Pop Kult Warlord

by Nick Cole

  “What you aren’t paying me for is to tell you how to succeed at this game. How to build your civilization on Mars so you can maintain an in-game active presence. But I’m offering my advice anyway. Just advice. And it’s this. Breaking stuff and not getting along with your neighbors… that’s not helping the game, or the Calistan team. Seriously… guys… no disrespect… but why don’t you build some stuff and start trading with whoever’s around you?”

  I finish. And wait.

  Deathly silence.

  I have overstepped.

  Five million in gold. Blood spatter on the wall.

  Then Rashid smiles. He nods as if to himself.

  “My professionals are right,” he says. “Gentlemen. I totally agree with them.” He looks at everyone around the table. “We need to build. I’ve told my father and the mullahs this.”

  The faces of the generals are nothing but enigmatic stone. They don’t know which way to play this hand.

  Then Rashid turns to me.

  “I agree with you, PerfectQuestion. Seriously.”

  And Enigmatrix, I think to myself. You agree with her too. But I don’t push it because I’ve pushed it enough already.

  “But,” continues Rashid. “My father insists we cleanse the infidels from our online land. The only way is to blow up the reactor and to show them what we are capable of. The mullahs want it that way. They feel… the tone of influence within our culture on Mars, in Civ Craft, needs to remain pure of outside… influence.” He looks around and smiles at everyone. They smile back. There’s a lot of smiling with these folks. At least when I’m not talking. And Enigmatrix. “So the Japanese will develop elsewhere and we’ll be able to expand in peace once they feel our wrath.”

  Then he turns to me and lets me know how everything really stands. “And your payment is conditional on accomplishing our goals, PQ.”

  So I have to take out the reactor.

  ’Cause five million. In gold.

  Inside a heavily fortified base. On Mars.

  I study the map.

  “Okay… then I need my own strike team.”

  Rashid beams because I’m on board. Things can go as planned. Thermonuclear apocalyptic destruction assured.

  “Sure. Hundred percent. Anything for you, PQ. You can have anything. Just let me know and we can get them on the map. We’ll pay for the best.”

  We smile at each other.

  “Okay,” I say. “Then I gotta make a call.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  We hit the enemy base two hours later. The gaming clans of Calistan have come out in full force for the glory of Prince Rashid and the state. Tags like MohamedDurden, BatImam, and KoranKommando litter the unit rosters and my field of vision on tactical overlay as I watch the main diversionary assault begin on the Japanese clan city along the cliff’s edge of the massive Martian canyon. Our plan is to insert through the dangerous maze of the canyon at high speed and come in fast, hoping for a little surprise before they can reallocate defenses from the city above to the back entrance we’re attacking.

  The city is Enigmatrix and Rashid’s problem. The entrance is mine. They’re the rope-a-dope. We’re the sudden right cross.

  “What kinda mission is this, sir?” asks MarineSgtApone over squad chat.

  The clan I’ve asked Calistan to hire are all strapped into a dropship speeding toward our objective. Armor and weapons loadout are red desert camo, as is the dropship. The clan’s cosplay skins, other than the camo color, are still Colonial Marine. We’re skimming the Martian desert south of the canyon. The main Calistani force, led by Enigmatrix, is already attacking the rim towers above.

  “We’re here to break stuff, Sergeant,” I reply over chat. This Colonial Marine cosplay clan likes to use rank. I’ve worked with them before. They’re pro. Which is the one of the best things you can say about another gamer. That they’re pro. That, and you had fun with them.

  “So… it’s a smash and grab without the grab,” murmurs a player tagged MarineCorporalHicks. In-game, the ship is starting to shake from ground-effect turbulence as the Martian surface temperature rises with the dawn. The pilot’s got the pedal to the metal and the dropship is hurtling toward our OBJ.

  “Canyon insert in five,” says the pilot. “Hang on.”

  “Full forward with the throttle and let’s finish the whole bottle,” says PVTHudson, another clan player. I didn’t meet MarineCorporalHicks or PVTHudson when I gamed with them a year ago inside WarWorld. Most of the Colonial Marines clan were killed in our first firefight back in that special match I worked with them on. Only a few survivors made it to the last round with me.

  “Something like that,” I reply as I watch live feeds from the assault at the top of the canyon.

  I’m in one of those gaming suites I passed on the way to the introduction with Rashid and his generals. Not the one with the blood spatter stains no one could quite get clean. But one just like it.

  In order to get the Colonial Marines cosplay clan in the game and attached to my special strike team, Calistan had to pay a massive micro-transaction cost to the developers who ran Civ Craft. The dough spent was anything but “micro.” In addition to which, the clan barely made login time for the assault. They’d had to get off work, or whatever IRL responsibilities they had, to get online and ready to go in time. Still, they were getting paid, and that was a big thing for them because none of them were officially pro. They played like pros, but they did it for the fun of it.

  And there was more to it than that. They showed up in full force as a matter of pride in the clan they’d created. And love. Love of the clan, of the game, and of each other. That was evident. And now that their gear and skins had been uploaded, they had an official clan presence inside Civ Craft: Mars. Which was normally too hefty a buy-in for hobbyists. Corporate and national teams, or the elite gamer crowd running a crowdfund, were the norm.

  “Never played this game before,” pipes up some kid tagged as simply Frosty over the chat. “What’s it like… building little towns and all? Crafting…?”

  “Boring,” says MarinePFCVasquez. The squad heavy machine gunner. “Point and shoot is life.”

  She was the one who held the room where the firefight broke out with WonderSoft in the last match, way back when. Then they either took her out, or the aliens who were swarming the impromptu firefight got her. That seemed like a lifetime ago. But it was only a year and a half. And… yeah… a different life then for me.

  “Shoot to thrill,” says MarinePvtDrake. He made it through with me last time. “Right, Vasquez?”

  “You got it, hombre. Shoot to thrill.”

  This clan is all about first-person shooters. They cosplay some old movie I still haven’t gotten around to watching, but RangerSix told me it’s the greatest sci-fi war flick of all time. I’ve been too busy actually fighting inside the modern equivalent of a sci-fi war flick, but it’s on my playlist. I just need some free time.

  These guys go around competing as a cosplay unit in all the big convention games, but of course they wouldn’t have played Civ Craft: Mars—even though it’s one of the biggest streamed games currently being viewed by a quarter of the world’s population—since it’s not strictly a first-person shooter. It’s primarily about resources and civilizations. The developers did use the WarWorld engine to run combat, but from there the balancing issues went out the door. In Civ Craft your weapons depend on what your civilization has unlocked on the tech tree, or what you’ve acquired through trade. Or—of course—what you can purchase through micro-transaction. But your clan needs wild amounts of dough to just level up.

  What it boils down to is you can have muskets facing an enemy with Wolverine main battle tanks in an all-or-nothing for your fledgling little civilization. Which isn’t very fair. Muskets versus main battle tanks. But a lot of people actually enjoy watching such massacres.

  Then again, people once enjoyed watching unarmed Christians fight lions and bears to the death. Such was Rome. Such was t
he internet of the day. They called it the Circus.

  “So… uh, we just smash everything up and then what… sir?” asks MarineSgtApone once the chatter has died off.

  That’s right. I’m in charge of this. What with Rashid and Enigmatrix’s little power struggle ongoing throughout the hours leading up to the battle, I kept forgetting exactly why I was here. And what my role was. At points it felt like they’d just hired a very expensive infantryman. Which, honestly, was something I was looking forward to. Running and gunning is always fun. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

  But now I’ve got a squad. And I’m in charge.

  “Well… Apone. I’m feeling my way around here. But the people we work for don’t have a lot of resources for intel—or anything else for that matter. They’ve hired us to break their competitors’ stuff in order to give them a leg up in-game. Smash, ruin, and generally create a lot of mayhem in the enemy rear. So… I thought of you guys.”

  “That’s a can-do, sir,” replies MarineSgtApone. “We can break stuff with the best of ’em. So listen up, Marines. You heard the man. Kill! Kill! Kill! And then kill again to make sure. Going Roman is the SOP. You know what that means. Hicks, you got Bravo. I’ll take Alpha.”

  Everybody is definitely on board with that.

  The POV inside my VR helmet starts to bounce around. I can see out the front of the cockpit canopy of the dropship. In the distance, speeding toward us, lies the massive canyon complex below ground level. The tactical overlay shows me the underground structure in green lines. Up along the canyon’s rim, the Calistani clans are attacking with everything they’ve got. A variety of interceptors versus air-defense towers. Mixed armor from high-dollar mechs to ad hoc technicals sweeping in from off the red desert through full-scale artillery barrages courtesy of the Japanese clans. Calistani regulars mixed with ad hoc jihadi units sweeping into the trenches for close-quarters fighting. They don’t have the numbers unless they get incredibly lucky. But they have enough of them to demand that the Japanese clan take them seriously for the next short period of time if they’re to retain control of their mineral resource base on the edge of Calistani-claimed territory.

  “Question, this is Enigmatrix. Starting out assault from the canyon rim. But we’re getting killed like no tomorrow. Get in quick and shut down their atmo processor. These noobs ain’t got no game, so your window ain’t gonna stay open long.”

  Noobs means the Calistan clans.

  “Zero skills,” she continues, “no shot discipline, and it’s not uncommon for them to pull the trigger until they run out of bullets regardless of their aim. So be quick about your business. We won’t get another shot at this!”

  In the background of her feed I hear automatic gunfire being doled out like there’s a sale on bullets at WalCo’s biggest of mega-box stores and discount amusement parks. It all sounds very impressive.

  According to the plan, Enigmatrix’s assault on the city, supported by tanks and infantry, is just a diversion. Her job is to keep the Japs busy, keep them from beefing up defenses on the “back door”—the bunker entrance I’m headed toward. But there are plenty of defenses as it is. Air defense batteries and point defense cannons are embedded along the walls of the canyon. Enough to take out any dropship we send in.

  Which is why we’re flying low, skimming the canyon floor, entering a few miles to the south, so we’re well underneath the defenses. We’ll come in at high speed and drop all over the back door. Unexpected.

  Hopefully.

  The dropship heels over to port and climbs skyward for a couple of seconds. The engines spool up into a scream, and for a moment I get a bit of vertigo inside the gaming helmet as I watch the newly terraformed hazy Martian atmosphere switch back to a dry and lifeless landscape, then shift and twirl beyond the canopy as we shoot down into the canyon’s trench. Now we’re pointed straight at the grinning mouth of the chasm floor and we’re rushing straight at it with what seems an unsafe amount of speed.

  “Yeeeee-haaaa!” screams CPLFerro, the pilot.

  In my gaming suite, I feel my whole body tense up in the expensive ergonomic lounger. The VR graphics are that good. I’m there inside that falling dropship turned express elevator. I’m totally safe as we start our attack run against the Japanese clan’s back door, but my mind is convinced I’m about to be smashed into millions of pieces all over Mars.

  Colonial Marines are whooping and shouting. They dig this stuff. Like I said… it took a lot of Calistani dough to get them in-game. And it would take only one slip-up from their pilot for it all to be wasted. But they’re having fun regardless.

  They’re having fun, and Ferro’s a good pilot.

  Remember, PQ, that’s what it’s all about.

  Yeah, I tell myself. And then can’t resist thinking about the five million in gold.

  “Express elevator to hell!” yells someone over the chat as if they’ve just read my mind and added the appropriate destination for what it feels like we’re being thrown into. Everyone yells back, “Going down!” amid woot-wooting and shouts.

  Must be a thing for them.

  We’re racing toward the Martian canyon floor at insane speed. The desert pastel walls, swirling like frozen gargantuan sandstorms of strata and rock in pinks and red whorls, race by, just barely outside the dropship’s canopy. I wonder if this is what Mars really looks like. IRL. I’ve never been. And it’s seemed like a one-way trip for most of the colonists of late. Plus there’s all that political tension about separating from Earth. But maybe… maybe someday I’ll see this canyon in real life. Booking a Martian safari wouldn’t cost me much of the gold at all.

  We shoot through a twisting cathedral of pink stone and follow the path of the ancient canyon at over four hundred knots. I check my HUD. Four miles to go.

  “Guns up,” I announce to the platoon.

  They’re carrying their standard-issue pulse rifle ported for Civ Craft. It’s a decent rifle for up close and personal firefights. But nothing for scope and all. Their heavy weapons system, on the other hand, is off the hook. A hydraulic mounted auto-cannon capable of distributing death in mass quantities at a vicious rate of fire. We’re also carrying frags, both smoke and demo charges. And the Marines pack flamethrowers, for all the good that’ll do. I’m not seeing any kind of scenario where they’d come in handy on nearly airless Mars. But you never know. And if all else fails, they’ve got an APC—armored personnel carrier—loaded into the cargo hold.

  What else do you need to break other people’s stuff?

  “Who’s OpFor?” asks one of the Marines.

  “Japanese gaming clan. SuperMecha. That’s all I got,” I tell them as the howling dropship engines compete with chat volume. “Basically, just shoot everything in our way, move and communicate. I’ll assess the tactical once I get a look at what we’re facing on the ground. Primary objective is to take out an atmo tower inside the main cave complex beyond the bunker entrance. Taking out their reactor earns us a bonus according to my employer. But I’m guessing that’ll be heavily defended and I don’t want to get anyone killed in case I need to keep you in Civ Craft for the next op. Civ Craft’s Next Life micro-charges are… prohibitive to say the least.”

  Later I’d realize that was the understatement of the year.

  “LZ in one minute,” calls out the pilot. “Looks hot!”

  An alarm shrieks from the cockpit.

  It’s urgent. Pulsing and repeating. A mechanical voice intones in AI deadpan: “Warning, warning, warning, anti-aircraft radar detected. Warning, warning…”

  The high-pitched pulse begins to beat faster. Then rapidly. Even I, who never likes to fly vehicles in-game, know exactly what that means. Wherever that radar is… it has lock on us. We’ve been acquired.

  A moment later a steady tone indicates a firing solution has been achieved. Some kind of air defense system is about to engage us inside the tight quarters of the canyon with no room to maneuver for escape.

  It’s a bad situation a
ny way you paint it.

  “Fast mover, two o’clock!” yells the Marine crew chief from behind the pilot.

  “Got it,” she replies matter-of-factly.

  “What the hell is that?” someone calls out.

  The pilot jerks the dropship left and right. I assume she’s popping ECM packages out the back, but I see exactly what the crew chief was shrieking about in a strange moment of vertigo-shifting perspective.

  You know the kind you get when you feel like an ant and everything in the world is made for giants.

  Just before the cyclopean tunnel entrance leading into the bunker carved into the canyon wall, in front of the defensive works along the sandy floor littered with many destroyed Calistani main battle tanks, stands a giant mecha the likes of which I’ve never seen before. It’s a massive mech. But like a giant robot. With a rifle the size of a small battleship. Ruined Calistani units that shouldn’t have been part of this surprise attack lie smoking on the bloody red sands of the canyon floor.

  “Break off now!” someone screams. Probably the Colonial Marine crew chief tagged CPLSpunkmeyer. I can feel my jaw open inside my VR helmet. I’m too dumbfounded to utter anything in that moment of watching the looming giant robot. I expected real-world stuff… tanks and assault rifles. Heavy machine guns and anti-armor. Stuff you find in WarWorld. But a giant robot laden with missiles and carrying an auto rifle the size of a small battleship… that’s popped my breakers for a second.

  I think they call it cognitive dissonance.

  What’s even more incredible to me, floating in the background of my rebooting mind as I try to rough out a quick tactical analysis regarding what to do next, is that the Calistani clans used first-generation main battle tanks from WarWorld in an unsupported cavalry charge coming at the doors from another direction along the canyon floor where no other unit was supposed to be—at least according to Rashid’s plans. And no one told me, the guy leading the surprise attack strike force that was supposed to be the real attack.