Piper suddenly felt the same warm sensation she had upon her shuttle’s takeoff. This time, however, it was accompanied by a much more visible reaction from the glove.

“This better work,” the woman muttered as she focused on the glove. With an audible humming noise, the glass-like plate began to scintillate and glow with a deep red light. Up ahead, the alien was preparing to fire upon Piper’s spaceship, but before it had the chance, the smiling woman threw her hand out.

In that instant, she felt the heat within her body surge as a beam of red light erupted through the glove’s lens. Before the alien could pull the trigger, he was utterly obliterated by Piper’s ki blast.

“Fuck yea!” Piper screamed triumphantly as she pumped her gloved fist in the air. Unfortunately for the woman, her celebration was cut short by the arrival of a massive armada of gun-totting cardboard aliens. Despite the odds being stacked against her, the Sentinel could do little more than grin as she flexed her metal-encased fingers.