by Isaac Stone
Kurt had some knowledge of the crazy debt people were willing to go into so they could get a slice of the pie. He had friends who were still in college and they’d started before the fuel collapse. One of them tried to leave the country to get out of paying the bills, but the border guards were on the watch for such feeble attempts.
“Why did you risk sending this image to me?” he asked her. “You’re going to have some explaining to do if they go back and check the game transcript records. I don’t even want to know who you had to bribe to get here. So were you always working for Rashid? Ever since I’ve known you?”
“Yes,” she affirmed. “I had a knack for these online games, but Rashid threw points in my direction. Not enough to influence the outcome, but enough to keep me in the game. He also arranged for my entrance into the Top Hundred category. My mission was to study the psychology of online games from the inside and see how gamers respond to them.”
“So he wants to find ways to manipulate us even better than he already does. Great. The bastard.”
“Oh it’s worse than that. He wants me to find out if you have any qualms about responding to the wraps Ares creates. He wants to know if gamers are manipulated so far they can’t tell the difference between a rampaging monster and their own grandmother. Those are his words, by the way.”
“Why would he want to do such a thing?”
“I don’t know. He’s up to something I don’t understand with this tournament. Rashid hardly sleeps anymore. He’s obsessed with how many of those hellspawn Nazi creatures are killed. You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think he wants to build an army of merciless soldiers. I think he’s creating a whole generation of gamers who can’t tell the difference between innocent people and slime monsters. People who will be so manipulated into the Ares reality, they’ll kill without mercy. Think about it, who would hesitate to kill an SS Stormtrooper? Only another SS Stormtrooper. He’s conditioning you to kill on command.”
“Well isn’t that good news,” Kurt shook his head. “And that chemistry we were throwing back and forth. It was all part of your field operation? You were following orders and sending out reports.”
She dropped her head to the ground. “It's not like we're strangers Kurt, I can be a professional and still have feelings,” Jesse said to him. “It was wrong on every level, but I didn’t think I was hurting anyone until I began to question what Rashid wanted to accomplish with this game. I’m really sorry, for all of it, but I do think we have something, or could, and that's why I'm here. You're a good man Kurt Silva, and you know how messed up life can be on both sides of the console.”
“Cards on the table,” Kurt said, his heart racing, part of him overjoyed at her admission of interest in him and part of him terrified that he was participating in something far more sinister than he could imagine. “Whatever Rashid wants to do, just keep yourself safe. I'm coming back for you. The Command AI made my character a buy out offer, and it might not be a ton, but enough to let us get away.”
“I'll be waiting, but something is up,” she said, "Be careful."
Kurt turned from her.
There was silence behind him.
Kurt turned around and she was gone. Not even a pop or any other kind of noise. Just a flicker of light behind him. Whatever she wanted to do was accomplished. It didn’t make him feel any better.
Much of what she told him he’d already suspected. There were too many inconsistencies in this tournament to make sense. At first, he thought it was an attempt to fix the game. Perhaps Rashid was in league with some bookmakers and wanted to toss the game. It was an old tactic used many years ago in professional sports. Tons of money was wagered on these games and this was the biggest tournament in the world of Deathmatch. He could see something like this take place. Of course, once the fans found out, if it was true, they would never forgive Rashid.
This was another major disappointment in his life and Kurt was sick of them. Sick of the time he spent trying to get a bunch of gamers up to standards, sick of the years he’d spent staring into a screen that was supposed to simulate the user end of a gun. He knew it was different from what you encountered in the real world and this scenario was living proof. There had to be a better way to earn money and not slave away for all your life. This was the only way he knew.
Kurt was surprised at the young guys who thought he had it easy. They seemed to think he spent the entire day playing games and wasting his time. Surely, this was not a real way to make money. They had no concept of the amount of hours he needed to put into what he did to make it to the top levels. Most gamers were casual players that dropped out of the competition early and watched it take place on the screen. This was never his plan in life. Kurt wanted to be more than a fat guy who sat in a stadium and watched other people have fun.
He decided there was something he needed to do right now. Kurt picked up his backpack and rifle. He walked back to the save point. He pushed the door open to it and went back inside.
“Back already?” the old man behind the counter said to him. “I was sure you would head down to the center of the town where all the action is. Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“What action?” Kurt asked him. He starred at the old man who had a bald head, big gut and bad shoes.
“All kinds of fighting going on at the final stage point. Those hellspawn things don’t want to yield and are fighting down to the last one. Guess that’s why Rashid made it a precondition that all of them had to be eliminated before anyone could win the game.”
“I see,” Kurt responded. “Could I have that thing back you gave me to talk to command? My radio doesn’t work and I need to find out what else to do.”
The old man pulled it up and handed the receiver to Kurt. “It’s already dialing,” he explained. “Happens when pick up the receiver.”
“Hello, is this Command?” Kurt spoke when he picked up the receiver.
“Command on the line,” the voice said on the other end. “Is this Kurt again?”
“Yes it is,” he told him. “I’m ready to take you up on that offer to get out. I’ve had enough.”
“Sorry,” the voice replied. “We can’t do that anymore. Offer was good only once. We do have another option if you want to take it.”
“What is it?”
“There is a hot zone that we need to send people into. Purge the area. Bonuses and glory.”
“When do you want me there?”
“There’s a drone landing right now at the front door. Step inside and it will fly you to the zone.”
Kurt handed the receiver to the man behind the counter who placed it back on the cradle. He sat the contraption back under the counter and looked up at Kurt.
“That was quick,” he commented. “Guess they wanted you for something special. A brand new side quest maybe.”
“I’m headed into the fighting you talked about,” Kurt explained. “Wish me luck. I may win that grand prize yet.”
“Luck!” the man said with a big grin on his face. “Boy, you are sure going to need it!”
Kurt nodded in agreement and went to the door. There wasn’t anyone else at the front of the spawn point and he was outside in a few minutes. The moment he stepped outside, there was a large wind that caused the dust to rise. He looked upward.
It was a drone with the symbol of Rashid’s company on the side. As Kurt watched, it came down from the sky, all four propellers working in sequence. The sound died down once it touched ground, although the rotors continued to turn.
It was one of the newer models that made air travel possible again. After the fuel crisis, few people could afford to travel and the electric drones were the only way most could get around. Still very expensive, they began to replace medical transportation and police observation after a few years. Large government bodies and corporate offices used them to transport people. This was a 2-seater; he learned when the door popped open. Somehow, he warranted the celebrity tr
eatment. Without any other options, Kurt picked up his backpack and rifle. He walked up to the drone and sat down inside. The door closed behind him.
A printed sign told him how to strap in and place the headphones on for communication. The makers of the current batches of drones still hadn’t found a way to deal with the noise issue. He finished fixing everything in place and the drone began to whine very loud. Soon, Kurt was in the sky headed in the direction of the town.
“Are you secure?” a voice asked him over the headphones.
“Fine as can be,” Kurt replied. “Where is this thing headed?” He looked down and realized he didn’t like heights.
“Like I said before, we’re sending you into the hot zone. There is an entire building of those Nazi zombie things blocking access to the final stage. So far, none of our mercs have been able to get into the building and eliminate them. We’re betting on you for the breakthrough," said the voice, before it changed slightly, dropping out of the theatrically aggressive tone he'd grown to expect, and took on a very serious edge, "The audience is sick of watching the elite units run inside and turn in hamburger. We’ve had to tell Ares to tone down the level of destruction portrayed. It gets monotonous after a while. We’re hoping you can get in there and bust through the jam. You want your payday Silva? Get it done.”
Chapter 14
It didn’t take long for the drone to take him to the place they had in mind. Kurt watched the landscape roll beneath him and tried to overcome the nausea that came with the travel. He’d always hated flying to get somewhere, not that he'd travelled much since his days before fame and fortune had knocked him back to working class. What was coming up didn’t help to put him in a better mood. He was relieved to see the ground rise up at him fifteen minutes later.
The town beneath shimmered and changed form as Ares decided how it should look. It resembled any large town in a desert setting where the access to water was important. Kurt noted a stream on the other side of the town as the drone circled around to find the landing space. It was soon blocked by a small three-story building as the drone kicked up the dust again for the landing.
There was a light thump as the drone made contact. “Here is where you get off,” the voice told him in the headphones. “There are several operatives holding a position to your north. Go over and see what you can do for them. Happy shooting.” The door to the drone popped open.
Kurt pulled his bag and rifle out of the drone and stepped away from the rotors. In a few minutes, he was far back as he could be to watch it rise into the sky. The drone went straight up and moved to the south. Soon, it was headed out of sight.
Kurt turned and headed to the north, as he was instructed. It wasn’t hard to find the group he wanted as the sounds of gunfire led him to the exact location. He walked up to the spot where the group he was to join had taken a position outside a building.
From what he could tell, the hellspawn were held up inside two buildings directly in front of them and were blocking their advance. Kurt watched as five men traded gunfire with the occupants of the building. No one seemed to notice him as he walked up to their position. He stood five feet from the man acting as commander until someone spoke.
“You the guy they sent us?” one of them said. He was a bit older than the rest, in his forties.
“We need some help getting this scum out of the way,” the man spoke. “We started with twenty, now we’re down to six. Less competition when we hit the final stage obviously, but pointless if the rest of us get jammed up here. Can you give Larry here some covering fire while he tries to get inside that place to the right? There’s five of those bastards inside and he wants to flush them out.” He pointed to a man of about twenty-five who had the jitters.
“I can do that,” Kurt let him know, “but there might be a better way to get that building cleared out. Once you get one of them cleared, you can concentrate on the one across the street from it.”
“You want to do that,” the man told him. “Go right ahead and try. I saw them gun down one of our people the moment he tried to get into range. I don’t think you’ll make it, but so what if you don’t. That means a better chance for me when we get to the grand prize. Besides, you might take a few of them out. So go ahead and try, I’ll sit back and watch.” He smiled and sat down on a mangled truck of some kind.
Kurt swung out his rifle and looked at it. He didn’t think much about the gun; it was too much a part of his body. It was a Weedwhacker ZAM-20 made by Armored Rims, an old and established company out of the Portland, Oregon area. He loved it just the same, although it wasn’t the same one he used in the online games. This one was real and had the same feel of an authentic model. It weighed less than 9 pounds, but had a stock that fit snug under his arm. It took the 0.225 ammo that was much easier to find than other calibers. He smiled when he shifted it to full auto, as that would increase the rate of fire to fifty rounds per minute. Thank his lucky stars he’d brought the extra magazines along. Kurt made certain it had a full magazine on it before he stepped away.
Through the Heads up Display on his faceplate, Kurt could see one of the Nazi Zombies as it starred at him from a second story window. He walked around the burnt body of a car and brought up the assault rifle. In one burst of fire, he squeezed off several rounds that sliced right through the window and splattered the creature all over the room behind it. He wasn't sure if the algorithm was going to split his points with everyone on this hasty squad, or if he still counted as Skull Legion. He hoped the later of course, the more he had to cash out with the longer he and Jess would have before they had to slow down and think about their next move.
He walked a bit further and stopped. There was movement at the door in front of him. For some reason the thing didn’t try to shoot first. Kurt was able to erase it from the doorway with one well-planted burst from his rifle. With every clean kill his mood was improving, maybe it was going to be a good day after all.
Kurt stepped over the shimmering form of the dead NZ on the ground, pushed the door open to the building, and looked inside. He looked down the scope on top of his rifle and spotted another hellspawn in a black uniform as it ran away from him. It did the creature no good as he eliminated it with two quick rounds from the assault rifle. He continued down the hall and went up the stairs.
The stairs took him to the second floor. By his count, there should be one or two more of the things on that level. Perhaps more, but he concentrated on the information given to him. Kurt walked in stealth as he made his way to the room that faced the road below. The same room used by a position for the sniper he needed to find.
As Kurt walked around the rooms, he realized what he’d entered. Through the scope on the top of his rifle, he could see into the dim interior of the building. He was inside a hotel of some kind. Although the beds were a mess and the hallways full of trash, it had to be one. At one point, this building served guests from all over the world, or so he deduced from all the languages he saw on the bills.
He entered the room next to where the sniper had tried to take him out and waited. All was still, there were no sounds inside the hotel, and although he could hear, stray bullets ricochet off the outside of the hotel. Kurt walked over to one window and pulled back the curtain just far enough to look outside. He wanted to see what took place in the road next to the hotel.
He was thrilled to spot the other game players as they worked their way through the burning metal and ruins of barricades someone tried to place in the streets. The gunfire was less frequent now, but he could tell someone was trying to shoot at the gamers from his floor level. Kurt needed to locate the source of the gunfire if he wanted to stop it. However, there was a good and a bad way to find a sniper.
The bad way involved rushing down the hall to make plenty of noise and let your enemy know you were on the way. The bad way would get you killed and removed from the tournament, even if it helped the guy next to you make the kill and carry on. Kurt wanted very much to stay in this tournament. No
charity today.
The good way involved a lot of time and no noise. He could deal with the noise issue, but time was another factor. He watched the sniper take out two targets on the ground. If the sniper kept it up, none of the gamers on the ground would ever return to their unit. He couldn’t afford to let that happen, as he had a feeling that his involvement in the unit's side quest had triggered his own, solo side-quest. He needed to do it the good way and with speed if he was going to max out his points on this op.
Kurt slipped down the hall and made very little sound. This was not so easy to do with all the trash shoved in the hall and turned over dinner carts. The staff fled this place sometime in the past; at least this is what Ares wanted him to think.
Kurt didn’t trust the Ares system. That much he'd decided. He'd already had his doubts, but after Jesse's revelation he was through assuming this was a benign game. However, if Rashid could put together whatever grand scheme this was a part of, it wasn't going to be Kurt who was going to go against the grain and get himself into trouble. Better to do the quest, rack up some last minute points, and take the early cash out that the Command AI had offered his character. Better to have a few hundred grand and be alive than be a dead man with ten million.
He could hear the gunshots on the other side of one particular door. Kurt waited and became still as a corpse. This had to be the room the sniper used. All the sniper had to do was shoot through the door if he thought Kurt was on the other side. In spite of what they showed in the videos, it wasn’t easy to use a wall for protection. The shells he heard sounded big enough to rip through those walls on the first volley.
He heard the sniper begin to move things around on the other side. It meant he was in the process of changing his magazines. This was the moment Kurt had waited. Right now, the sniper was in his or her most vulnerable moment. Kurt had to act fast if he wanted to take advantage of the situation.
