Dead Mech Walking: a mech LitRPG novel (Armored Souls Book 1)
Page 33
When he’d laid down, he had half expected to be blocked from logging out. What he found after succeeding made him wonder whether he had been.
The pod was gone.
The hospital was gone.
Reggie awoke sitting upright in a waiting room chair, right in the middle of a row that stood empty. Plush carpet bore a familiar Valhalla West logo. There was a smooth, sleek desk with a tidy young man sitting behind it, tapping away at a keyboard, eyes fixed on a screen.
Reggie stood, finding that his real body was fit and trim as ever. He ran a hand along his arm, not finding an IV port in his vein. Reaching up, his hair was bristle-brush short, and there was no game rig attached.
“Excuse me,” Reggie said to the young man behind the desk. “Can you help me?”
The young man looked up with a smile on his face showing perfect white teeth. “Sgt. King. So wonderful to meet you. They’re expecting you.” With a wave of his hand, the young man motioned toward a heavy oaken door.
The nameplate read: Ken Bradley, CEO
The logo, again, was Valhalla West’s iconic Viking-at-a-laptop design.
Reggie knocked.
“Come on in, Sgt. King,” a booming but friendly voice called through the door.
Reggie turned the handle and stepped into a world he’d never expected to see. It was a world where the rich and powerful sat, where guys who could light cigars with hundred-dollar bills traded bits and pieces of empires over handshakes and cocktails.
This version was a little geekier, with the walls plastered with promotional posters for Valhalla West games and Game of the Year trophies and various lesser awards scattered around like knickknacks. A central table was decked out with a spread of junk food intermixed with fine cuisine. Steak and grilled salmon sat on platters with a plate of Oreo cookies in between.
The office’s owner was a man Reggie had never met before. Sitting on the edge of his desk rather than at it, he was a teddy bear of a man wearing a plaid flannel shirt over a Valhalla West t-shirt, jeans, and grubby sneakers. His face was a basketball with a beard, square-rimmed glasses, and a smile that took up every available space.
The other guy in the room was Dr. Zimmerman.
“The hell is going on here?” Reggie demanded.
The man in flannel slid off the desk and strode across the room with his hand extended. “Sgt. King, I’m Ken Bradley. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ I’m a working man.”
“Sorry, Sgt. King,” Ken apologized, the smile faltering, albeit only momentarily. “I’m just… you can’t believe what an honor it is finally meeting you.”
“I don’t… what… did I win a contest or something?” Reggie asked, looking past the grinning software tycoon to his therapist, sitting calmly in one of the office’s guest chairs, munching on Doritos.
“Quite the opposite,” Dr. Zimmerman said with his mouth full.
“I killed you, or at least set your base to blow with you in it,” Reggie said. “Now I’m here. I’m not hooked up to machines. Not cooped up in that hospital. What gives? Do I get to go back to my unit now?”
Ken looked over to Dr. Zimmerman. “I’ll let you handle this part.” He held up his hands and backed toward the catering spread.
Dr. Zimmerman dusted the artificial cheese dust off his hands and guided Reggie to a seat. “Sgt. King… Reggie… there is no going back to your unit.”
Reggie knit his brow. “What’s that? Something happen to ‘em? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m getting to that,” Dr. Zimmerman said curtly. “I’m trying to be gentle about this. But since you’re intent on me getting to the point, the problem isn’t them; it’s you.”
Reggie tossed his head and let out a sigh of exasperation. “C’mon, doc. I passed your tests. What more does a guy have to do to convince you he’s right in the head?”
Dr. Zimmerman smiled—the sort that didn’t vanish the instant it showed up, but instead, a sad smile that lingered. “Your head’s doing a lot better. I’m proud of the work you’ve put in. But when I told you it was your head I was worried about, it was because your body is a lost cause.”
Reggie recoiled. “My what now? I feel fine.” He thumped his chest with a fist. “Never better.”
“That’s because this is an artificial digital environment,” Dr. Zimmerman said.
Reggie blinked. “Say that again.”
Dr. Zimmerman held out a hand to Ken Bradley, and the heavyset game designer ambled over with a plate of nachos, dripping in cheese and bacon bits.
“Sgt. King—can I call you Reggie?” Ken asked, cutting himself off before he even began.
“Yeah, whatever. Just make this make sense. And make it make sense fast.”
“Armored Souls is a game,” Ken said, munching nachos as he waited for Reggie to nod along. “When you get killed in Armored Souls, you wake up in a hospital.”
“Yeah, it happened to me,” Reggie said. “Keep explaining.”
“Well, what if, instead of Nurse Elvira and that scary robot surgeon, you were to wake up… in a military hospital with… him,” Ken said, ducking as he swept a hand to introduce Dr. Zimmerman.
“You’re saying the hospital, Dr. Zimmerman, Nurse Mallet… none of them are real?”
Ken held up his hands, careful not to spill his nachos. “Yes and no. Everything you saw, felt, touched, smelled was fake. The people were as real as you: human players in digital bodies. Dr. Zimmerman here is currently lying comfortably on a specially designed gaming couch back at the Valhalla West Medical Center in Los Calivertas. I’ve got a similar rig in my office. You are lying in the same bed you’ve been in for the past ten years. Or were, until recently.”
Reggie’s brain shut off. How long had passed, he had no idea. There wasn’t any way to tell if actual time was even passing. “Ten… years?” he asked after what seemed like another ten.
“Reggie,” Dr. Zimmerman said. “You were saved from what appeared to be a permanent comatose state by Valhalla West’s technology. I can bore you with the details later, if you like. Suffice it to say, you’re something of a modern miracle of neuroscience.”
“My… my dad?” Reggie asked. Desmond King hadn’t been a healthy man when Reggie shipped off for his latest deployment.
Dr. Zimmerman hung his head. “Passed away six years ago.”
“Daisy?” Reggie pleaded. Even knowing she was around would be some comfort.
“Remarried. Two kids, with a third on the way.”
“My boys?” Reggie asked.
Dr. Zimmerman knew what Reggie meant. “I can get you dossiers on your old unit. Nothing’s classified, and if it were, I could probably pull strings to get your clearance. Most aren’t in the service anymore. I don’t recall any further casualties you were unaware of.”
“But… why? Why me?”
“Reggie, please understand. We have your best interests at heart,” Dr. Zimmerman said. “You don’t have a life in the outside world. Barring sudden advance in medical science, you probably never will. I can get you access to your medical records if you feel like you have to see for yourself, but it’s not pretty. That blast that killed your tank crew damn near killed you as well. Just about did, frankly.”
“We’ve built a new life platform for you,” Ken said, spreading his arms in an expansive gesture now that he’d set down his snack plate. “It’s a whole universe to explore, people to interact with. We’ve gotten you a social life, a surrogate family.”
“But no meaning.”
Ken’s face fell. “I know we can’t give you back what you had, but we’ve replaced a lot of what you lost.”
“Life has the meaning we assign it,” Dr. Zimmerman said. He strode over to the office’s full-wall windows and threw back the curtain. A panoramic view of a city Reggie didn’t recognize sprawled out before him. “This world is larger than you could ever explore. Somewhere within it, you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
Reggie paused, staring thoughtfully through the glass. There was just enough glare for him to make out the doctor and the programmer browsing the snack table as they let him process.
“I gotta know one thing, doc.”
“You can ask anything you like.”
“Was June in on it? Was that why you sent her away in the… the fake hospital?” Reggie asked, still struggling to keep the nesting doll of worlds straight in his head.
“Not until the very end,” Dr. Zimmerman said. “You might never have found my lair if I didn’t give her directions. She was reassigned at her own request, to avoid ethical entanglements.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ken said. “By the way, feel free to entangle all you want. Valhalla West has you covered. All service men and women helped by our Digital Heroes program get all the bells and whistles for live. All the add-ons, all the micro-transactions, all the restricted content. It’s vault open for you. Any expansions, downloadable content, new versions, all yours at release. Um, for safety purposes, we don’t want you in the alpha and beta content, just in case. But if you want any of our other games, hop on over from an admin screen. We’re working on integrating the game universes, but if you want a football career or work as a stunt man, give it a go.”
“Um, thanks,” Reggie said, grateful and overwhelmed at once. “But I think Armored Souls is enough for me, at least for now.”
Ken clasped Reggie by the upper arms. “Hey man, this world is your oyster. I am so unbelievably psyched for what we’ve been able to do for you.”
Reggie glanced at Dr. Zimmerman, hoping for some sort of escape from the clutches of the touchy-feely programmer. But the psychiatrist was stuffing his face with filet mignon medallions. “Um, so am I. But I gotta ask something. Are you guys… watching?”
Ken let Reggie go and took a step back. “Never! We could, I mean, but we don’t do that. So, if you’re planning on sexing up one of those fine ladies you’re hanging around with, when the time comes, just pop the Consent box, and if she does too… well, whatever happens in Armored Souls stays in Armored Souls.” He gave a wink behind those oversized glasses.
Reggie cleared his throat. “Nice as this has been, is there any chance of me getting back to the game? I’ve got a party to get back to.”
His insides jittered. Try as he might, there was only so long he could hold it together in front of these two men who’d taken his life in their hands. Reggie was an experiment, a guinea pig, a specimen in a digital jar. He couldn’t wrap his head around it. He didn’t want to try. All he wanted was a familiar environment, even if he knew it wasn’t real.
Dr. Zimmerman’s thin smile lingered a few seconds. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
It was Pasta Night, by decree of Chase.
True to his word, Chase had sprung for a pasta maker for the base and had cooked an Italian dinner. Luckily for all of them, this game didn’t get into mundane skills like cooking. Adding the ingredients in random ratios and allowing a cool-down timer to run its course on the pasta maker and a pot of boiling water had been all the skill required.
“So, that’s it?” Lin asked between bites of spaghetti. “You’re planted in the vegetable garden back in RL, and this is it for you now?”
Reggie didn’t care for the analogy, but it sounded accurate. “Yeah, more or less.” His skin still crawled just thinking about that in-between world that was neither game nor reality.
Frank gave a cynical chuckle as he refilled his plate for a second course. “Go figure. I’m a zillion years old, and this guy’s worse off than me.”
“You’re handling it well,” Chase observed, just picking at his plate. “Not sure I could deal with it. I mean, I’m nothing special in the real world, but—”
“Fuck that,” Lin scolded him. Reggie felt a little jolt of normalcy at finally being able to hear unfiltered speech. He silently thanked Ken Bradley for updating his account status. “You’re going to have your PhD before you’re twenty. I’d kill for that kind of brain.”
Chase gave Lin a perplexed look.
“Yeah, I stalked you right back, nerd-boy,” Lin said, crossing her arms. “Or… well, my production assistant did. But she found you out from high school yearbook photo to handles for half a dozen games you’ve played.”
“OK,” Chase said slowly.
“So if you cheat on me, you will get SO doxed.”
Chase broke into a grin. “Does that mean we’re dating?”
“That means I might give you another chance,” Lin said. “Probationally. If we’re going to be in a platoon together, it seems convenient. Plus—and no offense, you two—you’re the only one not, like, permanently in a hospital bed in reality land.”
“None taken,” Frank said, face hovering over his plate as he shoveled spaghetti into his mouth.
Lin dabbed at the corners of her mouth, then excused herself from the table. Everyone watched her head down the hall toward the residential wing of the base—especially Chase.
“Are you coming or not?” she called without looking back.
Chase pushed back his chair and muttered beneath his breath. “A loaded question.” He made haste to catch up before Lin got away.
Frank finished up his spaghetti, slurping down the last noodles noisily, then letting out a gasp of satisfaction. His chair scraped the floor as he stood and gathered his plate. “Well, been a good day. Gonna break in my new bunk. Three’s a crowd, I hear.” His wink came with a sly cluck of his tongue that neither Reggie nor June could have missed.
A moment later, the two of them were alone.
“So…” Reggie said. “Chase and Lin. Who’d’ve figured.”
“Everyone.”
Reggie chuckled nervously. “Yeah, suppose. Kinda weird… sex in a video game.”
“Probably a generational thing, old man.”
Reggie shot June a playful glare. “But you knew all along, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” she replied.
Reggie forced a smile but couldn’t make it last. “Kinda puts a damper on things, knowing I’m mostly meat and tubes back in reality.”
June leaned close. “If you can keep this between you and me… I don’t want everyone knowing. But you’re not a charity case. I may be a nurse, but we’ve never met in the real world. The life synopsis I gave you was true, but I left out some key details. I didn’t go straight from the army into the nursing corp. I lost both my legs below the knee. Honorable discharge. Endless rehab. Thought I was done for professionally. That’s when I went into nursing. Changed my life around. Chase wouldn’t give me the time of day if he met me out on the streets.”
“So you don’t…” Reggie waved a hand at June’s digital avatar.
“Not even before boot camp,” June replied. “I copied an NPC model and merged my senior photo. Then I touched up a few things. I wasn’t trying to be me.”
Reggie cleared his throat. “And… sex in a video game is weird, right?”
June nodded overenthusiastically. “The weirdest.”
“And you’re messing with me, right?”
Just then, an alert popped up.
[Special Mission Available]
June’s head snapped up. She’d seen it, too.
From down the hall, Frank came running, followed by Chase and Lin, both pulling on disheveled articles of clothing.
Reggie looked June right in the eye. She shrugged. This was his life now. Better get used to it.
Reggie stood and took a long breath, surveying his platoon. “Saddle up, space cowboys. Time to kick some ass.”
TECH REFERENCES
SIGN UP
Join the X.P. Loot Log at xp-hunter.com to be the first to hear when new Xavier P. Hunter LitRPG books come out.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Xavier P. Hunter was born at the dawn of the video game age. He grew up with a game controller in his hand, moving from Atari joystick through PS4 controller the way a hermit crab outg
rows its shell. His little league was RBI Baseball, his first date was Princess Zelda, and his first unpaid internship was leading raids in World of Warcraft. He lives in a world of pixels and frame rates, coming out infrequently to eat and that sort of thing.
Most of his writing is done while patches download or when servers are down for maintenance.
Like most superheroes, he operates in meat space under an assumed name.
xp-hunter.com
Table of Contents
Copyright
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62