Read Gamers' Challenge for Free Online

screamed
    ‘stay away’.
    Tee slipped through a hole in the fence that enclosed the abandoned power station, Tark and Zyra not far behind him. As he ran for the door, he unhooked the crossbow from his belt. He stopped by the slightly ajar door and loaded the weapon. Without waiting for Tark and Zyra, he shouldered the door wide open and ran in.
    Tark and Zyra glanced nervously at each other asthey loaded their own crossbows with static-tipped bolts.
    ‘Ready?’ asked Zyra.
    ‘No,’ replied Tark.
    They grinned at each other and went in.
    They were in a long dark corridor lined with closed doors. Tee was already halfway down, running towards the open door at the far end, which spilled a little light into the darkness. Tark and Zyra ran after him. They burst into a cavernous, dimly-lit area full of dormant machinery - a converted factory of some sort. Huge pistons and cogs and turbines. Long, winding conveyor belts. Gigantic metal claws and enormous compressors. All frozen in inactivity. Tee was now stationary amongst the machinery, eyes darting about, searching.
    They heard a scream, followed by two gunshots. The sounds echoed through the room, as if they were coming from within the machinery itself. Tee turned helplessly from one direction to another, unable to discern where the scream had originated.
    BANG!
    The door at the other end of the factory was thrown open as a young woman dressed in black leather came running out, trying to load a pistol. Behind her, two VIs streaked out in pursuit.
    ‘Hope!’ Tee yelled, as he ran towards her.
    The woman weaved around some machinery and headed towards him, the two sizzling pursuers still behind her. Tee lifted his crossbow.
    ‘Drop!’ he yelled.
    Zyra nudged Tark and they both aimed their crossbows.
    The young woman threw herself to the concrete floor, rolling to one side as Tee fired. The crossbow bolt struck the first of the VIs, which immediately stopped dead as if stunned, its edges flaring and dissolving, its size decreasing. Tark and Zyra simultaneously fired at the second. Both bolts struck home and the ball of static menace burst apart, its substance dissipating into nothingness.
    The young woman rolled into a crouch, slammed a new magazine into her pistol and took aim at the first VI. Tee was already reloading.
    The VI recovered and charged at Tark and Zyra. They franticly reloaded their weapons, but the young woman fired first. Two successive shots, sending the VI into oblivion. Springing to her feet, she tossed her gun into the air, caught it, spun it on her finger like a Wild West gunslinger and dropped it into the holster on her belt.
    ‘Nice,’ Tark said to himself, as he watched her stride across the factory floor towards Tee, her long legs crossing the distance quickly. ‘Oh, yeah. Verym.ce.’
    Zyra elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Wot?’
    As she reached Tee, the young woman threw her arms around him. Tee hugged her tightly. As Tark and Zyra approached, she pulled away.
    ‘Thanks,’ she said.
    Tark and Zyra stared at her, mouths agape. She was a striking figure, with a padded leather jacket and pants, dark-coloured sneakers and fingerless gloves dotted with rusty studs across the knuckles. She looked about eighteen, with long red hair tied into a ponytail and intense violet eyes ... and a face that looked too much like Zyra’s to be a coincidence.
    ‘Ya is his daughter,’ said Tark, casting an astonishedglance at Tee. ‘But, ya looks like Zyra.’
    ‘My name is Hope,’ she said to Tark. ‘Tee is my father. My mother was-’
    ‘Me!’ Zyra blurted out. Tee nodded.
    ‘Huh?’ Tark’s astonishment turned to confusion.
    In earlier version of me,’ explained Zyra. She stared at Tee. ‘When I first saw ya, I thoughts ya might be Tark’s old man.’ She paused. ‘But yar not, are ya?’
    ‘No,’ said Tee. ‘The relationship is a lot closer than that.’
    ‘Ya mean . ..’Tark’s voice petered out as realisation dawned.
    ‘My name used to be