“No,” Rook breathed.
Delta’s voice came back, but it was slower, deeper, like a tape recorder dying. “It means… the file is missing. The map… was deleted.”
A Juggernaut appeared. But it wasn't made of armor and miniguns. It was made of pure, unrendered ERROR. Its body was a shimmering mass of pink and black checkerboards. Where its face should be, a Windows error box blinked:
It raised an arm made of corrupted code. Mw3 Error Could Not Find Zone So Survival Mp Paris.ff
Except there was no Paris.
“Uh, Delta?” Rook said, his voice echoing into the void. “Where’s the zone ?”
As the checkerboard Juggernaut stomped closer, Rook sat down on the wireframe curb of a Paris that never was. He pulled out his last, desperate tool: the Xbox 360 Guide button. “No,” Rook breathed
Rook looked around. He was standing on a grey, featureless grid, like a 3D modeling program before the textures loaded. The Eiffel Tower was a ghostly wireframe. The Arc de Triomphe was just a pale outline.
The Juggernaut raised its foot. The error box on its face grew larger.
Rook sighed, pressed the glowing silver button, and whispered, “Yeah. Yeah, I would.” The map… was deleted
He couldn't shoot. He couldn't sprint. He couldn't even die properly, because the death animation file was also missing.
“If I quit now,” he said to the void, “I’ll lose my rank.”
Sergeant Marcus “Rook” Rooker materialized in darkness. Not the fuzzy, loading-screen darkness, but a solid one. He could feel the weight of his ACR 6.8, the cold press of his frag grenades, the grit of Parisian concrete under his boots.
A horrible, glitchy screech replaced the sound of gunfire. Then, a calm, robotic female voice echoed across the non-existent sky.