by Isaac Stone
“Watch it, his blood pressure just went up,” the doctor with the cuff said. “Mr. Heath if you make him excited again I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“So you have no idea what happened to her?” Heath asked, as he ignored the doctor.
“Can’t help you there,” I told him. “Maybe you can tell me what happened when you tried to pull me out. Why have I been in the happy hunting grounds for two weeks?” I was weak, but I wanted some answers.
Heath inhaled and didn’t say a word. He glanced up at the doctors, who took an interest in anything but him. This would be his own call and they weren’t about to get involved.
“We crashed the system when you came out,” he told me. “Something went wrong with our entire network. I thought we’d lost you because so much of your neural system was locked into our network when it happened. It’s why they decided to take you here to this hospital.”
“What caused the crash? “I asked him. “Have you figured that part out?” Nice to know I was at the center of so much bad luck.
“We’re not sure,” he sighed. “We think a rogue program got into the system. It’s why I asked about the woman you were with inside the game. We think it might have developed agency. No one is sure, but it scares the shit out of all of us.”
“So that’s why you told me she was dangerous.”
“Right. If the program had self-awareness, there is no limit to what it could do inside the game world. In essence, she would become God inside that world. Now imagine what happens if the program could transfer to another network.”
“So you clamped it down,” I told him. “Which I’ll bet led to the crash.” I could feel my feet touch the bed covers, which was a good sign.
“We didn’t have a choice.”
I was the man on the other side of the firewall doors when the building burst into flames. It was my misfortune to be there when the fireproof doors locked shut. They had to risk one man burnt alive rather to see the entire city roasted.
“You have to go,” the doctor told Heath. “We need to move him into a room. When his condition stabilizes, we’ll come and get you.”
“We’ll talk later,” Heath, told me as he got up from the chair. He stopped on his way out to adjust his tie in a mirror.
I was in some kind of intensive care unit for another day while the neural psychology staff monitored my brain. I could see them come in every hour, study the lines transmitted to a computer monitor, then leave. By the next day, the sensations returned to most of my body and I could roll over. I failed to get a straight answer from anyone when I asked them what was wrong with me. One of the nurses tried to explain, but even she couldn’t pronounce the name of my condition. I think it translated into Standard English as “brain not finding body”.
I was able to sit up and feed myself a week later. The medical staff was surprised at how quick was my progress. After that, I could be moved around in a wheel chair. I spent some time reading books, as I didn’t really want to get near a computer for a while.
A few of the VR team members from Ruby Realizations came in and talked to me while I was in recovery, but I didn’t see much of them. They simply wanted to know what the VR world appeared to be from the inside and how I functioned inside it. I tried to ask them about Chamistra several times and if she was a rogue program. I had the distinct sensation they were told not to talk about her. Every time I brought her up, they changed the subject.
Heath never came back. I was told he’d be on the committee that did the final analysis of the system when I was strong enough to leave the hospital.
My head pains and phase-shifts were no longer a problem. Never once did I have so much as a dream about the mountain or lost city. Although the hospital had me on a regiment of medications, none of them was the strong mood enhancers I’d suffered through after leaving the Wolf Mountain scenario.
I noted a loss of weight the first time I was able to get up out of the hospital bed on my own. By then, the occupational care lady visited me once or twice a week and helped out. After a few weeks of her concern, I was able to move around with a walker.
“You’ll be able to do it on your own,” she told me. “I’ve never seen a recovery so quick. Wish all my patients made such progress.” I don’t think she knew what caused the condition that afflicted me.
I was able to keep my condition from my friends and family, although the hospital wanted to contact them. The last thing I needed was my concerned parents driving up all the way from Florida. I made sure to send them emails to keep them at ease.
I asked several of the Ruby about the technician who prepped me before the trip into the VR world, but no one knew a thing about her. Or they were told not to say a word. The end effect was the same and I learned nothing.
I was out in the rear park behind the hospital when Lane came to see me. By now I could get around with the help of a cane and hoped to get rid of it soon enough. I was on a park bench with a book when I saw him park the car and walk up to me. This was supposed to be my last week under supervised care. Next week the insurance company insisted I could go home so long as someone checked on me every other day. The hospital didn’t mind so long as he bills were being paid.
“You’re looking better,” he told me as he sat down across from me. We were both seated at a picnic table.
“You can lose a lot of weight if you’re an invalid,” I told him. “I wouldn’t recommend everyone try it.”
“So what happened?” he asked me. “I don’t hear anything from you for a few weeks and then I get word you’re in the hospital.”
“Some kind of neurological condition,” I lied to him. “The doctors say it’ll be cleared up in a few days. Guess I ate some bad beef or drank some contaminated water.” I could tell he didn’t believe me.
“Did you bring the laptop?” I asked him to change the subject. “I didn’t bring mine in with me and wanted to check a few things.”
“Of course,” he told me as he slid it out of the bag and unfolded it on the table in front of me.
I let Lane find the signal for the Wi-Fi at the hospital. Afterward I looked at my bank accounts to make sure the money was still there from the job with Sandstone Gems. I hadn’t been touched and the first allotment of cash was there from Ruby Realizations. I was relieved.
As I asked him about his store’s business, I found the website for Ruby and drilled down to the medical staff. It wasn’t hard to get past a few basic hurdles to find out what the staff looked like. Although I’d never done this before, I found the personal files for the employees.
And there she was, the technician who prepped me that resembled Chamita. Camilla Barnes was her name and she’d worked for the corporation in the health care division for the past three years. Funny how no one knew anything about her when I asked.
“Find what you wanted?” Lane asked me as I returned the laptop to him. He slid it back in the case.
“Pretty much,” I told him.
We spent a few minutes chit-chatting over who was doing who among the gamers at the store and which game was about to come out on the market. Lane felt his business was good and planned to open another store soon. I thanked him for his time. He was on his way out of the parking lot by the time the orderly came to take me back to my room.
The next day was supposed to be my last at the hospital. The doctors determined that my condition was close to full recovery, but they wanted me to check in every day from the house. Although I didn’t need a cane any longer, they wanted me to take on along to be on the safe side.
Before I was to go home, I needed to meet with the VR team at Ruby Realizations. I didn’t see the point in the debriefing, but they insisted. Since the corporation paid the bills for the hospital, I didn’t want to cause a problem.
The hospital packed everything up and insisted I let them wheelchair me to the van, which would take me home after I went to the corporation for the interview. I sighed and enjoyed my final ride down it in the elevator. I
even let the orderly help me into the van when I left the hospital.
My driver was a large guy from Philly who wanted to talk basketball. I tried to humor him and hoped I succeeded.
“They say you’re to be dropped off to this building and picked up in two hours,” he told me as we rolled up to the front of Ruby Realization’s corporate offices on the Main Line. “Are they going to send anyone out to help you?”
“Good question,” I told him as she pulled through the security gate. “Guess I’ll know when we come to a stop.”
They didn’t and I walked myself into the building over the protests of my driver. I still had the cane with me, although I didn’t even put weight on it. In a few minutes, I was inside the offices and Heath greeted me the moment I entered the building.
“You look a lot better,” he observed. “You’ll be happy to know I talked with your medical team and they claim your recovery is a miracle. They didn’t think you’d be able to walk for at least a year.”
“Glad that I disappointed them,” I told him. “So is the interrogation ready to start?”
“Come this way,” he indicated. “A bunch of people want to talk to you. Don’t worry; we left the rubber hose in the other building.” I didn’t laugh.
Although he offered to help, I managed to make my way on my own with the cane to the conference room. It was easy enough to walk without it until we reached the final hallway. I was forced to put my weight on the cane by then. A week earlier, I would’ve needed the wheelchair to make the same trip.
The same VR team I’d met before greeted me as I sat down at the end of the table. Heath remained standing and made sure we all had coffee or lemonade to drink.
“This is Mr. Richards,” he introduced me. “I’m sure you all know who he is since you followed his adventures inside the game. Not every one of you was part of the team which monitored him, but I’ve brought together the people who would ask the questions that need to be answered.” He turned to me. “Vince, do you have anything to say?”
“Yes,” I told him. “What the hell happened on your end? I am told the entire system crashed while I was hooked up to it. If you think I have problems, imagine how it will look if thousands of gamers end up like me. At least I’ve recovered. The others might not be so lucky.”
“We’re looking into it,” a man in a suit said to me from the other end of the table. “We think it was a program that malfunctioned.”
“Or decided it wanted to take control,” said a woman across from him. “Let’s cut to the chase, we had a program in our virtual world that decided to edit the script on its own. That isn’t supposed to happen. We need to know anything you can tell us because there were times we couldn’t follow what took place in that VR world.”
I summarized what happened to me in the lost city. As I expected, they wanted to know about Chamistra more than any other character. She’d gone off the script and this caused them plenty of concern. I told them what I felt safe to share. I didn’t mention anything personal between her and myself. I wanted to ask them how it was she resembled the wolf girl from another company’s game, but decided not to go in that direction. What would they do? Admit their VR system was lifted from a rival company?
“So is this the end of your virtual game system?” I asked them when they quit asking me about what happened. “Or have you made improvements.” I could see the people at the table fidget.
“We’re still going to go forward,” Heath told me. “Once we can isolate the rogue program, everything will be fine. We’ll keep in touch with you in case we need some insight on it. A lot was learned this time and it can be combined with what you did in the first game.”
“First game?” I asked them. “How do you have that information? Are you sharing some intelligence with Sandstone Gems?”
There was a lot of shifting at the table. Two suits looked at Heath and nodded.
“It will be public information in a few days,” he said. “Go ahead and let him know.”
“Ruby Realizations and Sandstone Gems are about to merge,” he told me. “We cleared it with the Security and Exchange Commission last week.”
I was stunned. As far as anyone knew, no other companies worked had a workable VR gaming system. The merger of both companies would give them dominance in the game field no one could break. Granted, there were other companies who worked on other VR networks, but no one had advanced this far. It was as if Betamax and VHS merged in the early days of home videotape.
“So you’ll be one company,” I said to Heath. “Guess that will simplify things a lot.”
“It will make it easier to do what needs to be done,” he told me, once more with the tie adjustment. “We can combine databases and systems. We’ll share what each division has learned.” It seemed to me there was a lot of clandestine sharing at work already.
“What are you supposed to do with the rogue program, as you call it?” I asked him. “Aren’t you concerned it will spread to the other company’s system?”
“We’ll find a way to firewall it.”
I didn’t mention my other thought. What if Chamistra/Chamita was in fact a real human who found a way to enter both VR systems without the knowledge of either corporation? She’d told me she was when I was with her inside the lost city. I didn’t mention it because they’d laugh at me. Besides, I needed to keep a few things secret from the suits.
“You’ll find the money we owe you in your bank account within the next few days,” Heath told me. “If we need anything, you’ll hear from us.” Yeah, I bet.
“As for your health insurance,” he told me, “the new, merged company will pick it all up. You can continue to see the same doctor you were before entering our VR world. According to the people we had look at you, you condition is almost cleared up. Naturally, we want to keep you under observation to make sure there are no further issues.”
“Aren’t you concerned this could happen to more people?” I asked him.
“What happened to you took place because we needed to pull the plug while you were jacked into the system. That will never happen again. Once we have this program isolated, it won’t be an issue.”
“I recall Sandstone Gems had the same attitude,” I quipped at him. My own situation hadn’t improved.
“It’s one of the reasons we merged. I understand your head pains and hallucinations are gone?”
“For the time being.”
“Good. We can hope they’ll stay away.”
They sent me home after the meeting. As I’d asked Lane to keep the place tidy, there wasn’t much cleaning to do once I arrived. I sat down on my couch after the driver made sure I was comfortable. He even gave me some kind of instant responder device to wear. After I thanked him for helping me, I lay back on the couch and tried to enjoy the TV I’d missed.
Everything was fine over the next few days. I relaxed, went to the park and generally enjoyed myself. I checked and saw the funds were in my bank account. It wasn’t a fortune, but added to what I’d earned from the other corporation to keep me in the black for another year. After that, I would have to worry, but for now. I intended to relax.
I followed the progress of the corporate merger on the Internet. The TV news didn’t think it was worth a report, but I knew better. This was an early merger of two companies that controlled an emergent technology. It was spun as a new game system, but I knew from the manual inside the box I’d buried that it would be much more.
The big news was what the new, combined company should be called. “Ruby Gems” was a good contender, better than the other suggestion I read about, “Sandstone Realizations”. In the end, neither of the legal teams could come up with a good combined name. They paid an outsourced company to name the new corporation so neither group would be accused of bias.
A month after I’d met with the people at the old corporation; “Pursuant Entertainment” came into being. At least the name was entertaining.
I laughed as I read about the new name of t
he combined company and all the money that would need to be spent on new logos, business cards, stationary, etc. I supposed that there were entire careers devoted to such things.
Two days after reading about the merger, I came home from a walk in the part to find a note shoved under my apartment door. I pulled it out and looked at it. It was folded in half, so I waited until I was in the apartment before I read it. I sat down at the kitchen table and unfolded the paper.
“Vince,” a very feminine hand had written again. “I need to get in touch with you. There are things we need to discuss. I can’t talk to you now, but we will speak of it in due time.”
The note wasn’t signed. It didn’t have to be signed. I knew who wrote it.
I let the note drop on the table and tried to think why she’d waited this long to get in touch with me. The real question was what form she would assume this time. I didn’t see her in the wolf girl or wise woman form this time. I’d seen her twice before, once as an athletic woman in the park, once as a lab technician. I assumed those two forms would be the ones she’d pick.
The dancer I saw when I phase-shifted from the lost city was a possibility, but I didn’t think so. Each woman was distinct in her own way. Was each one part of a whole I had yet to see? It was something I couldn’t decide.
I needed to find out who she really was and how she fitted into the game. I suspected her inspiration was the dancer, if what I’d seen had a basis in reality.
I slept in the next morning unable to get the image of Chamita out of my mind. I still thought of her as my wife, although we were married inside the VR world of Wolf Mountain. It didn’t make sense to fall in love with a woman who didn’t exist, yet I had some proof she existed in real form. Hans the designer had written her into the story of the game. What made him look for an innocent woman raised in the wilderness?
The backstory of Chamita the Wolf Girl and every other character in Wolf Mountain was vague. Jack, the man who hired me to run the game as a tester when my call center job ended, didn’t tell me a lot about what they were about to drop me inside. All I knew was that the scenario was a 1920’s style pulp adventure and I was about to be dumped into it. Like the last time, I needed the money and didn’t look too deeply into what they wanted me to do. I’d spent the game out-running gangsters when I wasn’t lost with my team inside caverns below an abandoned insane asylum in the mountains of Western Pennsylvania.