Video Game Recruiting (Corporate Marines Book 1) (9 page)

“G
ood morning, everyone! This is the one and only Billy Banger!” The young adult on stage is, in fact, the beloved gamer Billy Banger, wearing one of his trademark orange tuxedos, with the most current hairstyle. Behind him on the mega-screen, the Glentol Corporation logo dances around with big question marks all around the edge of the viewer’s screen. “This is one of the biggest data dumps ever! I must be doing something right as I have an amazing bit of gaming news for you today. Everyone has heard all the rumours about the new simulation technology, right? I mean, everyone who is alive today and more than half-awake! Well, the rumours are true! The simulation technology that is just now being used to start training people to work in dangerous and high-risk environments is being made available to schools and other areas. One of those other areas is GAMING! In fact, the first of the new ‘sim centres’ is going to be opened in the next three months! Of course, the system can be used for any game you want. Now I have had a conversation with the tech fools over at Glentol Corporation and those fools are crazy! As soon as they heard that the gamer system was going to be mass-released, a number of their personnel started working around the clock, on their own time, to convert one of the most popular games EVER! That’s right! MARINES will be the first game out! In fact, I have it top-notch from those crazy programmers and gamers that they have three scenarios almost fully cleaned up and ready to go.”

“Now, the Glentol Corporation loved my style with their last rollout, which just felt like yesterday, so much that they called me in to do it again! They have asked me to come over and do some special interviews, as well as invite me and my gamers to try out the new system! Now, I normally have a full crew that want to go in there and get it on, but I,” Billy puts his hand to his chest and his face sobers up for just a second before his trademark grin comes back, “have my team running a charity raffle for two lucky gamers to join us for a back-to-back session again when this rollout happens! Be the cool cat flown into the first zone to open in THE WORLD! Get interviewed before, and if you can handle it, after the game, and then go party with the whole team!”

The angle on Billy shifts and he carries on while he starts to fade from the screen and information starts flowing across, explaining how the new sims work. “Pay attention to this fact-filled short brief from the Glentol Corporation on how sims work and how you can play without a full sensor suite in your body.”

A smooth narrator’s voice comes over while showing the traditional in-game experience that current Virtual Reality games allow. The voice is oily but hypnotic, and after the first few words, it’s ignored by every viewer as the new sim images come up from “new in-game footage.”

The image is clear and first-person. A player runs down a hallway. As three security guards come out from a hidden door to the side, the image freezes and it zooms in. Every guard is an individual, with separate features behind the armoured facemasks. The picture zooms in further and every detail can be made out on the equipment that they are wearing. The identity cards clipped to their upper carry pouches are amazing. The view zooms back out, and forward motion carries on at a very slow pace. The weapon tracks up and, as the player lines up, he or she fires three times. The round explodes out of the barrel in a puff of gas and flame and slowly travels down the hallway. When the round hits the first guard, the solid front armour plate can be seen to flex and then shatter inward as the guard is blown backward. The next round catches the second guard in the arm and tears it off, spraying his blood around in a huge arc while he spins around and collapses to the floor screaming.

The last guard has moved and is trying to bring his weapon up. The player fires a first, second and third round. The first of the three rounds hits the guard in the weapon and shatters it. The round spins away, deflected from being the killing hit. The second round strikes the guard on the shoulder. As the alien spins, the third round hits him in the back, punching right through and throwing the dead alien down the hall to lie on its face.

All the while the narration continues. “A level of realism that has never been seen outside of actual combat. For those with younger players below the age of consent, the system can be set to restrict the violence level so that the game can be as detailed and as fun as everyone else’s but the enemy combatants will simply fall over.” The view changes and it is the same scenario, but instead of the explosive damage as targets are shot, the aliens simply fall over and don’t move.

The voice continued on while the player view changed. “A completely destructive play environment that can show exactly what you are doing in game.” The player was firing at a wall in the game and holes were appearing. As several more guards charged out of a side door the player switched to rifle grenades emptying the tube magazine attached to the weapon. The rounds sailed forward half hitting the wall and the other half hitting alien guards. After the fourth round the wall started teetering and then part of it collapsed into the room.

The images fade away and a man in a lab coat with greying hair and a fatherly smile is sitting in a lab looking quite sincere. He begins talking. “The concern with simulation training is that the subject is going to be implanted with a sensor net that allows the person to completely immerse themselves into an artificial world where the most dangerous elements of life can be explored in a perfectly realistic environment that is not really dangerous. A full set of sensor implants is very expensive, and as an industry leader, the Glentol Corporation is first and foremost concerned with the safety of its people and ensuring that whatever is done is as safe as we can make it.”

The narrator leans back and rests, and nods to the audience as if everyone knew this already. “Sensor implants are still dangerous. The Corporation is making tremendous strides and can safely identify with an easy test those subjects that may be at risk. Those people will not get a set of implants from the Glentol Corporation no matter what. At least not until the technology has advanced far enough that the safety and wellbeing of the humans involved in this is guaranteed.”

He carefully stands up and starts walking down an aisle, past medical equipment that takes up the entire wall it is attached to. He stops in front of a white board and moves his hand over a sensor to the side. The board shifts and a three-dimensional projection of a transparent human appears. He starts pointing to different wires and connections that are under the skin. “The sensor implant technology is the most important advancement in human history since the written word. This will allow us to train personnel in the future to do things that today we can only dream about. But there are drawbacks. The cost is very high, there are risks to inserting the hardware into a person, and there is a chance of rejection by the body. The early systems that are currently in use are only recommended for a maximum usage of ten years. After that, if a subject continues, there is the real danger of permanent neural damage. As the Glentol Corporation researches this technology further, these difficulties will be decreased. Our estimates are that within ten years at the most, these current difficulties will no longer exist. It is expected that one day everyone, except for a rare few, will be able to have any level of implant with no risk whatsoever.”

He moves his hand over the sensor again and the image fades. He smiles at the viewing audience. “To be realistic, with the cost of a sensor implant today, very few would even want to spend the money for this. One day this operation will be common, but today? Not at all. However, we do have another way for people today to get the full use of the new technology for a fraction of the cost.”

Once again, he moves his hand and another human materializes. He manipulates some buttons and a strange helmet appears over the figure’s head; it has no opening. Another button-push and the helmet becomes transparent; it can be seen that there are multiple electrodes touching the figure’s head and spine. Different colors start flashing back and forth in the helmet and the connection points. The white-coated man continues his explanation with his soothing voice. “This is a neural net helmet. A huge improvement on the old Virtual Reality technology, it takes that tech to the next level and means that those of you gamers out there are going to have the time of your life.”

His grin is warm and encouraging. “The neural net helmet has connectors that go against the bare skin that you can see here. When the wearer closes their eyes and relaxes, the helmet will allow them to experience almost exactly what the sensor implants would let you experience in a simulation. You would be as ‘in’ the simulation as you possibly could be. For additional safety, anyone who wishes to use these systems—whether they are in a school, learning institute, gaming centre or otherwise—will be run through a quick touch-test where the system will be placed on the person and a test series will be run for about twenty seconds to make sure that your nervous system reacts correctly. The Corporation would never put individuals in harm’s way if it can help it.”

The image of the doctor fades to black and Billy is there again. His grin is in place and has the classic cheekiness, which means that the next part is going to be good. “The Corporation would never risk the public. Now, parents or guardians that are concerned about violence levels can set the level for their charges through the system. That will be in place until the charges hit the age of seventeen. At that time the player takes over as they are of age. For everyone out there, if you want to enter the contest to win the first chance at the new system, which involves being flown in the night before, getting sized and issued Banger gear, playing with us the next day and then partying through to the next morning at which point you will be flown back to where ever you live, well, just click on the link below and that will take you to the entry. The cost is only five dollars per entry and is restricted to those aged sixteen and older. You can read the fine print and then sign up. You can enter as many times as you’d like, and we will announce the winners the week before they are coming down! Stay tuned for more information and check out these messages from our amazing sponsors!”

Billy Banger had almost one billion views. Systems went down around the solar system with the viewer output. There were so many entries to the contest that the system, even using Glentol Corporation AIs, lagged right out. Within the first twenty-four hours over five million people had entered. Within the next week this had become one of the biggest fundraisers anywhere.

The week before the new gaming system was to be released, the last entries were taken. The initial charity had been expanded to seven different charities, which were funded for the next decade.

The two winners, one a twenty-four-year-old from Poland and the other a thirty-one-year-old Brazilian, became instant celebrities and were offered book and movie deals. They flew in the day before they were to game, appeared with Billy Banger dressed in Banger gear for the game and went on to party, destroying a nearby rave club that night.

During the pre-game interview, well over a billion viewers tuned in and also caught some highlights of the gaming. That evening, two videos were released, showing the action from different viewpoints. Sales skyrocketed and the Corporation, which had sponsored the entire event, had paid off all the hardware updates as well as most of the software development.

Every gaming centre had modified their previous VR rooms into lounges. Gamers came in, sat down with the helmet and sensor net on, and reclined. Since there was no need to move around, each room was able to hold fourteen people at one time. The cost to play for ten minutes had only increased a bit and every centre was booked solid for the next two months. After that, some openings were available.

I was in my third year of university when the announcement came out about the new simulations. I had just finished my final exams and had some spare time. I’d kept working out and “looking after myself,” like my mom called it. I looked good. I knew that for a fact as I never had any problems picking up hot women on the dance floor at any of the wild parties that I went to regularly.

I didn’t have a permanent or serious girlfriend, though. It wasn’t that I was working the field; I just didn’t meet anyone that was interesting enough for anything permanent.

I had good solid grades in my business courses and did well at all of them. Finance, Statistics, Marketing, Social Integrations, Humanology, Business Leadership. Whatever I took, I could just do. I hadn’t chosen to specialize in anything yet and was not completely sure what I wanted to do after school. I was going to graduate in a year. Maybe two, if I extended my time in for some reason. I had been to career fairs at the end of last year and I had seen some interesting companies, but wasn’t even sure where to apply. I had thought about going to the Glentol Corporation but wasn’t sure that they would have me. I did like some of the smaller companies (I mean, everything is smaller than Glentol, which is across the solar system and even in deep space).