Future Games

by John Shirley

  Private Richard Starbuck, formerly a star forward on the Center High basketball team, looked at his watch and wondered, as he waited, if being shot in the gut would be anything like cutting your head on the pavement. It was funny he should have thought of that now. He hadn’t thought of the Martins for months. He wondered if they would be watching. He wondered, if they did, if they would recognize the sixteen-year-old boy who had bled on their living room couch four years ago. He wondered if he recognized that sixteen-year-old boy himself.

  Professor Carl Overmann had finished explaining the marvels of the NSB computer system; a mousy little man from the sociology department of a second-rate university had spent ten minutes assuring the TV audience that one of the important psychological effects of the TV coverage of the games was that it allowed the people to satisfy the innate blood lust vicariously and strongly urged the viewers to encourage the youngsters to watch; a minister had spent three minutes explaining that the miniature war could serve to educate mankind to the horrors of war; an economics professor was just finishing a short lecture on the economic effects of victory or defeat.

  “Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” Bill Carr said when the economics professor had finished. “You all know there’s a lot at stake for both sides. And now— What’s that? You what? Just a minute, folks. I think we may have another NSB first.” He looked off camera to his right. “Is he there? Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, NSB has done it again. For the first time we are going to have—well, here he is, ladies and gentlemen, General George W. Caldwell, chief of the Olympic War Games training section. General, it’s nice to have you with us.”

  “Thank you, Bill. It’s good to be here.”

  “General, I’m sure our audience already knows this, but just so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not possible for either side to communicate to their people in the arena now. Is that right?”

  “That’s right, Bill, or I could not be here. An electronic curtain, as it were, protects the field from any attempt to communicate. From here on out the boys are strictly on their own.”

  “General, do you care to make any predictions on the outcome of the games?”

  “Yes, Bill, I may be going out on a limb here, but I think our boys are ready. I can’t say that I agree with the neutral-money boys who have the United States a six-to-five underdog. I say we’ll win.”

  “General, there is some thought that our defeat in the games four years ago was caused by an inferior battle plan. Do you care to comment on that?”

  “No comment.”

  “Do you have any explanation for why the United States team has lost the last two games after winning the first two?”

  “Well, let me say this. Our defeat in ’42 could well have been caused by overconfidence. After all, we had won the first two games rather handily. As I recall we won the game in ’38 by four survivors. But as for our defeat in ’46—well, your estimate on that one is as good as mine. I will say this: General Hanley was much criticized for an unimaginative battle plan by a lot of so-called experts. Those so-called experts—those armchair generals—were definitely wrong. General Hanley’s battle strategy was sound in every detail. I’ve studied his plans at considerable length, I can assure you.”

  “Perhaps the training program—?”

  “Nonsense. My own exec was on General Hanley’s training staff. With only slight modifications it’s the same program we used for this year’s games.”

  “Do you care to comment on your own battle plans, General?”

  “Well, Bill, I wouldn’t want to kill the suspense for your TV audience. But I can say this: we’ll have a few surprises this year. No one can accuse us of conservative tactics, I can tell you that.”

  “How do you think our boys will stack up against the Russians, General?”

  “Bill, on a man-to-man basis, I think our boys will stack up very well indeed. In fact, we had men in the drop-out squads who could have made our last team with no trouble at all. I’d say this year’s crop is probably twenty percent improved.”

  “General, what do you look for in selecting your final squads?”

  “Bill, I’d say that more than anything else we look for desire. Of course, a man has to be a good athlete, but if he doesn’t have that killer instinct, as we say, he won’t make the team. I’d say it’s desire.”

  “Can you tell us how you pick the men for the games?”

  “Yes, Bill, I think I can, up to a point. We know the Russians use the same system, and, of course, there has been quite a bit written on the subject in the popular press in recent months.

  “Naturally, we get thousands of applicants. We give each of them a tough screening test—physical, mental, and psychological. Most applicants are eliminated in the first test. You’d be surprised at some of the boys who apply. The ones who are left—just under two thousand for this year’s games—are put through an intensive six-month training course. During this training period we begin to get our first drop-outs, the men who somehow got past our screening system and who will crack up under pressure.

  “Next comes a year of training in which the emphasis is on conditioning.”

  “Let me interrupt here for just a moment, General, if I may. This conditioning—is this a type of physical training?”

  The general smiled tolerantly. “No, Bill, this is a special type of conditioning—both mental and physical. The men are conditioned to war. They are taught to recognize and to hate the enemy. They are taught to react instantly to every possible hostile stimuli. They learn to love their weapons and to distrust all else.”

  “I take it that an average training day must leave the men very little free time.”

  “Free time!” The general now seemed more shocked than amused. “Free time indeed. Our training program leaves no time free. We don’t coddle our boys. After all, Bill, these men are training for war. No man is permitted more than two hours’ consecutive sleep. We have an average of four alerts every night.

  “Actually the night alerts are an important element in our selection as well as our training program. We have the men under constant observation, of course. You can tell a lot about how a man responds to an alert. Of course, all of the men are conditioned to come instantly awake with their rifles in their hands. But some would execute a simultaneous roll-away movement while at the same time cocking and aiming their weapons in the direction of the hostile sound which signaled the alert.”

  “How about the final six months, General?”

  “Well, Bill, of course, I can’t give away all our little tricks during those last six months. I can tell you in a general sort of way that this involved putting battle plans on a duplicate of the arena itself.”

  “And these hundred men who made this year’s team—I presume they were picked during the last six months training?”

  “No, Bill, actually we only made our final selection last night. You see, for the first time in two years these men have had some free time. We give them two days off before the games begin. How the men react to this enforced inactivity can tell us a lot about their level of readiness. I can tell you we have an impatient bunch of boys out there.”

  “General, it’s ten minutes to game time. Do you suppose our team may be getting a little nervous down there?”

  “Nervous? I suppose the boys may be a little tensed up. But they’ll be all right just as soon as the action starts.”

  “General, I want to thank you for coming by. I’m sure our TV audience has found this brief discussion most enlightening.”

  “It was my pleasure, Bill.”

  “Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. You heard it from the man who should know—Lieutenant General George W. Caldwell himself. He picks the United States team to go all the way. John?”

  “Thank you, Bill. And let me say that there has been considerable sentiment for the United States team in recent weeks among the neutrals. These are the men who set the odds—the men who bet their heads but n
ever their hearts. In fact at least one oddsmaker in Stockholm told me last night that he had stopped taking anything but six-to-five bets, and you pick ’em. In other words, this fight is rated just about even here just a few minutes before game time.”

  “Right, John, it promises to be an exciting day, so stay tuned to this station for full coverage.”

  “I see the troops are beginning to stir. It won’t be long now. Bill, while we wait I think it might be well, for the benefit of you younger people, to tell the folks just what it means to be a survivor in one of these games. Bill?”

  “Right, John. Folks, the survivor, or survivors as the case may be, will truly become a Survivor. A Survivor, as most of you know, is exempt from all laws; he has unlimited credit; in short, he can literally do no wrong. And that’s what those men are shooting for today. John.”

  “Okay, Bill. And now as our cameras scan the Russian team, let us review very briefly the rules of the game. Each side has one hundred men divided into ten squads each consisting of nine men and one squad captain. Each man has a standard automatic rifle, four hand grenades, a canteen of water, and enough food to last three days. All officers are armed with side arms in addition to their automatic rifles. Two of the squads are armed with air-cooled light machine-guns, and one squad is armed with a mortar with one thousand rounds of ammunition. And those, ladies and gentlemen, are the rules of the game. Once the games begin the men are on their own. There are no more rules—except, of course, that the game is not over until one side or the other has no more survivors. Bill?”

  “Okay, John. Well, folks, here we are just seconds away from game time. NSB will bring you live each exciting moment—so stand by. We’re waiting for the start of the 2050 Olympic War Games. Ten seconds now. Six. Four, three, two, one—the games are underway, and look at ’em go!”

  The cameras spanned back from the arena to give a distant view of the action. Squad one peeled off from the main body and headed toward the enemy rear at a fast trot. They were armed with rifles and grenades. Squads two, three, and four went directly toward the high hill in the American sector where they broke out entrenching tools and began to dig in. Squads five and six took one of the light machine guns and marched at double time to the east of the central hill where they concealed themselves in the brush and waited. Squads seven through ten were held in reserve where they occupied themselves by burying the ammunition and other supplies at predetermined points and in beginning the preparation of their own defense perimeters.

  The cameras swung briefly to the Russian sector. Four Russian squads had already occupied the high hill in the Russian sector, and a rifle squad was being rushed to the central hill located on the north-south dividing line. A Russian machine gun squad was digging in to the south of the lake to establish a base of fire on the north side of the central hill.

  The cameras returned to the American squads five and six, which were now deployed along the east side of the central hill. The cameras moved in from above the entrenched machine gunner, paused momentarily on his right hand, which was curved lovingly around the trigger guard while his middle finger stroked the trigger itself in a manner almost obscene, and then followed the gunner’s unblinking eyes to the mist-enshrouded base of the central hill where the point man of the Russian advance squad was cautiously testing his fate in a squirming, crawling advance on the lower slopes of the hill.

  “This could be it!” Bill Carr’s booming voice exploded from the screen like a shot. “This could be the first skirmish, ladies and gentlemen. John, how does it look to you?”

  “Yes, Bill, it looks like we will probably get our first action in the east-central sector. Quite a surprise, too, Bill. A lot of experts felt that the American team would concentrate its initial push on control of the central hill. Instead, the strategy appears to be—at least as it appears from here—to concede the central hill to the Russian team but to make them pay for it. You can’t see it on your screens just now, ladies and gentlemen, but the American mortar squad is now positioned on the north slope of the north hill and is ready to fire.”

  “All right, John. Folks, here in our booth operating as spotter for the American team is Colonel Bullock of the United States Army. Our Russian spotter is Brigadier General Vorsilov, who will from time to time give us his views on Russian strategy. Colonel Bullock, do you care to comment?”

  “Well, I think it’s fairly obvious, Bill, that—”

  His words were interrupted by the first chilling chatter of the American light machine gun. Tracer bullets etched their brilliant way through the morning air to seek and find human flesh. Four mortar rounds, fired in rapid succession, arched over the low hill and came screaming a tale of death and destruction. The rifle squad opened fire with compelling accuracy. The Russian line halted, faltered, reformed, and charged up the central hill. Three men made it to the sheltering rocks on the hill’s upper slope. The squad captain and six enlisted men lay dead or dying on the lower slopes. As quickly as it had begun the firing ended.

  “How about that!” Bill Carr exclaimed. “First blood for the American team. What a fantastic beginning to these 2050 war games, ladies and gentlemen. John, how about that?”

  “Right, Bill. Beautifully done. Brilliantly conceived and executed with marvelous precision. An almost unbelievable maneuver by the American team that obviously caught the Russians completely off guard. Did you get the casualty figures on that first skirmish, Bill?”

  “I make it five dead and two seriously wounded, John. Now keep in mind, folks, these figures are unofficial. Ed, can you give us a closeup on that south slope?”

  The cameras scanned the hill first from a distance and then zoomed in to give a closeup of each man who lay on the bleak southern slope. The Russian captain was obviously dead with a neat rifle bullet through his forehead. The next man appeared to be sleeping peacefully. There was not a mark visible on his body; yet he too was dead as was demonstrated when the delicate sonic sound system was focused on his corpse without disclosing the whisper of a heart beat. The third man was still living, although death was just minutes away. For him it would be a peaceful death, for he was unconscious and was quietly leaking his life away from a torn artery in his neck. The camera rested next upon the shredded corpse of the Russian point man who had been the initial target for so many rifles. He lay on his stomach, and there were nine visible wounds in his back. The camera showed next a closeup view of a young man’s face frozen in the moment of death, blue eyes, luster-less now and pale in death, framed by a face registering the shock of war’s ultimate reality, his lips half opened still as if to protest his fate or to ask for another chance. The camera moved next to a body lying fetal-like near the top of the hill hardly two steps from the covering rocks where the three surviving squad members had found shelter. The camera then moved slowly down the slope seeking the last casualty. It found him on a pleasant, grassy spot beneath a small oak tree. A mortar fragment had caught him in the lower belly and his guts were spewed out on the grass like an overturned bucket of sand. He was whimpering softly, and with his free left hand was trying with almost comic desperation to place his entrails back inside his belly.

  “Well, there you have it, folks,” Bill Carr said. “It’s official now. You saw it for yourselves thanks to our fine camera technicians. Seven casualties confirmed. John, I don’t believe the American team has had its first casualty yet, is that right?”

  “That’s right, Bill. The Russian team apparently was caught completely off guard.”

  “Colonel Bullock, would you care to comment on what you’ve seen so far?”

  “Yes, Bill, I think it’s fair to say that this first skirmish gives the American team a decided advantage. I would like to see the computer’s probability reports before going too far out on a limb, but I’d say the odds are definitely in favor of the American team at this stage. General Caldwell’s election not to take the central hill has paid a handsome dividend here early in the games.”

  “Genera
l Vorsilov, would you care to give us the Russian point of view?”

  “I do not agree with my American friend, Colonel Bullock,” the general said with a crisp British accent. “The fourth Russian squad was given the mission to take the central hill. The central hill has been taken and is now controlled by the Russian team. Possession of the central hill provides almost absolute dominance of the lake and surrounding lowland. Those of you who have studied military history know how important that can be, particularly in the later stages of the games. I emphatically do not agree that the first skirmish was a defeat. Possession of the hill is worth a dozen men.”

  “Comments, Colonel Bullock?”

  “Well, Bill, first of all, I don’t agree that the Russian team has possession of the hill. True, they have three men up there, but those men are armed with nothing but rifles and hand grenades—and they are not dug in. Right now the central hill is up for grabs. I—”

  “Just a minute, Colonel. Pardon this interruption, but our computer has the first probability report. And here it is! The prediction is for an American victory with a probability rating of 57.2. How about that, folks? Here early in the first day the American team, which was a decided underdog in this year’s games, has jumped to a substantial lead.”

  Colonel Bullock spoke: “Bill, I want you to notice that man there—over there on the right-hand side of your screen. Can we have a closeup on that? That’s a runner, Bill. A lot of the folks don’t notice little things like that. They want to watch the machine gunners or the point man, but that man there could have a decided effect on the outcome of these games, Bill.”