Restoration
The Rise of Resurgence – (Book Two)
By Joshua W. Nelson
Copyright © 2017 Joshua W Nelson
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
E-book formatting by:
www.gopublished.com
Special Thanks to the Friends who gave me the Inspiration for Dan, Jason, and Wayne. This one is for you.
CONTENTS
Introduction
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
Thanks for reading!
Acknowledgements
INTRO
AltCon Headquarters – Boardroom
Terrence Jolston stood at the head of the boardroom table as the various members of the board of directors began to file into the room. Terrence was usually the last to arrive at these meetings, but today he arrived 15 minutes early. Each move of this chess game needed to be played perfectly to instill the right amount of fear and subservience in the members of the Board. Terrence’s part in this game could not be questioned.
As the first members arrived, each glanced in Terrence’s direction but said nothing as they took their customary places around the table. Placed before each chair were two separate hand-held displays. They were currently blank and would only connect to Terrence’s main display at his command. Again, timing was key in how the information was doled out.
These men and women, while each brilliant in their own right, were chosen by the Old Man for their lack of backbone. They were not the type to question orders, nor were they the type to show initiative. At least, this was what the Old Man thought about them. The one exception, the former head of the board, had overstepped his bounds, and this was why Terrence now stood in front of the assembled “elite” of AltCon.
Terrence imagined he would need to start off the conversation and lead the members of the Board along his prearranged path. Therefore, it was a bit of a shock to Terrence when one of the Board members actually spoke up.
“Where is the head of the board?”
Wearing a sharp pantsuit, one of the more unassuming members sat with a ramrod straight back near the front of the table. Terrence couldn’t remember her name, and he wasn’t inclined to try. None of the board members had ever showed more than the slightest bit of initiative.
“He arrived just a short while ago,” Terrence answered. “Please take your seats and the meeting will begin shortly.”
What Terrence hadn’t said—but what they would all learn in but a few minutes—was that Terrence was now that very head. The woman had unwittingly played into his plan, and Terrence didn’t think he could have crafted the situation better if he had orchestrated it himself.
As each member sat in their seats Terrence waited patiently. He watched them as they waited. Some fidgeted. Others attempted to act unworried, but their eyes betrayed them, moving around the room in a searching pattern but not knowing what to look for. No one knew why they were there, and so no one was truly relaxed. The great reveal that he had in store would happen all at once in order to achieve the greatest effect.
Once the fractious group of snivelers were all in place and waiting long enough, Terrence activated the first of the two hand-held devices sitting in front of them all. What they saw was the same article Terrence had seen in the Old Man’s office the previous day, only in a digital format. Terrence didn’t bother with any preamble before he activated the screens, and he allowed each member to fully absorb the information in front of them. There were audible gasps, and one of the men started sobbing.
It was the same woman who asked the earlier question who spoke first. Terrence didn’t need any strong willed characters on this board—ones who would challenge him from the outset of his reign—and decided he would simply replace her if she spoke out another time.
“What the hell is this? You said the head of the board arrived a short while ago. Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?”
“I did not misspeak,” Terrence responded. “The Head of the Board did arrive just minutes ago. Only it is not the man in those pictures.”
“Are you saying that you are…”
At that moment, Terrence activated the second screen in front of each individual. Instead of an article detailing the death of the head of the board, this display detailed the appointment of Terrence, however on a temporary basis, to the Head position. The order was signed by the Old Man himself. His word was not to be questioned.
Sure, Terrence could have simply had the Old Man’s orders replace the article on that first screen, but the visual impact wouldn’t have been as strong. Terrence wanted them looking back and forth between both screens. The psychological effect would be greater as their minds filled in the blanks. The imagination can produce horrors more frightening than the truth, after all.
Another useful idiot finally found their ability to speak and voiced their confusion. “I don’t understand this. This document claims you are taking the position due to the former Head’s unethical conduct. Yet the other is…”
“Last night I was called into the Old Man’s office,” Terrence began before the man could voice the obvious association between the two pieces of information on their screens. Yes, Terrence wanted them to make the logical leap that the Head’s actions “could” have led to his death, but he couldn’t confirm it since the Old Man never said as much to Terrence either. “It appears the former Head of this Board requisitioned assets in the Resurgence Beta to implement his own trial of the subjects. Where we had previously tested the loyalty and susceptibility of the subjects—under strict protocols and using vigorous oversight—the former head thought with only greed. At every turn, he disregarded the timeline set down and approved by the Old Man. He attempted to turn the beta toward his own vision of milking subscribers and users of our technology. His final act of treason was to implement a protocol forcing the test subjects to buy AltCon stock.”
“Was that the reason for the small rise in value I noted this morning?” asked another. Terrence couldn’t make out the man’s face as his eyes were glued to the screen showing the former Head’s body under a sheet. That was exactly the effect he wanted this little show to have.
“Yes, it likely was,” Terrence replied.
The man finally looked up from the screen, but continued to avoid eye contact with Terrence, “Well then how could that be a bad thing? It benefitted the company.”
“Because the modified protocols implemented forced the subjects. It drove them. We have painstakingly designed the parameters to avoid this very scenario. We cajole, we manipulate, we coerce. We do not, under any circumstances, force our subjects. It is paramount to the success of this project that our subjects believe that everything they are doing is based on their own decisions.
“The Old Man was not pleased when he discovered this treachery. He called for a thorough review to determine who was culpable. The former Head was greedy, but not at all concerned about covering h
is tracks and his involvement was easily discovered. After that, he ordered a review of all of the board members.,” Terrence said as he glanced around the room.
Someone blurted out, “None of us had any idea!”
Terrence saw it was the man who had been sobbing only moments earlier, and who had finally made eye contact. Self-preservation is a powerful force, after all.
“We are aware,” Terrence said coldly. “If any of you had been involved, you would not be sitting in this room now. You would have been removed from your position.”
Terrence paused for a moment there, allowing that statement to soak in. That one word, “removed,” was given an almost imperceptible inflection, leading them to at first assume that they would end up like the former head: a corpse on the sidewalk. The product of a “failed robbery.”
“You would have been fired,” Terrence finally added.
Although there were a few sighs that could be heard around the room, the majority of eyes strayed to the display with the story of the former Head’s demise. Terrence didn’t think many of them believed his words concerning how their “termination” would unravel. The fear that Terrence wanted to instill in the remaining board members had been achieved. It was time to implement the new system.
“Your previous goals—milking every cent of profit for this company—are over. The only goal this company now has is to see Resurgence come to fruition. For that purpose, all tests on subjects will be dictated by the Compliance Department. You will be briefed on the successes and failures, but you will no longer take part in the process and decision making on what the tests will entail.”
These were not men and women who took to being sidelined easily, and Terrence could see a range of objections about to form. Before any could voice their umbrage with the new guidelines, Terrence put it to rest.
“Review the documents in front of you. This comes from the Old Man himself and is not open for debate. I am informing you, as is proper, because of your standing in this company. But that is all this is: a consideration to your position.”
Terrence watched for a few moments while he allowed everything to soak in. Some wanted to object, but they wisely held their tongues. In the end, everyone remained silent. Terrence wouldn’t show it, but he had an immense feeling of pride at that moment. The goal—to put these fools on notice—was a success in his eyes.
“There will be no further incidents while I sit at the head of this table. There will be no repeats of the wanton disregard for policy. Things will be done according to how I dictate them. In that way, we can assure there are no further situations that need to be rectified.”
With that, Terrence grabbed his belongings from off the table and began to walk out of the boardroom. Just before turning to leave, Terrence shut off the display outlining the Old Man’s directions for Terrence to take over. Only the report from the day’s paper, detailing the former Head’s death, was left on.
Every pair of eyes was staring at that article as Terrence left the room.
Chapter 1
October 9th, 2043
I barely slept last night. And even when I did, I tossed and turned restlessly. Whether I was awake or asleep, I kept going over my conversation with the AI, the Wanderer as he called himself. The ramifications of what he told me were just too much to process all at once. This started as a great opportunity to make some money while beta testing a new game, and had changed dramatically over the course of twenty-four hours. The Wanderer told me his suspicions that the company, through the game, used Resurgence as a platform to undertake some nefarious deed. The problem was the Wanderer didn’t know what that “deed” was, and had very little information that could help him unravel the mystery. And, of course, he was a computer program that really couldn’t be seen by the company to have any part in trying to uncover what, if anything, they were up to.
Not being able to sleep, I logged back into Resurgence hours before my teammates were scheduled to join me. The most basic of reminders that this world had changed for me, the ever present “error,” greeted me just before I entered the game and the hyperspace-esque lines appeared. I no longer noticed any deviation between where my character logged out and logged in, but I now knew that the “error” was the Wanderer’s way of manipulating my character.
I walked aimlessly through the streets of the big city, rewinding each part of the story I had heard just the day before. I kept hoping that there would be something in the past two months that would make it all click for me, and that I could say without a doubt that everything the Wanderer said made sense. But there was nothing I could recall that made me think AltCon was doing something dastardly or fiendish.
Yes, it was unheard of for a company to offer a group of people a stipend to test their beta. But that alone was not enough to convince me that all of us were just lab rats in some nefarious plot. After all, AltCon was putting their whole company on the line with the introduction of the Virtual Reality Augmentation Containers (VRACs, also known as simply RACs) and the launch of Resurgence. If the game took off, and the RAC became the new standard for virtual interface, AltCon would reap huge rewards. It only made sense that they would look at this beta differently than they had for any of their other games.
But I kept going back to the story of Robert Shoal, his death, and how his former girlfriend Katherine O’Malley played into it all. On one side, I had the words of a biased AI that Shoal was murdered by AltCon to cover up their unknown plans. And if that was all I had to go on, I might think the machines had taken over. Katherine changed all that for me. She was the flesh and blood interviewer that sat across from me and began my journey into the beta. I only spent a short amount of time with her, but that was a woman that definitely had a good head on her shoulders, and certainly not someone who was suffering from any type of paranoia. Yes, our time together was short, but first impressions tell you a lot about a person, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.
My instincts told me that if Katherine was involved with the Wanderer, she truly believed something happened to her boyfriend, Shoal. I could also try and track her down outside the game, just to see if the Wanderer was being truthful about removing her identity and hiding her, but I didn’t see how that would help me and could needlessly endanger Katherine. In the end, I knew I had to accept what I was told as truth, and go forward with that as my premise.
And to be honest, I spent more time than was likely healthy recounting the whole process for joining the beta. I hadn’t put much thought into the tests and exercises my teammates and I went through in the months prior to starting the game. From the outset, the whole thing was weird. I had never heard of a company giving a Myers Briggs test before joining their beta, or what effect my INTJ result had on the decision, if any. Nor did I ever hear of a six-month evaluation phase before confirmation would be given. I overlooked it all because I was getting paid, and at the time we were enjoying the whole thing. Hell, I still enjoyed the game.
I’ll likely never know why they wanted us to play with toys, replicating that silly Lego castle and trying to build it exactly as it was laid out. It was a team building exercise, that was easy to determine. But what if there was a deeper reason for all of the hoops we jumped through? What if AltCon was looking for specific types of people to examine for their plot?
It was obvious that the AI had been influencing the game for me from the day I logged in. With the alterations to my character, giving me a Chance modifier that guaranteed success when it came to loot, the Wanderer had certainly given me an unfair advantage. That wasn’t the only thing, though. The additional benefits that came from my specialized Rogue training had already paid substantial dividends, and as I progressed they would certainly provide even greater opportunities. But the fact that the Wanderer, a near-sentient AI, was controlling all of this never even crossed my mind. The “error” every time I logged in, the inflated Chance, and the inaccuracies of my log-in and log-out points, were just not enough clues for me to figure it all o
ut.
I took a look at my character yet again, gauging whether all of the Wanderer’s efforts had made me an unstoppable force, or just a player slightly better off than the normal gamer:
My armor was nothing special. That was the first thing I noticed. Sure, I had two magic items, and the Force Multiplier ring was supposed to be removed from the game because it was too powerful. Even then, though, my stats were not that outrageous. In fact, the three other guys that made up our team of four – Dan, Jason, and Wayne – all had better stats than me. That was the point of creating a team rather than focusing on boosting my own stats or those of any one individual. We were supposed to complement each other and we never put our own greed before the needs of the group. On multiple occasions, any one of us could have rightfully asked for an item that we would have sold or traded for something else. In my opinion, our “need over greed” philosophy was one of the most important reasons why we were the top group in the beta. In fact, the only stats I had that were likely far outside the normal player, aside from my Chance, were my resistances. Even that was thanks to our titles, not our gear.
Reviewing all of this made me feel comfortable that our gear alone wouldn’t bring unwanted attention to my group. It certainly didn’t make me, or my group, an unstoppable force.
With nothing else to do, I decided to practice my Conceal/Stealth to max it out. Now that we had all reached Level 20, we would be able to reach the maximum potential for the Skills we already had. The first on my list, as it would be for any Rogue, was my bread and butter; Conceal and Stealth. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times the combination of those two Skills, which lent me my ability to move around in an Invisible status, had saved my hide in the game.
While I ran around with my Conceal/Stealth activated, I thought about the Rogue class I had been playing for the last several months. The choice was made in part because we needed someone who could be our Damage Dealer (DD), and that ended up being me. Looking back, I couldn’t imagine playing anything else. Jason was our Cleric, and therefore our Healer, Wayne was one of the best Tanks I had ever seen with his Warrior, and Dan had used the abilities of his Ranger to master the role of Crowd Control (CC). These were the four necessities in any team; Tank, Healer, CC, and DD. If your Tank couldn’t maintain the anger, or aggro, of the thing you were killing, while your CC kept the rest of the beasts away from the group doing the killing, you were going to be fucked. The guy healing and the guy doing damage is self-explanatory.
Restoration: The Rise of Resurgence: Book II Page 1
