The dude who was leading the information rocked a righteous goatee and stood before us on a dais in a polo shirt and khakis. He talked initially about a lady named Haskell, a heroine of the resistance who’d helped create the first mechs in Baltimore, nicknaming the crude machines “Boomslangs,” after one of the world’s most poisonous snakes. He remarked about how Haskell had successfully used the mechs to take the fight to the aliens before she was either killed in action or just simply vanished. The cool stuff over, I zoned as the goateed guy prattled on for fifteen more minutes about Vidmark and The Hermitage and how it had once been used by the scuds, but was now part of a larger rebuilding effort overseen by the newly reconstituted federal government.
There was a question and answer session that followed, and I was the first to raise my hand and cut to the chase. I asked the guy point-blank what we had to do to become operators. He looked surprised that I’d even ask such a thing, but cleared his throat and finally conceded that the training would be done in stages.
Stage one involved computer-simulated modeling and testing, basically to see if we had the right kind of physical dexterity and mental agility to operate a mech. That was to begin that afternoon. Assuming we passed the testing, stage two involved being given the opportunity to control a training mech in a simulated combat situation. To those who passed this second stage of testing, stage three, the final stage, would involve actual (non-lethal) combat against the other operators in a real setting. I kid you not. The final test would be throwing down and defeating one of the other, already-existing mech teams in some form or fashion. If you did that, you were presumably in. I can’t tell you how excited I was when I left the information session. Terrified for sure, but excited.
I was surprised when Richter agreed to excuse me from work so that I could attend stage one, the computer-simulated testing. I think he thought I wouldn’t stand a chance which is why he agreed to let me go. Whatever. There are two kinds of people in the world: those that fold when they’re slighted, and everyone else that uses the slights as fuel. I was one of the latter, intent on showing Richter and everyone else just what I was capable of. Maybe they didn’t believe in me, but I believed (for the most part) in myself.
The testing was ultimately done in another part of the same building where the information session had been and involved sitting in a darkened room before a plasma screen or computer tablets. I saw Dexter as I entered the sim-room, but paranoid about my theft of the security past the night before, we played it cool, acting like we didn’t even know each other.
So, here’s the dealio with the first stage of testing. First, we were made to take a series of computer tests that fighter pilots had allegedly been given in the days before the invasion. Some of the tests were on computer tablets and involved moving a red circle inside of a blue box while trying to avoid portions of the square which broke off and began moving toward the circle. The idea was to avoid all of the walls and the blue portions and stay “alive” for at least eighteen seconds.
Other tests involving computerized first-person shooter simulations, where we were asked to spot targets and take them down. Still, other tests analyzed our eyesight or were of the more practical variety where we’d stand in the middle of the room while soft-padded objects were swung or shot at us through tubes filled with compressed air. Sometimes we were asked to avoid the objects, other times we were asked to catch them. The better we did, the faster the objects were hurled at us until everything was a blur and my head was throbbing. The whole time we were scored of course, sometimes by computers, and other times by human monitors with handheld counters.
Throughout all of the testing, my mind returned to the terrible things I’d endured back in prison. All of the back-breaking assessments, torture, and the hours sat catching ball-bearings while blindfolded. At that moment, I realized prison had given me a leg up over my competitors during stage one of the testing. Because I’d already undergone training with Stryker which was far more intense (and brutal) than anything anyone at The Hermitage could ever come up with. I’d never admit it to the bastard, but I had Stryker to thank for scoring higher than anybody else in the room in the initial stage of testing. One of the girls and one of the guys, the two lowest scorers, were kicked out of the tryouts after the stage one testing was over. That left four of us in all.
I was liking my odds and feeling very confident when I entered another room in the Darth Vader building which resembled a movie theater. It was broad with rows of comfy-looking seats that faced a wall that was composed entirely of some kind of translucent material that was curved at such an angle that it resembled a giant contact lens.
Hanging from the ceiling before the screen was a large mech simulation device on a dais, a metal mock-up of one of the fighting machines positioned partially on struts and pneumatic lifts. The thing looked like a steel puppet, a cage in the form of a human that was suspended from thick cables. It was here that a tall man with a long shovel-like face in his thirties appeared. He tapped a diamond stud earring on his right ear and manufactured a smile.
“My name is Jennings, and I’ll be overseeing the testing in stages two and three of the protocol,” the man said. “Welcome to ‘TAR,’ Tactical Augmented Reality.”
Jennings gestured at several objects that were visible near the mech mock-up. What looked like a full body suit of some kind, helmet, and gloves. I’d seen similar things while working for Buddha Blades. The kind of equipment that had been used to play virtual reality games back in the days before the invasion.
“Each one of you will, at the appointed time, enter the training module and wear the haptic exosuits that are visible before you,” Jennings said, powering up a wireless mic to amplify his voice.
“And then?” somebody asked.
Jennings looked up. “And then you’ll be strapped inside the mock Boomslang and undergo a series of audio-visual simulations to determine reaction time and target efficiency.”
I raised a hand to ask a question about what this meant, and Jennings iced me with a nasty look, so I kept my trap shut. I could tell the other competitors were eying me peripherally, which is why I stared at the ground and kept quiet.
We were separated from each other during the testing, made to lie in horizontal nap pods in another area of the building so that we were unable to hear or see what the others were going through before it was our turn. I literally couldn’t hear or see a thing that the others were up to as I lay there for what seemed like hours. We had the option of watching movies or TV shows in the nap pod, and I’d always found that cartoons were calming, so I geeked out to a bunch of Voltron cartoons first and then Scooby Doo, the really good old ones, not the shitty episodes with Film-Flam (worst name for a cartoon character ever) and Scrappy (a/k/a “Crappy”) Doo. Time stretched out and as I watched Scooby and the gang battle “The Creeper” and “The Space Kook,” I wondered what the training would be like and how the others were doing.
A knock on the pod told me it was my turn and as I marched out, I caught a look from the only female amongst the competitors, a young black woman who looked a little unsteady on her feet. “It’s all yours,” she said, a thousand-yard stare in her eyes. “You’re the last one to go.”
I moved past her toward Jennings and the mocked-up mech on the dais. The other items near the mech came into view, including the haptic exosuit, gloves, and helmet.
Jennings directed me to shrug on the exosuit which weighed around ten pounds and was studded on the inside with little carbon-fiber nubs that would press up against my flesh. Jennings told me that the nubs on the suit were vibrating mini electric motors called tactile actuators, or “tactors.”
The tactors were placed strategically, including in a configuration signifying the eight cardinal directions. Jennings said they vibrated at 400 hertz and were synched to a directional machine and hyper-compass, along with an accelerometer that assisted with commands. The tactors would allow me to fully experience whatever simulation was to com
e, to be “fully immersed in the faux” as Jennings put it. He smiled while relating that I’d be able to hear every scream, feel the contours of every foot of ground gained, and absorb incoming fire from any enemies I encountered. “You can’t get killed though,” Jennings sighed. “They've rigged it up so that you won’t bleed.” Imagine my relief.
The exosuit was connected by a series of ligament-like strands of yellow alloy to a pair of haptic gloves which were also covered with tactor pads. The gloves, along with a thumbstick located near both arms, would allow me to control some of the mocked-up mech’s movements. I’d be able to move the machine’s arms in any direction and trigger its weapons systems with a flick of the wrist or a toggle of the thumbstick.
Lastly, there was a wraparound visor with tinted glass, a mini-battle helmet that Jennings said contained an omnidirectional review system to help me experience the simulated world. The helmet was fitted with hundreds of tiny projectors that provided a 360-degree video feed of all surrounding areas, along with speakers and actuators that would simulate sights, sounds, and yes, even the smells of the faux world(s) I was about to enter.
Clad in the exosuit and other gear, I trudged toward the mocked-up mech. Jennings flanked me, helping me into the metal contraption, strapping my feet in place over a multidirectional treadmill that was rounded like a huge exercise ball.
Next, I stood up in the mech’s metal cage which was made of thick wire mesh that covered the area from my neck to my abdomen. My arms and legs were largely free, covered in a pliable fabric overlayed with thin metal grids that resembled chain mail armor. Jennings closed the cage and then manipulated my head, locking the visor and helmet into one of the metal arms that was secured to a large, circular track on the room’s ceiling.
Jennings said I’d be able to maneuver in various directions, but the track and the metal arms would keep me (and the mech) from falling off of the dais. The whole thing was incredibly awkward at first, but I was so juiced to find out what would happen next, that I was able to ignore the discomfort.
“You ever operated one of these things before?” Jennings asked.
“You think I’d need your help with this stuff if I had?” I replied.
Jennings glared at me. “Don’t be a dick or I’ll dock you points.”
“Points?”
Jennings nodded. “Everything is scored. Remember those shoot ‘em up video games you probably played as a kid? It’s like that … only a million times cooler. You get three lives. The high score right now is four hundred forty-thousand points. If you die three times before reaching that score, you’re out of quarters, and the game is over.”
I nodded, and he pointed to the two flexible thumbsticks which hung from the cage around my torso, dangling down near my outstretched arms. “Everything is controlled visually with your visor or with the thumbstick. You copy that?” Jennings asked.
I nodded. “Can I just have another minute of your time and then you can go back to being crazy.”
“You’re trying my patience, kid,” Jennings said.
“Once the training starts, how will I know what to do?”
Jennings held my look. “Seriously, Deus? That’s the whole point. You don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s part of what you’re getting graded and scored on.” He locked the cage in place and smirked. “Like I said, if you’ve played a video game, you know how the immersive theatre works. Welcome to the thunder dome.”
Jennings took three steps before—
The lights suddenly went out.
I couldn’t see a damned thing, but I felt something, a disturbance in the air. It was as if the entire room was a machine that was just beginning to start up. The screen in front of me flashed to life, forcing my eyes to slits. Sounds boomed all around, and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention and then—
WONK!
There was a blast of green light, and the following text appeared in the center of my visor:
Deus, Daniel
Hermitage No.: 002170176
Login Completed
Full-Sim Activated
3CL
My eyes ran down the information, and I realized that The Hermitage Number was the very same sequence of numbers I’d earlier seen tattooed on the back of my neck. Before I could process the significance of this, the information vanished from the visor and objects materialized out of the nothingness, virtual, three-dimensional surroundings.
I was standing in the middle of a firebombed city that looked amazingly (but not entirely) real. My point of view was facing a cratered road that bisected stands of partially destroyed skyscrapers. The blacktop in front of me was littered with wrecked cars and machines, and the air was heavy with the funk of smoke and gasoline and … death. I couldn’t believe that I could actually smell things in the simulated world and the odors brought back bad memories of those horrible initial weeks after the aliens invaded.
I looked down to see that I was seated inside the turret of a simulated mech that stood roughly fifteen feet off the ground. The strangest thing was that even though I was seated in the simulated mech, I could still feel myself standing on the treadmill back in the room. I spun in every direction, and the mech turned with me.
I lifted my arms, and the mechs’s arms similarly rose. There were two cannons bolted onto each arm which I could control via my thumbstick with a flick of a finger and a targeting reticle that appeared on the cockpit glass. I took a step, and the mech did too. Another step followed and then—
WHAM!
My mech feet got tangled up, and I collapsed in a heap.
I fumbled around, placing my hands on the ground, trying to figure out how to right the machine. It was much more difficult than I’d imagined it would be.
I envisioned Jennings and the other operators laughing their asses off at my misfortune, so I doubled down. By some stroke of luck, I planted a metal fist on the ground and levered myself up. I stood still and closed my eyes, trying to get a feel for the mech. I kept my eyes shut, but started moving forward again. It was a trick my old man had taught me back when I was just learning how to hit a fastball. Keep your eyes closed and listen to the hiss of the ball. It was a surprisingly effective way to accomplish a task. I listened and sensed where to move and when I opened my eyes again, I was edging rapidly forward, striding across the treadmill, the mech matching my steps, lumbering across the shattered street.
Strange lights blitzed across the faux-sky, illuminating the cityscape. I loped across the street and crouched behind the spine of a shattered high-rise as alarms and sirens sounded in the distance.
My visor began to buzz, and a map of what looked like several city blocks appeared on the head-up display. There was a single red dot, which I assumed was me, surrounded by dozens, maybe hundreds of glowing orange objects which I assumed were the bad guys. Holy crap, I was seriously outnumbered! Rising up, I turned, and that’s when I saw them.
Down the block and across the street.
More mechs than I could count on both hands.
Silhouetted under the eerie light overhead.
Staring at me.
Some of the mechs were towering, while others stood no taller than an average man. A few sported rocket pods and cannons, while others carried what looked like hammers or axes. All of them looked like they meant business.
I paused, and then I raised the metal middle fingers on both of my metal hands. Oh, it was on, baby. It was on like Donkey Kong.
There was a moment of silence, and the mechs didn’t react at all. And then I threw caution to the wind and centered my targeting reticle over the mechs. Then I raised my cannons and let loose with everything I had.
18
Time and sound seemed to slow.
So rapidly had I fired the glowing, tracer-like rounds from my cannons that they seemed to form one continuous shaft of light. I watched the light bend and then everything sped back up to real time.
BOOM!
I hit the first en
emy mech, and it went up in flames like a Roman candle. Numbers began spinning on my head-up display.
Points.
I’d been given five-thousand points for taking down the mech!
This was going to be easier than I thought.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Rockets and missiles suddenly rained down all around me.
I crabbed laterally, slipping on the treadmill, watching the incoming fire spiral through the air. Warning lights flashed on my visor, and I could feel the impact from the detonations and resulting shrapnel through the tactors on the exosuit. It felt like I was being whacked with golf balls.
A green hourglass appeared on the head-up display, and I surmised this represented the strength of whatever shields were protecting my mech. My body was jolted by more blasts, the mech struck by incoming fire. More sand continued to drain from the hourglass, the impact of the rounds strong enough to steal my breath. I clambered sideways, raising my metal fists—
CRACK-BOOM!
Another explosion lifted my mech off the ground. I saw the ground underneath me as I flew forward, smashing through a brick wall.
The warning lights were flashing more rapidly.
More sand was draining away.
My mech’s life force was ebbing.
I was losing my faux life!
I sat there for several seconds as hellfire continued to rain down all around me. More rockets fell, mushrooming debris up into the air.
Columns of smoke obscured everything. I rose and clawed my way across piles of debris, disoriented, trying to simultaneously scan the map while studying the head-up display to see where my attackers were.
I kicked over a wrecked car and took cover in a crater between piles of refuse and noticed that the enemy mechs had surrounded me in every direction. They were advancing slowly, moving in for the kill. At the very moment that I began to think the end was near, I noted two things. First, there was something hidden under the wrecked car that I’d just kicked over. A circular object, what looked like a grenade. I touched the grenade, and it stuck to my hand, and an image of it flashed on my head-up display. Jennings had been right. The faux world was indeed like an old school vid game. I could collect weapons and other goodies, just by grabbing them. Second, I noticed something else on the head-up display, a tiny bullet that I assumed signified the amount of ammunition I had left to use. I didn’t see any number next to the bullet, so I figured I had a limitless supply of ammo to use on the bad guys. Sweetness.
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