by Isaac Stone
With fewer people able to travel, much of the entertainment was found on the Internet screens. Interactive systems allowed anyone with a connection to the system to participate. Corporate sponsorships moved away from sports ball games, which were on the downswing anyway, to interactive computerized games. Why bother with football when you can shoot each other?
Enter Team Deathmatch, Al-Sayed’s company, a few years ago.
Al-Sayed spent billions on the design and development of a first-person shooter game that allowed almost anyone to play. It was so lucrative; he would send Internet connection units to anyone who signed up for the subscription fee, itself absurdly low. With all the software and computer development money he pushed into it, Deathmatch became the most popular game online. All you needed was a small helmet with a screen and you vanished into the world of the interactive game. The system could locate your hands and make them appear to hold a gun as you advanced into a war zone created on the screen. More advanced models came with full body suits that allowed the player to fell the temperature of what was shown in front of them. You could sense the body of a simulated gun under the gloves provided for the game.
It became such an obsession that some players wouldn’t leave the interactive world. Several cases of dehydration were reported from men who didn’t want to leave and get water.
But the real attraction was made in the money a seasoned player could earn. With huge simulated combat scenarios shown live on the Internet, some players became stars in the game world. Huge amounts of money could be earned if you made it into the top level. People would burn out quick, so there were always more players who wanted to take their place.
Kurt was close to the professional level several times before he had to quit. To make the Top Hundred category was everyone’s desire. At the top twenty or so, you could earn money from sponsorships and look forward to a life of respect.
It wasn’t easy to make the Top Hundred list. It took constant hours of training and determination to reach this level. Team Deathmatch figured out years ago that nothing good comes easy and made the game increase in its levels of difficulty the further you advanced. A person might sign-up to the game service, buy a good helmet and find themselves starring down the site of an old WW1 Mauser as they slogged through the terrain of Verdun. Perhaps they would score some good points the first time out before the timer went off and reset their action. Perhaps they’d be “killed” by sniper fire. One thing was sure: most of them would return many times over to play the game. After a few years, Al-Sayed began to stage simulated combats in all manner of scenarios. People would pay to have enhanced views of the action and watch the battles. The advanced computer imaging technology made them realistic at a level no one had ever encountered before. Commentators would be on hand to provide running accounts of the games in progress.
However, to reach the Top Hundred level and become a vetted professional wasn’t easy. Although the technology was cheap when it wasn’t free, it required constant levels of play to stay up with the latest scores and advances. A man might spend months working to make the next level, assured this would get him into the final levels, only to see a new player with rare skills and determination soar past him.
As the player advanced up the ranks, the scenarios became increasingly difficult. Although losing only took you down one level, it was possible for someone to remain on the same level for months until you found a tactic that worked. Stories abounded about young men who lived in their rooms and never emerged. Parents or caregivers would shove food under the door. Pictures of players who made it through the most difficult game levels appeared on the Internet. Often times they appeared ragged and barely human.
Team Deathmatch's IT security staff worked tirelessly to find anyone who tried to cheat the game. Al-Sayed posted infiltrators all over the chat rooms and forums for the game. They searched for anyone who offered cheat codes or any way to beat the system. Several well-publicized incidents of upper-rank players who tried to cheat served to send a message to anyone who might try to find a way into the final level by duplicitous means. No way would Al-Sayed put up with anyone who called his game rigged.
New traps and weapons were introduced at every level. At a lower level, the player might be able to take out a whole army of AI bots with a shotgun. At a higher one, he would have a sophisticated gun and need to avoid flying drones. He might have to form alliances with other players to advance to the final rounds.
“Is it anything important?” he heard his mother call from the screening room in the house. Funny how most screening rooms in homes were one-time family centers. People who could still afford to have children lived far away from the violence of what remained of the cities.
“Yes,” Kurt called back. “Something very important.”
“Anything I need to know about?” his mother called out again, her attention still focused on some TV show popular before he was even born.
“I’m not sure,” Kurt replied again. He sat the coupon down and looked at it.
After burning-out, Kurt gave up on his dream of being a professional Deathmatcher. He was close more times than he could remember. Every time, Kurt found himself shot back down in the ranks, as someone new flew past him. The game still grew at a ferocious rate, so more people played it each month. This meant that it was harder and harder to reach that Top Hundred rank as every day passed.
Kurt gave up his hopes months ago and began training other players who wanted to reach the final level. Although he wasn’t a contender anymore, no one at the top level wanted to help the lower ranks rise, as it might drag down their standing. A few of the Top Hundred discussed quitting the game so they could find work as personal trainers, but they never did. Since his ratings were available for anyone to see, Kurt didn’t have to sell himself very hard.
He couldn’t understand how he’d managed to stay in the Top Hundred. The only reason, he thought, was that Team Deathmatch factored in his scores with the teams he’d trained officially. That was the only explanation, and like any good multi-billion collar tech corporation, Team Deathmatch kept its algorithms a secret. None of his people advanced very far, but he was there every time, urging them onward to take out an enemy position or rescue a fallen comrade. Somehow, these training exercises had combined with his standing record to keep him in the Top Hundred. He didn’t know of anyone else who trained players, but more would go this route once they learned there was money to be made.
The stress of playing to win at the top levels was hard on him. He’d tried to self-medicate with some illegal attention-enhancing drugs, but found the side effects knocked him down a few ranks. Yes, a few doses allowed him to concentrate, but it destroyed his hand-eye coordination. He could concentrate on a target better than ever, but his response time made it a waste. After a few weeks of headaches and jitters, Kurt dumped the medications he’d bought down the toilet and flushed.
Yet, he’d made it into the Top Hundred and never even knew. Now they wanted him to compete at the global level for this live game of combat that everyone on the planet could watch. He would become one of the big stars Kurt cheered years ago. It was too good of a chance to pass and he knew it in his heart.
Kurt decided to look into the event that Team Deathmatch wanted to promote. He picked up the coupon and took it over to the nearest network terminal in his parents’ house. The coupon had a code on it that he needed to enter to register for the event. It was also a way to validate the offer. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was swindled into registering for a non-existent tournament. One of his player friends was cleaned out of his savings when he spent a substantial amount of money to prepare for a nonexistent online game. It was supposed to help advance his standing. Although he recovered his money later, the ridicule he experienced was enough to make him quit playing. In the aftermath, Team Deathmatch spent tons of money to track down people who promoted fake games. Al-Sayed wasn’t about to allow his company’s name tarnished by some cheap fast buck arti
sts. After a few famous raids by the tactical police, the game scammers stopped going after Team Deathmatch. It wasn’t worth the grief and there were easier targets to pursue.
He logged into the Team Deathmatch’s website with ease and found the section for players invited to the ultimate game. Kurt punched it in his code and held up the coupon so the website could verify it. It took all of three seconds for the official “Congratulations!” to flash up on his screen. As he waited, Kurt watched the screen redirect itself to an official greeter.
Before him appeared the face of an oriental woman in her 20’s. “Hello, Kurt,” she said to him from the other side of the screen. “You are in the Top Hundred of all Team Deathmatch players and are qualified to play in the Killstreak tournament. I’m sure you have plenty of questions about the game, but you must answer one for me before we go any further. Do you wish to enter this tournament?”
“Hell, yes,” Kurt let out. “What do I need…?”
“Thank you,” she cut him off abruptly. Kurt realized she was an animated response program.
“I’m going to give you a special time table where you can book your flight out to the Team Deathmatch facility in New Mexico,” she continued. “Don’t worry; it’s all paid for by the corporation. Next, you’ll be given an itinerary that will lead you into the basics of the tournament and what are the final rewards. You probably want to know: how much money do I get if you win?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt mumbled to the screen.
“Ten million dollars,” she replied to him. “Does that sound good enough?”
Kurt was speechless.
“I thought so,” the screen flowed onto the pitch. “We don’t tell anyone how much until they agree to play so as not to influence their decision. Of course, there is no guarantee you’ll end out on top, but there are plenty of prizes for those who don’t win. You can always rank in the finals.” She continued on about the money and it sounded good.
The man in the office was busy.
He watched the large screen over his desk as the results came in for the people he’d contacted. It was for the ultimate round of Team Deathmatch. The screen showed the numbers under consideration by the invitee. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and considered the results. Every last one, so far, who was invited, had responded with a positive. This meant they were all going to come. It wasn’t a sure thing, of course, but it looked good for what he had in mind. Killstreak would be the ultimate online event with people already reserving spaces to watch it on massive screens in theaters. Bars saw record business as the fans booked booths to throw Killstreak parties. This was all very good for his business.
Rashid Al-Sayed was a quiet man who didn’t like to give interviews. He would give the opening introduction to the players when they arrived at his New Mexico headquarters, but he would retire to his personal bunker to watch the events play out. And then he would leave for the final day….
He was a tall man, well over six feet in height. Rashid wore western-style clothes and shunned the traditional ones he’d worn back in his hometown. He sipped some vermouth from a glass and looked down at it. His father and uncles weren’t that observant and didn’t care about alcohol consumption. After all, didn’t the Holy Book suggest many ways to find the Will of the Almighty?
He’d spent his formative years in a small village outside Mosul where his ancestors lived since the beginning of recorded time. At some point in the distant past, they’d adopted the religion of their neighbors. Centuries later, a man showed up who claimed to know the inner mind of the Almighty and they followed him. Their own sect never counted more than a handful of followers, but no one cared. The Almighty had his ways and at the end of time, he would reward all of them. Let the other towns shun his as “heretics”, it made no difference to them.
All of which changed the day men with guns showed up on the town borders and decided to cleanse the land of vile unbelievers. It didn’t matter that Rashid’s extended family had viewpoints slightly different from theirs, they were all heretics and the land would be better off without them.
It was something they’d always feared, but never thought about it. Besides, the Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers were supposed to protect them, right?
He was the only one who survived the massacre when their “allies” fled overnight. Every last one in his village was slaughtered by the “Sons of the Prophet”, one of the many death squads who roamed the land in the wake of the latest foreign invasion. Rashid, just a young child, survived by hiding in a well.
He held the glass in his hand and thought about that day. Hard to believe he’d come so far since then. However, there were other matters to consider.
“Accept”
Kurt typed the word into the box when it was displayed to him. He sat down and watched the itinerary scroll down the screen. He would need to catch a plane to the private facility in New Mexico where all the players would gather. It was part of the Team Deathmatch complex and all of it was owned by Rashid Al-Sayed.
Rashid, the mastermind behind the on-line game empire, never took his company public. Unlike his former companies, Team Deathmatch was owned by him and no one else. Although he set it up as a legal corporation, he controlled all the stock and answered to no one else. Many had tried to get into the operation, but he wouldn’t have it. Rashid had taken out US citizenship to make sure he didn’t have to worry about any laws against foreign nationals. With his money, it was easy to find a sponsor.
“I’m going to be out of town for a few weeks,” Kurt informed his mother. He waited to see her reaction.
She turned slow and looked at him. “A job I hope?” she spoke. Kurt had never been employed in any fashion that involved a paycheck.
“Kinda,” he told her. “I’ve been selected for the title fight in that online game I do. Could be some big money if I win.”
He watched as she rolled her eyes and went back to the screen. His mother gave up on him with a real job years ago. However, she always hoped he’d see the error of his ways and find something permanent. Today was not that day.
“You’ve said that before,” she called back to him. “I thought you’d quit this thing except to train people. Wasn’t the money good enough? I’d hate to see you depressed again.” She continued to stare at the old show on the screen.
In truth, the money he receive from up and coming players was good, but he wanted better. It wasn’t enough to pay some bills that he’d racked up over the years in his effort to become a professional player. He wanted the serious cash that he could use to pay off his parents’ house. Maybe move them to one of the mountain communities were life was better. There was no reason they should continue to live this close to areas where the military needed to patrol. Kurt wanted to tell his mother all of this, but couldn’t find the words.
“Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “I’ve posted to all my students that classes are on hold until I return. Even if I don’t win or place, there very fact I was invited puts me in a better category.”
“I guess,” his mother responded. She hadn’t moved her eyes from the screen.
After a few seconds, Kurt sighed and went to his room to pack. He needed a change of clothes for at least a week.
Chapter 3
The helicopter let Kurt and the other 10 players off at the Team Deathmatch headquarters early in the afternoon three days later. It was a real treat to fly in a helicopter with a human pilot. In a world of bots and drones, the human touch was, indeed, a nice touch.
He didn’t speak much with the others. They’d all flown in to a private airport near Kansas City earlier in the day. Kurt was a bit surprised when the ticket reservation was made out to a place he’d never heard about in the Midwest. He expected to fly direct to the mysterious facility where Team Deathmatch was created and transmitted to players all over the Internet. Somehow, Rashid was able to fly in an entire team of engineers and technicians from a remote town in India to work for him in New Mexico. No one knew how he’d pulle
d it off, as the labor laws were very strict, but he’d done it. Money can buy a lot of influence at the right level.
He’d waited in silence as the others showed over the next few hours. Someone about his age would appear, well truthfully they were all younger than he by some years, but at least the same overall generation, and then they'd talk to the ticket agent and be directed to a lounge at an unused part of the airport. By the time the helicopter showed, he’d sat on the bench three hours.
“Killstreak?” one of them finally spoke to the others. They nodded.
“Could be fun,” Kurt said, but no one responded. They nodded and went back to whatever reading material they held. Some of his future competitors listened to music with earphone attachments. He counted roughly a dozen of them, and assumed that this same scenario was playing out across the world as groups of players were routed to specific locations to be rounded up and transported.
The helicopter was a large commuter variety and had plenty of room for everyone. The pilots kept the blades in motion while the stewards went inside the airport and made the announcements.
“All participants for the Deathmatch facility please come with us,” she announced. “Have your coupons ready, I need to check them. We will be arriving in New Mexico in the next three hours.” She held the door to the pad open for everyone.
As he felt the prop wash of the rotor sweep down on him, Kurt showed the coupon to the steward inside the helicopter when he entered. The man nodded and pointed to one of the main benches. The players seated themselves. In a few minutes, Kurt was strapped in and headed toward the sky.
