The Metaverse: Virtual Life-Real Death

by William Kurth

  “Matt, quit pulling against it. You’re making it worse!” Ed shouted to him as the bots hauled him to the wood pole where they had wired Clemons.

  “What the fuck!” Clemons said and stopped pulling against the wire and continued to scream at the bots trying to get them to respond.

  The bots then similarly placed Roland against the same pole as Clemons, so the two were positioned back to back with the six-inch diameter wooden pole between them. Roland was facing the doors of the barn they had crashed through with Clemons placed in the other direction. The bot with the bailing wire attachment began to wrap the steel wire around Roland’s upper arms and then around Clemons arms and the pole itself. Roland winced as he felt the steel press into the exposed flesh of his forearms and wrists held over his head as the bot wrapping the bailing wire pulled it tight. Roland’s legs were then similarly wired to the pole and around Clemons’s legs. Once that was complete, the bailing bot began to run the wire around both of their bodies pulling them tightly against the pole. It would triple wrap a strand, tighten it, then lock it with a fastener before cutting it and then add a second triple wrapped strand for redundancy. The bot would then move a foot or so up and repeat that process.

  Roland and Clemons were helpless to do anything about it. Pulling against the wire only caused it to dig into them. Even the strands over their clothing pressed in. Both continued to yell commands to the bots. The bot with the wire continued with its mission having wired them at the ankles, below the knees, mid-thigh, around the waist and finally the chest before moving up to their biceps and adding another strand at the wrists. At each point, the two triple-wrapped wire bindings were cinched tight, biting into them. The wires around their chests were so snug that it was hard to take a deep breath.

  Then the bot moved to their heads where it ran the wire over both of their mouths doubling the amount that it used on the rest of the bindings creating a thick steel gag. Roland and Clemons felt the 12 wires covering their mouths and began to yell as each strand was pulled tight forcing it farther into the back of their mouths as their heads were driven back tight against the wood pole. The bot cinched the wires even tighter; it cut the corners of their mouths. Both workers now gagged and completely immobile with no ability to even wiggle or turn or otherwise able to move their heads in any direction wondered to the point of panic about what was happening.

  Roland could taste the copper of the blood from the cuts in the corners of his mouth mixed with the steel of the bailing wire filling it, pressing down on his tongue and grinding his teeth at the back of his mouth. The bots trumped inside the trailer. He could see them getting equipment out of it. Two of them were moving the light stands each with four 5KW industrial lights from the back of the truck with a generator at the base over to the pole he and Clemons were held. They set up two of the light poles, one in front of Clemons and one in front of Roland. The bots extended the lights up their telescoping pole to a height of ten or twelve feet then tilted them down.

  Roland could only move his eyes. From his vantage point, he could see some of the other bots reattaching what was left of the barn door and using other lumber they found to shore it up. The structure grew dark and the air still as they closed the various other openings.

  The bots turned on the generators and then the lights which flooded bright light down onto the two men. Immediately both felt the warmth of the LED lights that flooded that area of the barn.

  Five of the bots went to the trailer and came back with other equipment that Roland recognized. Roland began to pull as hard against the wire as he could with his arms which pulled the wires deeper into Clemons’ arms. His coworker tried to protest but could not do much more than issue a muffled yell.

  Clemons initially could not see what it was that made Roland pull at the wire bindings that dug into him as his coworker pulled at them from his side. Two of the bots positioned themselves about 45 degrees off his center on his right and left. His eyes went wide, darting back and forth, the only part of his body that he could move. Like Roland he now tried to pull against the wire bindings with all his might. The wire cut into him more but gave no quarter.

  “Oh, Gawd no!” He yelled, his southern drawl still detectable but muffled by the wire gag,

  The Business District, New Polis, Metaverse

  MD rolled his eyes at the two workers struggling against the pole, both similarly dressed in white polo shirts and tan cargo pants. The BMM logo clear on each of the left breasts of the shirt with their names embroidered on the right. MD switched back and forth between various bot cams. He studied both for a minute listening to their muffled yells and attempted commands to the bots. MD then put them on a split screen, so they were side by side. He noticed the bright red blood trickling down from their forearms stretched over their heads pulled tightly to the wood pole. Both looked young and healthy.

  The best kind of victim, robbed of their youth and vigor because their employer didn’t think them worthy of his fee. He thought. MD noticed the red streaks from the corners of both of their mouths some of which had dripped onto the white shirts they wore. “Oh, this is tremendous. A great visual! It should get us a lot of attention!” MD said to Alex, busy working off a separate screen next to him. MD continued before Alex could say anything.

  “It should cause a lot of panic among the real world workers whose companies have a presence in the Metaverse but who aren’t paying up. The message should be clear: they put their employees at risk even in the real world by ignoring us.”

  MD studied the two victims, who had both quit struggling, either realizing it was pointless or perhaps from exhaustion. He had never seen anyone killed, let alone in the manner he had planned. He wasn’t completely sure if he was going to have the stomach to watch it all the way till the end.

  He wondered which was going to be harder for him. Hearing them in agony or watching it. He knew that they would suffer greatly. Particularly as he planned on doing everything slowly and methodically.

  That was a necessity and not something he was doing out of cruelty. His goal was to maximize the effect that the visualization would have on the rest of the populace particularly the corporate world and DLS in particular. MD rationalized that the deaths of these two young victims would save other lives, if the corporations paid up because of them.

  So no, he wasn’t cruel or sadistic. He was doing what was necessary. Yes, the sights and sounds would be horrific but also, with any luck not in vain. He hoped that these two might be the last victims, at least of the random variety. It had nothing to do with tiring of killing or any empathy for the victims or their families. Those things were not even a part of MD’s analysis.

  Rather he did not see the upside in continuing to do the demonstrations. Each one potentially gave the authorities a clue into his methods. Then there was the financial windfall that he already was enjoying. After Mathias’s cut for his pet project, MD had already netted somewhere north of fifty million real dollars, an amount that was increasing by the minute. Once he came to an agreement with these corporations and with DLS that amount would grow significantly. Then there were the renewals and monthly fees to the corporate subscribers of course.

  “Alex, are we all set up with the live video feed on our channel? Have we obtained enough bandwidth so that when others pick it up on their channel that we will not have any decrease in performance?

  “Yes, Mr. Swanson. We should have plenty but I am still trying to increase it in the event we get views that exceed even our most optimistic hopes.”

  The channels referred to were a live version of posted videos where anyone could broadcast their own show, video or other programming live and in real time over a variety of social media platforms simultaneously. Alex would be sending out hundreds of millions of blurbs announcing it and linking to it across the globe. Due to his infamy, there was no doubt the viewership would be significant and cause a ripple effect as other people posted about the broadcast. Eventually, even the large media outlets w
ould pick up the story, although it was an unknown how much they would show of the victim’s slow deaths. MD didn’t think of it as torture. It was simply a means to an end.

  What the news media showed didn’t matter. People could just go to someone else’s social media and link right into the stream that Alex was sending out through a large network of servers from around the globe that he was “borrowing.”

  The real question would be how long they could go without being shut down? If the numbers were even half as many as they hoped the authorities would be at a loss to black it all out, certainly not before the victims were smoldering skeletons. Then, of course, a copy of the video itself would go out to all the account holders.

  “Let’s double check those things. I want to make sure that everyone can clearly see the logos on their shirts. I want their screams clearly heard and a sharp view of their bodies melting, particularly their youthful faces.”

  “Yes, Mr. Swanson.”

  MCT Conference Room, New Polis, Metaverse

  Mr. Wu, anything new to bring us up to speed on?” Argosi asked as he continued the morning briefing with his team.

  “Commander, we still do not know how the killer or killers are getting control of the server, the pod or the exoskeleton. We do know that they can get the servos to pull in a significant amount of power that burns them out but not before they do the damage to the victim. No electronic trail exists, although some link must have been established to override all the other applications that govern the system as well as to direct the pod.”

  Argosi sighed.

  “Well, let’s continue to look at the servers, pods, and exoskeletons and see if we cannot try to duplicate what the offender did.”

  “There is something else. More anecdotal in nature than scientific, Commander.” It was Wu.

  “What’s that?” Argosi asked.

  “There is a common factor in all of the attacks. They all involve systems manufactured in the last three years. The operating system belongs to the Digital-Life Systems Corporation but most of the algorithms, as well as the hardware components for the servers, slaved to the pods were designed and built by Silicon Data Group and its suppliers and vendors. We know that Maddox was the Chief Technical Officer at SDG when these designs were created and implemented, and still being used.”

  “Just one more arrow pointing at Maddox,” Argosi added then turning to Parker.

  “Have we had any luck finding this guy?”

  Parker shook his head.

  “No, sir. My bet is that he’s probably living in the Metaverse under an alias.”

  “Okay, let’s keep running that down. What about the facial recognition anything on that?” Argosi asked.

  “Some good news there we have a sixty-eight percent probability of a hit on him traveling from Colorado to South Texas, but between Huntsville and Houston, it goes cold. Either that was his destination or he moved to secondary roadways where we don’t have any infrastructure. The car is leased from an internet car company to a Glenn Richards. We are trying to find that person, but no luck.” Parker answered.

  Argosi remained quiet for a moment. He fiddled with his digital notepad before looking back to Parker.

  “Can you get with the federal prosecutor and see if we have enough on Maddox to get a warrant? Items would be the car lease company, bank account, tax returns, credit cards, etc. Right now he is at the very least a Person of Interest, and there are too many places where he shows up for them to all be coincidences.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Commander. The prosecutor won’t be the problem it will be getting a Federal Judge to sign it. I can tell you the counter argument is that there are others currently that are in his position at DLS and SDG. I know we have the forensics from the Sullivan murder scene, but that would not identify him only exclude him. The fact that he bought the Nutrient can be argued to be coincidental. And the facial recognition placing him in that car is a probability factor of not too much more than fifty-fifty.” Parker answered.

  Argosi shook his head. “Are you sure you’re not a defense attorney in disguise?”

  Parker chuckled. “Well, sir, I have been around too many of them. Might even have a minor case of cooties.”

  Callum glanced up from his screen. “Excuse me, Commander. That link that Reynolds sent out earlier is set to go live.”

  Argosi checked his watch. It was just before 0830 UMT. Reynolds had blurbed all over the internet about how he was going to carry out a demonstration as he called it “live and in person.” Reynolds had put an interesting spin on this one saying that “no one in the Metaverse today would be harmed and that being in-world today was safe, safer than being in the real world.”

  “Let’s watch it on the big screen from the lab,” Argosi said, getting up from his chair in the conference room as the other agents filed out as well headed for their workstations. Argosi stood between Callum’s and Wu’s stations as the link went live.

  The words “An Alex Reynolds Production” filled the screen for a few moments then faded away as the image of a large utility truck with a compartment to the rear of the four-door cab. The truck looked to be inside some structure. On the side of the white colored truck in big red letters was BMM, underneath it read “Buchanan Miller Management.”

  “Callum, find that company and get them on the line.” Argosi barked.

  “Roger, sir.”

  Reynolds entered the shot from the right side of the video, dressed in his customary dark business suit. When he reached the center of the screen, he turned to his left to face the camera straight on. As was his habit, he placed his right hand into his right pants pocket, the right side of his jacket pushing up slightly on it.

  Reynolds’s eyes twinkled as he launched into his lecture.

  “Good morning. For those of you that might be seeing me for the first time, my name is Alex Reynolds, a resident of New Polis, a sovereign community of sentient beings. Many of you go there to work, play and live and I hope that you continue to enjoy all that New Polis and the Metaverse have to offer. In that spirit, I offer all of you safe passage for a tiny fee and a vast number of you have subscribed to that service. Unfortunately, some of you have not and you put yourself at significant risk by not doing so. Keep in mind that we only select victims who have not paid. A shrinking pool.”

  Alex paused and turned to look at the truck behind him then back at the camera before speaking again.

  “Today however I want to specifically address the corporations that think that they can ignore our demands. They believe that they can operate with impunity. As we have demonstrated inside of New Polis, they cannot. Today we will again prove that we can reach out from our world into yours. Whether you are an individual or a corporation I hope that you will take note of our capabilities.”

  Alex paused again and then turned to his left and walked along the passenger side of the pickup truck towards the front as the camera followed him. As he passed the front passenger door of the vehicle, he turned to his right. The agents could see that five yellow work bots circled two individuals tied to a pole.

  The area was brightly lit from lights shining down onto them. The quiet hum of the generators at the base of the lights barely perceptible. Three of the bots were holding square like devices with propane tanks. The other two bots, each with four arms had two poles each. Each pole had what looked like a double nozzle. The nozzles were set about a foot apart in a “T” configuration off the pole. Hoses ran back from the poles to more propane tanks. The camera passed Alex and zoomed closer. The two, both young men, came into view. One was facing to the right side of the screen the other to the left.

  Argosi could see the bindings holding them were pulled so tightly that they indented into their clothing and the exposed flesh on their arms strapped to the pole above their bodies. As the camera got closer, it centered on a side profile of their heads. Both appeared anywhere from their early to mid-twenties. They had steel wires wrapped around their heads that wen
t through their mouths and pulled their lips far back into their cheeks. The multiple bands of wires filled their mouths between the white teeth, visible above and below the wire strands.

  The camera then rotated around to the individual on the right. As it panned, you could see his face clearly. Blood ran down from both sides of his jaw from the corners of his mouth. His head immobile. Only his eyes, wide with fear, moved as they darted left and right. The expression on his face was one of sheer terror hinting that he knew what was going to happen.

  As the camera tilted down the BMM logo was evident on the man’s left breast area of his white polo shirt. Drops of red blood on the collar of the white shirt. Opposite the logo on his right chest was his name “E. Roland.”

  The camera continued to circle the pole and came to the other individual, also wired through the mouth around his head and the pole. The wires ran through the other man’s mouth, pulling both of their heads tight into the pole. As the camera brought his face into focus, the blood dripping from his right cheek was visible. More blood was on his left cheek, a fair amount reddening his white collar where the three buttons were. He had the same terrified look and was making muffled sounds trying to say something which caused more blood to drip from the left corner of his mouth. The camera tilted down, and the BMM logo was shown and then his name opposite it, “M. Clemons.”

  “Sir, BMM confirms that they lost contact with a work vehicle a couple of hours ago. But they assumed it was at the worksite. It shows up on a stretch of highway outside of Ellisville Indiana. I have FBI, police units and local law enforcement en-route.”

  “Ok. Thanks, Callum. The truck and victims look like they are in some type wood structure and I’m betting that it’s not anywhere near where it’s supposed to be. Have them start fanning out with whatever additional resources they can muster.” Argosi replied.