Battle Avatars

by Ed White

  HR. There it is. Sent only minutes ago, planned I’m sure so no gossip, not a hint will escape. Wow, deja vu. Terrible to say it, Sheila has nothing on Julia. The various members of the HR department are meeting with all department heads and all managers, and that includes me. A number of private sessions are planned over the next half hour before the first group meeting, which will consist of all office staff. The second meeting is for plant, warehouse, and remaining staff. Shit really does run downhill—with those paid the least, told last. What the subject is, I’m about to find out for myself.

  ***

  The secondary training room is not a small room, at twenty by thirty feet. Sheila guards the doorway like a creature from Lenscape and hurries me inside. I pick a chair near her pile of envelopes and papers and can’t help but be reminded of last night. My stomach turns and sweat runs down my spine. My muscles tight, nausea overwhelms me as I squeeze my abdomen with both hands and breathe out through my nose.

  “This again.”

  “Pardon me, Mr. Grey?”

  “Huh?” I look up from my seat, “It’s Mr. Grey now?”

  “Oh, sorry, no, I meant what happened again?”

  Waving my hand, I lean back into the plush office chair in an attempt to relax the tension in my body. “Nothing. What’s this all about? Why the lock down?”

  Sheila leans forward, playing one hand atop the other. “Well.”

  “Well?”

  “We’re experiencing a merger.”

  “You mean we’re being bought out. Or I should say, the company is.” There was no “we”.

  Sheila blushes. “We’re all one company as of today and there are some work contracts for us to go over. Of course, each of your staff will be spoken to by HR, before you address their new duties.”

  “New duties?” I raise my palm. “And you mean they’ll be told in the group meetings?”

  “Yes, and you’ll be briefed regarding any questions they have, but of course, HR and legal will meet with all staff throughout the week.”

  Whole lotta bullshit to deal with. Sales are going to experience a slump that the new management will conveniently forget was caused by this “merger”, and my staff and I will answer for it in a drawn-out spanking of a meeting, “don’t do it again”, belittling.

  Sheila watches me as I come back to the present. “Sure, so, these papers, let’s see them.”

  Sheila pushes the entire pile toward me. I’d thought some belonged to me and the rest to several other managers.

  “What’s all this?”

  She smiles. “Your new staff.”

  “New?” I’m not playing it cool at all.

  “We’ve still to discuss your new duties.” She stresses “your”, adding a smile.

  Yeah, Lenscape is sounding mighty sweet.

  Foregoing the envelopes, which I push aside, I lean further forward and lock eyes with Sheila. “Please do. What are they?”

  “It’s quite an accomplishment, David, you’ll have an additional thirty staff and numerous lines to introduce. It’s quite a blessing, your division doesn’t exist with our…with our new coworkers, and you’ve set quite an example.”

  I pull back, straightening my back, feeling my stomach rebel. A promotion—that changes things. Leave my apartment, get a better place, maybe down payment on a house. I can still play Lenscape, but afford my own rig, on my rules, not theirs.

  Sheila pushes my work contract toward me. I notice my pay. It’s exactly the same.

  “The…” I stop myself, living by example: my father doesn’t swear around ladies.

  Sheila smiles. “Yes, you’ve a new title, a corner office. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “It sure is!” I stand. “This is an incredible blessing.”

  Sheila beams with happiness and accomplishment.

  “I’ve seen the light and it’s rainbow colored.”

  Confusion cracks Sheila’s face. “Huh?”

  “I quit.”

  I’m halfway to the door as she counters, “You can’t quit, you have to give at least a week’s notice.”

  Like hell. I stop and gesture toward the papers in front of where I’d sat. “That’s a contract.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t a question. It’s my new work contract. The company is a new entity as of today.”

  Sheila nods. “Yes, that’s true.”

  My head double bobs to my words. “Uh, then I quit. Send my severance package in the mail.”

  How does it go, how would an MMO say it? You’ve succeeded in quitting, reward: a bazillion experience points!

  Freedom.

  ***

  On the walk to my car I call Jonesy. No answer. Cursing, I don’t leave a message, jabbing the red hang up icon instead. The phone rings—it’s Angela. No time for that. I text her asking to call me later. She wants to talk about my decision, but it’s done. Flipping the bird to the office complex and job in general, I fumble in my pocket to unlock my car. My phone rings again. Ignoring it, I jump in the car and head toward Jonesy’s.

  The constant play of my ring tone reminds me of its purpose, and that I should personalize each phone number. But in general, I don’t even want to use my cell phone. With yet another of many sighs today, I flick through the settings of my car radio and check if my Bluetooth is linked. Of course not. But what’s more distracting, trying to make a call by car radio or pulling out my cell? Voice recognition, but my car is too old. That’ll be my next headache, needing a new car before I’ve settled in at the Conglomerate. Wait a minute, they said I can’t log out, I might not need a car, and come to think of it, am I supposed to stay at their local offices or log in at home?

  Checking my mirrors and my speed, I fish my cell phone from my pocket. The inner sheath of cloth catches on the edge and it won’t come out.

  Swearing I hammer the passenger door until my frustrated rage passes.

  Typical. Poking with the end of my index finger, the phone is freed, but as I pull it out, the flashlight app blazes across my eyes. Damned touch screens. I deactivate the flashlight and turn on the Bluetooth.

  After all that hassle, Jonesy better be at home.

  With the restaurant closed for renovations or whatever he’d said, Jonesy was most likely at home playing Lenscape. Something else I’d never thought about: how do you get the attention of someone logged in to the game? Do they Dream Walk? Are you talking to the AI, or multitasking brain, or whatever the hell? Damn it, too many questions, too much frustration and irritation. Quitting didn’t give me the satisfaction I’d thought. Hell. Like some fortune cookie, it hit me. Quitting is what I wanted, not what I need. The hell do I need?

  My hand jerks the steering wheel as the phone rings.

  “Shit!” I jab the accept button on the wheel. “Hello? Look Angela, I appreciate it but we’ll talk later, okay?”

  “David? Hello?”

  “Jonesy? You’re home? I’m on my way and we need to talk about last night.” I expect some juvenile, lewd innuendo or rude comment about “what” he and I did last night, or even some pressure to date Angela, but he only gives a bland response—he’s clearly distracted. Or, maybe I’d just spoken to Dream Walker Jonesy?

  ***

  It’s been years since visiting Jonesy’s house in the middle of the day—not since high school and weekends spent around the neighborhood. The house is in good shape, the roof tended, gutters look new, and the yard, front and back, well managed. I knock on the solid wood of the front door not twice before Jonesy welcomes me in.

  “Have you accepted the job with the Conglomerate?”

  Single-minded as ever. Is he supposed to be talking about the offer? Was he given the same deal? To my thinking, it’s more efficient and effective for us to scope out hackers as a group, but that’s not my decision to make.

  “Job?”

  “Damn it, David. This is it, we’re all beta testers of the Lenscape. You didn’t take the job?”

  “Beta testers.” Okay, time
for me to honor my deal, working as a beta tester is not my cover. “Right, yes, sure, but I’m a salesman, or I will be.”

  Jonesy chuckles. “From salesman to salesman. You should’ve asked to be part of our beta group. The whole point is to play with us, dump your old job and become a full-time gamer.”

  I nod.

  “You had breakfast yet?”

  “No, I gotta go shopping. But I came out of the game with the oddest of smells. Like bacon and ozone. I’m sorta craving bacon, actually.”

  Jonesy crosses to his deluxe refrigerator, opening the freezer. “Yeah, bacon? I’ve got a bunch of samples here, you want me to make us up some?” He waves a package at me.

  “Did you get any sleep? You know I can’t eat bacon.” I flap my hand at him. “Thought you said you listen to me.” There’s something off about him. It’s bugging me.

  He doesn’t take the bait. “Oh yes, that’s right. Look, it’s been a long night.”

  “Have you been in the game since yesterday?”

  Paying little attention to the package of premium bacon, Jonesy glances over his shoulder. “Yes.”

  Gesturing to the pile of old menus, I relax into the couch. “Weren’t you supposed to work on those new menus?”

  He shrugs. “I’ll get to them. Anyway, you’re signing up? It’ll be great. We’ll work together, they gave us the beta program real quick after how that raid went last night. They’ve offered it to the whole group.

  “Lisa too?” I study my hands with casual intent.

  “Yeah, Lisa, Granger, Kona, everyone.”

  No innuendo? Jonesy was definitely off. I press him on what I saw. “How was it, the respawn?”

  “What do you mean?” He leans against the fridge and notices the bacon.

  “Well, I remember in a lot of games, first person POV shifts to third when you die in the game. Most times you can see the body of your own avatar.”

  He nods. “Sure. Same in the Lenscape. That’s when you see your soul box. You’ve got to return to it before it’s looted or stolen.”

  “Yeah, but you guys had an option to respawn or log out, right?”

  “So did you.”

  “No, I don’t remember that.”

  Jonesy raises his hands. “Well, you did. You logged out.”

  “What if I dropped out?”

  Placing the bacon back in the freezer, he frowns at me. “We’re not supposed to talk about it, even to each other, but the game experienced a hack, right?”

  I stare.

  “Right.” He dismisses my look with a waggle of his hand. “So maybe you got dropped. Big deal. But now we have the beta jobs we wanted, with pay.”

  “Right.” I rub the back of my neck. “That’s why I brought it up. See, I quit my job.”

  Jonesy smiles, but refrains from the expected “I told you so”.

  He raises his hand, closing the freezer door. “But there’s a ticking clock now, you know? You need health insurance, you gotta pay your rent…”

  “Okay, mom, I know. I’m on my way to their local office, the Conglomerate.”

  “Obviously. So why are you here? Go!”

  “I’m still confused about what I saw.”

  His shoulders sag. “What?”

  “I saw things.”

  Jonesy jabs his finger at me. “Look man, you’re worrying too much.” He throws his hands around.

  “What I’m trying to say is that what I saw when you and the others returned to Haven was just plain crazy. What happened to the jungle, the entire area around the battle, I don’t know if it’s normal.”

  Jonesy snorts. “Considering what happened, wink, wink, you probably saw the system reset itself.”

  “Wink, wink, what’s that mean? Man, I saw strings of color, these crazy humanoid critters, and a bunch of NPCs show up after I, uh, I mean the Battle Avatars, put down the rival army. The Scythe guys, your former buddies, or whomever it was that attacked us.”

  Jonesy stares with his arms crossed, in silence.

  “It was like the place was, I don’t know, rewoven? Unwound and then stitched back together.”

  Jonesy’s expression gives nothing away. I expect him to joke about it. He doesn’t.

  “Those pills, they’re not LSD are they?”

  Jonesy rolls his eyes, a hand raised as he walks toward me.

  “There’s no LSD in the pills. Sure, it sounds like a bad trip, but that’s not possible. Their many medical departments signed off on all of this, after years of research.”

  “Why all the legislation concerns?”

  Jonesy falls into his recliner. “No legislative concerns there. The main problem with those bastards is the Dream Walking.”

  Do I? I decide to. “Are you Dream Walking now?”

  He points at his head. “No. That’s a stupid question, dude.” He isn’t wearing the head gear or lens jewel. “You think too much, man. In the Lenscape, we ain’t gotta think about all this bullshit!” He kicks the menus off the table. “Stop worrying about Dream Walkers and LSD, just fuckin’ go down to the Conglomerate, sign up and do what you always enjoyed and get paid for it.”

  We stare for a good minute before I turn and leave.

  ***

  The local Conglomerate building is a behemoth that makes me wonder what their corporate headquarters must be like. Thirty feet above the ground, atop the twenty foot tall entrance, the corporate logo sits proud, GGG, with the word Conglomerate squared off below the letters. The building is set back from the busy Hartford streets around Constitution Plaza. Crowds pass to and fro as I cross into the entrance pavilion.

  Inside, an immense lobby stretches out, with fountains near the doors, blocking out the noise of the outside world. The ceiling, twenty-five feet above, is full of abstract hanging art. Nearer the base of the main office building at the far side of the pavilion, tall tapestries and posters depict scenes and character classes from Lenscape. However, like outside, the Conglomerate logo can be found above the main reception, the granite monolith flanked by double banks of elevators.

  I step up to one of the six receptionists.

  “I’m here for Julia Beechum?”

  “Good morning, welcome to the Conglomerate for Gaea’s Greater Good. Your name please?”

  “David Grey.”

  She taps at her computer. “You’ve completed your paperwork?”

  “Yes.” I show the envelope.

  The receptionist smiles with her hand outstretched to me. I pass the envelope over and she takes a look inside.

  “Wait a minute, that’s for…”

  With the same soothing smile, the young lady lifts and pushes a large box across the silver marble counter to me.

  “Lenscape gear?”

  She nods with that same smile held firm. “Welcome to the Conglomerate, Mr. Grey.”

  “But, I…”

  She touches my hand atop the box. “Log in once you’re home and representatives will meet with you in the Lenscape. Have a pleasant day.”

  “Uh, okay?”

  With a nod, she touches her earpiece. “Good morning, thank you for calling the Conglomerate for Gaea’s Greater Good, how may we help you?”

  She waves and winks at me—that makes it quite clear that we’re done and I’m in my own sort of beta testing. Time to prove myself and lock in this job.

  ***

  Having stopped for groceries and finding foods requiring the least complicated cooking methods, I feel a tinge of excitement that’s so alien to me these days. I like it.

  They better explain if I’m able to cook while Dream Walking, since I’m not allowed to log out until I bring in the hacker responsible for last night’s intrusion.

  I plop down on my living room couch and take a steak knife to the seals on the Lenscape box.

  The three foot long box is two feet by two feet square, covered in glossy images and logos and a whole ton of copyright, legal and other information along one side and the bottom of the box. Age and health restricti
ons and a listing of the contents complete the package. A family smiles at each other in, out, and putting on the headgear, while the majority of the box is covered by images from in-game, with a hype blurb about the lore.

  The Battle Avatars live in a time of barbarism. Earth is a place of strange peoples and living mysteries from ages past. There are savage empires with sprawling cities, hidden tribes, and proto-pantheons swarming out intent on gathering to themselves the ancient secrets of Atlantis!

  Who will rule…men or gods?

  I feel like a kid on Christmas, and I’ve not felt like that for too damned long.

  I get it now, the allure of an unboxing.

  Removing the Styrofoam from the cardboard box, the astringent smells of plastic assault me and I want more—I lust for it. Pulling the foam structures away, the headgear is revealed, vacuum wrapped within a further plastic bag. A separate set of bags include a plug for a wall outlet, four chocolate bar sized batteries, and a set of wires. Within the head mold keeping the shape of the gear, a Wi-Fi booster sits in its own wrap.

  Opening the wrap, I realize that the head mold is part of the Wi-Fi booster, and from the folded set of instructions, a proper place to store the headgear. The jewelry I joked was a monocle, meant for the forehead, is in its own bag and sealed wrap.

  They spent a fortune on plastic, but then again, Lenscape is the most popular form of media in the world, earning trillions of dollars for the Conglomerate. I’m happy to be earning a small piece of that, even if it’s to keep my mouth shut.

  Fitting the Styrofoam pieces back into the box, a smaller box obstructs me from doing so. Reaching in, I pull it loose. Seeing the imagery of the pills I took at Jonesy’s, I have my own private laugh about Viagra.

  Assembling all of the gear and bottles on my coffee table, I sit back for a moment. Was I going to do this? How long does it take to find hackers? Surely they don’t expect me to stay in for more than a week?

  The anticipation! I decide to call Jonesy.