Rune Universe: A Virtual Reality novel (The RUNE UNIVERSE trilogy Book 1)

by Hugo Huesca

  To prove my point I detached a mangled arm from a mutant and opened my inventory screen. I gestured the arm towards it and a blue light surrounded it as the flesh was digitalized. “Mutant Flesh” was added to my inventory. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to work: I was just playing around.

  “Did someone program that?” The item had a value of zero in its description, so it seemed like a waste of time. It occupied valuable space in my inventory —it wasn’t infinite. And yet… I was able to.

  I’d read about a game called Zork. Some videos (called Let’s Play) of it still remained, but I never found the game anywhere —it was too ancient. It had something akin to this level of player freedom, but its graphics consisted entirely of text.

  Rune was indistinguishable from the real world. Except for all the future tech, of course, and the campy blasters.

  I had just spent who-knew-how-much-time walking around a forest and hunting for monsters… I remembered Van and Mom were supposed to arrive anytime now and I instinctively called for the window to the real world. The apartment was still empty and the in-game clock on my Options screen told me it was midday. I had been playing Rune for almost three hours.

  How had I not realized it? The day was almost over.

  I have to work tomorrow, I realized. The happy, warm, fragile sensation I had on my chest withered and died. This was escapism. No matter how green the forest or how blue the sky, I still had shit of a life back in the real world. I was painfully aware of my real body now, stiff and uncomfortable lying halfway on the sofa.

  I felt betrayed by myself for actually having fun in this game, when I’d tried so hard to hate it. I still had work to do tomorrow; my first day for the Xanz corporation. I still had bills to pay and three Strikes to juggle around until I reached eighteen years old. At what point was I supposed to make time to have fun?

  Fun just wasn’t for me.

  Disappointment turned to anger and then to bitterness, just like it did after a bad breakup. Now I knew what I’d be missing, every day.

  The forest didn’t seem so green anymore. In fact, I could see more mutants surrounding me from the bushes and behind the trees. I didn’t care for them anymore. They were just pixels.

  So back in the real world I got up and yanked off the mindjack.

  Anyone who has played in a Virtual Reality System before would cringe when hearing that. It wasn’t a bright idea and I wasn’t thinking clearly.

  Imagine you are walking down the street, enjoying the view, having a nice workout. Then, suddenly, you are at home, in front of your holo-TV. One second, walk; next second, home. You’d probably break a leg in the confusion before you could react.

  In my case, the reality my brain was very sure was real, instantly dissolved and was replaced by my apartment and my sofa. My body was different from my avatar’s. I was sitting now, not standing up. The smells were different. The light was different. One second ago, I was two inches taller.

  What I mean is, it felt as if someone metaphorically walked into my brain’s house, kicked down his door, punched him in the face, and then left.

  I doubled over and fell from the sofa, gasping pathetically. I was dizzy and my head spun. It was just the final punch in the teeth to nail down a dreadful day. Knowing Kipp, if there was a heaven he’d probably be there dying again from laughing so hard.

  “Hope you enjoyed the prank, you marble brain…” Yes, marble brain was the best insult I could think of. You try to come up with something creative after rocking your own brain with a bag of bricks.

  Here’s an interesting fact. What I did was something dumb, but with no consequences except the dizziness and the disorientation. But had I tried yanking out the mindjack, say, eight years ago, I could’ve lobotomized myself. VRS were pretty much experimental tech back then. If you didn’t follow proper procedure to log out, the feedback could fry your neurons like no-one’s business. If the power suddenly went out or your Internet connection failed, there were safeguards. But those could fail —and in a bunch of cases they did. Huge companies were sued over it. Some of them even lost the suits and had to fork over hundreds of millions to the victim’s families.

  Virtual Reality was different back then. Even using the mindjack correctly could make you end up with a tumor. Concerned mother’s associations even tried to have the tech banned. But gamers had none of it. They still played the games by the hundreds of thousands and somehow the military backed them up. The laws were rejected and VRS had a chance to evolve.

  Nowadays, newer models of mindjacks were perfectly safe. But many people still refused to come near one. “What if I can’t log out?” “What if I die outside the game and never realize it?” Some horror stories still went around the net, copied pasted a thousand times with slight variations. Ghosts-in-the-game who wandered over the Internet and from one VRS to another, always the same username, the same avatar, even if it wasn’t available in-game. Everyone swore they had seen one, and many fake videos were produced daily on the subject.

  If my life had been an Internet horror story, I’d be a creepy ghost right after taking out my mindjack.

  Thank God it was more of a black comedy.

  I put the mindjack under my sofa and left it there. It was like a snake. I had allowed Rune to get close to me and it had bitten me, first chance it got.

  Well, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

  I spent the next couple hours ironing my second-hand suit. I had bought it at Goodwill a while ago for my high-school graduation. I needed to be presentable tomorrow on my first day as a junior on Xanz Inc. My knuckles were white from gripping the iron too hard.

  Remember how some bitter foods taste stronger after eating something sweet? I had woken up to my normal life after having witnessed the beauty of a green forest. It felt like someone had run my soul through a cheese grater and then they poured salt all over the wounds.

  Sorry, Kipp. I don’t think I’ll log to your game again. I thought, bitterly. Outside, the sky was gray and clouded with pollution-green smog.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Pro Gaming

  Next day, first thing in the morning, I got on a bus to the Xanz corporation. The business district stood as far from Lower Cañitas as it could be while still having a San Mabrada’s postal code. The gray morning appeared identical to the day before, but colder.

  IT WAS A PLEASURE DRIVING YOU, COLE. HAVE A GREAT DAY AT WORK! The bus cheered me on after I got out in front of the offices. It probably sensed I was in a foul mood and tried to help.

  I inspected the skyscraper where I would work for the next five years and sighed.

  The words I’d use to describe it were “luxurious and gauche”. An architect’s wet dream, built in only a year using the most advanced construction techniques available to non-military personnel. The thing was built entirely out of curves and seemed to think of straight, sturdy, reliable walls as something beneath the dignity of its position.

  No, seriously, if you tried to build the thing in a Construction Simulator two years out-dated, the software would call you stupid. Then, it’d uninstall itself from your computer and be happy about it.

  I crossed an extraordinary amount of stairs until I reached the polished glass doors. They opened automatically as I drew near: my face and likeness were already registered on the building’s database, which was just as well. Most corporate buildings loved to release their cyberdogs if an intruder got anywhere near them. Especially an intruder with three Strikes.

  The interior turned out as luxurious and gauche as the outside. At least on the first floor, which had to look good for important visitors. There was a fountain in there and a self-contained rainforest with real, genetically altered animals, formally extinct until now. I caught a glimpse of a dodo bird.

  I was sure dodos didn’t belong in the rainforest.

  There was a human receptionist on a mahogany desk in the middle of the floor, guarding the entrance to the row of golden elevators. It was a sign of status and
luxury. The conglomerate which owned Xanz was unfathomably big, but few people knew of it.

  The receptionist lady greeted me with a warm smile that turned cold when she realized I was an employee.

  “Cole Dorsett, right? You need an ID card so you can go to Xanz’s floor.”

  ID cards were archaic since software could do facial recognition better than most people. But plastic-based security was harder to Script your way into.

  I waited a few minutes until a small drone flew down some tubes on the ceiling and delivered to me a still-warm ID card. It reminded me of my introduction to Rune Universe.

  Xanz’s floor was somewhere on the two-hundred row. The elevator took me straight there. It had no buttons inside, except for the first floor.

  Thirteen seconds after stepping foot inside the elevator, the doors opened with a happy-sounding bell and I caught my first glimpse of my new employer.

  While the skyscraper exterior was built with no expense saved, the actual Xanz offices were built with only functionality in mind. That meant built mostly out of modular cardboard cubicles.

  Cubicles. Everywhere. Cubicles.

  Like alligators, the square cardboard shape had been immune to the efforts of evolution. They defied the technological and social advances as if proclaiming it had achieved perfection the very same instant they were born.

  And one of these cubicles waited for me.

  The office was staffed mostly by low-level grunts like myself, with the main difference being those grunts would get promoted into mid-level grunts some years into the future. I did not have the same prospects: I was there to do work that drones could easily do themselves. Corporate preferred to keep their secrets by using manual labor, which couldn’t be hacked.

  “So, you’re Cole Dorsett, right?” A guy in his mid-twenties, pale, and already balding came forwards to greet me. “I’m Steve. I’ll help you settle into Xanz culture this first week.”

  I’m dying to hear all about that culture, Steve. Shall we start by poisoning an orphanage? I thought. I bit my tongue, forced a smile, and said:

  “Sure. Thanks, Steve.”

  After all, I still got paid. Right?

  Steve introduced me around and I was met by a lot of blank stares and forced smiles. I didn’t need to hear them say it to know what they were thinking.

  Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

  “We have some of the best absentee ratios in the country!” Steve explained. His chest expanded with pride.

  Even if he was just an intern, he’d soon be in a management position or at least mid-grunt. A brighter career path than mine, truth be told.

  “We do,” interrupted a portly man in a stained business suit, “thanks to our delicate employee motivational protocols. Have you explained these protocols to the new guy, Steve?”

  “Cole, this is our boss, Manager Jimenez,” gulped Steve. I looked at the guy with disbelief. Was he scared of the man? What, did he shoot his employees if they weren’t on time? “Boss, I was explaining to Cole what his new position entails. But if you’d prefer, I can go straight into…”

  “Leave it, Steve, I can do the introductions myself. New guy, here’s how things work in the Xanz San Mabrada’s wing. You will do your job without any mistakes, or else your pay will get docked. You will arrive exactly on time, or your pay will get docked. You will do as you are told, or your pay will get docked. Am I making myself clear?”

  “You are the boss,” I told him, gritting my teeth. You know what would go well with Manager Jimenez smug face? A fist.

  “Damn right, I am.” Jimenez waddled towards his slightly bigger cubicle.

  Steve and I stood there. The intern scratched his dirty-blond hair. “He grows on you, you know.”

  He caught a glimpse of my expression and sighed. “It’s easier if you tune him out.”

  “I bet.”

  “Hey,” he said with a slightly forced smile. “It’s not that bad. We get a lot of people in your position, so I know what you’re thinking. ‘This is a dead-end job, I’m only going to get exploited, Manager Jimenez is looking for any excuse to pay me nothing at the end of the month—’”

  “So, that’s not true?”

  “Well, the part about the exploitation and Manager Jimenez are,” he said, shrugging. “No point lying there. But you can get out of a dead-end career path. Many of our employees have. Xanz is an impressive company to work for, no matter what the media says, and there are other companies in the building owned by the same conglomerate. If you survive your five years without any major trouble, maybe you can make a friend or two and get transferred to their company, if they’ve enough influence. Then you’re in a position you can get promoted in. And then you have money, Cole. It may not buy happiness, but it gets you her hotter, crazier sister who loves to party.”

  This time, his smile was genuine. “Sometimes life gets you lemons, you see, so you better learn to make lemonade. Just friendly advice, from one grunt to another.”

  I realized right there that Steve was smarter than he looked. I also realized that I very much wanted to punch him in the mouth, too. But unlike Manager Jimenez, I may buy him a beer afterward.

  “Fine,” I said. I smiled coldly. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll try not to let things get to me.”

  I looked at the clock. Only one hour had gone by. Perhaps I had died and gone to hell.

  I returned home by six, annoyed and tired in both mind and soul. Three hours ordering cabinets. With paper files in them. Another three running errands from cubicle to cubicle. Some of those errands actually involved making coffee.

  You could get a subscription and get your Starbucks coffee delivered anywhere you wanted to, by way of a helpful little drone. But, of course, corporate’s motto was: costs are saved by the cent.

  I was their way of saving costs.

  Mom was still out. Looking for a job, or so she said. I hadn’t smelled alcohol on her in a couple of months now, but one could never get too relaxed.

  I left my cheap, plastic-mesh backpack by the door and walked to the fridge to make dinner. Vegetables, salt, water, and synth-chicken. That makes a soup. I threw the ingredients in a pot, put it on the stove, and turned on the heat.

  Oh yes, I can cook too. Besides soup, I can also do chicken, sandwiches, and cereal. No, no need to mention it. I know I’m a catch.

  Battle noises came muted from Van’s room. “Hey! Want some dinner?” I yelled.

  The room went quiet an instant later and Sis yelled back. “Don’t make loud noises while I’m streaming, jeez!”

  Some teenage girls hated if their brothers embarrassed them in front of their social group. Van hated it if I embarrassed her in front of her fans.

  Ten seconds later, she yelled again. “What’s for dinner?”

  “I’m making soup!”

  “Nah, I’m good! Also, your friend came looking for you!”

  “Which friend?”

  “The bulky one, the one who looks like the patron deity of steroids! I told him you were working!”

  That meant Darren. I hadn’t talked to him since Saturday, two days ago. With the funeral and my stint in Rune, I had forgotten all about The Ferals.

  He’s probably angry because I gave them the slip, I gathered. For sure he may try to collect his “favor” anyways. After all, it’s the intention that counts, right?

  Van went back to her videogames. The kitchen filled with the aroma of a nice chicken broth as I wondered what to do about Darren. It was the first time he had come to my apartment. Home was sacred ground, a mutually agreed neutral zone where our misadventures on the street did not exist. I never went to his house. He never came to mine. I hung out with Bliss here for the five days or so I was trying to get in her pants (I was sixteen) before I realized that kind of pursuits were more or less impossible in a cramped apartment. But that was different.

  There’s an easy way to find out. I texted Darren.

  Hey. Heard you came by my house. Everything OK? I s
ent you a message last Saturday, you got it, right?

  So I waited. I left the phone on the table and stirred my soup until it was ready to eat. I poured myself some and sat down.

  The recipe was very simple and impossible to screw up. It still managed to taste slightly of soup. I pretended not to notice and ate furiously. “You are missing a really great soup!” I yelled.

  “I believe you!” yelled back Van, who did not believe me at all.

  Five minutes later my phone rang.

  Yeah bro all K. Just wanted to say srry for your loss. Can u come to Park in 1 hour to have chat? :o :B :v

  Huh. Something is definitely not right. I got goosebumps running down my spine and my heart rate jumped a tad. Just like my body always did when something was amiss. Survival instinct, you know. Get it quickly or you won’t last a day running around in Lower Cañitas. But what was wrong? Before I left that club, Gluttony, I’d made sure no police-drone was in sight. There was no strange IP surveying the net.

  Still, I knew something was wrong. A safe bet was to assume the worst possible result had happened. But assuming wasn’t enough. I had to confirm it.

  Nowadays, even ancient phones like mine had a function to exchange contact information just by being in close proximity to another phone. Made things faster and looked neat. The kind of thing a software engineer thinks when his boss tells him, “Hey, we need to add a new feature to our smartphone line, people need to know we are finally arriving at the Future.”

  Most people kept the function shut down or heavily filtered —for example, only works with persons of the gender and age they are interested in. Cops kept it shut down, for obvious reasons. But there was one who allowed his contact info to be shared with some criminals he arrested if they were under a certain age, no matter how violent. A good cop. Who sadly wouldn’t last very long, I mean, really.

  I phoned Officer Harrison. He answered on the fourth ring. I heard a series of bumps as he proceeded to drop the phone and then scramble to pick it back up.