CYPHER

The temperature of fear

Dean was still in the position he had fallen to when the woman had been shot .

He had stopped looking at the woman after a while but that was futile .

Her terrified blue eyes had stuck and Dean could feel her face queuing behind his parents face , waiting to haunt him when he slept .

Dean slowly stood up .

He had been unable to think properly since the attack but it made sense now .

A game had to have an element of hard achieved survival and the weird mutation was here to make that possible .

Okay , it did not change much of the game plan except that he had to make sure the mutations did not come near him .

He filed that away to add to his theory on the gameverse .

Dean did not want to think about the only thing that he needed to think about .

The Temperature of the woman's blood , it was too large a factor to be ignored.

Temperature did not in any way affect aesthetics , so of course , it had no place in the virtual world .

But , this was also by the Winchester's , they owned the leading Tech firm according to 2021 Tech Champions of the globe , they could have made it possible .

Dean stepped out of the building gingerly , his eyes and ears at high alert .

He managed to avoid the woman and her spattered body while gripping his backpack with all of his might.

Once Dean was clear of the woman's body , he broke into a run , going as fast as his legs could take him and with no directions whatever .

He stopped running when he was positive he had come far enough and he still had the advantage of hearing the metal mutation come .

But Dean's plans had changed , he had planned on avoiding contact with any of the other players if possible.

Now , he would have to meet at least one or a couple of them till he had enough information concerning the game .

Dean was thirsty from waking up after being drugged and running this far but he wanted to ration his water .

He was no newbie to rationing and saving food for another day , so that would be the least of his problems .

Dean tightened the straps of the backpack he carried as he walked down the empty street .

The absence of noise and signs of life made Dean much more uneasy than he had expected , as a result he was practically speedwalking .

Jaymie would have called him an i***t .

He wondered if she was awake and if she had eaten , he knew she would be okay .

Jaymie was logical , she would make the best decision for both of them .

A clang from Dean's left interrupted his thoughts on his sister , he froze .

Dean's eyes flew to where the noise had come from expecting one of the mutations to jump out from behind any of the houses to his left.

Nothing jumped out .

Dean had finally thawed but the urge to check out where the noise had come from was currently overpowering his will to live .

No wonder curiosity had killed the cat .

Dean crept across the street which was quite stupid as it was an open street and the middle of the day , there was no reason he needed to creep about .

He could hear Jaymie's voice ringing in his head .

Fool , she was yelling .

The house on his left was one of those picturesque houses with white picket fences .

The house was still in good condition but the lawn was overgrown and a car had run through the perfect fence .

Dean crept again through the break in the fence into the house and ran towards the walls where he stuck his body like a gecko.

He looked through the first window and was able to make out a kitchen that was still in great condition.

He moved on to the next window that showed a sitting room .

Dean was about to move to the next available window when he caught sight of something at the far end of the sitting room .

Dean wasn't sure of what exactly he had seen so he stood on the tip of his toes and pressed his face harder into the stained glass to take another look .

What he saw was not different from what he had seen earlier .

A man was tied to what appeared to be a dining chair , the man's head was drooping so he was probably unconscious .

In the next split of a second , Dean questioned just how shallow of a person he actually was .

As he had noticed the man in b*****e , Dean's first thought had not been to save the man like he had seen so many times on screens.

The first thing Dean had thought of was the pyramid and how this man's picture and name would soon fall off it thereby increasing Dean's chances even by a milli percentage.

Dean scoffed at the depths of his shameful fall and peered back into the room .

He removed his face from the window just as fast as he had placed it on the window in the first place .

A group of men had gathered in the room and were surrounding the man that was tied to the chair .

It didn't take a genius to know that some kicking around was about to start .

All of the men, including the one that was binded were dressed similarly to Dean with their fatigues having little , barely visible differences .

When Dean pressed his face again into the window , the men had already began to slap the other man , they were even taking turns and laughing .

Dean left the window and moved a couple of steps back to survey the building , wondering if there was any help he could render the man that was being assaulted from outside and possibly without making enemies .

Dean did not have to wonder for long.

He heard it from around him , the same mechanical whirring from earlier .

It was coming fast but Dean could not hear where exactly it was coming from .

He kept turning in circles trying to figure out which direction .

Someone turned into the street , running at a very fast pace.

It was a girl with long black hair flying around as she ran .

She was also dressed in military fatigues and a kevlar vest but she had altered the pants of her military fatigues into booty shorts or booty fatigues , that was more precise and she wore nothing beneath her kevlar vest .

She had a gun strap around her right thigh and another one around her left arm .

As she got closer , Dean realized she was headed for this house .

Just as she reached the picket fence , the mutation appeared on the street , it was chasing her .

A second later , Dean figured out why he had been unable to pinpoint the location from which he had heard the whirring from .

A second mutation jumped out from the roof of a house that separated this street from the next .

A third mutation just jumped from nowhere into the scene .

The girl ran in their midst and they chased after her.

Just as she crossed the picket fence , one of the mutations raised it's hands but instead of the revolving gun that Dean had noticed earlier , a detailed rocket launcher assembled in the spot where the mutations arm had been .

" Watch out ! ".

Dean had screamed the warning before he knew what he was doing .

But the girl did not seem to need the warning .

She had flown through the lawn in an Instant and the force from the grenade that had blown on impact with the house propelled her through the door .

The force also threw Dean a couple of feet off .

Unlike what he had always thought , the explosion did not make his mind hazy or slow .

It had cleared his mind , blowing away all of his useless thoughts and emotions with the explosion .

His mind was clearer than ever .

Dean sprang on his feet and ran back to the window .There was no need for it now that the mutations had taken off half of the house .

The mutations had stopped chasing too since they had cornered their targets , they were now slowly approaching the house .

The hand of the one that had fired the grenade was adjusting into its previous form as they walked closer to the house .

The girl had run ahead, into the house and was loosening the man's bindings while the men that had held him captive hid behind the remainders of the once beautiful house .

The men held different weapons and waited for the mutations to come closer , one even held a locally made bazooka .

The girl finished releasing the man and the man scurried over to where a bag rested .

He picked the bag up , slung it behind him and pulled out a couple of green containers from the bag .

The man and the girl tried to leave the house but one of the other men was pointing a gun at them .

Everyone stood still while Dean watched it all unfold with bated breath , he too was being very still .

Suddenly, the mutations broke into a run , their mechanical bodies moving and gliding smoothly as they did .

Their arms had also began to change again , transforming into what looked like long ranged assault rifles .

They opened fire first and the men hiding behind the walls responded while the girl and the man that had been tied earlier found a cover .

Dean slid down the wall , his hands coming up to cover his ears of their own accord .

The only thing in Dean's head was the noise , he could hear it all , even as the clips were emptied on the cemented pavement of the street .

But it wasn't enough , because the gunfire from the house had noticably reduced while the fire from the mutations remained as strong as ever .

Dean returned to his feet , he had to see everything .

Most of the men from earlier were now laying in different positions on the floor .

The girl had joined the shooting and the mutations were already past the porch .

The man behind her took one of his green containers and pulled out a pin from it .

" Down !!! ".

Dean did not know who had yelled the command but he got down too.

A second later , the remaining side and wall of the house blew up around Dean .

Dean looked around and saw the only man that had survived from the previous group running in between the houses while the girl and the other man were running in the opposite direction .

The grenade had taken down one of the mutations .

Another mutation turned his back and was walking away like it was bored of whatever had just happened here .

The third mutation was....

Dean gulped .

The third mutation was looking right at him.

As its eyes focused on Dean , its arm began to rotate , alternating between different weapons .

Finally , the hand settled on the same revolving gun that Dean had seen earlier .

The gun lifted up and was aimed in Dean's direction .

Dean knew to run , escape , but his body would not budge , his mouth would not even cooperate so he could at least scream .

The revolving gun fired and Dean finally understood the concept of slow motion.