I chuckled. “No c’mon, that’s not fair. What the hell is PC?”
Addie patted me on the back. “Precious cargo,” he said. “Be proud, man.”
I raised an eyebrow, amused. “Precious?”
Tong nodded. “Boss has big plans for you, boy.”
A nervous sweat broke out across the back of my head. “What’s she want from me?”
Addie’s lips thinned out into a sly smile. He and Tong sidled up to me and sat down, leaning their shoulders on me on either side.
“Y’know, we been stuck in here for a while…and we ain’t seen a woman in a looooong time…”
My eyes widened, and my spine stiffened.
Tong put his hand on my knee. “Y’know Wayne, you’re actually kind of pretty.”
I was nervous as hell. I didn’t like what they were insinuating. I just wanted to bolt off outta there.
“Elgin’s got a thing for dominating pretty boys, doesn’t she?” Tong said to Addie. “And you have a debt to pay,” he said in a sly malicious tone.
I started to stand up, but Tong and Addie forced me back on my ass. Addie had these strong hands, and he started squeezing my shoulder like he was massaging it.
“Guys,” I said, “I don’t want any trouble. You need help, I’ll do it.”
Scared, I looked left at Tong, and then right at Addie. Straight ahead was Elgin, and she was looking impatient. She was scary when she was impatient.
The wide-eyed fear on my face must’ve been palpable.
Because, out of nowhere, Tong and Addie burst out laughing.
They jeered me and rustled my hair, laughing hard and loud.
“Addie!” Tong cried out. “This guy thought we were gonna gimp him!”
Addie doubled over, clutching his stomach and gasping in laughter. Standing off to the side, Halstead was chuckling too, shaking his head.
I tried to shrug them off, but they kept roughhousing around. It was really starting to piss me off.
“Fuck you guys,” I said angrily.
Elgin barked out at her team. “Alright, that’s enough. We got work to do.”
Everyone’s laughter died down quickly, and they straightened themselves out before they turned their attention to Elgin.
Elgin addressed all of us.
“This scenario,” she said, “is projected to happen within the next six to nine months. We need to continue the training and figure out a way to fight these bastards. But we need to be able to do it safely. We don’t wanna risk our lives for this, not if we can do something to prevent it. That’s where you come in, Wayne.”
“Me?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “What can I do?”
“You know the system,” she replied. “Not only do you have access to the console, you know how to use it. That thing you did with the burners, things like that. We need you in back here in our facility, not over there wherever you are.”
My lips pursed together, and I remained silent. Why should I help them? I thought. I was getting sucked further and further into this craziness. I felt hungry and tired, and a big ol’ double cheeseburger with two slices of cheese and mustard served on a soft sesame bun sounded a hell of a lot better than whatever the hell it was that these soldiers wanted.
But Nyla still needs me. Maybe they can help me, or I can find more information. Maybe I’ll find out where those other soldiers took her. But be smart. Don’t let them know that I need them yet.
I nodded.
“Alright. What do we do next?”
“First,” Elgin started to say, “you need to give us a clean exit signal to disconnect from the system. Then, you need to disconnect too. When you disconnect, you stay exactly where you are. Where are you anyway?”
“Brooklyn Navy Yard,” I replied. “In the Kimberland facility.”
She nodded, but she had paused just a fraction of a second longer than she normally did before she did. I could’ve sworn she was hiding something from me.
“We’re going to come pick you up and transport you to our station,” she said. “Do you know how to give us a clean disconnect?”
Uncertain, my mouth curled up in doubt.
“Not off the top of my head, no,” I said. “But I think I can figure it out.”
The soldiers left me to sit in the garden alone as I tried to find the commands for the exit signals. I flipped open the console and got to work.
As always, the man command didn’t give me much to work with. Most of the commands weren’t fully documented. Instead, I needed to find some kind of developer documentation, so I did my typical grep search as I manually dug through some of the directories. I was hoping to find more information about where Nyla might be.
I found out that the command was, reasonably enough, called disconnect. The documentation said that there were different switches for the disconnect command. One would kick everyone off immediately, but it wouldn’t halt the system—it didn’t sound a very safe thing to do. Then there was a switch that would lock everyone but super users out of their account. Again, not what I was looking for.
Then it occurred to me that software developers usually leave comments in their code for each other to read. It wasn’t quite as organized as writing documentation on the company wiki, but it got the job done if you were rapidly iterating on the code. And that’s when I realized that the system was constantly evolving. There wasn’t any sense in documenting the code if it was going to change the next day. Anyway, I got the idea to try to dig into the source code of the command. It took some doing, but I figured out how to decompile disconnect so that I could look for comments inside the code.
Finally, I found what I needed.
The s switch would safely wind down the users before disconnecting them from the system.
I would need the name for each of the soldiers though. Not their real names. Their user names.
Triumphant, I emerged from the garden.
I walked up to Elgin and announced my victory. She gave me a thumbs up.
“There’s just one thing,” I said.
She gestured at me to speak my mind.
“I’m going to need you guys to punch each other,” I said. “Like, hard enough to do some real damage.”
She frowned at me.
“I don’t know your user names. I haven’t figured out how to access a list of people on the server, but I do see the entity names when there’s combat. I need your user names to properly disconnect you.”
Without hesitating, she went up to Tong and slugged him in the stomach.
“You get what you needed?” she asked me.
I checked my console.
ElginV36176 attacked TongY38100 with fists for 2 DP
After I nodded, she motioned at Warner to follow suit. Warner, being the team leader, was always serious and followed orders efficiently. He went up to Tong and slammed his fist into his stomach.
WarnerT25101 attacked TongY38100 with fists for 3 DP
Angrily, Tong yelled. “What the hell was that for, Warner!”
Warner glared at him for the insubordination, but then he apologized.
“You’re right, Tong,” said Warner. “You got hit already.”
Elgin rolled her eyes, and Warner punched Addie and Halstead.
WarnerT25101 attacked AdeyemiB12104 with fists for 2 DP
WarnerT25101 attacked HalsteadC45690 with fists for 5 DP
I had what I needed.
Elgin had everyone on the team lie down and close their eyes. When she saw a curious reaction on my face, she explained.
“It’s safer this way. If the person’s standing, during the disconnect the body might just fall and break its head. Closing your eyes makes the transition less jarring. You should do the same before you disconnect.”
Fireteam Alpha was on the ground. Halstead crossed himself in prayer. Warner’s jaw was tensing up. Addie and Tong seemed relaxed enough. And Elgin was as still as a rock.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said to me.
I punched in the c
ommand with a switch to enable a warning message.
User AdeyemiB12104 will be disconnected in 10 seconds
User AdeyemiB12104 will be disconnected in 9 seconds
User AdeyemiB12104 will be disconnected in 8 seconds
The words appeared not in the console that was floating in front of me, but in my vision. No matter where I looked the, message flashed in my eyes.
When the countdown went down to three, Addie hooted.
“See y’all back there!” he yelled.
And then, nothing.
I wasn’t sure if he disconnected, so I went up to him. Cautiously, I jabbed his leg with the toe of my shoe. He didn’t react.
User AdeyemiB12104 disconnected
Success.
Or, at least I hoped so. There wasn’t any way to know whether he’d survived the disconnection.
I repeated the process for everyone, going up the chain of command as Elgin had instructed. Next was Tong and Halstead, followed by Warner, and then Elgin herself.
Finally, it was my turn.
For whatever reason, I went to the garden to lie down. I thought maybe relaxing my body would help the disconnection. There was no basis for thinking this, just good old superstition. But even though I laid down on a patch of grass, even though there were pretty leafy branches above me and the skies were clear and blue…despite all that, my whole body was tensed up.
I didn’t know if I was going to make it back to the real world.
What if I die? What’s going to happen? What does nothingness feel like?
I panicked.
I can’t do this I can’t do this I can’t do this.
I laid there for what felt like forever, debating in my head whether or not to do it. The logical part of me said, What the hell are you gonna do if you stay here? You gotta get out there. Do what you can for Elgin. Win her trust and she’ll help you. But the fearful part of me kept going back to thoughts of that enveloping darkness, the emptiness of death.
I’ve never been out of the country. I’ve never been to Greece, or Italy, or Australia, or China. Hell, I’ve never even been out of the tri-state area. I’ve never had a threesome. I’ve never had kids. I won’t be able to say bye to my mom and dad. I’ve never gotten married, bought a house. I want all of that. I’m not ready to go yet.
That whole time, I was typing in the command one letter at a time.
All I needed to do was press the return key with my pinky.
Go find Nyla.
I closed my eyes.
Took a deep breath.
I pressed return.
TEN
Dirty Shedders
Darkness. Emptiness.
Pitch black.
Nothing.
That’s what I felt.
Then, I gasped.
My eyelids burst open, and I inhaled sharply. My heart was pounding faster than I’d ever felt it. I was afraid I was having a heart attack.
I was dizzy. Even though I was strapped into the STESIS sled, I felt like I was tilting and spinning. The sensation that I was falling just wouldn’t stop. One moment I’d feel like I’m falling to my right, and another moment I felt like I was falling forward, then backward, then forward and to the left.
I tried to steady myself by grabbing onto the slab I was lying down on, but it had no effect. Oh God when is this going to stop, please let it stop fast.
I don’t know how long it lasted at the time—probably less than a minute, based on what I’ve seen since then—but it felt like hours. If I had any food in my stomach, I thought, I’d be vomiting all over myself.
When I finally found a modest sense of stability—when the feeling of being in a whirlwind stopped—I tried to gather my thoughts, but it was really hard to. It was like my brain was in a fog…like I was walking through my mind in a daze. When I thought one thing, my brain would lead me to something completely unrelated. I went from thinking about Elgin to picturing pepperoni pizza to envisioning some stadium that I wasn’t even sure I’d ever seen. I could only imagine that maybe this was what it was like to be walking around with a concussion.
Slanted at an angle, I laid there in the sled, which had ejected out of the immersion unit. My right arm was hanging off to the side. It was the only one of my limbs that I didn’t strap in before I went into STESIS. Besides feeling like I didn’t know up from down, my hands and feet felt cold despite the fact that my heart was beating pretty fast.
I was back in Room 550.
I don’t know how long I was lying there in that dark room, trying to regain my senses. The rhythmic hum of the machine came and went in a steady wave, almost like a beating heart. There was also a growing heat radiating from the machine. Together, I was in a hypnotic daze.
I was just getting used to the sound and the warmth of the sled, but the next thing I knew, Elgin and her team were in the room.
“Give him the B-piss,” said Elgin, gesturing at me. “Stabilize him.”
Warner set down his backpack before opening it and rummaging inside it briefly. Kneeling, he retrieved a rectangular tan plastic bag that was the size of a brick. The stiff thick plastic crinkled loudly as he tore it open. He took a big green packet out of it, put another smaller green packet into it, then poured some water in it. Then he sealed it up by folding the top and shook it up. After a few moments, he felt the bag, testing the temperature. Then he took out the inner green bag and mushed it around with his fingers before he jabbed a wide straw into the top.
Reaching up, he pushed the straw into my mouth. I was a little apprehensive. What the hell was he giving me, I thought. He sensed my hesitation and tried to reassure me.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re gonna feel better after you drink it. Get it all down.”
Well, here goes.
With the straw in my mouth, I sucked in whatever was in the bag.
It wasn’t easy. Whatever in there was like a thick shake. When I finally got the first mouthful of what was in the bag, my face contorted in disgust.
Warner nodded. “Welcome to military cuisine. Just drink it, you need it.”
Slowly, I drained the bag of its thick, viscous liquid. The first thing I noticed about it was the taste. It was awful. The texture wasn’t exactly pleasant. It was like a milkshake, only with lots of lumps. And it tasted awful too.
“What is this?” I said in between sips. Between holding my breath to avoid the taste and how much force it took to suck the liquid out of the straw, just trying to drink it was making me get out of breath.
The team had gathered around me. It took me a second to recognize everyone. They all had masks covering their nose and mouth. Warner had the kind of thick rubber respirator mask that had valves on either side of it, and Halstead and Addie both had a ones that were made of thin foam. Tong’s was cloth, and he’d drawn a wide row of shark teeth across it using Wite-Out.
I could see Tong smile under his mask.
“B-piss,” he said. “B-P-I-S. Beverage Post-Immersion Supplement.”
He told me about what I was drinking, and I kept trying to down it. I never liked the BPIS. I’ve been drinking it for a while now. I knew it was needed to recharge the body after immersion. It’s supposed to have everything the body needs after immersion. Simple carbohydrates to give the body quick access to usable fuel; electrolytes and potassium to recover from muscle fatigue and prevent cramping; omega-3 acids to promote myelin sheath health; other nutrients like iron and protein; and who knows what else. It comes in two colors. Brown and white. If you were hoping for chocolate or vanilla, guess again. There’s only one flavor. Bad. No matter which one you get, it tastes like someone blended a bloody raw liver with chocolate milk and a protein bar made of sardines and seeds. I guess that’s what happens when you just hand a bunch of specs to a military contractor and just go with the lowest bid.
Say what you will about the BPIS, but I guess it worked. It didn’t take long for my feet and fingers to warm back up.
Tong unstrapped me and
got me out of the pod.
“You good to go?” he asked me, holding me steady just in case.
I took a moment to check out how I was feeling. No wobbliness? Check. I can feel my feet and fingers? Good.
I nodded at Tong. He and Warner half carried me out of the room. As we trudged downstairs to get out of the building, I had a moment to reflect.
Just last week, I was arguing with Ishrak about the optimal strategies for min-maxing in Mythic Ruin: REBOOT. I was going on raids with my online friends in Aelion Online and doing quests in Underworld Legends. I was complaining about how little money I made. I was thinking about how to squeeze out an extra cheeseburger’s worth of cash.
Now, I was in way over my head in some mysterious military operation, cut off from any of my friends. I had witnessed the gory death of soldiers having their flesh torn off of their bones. I had watched the violent execution of a sprawling horde of zombies. It was “just” a simulation in a machine. But was it really?
Then, I had an even more important realization. One that raised the hairs on the back of my neck and sent a tingle down my spine.
The doctor’s body wasn’t outside the door where I’d left him.
“Umm…hey guys?” I said as I kept walking with them downstairs. “I…I think there’s a problem.”
“What is it?” Elgin asked me.
“Well, you know there was a doctor who was here…”
Elgin stopped walking. Turning around to look at me, she was radiating anger. “What the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, I’d dragged his body right outside the room…”
Elgin and her team looked at each other.
Heavily, I asked, “You didn’t see a body when you were coming in, did you?”
The furrows of Elgin’s brow got deeper with every angry breath she took.
“Goddammit. Now we got a burner on the loose,” she said.
“I thought they were only in the simulation,” I said. “Didn’t you say the scenario was doing to be in six months?”
“That was six to eight months out,” she said, annoyed as hell. “How do you think this gets started?”
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