by Nick Cole
“How long?”
“Three minutes.”
The set had just gone hot and Jason had three minutes to save the ship. And the show.
“What are our options?”
“We can stop the cascade, but… looking at it, this Drex thing, it’s layered several mini-games over the unlock feature. It would be… impossible, to put it mildly, to expect that we can answer every question correctly, solve every possible puzzle combination, and beat all of the video game challenges he’s set up, within three minutes. Just looking at some of the topics… it’s beyond me, Captain,” sighed the science officer actor-waiter in frustration.
“We could eject the core and thereby solve our overloading energy crisis,” suggested Wong, once again falling into the role of master counselor advising intrigue and plot in some Shakespearean tragedy. Maybe the murder of a favored sibling.
“We’d be defenseless,” stated Jason.
“True,” began Wong, pausing as though he were examining something on one of the displays. Whether it was real or for effect, even Jason had no idea.
Two minutes and thirty seconds.
“Warbird’s dead in the water. She’s almost completely powered down. We’ll still have just enough battery power to move once we eject the core, and… it’s the only option that keeps us in the game, Captain.”
JasonDare let another fifteen seconds die on the clock as he tried in vain to think of anything other than the one option of ejecting the core. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t think of a single thing that would save his ship other than the obvious.
“Stand by to eject the core.”
***
“Drex, come in!” ordered Mara again. On screen, the battered Federation Constitution class cruiser drifted ahead of them in the foreground of the massive, rotating, dark starbase. Both formidable warships were completely devoid of the ability to attack the other, or anything else for that matter.
They should either be firing at us, thought Mara as she watched the sleek and deadly cruiser, “Or they should have exploded minutes ago.”
“Starbase powering up weapons,” said BattleBabe, her tone both shrill and angry. “This ends in the next few minutes.”
Mara tried the open chat channel to the Drex once again. He had to be behind all this. Their beautiful Vulcan passenger had hacked Cymbalum’s computer and inserted a worm that had powered down almost every system, except life support. Then the Vulcan avatar had killed herself with a disruptor pistol.
What was that all about? Mara wondered, and once again thought of the Drex. All this leads somewhere else and he seems to be the biggest mystery.
“Mara to—”
“I hear you, Captain,” came the electronic singsong voice over chat. There was a modulation adjustment. A fuzz, as though someone was dialing in a better gain on the signal.
The voice that spoke next was both warm and sonorous in tone. But behind the words was an arrogance and… a clear menace. A hatred, even.
“Drex was a role, Captain. My name is… BAT.”
“Wait! I know that voice…” hissed the Gorn.
“You’ve been deceived, my little captain. This was never about what you thought it was. You’re just a pawn in a much, much bigger game.”
The ethereal voice paused.
“Questions… I know you have them. Answers… you wouldn’t like. So, I have work to do now, and I’m going to let you watch. Power up your weapons, and I’ll destroy your ships in the space of a human heartbeat with a little of the old… ultra-violence.”
There was nothing further.
Two words stood out to Mara in the silence that followed. “Ships” and “human.” She ran through what she’d just heard. “Ships” indicated there were more than two sides in this. More than the two gaming clans represented on tactical. More than two ships poised on the brink of obliterating each other. As though there were, in fact, three sides. Federation and Romulan… and whoever was playing the Drex.
BAT?
In the space of a “human” heartbeat.
“Could this be something from the game?” asked BattleBabe, her voice edgy and rising. Almost a neurotic shriek. “I mean… like, could this be part of the show? A script we’ve been co-opted into? Could that be it, Mara?”
“We are on the most-watched stream in the world right now,” added Varek. “It’s entirely possible this is part of a script from the studio.”
“That voice… it’s from an old movie. Jussst can’t remember which… one,” growled the Gorn.
Chapter Forty-Six
“Hailing Intrepid,” ordered Mara.
For a moment, no one on the bridge of Cymbalum could accept that they’d actually just heard those words, from their captain. On their ship.
It was pretty cool. Like suddenly hearing your name called out by an announcer to a stadium full of screaming fans. It was electric and frightening all at once.
“Stand by,” grumbled Varek with a little something else in his voice. Pride, wondered Mara, and suddenly felt way in over her head. I’m not big enough for this to really be happening, she thought. I’m not that important.
No, you’re not, whispered that mean little boy from long ago who’d teased her unrelentingly. No, you’re not, dummy.
The only person who wasn’t blown away by the fact that they were now interacting, in-game, with the most famous ship in the world, was frightened to death. Mara could feel her body trembling.
She ran through her vocal control techniques inside her head, trying to keep everything open and relaxed. She cursed herself for not spending money she didn’t have on EmoteWare that would’ve disguised her actual speaking voice. Software that would have made her sound “normal.”
She recalled knowing that that was exactly why she’d hadn’t bought the EmoteWare. Because she would have hidden behind it.
And Mrs. Watson had never let Mara hide.
Even when Mara had wanted so very badly to.
Can’t I just hide in the library at lunch, pleaded tiny Mara back in junior high. I love the audiobooks. I love to read, Mrs. Watson. Please? They won’t come in there and tease me.
But the answer had always been the same.
No, Mara. You can never hide again. It will only make you weak. You must face them, and your fears. Then, they will never have power over you again. And then you will be free.
JasonDare, captain of the U.S.S. Intrepid, appeared on Cymbalum’s forward viewscreen. Mara felt all the courage she’d ever saved up try and leave her for any place other than where she was right now.
Control.
Relax.
“Cymbalum,” began JasonDare. His voice was perfect. Powerful. Energetic. The voice of a real hero, thought Mara. The voice of a captain.
Say something, she yelled at herself inside her head.
She heard the voice of that mean boy from long ago. Except this time he wasn’t teasing. It was as if that bad little boy was also in awe as he whispered in his tiny soprano, Do you know how many people are watching this?
I don’t want to think about that, Mara ordered herself, banishing the past and that lost boy from long ago.
“Captain Dare,” began Mara.
Jason waited.
Relax, thought Mara.
“I see we’re both in the same predicament.”
She remembered to keep her face relaxed, her jaw aligned with the rest of her head. To speak with her mouth only. She did catch herself as she started to tilt her head in a nod. She stopped it just in time, so it came off as a non-verbal cue instead.
“We do seem to be stuck, don’t we?” JasonDare laughed. His manner was easygoing. Mara suddenly thought, I could have a crush on this guy.
“Yes,” replied Mara, and judged herself as coming off a tad too stiff. “I think,” she continued, “that my former scien
ce officer has a lot to do with what’s going on. Somehow he’s behind all this. Can I ask…” She paused. “I’m sorry to step out of character, but: Could this all be part of some script from the network?”
JasonDare seemed to think about this.
“I don’t know. Whatever it is… it’s weird. Both our ships are without power and the starbase is arming its weapon systems. Are you still in contact with your Drex?”
“I’ve had one transmission,” said Mara. She paused, reining herself in. Fighting with everything she’d ever learned to seem cool and measured. “He indicates that if we power up weapons, he’ll destroy both our ships.”
JasonDare looked away.
“And how do I know that’s not all part of your plan?” he asked, returning to the screen and accusing Mara with his piercing blue eyes.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“I have a system of passageways to move around inside the Labs without getting noticed,” was Ron Rourke’s response to Peabody Case’s question about how the enigmatic owner of WonderSoft had managed to suddenly appear inside the locked suite. “One passage opens up into your chill room,” he said, jerking a beefy thumb over his shoulder.
“Oh,” mumbled Peabody, realizing she’d just been interrogating her boss like he was some kind of pervert trespasser. “I guess that’s all right. It is your company, after all.”
“It is,” agreed Rourke. “And here’s the deal, kids. This thing might have something to do with the WonderSoft Design Core.”
“How so?” asked Rapp, who had no idea what a Design Core was.
“Well, they, whoever the ‘they’ are that’s behind all these drones, they’re not just hacking design suites looking for digital plunder. They could’ve used military-grade breach charges to gain physical access to the suites already. No, they’ve taken their time. They’re up to something completely different. Something really big. I think they’re going for the motherlode. They’re aiming for the basement and physical access to my WonderSoft Design Core.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Fish.
“Because that… takes time. A lot of time, in fact. Where are the cops? Where’s the fire department? Where’s anybody? They’ve cut us off from everything and surrounded the entire complex with automated drones on a weekend when everybody’s supposed to be gone until late Sunday night. I think they mean to physically cut my Design Core out of the basement and take it away. And let me remind you… that has everything on it. The whole Magilla Gorilla. Everything everybody’s been developing… and some other stuff. We’ve got to stop them. We’ve got to stop that from happening.”
No one had any idea what a “Magilla Gorilla” was.
“Right, but that’s not worth us leaving this suite and getting killed over,” said Peabody Case. “Is it, sir?”
“No, of course not,” said Ron Rourke halfheartedly. Even he knew he hadn’t sold that. Not at all.
“But…” He looked down at the ground, then around for a chair and finally sat down. He sighed, gazing out above their heads. “There might be something else on the Design Core that someone would want very badly. Without telling you what it is… what’re the chances you guys’ll help me stop them?”
“Probably zero,” stated Rapp.
Ron Rourke swiveled his chair back and forth, absently whistling some long-lost tune to himself, as if trying to capture a moment long gone from back in the 1980s. As if trying to get it right for the umpteenth time in a set of umpteenth times. Never completely satisfied he’d actually gotten it right because if that were to happen then he’d suddenly be back there, wherever “there” was, back when that song was playing in the background of a seemingly ordinary moment that would become so important in the hindsight of the years to come.
“Do you know what the most valuable thing in the world is?” asked Rourke.
“Diamonds?” tried Deirdre.
“Antimatter is way more expensive,” corrected Roland with a snort.
Silence.
“Money,” guessed Rapp.
“That’s a measure, Rapp, not an actual thing!” corrected Roland again.
“Money’s a thing,” argued Rapp.
“Yes, it is, Rapp, but—”
“Time,” whispered Fish, and everyone stopped. Then, “Time is the most valuable thing in the world.” And Fish couldn’t tell if it was the developer who’d never had enough of it, or the little kid who’d always wanted more of it on those best days ever with his dad days. He couldn’t tell which part of him had said it.
He couldn’t tell. But he knew it was true.
No one replied in the moment that followed. Death by robot had been on everyone’s minds in this skyrocketing market of how-much-time-do-you-have-left futures.
“I think it’s this stuff called Californium,” whined Evan Fratty.
“Nice try, kids,” growled Ron Rourke and belched, rubbing his belly. “Acid reflux,” he apologized. “Listen, all those answers are good, especially the ‘time’ one. Very HallmarkPlus. But actually, it’s the truth. As in, the truth is the most valuable thing in the world. It’s, in fact, the only thing that has value and provides value for everything else. Everything that’s false can’t be relied on and is therefore actually worthless. Therefore, there’s no sense in having it. But if you have the truth, well then, you’ve really got something there, don’tcha? See, with the truth, you can really do anything. The truth makes you very powerful. Especially if you own it.”
He paused.
“I can see by the looks on some of your faces that you’re like, ‘Duh, what’s this old guy from video game history lecturing me about? I know the truth is important.’ But see, that’s the thing. ‘Is’ and ‘was.’ The truth was important. But for a long time, a very long time, it really hasn’t been trading real high in the marketplace of ideas. What’s been more important these days is how people feel about things. Regardless of whether they’re true or not. For example, you’ve all taken your social media etiquette classes since elementary school, right? And what’s the one thing you learn in those classes? ‘The most important thing is not to offend anyone.’ Isn’t that right? So, you don’t tell someone the truth, because, after all, what is truth? Isn’t it whatever we decide it to be? Whatever we want it to do? Whatever we want it to be, regardless of history, culture, and the belief systems of anyone who doesn’t agree with the popular zeitgeist?”
No one said anything. Ron Rourke, legend, had the floor.
“No, kids, that’s incorrect. The truth isn’t just what we want it to be. The truth just is. So, here’s the thing. A long time ago, people used to fight really big wars. In fact, humanity used to be really good at fighting wars. Even really big ones. A truthful top-ten list about what exactly humanity is good at would surprise most people. And one of those things that would surprise most people right down to their sockless loafers is that we are very adept at fighting wars. In fact, we even once had colleges for war. War studies. How about this? One of our most famous, and oldest, books was an actual physical book written a long time ago, titled The Art of War. Can you believe that? War as an art form. Well, not exactly. As the violence of the twentieth century came to a close—and believe me, that was supposed to be the century free of tribalism, nationalism, and religion, an enlightened age, if you will. That was supposed to be the century that freed us from all the killing. We were rationalists now. We didn’t need God. We didn’t need country. We could think for ourselves. Well, we did, and we thought a lot about killing. We got better at killing in the twentieth century, better than we’d ever been. Back then, when we were a thinking society, we were really, really good at killing.
“So, like I was saying, here’s the thing. A group of very powerful people who had risen to power, began to work behind the scenes. You can discuss their motives another time, but here’s an important thing to know about them: they felt that certain types of
knowledge, certain elements of truth, were a bad thing. A threat to their existence as the holders of the reins of power. Or, to be more specific, the knowledge of war was a bad thing that might be used against them one day. So, working with many like-minded groups and organizations and governmental bodies, and even the media, they began a slow campaign of systematically removing all things war-related from the public consciousness. Of suppressing information for the quote unquote greater good, if you will. They also began to stigmatize war. Our heroes of yesterday were now war criminals. Contrary to last year’s Oscars, George Washington was not a murderous psychopath. But they, those powerful people, stigmatized war, and they redefined real courage. Now courage no longer had anything to do with fighting for what you believe in—it was about rejecting the past and rebelling against authority figures and making the criminal the victim. About tearing down walls.
“But here’s the thing on the subject of walls. A very wise man once said, ‘Don’t tear down a wall unless you first know why it went up.’ Seems like common sense. But to know the ‘why,’ you have to have the truth. And truth becomes real uncomfortable because it’s not always pleasant.
“Anyway, this group of people, let’s call them the elites, they considered themselves the brightest of the human race. They were, and are, intelligence snobs, and they took the great burden of societal direction, without being asked, on themselves, regardless of what everyone else wanted, and decided war needed to go, plus a bunch of other things we don’t have time for right now. War’s the most prescient, given the current situation. So, they removed it. Have you ever noticed it’s very hard to find accounts, documents, strategies, or really anything related to how one actually does war? No, because only a horrible person would want to know those things. Or at least, that’s what you’ve all been taught since you were children.
“I caught a whiff of this back when I made my first ten million. We wanted to do a war game based on World War II. Not a shooter, but a real big-time strategy game. I found some of the old books, but they were just books. Amazon, back then it was just called Amazon, not AmazonUniverse, wasn’t carrying any of the digital editions. Without telling anyone, they were selectively banning books, or flags, or anything the elite didn’t agree with, simply by not carrying them for public consumption. It was the most clever embargo of all time. Traditional bookstores had long ago gone the way of the rhino. They’d disappeared. County libraries were shrinking. So I spent one summer, once I realized what the game plan was, and drove around the whole country in a brand new neon-green Lamborghini I’d purchased for consulting on Call of Duty: Planet of the Apes—remember that barrel of monkeys?—trying to find every ‘banned’ book I could. From the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides to Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings. Von Clausewitz, Napoleon, Julius Caesar’s invasion of Gaul… even the Irwin Rommel book on infantry attacks. Many were missing, gone, disappeared. I found some, but I’ll say this, I found a lot less of them than I’d expected to find when I’d started my quest that June. That’s when I realized someone really was destroying the truth, and doing an excellent job of it. Hey, I’m the first one to admit that war is terrible. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, glorious, fun, noble, or pleasant, and that’s an extreme understatement. But…”
