"Load the explosive rounds and get ready for close combat," said the commander to his assembled team. The hard clacks of clips slamming into place and shock-bayonets humming up to full charge filled the air.
The squad, in full battle armor, ran into the zoo as Melandre and her children were loaded into the back of a van. A pair of doctors started treating them. Melandre had them check her kids first as the van left the zoo.
With tears in her eyes, Melandre decided that when she got back to Steelzine, she would go straight to the authorities to make sure they didn’t miss the evidence that would prove the Institute's role in the disaster. The Institute wouldn’t be able to hide Philippe's research now.
And while she missed her husband dearly, she decided the worries she’d brought with her to the zoo were unfounded. She need not worry about raising their children alone. And while it would take them a little while to get over the shock of the events, they would be okay in the long run.
She let her gaze rest upon Natalya and Andrake, and smiled. They smiled back, relieved and sad all at the same time, and somehow without saying a thing, all their hands met in the middle in one tangled heap and they looked out the back of the van.
The sand storm had blown the green corrosion from the domes until they were a polished copper shine. With the sunlight slipping through the remnants of the storm, the domes were beautiful reddish-brown jewels scattered against the gap in the hills. But as they rumbled back to Steelzine, the sun slipped behind a cloud, dousing the zoo in shadow. And Melandre could only think that the domes - with the ochre dust pooled around them - looked like bloody stones dropped by a careless child.
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EXCERPT from Book One of the GAMERS Trilogy, by Thomas K. Carpenter
Chapter One
The green sky loomed over the high school track like a bowl of pea soup upended. Even the few clouds resembled lumps of pea-sized material suspended in the thoroughly disgusting verdant broth.
Gabby ran around the track, glancing upward, cursing under her breath. Her best friend Zaela, elbowed her in the ribs.
“Come on, our score is dropping,” said Zaela.
Gabby checked her LifeScore, annoyingly waiting at the corner of her vision with only a quick leftward eye movement, ready to piss her off. The number had faded to red, indicating a downward trend.
“Give me a sec,” she muttered. “Only need another minute.”
A gaggle of the Evil Dolls ran by the two girls laughing, Gabby's name for them, not theirs. Their digital skins made them resemble living dolls, complete with gaps where their joints would be and shiny dead hair. Even their clothing was stiff. Green numbers, indicating upward movement, floated over their heads.
“See!” cried Zaela. “They’re three hundred above us! My father’s expecting me to be above rank by the end of the week.”
Gabby ignored Zaela, who continued to complain about not having much more time before Final Raid. Gabby was comfortably above the probable line that would separate who would earn their Life Class and who got lesser, meaningless jobs. Jobs that didn't have a much responsibility, a title, or many benefits within LifeGame.
Her best friend Zaela, unfortunately was not, and had been losing ground for the last three weeks. If Zaela failed to make the cut, Gabby would earn her Life Class alone and probably never see Zaela again.
Gabby was not going to let that happen.
The world hack slipped into the Sky.Net school file like she’d done it before, which in fact, she had. Last year she’d made it rain baby pigs during Spirit Day, even tricking everyone’s sense-web so they felt a slight impact, though she hadn’t gone so far as to make them squish. That would have been too gross. Instead they bounced like those lame superballs her father always talked about. He was so last century.
Either way, the bouncing piglets had been hilarious. This time she was much more serious. She couldn’t let Zaela fail, no matter what it took.
“—be able to get into the Bioeconomic Game Design program at Blizzard University.”
When the sky turned to static, cries of surprise erupted across the track. The heads of all the girls running the track game bobbed up like gophers. Gabby wondered if any of them were expecting baby pigs.
It would take a while for the administrators at Neversoft High to counteract her exploit. Gabby counted silently under her breath while they ran.
Zaela squinted at Gabby. “You did this didn’t you?”
Gabby made non-committal noises while she continued to count backwards.
“Three...two...one....”
She steered her friend to the right side of the track as the sky crackled and changed to an ominous one full of bruised purple clouds seething with electricity. For a brief moment, she thought she saw a black owl flying through the clouds, but then it was gone. She hadn't programmed that into the exploit. Gabby shook her head, deciding it was just her imagination.
“Get ready on my cue.” Gabby rested her hand on Zaela’s arm so she could indicate when they would have to move.
When Administrator Bracket’s face appeared in the sky amid the threatening clouds, a confused sound came from her right.
Zaela raised an eyebrow. “I was sure you were behind this.”
Gabby shrugged. “Just wait.”
The face in the sky, which was actually only appearing on their personal eye-screens, just like their digital skins and most of the coverings for the landscape, barked out a command, as Administrator Bracket was prone to do.
“Attention LifeGamers! We’re adding a special bonus round to this game. We are upping the difficulty, so stay sharp!”
Gabby rolled her eyes. Even though this was a segment she’d spliced from a bonus round a few years ago, hearing it reminded her how lame Bracket was.
He was an old military guy that had grown up on the forward bases near the Southlands and they used an old version of LifeGame, so he read the scripts like he was berating a private. The key was that Bracket made the hack seem official, so everyone paid attention.
Obstacles popped up all over the track like bubbles. Hazy questions floated over each obstacle. The two girls neared a candy-striped pole suspended at the height of their ankles.
WHY WAS LIFEGAME™ INTRODUCED?
The floating words solidified as they neared, and as they jumped over the pole, the words kept pace.
"That's so Mario! I studied that last week!" Zaela squealed.
Of course, Gabby knew that. She'd told Zaela to study it, feigning that she'd heard it would be a pop-quiz, having already planned out the hack.
"Because the Greater States of America was losing its competitive edge," answered Zaela.
The question disappeared into green sparkles indicating a correct answer.
WHAT ARE THE THREE RULES OF LIFEGAME™?
"Another easy one!" Zaela hopped when she clapped, bringing a smile to Gabby's face.
"The first rule is what can be gamed can be improved. The second rule is that everything can be a game and the last rule is to never look backwards because the past is a game that's already been decided."
Gabby smiled and veered to the right so she could answer her own questions. She'd programmed hers to be much harder than Zaela's. Cheat sniffers could tease out patterns in the data and Gabby had to be careful.
A fractal-recombination cube appeared in front of her demanding a solution. Gabby knew the answer, since she'd programmed it, but purposely got the answer wrong, letting the cube explode into red sparkles.
Answering the question wrong served a double purpose. Those fractal cubes were advanced encryption problems that hackers had to frequently utilize. By answering it incorrectly, she'd keep her profile from ever looking like a hacker.
The next few questions were easier and Gabby dutifully answered them, smiling at the green sparkles exploding around her. The Evil Dolls, however, were a different situation.
Acro
ss the track, the gaggle of six girls were trying to leap horrid walls the color of cat puke that were at least half their height. While the walls only existed on their eye-screens, the ubiquitous sensor networks would know if a foot went through one. A failed jump meant a harder question and Gabby had given them near impossible ones.
There were so many red sparkles above the Evil Dolls it looked like an immersive of a dust storm on Mars. Zaela was rapidly catching up. By the end of class, she'd be well into the clear.
Gabby was feeling like she'd just scored a major happiness buff. When the Final Raid came next week, she would get them on the same team and they would win for sure. Then they could get away from the Evil Dolls, who had made their lives a living hell since the earliest ranks. It was all falling into place.
At least until Administrator Bracket's projection appeared next to her, majorly debuffing her happiness. He wore his usual pseudo-military skin, complete with his Administrator trophy badges pinned to his lapel.
"Gabriella DeCorte. I need to see you in my office. Pronto."
Startled by Bracket's appearance, Gabby ran through the next obstacle, exploding it into red sparkles. "What?"
Bracket's already grim face, turned a slight more shade of grim. "I have disturbing news about unauthorized hacking."
Then his projection winked out.
Gabby's stomach tightened into a face-screwing knot. Getting caught hacking would get her sent back a rank without enough time to catch back up and she wouldn't earn a Life Class.
Gabby left the track and slowly trudged to the lockers to change, feeling like Bracket had cast a massive soul-sucking DoT on her.
Chapter Two
The hallways teemed with students moving to their next class. Gabby wasn't sure why they still broke out their learning sessions into "periods." A relic from previous times, she guessed.
A behemoth pushed through the crowd, ignoring the cries of protest as he steamrolled the hallway. Gabby thought about tagging him with a gorilla skin, but decided that hacking another student's personal file on the way to the Administrator's office wasn't a good idea.
A shadow of an owl flew across the ceiling. This time, Gabby was sure she saw it. As she turned to walk down the hall, she found herself confronted by a boy her age with eyes the color of ice-chips. She didn’t realize it was a projection until a couple of anime kids walked right through him.
He had dark messy hair and his eyes seemed to penetrate past her digital skin. Gabby was frozen a few steps from him. About the time he opened his mouth to speak, the projection disappeared, leaving Gabby staring at an empty spot by the wall.
Gabby searched the crowds until she saw him. Dario. Her other best friend.
Dario had a skinny bluish mohawk and wore a black leather studded jacket and archaic jeans. His appearance wasn't so strange except that his clothes were real unlike the other students that hid themselves in skins.
"Where do you find that stuff?" Gabby said when they met at the drinking fountain.
Dario smoothed his hands across his jacket. "Likey? Black leather never goes out of style." He pointed to her hair. "Didn't you wear that Shozichi skin last week? Or are platinum blonde pigtails in this week?"
Gabby rolled her eyes and put her hand to the smooth area beneath the spiky area of his mohawk.
"I hate when you shave the sides. I can see the neural actuator wires under your skin. Why can't you hide them with a little skin mod?"
Dario flinched away. "Then I wouldn't be real. I think they look like spider webs on my skull. Adds to the effect."
A message floated into view from Administrator Bracket reminding her to come to his office.
"What's wrong?" Dario asked, sensing her sudden discomfort.
Gabby shook her head. "I'll tell you later." She started pushing through the remnants of the crowd, toward Bracket's office. Between the hack, Bracket's summons, and the random boy's projection, her mind tumbled over itself.
she sent back.
The hallways were thinning as the transition timer counted toward zero. Gabby wouldn't lose points for being in the hall since she had a pass from Bracket. It was one time she'd prefer to be in class than wandering the halls.
Dario knew all about the hack since he'd helped her with a few sections of code. The two of them had been looking out for Zaela since they'd saved her from the Evil Dolls in the lower ranks.
She needed to concentrate during her visit to Bracket's office. She'd been very careful with the track hack, so even if he had proof, she could still get out of it if she didn't admit anything.
Lost in her thoughts, Gabby forgot to knock on the door to Bracket's office. The broad-shouldered Administrator was facing away from her, holding a BFG, and firing into a wide landscape behind him.
The back of his office appeared to be a nightmarish landscape, Gigeresque in its monochromatic rolling hills. Hideous bipedal creatures sprinted toward Bracket as he blew them to pieces with his BFG.
Bracket seemed to be gleefully engaged in his game until Gabby cleared her throat. He checked over his shoulder, letting one of the creatures approach dangerously close. As the creature leaped, the landscape disappeared and was replaced with a plain cream wall with a picture of dogs playing poker on it.
The BFG in his hands had disappeared as well and Bracket pointed to the chair across from his desk.
"Thank you for coming, Ms. DeCorte."
Gabby was still glancing over Bracket's shoulder at the wall where the shooter game had been.
"I like to keep my old marine score at a good level. Never know when they might need me again," said Bracket. "Especially with things picking up on the Southlands front."
As long as Gabby had been alive, the GSA had been fighting the Southlands. Gabby rolled her eyes and took the seat as Bracket settled onto his. The Administrator clasped his hands together on the desk and sighed heavily.
The muscles in Bracket's jaw tightened and Gabby's stomach rolled in response. As she waited for him to speak, it seemed like the hair on Bracket's head bristled up like an angry dog.
"The LifeGame Integrity Engineers have detected unauthorized access and modifications to your personal reality files," said Bracket.
Gabby wanted to rip her gaze away from Bracket's, but she knew that would give away her guilt. Instead, she willed herself to maintain an innocent and slightly curious face. She'd mastered this face after years of probing questions from her parents.
"Yes. I can see you're perplexed as we are." When Bracket said this, Gabby nearly lost her practiced expression, because it implied he wasn't talking about her hack. Now she really was curious.
"What files were modified?" she asked.
Bracket sighed again, and she could tell he was visibly disturbed about something.
"Ms. DeCorte. Have you seen anything strange recently? Unexpected reality intrusions? Projections of people you don't know appearing suddenly?"
Visions of the boy and the owl's shadow returned to her suddenly. Gabby steeled her face so she wouldn't give anything away.
"I see something came to mind," said Bracket. "Now we're not interested in the pranks you students play on each other, minor hacks to personal files that turn someone's hair green, or give them a beard. We know about those and choose to ignore them. They're good practice for University anyway."
Gabby let herself relax. Bracket wasn't interrogating her about the track hack. But her curiosity had risen to new heights. Someone had been hacking her personal files?
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"I haven't seen anything. Has someone been messing with my LifeScore?"
Bracket shook his head. "Oh, no. That's nearly impossible. The LGIE are foremost focused on maintaining untampered scores. If those could be messed with, then the whole system would collapse. How else could we know who deserved to be rewarded with more responsibility?"
Gabby knew all too well about how difficult it was to modify a LifeScore. That's why her hacks focused on spoofing tests rather than the score itself.
"So you haven't seen any reality intrusions?"
"No, Administrator Bracket. I sure haven't," said Gabby.
Bracket visibly attempted to soften his expression, but his muscles refused to oblige. Eventually, he gave up and just nodded his head.
"Am I free to go?" asked Gabby.
"Yes, you may."
Gabby moved toward the door, expecting to hear the shooter game start up behind her, but when Bracket said her name, a cold shiver went up her back.
"Ms. DeCorte."
She turned around slowly, expecting that the earlier conversation had been a ruse and now they were springing the trap on her. Gabby swallowed and faced Administrator Bracket, clutching her arms across her chest.
Administrator Bracket appeared to be conflicted, frowning in concentration. Then he seemed to make a decision.
"Ms. DeCorte. You're a good LifeGamer. One of the tops in the region in fact. Your TPS scores are off the charts. The book on you is that you're holding back on your true potential."
"TPS scores?" This was a new one on Gabby.
"Thoughts per second. We get certain brain diagnostics from your neural actuator."
Bracket paused, letting his words sink in. Gabby wasn't sure what she was more surprised about: that they were watching how her brain worked, or that they thought she was holding back. She didn't think she was holding back.
"So I'm going to tell you this because you may one day be running the system. So I feel I can trust you with this information," said Bracket.
Gabby nodded slowly, still wondering if all this was a trap somehow.
The Cageless Zoo Page 4
