Team Deathmatch: Killstreak

by Isaac Stone

  The greeters and aids had helped the final game players to the auditorium where they first gathered for the introduction of the tournament. No one was in a cheerful or competitive mood right now. Some of the gamers were lying on the folding chairs, some were seated. Kurt could tell none of them was in good shape. He watched the few doctors present walk from one gamer to the next as they took notes on a computer tablet and spoke into microphones mounted into the top of their lab coats.

  “It’s been like this since yesterday,” the young girl told Kurt. She helped move him into the auditorium. “The last wave that disconnected from the game was in bad shape, but yours is far worse. We’ve managed to fly in a few doctors to help us, but I think many of these people will need to go into a hospital. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “No one has seen anything like this,” Kurt remarked to her. The numbness in his side still bothered him, but he wasn’t in quite as bad shape as most of these people.

  “This whole tournament was supposed to be broadcast live,” Kurt, mentioned to her as she found a place for him to sit down. “What’s the reaction like in the outside world?”

  “Muted, until today,” she let him know. “I think the sports center was able to cover the action yesterday since there were still enough game players in the field. Today, the networks are going crazy with complaints. They cut the feeds right before you came back and the fans are going nuts. People paid a lot to see those hellspawn things mowed down and didn’t like it when Ares went dark and shut down the tournament. There have been some big protests. Refund lawsuits. Gambling concerns.”

  I don’t think they’ll like it too much when they find out what we were really shooting; Kurt started to say, but kept it to himself. He wanted to make sure he got his money before he said anything. There was also the matter of where he was situated at the moment. It would be very easy for Rashid to have him eliminated while still on site.

  The young woman, whom Kurt found out was named Marcia, came back with something for him to eat. Food wasn’t a problem; the location of it was the issue. Plus, some of the gamers who returned with Kurt had trouble with solid food.

  “They’re passing these out,” Marcia told him when he returned the next time. She handed him a form with his name on it. Kurt read it over.

  It was an authorization for a large sum of money to be deposited into his account. Kurt read it over with care, not wanting to sign something he’d regret later, but it was all legitimate, from what he could see. He signed it and returned it to Marcia.

  “I’ll take it to the front,” she told him. “They’re collecting these things.” She walked away.

  Kurt was about to ask her who was collecting them when he saw the uniformed security guards approach. The men came directly to Kurt, so there was no way to mistake that they’d come to see. People did their best to get out of their way as they approached Kurt.

  “Give me a minute,” Kurt told the guard, “I’m not feeling myself today.”

  “Not many are,” one guard commented as he looked at the convalescing gamers in the auditorium. “Take your time; he can wait as long as you need.”

  Kurt managed to pull himself out of the chair, the numbness in much of his body still present. The guards helped him get to his feet.

  “You need any help walking?” the other asked Kurt.

  “No,” Kurt responded. “I can manage, just don’t walk too fast.”

  “Okay, follow me.” The guards walked slowly out of the auditorium. They stopped every now and then to make sure Kurt was still behind them.

  They walked down another hallway that Kurt hadn’t seen when he first came to the corporate location. He was sure there were many places unknown to him here, but they didn’t concern him. All he wanted to do was get out of this place and have his money delivered to his bank account. He wanted to know the real story behind the tournament too, but coming out alive was a higher priority.

  The guards came to a small room off to one side that didn’t have a title on the door. They opened it and helped Kurt inside. The room was the typical corporate conference room with a long table surrounded by fashionable chairs. No windows looked to the outside, but there was a VR projector in the middle of the table. These were common for presentations.

  The security guards seated Kurt in the middle of the table and helped him push his chair under it. “So where is he?” Kurt asked. “When is he supposed to arrive?”

  “Give him a few seconds,” one guard said as he walked over to the VR projector and turned it on. They both waved good-bye to Kurt, and then left the room. The other shut the door behind him as he left the conference room.

  There was a familiar shimmer in front of Kurt as the VR machine brought up the image of the person who wanted to see him. This was a normal occurrence in corporate or government business and Kurt leaned back to watch the image form.

  It coalesced into the image of Rashid. He was still in his expensive suit.

  “Hello, Kurt,” Rashid said to him. “We need to have a conversation.

  Chapter 21

  “As you can see,” Kurt spoke to the image of Rashid, “I’m not in any condition to go anywhere.”

  “And I’m very far from you,” Rashid spoke. “Almost on the other side of the planet, wish I could be there in person, but it’s not possible. I suppose you want to know what this tournament was really about.”

  “A lot of people want to know. Many people will demand to know. Very soon.”

  “As I expect. However, I have decided to deliver my testimony to you. Your connection with Bob. Your slick maneuvers almost ruined everything. You managed to run off with a drone, which I never anticipated. Had I not decided to pull the plug when I did, you might have figured it all out and told the world before I wanted it to know. Then I’d never had the chance to do what I’ve planned all these years. Might as well be you that bears witness.”

  “I suppose I should ask what that was,” Kurt spoke up. The image of Rashid shifted a bit, which indicated a satellite transmission issue.

  “Let me tell you a little story, Kurt,” Rashid began. “We’ve got the time and I think you’ll understand things a bit when I’m done. You gamers do like a good story. Or at least one that has a line you can follow.” He smiled for the first time.

  “I’m listening.”

  “There was a small town, hardly bigger than a village really on the banks of a major river in Mesopotamia,” Rashid began. “In that town was a small district of people who followed an ancient faith that wasn’t like the rest of the town. Most of the people in that place thought they were a little strange, but no one messed with them very much. Didn’t they too believe in one God and worship from the same book as the prophet?"

  “But one day, war came to this town. The entire countryside was engulfed in it. Armies fought each other in the burning sands. This little town was caught in the midst of it. Most people thought the war would leave them alone, but that’s not the way it happened."

  “One day a group of men arrived and let everyone know they were in charge from now on. They told the people in the town to go about their business and not worry. The new men had guns, lots of them. They told the people in this town that they would protect them from the war. All the people had to do was tell them where the vile traitors and heretics could be located."

  “And do you know what the people in that town did?” Rashid asked him. “They turned everyone over to the men with guns who didn’t worship the same way they did. It didn’t matter if it was a different book you used or if you prayed in a different direction. Besides, some of those people dressed strange and talked funny.”

  Kurt watched as Rashid’s mouth twitched. “The Sons of the Prophet killed every member of my family!” he snarled. “Those cockroaches sold my neighbor’s children off as sex slaves! In addition, the townsfolk led them there. Oh, they thought turning over their neighbors would save them and no one liked my people much anyway. Not as single one of them did anyt
hing to help, thinking it would save their skin later. I had to watch my own parents killed!”

  “But I hid. They never found me. I managed to escape. I remembered what they did and I planned for years how I would make them pay. The town was rebuilt, but my people were no longer there to cause anyone problems. They forgot about us. I, however never forgot about them.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Kurt asked Rashid’s image, the knot in his stomach pulling tighter as Jesse's warnings flooded back into his mind.

  “The town full of Nazi Zombies you cleaned out was the town that allowed my people to be killed, both invader and resident. I vowed the day I escaped that every last person in that town would pay for what they did. The men with guns and the townspeople alike. It’s not a meaningful place in the grand scheme of things, so most people forgot about it. But I didn’t."

  “All those hellspawn things, all the faceless creatures, every nightmare demon was an image I had Ares create to wrap around the real people in that town so you wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation killing them. But the last one, the leader of the Sons, and a former native to our little town, I saved him for myself. I wanted to make sure I got him personally. The bastard was the man that led those men with guns to my own family.”

  “But the voices, names on buildings…” Kurt started to say.

  “I had Ares scramble them. I still don’t know why that Bob creature could talk to you. I think he confused Ares because he was from another town. His dialect was different enough to baffle the AI language centers, very remote and very rural, only a few hundred people in the world who speak that way. Far fewer now. No matter, he had to go with the others, anyone who called that place home is dead. I wanted my revenge to be complete.”

  “But you’ve implicated all of us in it!” Kurt forced himself up out of the chair. “That blood is on our hands! Most of these gamers are fucking kids!”

  “I have collected in full.”

  “You monster!” Kurt yelled at the screen. “You’ve turned us all into war criminals!”

  “But isn’t that what you always wanted?” the image asked. “To kill without remorse?”

  Kurt had a sudden thought. “Those weird dwarfs,” he said. “They were all children!”

  “I vowed the entire town would die and I meant everyone! Now I can let this end. I am the faithful man of god, not them, and now they have reaped what they had sown. You fought well gamer, be proud of that at least.”

  Kurt screamed and brought his fists down hard on the VR projector it sparked and the image vanished. He sunk down to the table with his head in his hands. He’d heard too much.

  “Attention!” the loud speaker blared through the corridor next to him. “Attention! This is the Department of Homeland Security! We are taking control of this facility in accordance with the New Progressive Patriot Act!” The speaker blared out a ton of legal statements, which made no sense to Kurt. Right now, he didn’t care. Rashid had just told him he was the instrument in a crime of extraordinary portions. He wouldn’t be surprised if a Nurnberg Tribunal-type committee put them all on trial for war crimes. The prosecutors wouldn’t care they were all deceived into committing mass murder. All they would care about was the results.

  Kurt continued to sit in the chair next to the conference table. At the moment, he didn’t feel a thing. Nothing he could do would make a difference anyway. He starred at the table in front of him and wondered what would happen to the other game players. How could they possibly know that all of them were sent into a Middle Eastern country to exterminate the population of an entire town? That they'd participated in wiping out the central command structure of one of the world's most deadly extremist organizations? If what Rashid said was true, Skull Legion and the others had just accomplished what no government or military power had been able to in all sixty years of the 'war on terror'. All of this done by a crew of the world's best gamers controlling state of the art combat robots. It was too much.

  He tried to forget about what he saw in that corner of the office. What made him physically ill was the knowledge that it was only a small part of the massacre carried out in the town by the gamers.

  About fifteen minutes after the speakers boomed through the corridors, the door to the conference room exploded open. Kurt looked up to see three men with body armor and helmets. By then, he’d placed his hands on the table in front of him. It seemed like the smart thing to do in the circumstances.

  “You!” one of the men in body armor yelled at Kurt. “Are you Kurt Silva?” He shoved the barrel of his gun in Kurt’s face.

  “I am,” Kurt replied.

  “We have information that you’ve talked to Rashid, the man we want,” he explained. “You are under arrest. Do I need to advise you of your rights?”

  “No. How did you know to find me here?”

  The man held up a small computer screen with the image of Kurt talking to VR Rashid. “This was transmitted to us five minutes ago. We were given the location and the person to pick-up. Keep your hands on the desk; we’re going to detain you.”

  Kurt said nothing as the SWAT team slapped the cuffs on him and hauled him out into the hallway. He was taken past the other gamers and Deathmatch personnel who were giving statements to people in law enforcement uniforms. A few of them glanced up, but many were still too weak to say anything. Several times Kurt tripped and fell, but the SWAT team members grabbed him each time.

  He didn’t remember much about the trip out of the compound. He was shoved into a federal drone of some kind and transported to the nearest airport. Still somewhat delirious, Kurt told the people who wanted to know everything he remembered. He repeated his story several times at some kind of federal holding cell until they were satisfied.

  It was Jesse in her black corporate business dress that was there to greet him when he was released three weeks later. The federals decided he didn’t have any new information on what Rashid did or where he went. They told him to keep a low profile.

  There was no real way to cover up such a public event, and for once the federal government did not even attempt it. Lawsuits and media exposes were everywhere. The scattered remnants of the Sons of the Prophet, bereft of their leadership, were hunted down. The name Rashid Al-Sayed was berated in public by the media and the people alike as being a diabolically murderous billionaire, while behind closed doors and in private conversations it was whispered that regardless of the tragedy, the world was now a safer place. Kurt ignored it all.

  There were a few federal agents assigned to Rashid's case, more proof that the government had little concern in the cover up, and were more interested in his bots, Aries, and how he managed to pull off such a violent and public plot. They soon found out he’d spent years planning the atrocity. His image was posted all over the world, but no one expected him to be found. Kurt wondered if, his work now done, the man had simply killed himself.

  It was Jesse who took Kurt home and nursed him back to health. She stayed with him until he was able to walk around on his own. They were married a few months later. That took Kurt by surprise, but he rolled with it, like he always did.

  Neurosurgeons spent months trying to understand how the game interface worked. It was decided that whoever Rashid employed to come up with the system was either dead or in hiding as the technology behind it was undecipherable. The Ares AI was quietly dismantled and studied in sophisticated computer science laboratories.

  True to his word, the money came through for every person who was involved in the game. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough for the two of them to start a life together and buy a small house. A little farm that could sustain them, something they could control on their own. The feds spent a lot of time trying to track how the money reached every person who signed off on the payout, but were unable to locate the origin point for it. Thankfully the government let the hot shot club keep their winnings, something of a reward or compensation for the hell of discovering that after playing the game of their lives
it wasn't a game at all.

  Kurt was able to get over the final images he saw after a few months. Jesse knew better than to ask him about what he saw in that corner. But they got through it, as couples in love have the power to do, and when their first child was born, there was no question of what to name him. They both chose Michael, after Jesse's grandfather, because it was a good strong name for a growing boy.

  They named the dog Bob.

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  Thank you so much for taking this adventure with me, take a quick break and if you liked what you just experienced check out some of my other work.

  MOB GRIND: Raid Online – Enlil is one of the most fierce and successful warrior-gamers in the full immersion MMORPG known as Raid Online, developed by the government of a post-apocalyptic bunker society to keep the population entertained as they hide away from the polluted surface world. With his war hammer and his wolf he has earned himself fame and fortune in this grim dystopia, all to help his invalid sister fight off a crippling disease.

  HELLTROOPERS: A Space Marine Trilogy - Ash Wednesday and his crew of corporate mercenaries find themselves drawn into a galactic conspiracy bent on creating a literal hell on earth in this violent sci-fi remix of Dante’s Inferno as a Space Opera.

  ADVENTURE ONLINE: A litRPG Trilogy - Vince is a down on his luck millennial who takes a job as a beta-tester for a full immersion virtual reality game. Once inside he finds himself taking the role of a treasure hunter immersed in a 1920's pulp adventure filled with deadly bootleggers, spooky caves, lost airships, and a beautiful spear hurling girl who was raised by wolves. He must make his way from plot cache to plot cache as he searches for lost jewels, the truth about the game, and enough ammunition to keep the tommy gun barking.