“More reason to build a bigger party,” Corey said. Then, on the open channel, he announced, “I’m heading to my shop in the Third Circle. Here are the coordinates.”
Corey sent the landmark to Thornbark, then spent a precious teleport credit to go there. Dante followed.
Chapter 4
The founder and CEO of Plexcorp wasn’t the only person working on immersion technology that evening. After their lab assistant left for the day, Dr. Boussaid and Martin took took key parts of the system offline to implement what Martin believed was a major breakthrough.
Up on the thirtieth floor, Gideon’s eyes held fast on security monitor nineteen. His pale face reflected the blue glow from the wall of screens before him as he watched the two men hunched over their work benches.
“Virgil?” he asked. “Who are those two peasants down there? I believe it is past their finishing time.”
“Lord Mylos, they are Dr. Najeel Boussaid and Martin Chauncy. They work in development and my records indicate they are approaching completion of the sensory input interface.”
“Ah, yes.” Gideon frowned, leaning closer to the screen. “Are those electrode wires? Inefficient. I completed the miniaturised version last week.”
“The development team does not yet have that data, my lord.” Gideon straightened, reasoning that there couldn’t possibly be a note of reproach in Virgil’s voice. No, he was a wetware machine scrubbed perfectly clean, an emotionless tool. Still, Gideon made a show of ignoring anything beyond the ordinary.
“Why are they still here?”
“Their data work suggests they are attempting to complete the project before leaving.”
Gideon’s nostrils flared as he reminded himself again that machines could not use a tone. “What is their motive? No. That wasn’t directed at you, Virgil. I was thinking out loud.” Had Virgil seen Gideon’s facial tic?
The lights in the security cell flicked off and Gideon strode out. He snatched the immersion harness from his private workstation and more lights blinked out behind him, while others sprang to life ahead, lighting his passage down the hallway towards the elevator. The effect drew his posture up, lengthened his step. It reminded him that even here in this Lesser Realm, he was still a god. He wielded immense power over the Lesser Realm as well.
***
The workshop door slid open and Boussaid flinched, dropping the tube of flux and the soldering iron. He yelped and jumped back, as the smell of burning polyester fibres tickled Martin’s nose with instinctive wariness.
“Steady on, Najeel. It’s just Gideon.” Martin carefully sat the prototype on the bench, noting the fleeting twitch in Gideon’s left eye.
“Gentlemen, I applaud your work ethic. It’s late. What’s keeping you here at this hour?”
“The sensory input subsystem and the VR harness,” Boussaid said, finger agitatedly rubbing at the small hole in his pants.
Gideon’s eyes flicked around the room, examining the monitors, the scattered circuit boards and wires, the tools on the workbench. They came back to meet Martin’s unflinching gaze. Gideon froze for the barest of moments, caught like a hare in the face of a dragon. Then, a disarming smile spread over his face. He wasn’t accustomed to prolonged direct eye contact from subordinates.
“You’ve made progress. I read the manager reports a few weeks ago. Your work is ahead of the competing departments.”
Najeel nodded vacantly, eager for the pep talk to end so he could continue his work.
“I wasn’t aware we were competing,” Martin said, watching Gideon through narrowed eyes. “Each department works to their speciality, to form a cohesive whole. At least, that’s what I thought I read that in the employee manual.”
Gideon nodded and said, “Collegial competition, of course,” and gave them both a fond smile, one that looked like a sharp-toothed piranha considering a meal of its young. It was ignored by Najeel, but only because the doctor had trouble with facial expressions. Martin’s face did reveal a reaction, one that Gideon read as dislike. “You’ve done a great deal with the sliver of a budget allocated to this department,” Gideon continued. “I’ve kept up with your logs and read all your research reports.”
Najeel fidgeted as Gideon spoke, unable to resist the lure of the prototype. He picked it up and resumed his examination of the freshly embedded microchip. “The slim budget often wastes our time.”
Gideon glared at his subordinate. Did this pathetic little man really think he could speak to Lord My— but of course. Here, he was simply Gideon, company owner, innovator, billionaire. His teeth clicked shut on the roar that bubbled in the back of his throat.
“Nevertheless,” Gideon said with the same forced grin, while he swallowed down the gravel in his voice. “The Plexcorp Ethos is non-negotiable. Your documentation shows truly uncompromising work.”
It was this very documentation that had allowed Gideon to take the VR immersion team research and develop it far beyond the capacity of these pathetic little cavemen. They had no idea what they’d created. Though they came up with the ideas, they didn’t understand the scope of implication. That was Gideon’s specialty. Not plucking new concepts out of thin air… no, leave that for the dreamers, the ones with big thoughts and small brains. Gideon was the only one who could manifest those ideas, make them a reality. While others dreamed idly, Gideon built worlds from his own thoughts and the thoughts of many others. While the robber barons of the 19th century built empires, he was the builder of worlds. His teeth ground, stifling the lecture he ached to give. Like most other people, he believed they had little capacity to understand his genius. For their lack of intellect, he supposed they should be pitied. His face softened and he withdrew his hand from his pocket. Gideon placed a small device on the table in front of Najeel and Martin.
“Something you’ve been working on, Gideon?” Martin asked with a hint of wariness.
“You could say that. It’s not dissimilar to what you are building now. Just… smaller.” Gideon allowed the smile to touch his lips as Najeel let the flux clatter to the floor for the second time that evening.
“You…have miniaturised the sensory input device?” Najeel said with rushing breath.
“It wasn’t—” he changed his tack before the words left his mouth. It wouldn’t do to insult them. He offered a carrot, not a stick. “You might recognize it. It is built from your research.”
Gideon winced as Martin picked up the delicate piece of machinery. “It’s complete?” The wonder on his face almost lit the room.
“Almost.” Gideon’s lips twisted on the word. “There are some minor functional issues. Perhaps you would like to remedy those?” It was the least he could do, he supposed. After all, it was their design he’d taken.
“You’re damn right I do!” Martin exclaimed. He swallowed hard, literally salivating at the chance to get his hands on an advanced piece of equipment. “Is this the interface?” Martin asked, turning the gold-foiled circlet over in his workman’s calloused hands.
The tendons in Gideon’s neck strained as he watched his lesser paw his device. “I can show you if…”
“Got it!” Martin exclaimed, excitement overriding his usual sense of courtesy and protocol. He had a micro USB cable plugged into the hidden port at the right arm of the device before Najeel was able to ambulate to the workstation with his long, stork-like legs.
Gideon could only sidle up, stunned at the speed with which Martin brought up the device’s internal console.
“This gold foil,” Martin began as his fingers raced across the keyboard. “I’m guessing the electrodes are behind it and the foil is the antenna for brainwaves?”
Gideon’s mouth opened to reply, but Najeel’s exclamation seemed to issue forth from it.
“Stop!” Najeel shouted.
“What? Where? Tell me where you want to go, Doctor,” Martin said.
“That menu item called multiplexer debug,” Najeel said. “Open it.”
“Holy shit!” Martin ex
claimed. “Thanks, Doc. I almost missed that.”
Martin mashed the key and the small console window popped up with a five-column table of streaming data. Gideon had to suppress a satisfied smile as he watched the gooseflesh form on the arms and necks of his underlings. He didn’t want them to know how thrilled he was at their awe. That might make him seem needy.
The engineer and the Ph.D. turned their gaping faces toward each other for a moment, then faced Gideon.
“You multiplexed the brainwave anodes and cathodes?” Najeel asked with a trembling voice.
“How did you compensate for the noise factor and interference?” Martin asked.
Gideon did smile then. He could not help it. Perhaps these underlings were not so unworthy after all. They seemed to grasp his innovation quickly.
“The noise and interference was not the problem, it was the solution. My fractal algorithm filters the interference between neural input/output and uses it to amplify the signal,” Gideon replied. “It was your honeycomb anode/cathode grid, Martin, and your brainwave modem, Dr. Boussaid, that allowed me to build this device.”
“But,” Martin stuttered, “that was just a theoretical model. It was just a drawing I made in my lunch break. I didn’t think it would actually lead somewhere…” Martin was not accustomed to a relapse in stuttering. His first drill sergeant in the Marine Corps literally beat that from him during basic training. Martin hated that man at the time, but the lessons he learned from that vicious bastard saved his life more than once. It took him years to understand that. Some part of him wondered what triggered the relapse, and he filed the thought away.
Gideon’s response was a smile that Martin almost believed. It was a rare unguarded moment. “And now you see why my company operates the way it does. Good work finds success. Your department enabled this device. I now leave it to you to make it ready for the Less—the world at large. I would like to announce this technology soon.”
All the childlike wonder evaporated. The gaping mouths and raised eyebrows shared between Martin and Najeel turned to more practical matters. In a few minutes, their job description changed radically. One of the richest men in the world just told them he expected to have a product on the market “soon.”
“No problem,” Martin said, casting a camouflage smile of his own. “We’ll get right on that, boss.”
Chapter 5
Corey’s shop was a small, enchanted, thatched roof shack in the bustling trade district of the Third Circle. The region was one of the oldest and most developed lands in the game. This was due in large part to the fertile plains, valleys and plateaus between the many mountain ranges, coupled with well-travelled trade routes and bustling towns. Having a shop here, or at least an interest in one, almost guaranteed a player income.
Surrounded by a quaint combination of domestic dwellings for the myriad NPCs that wandered the area, and small, player-owned shops, The One-Eyed Orc Emporium had gained a reputation for fair prices on some of the best equipment in the Realm. Corey had enlisted a long time player known only as One-Eye to run it for a portion of the profits. One-Eye, in turn, paid a few other, less experienced characters to staff the store. Doing so pretty much kept the place open on a 24/7 basis. Corey bankrolled the setup and remained a mostly-silent partner in the operation.
Dante was surprised to find about a dozen other players congregating around the shack. Corey kept the shop small and low-key, buried amongst a dozen others of its type for a reason. He didn’t want to attract raiders. Dante watched the crowd before approaching. He recognized some of the screen names and decided it was safe.
As he neared the other questers, Dante caught snippets of conversation. People were frustrated about major lag in the game, especially with Virgil.
“Hey, Smokehouse,” Dante called to a player he recognized. “I see you’re playing your ogre character today.”
“Yup. Level 15 Paladin now,” Smokehouse replied.
“Nice work, you gotta save that one,” Dante replied. “Is he still aligned good?”
“Yeah, he’s a rare one. I’m trying. It’s not easy to do with the game all wonky.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Dynamic quest engine seems flat out down. There’s random monsters running around all over the place. It’s like the Gen One game all over again.”
“Wow,” Dante replied. He’d started playing R9C in its tenth-year anniversary edition while he was still in the 7th grade. The game world was just transitioning to generation two then. Between generation one and two, it was very much a traditional game, with no procedural elements. Quests and NPCs were all developed by hand. Now, in its twenty-third year, much of the game was written by algorithms. It was practically a living thing, thanks to supercomputing and free-association algorithms.
Cory switched to texting via SMS. Dante almost missed the message, and only noticed because he happened to check the time on his secondary monitor. It was well past midnight.
“Come to shop,” the SMS read.
Dante piloted Kalmond the dwarf through the thickening crowd. More players teleported to the large, grassy clearing in front of the fountain that marked the district’s centre. They navigated past, to the relative quiet of the side streets to a small door with a swinging sign above it. A crude icon of a half-blind orc was painted on it.
Kalmond entered the shop and closed the door. Three other members of his thief crew were present. One-Eye the orc shopkeeper, Plaknell the snow elf assassin and Driskrol the orc thief.
“You all brought your best characters. This must be serious,” Dante observed.
“It’s gettin’ weird in the Realm,” One-Eye announced.
“When is it not weird?” Dante asked.
“No, man. Really weird. It’s like end-of days shit around here,” Driskrol proclaimed.
“What’s up?” Dante asked, his interest piqued.
“Major lag with Virgil the last couple days, you haven’t noticed?” Driskrol showed a frown emoji at Dante’s nod. “Tons of sightings of the Monster Mylos. He reads from this scroll and tries to get you to join him for some quest, but won’t say what it is. If you don’t, he tries to kill you. Lots of players are getting slaughtered,” Driskrol gushed. “The game balance sucks!”
One-Eye continued where Driskrol left off, “Players’ve been comin’ in for days reporting NPCs doin’ weird things, like beggin’ for their lives or fightin’ like real humans—unpredictable and downright fright’nin’ it is, usin’ tactics like a real person, only smarter and faster. NPCs are making trades here on a regular basis. When I tell them to piss off, they attack. I kill’t two o’ them today. Now? I just sell them wha’ they want.”
“Holy crap,” Dante replied. “That is weird.” He opened a private channel to Corey again. “I guess I’ll be asking some questions tomorrow at work.”
“Yeah, you better,” Corey replied. “I’m looking at the forums right now. They’re going crazy with conspiracy theories. People are pissed.”
“Yeah, I gotta work in the morning,” Dante said. “I’m logging off.”
“What, just when it’s getting interesting?” Corey replied.
“Yes. Just when. I’ll find out what’s up and call you tomorrow. Don’t tell any of these folks I work for Plexcorp.”
Corey sounded annoyed. “Man, you ain’t gotta say that. I always got your back. I never tell something you don’t want told.”
“Sorry, bro. I know.”
“I got your back,” Corey said, raised his hand in a fist.
Dante hit the fist-bump key combination. “I got yours,” he said.
“Hey!” Corey said over their private voice channel. “Remember that centaur guy?”
“Trying to forget him,” Dante replied.
“He’s in the clearing,” Corey said.
“That didn’t take long. He must have spent a fortune reviving that character.”
“Yeah, that was a high level deal,” Corey replied. “Why don’t you hang out
and see what he has to say.”
Though he knew he would regret it in the morning, Dante agreed. “Let’s find out what this guy wants.”
They found Thornbark90 fully restored and wearing full spiven armor. He stood apart from the rabble gathering in the clearing, dual-wield swords at the ready and glittering with enchantments.
“What’s up, Thornbark?” Corey asked.
Dante knew Corey well enough to know what he was thinking. This character was fully kitted out in the finest player-crafted gear. The guy was a hardcore R9C player. Dante guessed the real life value of Thornbark’s items to be at least two grand.
“The game is alive,” Thornbark said. “Don’t turn your back on that crowd. Those NPCs look suspicious.”
“OK,” Dante replied, too tired to play along. “The game is not alive. You need to take a break, you’ve been playing too long today. The game is immersive for a reason. It just seems like it’s alive because it’s designed that way. Trust me.”
“No, you don’t get it,” Thornbark replied. His voice sounded genuinely distressed in Dante’s headphones. “This is not gamer psychosis. I have real evidence.”
“What evidence,” Corey asked before Dante could shut Thornbark down.
“Lost Mary told me.” Thornbark replied, a note of embarrassment creeping into his voice.
The voice stream crackled with distortion as Dante let out a gale of laughter. “Man,” he said, “someone is messin’ with you bad. There are tons of Lost Mary skins out there.”
“This one looked just like the original,” Thornbark said. “I hit her with a rock from my low-level sling. She tapped me back. When I checked the logs, the encounter file showed her as an NPC. You can’t fake that!”
“What’d she do when you tagged her with a rock?” Dante asked, amused.
“I did that after she gave me the message,” Thornbark replied.
“What message?” Dante asked.
“She told me she was no longer lost but that she’d found herself at war. She said, ‘tell the rest of the Noble Four’,” Thornbark replied.
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