Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (24 page)

Reiser shook his head. “That may be true. But mentally speaking, you’re also five of the single most skilled recruits I’ve ever seen. Don’t you see? That was the point.
Mako
was designed specifically to mentally train future soldiers in every aspect of warfare—from ground combat, to aviation, to tech… everything—and your team mastered it all beyond anything I could have ever imagined.”

“What about the other teams that were right behind us, or the one that got kicked out after the final level?” Lee countered. “What about them?”

Reiser’s face went sour. “The team before you was a group of soldiers from Noll’s security detail,” he muttered. “They were far more familiar with the game’s design than you, but they had no clue about the Sygarious protocol, which is why they lost. Never mind the fact that their presence there to begin with was a total violation of procedure…” He broke off. “Anyway, the other teams were fabricated to keep your squad on the offensive, and pushing ahead. The only team that’s even close to you is based out of Australia somewhere, and they’ve been stuck on E-27 for weeks!”

Expecting this type of resistance, the doctor continued to try and explain why his seemingly irrational position made tangible sense.

“Listen,” he went on, “I know you physically don’t know how to handle an assault rifle or pilot a fighter, but that’s precisely what this project is designed to teach you. Instincts, knowledge, strategic thinking, logistics… think about it. You already have all of it and at the level that takes traditionally trained soldiers years of experience to develop. Training your body how to do these things is merely the next step of this process, but mentally you already have what you need to begin.”

“What kind of Bibbidi-Boppidi-Boo crap is this?” Link declared, shoving his hands in his pockets. “The only firearms I’ve ever held are the niner that I carry on the road and the 12-gauge I used to hunt with. That’s it!”

“That’s true,” Reiser said, standing up. “But think about it, Lee. At dinner, every one of you talked ad nauseam about the incredible amount of detail present in every aspect of the game—from weapons to ships, to tactics or whatever. That was the point: to virtually recreate everything that a would-be soldier or pilot would need to know so that when the time came to begin physical field training, he or she would be mentally equipped with everything necessary to succeed—and mind you, far beyond the curve of conventional training.” He looked over Lee’s shoulder to Link. “Yes, Lincoln, you’ve never actually fired a sniper rifle. But if I put you in position to clip a watchtower guard from 500 yards, you’d know how to. You’d know how to identify the best possible shooter’s position based on existing terrain. You’d know how to compensate for wind resistance. You’d know how to breathe and what ammo to use for maximum shot accuracy. Subsequently, if I put you in the cockpit of a Tuskan, I’d venture a guess that there’s not an instrument on the dash that you wouldn’t know.” Reiser turned to Lunley. “Hamish, you know every component needed to make a bomb, be it something small like a mine or something big enough to blow a building. Likewise, if you’re stuck on the side of the road with a busted Sand Tiger, odds are good that you’d be able to diagnose the problem and, at the very least, patch it up well enough to get on the road. Why? Because virtual or not, you know every square inch of that engine. Am I wrong?”

Hamish shrugged, and Reiser shifted to the others.

“Danny, you’ve never fought in an Auran-style martial arts ring, but if I laid out a move-by-move analysis of your opponent’s attack, I’ll bet you could give me a step-by-step counter for how to defeat it. Mac, you’ve never hacked a custom-encrypted Alystierian security system, but if I put a computer in front of you with a series of code, you’d recognize it enough to know where to begin. And you,” Reiser returned his confident stare to Lee. “You’ve never flown a Mako to the brink of passing out, but I can promise you… you
do
know how to—and if you come with me, I’ll prove it.”

Lee had to give the man credit. Far-fetched as all of this was, his basic logic tracked… in theory, anyway.

“So what?” he said, still not entirely convinced. “Because we can play your game, that makes us capable of steppin’ right off the boat and onto the flight deck? You got any idea how utterly ludicrous that sounds?”

“Not as ludicrous as you might think,” Reiser cautioned, racing his fingers back over the keyboard to draw up the schematics for what appeared to be an oddly designed bodysuit of some kind.

“What is that?” Mac asked, squinting over Lee’s shoulder to make sense of the strange image.

“It’s called a Mimic Suit, or M-suit for short, and its why, with a little training, you can do all the things that I just said, but in reality rather than virtuality. My theory is that as long as the mind can process the information—know what needs to be done and how to execute that task—then technology can replicate what the physical body doesn’t yet know how to do until such time as it does.”

“Not followin’, Doctor,” Lee replied, still confused but admittedly curious.

“Have you ever known anyone who lost the use of their legs halfway through their life?” Reiser asked, to which they all nodded. “Just because they lost the use of an extremity doesn’t mean that they simply forgot how to walk—they just physically don’t have the capability to do so because those impulses from the brain that control that function are no longer being received by the part of the body that is used to carry it out. But what if they could be fitted with a device that could interpret those same signals and artificially translate them into replicated, physical movement?”

“Like Magic Legs,” Link mocked in a slow southern drawl. “I saw that movie too. No thanks, Forrest.”

“So what are you sayin’ here?” Lee asked. “If we come with you, you’ll plug us into these techno-whatever suits and we’ll automatically be able to climb behind the stick?”

Reiser returned the computer to its home screen. “I’m saying that’s how it starts. We fit each of you with an M-suit and teach you how to use it. Then, with the help of a modified gene therapy that’s very common on our world, we slowly wean you off the suit until your body is able to perform at the same level of speed and efficiency that your mind is already capable of.”

“So like, training wheels?” Mac posed.

“Precisely.”

“How long would this weaning process take, then?” Hamish asked, still skeptical but, like the others, growing more interested. “I mean, if we went with ya, and that’s a bloody big if at this point, how long would the entire process take?”

Reiser thought for a moment before answering. “It would vary for every recruit, depending on aptitude and natural ability. With that said, best guess… 12 to 16 weeks for the entire program.”

“Well, there it is then,” Link laughed out loud. “Unless we all want to be unemployed like Crockett here when we get back, that oughta pretty much put that to bed. Sorry to piss in your punchbowl Doc, but thanks for the hospitality. Now if you could show us the way out of your secret, underground super-fortress, that’d be awesome!”

Reiser’s cool demeanor buckled. “
Mr. Baxter
,” he snapped, having finally had enough of Link’s snarky tone. “As you’ve so astutely pointed out on more than one occasion in the last 24 hours, I and my company happen to have a great deal of money… money which, I might add, you’ve had no problem helping yourself to in your time here.”

“Relax, I’ll pay you back for the booze,” Link grunted.

“I couldn’t care less about the booze, Link. Nor could I care less about the future of the Phoenix Gaming Company once I’m gone.”

Already poised for another verbal strike, Link found himself instantly silenced by his host’s implication.

“That’s right,” Reiser continued. “In a matter of hours, I and my staff will be leaving this little planet of yours, with or without you. When that happens, PGC will quietly fade back into the corporate oblivion from which it came—liquid assets and all.”

Link’s eyes went wide at the possibilities. “Soooooo, what are you saying?” he hesitated. “That if I come with you for 12 weeks, I can tell my jerkoff boss to go screw himself? And do what? Come run PGC’s legal team?”

“You can do whatever you like, legal or otherwise,” the doctor shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. When I leave here, I won’t ever be back, and so PGC means nothing to me. It was just a means to an end to get the software out to the mass populace as quickly and as comprehensively as possible. It’s served its purpose. As far as I’m concerned, you can have it.”

“What, like an owner?” Link said, all but salivating. “Like a full-fledged owner of a friggin’ Fortune 500 company?”

“More like part-owner,” Reiser noted. “Anyone else who comes with me would have an equal stake in the company. Again, what you do with it from there is your decision. Keep it, sell it, liquidate it, whatever. It makes no difference to us.”

Another moment of silence fell upon the group while they pondered this. With the exception of Link (who had his own reasons for professional misery), financial woes were entirely too familiar to all of them. Still, spellbindingly tempting as all of this was, a final, common question weighed on each of their minds.

“Will we have to fight?” Lee eventually asked.

“I’m sorry, what?” Link blurted, tumbling back to reality.

“Listen, Dr. Reiser,” Lee explained, “you seem like a real good guy, and given our respective circumstances, I don’t think anyone here would mind one bit takin’ you up on your offer. So correct me if I’m wrong here, but are you, or are you not askin’ us to put ourselves squarely in the middle of a war that, by all accounts, you’re losin’ pretty badly?” Lee bowed his head to continue. “With the humblest and utmost respect… that’s a lot to ask of five strangers who ain’t even from your world, don’t you think? I mean, the idea of actually flying a Mako, or running one of the single most profitable companies in the gaming industry and livin’ like some kinda Hollywood superstar sounds nice and all—”

“But not if it means we’re gonna get our butts shot off in the process before getting home to actually do it,” Mac concluded his thought.

Having anticipated the question, Reiser wasted no time firing back with an ardent response.

“Under no circumstances, whatsoever, will you be asked to set foot in the field. Not only would it be imprudent, but it would also be counterproductive to my research.” He took a step back to address them collectively. “You’re not soldiers, and we’d never pretend that you are, or ask you to fight. Believe me, it’s not lost on me that this isn’t your war, but the fact of the matter is that my world—the place I know, love, and call my home—faces an enemy whose entire reason for being is to make war. You must understand that up until a few years ago, they had no reason to attack us. But once they did, they came at us full force, and while we held our own in the beginning, the truth is that our military simply wasn’t built to sustain a conflict for this amount of time.”

The grave looks on the five faces in front of him told Reiser that they understood this. Fictitious or not,
Mako Assault
had taught them more than skills. It had also told them the very personal story of his world and his people, and video game or not, they knew the stakes better than anyone.

“When I left Aura to come here 13 months ago, the latest projections said that, at the current pace, we were looking at surrender in just over three years, give or take a few months. Now we have the means to build the equipment we need to stay in this fight, but what we don’t have are experienced soldiers and pilots to use it. This project can change all of that. If this works, we won’t be cranking out green recruits from basic, but rather specially trained, elite level soldiers—every one of them the very best at what they do right out of the gate.”

Danny turned a sardonic eye to Lee. “Why have a fleet of green cadets when they can all be Green Berets, right?” he deduced aloud.

“Exactly,” declared Reiser. “Think about it, in a matter of months playing
Mako
in your spare time, there is very little that your team can’t do mentally. How fast could that’ve happened if training was all you had to do? All I need now is to take you back to Aura and test how your programming interfaces with the actual technology. That’s it.”

Turning again to the docking bay below—his thoughts still swirling—Lee steepled his hands under his face and did his best to process all that’d been said.

“So just to be clear,” he concluded—his eyes still fixed on the ship. “If we do this… we go, we play guinea pigs for a while, we let you test your project, then—win or lose, pass or fail—we come home?”

Reiser stood up straight on his cane. “That’s the gist of it, yes.”

The group exchanged puzzled looks, but said nothing. The cruiser alone had been shocking enough. But now having heard Reiser’s rationale, one might’ve made the argument that the real shock factor came with their fading reluctance to consider his offer.

Still, never one for rushed decisions, Lee knew they would need some time to make sense of it all for themselves.

“Fair enough,” Lee said, returning to face their host. “I think I can speak for all of us when I say we’d like the night to talk this over and sleep on it. Is that acceptable?”

Reiser nodded and extended his hand. “I knew that you would, though I would urge you to decide soon. It goes without saying that time is of the essence.”

As the group filed out of the control room en route back to the elevator, Dr. Reynolds reemerged from a nearby alcove and stopped alongside Reiser to see them off.

“Thank you all for coming here,” Reiser said, holding the doors for a final word. “Regardless of your decision, please know that we’re grateful to you for that alone. Safe travels on your way back into the city, and I’ll look forward to speaking with you soon.”

“Thanks, Dr. Reiser,” replied Lee. “I give you my word that you’ll have our decision by the mornin’.”

“Thank you, Lee,” said the doctor. “Goodnight.”

****

“You like them,” Reynolds surmised of her colleague’s wry expression once the doors had closed.