Ruins of Majesta: Vol. 2.1 Creatures and Cupcakes

by Taj McCoy El

  ✽✽✽

  First Lieutenant John Nathan Auset stood in front of the stolen military hardware. His men were surrounding the building, unbeknownst to the black-market arms dealer who stood across the table from him. He had brought a team of fifty men, parked in vehicles at every intersection two blocks out, and three men on every building with a line of sight. The five men he brought with him could easily take out this mishmash group of twenty mercs and thugs.

  He had counted all twenty of them when he stepped out of the van. He could even see the ones that thought they were hidden. He took notice of all the exits in their dump of a hideout. They actually brought me to their hideout. He could tell because of the couches and the CrysScreen over in the corner. You never bring the bear into your house, he thought.

  They stood around a table in a drab mechanic's shop. It had a high ceiling and tracks for running a hoist. A good solid choice. The building was two stories of solid concrete with an open mezzanine around three sides of the building. The arms dealer had his men standing up there with rapid-pulse rifles. Too bad they weren’t good for anything but unarmored targets.

  He focused his attention back onto the merchandise. A three-year-old spy drone. It would be adequate for what he needed. He looked up into the arms dealer’s face.

  “These will do. How much are you asking?” Auset asked the man.

  “Well, that depends,” the arms dealer shrugged.

  “On what?”

  “On what you want to do with them, of course.”

  “And how is that any business of yours?” Auset said tersely.

  “Look, Clyde,” Auset twitched his eye at the mention of his cover name. He picked the name because frankly, who remembers a Clyde? "I know we just met and all but, the way I see it, a new team shows up in town ready to make big moves and flashing a lot of cash, and it really gets me to thinking.” He tapped his temple. “What could they possibly have planned?”

  Auset said nothing and stared at the arms dealer simply known as McGill. He was beginning to like this man less and less. He didn’t want to have to tie up loose ends, but it was looking more and more likely. Didn’t this fool know that time was money, and McGill was wasting his.

  “How much?” he asked one last time, with a hint of a growl.

  “Whoa, slow down there. Don’t be so quick to jump, froggy. What I meant was, me and my crew wanted to know if you needed a few extra men? We’d like to get a tow out to deeper waters if you know what I mean?”

  Instantly, a plan hatched in Auset’s mind. One where he would vanish into the wind and these idiots would be dead or rotting under a prison somewhere. It would serve them right. He could serve his country twice on this mission. Once for the big criminal and secondly for a few small fish.

  The authorities could never hope to find Clyde. Clyde was as much his name as John Nathan Auset, meaning not at all. They might remember his face, but that too would be elusive. This was his second face after all and a third one looked to be very close on the horizon. It would be a welcome relief after this assignment. He had a feeling it all had something to do with that girl he got trapped in a video game.

  Mayah Butler.

  His troubles had quadrupled the day he met the diminutive upstart. But these buffoons, he would use, break, and throw away.

  He was a fox, and they just invited him into their henhouse. He remembered an old saying, A fox is just a wolf who sends flowers. He smiled because he didn’t even have to send a single Daisy.

  He looked at McGill and turned on his most charming smile. “Now that you mention it, I may have a job for you.”

  ✽✽✽

  "I knew Mayah was a warrior, but I didn’t think I truly understood that before now. And you're sure she’s alright?”

  “I’m positive.” Josh looked up for a second. “Just got a ping. She’s walking towards the stadium now.” He pointed her out as the view changed on the floating screen above the table. “And since she’s almost there, we should head out, too. We’ll bring the screen with us so you can keep an eye on her.”

  The image zoomed in on Mayah as she strolled with her friends. As Josh stood from the table, the screen floated off the table and over to Josh’s left.

  “You guys ready?” he asked them.

  Brenda and Gyasi stood up from their meal, thanked Abernathy, and followed Josh. Brenda’s eyes never left the screen. Gyasi held her elbow and guided her along, as she barely spared a glance for any obstacles.

  “What is that cloak?” she inquired.

  “It’s a power-up item that she made. She’s already gotten a few first achievements. It’s kind of nice that the AI’s control all the advancements and can augment the prizes to suit the gameplay. A self-aware world where you can do anything you set your mind to.”

  “Why does she have a cat, anyway?”

  “She doesn’t, that’s actually a player. They've been hanging out since her second day. His is a bit of a sad story and not mine to tell. He’s very loyal.”

  “Who’s the short guy arm in arm with the red head?”

  That would be specialized NPC, nec-172GN, and the woman is a player named Margaret. We checked her out. She’s a seventy-year-old woman in hospice. She wanted to spend some time with her grandkids before she passed so she bought them all pods hoping to meet up with them in Majesta.

  “Ah, here we are. He opened the door to the main room of the cabin and went to a door on his right, punched in a code on an invisible screen, and the door audibly unlocked. He grasped the handle and threw the door wide.

  “Welcome to the Dev room.”

  The Butlers looked on in sheer awe as they tried to take in the expanse of the space. It looked endless. The sky was black with a grid of white lines, and the ground was a dull gray with the same white lines. Completely featureless it stretched to the horizon in every direction. Josh stepped out into the space and walked out into the surreal landscape. The Butler’s followed looking all around them.

  “This is where it all happens. Every blade of grass, every ant, and every NPC first started off in here. This is where the digital sculptors started shaping the world of Majesta.” He spoke in a large booming voice, but there was no echo.

  “We went contrary to most game design and fed everything to the IMCs and let them run a complete history simulation that covered over five thousand years. The world is so complete that some NPC’s could even give you a family lineage that predates our Majestan time frame. If it was necessary to the story it’s in there. The AIs do it all.

  “Of course, we gave them a set of random objects and behaviors for each object and let them shake it all around for a few thousand years. We would check in periodically with beta testers, and then tweak the settings. And, finally, this is what we got. Well not this per se,” his hand gestured all around, “but more like the cabin.”

  A single slash of fluorescent purple cut across the black grid sky of the dev room. Josh made a few inputs on his invisible interface.

  “Well, that’s us. Hold on tight.”

  Brenda grabbed Gyasi around the waist burying her face into his armpit. Gyasi wrapped his arms around her in return. Brenda did not like roller coasters and associated the words, “Hold on tight,” as a warning that there would be a bumpy ride.

  A dome of light formed over them. The light spread across the floor from the edges of the dome and covered everything underneath their feet. There was a slight sense of movement but nothing like one of the dreaded carnival rides.

  “Okay, almost there,” Josh said to them, making inputs into his interface.

  There was a slight bump, and then the glow began disappearing like smoke. Her eyes made out the details of two people standing there. One of them was the height of her little cupcake. She focused more intently. She released Gyasi and stepped towards her little girl. She saw her drop something, and then the light disappeared.

  “Mom…Dad…?”

  Mayah ran into her mother's outstretched arms. Brenda pushed
her back to look at her and make sure she was alright, and then smashed her back into her bosom. Mayah clasped her hands around her mother so that she would never let her go again. Gyasi hugged them both from the other side, making a sobbing, wailing Mayah sandwich. Josh watched them for a few moments, and then went over to Margaret and Grax.

  “Margaret, Grax, I’m Josh Bannon.”

  They both just stared at him with open mouths.

  ✽✽✽

  Josh created a beautiful woodland park, much to the delight of Brenda. There were benches following a trail around a large pond. Willows overhung the shallows and ducks and swans swam on the water. He escorted Grax and Margaret away, giving the family time that was much needed. He walked to a bench out of earshot and gestured for the other two to take a seat.

  They sat silently until Grax Spoke, “So, she really wasn’t kidding when she said she was stuck in game?”

  “Not in the least, unfortunately.”

  “So, why haven’t you gone public with the knowledge?” Margaret cross examined him.

  “Before I answer that question, I would like you both to know I have already left that decision entirely in Mayah’s parent’s hands. At this point, there is no one more qualified to handle the situation than my team and I, and I wouldn’t trust the government to wipe its own butt, let alone save her life.”

  “But what about the danger to everyone else?” Margaret probed.

  “As far as we can tell, this won’t happen to anyone else.”

  “And why’s that?” Grax chimed in.

  “Because there is a miniature spy drone in her pod’s neural receptors.”

  “What?” Grax fumbled.

  “Someone tried to hack Majesta and got that poor girl stuck in my game.” Josh took a second to look up at the sky, and then continued, “They were able to hack the signal by augmenting the droid with some pretty high-tech transmission equipment. It hacked the pod, overriding the safety protocols and mimicking a new authorized signal perfectly, until it hit the IMCs. They responded and tried to take control of the outside terminal. The perpetrators must’ve noticed and pulled the plug on their operation. Some aberrant code infected the IMCs, and we battled that all off, thank God. But Mayah’s pod is still infected. The spy drone is acting as a go between for Mayah and Majesta. It’s just taken away her option to logout, and we can’t get her out without pulling the only bridge keeping her tethered in game and alive.”

  "I thought you could just pull people out of pods and they’d be fine?” Grax question him.

  “Normally, yes. But how can I explain this?” He placed a knuckle to his mouth as he thought. “How long does it take for you to make a fist?” Josh asked in return.

  “What type of question is that?” Margaret snapped.

  Josh held up his hands to keep the aggressive grandmother from biting his head off. “Just humor me.”

  Grax slit his eyes and said, “It takes no time at all.”

  “Relatively speaking, it seems to you that you think ‘make a fist,’ and it instantly happens. But the brain has made millions upon millions of tiny decisions to get your hand to ball up. But you feel it as instantaneous. Our neural interface catches those tiny signals and copies them. It then acts as a bridge between your mind and body, slowly pulling your neurological processes out of sync with your body. The brain activity speeds up once it starts to receive messages from the pod. They can exchange information twelve times as fast as normal cognition, even though we limit it to six in game with a few exceptions. There is a special filter that lets the body’s autonomic nervous system functions normally while the brain is immersed.

  “When you feel your heart speeding up in game that is actually the AI imitating those sensations for you. The AI has a false heartbeat and respiratory response it feeds to your conscious brain that your brain deciphers as real.”

  Grax and Margaret both touched there chest as they realized how complex Majesta was.

  “The problem is, that without the proper sync to slow the brain down before it reconnects with the body, it can do extreme damage to your nervous, pulmonary, and respiratory systems.

  “We've already tried to just physically remove her from the pod. She experienced cardiac arrhythmias and grand mal seizures. They didn't stop until we placed her back into the pod. So far, nothing we’ve tried has been effective at all. Her brain wants to believe that the Majestan sensations are real.”

  “So, what are you going to do?” Margaret looked scared at the possibility of Mayah dying.

  “Everything I can. I’ve called in specialists from all over the world. Mechanical engineers, programmers, neurologists, and plenty of other people with letters behind their names who are way smarter than I am.”

  “Well, I for one am rooting for you out of selfish reasons. But if you let that little girl come to harm…” Margaret let it hang there, a silent declaration.

  “I’m doing everything in my power to get her home, and your support means a lot to me. Let’s just hope I can do enough.”

  “Yeah, let’s hope,” Grax muttered, feeling the gravity of the situation.

  ✽✽✽

  “If anyone could figure out a way to get herself stuck in a video game it had to be you, didn't it?” Gyasi smiled at his daughter.

  Mayah wiped her sniffles on her cloak. “Yeah, I guess it would be me, but it’s not so bad. The food is okay, and I’m having fun.” She looked up at her mother with a teary smile. “The hard part is missing you guys.” She sat in between her parents and felt them crowd against her. They felt safe and warm.

  “So, how did you guys get here? What is this place?”

  “Josh called it the dev room. It’s technically not part of Majesta. He had to pull you out mid-portal to get you here without upsetting all the game mechanics.”

  “Why is he so worried about game mechanics when I’m stuck in here?”

  “He said that without the game operating, he wouldn’t be able to have full access to your pod’s biotelemetry.” Brenda’s hand squeezed a little tighter when she said that. “The game servers only have permission to access the data because of the end user license agreement. If he was forced to remove your pod from Majesta, he’s not sure he could reconnect your pod to the Attactus servers.”

  “That would mean I would have to be taken into the hospital,” Mayah pondered.

  “Your mother and I agreed that was a risk we didn’t want to take at this time.”

  Mayah contemplated that for a moment and came back with, “So, he’s got doctors and all kinds of crazy tech?”

  “We’re pretty certain he is doing everything in the world to get you home safe. He has teams running non-stop filled with all types of doctors and engineers, and if you saw the tech…” her father whistled a note of high appraisal.

  “Makes sense, but do you trust him?” Mayah wondered.

  Brenda thought about it for a second. "I would have to say yes. We’ve also found out he paid your fees and scholarship to the academy. He’s been keeping tabs on you for quite a while now.”

  “He’s also been nothing but forthright with any information regarding your condition and he’s as interested in making the idiots that did this to you pay as I am.” Gyasi growled the last part.

  “Then how come this isn’t all over the news yet?” Mayah asked her father.

  “He left that decision in our hands, and we don’t need the media making a circus out of our lives. I mean, we already have two animals.”

  Mayah punched her dad in the arm. Gyasi rubbed it, feeling the stinging in his arm.

  “When did you get so strong?” he asked with a wince.

  "I guess the game mechanics are still in play in the dev room. If that’s the case, then check this out.”

  With her strength at 19 and her 10% bonus, she could lift 156 lbs. She scooped up her father and carried him around for a few seconds until her encumbered status almost drained all her stamina. Then she dropped him gently on the grass and wrestled wit
h him.

  “Hey, hey, no fair. I can’t hit a lady, and you're still using all the kid tricks I can't fight against without hurting you.”

  “No worries. I have over 700 health points so there’s no way you could beat me in a one on one, unless Josh gave you a cheat.”

  “No, no cheats.” Gyasi held up a hand in surrender. “I’m outta breath, anyway.”

  “Yeah, that’s a beginner’s stamina.”

  “You two stop messing around! You're stealing my cuddle time with my cupcake.” Brenda held her arms open, and Mayah jumped back into their warm embrace. Gyasi brushed the dust off his jumpsuit and sat back down on the bench next to his two favorite ladies.

  “So, what's the next move?”

  “Well, it’s only been about twenty-seven hours IRL. I say we let Josh keep doing what he’s doing,” Mayah posited.

  The family looked at one another for a moment, and no one brought up any other propositions.

  "I guess it’s unanimous then?” Brenda smiled.

  “Guess so. Any other business?” Gyasi asked.

  “Yes,” Mayah quickly said. “Livestreaming. Josh said he would put me in contact with someone. I even sent them a video.”

  “They called us, but we were waiting for you,” Gyasi answered

  “What did they offer?” Mayah said feeling herself get giddy.

  “$1,000 per weekly video, management, and promotion. They said they really liked the video.” Gyasi beamed at Mayah.

  “Don’t forget the important part. They offered you a $2,000 dollar exclusive signing bonus,” Brenda added.

  Mayah tapped her chin, unsure

  “Wow. Okay, that might be a bit low. I’m gonna have to talk it over with Grax and Margaret. Speaking of Grax and Margaret, I should go introduce them to you.”

  ✽✽✽

  “Look, here they come.” Josh motioned with his chin.

  Grax and Margaret turned their heads to see the family standing up and hugging each other. Hand in hand with Mayah in the middle, the Butlers were making their way over. Josh stood up and straightened his clothes out of habit, even though they were designed to stay perfect in game.