Graybeard had pestered him countless times to give up the location. But they no longer trusted each other. Christopher wanted to make the most out of the info, but he wanted to give it up to the highest bidder. He couldn’t just take an ad out; then they would just empty the vault. No, he intended to pass the word surreptitiously, or at least that’s what he wanted Graybeard to think.
What he wanted was cash up front in Metaverse dollars, a lot of it plus a share of the trophy. So far, Graybeard’s only response was that they would split it just as they agreed after they got the gold. That deal was still good, and Christopher couldn’t back out as far as Graybeard was concerned.
The problem for Christopher, of course, was he had no way of controlling events in the zone and was not about to depend on the word of this Graybeard. No, the only leverage he had was the information, and the only way he was giving that up was cash on the barrelhead.
Instinctively, Christopher dictated a text back before remembering the number was zeroed out, meaning it was probably sent from some other app or off a one-time address. Either way, he was sick of this guy and decided just to ignore the message.
The one thing he could not ignore was the searing pain in his right thigh as the 5.56mm round tore through his right femur, shattering it and spinning Christopher in that direction. Before even making a quarter turn, another round slammed into his left pelvic area just below his belt stopping the rightward spin. A third-round tore through his stomach as rounds four, five and six ripped through his upper chest. Grass and little dirt plumes erupted from behind him where the rounds exiting his body impacted.
As the sound of the “Zip Gun” firing six rounds in quick procession hit Christopher’s ears, he was already falling to the pavement. An instant later, he choked on his blood as he flopped across the sidewalk with his upper body on the grass. Christopher saw the drone for the first time as it hovered just over his head, the small camera lens trained on his now pale face.
Frothy blood spewed forth from Christopher’s mouth as he tried to yell for help into his radio. But the only noise he made was the gurgling sound of his collapsed lungs filling with blood as was the pericardium, the double-walled sac containing the heart and the great vessels. His heart would beat itself into submission as the blood squeezed it, that is what wasn’t leaving Christopher in a torrent onto the sidewalk and lawn.
The scrawny and bespectacled man, known as Graybeard in-world, grinned as he savored Christopher’s ashen face and blue lips trying to form words, the bright red blood running down the corners of his mouth. Graybeard keyed the mic to the small built-in speaker on the drone.
“No one fucks with Graybeard.”
Christopher’s blank eyes and empty stare looked back neither in recognition of the voice or in reaction to anything else. Graybeard hoped he heard those last words. Probably the kid was in shock, not just from his injuries but from the notion that Graybeard would take such drastic action. Especially when he held the keys to the kingdom so to speak and he believed Graybeard needed him.
Graybeard no longer cared about Christopher Harvey, AKA “Keith.” He instructed the drone with the zip gun attached to return to the park. Waiting for it to fly back, Graybeard brought up an address that would lead him to his next target. The location was over a thousand miles away, but he should be there by the following nightfall. He double checked to make sure he had the correct person.
One Andrew Crawley, Metaverse Journalist, Tech Blogger, and Digital Adventurer.
***
Jerry Lindel and his partner, Les Bowen, eyed the petite brunette strutting through the parking lot with the rest of her flight crew. It had taken a couple of days, first locating her car and then playing a waiting game for the airline captain to return. Fortunately, she flew for a dedicated cargo carrier. Those flights were easier to track as were the people who came off them, only crew members or airline employees. The cargo terminal also had far fewer people than the passenger one making their quarry easier to spot.
Lindel and Bowen operated in the Dead Zone together. There, Lindel was the man in charge just like he was here; making the much younger man aware of that at every opportunity. Operational discipline, he lectured over and over was even more critical now that they were operating “behind the Lines,” as both thought of their current roles IRL, or In Real Life.
While Lindel and Bowen used that shorthand often, they did not take the meaning literally. To each, IRL was the Dead Zone. That’s where they were accepted, excelled in their “lives’” and where they felt the most at home, in fact, it was home. IRL was a dimension that was ok to visit, but neither wanted to live there.
Despite all the time spent in the DZ, the two had never met in real life. When they did so, it was a bit of a culture shock for each. Bowen was surprised at how much older Lindel was as well as how diminutive he looked compared to the way he appeared in-world. Avatar was the technical term when someone used a different appearance. But that term was somewhat outdated. The avatars in-world were now as real as any physical being, human or otherwise.
For Lindel’s part, he was similarly surprised, even though both he and Bowen knew the other assumed different identities and appearances in the zone. Bowen’s appearance regarding age was about the same as in-world, late teens early twenties. But like Lindel, he was far from the hulking, confident thuggish Outfitter; in fact, quite the opposite.
Now back in the real world, the two felt a bit out of place. Both thin from the Nutrient. The precisely balanced food substitute allowed them to eat virtual food and not starve to death, while eliminating the need to leave the H-Pod to go to the bathroom. In the H-Pod, urination took care of all of that, allowing a person to be in-world 24/7. While the physical activity in the simulation certainly got them into excellent shape, the fact of the matter was that their physical bodies did not change all that much. Sure, the resistance training added some lean muscle, but nothing like what the sim added to their avatars for all the hours of hard work. Genes, age, and the limited caloric intake from the Nutrient saw to that.
Neither mentioned much about it, or that they both thought the other looked like they should be working in a library rather than as part of a savage outlaw organization. Not that it mattered. To both and to the many millions of others who lived, worked and played in the limitless digital environments of the Metaverse the difference between worlds, whether digital or real became nothing more than visiting another dimension. In fact, the one thing they both had most in common was their desire to get back in-world as soon as possible. There was little that either cared for in their current reality, but for different reasons.
In Lindel’s case, his past was more like that of a librarian. He sought out a different identity and found what he believed his true self in the Outfits. It was the adventure and fame he was after as much as the fortune that would support him in-world in ways it could not in the real world.
Bowen was a college kid using his student loans to continue an online existence, meager as it had been. He had no desire to rejoin the real world or even the workforce in-world or out. Having tasted the tantalizing digital environment of realistic adventuring, he was caught up in it hook, line, and sinker. The simulation, the action, the adventure, the camaraderie, and not the least the trophies had addicted every fiber of his being. By contrast, anything he did, or would likely ever do in real life would be depressing. IRL was a place you went to die, and Bowen had a lot of living left to do.
His only goal was to find a way to extend that indefinitely. Gaining more experience and acquiring better equipment had made hunting for treasures more lucrative as of late. But a share of that gold would secure his ability to continue in the DZ sim or another indefinitely. He could even go legit and join the infiltration teams, under another alias. Or go to an entirely different Digital Adventures environment. Rumors were that DA was working on a sim the size of the earth where humans were in a life and death struggle with alien invaders. The sim was reported to be enormous,
so immense that it would take days to travel across just one of the continents where he might join the resistance.
“When we gonna grab her, Haus?”
Lindel looked to Bowen; there was not much he liked, just like in the Zone. But he needed the younger man.
“We aren’t just going to grab her. We’re going to follow her, and when the opportunity presents itself then we’re going to persuade her to come along,” Haus said. His slight New Zealand accent that he used in the zone, that his less traveled partner, thought was British, missing now.
“And if she doesn’t wanna go?”
Lindel, AKA “Haus,” contained his irritation with his overzealous partner, however, his raised voice gave it away.
“She will. You just do your job and let me do the thinking and planning.”
“Yes, Haus.”
“She’s moving.”
Haus started the car and followed the lone woman in her vehicle through the late afternoon Phoenix traffic.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-seven-year-old Andy Crawley sighed out the floor-to-ceiling plate glass window of his 9th-floor condo. The setting sun still illuminated the upper third of Camelback Mountain breaking up the horizon in the distance. The lights of the city twinkling to life among the deepening shadows caught his eyes for only a moment; his mind was elsewhere.
The building housing his home was a hybrid H-Pod living facility. The first three floors were taken up by private H-Pod bays along with a gym, spa, and a large pool that was on top of the third floor of a wing that jutted out from the main tower complex. The six levels above were all filled with residential units. This setup allowed residents to have immediate access to an H-Pod for either short periods of time or extended stays in-world while their condo was securely looked after by the building staff, or leased out on a short-term basis while the resident occupied his or her pod.
Andy grunted into the phone.
“For the umpteenth time I’m sorry, Mia. I’ll make it up to you. I swear, just one more run in to get that gold and I’m going to semi-retire; hang back and let the Victor Sierra’s do all the heavy lifting. I want to train others and write and spend less time in-world and more time with you.”
“Andy, we’ve been through all this before! It’s always one more mission with you! Then you are gone for days in-world training, planning and carrying it out. With my work schedule, there is hardly any time for us. I don’t want to keep going on this way. It’s at the point that the only time we spend together, intimately or otherwise, is in-world and I live three miles from you!”
“When you’re not flying cargo somewhere in the world.” Andy instantly regretted the snarky comment.
“That’s my job! A real job, not just some adventure game.” His on again, off again girlfriend snarled back.
Andy gave another deep sigh. “I do want to spend less time in-world, but that’s also how I make a living, experiencing those adventures then writing about it and training others. Then there are the trophies, which generate real income. Not to mention all the spin-offs that create revenue streams like equipment design…” Andy’s voice trailed off; Mia had heard it all before. He was just repeating himself now.
“That’s just it, all of those things that you do are fine, but there has to be a balance, or you’ll get sucked into it like all the shells of human beings who live and breathe it. They’re the real-life DEVO’s.”
Mia exhaled deeply, the whole conversation was degrading into invectives now.
“Go get your gold, then decide what you want to do. I imagine getting together all the equipment, training up a crew and figuring how to get past the Outfits now that they have heavy weapons will take some time. We can use that time to reevaluate our relationship and what we both are willing to commit.”
“I’m on suspension, violation of team rules. Mainly they’re pissed about me losing two guys and a boatload of expensive equipment. If those other players hadn’t showed up and FUBARed the rescue...”
“How long?”
“Another three days, then I’m golden again…” Andy joked off the Voracious Soldier slang. “I was hoping we could go out or something tonight, maybe spend time together, literally.”
There was a long pause. They hadn’t been with each other in real life for over a month, and the truth was she genuinely missed him.
“A non-Nutrient meal maybe?” Andy pressed.
“Ok, give me a couple hours. I need to unpack and do a bunch of paperwork and catch up on emails, plus get a workout in.”
Andy’s face beamed.
“9 o’clock then?”
“That’ll be great, see you then.”
“Love you, babe!”
***
Mia jammed out to her favorite tunes as she pedaled the stationary bike. A multitasker by nature she also used that time to dictate her expense report to her digital assistant for her most recent trip, one where she had crisscrossed the globe. Based out of Phoenix, Mia was a self-employed contract pilot, which meant she had to do all the bookkeeping. Paperwork aside it was an excellent gig. She could work as often or as little as she wanted, typically flying 2-4 day sprints with 3-5 days off each week, although she often would work 10 or more days straight. Despite a large portion of the population living in the Metaverse, or perhaps because of it, the cargo business was thriving. No one went to malls any more, they purchased everything online in virtual ones. But those products still had to be shipped and delivered all over the globe.
Mia’s profession gave her the opportunity to visit the far reaches of the world on someone else’s dime, although anyone with access to the Metaverse and full or even intermediate immersion capabilities could do so for less. Even move between locations at the speed of thought in a digital teleporter.
Lost in her workout and paperwork, she didn’t immediately notice the reflections on the monitor in front of her. When she did so, it still took another second or two to process that two men stood behind her.
Frightened by the sudden appearance of two strangers in her home, she toppled over while scrambling off the bike. Regaining her footing and trying to push back fear, she turned to face them.
Both were thin and gaunt; typical of anyone spending a lot of time in-world and on the calorie restrictive Nutrient. One was a couple of inches taller than the other, maybe five-foot-nine or at the most ten. The other a good two inches shorter. The taller one, with salt and pepper hair and glasses that made him look introspective, was quite a bit older and she thought that he could be the younger man’s father or even grandfather although beyond the slim features there was no resemblance.
The younger one looked around, his eyes moving furtively this way and that. He gave Mia the impression that he was less sure of what was going to happen. Like the older man, he was slight of build and did not look to be out of his teens. The bangs of his dirty blond hair hung over his unsure blue eyes.
They had the door blocked; her eyes darted to the sliding glass door and back towards them. Mia wondered if she could escape through it.
She’d have to unlock it and the screen behind it. That made her briefly wonder how these two got inside her home. Deciding that she couldn’t get to the sliding glass door in time and thought it unwise to turn her back on the intruders, Mia rushed to a kettlebell laying on the floor. Hefting the fifteen-pound weight up, she swung it onto her right shoulder with both hands, holding it like a baseball bat. Anger took over Mia’s emotions now; the Air Force veteran shed her initial fear and became aggressive.
“I don’t know how you got in, or what you want, but believe me, I am more trouble than I’m worth. You won’t take me down without a fight and without getting hurt yourselves. So get the fuck out of my house!”
The younger, smaller man groaned to the older man next to him.
“Haus, maybe this ain’t such a good idea. She looks crazy.”
“No one asked your opinion, piss-ant,” the older one said, not taking his eyes off Mia before addre
ssing the young woman in front of him. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Mia.”
“How the fuck do you know my name? And how bout we do it the hard way, cause I’m not cooperating little man.”
A flash of anger came over the older of the two. So accustomed was he to the respect he received in-world due to his skills there he was taken aback by Mia’s insult and even more so by her display of insolence.
“Have it your way then.”
The man lifted a Taser from under his shirt and pointed it at Mia. Without hesitation, she swung the kettlebell, missing her target.
The weapon fired. Two prongs hit Mia in the sternum, delivering 50,000 volts of muscle twinging electricity that took her off her feet. No matter what Mia did, she couldn’t gain control of her body, not for the full five seconds the juice stayed on. When it came off she reached up and tried to yank the probes out but before her hand got there another pair of darts entered her in the stomach area, and another five-second electrical charge slammed into her.
Mia no longer resisted the older man nor said anything as he stood at the ready to deliver more juice.
“It’s up to you, lay still and cooperate and this goes easier.”
“What do you want?”
“Your cooperation is all, you will not be harmed more. Just cooperate.”
Mia glared. There was little she could do.
“So, do you need another jolt to help you decide?”
Mia shook her head no.
The older man nodded to his partner who moved in and quickly fastened her wrists together in front of her chest with a plastic zip tie. He moved to her ankles, securing them together in the same manner. While the one named Haus watched over her, his right finger jittered against the Taser’s trigger while the younger one tore duct tape, which he then plastered over her mouth. A hood draped over her head soon blocked her vision.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 19
