“You targeted me? Why?”
“We’re always in need of fresh talent. Your personality profile exactly fits what we’re looking for. Plus, you’re an exceptional gamer. You should be playing in a pro league. I’d say it’s our luck that e-sports didn’t work out for you.” For a brief second, her sweet smile had something sharkish. “And finally, you don’t have any close relatives. The only family you have left lives in Thailand, is that correct?”
“Yes…”
“Splendid.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Before we go into that, let me explain precisely what it means to become part of the Cyber Squad and an employee of Helltek, ok?”
“Sure.”
Her smile widened, and she showed perfectly shaped pearl-white teeth. “Helltek offers an exceptionally high wage. Even at Level One, you will earn 50% more than what you got in your old job.”
At this point, Kai wasn’t even surprised that they knew exactly how much he had earned at Fuji.
“But that’s really just for warm-up. Your salary will increase exponentially. That means, at Level Two, you’ll earn double as much as you got at Level One. At Level Three, we will double what you got at Level Two, and so on… You’re a mathematician, so I don’t need to do the math for you and tell you that there’s a lot of money to be made here.”
She chuckled about her own wittiness before she continued. “Furthermore, we offer full health coverage, including dental and mental care. When you reach Level Two, we will welcome you as a resident on our campus, where you will receive an apartment of 1500 square feet and free access to our internal fitness and wellness facilities.”
“Wow,” he said. “That’s incredible!”
“It is, right?” Rachel snickered. “I know that you’re a smart boy, Kai. Which is why I know what you’re thinking now. Go ahead, ask.”
“Where’s the catch?”
Her sweet smile turned sharkish for a second again, and it occurred to Kai that maybe she was wearing such an outfit for the precise reason that it would distract him from brief glimpses of her other self. Or was it her true self?
“You’re right. Naturally, there’s a catch,” Rachel replied. “After all, nothing in life comes for free, isn’t that so? Not even death is free as it costs you your life. No respawn!”
Again she chuckled at her own joke, and Kai forced himself to join the fun.
“The catch is that this is a high-risk job, plain and simple. We wouldn’t pay such competitive wages if it wasn’t,” the HR lady said. “In times of neural VR gaming, bugs and glitches aren’t just an annoyance. They’re potentially deadly threats. We are responsible for eliminating those threats.”
She paused for a second to let what she had just said sink in, then she continued. “Cyber Squad keeps millions of players safe every day. This is your chance to become part of something bigger, Kai. This is your chance to become a hero.”
Kai had to admit that her words created a tingling sensation in his spine. He had always thought of himself as a loser or at least nothing special. Yet this incredibly hot woman looked at him and saw something else. Hero material. Could she be right about that?
“What do you think? Does that sound good or what?”
“It does,” he admitted. “Can you explain to me just what makes the job so high-risk?”
“Thanks for asking! We pursue a policy of full internal disclosure here, although I will have you sign a waiver before you leave that will prohibit you from making anything we discuss here public. Just so you know.”
“Ok.”
“Awesome! To keep it simple, the urban legends are true. It’s not only bugs and glitches coming from malfunctions of internal game code but also malware attacks or hacks that can cause serious threats to a player’s – or tester’s – health. I’m not a techie and therefore can’t go into details now, but trust me, once you start with us, you get an in-depth technical briefing. But in brief, because your brain is directly connected to VR and therefore the game and its code, bugs can cause damage to your brain and body while they’re connected. But I don’t think I need to tell you that. You’ve experienced it yourself.”
He thought of the bruises he had found all over his body and shivered.
How did she know about that?
Rachel raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow as her face took on a knowing expression. Then she continued.
“Of course, we take all necessary safety precautions. The health of our testers is dear to us and has the highest priority. But sometimes, unfortunate incidents happen. You have to see it like this: our Cyber Squad encounters terra incognita on a daily basis. You guys are like test pilots trying out the craziest and most adventurous machines. No one knows what will happen when a human brain connects itself to a brand-new virtual world. It can be dangerous, yes. But it’s also exciting, an adventure. And a lot of fun!”
Although he knew that what Rachel was playing on him here was basically a sales pitch, Kai couldn’t help but feel more and more excited with every word that came from her gorgeous mouth.
He always wanted more from his life than any of his friends. He was ambitious. He wanted a challenge, a purpose, excitement, fun. And money.
With every second that passed while he sat there and listened to the Helltek HR lady, he increasingly realized that this was probably the only chance he would get to achieve all he wanted. It was a once-in-a-lifetime offer. There were risks that came with it, yes. But wasn’t life itself risky? After all, it was a one-way trip to death anyway.
“If anything should happen, we always have our own medical team on site. We also pay for full rehab should it ever become necessary. But you will have to sign a liability waiver together with your contract. You will agree that you knew what you were signing up for.” She winked. “It’s also the reason why we prefer candidates who have no living relatives, at least none within US jurisdiction. So what do you think? Any questions?”
She looked at him with a bright smile and expectation in her big eyes.
“I… um…” Kai said, not knowing what to answer. On the one hand, he was completely sold, excited about how his life would change if he signed up. But on the other hand, it also felt a little bit like signing a contract with the devil.
Rachel hadn’t said it up front, but it was clear to him that in the worst case scenario, working for VR game QA could be lethal.
“Don’t worry,” Rachel replied. “You don’t need to give me an answer now. After all, I’m not trying to rush you into anything. And we have thousands of candidates to choose from. How about you go home to the suburbs, give everything thorough consideration and then call me tomorrow?”
***
Less than ten minutes later, Kai was standing outside, back in front of the impressive glass tower that was Helltek HQ. His head was spinning. The conversation with Rachel had only lasted thirty minutes but had turned his world completely upside down.
While he had been inside, the sun had broken through the omnipresent clouds and was now heating up his black hair. Kai inhaled deeply. Even the air here felt fresher.
Slowly he began making his way back to the gate. After a few steps, he stopped and turned his head. He studied the vast green area to the right of the main building. The park was beautiful with its blooming trees and exotic flowers. A curved wooden bridge led over the pond, its water shining a bright, almost unreal blue in the sunlight. Behind it, he could see that the residential buildings had huge windows and extensive balconies. Another bright blue shimmer indicated that there was a pool between them.
Besides that, there was also a restaurant, a bar and several cafeterias, as Rachel had explained to him.
This wasn’t a job, it was a dream. An opportunity of a lifetime. His only chance to escape the gray hopelessness of the tenement wasteland he was forced to live in now.
It came with a price. A deadly price if things went wrong. But that didn’t necessarily mean they would. And, no risk no fun, right?
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With a sudden, sharp move, Kai spun on his heel and walked back inside the HQ.
The girl at the reception desk raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw him enter the hall.
“Can I help you? Did you forget something inside?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “I forgot to sign my contract.”
Chapter Nine
Kai was excited as never before in his life when he arrived at Helltek the next morning. He had hardly slept in anticipation of his big day.
Rachel came to welcome him. Today, she wore tight black office pants, high heels and a white blouse that was similarly revealing to the blazer she had been wearing the day before. She was accompanied by a young man with spiky platin blonde hair.
“Kai, this is Topher, your team lead,” Rachel said, introducing the two young men. “He will explain everything to you and show you around. I’ll come by later, bring you your badge and the completed paperwork. Have fun, guys!”
She smiled like a cat, then rushed off, her heels clacking on the marble floor.
“Welcome to the squad, rookie,” Topher said, a crooked grin on his face. “Follow me!”
He waved his hand and headed toward the main area of the tower. Kai followed him, and this time they walked straight to the elevators in the center of the building.
“I’ve seen your Gamerscore and reputation,” the team lead said while they waited for the lift. “Pretty impressive. When Rach showed me your profile, I immediately said: I want this guy in my team.”
“Thank you,” Kai said. “I’m really excited to be here.”
“Wait until you see our VR pods,” Topher said with a smirk. “It will blow your mind.”
The elevator came, and they got in.
“What you see here are mostly administrative and management offices,” he said, pointing upstairs while the glass cabin rushed down. “The testing facilities, the labs, and basically all the fancy stuff are located underground.”
Kai watched the surroundings with curiosity as the elevator arrived on the basement level and the door opened. The design here was different than in the glass tower above, with anthracite walls illuminated by diffuse bluish and yellow lights. It reminded Kai of a spaceship corridor.
They approached a black double door. Topher grabbed his badge from his belt and held it against a sensor on the side of the door, and it opened noiselessly.
“Welcome to Helltek. What you will discover now is what the company really is about. This is the underground and the heart of Helltek, or the Bowels, as we call it here.”
They entered a long, dimly lit hall at a fast pace.
“This area is where all Level Ones and Level Twos work. There’s a common area, with a cafeteria and some rooms to play and chill between assignments. Your clearance will allow you to move freely within the Level 1-4 areas, but everything else is off-limits for you. For now.”
“Which level are you?” Kai asked.
“I’m Level Five,” Topher said proudly.
“Oh wow. As a team lead I thought you’d be a Level Ten.”
Topher stopped for a moment and looked Kai in the face. Kai gulped, concerned he had offended his boss after knowing him for ten minutes on his first day.
“Those guys are heroes,” the team lead said with honest admiration in his voice. “Level Ten is almost godlike in these halls. You’ll see for yourself. Only the best of the best reach that level, around 0.1% of us. I doubt I’ll ever get there, and neither will you.”
“I saw them in action,” Kai said, relieved, following Topher as they continued down the hall. “They were really impressive.”
“Yeah, I saw in your profile that they saved your ass in TSOTA the other day.”
“How do you guys know about that?”
Topher laughed. “Oh, please. You really don’t know? Your neuro-plant records everything you do in-world or off-world. Same as many other big companies, Helltek has legal access to that data. What you witnessed was a major incident that would easily have killed all players involved if it wasn’t for our team. Did you suffer bruises? A headache? Nausea?”
“Yes,” Kai answered, perplexed. “I don’t quite understand how that’s even possible–”
“Oh, you will,” Topher interrupted him with a grin, his dark brown eyes sparkling with amusement. Or was it mockery? “And you’ll learn much more over time. Today you’ll learn that you know nothing. At least about the true nature of VR. Ready?”
The team lead halted at a black door. Without waiting for an answer, he opened it and both young men entered.
Kai stopped short and stared into the room with surprise. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but certainly not this.
Topher had made their entrance so dramatic that Kai had believed they would be entering something like the inner sanctum of Helltek. The place where all his questions would be answered.
Instead, they were standing in a locker room.
The team lead watched Kai’s face filling with a ‘what the hell?’ expression, then he started laughing.
“Sorry, man,” he said, clapping Kai’s shoulder. “Your face was priceless. Too funny!”
“Um…” Kai didn’t know what to say and felt his cheeks turning hot.
Topher laughed more. “Don’t worry, we play this stunt on every newbie. You expected whatnot, and instead I brought you into a locker room, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Kai said with a shy smile.
“Well, this isn’t just any locker room. Watch!”
He held his badge against a sensor close to the door and then pressed some keys on a pad next to it. A soft click came and all lockers began opening simultaneously. It was only now that Kai noticed that they didn’t look like normal lockers at all. Crafted of anthracite metal, each of them was at least three times the size of a normal locker. In fact, they looked like sci-fi versions of them. This became even more apparent when reddish lights in and around the dark storage containers flicked on.
A smug expression on his face, Topher walked to the middle of the room and Kai followed him, more and more startled by the minute. Black suits with red markings on them were stored inside the tall, deep spaces, every one draped in a way as if it were standing upright by itself, or as if there was an actual person filling them.
Kai opened his mouth but wasn’t sure what to say, so he closed it again after a second, hoping he didn’t look like a complete idiot.
“They’re cool, aren’t they?” Topher said, extending his arms like a magician who had just performed a breath-taking trick.
“Yes,” Kai answered. “What are they?”
“This,” Topher answered, walking toward one of the suits, “is your new work uniform, my friend.”
Now Kai’s jaw dropped, and he didn’t care anymore if he behaved like a dork or not.
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.” The reddish light reflected in Topher’s eyes and made them gleam mysteriously. “Come on, take a closer look.”
The suit looked like an impressive high-tech piece. As Kai moved closer to inspect it curiously, he noticed that the outer coating was a matte-black, rubber-like material. Various tubes and wires stuck out of it at several points, and there appeared to be ports where cords or wires could be directly connected to the suit.
“Wow,” Kai whispered, carefully stretching out his hand to touch this lucid dream of every nerd in the world. Topher didn’t stop him and simply stood next to Kai, an amused grin on his face.
The material felt cold and soft under Kai’s fingertips. It definitely wasn’t rubber, but also not leather or anything like that. When touching it, he could feel that there was a harder material under the coating; plates and bars of some sort, maybe made of aluminum.
“That’s incredible!”
“Ha! Right? Wait until you wear it. Which is why we came here, actually.”
“What are they for?” Kai asked with excitement. “I mean, do all testers wear them?”
“The lower levels, yes. Levels Four to Nine wear different models. And when you see the gear a Level Ten has, it’ll blow your fucking mind!” He made a gesture as if his head had exploded. “As to why. Simple. Protection, but that’s not all. The suit might look like Batman cosplay, but it’s an engineering marvel. It protects your physical body from damage. It keeps you alive.”
He pressed a button and a mechanism slowly moved the suit out of the locker toward him and Kai, then he pointed at the ports. “We hard-wire you into the system when you enter VR and monitor even the slightest change in your body functions. The suit will automatically balance your hormones and soothe your nervous system in case it gets fired up too much. It will also absorb most of the damage your body would take, like the bruises you suffered.”
“That’s incredible!”
“And that’s not all. Ever seen Dune?”
“The video game? I love it!”
“Actually, it was a movie first, and before that a book. You know, one of those paper thingys your grandparents used to read before VR took over everyone’s entertainment. Anyway, our gimps here are basically designed the same way. They’ll keep you alive, absorb your sweat, keep your body at a normal temperature. The suit will even provide you with fluids and nourishment through the ports so you can easily stay in VR for a couple of days straight, up to a week.”
Kai stared at him with wide eyes.
“Yeah, we call them gimps here,” Topher laughed. “No idea who came up with it, but the name stuck.”
“I can stay in VR for up to a week wearing that? Without to have to log off at any time?”
Kai began to think that this could only be a dream. It couldn’t be real. This was too good to be true! It was science-fiction!
“Oh yeah, easily. Wait, did Rachel not tell you that we do that all the time?”
Kai shook his head.
Topher rolled his eyes. “Those damn pencil pushers never do their jobs properly. If we were as sloppy as them, people would drop like flies. Well, yeah, some assignments last for multiple days in a row. But you won’t be enlisted for them until you reach Level Two.”
Cyber Squad - Level 1: A Gamelit/LitRPG Lite Cyberpunk Adventure Page 9
