Interlude-Brandon (The Game is Life)

by Schott, Terry

  Cooper nodded. “Down that hallway and first door on the left,” he said. “Good luck, boy.”

  Brandon ran silently down the hall, warily listening for hints of a surprise ambush or trap as he moved. He saw the doorway Cooper had described, and moved to it. Just as his hand touched the doorknob, he heard a small voice behind him.

  “Please… help me…”

  Brandon looked over his shoulder and saw a small, cramped cell cut into the wall. There was a small boy sitting inside; he wore filthy rags and his hair was damp and matted against the side of his head. A cut on his forehead was black with dried blood, and his nose was swollen and red. Dirty clothes hung from the boy’s gaunt frame, and his filthy hands gripped the bars tightly, cracked fingernails jagged and broken.

  Brandon turned away from the door and took a step towards the boy. “What are you doing here?” he asked the boy. “Who put you in that cage?”

  “A horrible man beat me and threw me in here. I don’t know how long ago… but he hasn’t fed me and I’m very hungry,” The boy said. His eyes looked both sad and hopeful as he watched Brandon intently. He tried to smile, but his cracked lips revealed a broken tooth and bloody mouth. Someone really put a hurt on this kid, Brandon thought to himself angrily.

  “Okay, hold on a second. I have to do something in this room,” Brandon told the boy, “then I’ll come right back for you.”

  “But what if you don’t come back?” the boy’s eyes started to water. He was terrified of being left in the cage. “Other people have said the same thing, but they never come back out of that room!”

  Brandon shook his head. “Listen, kid, I can’t help you first. I have really important business to get done. Believe it or not, you’re actually safer inside that cage at the moment.”

  The boy started to rock back and forth slowly, and a small whine began to build in his chest. “Please, sir,” the boy said. “If you open that door before letting me out, I’m gonna die!”

  “Why do you say that?” Brandon looked closely at the cage and then back at the door. Sure enough, there was an intricate group of wires running from the door to the cage.

  “That’s what he told me,” the boy was rocking back and forth more forcefully. Brandon could tell the kid was going to become hysterical soon if he didn’t do something.

  “Okay, okay, calm down for a second,” Brandon stood and considered his options. The game instructions had been clear. They were to infiltrate the lair and kill the boss. No one had told them how brutal the fight to get this far would end up being, or how high the cost in lives. There wasn’t any mention of freeing a prisoner, but this could be a random bonus. He tapped the blade thoughtfully against his shoulder for a moment. Then he nodded.

  “Okay, get back from the bars,” he said. “I’ll let you out now.”

  The boy smiled in relief and backed away. “Thank you so much, sir, you’ve saved my life.”

  Brandon nodded and smiled back as he approached the bars. His hand touched the lock and he bent closer to examine it.

  Suddenly, Brandon felt a tiny scratch. He looked up and saw the boy’s filthy hand on top of his own. The kid’s nails were sunk deep into Brandon’s hand, and he could feel liquid fire beginning to spread into it. He jerked his hand back and stepped away as the boy grinned viciously at him. Immediately Brandon knew he’d made a mistake. The instructions had been clear and he hadn’t followed them. Now he was going to pay the price.

  Brandon sank to the ground as the fiery poison quickly spread from his arms and into his legs. He slumped against the wall and looked at the boy silently.

  “Not very smart, Mister,” the boy said with mock sympathy. “You shouldn’t have helped me. Being a nice guy just cost you the win.”

  Before he could reply, Brandon toppled over onto the floor. He was dead before his head hit the ground.

  Chapter 40

  Tony and Easton were the final team members to arrive. Kay opened the door to Brandon’s room and let them in. It wasn’t possible to lock the door — that would never be allowed in the Centre — but with Tony leaning against it, no one would suddenly burst in on them.

  Brandon sat down on his bed and looked at them with a pleased smile. “We’ve finally got enough points,” he announced.

  “For all of us?” Alan asked.

  “That was the deal,” Brandon nodded. “No one buys the perk until we can all afford it.”

  Easton whistled slowly. “Is there another crew out there who all have it?”

  “Not a single one,” Brandon said. “The perk is so expensive, no one else has done it yet.”

  When the Sim had reached its first year anniversary, Thorn had announced a new point system. From that day forward, players earned points by playing games that could be spent to acquire a myriad of things inside the Sim. A staggering number of perks were added to the Sim, and players immediately began to make purchases from a list of abilities, skills, and power ups that could be equipped and used. Examples of simple and low cost perks included cosmetic things such as changing an avatar’s eye colour or gaining the ability to make its hair glow for a short period of time. More expensive perks were things like adding to an avatar’s strength, growing in height by an inch or more, or gaining better lung capacity in order to be able to run for a longer period of time before tiring. The list of perks was extensive, and it continued to grow as the years passed.

  Brandon and his crew had stood before the master list on that first day and scanned the entire menu. Almost in unison, their eyes had settled on one perk. Brandon had whispered, “I want that one,” while the rest murmured in agreement. They had met in Brandon’s room, which was their command centre, and unanimously agreed to work towards saving for it. The five of them had sworn to wait until everyone could buy it at the same time.

  After two years of playing and saving small amounts of points from every game, they finally had enough to make their purchase.

  All of them would soon be flying inside the Sim.

  “How does it work, again?” Kay asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve read the perk description.”

  “Here, I think I have it,” Easton said, pulling up the info on his tablet. “Flying Perk: Once activated, it can be used in special flying zones inside the Sim. Players with the flying perk will have access to brand new games and contests. Team play will be allowed in most flying games; as always, check details on each game before signing up to play.”

  “It still gives us wings, right?” Tony asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Brandon said. He’d grown considerably over the past three years, which was no surprise since he was the youngest of the bunch. His face had become slightly longer, his height had shot up, and he’d lost the button nose and smaller mouth that young children all seemed to have. Although he was a veteran of the games like the rest of them, he was still only eight years old. If he was a normal child, he’d still have another two years to wait to even have the chance to apply to come here. Brandon hadn’t been a normal kid at five, and he was definitely not a normal kid at eight. “If we don’t get actual wings, I don’t even want the perk.”

  Easton looked at his tablet for details and nodded. “Yep, we still get the wings graphic, but now we can modify them in colour and texture and even make them ghostlike or invisible if we want to.”

  “Awesome,” Alan said. The rest nodded in agreement. “When are we going to go and buy them?” he asked.

  “I want us to vote one more time that we actually want them,” Brandon said.

  The rest of the kids laughed, but they stopped when it became obvious Brandon wasn’t joking.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “We’ve been saving a portion of our points for a long time now, and it’s a very expensive perk. We need to decide if we should spend the points in another area or if we go ahead and treat ourselves to what is likely just a vanity perk.”

  Everyone knew he was right. Getting your wings was a status symbol first and a strategic purchase second. Th
ere weren’t many games to play inside the Sim that involved flying. There also weren’t many areas inside where you could use your wings. The General had vehemently demanded that the Sim remain realistic. ‘Magical’ or non-realistic occurrences inside the Sim functioned only in special zones or parks reserved for special conditions, and all of these areas were expensive. The General made it that way to encourage serious play in the Sim.

  “Well, I vote yes,” Tony said. “We’ve wanted this forever. There were times I died inside a Sim game and the only thing that made the pain and misery bearable was knowing that someday soon I was gonna be able to fly. Now that day is here and I want to do it. I don’t care if we could buy a different perk that might allow us to do something better. I want it. I vote yes.”

  “Anyone gonna vote no?” Brandon asked. If everyone agreed, there was no point in wasting time. Brandon never wasted time needlessly.

  Easton raised his hand slowly. “I’d vote no, I guess.”

  “Anyone else?”

  Kay raised her hand also.

  “Okay, then,” Brandon said. “It has to be unanimous, so let’s hear it.”

  Easton shook his head. “I want to fly badly, but it’s such a huge amount of points. There are better perks we could buy that would really help us compete.”

  “We already compete,” Tony said, “we compete and win most times.”

  The group chuckled at the understatement. Their ratio of wins versus losses was unmatched by anyone. All groups and ages competed against each other, and Thorn had been right when he said the young ones would do well against the older groups. Of the top 20 teams, 14 were young, and Brandon’s Hand was number one on many scoreboards. They were formidable and they didn’t even have some of the best perks available.

  “So you say no because we could use the points to buy a better perk that will help us in areas where we don’t really need help?” Brandon asked.

  “I guess,” Easton said. “I’d like to fly… it’s just that I think maybe we should be more responsible.”

  Kay laughed and shook her head. Brandon raised his eyebrows at her.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “But it sounds ridiculous when I hear it out loud. I think we should go for it. It’s been our goal forever, and we can afford it, both points-wise and from a competitive point of view.” Kay nudged Easton and smiled. “Come on, old man, let’s kick loose for a change and go flying.”

  Easton looked at the others for a moment, then smiled and nodded his head. “All right, let’s do it.”

  Brandon stood up. “Okay, then… let’s go get our wings.”

  The group let out cheers of excitement as they filed out of the room.

  Chapter 41

  Thorn stared at the monitor and watched the scene unfold.

  Brandon and his Hand were smiling as they entered the beginners’ area. Jostling and pushing each other playfully, the five of them stood at the top of the hill and looked down.

  Resembling the bunny slope at a ski resort, it was more of a long ramp than a hill; the perfect place for new fliers to learn and hone their skills. The kids watched an instructional video, then nodded and spread out to give each other wing space. In unison, they gently tapped a spot just behind their right shoulder and smiled in delight as ghostlike wings sprang from their backs. The wings all had the same faint gold tinge to them.

  Brandon went first, beginning by walking slowly down the hill. The air caught his wings, gently lifting him a foot or so off the ground. He laughed and tried to position his wings to steer himself back to the ground. A few moments later he succeeded and thudded into the grass, rolling and laughing at his first semi-successful attempt. The others joined him and began to jump, glide and land with varying degrees of success.

  Thorn watched them for a few more minutes, scanning the entire scene as if searching for something specific. Finally he looked away from the screen and raised his eyes questioningly at the computer designer sitting beside him. “Did it happen while I was watching?” Thorn asked.

  The designer smiled and nodded. “About a dozen times, sir. You didn’t see it?”

  Thorn shook his head with a frown. “I saw nothing. Have others noticed this, too, or just you?”

  “Others have noticed it as well, sir. If you’ll allow me to work with the settings, perhaps I can slow the frame rate down to help you spot it.”

  Thorn stood to allow the designer access to his keyboard. The scene inside the Sim froze and then rewound. The designer began to play the recording, and after a few moments he suddenly he hit the pause button.

  “Okay, there was one. Let me just back it up slightly and then run it in slow motion…” Thorn watched as the next few frames advanced slowly. He saw nothing… until suddenly he gasped.

  “Whoa!” Thorn exclaimed, “What the hell was that?”

  The designer smiled and rewound the scene to play it again. After a couple of times rewinding it and playing it slowly, he played it a final time on regular speed.

  “Yes, I saw it that time,” Thorn said. “Now that I know what I’m looking for it’s impossible not to see it.”

  “Excellent, sir. We were hoping you could tell us exactly what it is.”

  “You mean, who it is,” Thorn said.

  The designer frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand what you mean. We all see a smoky shape,” the designer said. “None of us can tell what it is, but it looks like a ball of dark smoke that just appears for a brief instant and then disappears. At first we thought it was something wrong with the circuitry, which prompted us to conduct thorough diagnostics of every circuit, every chip, every processor. The inspections all proved clean. Then we guessed it might be caused by a glitch in the recording software, but we found nothing there either. We’ve tested every system and component of the Sim exhaustively, Mr. Thorn, and we can’t come up with a reason for the smudge to be there.”

  Thorn considered the information for a few moments, then shook his head. “I’m not certain what it is,” he admitted. “Does it appear to have any pattern?”

  “Initially we thought no, but after we tracked and observed it for a while, it does indeed appear to have a pattern,” the designer admitted.

  The two men sat looking at each other. Thorn waited for the designer to give him an answer, but the other man said nothing.

  Finally Thorn snapped at him. “Stop sitting there like an idiot. What’s the pattern?”

  The designer pointed to the screen and lightly tapped the live image of Brandon. He was now gliding smoothly down the hill as if he’d been flying forever. “Brandon is the pattern,” he said.

  Thorn stopped breathing for a second as he watched the monitor again. Sure enough, the smudge appeared again right beside Brandon. “Are you telling me that this is only occurring near Brandon, and nowhere else inside the Sim?”

  The designer nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, sir. We’ve looked for it everywhere else for the past three weeks since we first observed it near the boy. The only time we see this smudge is when Brandon is inside the Sim, and it’s always found very close to him.”

  Thorn watched the monitor and said nothing. Finally the designer spoke up. “Would you like us to bring everyone out and do a complete reboot of the system? That will likely eliminate the smudge.”

  “No!” Thorn blurted. Realizing how that must have sounded, he smiled and took a deep breath before he replied in a much calmer tone, “That won’t be necessary yet. Leave the issue with me and I’ll see what I can learn about it. We might need to do a complete reboot, but I want to try a few things first.”

  The designer nodded. “That’s fine, sir. Let me know if you require any assistance.”

  “I assume you’ve isolated and compiled a complete video of its appearances?”

  The man frowned. “No, we didn’t do that,” he said.

  Thorn waved his hand absently. “Don’t bother. It’s a small and insignificant issue; leave it with me and I’ll take c
are of it.”

  The designer nodded and left the office.

  Thorn slowed down the playback and when he saw the smudge again he hit the pause command. He looked at it for a long time, trying to think of what to do.

  The designer said everyone saw a smoky, round shape.

  Thorn, on the other hand, saw the clear and distinct image of a man standing near Brandon. Thorn had no idea who the man was or what he was doing hidden inside the Sim, but he meant to find out.

  Chapter 42

  “The Sim program has grown significantly, Mr. Thorn,” the General took a sip of his coffee, placed the cup back on the table with deliberation, and smiled pleasantly as he met Thorn’s eyes.

  “It has,” Thorn agreed. “Over fifteen hundred Centre students and three thousand enlisted adults.”

  “I think we can begin to integrate them.”

  “Have children face adults?” Thorn asked.

  The General nodded as he took another sip from his cup. Thorn considered the logistics and nodded positively. “It’s not a difficult merge to make,” he said. “You don’t think such a thing is a bit… premature?”

  The General’s face tightened slightly and he shook his head. “We are in year three of the Sim, and approaching the four year anniversary. Both groups have had adequate time to become accustomed to the VR technology. Most spend more time in the Sim than they do in reality, according to the reports that cross my desk.”

  “That is true,” Thorn admitted. The General’s players spent so much time inside the Sim that reality was truly turning into the dream they all referred to it as. There were enough tables now to accommodate all players, and those who could mentally handle the simulations were so addicted to it that they spent only as much time out of the Sim as they had to. Those who couldn’t handle the Sim…”What about the dropouts?” Thorn asked.

  “What about them?” the General asked.

  “As you instructed, those who have cracked are being held in stasis, but they can’t remain that way forever, sir. What do you want us to do with them?”