That’s all.
…right?
She was a scientist. She knew that her creeping sense of dread was most likely an evolutionary leftover, a vestigial sense that ancient humans had used when they were in the jungle and could feel the eyes of a predator on them.
There were no predators in the lab.
The ancient brain circuits still existed, though – and in the absence of real danger, they would make something up.
That’s where anxiety came from. Nameless dread for no apparent reason.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there were eyes on her… cold, emotionless, mechanical eyes.
Like her primordial ancestors, she looked over her shoulder at the surveillance camera in the corner of the room, up at the juncture of the ceiling and the wall.
She knew it fed into the main security system, where it was watched by guards and logged for posterity, in case of any system breach or corporate espionage. The temptation to steal the technology and sell it to a competitor was very real. It would have been treachery of the most lucrative sort, and something the Varidian Corporation wanted to avoid at all possible costs.
But even knowing exactly what the camera was and why it was there, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was an inhuman eye, looking down on her and the rest of the lab…
Watching.
Studying.
Waiting.
1
“Why are you so gloomy? You know what today is, right?”
Two 18-year-old boys sat at the end of a table by themselves, hunched over their brown paper bags. They had to raise their voices to be heard over the din of the high school lunch room teeming around them.
Daniel, the one talking, was the taller of the two. He had dirty blonde hair, and his glasses gave him a slightly bookish look – but his overriding quality was his optimism and enthusiasm.
“Yeah – Friday,” said the other boy. Eric’s dark hair and more cynical, sarcastic manner made him the polar opposite of his best friend.
“Very funny,” Daniel said, annoyed. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eric muttered. “Shattered Lands launches today.”
Shattered Lands was the biggest video game launch in the history of – well, everything. The company that had created it, Varidian, was the 800 pound gorilla of the gaming world. It had been around forever with regular virtual reality-based games: first person shooters, sports games, animated kids stuff, even a couple other MMORPG franchises.
But Shattered Lands promised something way beyond virtual reality.
Daniel grinned. “The launch is what happens today. But really, today is the day that changes everything.”
Eric rolled his eyes as he picked at the leftover crusts of his sandwich. The school food was basically inedible, so he and Daniel always brought their lunches. Eric couldn’t help noticing, though, that he always had white-bread bologna sandwiches, while his friend had leftover gourmet pizza… or hamburgers from some fancy build-your-own chain… or something equally tasty.
“Seriously, all this crap we have to deal with in real life?” Daniel said, gesturing around at the masses of students packed into the room like sardines. “In Shattered Lands, it’s going to be nothing but fun. It’s going to be the best.”
“I dunno, man. I don’t see how’s it going to be any different from any other VR game.”
“Any different?! This is going to be full-on immersion, dude! Every other game in the past, you could only see and hear! This one’s got smell, touch, taste – everything!”
“Yeah, the taste and smell thing… I don’t buy that part.”
Daniel huffed, like he was annoyed to be explaining this for the thousandth time. “The helmet acts on your brain directly – it stimulates the parts that deal with taste, so it makes you think you’re tasting stuff. After all, your tongue’s just taking in information about chemicals. The only reason you think you can taste an orange is because your brain is telling you you are.”
Eric gave Daniel a doubtful look. “I think you drank the marketing Kool-Aid.”
“My dad swears it’s true. He said he’s tried it himself. He said it’s like you’re actually there. Like you’re living in a whole other world.”
Secretly Eric was annoyed at hearing about Daniel’s dad, who was a big-shot systems guy at Varidian and one of the project heads over Shattered Lands. Eric’s own father was a foreman at a product packaging plant. His mom worked as a waitress. Not a whole lot of cool stuff coming from them, unless you considered free detergent and half-price pancakes at the Waffle Hut ‘cool.’
“Why didn’t he let you try it yourself?” Eric asked, unable to resist needling his friend.
Daniel bristled, exactly as Eric knew he would. The fact that Daniel’s own father had been developing the biggest game in the world for the last five years – and Daniel had never gotten to see even the smallest part of it – rankled him to no end.
But he still tried to put the best spin on it possible.
“I’ve told you, there were NDAs up the wazoo. They didn’t want anybody spilling the beans on it before it launched.”
“They still had to have had thousands of beta testers,” Eric pointed out.
“Yeah, people they hired in-house,” Daniel said, annoyed. “My dad said it’s easier to get a job at the CIA than it is to beta-test Shattered Lands.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Plus he said every single one of them was totally blown away. They were begging to work overtime – for free – because life inside Shattered Lands was so much cooler than it was out here.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m not joking!”
“I’ll believe it when I taste it,” Eric said dourly.
Daniel scowled. “What’s up with all this Eeyore crap? You were looking forward to this as much as I am! What’s going on?”
Eric didn’t look up. He just shoved the scraps of his lunch into his paper bag as he spoke. “It’s just a friggin’ game. You go in, you fart around, and then you have to come back out to the same suck-ass crappy life you have to deal with all the time. Nothing ever changes.”
Daniel kept quiet. He knew that wasn’t Eric’s real issue with Shattered Lands. The truth of the matter was, though the game could be accessed through ordinary VR headsets, the real draw was in the next-generation headsets that allowed the user full access to all the senses in Shattered Lands – and the new headsets were prohibitively expensive. The base units, which only allowed for visual and audio, were $5000; the premium headsets that allowed for full immersion ran closer to $20,000 apiece. It was so much money, in fact, that the company had decided to allow players to pay for them with installment plans.
But Eric’s parents didn’t make much money. Not enough to pay for an already expensive game, plus a hefty monthly subscription fee, plus what amounted to buying an extra car.
That was Eric’s real problem: all the fear and irritation at missing out.
Daniel was too good of a friend to bring it up – at least not directly. Plus, he had a surprise in store… one he didn’t want to ruin. So he just played it cool instead.
“Ahhh, you’ll see. Once I get you on my new system, you’ll drink the Kool-Aid, too. And you’ll love how it tastes, I guarantee.”
“Great,” Eric muttered. “You can play for two hours, and I can pop in for fifteen minutes just to see what it feels like.”
“No – it’s gonna be fifty-fifty. For every hour I spend in there, you’re gonna spend an hour, too.”
Eric shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just follow along on a video feed or something. If you have a virtual camera going – ”
“No, none of this camera crap. Fifty-fifty,” Daniel insisted.
Eric looked up and gave a grateful smile. Daniel could tell that Eric didn’t believe him but still appreciated the effort.
Daniel leaned over and tried to up the excitement factor again. “Just think, man – adventure… gold… dragons… gir
ls…”
Eric flashed his usual sarcastic grin. “What, are we not going to talk to them there, too?”
“Ha ha, very funny,” Daniel said without laughing, then went into a blissful reverie again. “Since people can customize what they look like, it’s going to be incredible in there… supermodels walking around with next-to-nothing on…”
In spite of himself, Eric got totally drawn in. He leaned over and said in a low voice, as though afraid somebody might hear him, “But there’s no… sex, right?”
“Not until you’re 21,” Daniel sighed.
Eric got a faraway look. “Huh… maybe I could do something about that… hack the system…”
Eric and Daniel had met at age 12 at a summer coding camp. Though they’d become fast friends and stuck together ever since, Daniel had basically given coding up, while Eric still loved it. His plan was to go to college and either become an app designer or a video game coder. In fact, he had released a couple of simple apps onto the online stores, though none of them had done much in sales.
“You may be good, dude, but you’re not that good,” Daniel grinned.
Eric smirked right back at him. “Get me access to your dad’s office and we’ll see just how good I am.”
“If it’s lovin’ you want, you don’t have to settle for the virtual kind,” Daniel teased. “You could always go talk to a girl in real life.”
Eric glanced nervously across the room at the Popular Table – the one filled with Cheerleaders, Rich Chicks, and Mean Girls. “No – no…”
Daniel followed his gaze, then shook his head. “Dude, you could aim a little lower, you know. What about Mira? She seems into you.”
Mira was a classmate of theirs and a fellow gamer. While cute, she was more of the flannel shirt and oversized jeans kind of cute rather than the bared midriffs and tight sweaters of the Popular Table.
She also happened to not be at school today, which was slightly odd.
Eric made a face as he got up from the table. “A geeky gamer chick? No thanks.”
“Why not?” Daniel asked as he stood up too. “She’s cool.”
“I want a hot girlfriend, man.”
Daniel shook his head. “Whatever. Maybe start walking first, then run a marathon.”
Eric gave a wicked little smile as he walked over and pitched his lunch bag in the trash. “What about you? Why don’t you make a move on Jennifer?”
Jennifer Dale was in their chemistry class next period. Though she was one of the ‘smart girls’ and dressed a lot less flashy than the Cheerleaders or Rich Chicks, she was definitely pretty enough for honorary membership at the Popular Table, even though she would have never considered sitting there.
“I will,” Daniel said, blushing.
“Will what? Wait forever?” Eric laughed.
“I’ll ask her out,” Daniel snapped.
“When?”
“…when I’m ready…”
“When’s that gonna be? When you see a bunch of nuclear missiles raining down from the sky, you’re finally gonna man up and say something like, ‘Hey – wanna go out sometime?’”
“Whatever, Mr. Ladies Man,” Daniel glowered. “Maybe what we’ll do in the game will follow us out into real life. Maybe we’ll talk to women in Shattered Lands and – ”
“It’s a game, man. It’s not real life. Nobody makes their real life any better by playing a freaking game,” Eric said darkly.
They were still arguing as they passed by the Popular table. Daniel was talking about something else, behavior and inhibitions and blah blah blah, but Eric wasn’t looking at him. He was trying to peek out of the corner of his eye at Ashley Brooks, the head of the cheerleading squad and the hottest girl in school. She was wearing a particularly low-cut top today, with the edges of her lacy bra peeking out –
Anyway, Eric wasn’t watching where he was going.
That’s when he smacked right into something BIG, lost his balance, and went sprawling down onto the ground.
Laughter erupted all around him, and his face blushed fiery hot.
He stumbled angrily to his feet, looked up – and his stomach immediately twisted into knots.
Trent Lockner.
Star running back of the varsity football team. Probably going to take the school all the way to the state championship. Tall, handsome, somewhat intelligent for a jock – and the biggest asshole in the senior class.
He was surrounded by his merry band of douchebags – other guys on the team who weren’t quite as smart, good-looking, or vicious, but who came a close second (in the viciousness department, anyway).
“Watch where you’re going, retard!” Trent snarled, then turned to walk off with his posse.
Eric looked over at the Popular Table. Several of the hot girls were snickering behind their hands, and the rest were giving each other disgusted glances, like What a loser.
Eric couldn’t help himself. Anger boiled up inside him –
“YOU ran into ME!” he yelled.
There was a gasp and an Ooooooohhh from the Popular Girls as they waited eagerly to see what the resident alpha male would do.
Trent turned back around slowly, his scowl deepening.
“What did you say to me?” he asked, his voice incredulous.
“Nothing – he didn’t say anything,” Daniel said, stepping between the two of them. He turned back towards Eric –
The rage on his friend’s face startled him.
Daniel had always known Eric had an angry side. Beneath the sarcastic quips and cynical moping, there was a darkness to Eric that only came out during his deepest depressions.
It had certainly never come out like this, when he was about to get flattened by a bully.
Daniel put his hand on his Eric’s arm. “Dude,” he whispered, “let’s go – now.”
But Eric wasn’t about to be shushed. “I didn’t do anything to him,” he said angrily.
“You were breathing, dick-face,” Trent snapped. “That was enough.”
Trent’s posse and a good portion of the Popular Girls all laughed, like Trent’s insult was the wittiest thing they’d ever heard.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Daniel urged.
Trent wasn’t helping. “Yeah, listen to your little boyfriend and get the hell out of here, dumbass.”
More laughter.
Apparently Eric had had enough, because he did the unthinkable.
“Screw you, you homophobic Neanderthal,” he snarled.
There was an audible gasp from the Popular Table. Oh, it was on NOW.
Daniel went pale. Eric wouldn’t go up and talk to a girl, but here he was shooting off his mouth to the biggest bully in school, practically begging for an ass-whupping.
But no matter what hell was headed his way, Daniel turned back to face Trent, shoulder to shoulder with Eric.
If his friend was going down for the count, at least Daniel would be there to have his back.
Even if it meant a black eye.
And maybe a couple of broken bones.
And a punctured lung.
Oh God…
By now half the lunchroom had clued in. There was just enough quiet that everybody could hear what was going on, plus that electric current that runs through a crowd just before the first punch gets thrown and people start yelling Fight! Fight! FIGHT!
Trent’s eyes widened in shock – then narrowed in anger.
He stepped forward, rearing back one cantaloupe-sized fist in the air –
“Is there a problem, gentlemen?”
Everyone turned to see Vice Principal Zabriski standing behind the Popular Table, arms crossed over his chest, staring at Trent, Eric, and Daniel.
The Neanderthal wasn’t dumb enough to make a mistake at this point. He burst into a forced grin, and his raised fist turned into an open-handed swing as he slapped Eric on the shoulder.
“I was just sayin’ ‘Watch out, buddy,’” Trent said in the most fake ‘good-natured’ voice imaginable
.
“Uh huh,” the Vice Principal said, clearly not buying it. “Why don’t you all move along to class?”
“Yeah – let’s go,” Daniel whispered to Eric.
Eric still looked angry, but he knew a good idea when he heard it.
As they passed by Trent, though, the football player whispered something that sent a shiver down Daniel’s neck:
“See you soon, you little turds.”
Daniel hustled Eric out as fast as he could – not only to get away from Trent, but from the 500 pairs of eyes staring at them across the cafeteria.
“Asshole,” Eric ranted as soon as they were outside and safely out of earshot.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Daniel cautioned him.
“Like what? Running into the end of his fist?” Eric asked, perched on the edge between rage and despair. “High school sucks. Life SUCKS.”
“It’ll be better this afternoon,” Daniel reminded him. “Shattered Lands.”
Eric suddenly broke into a wicked grin. “Think we could trick Trent into playing the game and then disembowel him?”
“DARK,” Daniel said in the same way a disapproving surfer might say Duuuude. “No, we could just fight him there and actually have a chance of winning. And even if we lost, there wouldn’t be any actual broken bones involved.”
“We could fight him here in the real world,” Eric pointed out.
“Uh, remember the part about ‘and have a chance of winning’?”
“…yeah…” Eric grumbled.
“Come on, let’s get to Chemistry.”
“We’re gonna be early.”
“I don’t really want to be walking around the hallways, waiting for a pack of douchebags to come pick us off.”
“Yeah…”
As they headed for class, Daniel shook his head. “Dude – disembowel him?”
“Oh, I was just getting started,” Eric chuckled. “Maybe gouge out his eyeballs next and make him eat them like grapes. Crunch crunch.”
“GROSS!”
“That’s nothing. Check this out – ”
They laughed the rest of the way to class as Eric recounted all the terrible things he had in store for Trent Lockner.
Shattered Lands: A LitRPG Series Page 2
