Interlude- Brandon (19 page)

Chapter 53

As instructed, the General placed the helmet on his head, flipped the switch, and closed his eyes. He then began to count backwards from ten. When he reached one, he opened his eyes and looked around.

He was no longer sitting in his office. Instead he stood in an empty, white room. The General spotted a door in one corner and strode over, turning the handle to open it.

It was locked.

No matter how hard he tried, the General couldn’t open the door.

After trying for a few minutes he went back to the centre of the room and sat down. He closed his eyes and initiated the exit sequence like he’d been shown.

“Back so soon, sir?” the technician asked.

The General took off the helmet and put it down on his desk. “It didn’t work,” he said with disgust.

“It didn’t transport you to the Sim?”

“It took me somewhere,” he said. “A stupid, empty room.”

“There should have been a door.”

“Oh, yes, there was a door; a locked door.”

The technician looked uncomfortable. “That’s not possible. The doors to the entrance rooms are never locked.”

The General glared.

“Right. Okay, sir. I’ll get to work on it.”

“I’m losing my patience,” the General growled.

“I understand,” the technician hurried out of the office, leaving the General to sit and stare at the headset in frustration.

It looked like he wouldn’t be touring the Sim today.

The General lashed out and swiped the computer monitor from his desk. With a casual display of strength, he hurled it against the wall, staring with anger as it exploded from the impact. The General sat back down slowly; the act had given him no satisfaction.

Chapter 54

    
“If everyone can give me your attention, we’ll go through the login procedure for ‘Tygon 3.0’,” Wesley said.

It’s a
pretty looking game,” Brandon said.

The
load screen showed a large blue planet with a single land mass in the centre. Next a screen appeared with an avatar standing comfortably with a minimum amount of clothes on. Wesley had already taken them through the stages of selecting the attributes for their avatar; hair colour, eyes, height… there were an incredible amount of variables. On the main screen stood an exact digital replica of Wesley, dressed only in a pair of blue shorts.

“Next you spend points on a set of base skills,” Wesley said. “Strength, endurance, appearance and charisma, to name just a few. Let’s go through each attribute now.”

“Oh, this is boring!” Tony whispered. “Why can’t they just do it for us like they did when we played in the Sim?”

“Shh,” Easton said. “They aren’t going to do it for us, so pay attention. Keep your eyes open for tweaks and loopholes that might exist. You can bet that regular players will be talking with each other to find any exploit that will give them an advantage.”

“We’ll get it right, don’t worry,” Brandon whispered. “Plus we’ll get some perks regular players won’t.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Like twelve years of full-time experience playing these types of games,” Kay said.

“Shh,” Alan flashed them a serious look and they all quieted down.

After they’d learned about the attributes section, Wesley moved on to server selection.

“Eventually there will be millions of players in Tygon. Each server will only accommodate a select number of players and NPC’s. I expect the capacities will grow as our computing power increases, but for Beta testing everyone will play on the same server. Once the game goes live, we’ll start with forty servers online to accommodate one million players per server.”

“Is he serious?” Easton asked. “What’s the world population? A billion? Will that many people want to play?”

Brandon shrugged. “Where would you rather be, playing or struggling through life in the Dream?”

“Yeah, he’s got a point,” Tony said. “Tygon 3.0 is gonna be popular, I think.”

“It’s going to be a whole new world,” Brandon smiled, “and we’ll be the kings and queens of the playground.”

===

A day later, Brandon and his Hand went in.

The first few entries were less than perfect. The group erupted in laughter when Tony’s avatar appeared with bunny ears and a long tiger’s tail. A short time later, Alan suddenly sprouted a scarecrow mask, complete with leaking straw and buttons for eyes. After a round of jokes and jibes, the group had exited the simulation and fine tuned their avatar designs with Wesley’s assistance. 

The Beta testers hadn’t arrived on Tygon yet, but the world was fully populated by non-player characters. Brandon’s team travelled through the main city, riding on the transportation systems, eating in the restaurants, and doing everything they could think of to test the system. Each time they found a glitch or bug they called technicians on their cell phones to report the issues.

“Let’s split up and get into some trouble,” Alan said.

“Don’t hurt anyone,” Brandon said.

“There’s no one to hurt,” Kay grinned innocently.

“There are NPC’s.”

“They don’t count. It’s not like we’re hurting anything if we knock a few of them down.”

“In the Sim, every time we went in to play it involved elimination games,” Brandon said. He held out his hands for the others to see. “There’s blood on all of our hands. Virtual blood, but it feels real.”

“We only killed avatars,” Easton said.

“You’re just an avatar at this moment in time,” Brandon countered.

Alan started to say something, but he paused thoughtfully.

“This isn’t the Sim. It will be more like our thirty year play, at least to begin with,” Brandon said. “I’m not one hundred percent positive, but my guess is that playing in Tygon will be about more than killing.”

“Okay, fine,” Kay said. “We won’t hurt anyone.” She grabbed Tony by the arm and led him down the street.

Brandon and the others split up and started to walk in different directions.

“Brandon!” Kay called from across the street.

Brandon looked in her direction.

“If we can’t kill anyone, then what are we supposed to do?”

Brandon looked at her for a moment, then laughed and shrugged his shoulders. Cupping his hands he yelled back, “Use your imagination!”

Chapter 55

“How can I help you today, General?” Thorn smiled pleasantly as his boss entered the room. It was obvious that the General was angry.

“You can let me into the Sim, for starters!” the General snapped.

“What do you mean?” Thorn looked confused.

“I tried out my new VR helmet and found myself in a white room with a door.”

“Yes,” Thorn nodded, “that’s the standard entrance area to the Sim. Then you open the door and take the hallway to your programmed destination.”

“I’m not in the mood to be mocked, Thorn. I couldn’t leave the room. If you’re trying to stop me from entering the Sim, you’re about to see a very different side of me.”

“I’m not mocking you. Are you telling me that isn’t how it went for you?”

“You know exactly how it went! I went into the Sim, stood in the white room, and couldn’t exit.”

“There was no door?” Thorn looked confused.

“The door was locked!” the General snapped.

Thorn frowned and looked at his computer screen. “When did you enter the Sim?”

“Yesterday.”

“What time?”

“It was about a quarter past six.”

Thorn nodded and continued to
look at the screen and type in commands. Finally he nodded and sat back in his chair, looking up at the General.

“You locked yourself out
,” Thorn said.

“What?” the General stammered. “What do you mean, I locked myself out?”

“The Sim is designed to keep unknown programs out. I’m proud to say that no one has ever successfully hacked into the Sim. It was one of your primary directives: to keep security as tight as possible and to keep the Sim safe from enemy eyes.”

“Well, yes, that’s true,” the General said, “but I’m not a threat; the Sim is my property!”

Thorn laughed to himself, but on the surface he nodded in agreement. “Of course that’s true, sir, but the computer didn’t know that it was you attempting access. The fact that you were able to enter the Sim at all is remarkable. I find it disturbing that for all these years you have refused my offers of assistance with entering the Sim on the grounds of maintaining safety, but yesterday you came closer to dying than I think you have in a long time.”

“What
do yo
u
mean?” the General’s anger disappeared, replaced with concern.

“The helmet you used wasn’t authorized technology,” Thorn said. “One person managed to hack into the primary stage of the Sim a few years ago. He transferred his mind into the Sim, hoping to gain information for an outside
source.” Thorn turned his monitor around for the General to see. “The security measures of the Sim dealt with him. We found a man lying on the ground that same day just outside our facility, and we were able to piece information together to confirm that he was the one who’d hacked us. He currently resides in our medical facility. The Sim destroyed his mind, General. The same thing could have happened to you yesterday.”

The scene on the monitor was horrible. A man hooked up to tubes and monitors lay in a hospital bed. His eyes were half open; his mouth drooped on one side. The General could see by the man’s vacant stare that his essence was no longer there.

“He’s a vegetable,” the General murmured.

“Yes,” Thorn agreed. “That’s what happens to people who try to access the Sim without proper clearance.”

“But I should have proper clearance!” the General shouted angrily. He realized how close he’d come to death, or perhaps worse, and he was infuriated.

“You do, sir,” Thorn said. “When we know what you’re doing. No one can decide what they want to do and proceed without going through the proper channels — not even you.”

The General nodded his head. “I understand, Mr. Thorn. Computers have never been my strong suit. I suppose I should have consulted you before I made the attempt.”

Thorn shook his head with concern. This was the moment he’d been moving towards during the entire conversation, and he struck hard. “Whoever built and designed that helmet for you would have known this, sir.”

“What do you mean?” the General asked.

“Your helmet designer understood computers enough to know how secure the Sim would be. Whoever constructed your helmet expected you to die when you tried to access the Sim.”

The General’s face turned pale.

Thorn repositioned his monitor, allowing the General a moment to ponder that thought. It was possible, of course, that whoever had helped the General had no desire to kill him, and simply wasn’t savvy enough to consider all the possibilities. What mattered to Thorn was that someone other than him existed who was clever enough to build a functioning virtual reality helmet, an unknown competitor who would be eliminated very soon because of what he’d just led the General to believe.

“Thank you, Mr. Thorn,” the General stood up. There was death in his eyes. “I appreciate your help.”

“General?”

The General paused with his hand on Thorn’s door. “Yes?”

“When you are ready to safely enter the Sim I’m always ready, willing, and able to assist you. There is no one else on this planet that depends on your safety and continued well-being as much as I do.”

“That’s true,” the General said. “Without me, this would all go away. Thank you, Thorn. I’ll schedule a session for you to help me enter the Sim soon. There are a few security issues I must correct, first.”

“Of course, sir,” Thorn nodded solemnly. He waited until the General left before he allowed himself the luxury of.

Chapter 56

“There is big news in the world of video games and business today.

Computing giant ‘Thorn Inc.’ is opening up Beta testing for the first ever totally immersive virtual reality game.

Later this week ten thousand lucky video gamers will log in to explore the imaginary world of Tygon.

With over a million advance copies of the game ‘Tygon 3.0’ sold already, the business world is watching the event that could transform Samson Thorn into the richest man in the world.

If everything goes as planned, in just a few short weeks millions of citizens will disappear into virtual reality for short periods of rest and relaxation…”

Chapter 56

"READY FOR THE REAL SHOW!?"

Brandon and the group raised their heads and looked towards the entrance of the bookstore. They were sitting at a reading area in the very back corner, but they could hear Cooper clearly shout his greeting from the front door as he walked in. People paused to watch as he moved past, but he was oblivious of their attention. A parent rushed forward to pull her child out of his way, staring at him as if he were crazy. Cooper ignored them all, grinning as he continued towards Brandon’s group. He walked into the sitting area and flopped down on a beanbag chair.

“That was a bit rude,” Kay said.

“Yeah,” Cooper shrugged and grabbed a book out of Alan’s hands. “It’s just hard for me to care about NPCs.” He pointed to a man standing nearby browsing a bookshelf. “They’re… empty. They put so little thought into most of what they do.” He looked back at Kay and shook his head. “They aren’t… real.”

“Well, they act real enough,” Easton said. “We’ve lived our entire lives in the Facilities, but they seem identical to real people, from our limited experience.”

“That’s the biggest problem!” Cooper leapt to his feet and pretended to pull out a gun, pointing his finger at an NPC browsing a bookshelf close by. Squinting, he looked down the sight of the imaginary weapon. “They’re more like real people than they should be,” He pulled the trigger and his hand “recoiled.” Blowing on the tip of his finger, he holstered his hand. “Which is the most depressing truth of all.”

Cooper shook his head and gazed at the NPC with disappointment, flopping back into his seat and opening the book he still held in his other hand. He removed an energy bar from his pocket and took a bite, not even bothering to remove the wrapping. The others laughed at him; Cooper was acting a lot like a slightly older version of Brandon, “slightly” being the key word.

“So tell me,” he said, still idly leafing through the book. “Are all of you ready for the civilian players who’ll be coming in tomorrow?”

“I think so,” Brandon said. He looked at the others who nodded in agreement. “There are still some issues to resolve, but that’s what all the Beta testers are for. Small groups can only find so many problems, right?”

“Absolutely,” Cooper agreed. “Have you run into any other Elites?” He was referring to other Sim veterans.

“A few,” Tony said.  “We’ve grouped up with some of them to test larger areas and general systems. We’ve caused damage, wreaked havoc and committed crimes around the world to make sure the automated peacekeeping forces reacted as they were designed to do.”

“And?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kay smiled, “they caught us.”

“Because we had to let them,” Alan said. “If we’d wanted to get away, we could have.”

Cooper chuckled and looked at his watch. He stood up and tossed the book back to Alan. “We have a few hours left before they begin flooding into the world. Who wants to go grab one last free meal before the server goes fully live and we have to start paying for everything we consume?”

The group stood up. “Sounds good to me,” Easton said.

“Great,” Cooper said. “When we’re done, we can go to one of the busier spawn points and watch civilian Baggers logging in for their first plays.”

“I wonder how regular players will be different from us professionals,” Alan said.

“For normal games, they’d clean our clocks,” Cooper admitted, “but they’re going to find this much different from the traditional computer games they’re used to. Up until now, gamers sat in front of their monitors and mashed their keyboards. Now they’re gonna have to feed their bodies, suffer from exhaustion, need rest, and feel pain when they’re hurt. They’re coming in here thinking virtual reality is a game.”

“But it is a game,” Tony said.

“No, it’s more like life,” Cooper said.

“The game is life,” Brandon said.

“Hey, now,” Cooper smiled, “that’s catchy.”