Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon
By Matt Dinniman
E - Edition
KAIJU: BATTLEFIELD SURGEON
© 2019 by Matt Dinniman
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. No tapeworms, bats, or children were harmed in the making of this book. The author can’t say the same about himself. Or you, the reader.
For permissions, please contact [email protected]
Cover Art by Federico Rivarola
https://www.artstation.com/rivaro
DANDY HOUSE
Hey Mom,
You know how you pride yourself in reading all my books? I really appreciate that, and I love you for it.
Do us both a favor. Skip this one.
This book is unnecessarily gross, pointlessly violent, probably blasphemous, and it contains gratuitous torture. There are also a couple scenes involving a supernatural donkey I really have no desire to discuss with you the next time we talk.
~Matt
Part 1 - Bast
Mural artist ISO blank wall.
No wall too big or too small! Degree in art, experienced muralist will turn your dreary wall into a *hand-painted* masterpiece for the ages! I am quick, talented, versatile, and I *do not* use AI. All art is 100% human-created. Interior or exterior. Please see attached portfolio for a few samples. Low prices. Willing to travel all over the Puget Sound. Email Duke for more info.
do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers
Duke-
Hello. I have a loft space in Capital Hill. I am seeking an artist to make a mural. It is a large, brick wall. Do you have a phone number so we can discuss this further?
A.E.
Chapter 1
I should have known there was something wrong with the dude.
He’d been too eager to get me up into his apartment. He had a way about him, you know? Twitchy, nervous. He didn’t look you in the eye. He was otherwise unremarkable. About forty, average height, slightly balding, paunchy, a tired look about him. It was a typical look for the area. He wore one of those fancy watches, an old-school, gold Rolex I think. Looking back, I think that’s why I followed him to his place. He had money, and I did not.
We’d met at a Starbucks just outside his building. I’d ordered an Americano, black, extra shot. He’d dithered, looking over the menu, like this was his first time. He settled on an iced coffee. It was the first week of February, and it’d been slush raining for two weeks straight. An iced coffee. I should have known right then and there to stay away.
“My name is Anatoly,” the man said as we sat down. He sank uncomfortably into the low couch. His eyes betrayed panic as his body settled into the unnatural position as if he feared he’d never be able to get back up. I wasn’t so sure he would be able to get back up. I’d taken a regular chair across the table.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Duke.”
“I really dig your stuff. I was particularly interested in the revenant mural from your ad.”
I smiled. Most people called it my zombie picture. I hated that term. “Thanks. I did it for a haunted house thing last year.”
He nodded, not saying anything further.
“Is that what you’re looking for?” I prodded. “Something undead?”
“No,” he said after a moment. He seemed to remember he had a drink and sipped it. He frowned, as if surprised at the taste. “Well, not exactly. Are you familiar with Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon?”
“The VR?” I asked. “I’ve never played it, but I’ve seen some of the gameplay. It’s survival horror, right? Like you’re a dude running around the feet of giant monsters while they fight other monsters.” It wasn’t that popular of a game, not compared to the big ones. I was more of a sword and sorcery guy. My jam was Dominion of Blades or The Hot Gates, though I hadn’t been doing much gaming at all lately. I’d pawned my neural cradle, what? Shit, I thought, counting the days in my head. Had it been over a month already?
Anatoly nodded. “Exactly. Anyway, I was hoping to paint a scene from my home base on the wall. I want to make my apartment look a little more like what I have in the game.”
I shrugged. “Sure. Do you have a screenshot I can look at?”
“No,” he said. “A screenshot won’t really work. It’s kinda hard to explain. It’s better if I just show you. I have a rig in my apartment. It’s in Bast. My home base, I mean. You’ll have to jack in to get a look.”
I didn’t know anything about Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon except it catered to a more alternative crowd. It had sort of a cult following. Wasn’t it a single-player game? I couldn’t remember. I did a lot of cons and art shows, and there were always a few cosplayers walking around in costumes from the game. Some of it was pretty messed up. I remembered one outfit of a guy with the skin peeled off his face. He looked like a damn bloody banana.
I liked horror movies just as much as the next guy, but when it came to VR, I just couldn’t stomach it. I even had the gore element turned down when I played Dominion of Blades. The guy who created Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon was a doctor himself, I remembered. His thing was realistic anatomy, even for the monsters. It made the gore more real. I shuddered.
“The game will let me log in as your character?” I asked. Most VRs nowadays had some sort of biometric verification. They said it was for security, but in reality it was so you couldn’t sell your account to anybody else. “Is that because it’s single player?”
The man sighed. “No, unfortunately. You’ll have to roll a new player. Don’t worry. I’ll get you in and get you there to my base so you can eyeball it. We can walk to the portal and teleport right there. The whole thing will take about 10 or 15 minutes the first time, but once you’re there, I’ll get you a brand, and you’ll be able to log in and out at will to get a look.”
“Err, okay, I guess,” I said.
“Also, the game is single-player, but there’s also a co-op mode. You can have up to 22 players. I run a private server, and there are a few other players who regularly log into it. We each have our own base of operations.”
This whole time the man—Anatoly—didn’t look up from the table. He put his coffee down and started furiously itching at the back of his left hand.
Run every instinct told me. This guy is bad news.
“Is fifteen okay for the mural?” he said. “I don’t know how long this is supposed to take. Why don’t you follow me up, and we can take a look. It’s just right there.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Fifteen? Fifteen dollars?”
“No, no,” he said. He didn’t look up. He kept scratching at his hand like a damn maniac.
“Fifteen thousand.”
The words hit me like a meteor. Fifteen thousand. I sat, stunned.
Fifteen thousand dollars.
You can do that, if you recognize it. You can know the exact instant your life is about to change. We all look back at our memories, pick out individual instances, realize them as turning points, places where our paths diverge, moments where everything changes.
But we don’t always recognize the moment as it happens, in real-time. This was an exception. Fifteen thousand dollars. Not an earth-shattering amount of money. For this city, it was pocket change to many of the people coming and going as we sat there, awkwardly facing each other.
But for Mary and me, it would be everything.
It’s a miracle, I thought. A god-damned miracle.
Looking back, I now realize that amount was too much. Too convenient. Too close to the exact amount of money we needed.
You can do that, too. You can look back upon yourself.
Replay moments in your mind. Wonder how you could be such a fool, so naïve.
“Where’s your apartment again?” I asked.
***
Ten minutes later, Anatoly pulled open the grate on the freight elevator, revealing the large loft apartment. His building was older, non-descript, nestled between a single-story bar and a taller, more modern apartment building. The gray, five-story building had no markings on the outside. I’d passed by it hundreds of times over the years and never given it a second thought.
“So I have the whole top floor,” he was saying. “The bottom floor is about to be renovated into some café or something. I’m not sure. My father runs all that. We’re renovating the other floors, too, splitting them into apartments. If you’re looking for a place in Cap Hill, we can give you a deal.”
I wouldn’t be able to afford a closet in this neighborhood. Mary and I owned a three-bedroom apartment in West Seattle that she’d inherited from her parents. We’d had to refinance just to make it livable, and with the crash, we were deep, deep underwater. Six digits of underwater. We shared it with two other couples, and even with their rent, we could barely afford the mortgage. A few payments were missed. A note had been stuck to the door this morning when I’d left. We had less than thirty days to come up with over $14,000.
This morning we had less than a hundred in the bank, with two hundred coming out the next day for bills.
And now with Ruth moving in…
I took a step into the space and stared, open-mouthed.
Fifteen thousand dollars. He’s offered you fifteen thousand dollars.
The way the guy talked, I’d been expecting some sort of stereotypical man cave. I had Anatoly pegged as one of those socially-awkward, never-married techie types who didn’t know what to do with all their money. Guys like that usually collected swords and action figures and spent hours ranting on the internet about the latest superhero movie or some obscure detail on one of the latest VRs. I was expecting eclectic clutter. A massive television, a high-end immersion rig, a ratty couch, a couple old-school, stand-up videogame machines. Maybe one of those Real Dolls puttering around the apartment, dusting.
Instead, this looked more like the waiting area of a high-end old folk’s home. The bamboo floor led to what had to be an 18th-century dining table with matching chairs. Antique Persian rugs were strategically placed throughout the cedar-smelling apartment. A Victorian-style chaise lounge stood facing a large, ornate fireplace. On the opposite end of the room stood a modern kitchen area almost as big as my apartment. An industrial-sized, silver refrigerator gleamed next to a large, silver stove. The metal countertops shone like a mirror. Dozens of pots, pans, and cooking utensils hung from ceiling racks.
But most of all, I noticed the art. A massive, five-foot-wide impressionistic painting looked like… No way. It had to be fake, right? It appeared to be one of Manet’s more substantial pieces, depicting a bullfight at its apex. Other large paintings in that style dotted the walls.
An unmade, queen-sized bed was the only lived-in part of the whole apartment.
Sitting next to the bed were a pair of Honda immersion rigs. Each resembled a mix between a coffin and a weight bench, angled upward. The neural cradles were sleek and black, a brand I was unfamiliar with. It was the only modern technology in the entire apartment.
Multiple skylights dotted the loft. There was only one window, facing the alley between the building and the bar, leading to a fire escape.
Across from me was the empty wall. The wall was about thirty feet long and twelve feet high and was all red bricks. The bricks were of a varying, magenta patina and were pockmarked with age. It looked more like an outside wall than something one would find on the interior.
The wall, as it was, fit the space quite well. It needed some adornment. It did not need a mural. Maybe some accents, but definitely not a mural. Especially not a scene from some stupid video game. It didn’t even make sense.
“So there’s the wall,” Anatoly said, indicating the bricks.
I sighed, panic rising in my chest. Fifteen thousand dollars.
You’re too honest, Mary always said. It’s why we’re poor.
“That is a beautiful wall,” I said. “I could probably do some awesome work on it. But I gotta tell you, man. I just don’t see it. You want a mural on that? Maybe I can do an old-school, industrial-style sign, make it looked faded and antique. Maybe something from the end of the Victorian era to go with your décor. But what you’re asking just doesn’t make sense. Plus it’s brick. Something too photorealistic is going to look odd.”
Anatoly nodded. He chewed on his fingernail, looking down at the floor. A tuxedo cat jumped out from the bathroom area and started circling between his legs, purring loudly. I went to pet it, but stopped. This was a robot. A Sony Koneko version 3.5. Top of the line.
“I figured you’d say something like that,” Anatoly said. “I know it seems incompatible with the rest of the apartment. But you really got to see what I want drawn. It’ll make sense when you see it.”
Fifteen thousand dollars.
“All right,” I said after a moment. “Let’s see what you’re talking about.”
“Great,” he said, perking up. He nodded at the pair of VR rigs sitting by his bed. “Let’s get you jacked in.”
Chapter 2
I pulled my outer shirt off and slid into the coffin-like VR bed. This was a top-of-the-line rig. It had a Honda logo, but I didn’t see a model number. It had to be a custom job. Most people didn’t even bother with the coffins anymore. They just used neural cradles.
He handed me the cradle. I turned it over in my hands. It was lighter than I was used to. Like the bed, it had no model number on it.
Next to my bed at home I had a picture of my dad from when he was a kid. He wore a bike helmet in the picture. Jet black and sleek. Looking at it straight on, the helmet appeared to be made of three different pieces. This neural cradle reminded me of that helmet. It was nothing like the cable-laden, fat headband I currently had sitting at the pawnshop.
“No cables?” I asked.
“It’s all wireless,” he said, pointing over his shoulder. “The new rigs have the PC built into them, but I find the wireless to my own custom-built farm is a way better connection. I had to pull an emergency eject the other day, and it felt like a regular log out. It’s pretty sweet.”
“Wow,” I said, pulling the headband over my temples. The goggles fit smoothly over my eyes. I felt a quick jolt as the system completed the handshake. A green light flashed, indicating I was okay for immersion.
“Why do you have two rigs?” I asked as I leaned back into the coffin.
“I actually have four of them,” he said. “The other two are in the server room behind this wall. I don’t personally game in there because I keep the room cold. I like to tinker with and modify rigs, so I always have backups. Okay, so relax for a minute, and I’ll load up the game. The system isn’t going to recognize you, and you’ll have to roll a new character. It’ll take about ten minutes. Pick whatever you want except maybe a mole man. They have limited eyesight, and you’ll need to see. Also, maybe stay away from a crusher class or anything that seems like it might be strength-based. They have shitty dexterity for what you’ll be doing.”
“I’m just looking, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, but you might have to crawl around to see it better. Once you enter the game, I’ll find you. If we miss each other, just stay put. There probably won’t be too many people except NPCs. We’re at the end of a season, so don’t wander out of town.”
“What are you going to look like?” I asked.
“My player name is Anatoly, and I’m a human bonesaw. You can’t miss me. I’ll be the only human with a player tag. If you see any other players, don’t talk to them.”
“Okay, but how are we…”
My question was cut off as I was sucked into the VR.
All sounds cut away. That plummeting feeling some people described
as the Alice Hole overwhelmed me, but it was smoother than usual. Entering VR sometimes felt like going down a rocky, jarring path on a bike with no shocks. This was smooth and almost seamless. Words appeared on the screen before me:
Loading…
Welcome. Searching…
Player Unknown. Are you a new character? You may vocalize your response.
“Yes,” I said. My words played back at me in my own ears. The difference in hearing yourself talk in the real world was subtle, but it was always jarring, uncomfortable. No matter how realistic they made these worlds, this was something they hadn’t yet been able to replicate. Just like listening to yourself being played back in video, the sound of one’s own voice was always something that made the immersion just a hair off.
Welcome new player. You may exit at any time by saying “Quit Game” two times in a row or by logging out in the player menu. Warning! This is a development build of Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon. Some features may not work as expected. Gameplay may vary from the commercial release. Proceed at your own risk. Loading…
The screen flashed, and I was transported to a new world.
I floated featureless upon a green hill. I had no body, but I could see. A blue sky hung over me, and a walled city stood about a mile away, nestled against the edge of a forest.
I was immediately taken by the realness of the VR. I could smell the grass, hear the wind. I looked about, and I couldn’t see any seams at all in the sky. I’d never seen such excellent rendering, and this was an old game. The warning had said this was a “development build,” whatever that meant. They must have updated the graphics.
Above, the sky turned dark. Ominous music blared. Behind me, an explosion echoed, followed by a distant roar. The camera flipped, and I found myself facing the other direction. In the distance, two dozen huge shapes barreled across the darkening hills. They ran away from my position toward the source of the explosion.
Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon Page 1
