Void Legion Page 4

  Much of the talk afterward involved questions as to how the DeGens managed to infiltrate not only a Mid Ward location, but also one owned by the Sunrise Systems Corporation. Pundits suggested hackers had got into the Grid to disable surveillance. Was the Grid truly impenetrable? A discussion ensued about the very real possibility of a severe food shortage and the governor’s announcement concerning rations.

  The reporter also spoke of a full-scale assault on the First Ward. Under pressure from their Citizens, politicians were demanding a cleanup of the crime and disease-riddled place. They stated it was past time to correct the errors made during the Great Migration, to kill or capture the glut of illegal aliens who called the First Ward home, and destroy the thriving gangs that followed orders of the cartels that ran the South American Conglomerate. They wanted to be rid of the general depravity of the people who had abandoned society to become DeGens, living in squalor with little to no heat, light, food, or fresh water. The most outspoken among those politicians was a round-faced, pudgy man named Senator Kirkland.

  The scene switched to Governor Morrison, who blamed the crisis on past mayors for declaring New New York a sanctuary city during the federal crackdown on immigration dating back to 2018. He extolled the virtues of continuing the change begun after the Second Civil War to resolve the problem. After all, it was such illegal aliens the cartels of the SAC had relied on to begin the war that had seen the end of the U.S.A and formation of the North American Republic. He swore to ask President Rashaad for more NAIL troops and promised to keep the SDF mobilized. As usual, the name rat was flung around when discussing the DeGens. The holo display winked out.

  “Keep me posted,” Sidrie said. Her hawkish gaze returned to Dre. “Where were we? Yes, your questions.”

  “How did we end up here?” Dre dragged his eyes away from her face.

  “Luck? Fate?” Sidrie shrugged. “A bit of both.”

  He made to say if they were lucky Pops would be alive, Mom wouldn’t have gotten sick, and they wouldn’t have been in an accident. But he bit his tongue instead.

  “And of course, there was you,” Sidrie said, gesturing to him with an open palm, “bravely trying to take your mother to a doctor.”

  He shook his head. “I was doing what any son would.”

  “What do you recall of the crash?” Sidrie raised a quizzical brow.

  Dre closed his eyes, his thumb and forefinger absently stroking his Two Ring. Images flashed of buckling Mom’s seatbelt and doing the same for Kai. He’d driven down Mermaid Avenue on his way to the Belt Parkway. He remembered stopping at a red light, checking on Mom through the rearview, then Kai playing with his aether ring.

  He cringed as the crash itself came roaring to life. I was thrown out the window? He crawled back to the car. The sensation of a useless arm. Screams. Mom unconscious. Reaching for Kai. He tilted his head to the side, squeezing his eyes tighter as he tried to recall something in the background. A whine of some sort? Then blackness.

  “Something hit us. I was tossed from the car.” He shook his head and opened his eyes. “Then I woke up here.”

  “One of my employees was surveying a bit of property in Coney Island near 17th Street,” Sidrie said. “His hover car struck your vehicle.”

  Dre’s sense of gratitude vanished. His eyes opened wide. “He caused this?” Nostrils flaring, he folded his lips. His mind spun. He stroked his Two Ring even harder.

  “In so much as he hit your car? Yes. But it was you, Andre, who ran the red light and caused the accident.” The blue light flashed in Sidrie’s eyes.

  “No,” he said through clenched teeth. “That’s a lie. It has to be.” He shook, hands balled into fists.

  The holo changed once more. This time, it showed Mermaid Avenue near Dre’s building through a traffic drone’s lens. A weather-beaten Camry he knew too well stopped at a red light. Seconds passed and then the vehicle drove into the intersection. The light was still red.

  A blue hover car smashed into the Camry’s driver side and sent the Camry spinning with its passenger side door flung open. The driver was tossed from the car. The drone hovered above the smoking wreckage. Long minutes passed. The driver clambered to his feet, his left arm and side a mangled, bloody mess.

  Horrified, Dre looked away. That’s wrong. That’s not true. It can’t be true. Someone faked that video. He felt sick.

  “But,” Sidrie continued, “as I said, it was both fate and luck. The accident was destined to happen as was this meeting with you. And luckily, it occurred with one of my associates at a time when your mother was in dire need of help, a moment when she or the twins, or all of them, all of you, could have died. Or could have been discovered by the Family Planning Corps.”

  If the words were meant to soothe, they accomplished little. He felt empty inside, his mind running through all the different scenarios, creating gruesome images. He didn’t know how long he sat there, stroking his Two Ring, but eventually he calmed. Sniffling, he wiped his eyes.

  Sidrie was still sitting in the chair, face impassive. A clean-shaven man in a doctor’s white robe stood beside her. He gazed at Dre over his glasses.

  It was your fault, Dre. He fought against the truth of the words. “A-again, thanks for saving Kai, Mom, and the twins… for helping us. There’s no way I can repay you, but one day–”

  “Actually, Andre, there is a way.”

  Dre perked up. “Tell me. And could you just call me, Dre? Only my mother uses Andre… and only when she’s mad at me.”

  “Certainly, Dre.” Sidrie inclined her head and stood. “As for the assistance you can provide, it should suit you rather well. It’s an alpha test for an SRMMO.”

  There was only one SRMMO Dre knew of. She couldn’t mean Ataxia Online 2, could she? He made to speak.

  “It’s better if I show you. But first, let Dr. Redmond take a look at you.” She indicated the man beside her.

  “Hello, Dre. I’m glad to see your progress has gone so well.” Dr. Redmond was all smiles, even his eyes. He strolled toward Dre’s bed. “You were in pretty bad shape when they brought you in. Your arm was broken, the flesh quite mangled. You’d broken several ribs. And was suffering a severe concussion.

  “Although, I must say I’m surprised it wasn’t worse. Someone else might have died. Or at the very least suffered internal bleeding and life-threatening injuries. Like your-never mind.”

  Dre recalled the video. Brows furrowed, he touched his head, his side, glanced at his arm, and then looked at Sidrie and the doctor. “My arm… my ribs… how long have I been here? How did you–”

  “A week,” the doctor said.

  “A week to fix broken bones? How’s that possible?” Dre turned his arm, noting the tiny scar again. “Why don’t I remember any of it?”

  “You were unconscious throughout the process. We healed your injuries by way of nanotech. In this case, Tissue Nanotransfection. Or TNT. In a nutshell, nanochips containing genetic code are delivered to cells, transforming those cells into other usable cells of our choosing. It allows us to grow anything. Bone. Tissue. Organs.”

  “Wow,” Dre said.

  “Yes, wow, indeed. And here at Equitane we are foremost in TNT.” Dr. Redmond puffed up his chest. “We expanded the tech to include things we learned from extensive study and cloning of axolotls.”

  “Axolotls?”

  “A type of salamander.” The doctor waved casually. “Cancer resistant and capable of regenerating any body part. Even its brain. They’ve been the key to us developing near perfect clones. Now, let’s see what we have.”

  The doctor gestured in front of his face. A holo appeared at eye level between him and Dre. It showed Dre’s arm and ribs.

  “Yes, yes,” Dr. Redmond said absently. “Very good. The biometrics are very good. Another few hours of TNT and that tiny scar will vanish co
mpletely.” He turned to Sidrie. “He’s more than ready.” The projection blinked off.

  “Excellent,” Sidrie said. “Dre, I’m certain you’re hungry. Have a bite, change into something more comfortable, and meet us outside.”

  Dr. Redmond stepped forward. “Here, let me get the IV.” He plucked the line from Dre’s arm and passed Dre a bit of gauze from a small drawer on one of the nearby monitors.

  The door opened and an Automatic Guided Cart rolled in, its tabletop laden with several dishes. On its single arm was a change of clothes, what appeared to be sweat pants, and a T-Shirt. Mouthwatering aromas drifted on the air. Dre’s stomach rumbled a complaint. Sidrie and Dr. Redmond departed. The AGC stopped next to the armchairs.

  “Hey,” he called to the cart, “can you bring that over here?” The AGC didn’t respond. Dre sighed, disappointed that the AGC was as it seemed: an older model with an outdated AI.

  Dre swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. He strode to the armchair next to the AGC but chose not to sit. A large bowl contained strawberries, plums, and mangoes. There was a pitcher of orange juice. But his attention was riveted on the long platter with two types of rice, some potatoes, salad, jerk chicken, curry chicken, and fish. And none of it was the cloned, artificial, or canned stuff. This was real. Organic. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The last time he tasted real food was when Pops snuck some home from work. Dre heaped a helping on a plate and dug in.

  The holo display blinked on. A commercial for a Virtual Vacation ran, this one toting the functionality of newly designed eye implants rather than wearables like smart contacts or glasses. When the ad ended, Ataxia Online’s theme music piped into the room.

  The display changed to Void Legion. Storm clouds gathered; lightning flickered; thunder let out an ominous rumble. A maelstrom formed. At its core was a black void from which lightning poured. The voidstorm swept across Mikander before ending above an ocean. When the waves subsided, there was an island surrounded by the voidstorm’s remnants. The deep NPC voice announced a free trial and the new Simulated Reality feature, Total Immersion.

  Dre watched, all the while imagining he was playing the game.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Well,” Sidrie said, “now that you’ve seen the demo, what do you think? Are you ready to sign on? Time is of the essence.”

  Grinning, Dre pushed the Smart Glasses up on his forehead. “Is this real? This can’t be real. You gotta be kidding.”

  A part of him was in awe of the possibilities before him. Another begged caution. But experiencing Void Legion firsthand was like playing VR for the first time. A dream come true. A rush. Dre could not help thinking that Pops would have loved it.

  “No, I am not kidding,” Sidrie replied dryly. “This is all very real. This,” she gushed, gesturing to the room below them and its numerous Simulated Reality pods, “is Total Immersion, the culmination of decades of research, work, and billions of credits. This is the future, not just of gaming or entertainment, but of humankind.”

  Dre, Sidrie, and Dr. Redmond stood on an observation deck, overlooking the pod chamber with its pristine white walls and technicians wearing smart glasses and sterile coveralls. The silver polymer pods were at least the length of an average man, built like reclining coffins, with glass covering the portion where one might see a person from the waist up.

  A tech at the closest pod studied her personal holo screen that hovered in front of her face before she touched a button on the projection. Along the length of the pod, a door slowly swung up. Dre pictured himself climbing into the thing. He rubbed his arms against a sudden prickle.

  “It reminds me of Virtual Vaycays. A better version, but still–” Dre’s memory of his first and only Virtual Vacation to Barbados with Mom and Pops was one he cherished. The experience had felt so real, down to the wind blowing through his hair, the smells, the music, the Crop Over carnival. Even the sun’s heat. Despite avoiding the beach in VV, he had returned so tanned his skin had been like coffee for a few weeks.

  “That is an insult.” Sidrie’s lip curled, her perfect face becoming an ugly twisted thing. She took a deep breath and clasped her hands. Her features smoothed. “If you must insist on such an inferior comparison, then multiply your Virtual Vacation experience by a thousand and you might get an inkling of time spent inside our game under Total Immersion.”

  “Does it replicate language like VV?”

  “Almost every dialect, tongue… every nuance ever recorded.” Sidrie beamed with pride. “We were meticulous. It’s all part of what we call Information Memory or IM. You think of a thing and it’s there, available to you as in real life, a part of your mind, a part of your knowledge.”

  “Impressive.” Dre nodded appreciatively.

  “And yet I haven’t scratched the surface,” Sidrie said. “The Total Immersion engine allows you to affect the physical game world itself. Spells can literally blow things up. Players can do something as massive as destroying a city, or as simple as leaving ruts in the road with their wagon wheels or footprints. Players tear up the very earth of a battlefield. And those effects remain until some other aspect of the world changes them. You aren’t stuck with one way of doing things. Want to enter a dungeon? You don’t have to go through the door. Tunnel into it.

  “For all intents and purposes, you become a part of the world, a part of the game. Everything you do, from questing to leveling, from stats like the knowledge of a weapon’s Damage Per Second or a tank’s armor, is intuitive, as natural as simply living.”

  “Get the hell outta here. Oh, I’m sorry,” Dre said to Sidrie’s raised brow and disapproving glare. For the first time, he noticed the redolence of her perfume and the perfect mounds bursting from the V of her dress. They were as good any he’d ever seen in VPorn. He felt himself rise until his gaze met those dark, hawkish eyes. Face flushing, he looked away.

  “This is more than a game,” she said, mouth downturned in distaste. “More than life. Down to the AI, which adapts. She is ever learning, ever changing with her inhabitants. But without the flaws and issues that come with emotion.”

  “She?”

  “I like to call her Estela.” Sidrie’s face brightened. “Because of her, the non-player characters have as much effect on the world as the players themselves. And not just the non-player characters who dole out information or help, but the monsters, the mobs themselves. You might still call them mobs, but they are no longer mindless cretins. Like you, they also change… grow.

  “They are mostly autonomous. Leave villages or areas unchecked and one of the non-playable races like the dryads or nalarr might raise a queen or king of their own and declare war on others. Our world is truly persistent.”

  “We’re talking about non-player characters and mobs here.” Smirking, Dre gave her the side-eye. Sidrie nodded once. “NPCs and mobs,” he repeated with a shake of his head, countless possibilities running through his mind, “doing things outside mere programming. Sounds like a recipe for more RNG rather than controlled situations. I got a love hate relationship with RNG.”

  “But isn’t life one big Random Number Generator, most of the times?” Dr. Redmond asked.

  Dre shrugged. “Is it? I never really gave it a lot of thought.”

  “That’s a discussion for another day,” Sidrie interjected.

  “Agreed.” Dr. Redmond nodded to her then returned his attention to Dre. “All this is made possible because of our combination of AI and TNT. Think of TNT as the lifeblood of Total Immersion.” He sounded like a proud father. “Our nanites circulate through every device and through the subject’s body by way of the blood. Any stimuli experienced is passed along to the brain… the muscles… to the AI itself. The subjects then learn, whether they’re artificial or organic. It’s a delicate ecosystem, which has to be experienced.

  “The demo wasn’t a version of the g
ame you’ll play, just an idea of the capabilities. The game itself is far more advanced under Total Immersion. Testers have been known to forget they’re in game. One of the reasons we request that players have a keepsake, a memento of the real world, something they hold dear, one we can replicate to keep them grounded.”

  Dre arched an eyebrow and muttered under his breath, “Y’all been watching too much Sci-Fi.”

  “Think about your time here,” Dr. Redmond said. “You were unconscious for a week and hadn’t used your extremities in that entire time. No walking, standing, holding anything… you get the idea. You had a broken arm. Yet, not long after you woke, you were able to get off the bed and walk, grab a fork and eat. No stiffness, unfamiliarity from muscles that hadn’t been used in a week. You experienced no disorientation. No malnourishment. Why? Those dreams you had of doing normal activities? Some of them were not dreams at all. They were part of an environment conducive to the effects of TNT.”

  Dre studied the pods. “So, if I lift weights and exercise in Total Immersion, I’d be diesel in real life?”

  “Diesel?” Redmond repeated with a grimace.

  “Jacked.” Dre flexed his bicep.

  “Oh.” The doctor cleared his throat. He regarded Dre with raised brows. “And you just said we watched too much Sci-Fi?”

  Dre shrugged. “Won’t know if you don’t ask.”

  “Total Immersion is an experience,” Sidrie said. “One in which a person could live out his life, his dreams, and never need the real world.”

  “Really?” Dre didn’t quite know how to feel about the idea.

  “Definitely,” Sidrie said.

  “The NDA and the waiver mentioned injuries and death,” Dre said. “How’s that work? Isn’t it supposed to be a game?”

  “Call it insurance,” Sidrie said. “Like any NDA.”