Waypoint: A Game of Drones

by C. F. WALLER

DARIUS: I am not trying to achieve a Cultural victory

  ME: Is that supposed to be reassuring?

  DARIUS: Perhaps you would prefer a declaration of war?

  I don’t reply, but the urge to say yes is very strong. What if I declare war then run up to my room and log in. Can I build some planes and bomb him? Before I make that horrible mistake, he sends another text.

  DARIUS: I offer 200 gold coins in exchange for peace

  ME: I didn’t realize we were at war?

  DARIUS: Your pause indicated you were considering it

  ME: No war

  DARIUS: Yet

  I am enjoying a deep breath, war avoided, then think of another question.

  ME: If you want money why don’t you stop giving it away?

  DARIUS: You have to spend money to make money

  This is a bizarre statement from a video game and it leaves me momentarily speechless. Where did he come across that phrase? I read back through the previous replies before replying.

  ME: What does that mean?

  DARIUS: For me to know and you to find out

  ME: Is this strategy an attempt at a Cultural victory?

  DARIUS: Wouldn’t you like to know

  “You’re becoming more eloquent,” I grumble aloud, shutting the phone. “And more annoying.”

  I pay the bill and then pass Hal in the Lobby. The line of rabid ATM lottery players reaches out the front doors. He’s still on the phone, so I nod and point up, indicating my decision to go back to the room. I ride alone in the elevator. Not Cultural, then what? I can’t recall the various scenarios off the top of my head. It would seem that knowing his end game would help.

  In the room, the laptop is still running the game. I plugged it in before I left, but didn’t shut it off. There is no telling what shutting it off might trigger. I search for a list of winning plays, but don’t see one. I text Kara, then use the hotel pen to scribble on a provided note pad.

  Domination: Capture all players’ Capitol cities, crown self-Overlord

  Cultural: Be elected Overlord by your happy subjects

  Financial: Acquire 90% of the worlds gold, then purchase title of Overlord

  Technological: Colonize Alpha Centauri, declare your Overlord status on a new planet

  “This game is obsessed with being Overlord of something.”

  I cross off Cultural and then draw a line through Financial. If Darius was trying to win by gold he’d stop blowing it out of the ATMS. I pause, the pen hovering over Domination, but find it unlikely he could physically take a capitol. I cross it out, leaving only Technological. This seems like a dead-end as well; then I think back to Cape Canaveral. Why was he circling the rocket? Was he trying to stop it or get on board. Did he think he could download himself into the navigation system?

  I want to ask Kara, but should probably wait until she gets here. Curious about her current situation, I text her. She indicates enthusiastically that Hal’s men have just arrived. I call Hal to bounce my conversation with Darius off him, but it goes to voice mail. He’s clearly still talking to whoever called him earlier. He is on the phone more than a thirteen-year-old girl chatting about boys.

  Unwilling to wait for him to call back, I open the browser on the laptop and do a google search for Space-X, then Mars. Various news links pop up, all seeming to indicate the launch was scrubbed. I try one posted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

  “The Space-X mission was scrubbed due to an engine malfunction,” I read aloud. “An abort shutdown was attempted after the launch was past the point of no return. As a result, the engines were overheated and will have to be replaced. The mission payload has been removed from the launch vehicle until a new one can be built.”

  So, either he miscalculated badly or getting a ride to Mars wasn’t his plan after all. What are the odds he miscalculated?

  “Not bloody likely.”

  I draw a line through Technological victory and stare at my list. I revisit each one in my mind and try to see what I am missing. Are there other ways to achieve a victory? This endeavor proves fruitless. Around dinner time, Hal calls me back. He reports that the ATM attacks were isolated to this hotel and a few surrounding restaurants. I feel so special. Out of morbid curiosity, I walk down the street and pick up some beer and a pizza. There aren’t any riots, but two cops stand watch over an ATM at the back of a gas station one street over. Clearly, they are proactively attempting to forestall any outbreaks.

  I stay in, preferring to fiddle with the laptop. I use the build menu to acquire some things and then buy them to avoid waiting on production. The best boat available on the pull-down menu is a Frigate, which turns out to be a wooden ship with blue sails. A Three Musketeers looking guy with a big hat and pencil thin moustache appears to one side of the menu box. He verbally asks me how many Frigates I would like to order. When I don’t reply quickly enough, he presses me. It’s like getting bum rushed by a car salesman. I request three, then he forces me to go down a list and choose from a half dozen options. He’s a pushy little dude.

  I order some planes, which turn out to be Red Baron type bi-planes. A gal appears to deal with my request. She looks like Amelia Earhart, complete with bloomer pants and a leather helmet. Unlike the Musketeer, she’s very polite. I decide to get a dozen, upgrading to a fancy paint job with vicious looking tiger claws down the sides. Look out Darius.

  I get a text from Darius after ordering a hundred Revolutionary war muskets from a guy who looks like Napoleon. He grills me about my military buildup, but I have the feeling that he’s just trying to lure me into an altercation. I tell him to mind his own business, which seems to shut him up. Can video game muskets attack real people? While this is entertaining, I’m afraid to mess with it too much. It’s unclear how real life might be affected. I drink ten beers out of the 12-pack, then pass out well after midnight.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The morning brings Kara. She pounds on my door at six, rousing me from fitful sleep. Or is possibly more accuracy labeled as a drunken coma. I burp, slash vomit, when I stand, then slink into the bathroom. Apparently worried that I may have been kidnapped, she browbeats one of the maids into opening my door. Bursting in like a hurricane, she finds me using the toilet seat as a chair while I brush my teeth. An underwhelming reunion at best. She’s talking a mile a minute, so I kick the bathroom door shut and take a shower.

  A half hour later, I stagger out covered in a fluffy white towel to find her pecking away on Weiss’ laptop. She’s wearing a short plaid skirt with red and white stripped knee socks. One giant purple ponytail juts out of the back of her baseball hat, which has a ghostly character from a Tim Burton movie on it. What on earth will Hal think of her in this get up?

  “Good morning,” she chirps without looking up.

  “Truly good mornings start no earlier than eight, the great ones after nine.”

  “Looks like someone wants to be Overlord,” she snickers. “Been building an army I see.”

  “For the record, I’d make a fantastic Overlord.”

  “Let’s not find out.”

  “Coffee, I need coffee,” I whine, flipping open my rolling suitcase and search for something clean.

  “Thanks, I already had one,” she replies to my rhetorical question. “Why are you building bi-planes?”

  I’m tempted to comment, but it’s too much work. Clean clothes seem to have gone extinct in my limited list of clothing options. I pull on the jeans, worn the last three days. The only upside to these is that they fit me comfortably, after being stretch out. The button actually meets the hole. I sniff a crew neck t-shirt that’s been going for at least two days. Any other day and I might toss it in the hamper, but without an alternative, I pull it over my head.

  “You built the wrong boats,” she rambles on. “Darius will just sink them.”

  My hands tingle and I feel light headed when I lean over to pull on my shoes. Am I worn out or hung over? Struggling to my feet, I conclude it’s a rhe
torical question.

  “Which came first, the chicken or the egg,” I groan.

  I start to slip on the blazer, but realize I forgot my bra. Undeterred, I flip it on over my head, then pull it together in the front.

  “Where are you going?” she demands, peeking up from her workstation.

  “Lobby, coffee,” I wheeze, getting to the door, then running a hand through my matted hair.

  “Sit,” she barks, jumping up and taking me by the shoulders. “You should conserve your life force.”

  “It did feel like I was running low on that,” I joke, sitting on the end of the bed, unable to muster the energy to fight her off.

  Kara eyes me with disapproval, then calls room service. Within fifteen minutes a young man in a blue bellhop uniform delivers a pot of coffee, a newspaper and a bagel tray. He watches Kara sign the bill, either confused or attracted, I can’t tell which. Once he’s gone she waves a hand over the booty like a game show model.

  “I could have done that,” I remark dismissively, but receive a judgmental eye roll in return.

  I suck down some coffee and chew one side off a bagel. My stomach boils with acid and the bread calms it. All the while, Kara pecks away, checking every so often to gauge my condition. The newspaper headline is ATM BUG HITS. The picture is of a line of rioters trying to overturn the very ATM I saw at the gas station the night before. It does not however, appear that the BUG was wide spread.

  “This is odd,” Kara scowls at the laptop.

  “What’s odd?”

  “It’s alive,” she mocks me, raising both arms to the ceiling in an over the top imitation of Victor Frankenstein.

  “Hush,” I bark, but my head pounds from the volume. “Just tell me what’s odd.”

  “Come look.”

  I drag a chair around and plop down beside her. On the screen is the map, but superimposed over this is a yellow box with statistics. I study it, realizing that it’s an inventory of the Persian Empire. All military units are listed out in detail. How is it that he has tanks? Population estimates and production times click on counters. Is this some sort of backdoor spy thing or can anyone look at another player’s stuff?

  “How’d you get access to that?”

  “I snuck a spy into his capitol while you were resurrecting yourself in the shower.”

  “You used the spy cheat?”

  “No, that won’t work for this. Everything’s not a cheat you know.”

  “Down girl,” I sigh, sipping my coffee. “Keep going.”

  “I trained a spy, then snuck her over on one of your crappy wooden boats. She slipped into Babylon at night, under the cover of darkness. At dawn she sent back this information.”

  “How’d you slip her in at night? You only just got here?”

  “The game doesn’t run on the same time as the real world. It’s turn based. In the last hour, I have played a week in the game.”

  She keeps talking, but the subject of ten turns of peace pops into my brain. If time runs faster in the game, then twenty years on the game is different than real life. I make a note to mention this to Kara later when she’s not completely plugged into gameplay. She’s still talking a mile a minute.

  “Alright,” I interrupt, “so the spy reports back?”

  “Duh.”

  “I hope she didn’t have to do anything tawdry.”

  “If she did, that’s on her,” Kara snorts. “I’m not her mother.”

  “Understood.”

  “His inventory lists seven Persian cities, but only six show on the map.”

  “Is it a glitch?” I suggest. “Maybe he conquered one of China’s.”

  “I don’t think so, but I unlocked the Mass Media technology, then built a satellite,” she thrums her fingers on the table top. “We can see everything now, but there is no seventh city.”

  “Hey, why does Canada have blue units?” I tap a finger on the screen, recalling that Weiss’ country was red previously.

  “I used my laptop to log in as Weiss and surrender.”

  “To us?” I wrinkle my nose. “Canada surrendered to the United States?”

  “We needed another city and I didn’t feel like sending settlers out in a wagon to start one from scratch.”

  “My first dictate as Overlord of Canada will be to ban hockey,” I announce in a theatrical voice.

  “You’re not Overlord yet.”

  “Right,” I frown, getting up to refill my coffee. “So why are we missing a city?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re in charge of gameplay so figure it out,” I order, dialing Hal. “Let’s see what my Overlord wants.”

  “Ask him if I can talk to Weiss,” Kara asks, pausing from her key mashing to make eye contact.

  “Why?” I mutter, the phone already ringing.

  “If I am supposed to figure this out, then he’s the guy to talk to.”

  Hal answers the call, but I lower the phone.

  “He wouldn’t give us anything. Why is it you think he will talk to you?”

  “We have some history,” she discloses. “He might want to impress me.”

  I raise the phone and catch Hal before he hangs up.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna bring Kara down to talk to Weiss,” I tell him, rather than ask.

  He balks initially, but then comes around to my way of thinking. I’m not convinced it will make any difference, but Kara has earned the chance. To me, Weiss appeared determined to use his right to remain silent to its full potential. In the end, there isn’t much downside. Either he talks to her or he doesn’t.

  “Let’s go,” I grunt, closing the phone.

  “He said yes?”

  “His list of options is getting smaller all the time.”

  …

  I make Kara leave the laptop in our room. She tosses her tiny purse with the stuffed unicorn over one shoulder, then marches down the hall. We arrive at room 236 and find Agent Katz is nowhere to be seen. Another black suit, I think his name is Noble, uses his slide card and opens the door for us. As it shuts behind us, I witness Weiss eating lunch at the table while Hal talks on his cell.

  “What a nice surprise,” Weiss smiles, setting his sandwich down. “Lady Grey has made an appearance.”

  Kara sits opposite him. When he slides his seat back a hair, I can see one ankle handcuffed to the frame of the chair. Would that actually keep him from running away? The longer I look, the more I lean in favor of yes. Carrying the chair while hopping on one leg would be difficult, as Weiss is not a young man. Who am I kidding, I doubt I could do it for long. Hal taps his finger on his phone, then steps out of the room.

  “You’ve made quite a mess of things?” Kara begins.

  “You don’t like the game?”

  “It’s become less a game, and more a reality show.”

  “True,” be bobs his head, then takes another bite of his sandwich. “Possibly you cannot defeat this one so easily.”

  “My past record against you speaks for itself.”

  “Ah, yes, but this time is different.”

  “How so?”

  “You can’t out think your opponent this time. How much did they tell you?”

  “Plenty,” she boasts, but peeks back at me for a sign. I nod and smile, but am not sure everything has been revealed to me. If she feels like she’s in the dark, then welcome to the club.

  “Quantum computer,” Weiss goes on between bites. “Who knew such a thing was even possible?”

  “60 Minutes,” Kara shrugs. “The Discovery Channel.”

  “In theory,” he argues, removing his napkin from his lap and wiping his chin. “All speculation. My good friend Peter Bishop and I, spent many dinners arguing the feasibility of such a thing. Then, one day, he invites me down to see it.”

  “You didn’t know he was building it?” I butt in from across the room, where I lean on the wall.

  “No. He was picking my brain all those years. My company was slipping away and he used me as a free so
unding board. He could have solved my problem anytime he wanted.”

  “It was sort of top secret,” I argue.

  “A minor detail between great minds.”

  “I’ll still beat it,” Kara grunts, crossing her arms.

  “You have my laptop?”

  She nods.

  “That’s one in your favor,” he thinks aloud, one hand rubbing his chin.

  “Why don’t you two kids team up and blitz this little glitch together?” I suggest in my most rah, rah, cheerleader tone.

  Kara makes eye contact with Weiss, who shakes his head slowly.

  “What happened to the Halo?” she demands, arms crossed looking annoyed.

  “Oh, you have been poking around my computer.”

  “Did you delete it when you killed the message boards?”

  “I had a feeling that was your dirty little secret,” he remarks, taking a deep breath and stretching his arms over his head. “No, and I didn’t remove the message boards.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I’ll give you one guess.”

  “Darius,” I toss out, seeing no other possibilities.

  “What about the Halo?” Kara badgers him.

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Then where is it? I played the demo and it was there.”

  “I told you. You can’t out think this one, or out cheat it in your case.”

  “I only used it after your company changed the rules,” she argues.

  “What’s a Halo?” I inquire

  Kara doesn’t answer, but Weiss watches her, then turns to me.

  “I placed a backdoor in the original version of Dynasty Builder. Every version since was derivative of the previous one. The backdoor became a unicorn players looked for. Lady Grey used it to her advantage back in 2003.”

  “That’s not the only reason I won,” Kara argues.

  “Why take it out now?” I ask.

  “I didn’t or couldn’t. It’s so deeply imbedded in the code no one could find it, let alone delete it.”

  “But it’s gone now?” I confirm, looking at Kara.

  She nods, crossing her arms as she scowls at Weiss.

  “Then you see,” he smirks. “He’s one step ahead of you. You won’t be able to cheat this time.”