Video Game Recruiting (Corporate Marines Book 1)

by Tom Germann

  “It’s okay, Dad. They were just words and I don’t think he really meant them. I think he is just scared that no one remembers the invasion and he thinks everyone forgot it. And, well, he’s also old, so it’s harder to track on stuff, unlike us.”

  Dad actually snorted at that. “‘And he’s old.’ Lots of respect there, son of mine.” He reached back and pulled a big snack bag from the floor where he had hidden it and dropped it into my lap. “This should cheer you up! At least a little. Let’s go home.”

  As we drove away, I left the bag sitting on my lap unopened. I didn’t have any real appetite.

  The things that Grampa had said were a bit hurtful, but they were also wrong.

  He was right; we should fortify our solar system so we could respond to threats. But he was wrong because he thought, like a lot of people, that maybe we should just stay in our solar system and develop that. They didn’t see the benefit to leaving, but I kept hearing a history teacher talk to us about empires and how they rise and would fall.

  I kept thinking about that on the way home until I fell asleep in the car.

  I woke up when we finally got home. I caught the game, and then went to bed. I love Grampa, but he is always such a downer. I was lying there thinking about what he said for half the night.

  I mean, yes. The old science-fiction writers had gotten most of it wrong, but I never thought that they were lying to us on purpose. It just worked out that the reality of star travel was different than anyone had thought.

  One of my teachers had been really cool about talking about things like that in our social awareness classes. He would look at us and start. “So we have starships that can travel huge distances, but space is so big that we really can’t go that far before we run out of fuel. Plus, our navigating is not top-notch as the new systems have bugs in them, like anything. There are lots of other star systems out there, but only a few in range, and terraforming most of them would bankrupt Earth. The fleets of starships that are huge and would move us anywhere in the universe can’t be built. All the big breakthroughs we were promised? Didn’t happen. Cures for all the diseases that affect the human race? Not there.”

  He had paused and looked around the classroom at all of us. The guy was amazing and, we all thought, a little nuts, but he could make good points and keep them interesting. “The first aliens that we met were barely able to communicate with us, and they basically told us it was like this for every alien race out there. There were not big advancements, just smaller advancements over what we currently had. Other aliens were hostile, but there could be no interstellar war.” He had smiled at that. “The last one is a good thing. Because at that time, we were not advanced like Europe. We were more like the subcontinent, and we are still a bit like that today in comparison to everyone else.”

  “Now for the reality that everyone out there seemed to miss: We are like the first Europeans trying to send ships out way back when. They can’t go far. We don’t know much, and what we do know is mostly wrong, or at least not completely correct. We have our own huge preconceived notions to work past, and a lot of people thought that we could not be wrong.”

  He laughed then, and I didn’t get it for a few years. The words yes, I understood those; it was the meaning behind them and where we had to go that I couldn’t understand. “We will eventually make those advances. We will expand and explore and grow and one day our starships will travel faster than we think they can today. We will do this one day, but that is generations away, and our problem is that we don’t have the long view in just about anything. So when someone tells you, ‘Science-fiction writers lied!’ smile at them and say, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get there one day!’”

  I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up the next day, my life had changed forever.

  I went over to Tina’s and said hi to her mom, and she looked so sad. “I’m sorry, Tim. Tina got an offer from the Glentol Corporation yesterday and left right immediately, right after lunch. She was accepted into an advanced studies course and is somewhere in Canada in a full-time school.”

  I just stared at her like she was making faces at me. “Well, is she coming home for weekends or, like, holidays?”

  Her mom just shook her head no and carried on. “She is going to be spending the next four months in some sort of training program, and if everything works out, she could be doing just about anything in the Corporation anywhere in the world. But they need her to be immersed in the education system as they are covering a lot of technical training and it is very intensive.”

  I thanked her and then went home in a daze. I explained things to Mom and then went for a walk.

  Mom tried to explain later that if Tina had been chosen for the Corporation’s special schooling, then she could literally end up anywhere in the solar system after she graduated. She tried explaining to me that Tina was smart enough to have taken it, as it meant that her parents would get the benefits. The next day her dad was flying out to a top medical centre for a full medical review. He was back in three weeks and he looked as good as new.

  For me, it was like I had lost my best friend and a sister. If I was honest with myself, there was more going on, but I also had a great friend who I cared about.

  My grades dropped and the rest of the school year was bad. The counsellors kept suggesting that I could be drugged up and eased over the hard points. My mom glared at them and said no.

  I got over it. The hardest part was not knowing if she was doing okay or not and what was going on. But week by week, I got over being abandoned by my best friend.

  I was still working out and picked up a giggling girlfriend that was hot, but brainless. Her name was Janice.

  My mom let me run a little wild and I got sloppy. Dad was home for a few days and I had snuck Janice in for the night. I guess we weren’t as quiet as I thought because Mom walked in on us.

  I got to walk Janice home with my phone on so Mom could track me, and then I headed home. When I got home, Dad was sitting up and he tried to do the dad thing but I was pretty sure that Mom had sorted out what was going to happen. All I really got from Dad was the really short “be responsible” speech and then he headed off to bed.

  Mom just sat there watching me while I stood there. She was quick as well. “Janice is a nice, overly friendly girl that’s quite attractive and what any young man would like. Stacked and brainless. Lots of fun for some dates, but don’t marry her. I think she is too slutty as well, but that’s just my opinion.”

  I felt like I was getting shorter by the second. She carried on. “Since Tina left, you have been moping around, but you are actually doing better than most people would be doing. I know you need to rebound a bit, and I didn’t come in till you were finished, but I don’t want you getting a girl like Janice pregnant and then marrying her. I want you to rebound and move on. Find the right person—and that is hard—and then live your life. Now it’s late and you are going to bed. Fist bump!”

  I gave her a fist bump and then headed off to bed. I was lying there thinking about it and felt creeped out. Mom had let me finish with Janice and then gave me a fist bump over it? Errk. That felt awkward.

  The year carried on.

  Chapter 13

  Michael Harley Smythe was quite a happy man. After working on the new gaming systems for the last three years he had just been awarded a promotion to regional director. He was wrapping up at the office, which was now a large corner office toward the top of the building that the Corporation maintained in the big city. It was a huge improvement over where he had been just six months ago, with a move to the West Coast and a substantial jump in income as well.

  Getting married a year ago hadn’t guaranteed the promotion, but he knew it was what was expected of senior management.

  His new wife knew how the game was played, and was at home organizing the caterers so that the event tonight would be perfect. No more than three years i
n this position and they would be off to the next higher position.

  That meant that they were going to work even longer hours, but that was fine. The marriage wasn’t about love, but money and success. Sure, Susan was very attractive and very flexible and motivated the few times that they had sex. They would have to seriously consider kids in the next year or so, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about how that would affect Susan’s body. Everyone checked her out, whether she was dressed to impress or not, so he wanted to maintain that for at least another decade before moving on. Perhaps they could adopt. There were lots of needy children out there and a nanny would make sure that they could maintain the proper lifestyle. At least until the child was old enough for boarding school.

  Michael dismissed those long-term plans and started shutting down his system, ensuring that all security was up and running. He had several folders running now that he was keeping completely secured from the net. Those folders were growing every year.

  He had a plan. He still hated the whole video game system as a waste of resources and some higher-up’s idiot grand plan. He knew the data coming in was clearly being manipulated by some of the analysts somewhere, and all he had to do was record that.

  It was vital for him to keep being positive about the entire experience and support it at every step of the way.

  He had to keep collecting raw and processed data. In a few more years, he would have to step forward with whatever data he had that supported what he was saying and point out the weaknesses of the video game evaluation system. Perhaps leaking the information to the media after pushing the reports up the chain would improve the chances of success.

  He would get the system shut down, burn whoever had been blocking him and forcing him to stay with this stupid program, and show all the higher powers that he was a man who was careful yet decisive. That he was not simply crying wolf when he saw the initial glitches, but instead collecting data for several years until it became clear that there was a problem with the system and that the inaccuracy was actually someone’s tampering with the system for their own gain. He was taking the longer view for the betterment of the Corporation, and of course, himself.

  When the safety of the solar system was on the line, he knew that he was the man to stand up for the people of Earth against those that manipulated everyone for their own wants. He was a man who had raised some red flags about just increasing funding until the glitches and assessment tools were fine-tuned and accurate. Which never happened, interestingly enough.

  Michael knew that he would soon climb to a much higher position and could help focus corporate resources on the defence of the system and other projects closer to home.

  He had to hurry. He was going to be late coming home again, but his gold-digger wife expected that. They needed to impress the senior vice president of terraforming, and he had some jumped-up young kid with him—a junior vice president of colonization for Ipsworth, the semi-habitable planet that the Corporation had found.

  Another waste of resources. Terraforming this solar systems planets made great sense. Colonizing deep space, though? A complete waste of time and resources. Everyone knew that colonization would not work. Why couldn’t they accept that and move on?

  Michael closed the door without turning the lights off. Energy conservation was for the slaves downstairs. When the energy transmission stations came fully online, the Earth’s energy problems would be over.

  He was in the elevator heading downstairs to the parking lot when the standalone computer in his office came on and page after page of data started flashing across the screen faster than the human eye could track.

  Chapter 14

  Corporate Marines

  Update V1.2

  “Good morning, everyone! This is the one and only Billy Banger!” The young adult on stage is, in fact, the beloved gamer Billy Banger, wearing one of his trademark orange tuxedos, with the most current hairstyle. Behind him on the mega-screen, the Glentol Corporation logo dances around with big question marks all around the edge of the viewer’s screen. “This is one of the biggest data dumps ever! I must be doing something right as I have an amazing bit of gaming news for you today. Everyone has heard all the rumours about the new simulation technology, right? I mean, everyone who is alive today and more than half-awake! Well, the rumours are true! The simulation technology that is just now being used to start training people to work in dangerous and high-risk environments is being made available to schools and other areas. One of those other areas is GAMING! In fact, the first of the new ‘sim centres’ is going to be opened in the next three months! Of course, the system can be used for any game you want. Now I have had a conversation with the tech fools over at Glentol Corporation and those fools are crazy! As soon as they heard that the gamer system was going to be mass-released, a number of their personnel started working around the clock, on their own time, to convert one of the most popular games EVER! That’s right! MARINES will be the first game out! In fact, I have it top-notch from those crazy programmers and gamers that they have three scenarios almost fully cleaned up and ready to go.”

  “Now, the Glentol Corporation loved my style with their last rollout, which just felt like yesterday, so much that they called me in to do it again! They have asked me to come over and do some special interviews, as well as invite me and my gamers to try out the new system! Now, I normally have a full crew that want to go in there and get it on, but I,” Billy puts his hand to his chest and his face sobers up for just a second before his trademark grin comes back, “have my team running a charity raffle for two lucky gamers to join us for a back-to-back session again when this rollout happens! Be the cool cat flown into the first zone to open in THE WORLD! Get interviewed before, and if you can handle it, after the game, and then go party with the whole team!”

  The angle on Billy shifts and he carries on while he starts to fade from the screen and information starts flowing across, explaining how the new sims work. “Pay attention to this fact-filled short brief from the Glentol Corporation on how sims work and how you can play without a full sensor suite in your body.”

  A smooth narrator’s voice comes over while showing the traditional in-game experience that current Virtual Reality games allow. The voice is oily but hypnotic, and after the first few words, it’s ignored by every viewer as the new sim images come up from “new in-game footage.”

  The image is clear and first-person. A player runs down a hallway. As three security guards come out from a hidden door to the side, the image freezes and it zooms in. Every guard is an individual, with separate features behind the armoured facemasks. The picture zooms in further and every detail can be made out on the equipment that they are wearing. The identity cards clipped to their upper carry pouches are amazing. The view zooms back out, and forward motion carries on at a very slow pace. The weapon tracks up and, as the player lines up, he or she fires three times. The round explodes out of the barrel in a puff of gas and flame and slowly travels down the hallway. When the round hits the first guard, the solid front armour plate can be seen to flex and then shatter inward as the guard is blown backward. The next round catches the second guard in the arm and tears it off, spraying his blood around in a huge arc while he spins around and collapses to the floor screaming.

  The last guard has moved and is trying to bring his weapon up. The player fires a first, second and third round. The first of the three rounds hits the guard in the weapon and shatters it. The round spins away, deflected from being the killing hit. The second round strikes the guard on the shoulder. As the alien spins, the third round hits him in the back, punching right through and throwing the dead alien down the hall to lie on its face.

  All the while the narration continues. “A level of realism that has never been seen outside of actual combat. For those with younger players below the age of consent, the system can be set to restrict the violence level so that the game can be as detailed and as fun as eve
ryone else’s but the enemy combatants will simply fall over.” The view changes and it is the same scenario, but instead of the explosive damage as targets are shot, the aliens simply fall over and don’t move.

  The voice continued on while the player view changed. “A completely destructive play environment that can show exactly what you are doing in game.” The player was firing at a wall in the game and holes were appearing. As several more guards charged out of a side door the player switched to rifle grenades emptying the tube magazine attached to the weapon. The rounds sailed forward half hitting the wall and the other half hitting alien guards. After the fourth round the wall started teetering and then part of it collapsed into the room.

  The images fade away and a man in a lab coat with greying hair and a fatherly smile is sitting in a lab looking quite sincere. He begins talking. “The concern with simulation training is that the subject is going to be implanted with a sensor net that allows the person to completely immerse themselves into an artificial world where the most dangerous elements of life can be explored in a perfectly realistic environment that is not really dangerous. A full set of sensor implants is very expensive, and as an industry leader, the Glentol Corporation is first and foremost concerned with the safety of its people and ensuring that whatever is done is as safe as we can make it.”

  The narrator leans back and rests, and nods to the audience as if everyone knew this already. “Sensor implants are still dangerous. The Corporation is making tremendous strides and can safely identify with an easy test those subjects that may be at risk. Those people will not get a set of implants from the Glentol Corporation no matter what. At least not until the technology has advanced far enough that the safety and wellbeing of the humans involved in this is guaranteed.”

  He carefully stands up and starts walking down an aisle, past medical equipment that takes up the entire wall it is attached to. He stops in front of a white board and moves his hand over a sensor to the side. The board shifts and a three-dimensional projection of a transparent human appears. He starts pointing to different wires and connections that are under the skin. “The sensor implant technology is the most important advancement in human history since the written word. This will allow us to train personnel in the future to do things that today we can only dream about. But there are drawbacks. The cost is very high, there are risks to inserting the hardware into a person, and there is a chance of rejection by the body. The early systems that are currently in use are only recommended for a maximum usage of ten years. After that, if a subject continues, there is the real danger of permanent neural damage. As the Glentol Corporation researches this technology further, these difficulties will be decreased. Our estimates are that within ten years at the most, these current difficulties will no longer exist. It is expected that one day everyone, except for a rare few, will be able to have any level of implant with no risk whatsoever.”