by G. R. Cooper
The forest behind, on the other side of the brook, as well as the field in front of him, were oddly quiet. Used as he was to the constant hum of insects and calls of birds and wildlife, the silence of the area was almost palpable for Duncan; the lack of ambient noises shouted out their absence. The day was as still as the meadow, with only a barely detectable breeze that brushed his right cheek as he looked into the cloudless sky for any change coming in the weather. There was none indicated.
He lifted the rifle, pulling it tight into his right shoulder and put his eye to the scope mounted on top. His left elbow, supporting the weight of the Winchester, pressed into the soft, giving ground; his left hand lightly gripped the knurled burl of the rifle’s wooden forestock. With his right thumb, he clicked the safety to the left-most, firing, position. Then he peered down the sight, bringing into sharp focus the bull elk eight-hundred meters away, happily munching on some kind of vegetation in front of it.
Four black arrows, one each on the top, bottom, left and right of the scope viewfinder, pointed toward the hulking beast in their center. Duncan adjusted the rifle, barely, bringing the center-point of the scope directly onto the center top of the elks body - just behind its left front shoulder. It raised its head, chewing contentedly.
Duncan rocked a little, to the left then right, settling his body further into the ground. Then he lifted both feet and drove them back down, hard, to anchor himself firmly into a firing position. His toes curled under, forward, as his boots bent through the force of Duncan pushing himself into a rigid platform.
He took a deep breath, then let it half-way out; trying to settle his nerves. To minimize any movement that would throw his aim off. He waited a few seconds, until he could feel his heartbeat; he knew that the best results would be for him to pull the trigger in between them - even the slight body movement caused by the heartbeat could move the gun slightly off target.
He slipped his right index finger through the trigger guard and, gently, placed the tip on the bottom of the trigger. He began to squeeze, pulling until he was sure that the next micronewton of force would trip the sear, sending the firing pin into the cartridge. Then he squeezed, just a little more.
The rifle bucked in his arms, slamming painfully through his right shoulder. His right eyebrow exploded in pain, and his ears were pummeled by the sudden onset of thunder. As he fought to bring the rifle back into line, to see the results of his efforts, his nose was assaulted by the cordite smell that enveloped the knoll.
As he, expectantly, put his eye back to the scope, he was rewarded with a perfect view of the elk once again bending to take a mouthful of tasty grasses.
“Not even close,” said Clive. “You were still sighted at one-hundred meters. Your body position was way off. And hopefully that crescent moon scar on your forehead will serve as a reminder of what happens to people who don’t know how to properly hold a scoped rifle.”
“Whatever,” muttered Duncan as he stood. “End the training mission.”
Duncan pulled the new virtual reality helmet off of his head and placed it on the coffee table. He leaned back in his couch and reached for the stack of papers that had come inside the box from Omegaverse, Inc. He began reading the paper on the top of the stack, again; the third time since he’d opened the package.
He’d been picked, randomly apparently, to participate in a beta-test of the next version of the Omegaverse helmet, touted to bring new levels of realism and immersion to the players of the game.
“That’s an understatement,” he mused. The first helmet had been immersive. The new helmet was something else. He felt like he was actually there. The neural interface didn’t, as in the first unit, just display sight and sound, with a few examples of force-feedback through the gloves; the new helmet hit - overpowered, in some cases - every sense.
While the addition of full body touch sensing was amazing - he could still feel a twinge from the kick of the rifle and he ran his fingers, gently, over his forehead, half expecting to feel a bump or a scar where the kick of the shot had punched him with the scope - it was the smell that had truly put him in place.
Even when he’d first logged on with the unit, a little over an hour ago, and entered the bridge of the Shepherd Moon, the first thing he’d noticed was the slightly musty, institutional smell of the ship.
The updated neural-net interface didn’t just provide added smells and additional, full-body sense of touch. The visuals were sharper. Whereas before the graphics were crisp, fast and clear, it was obvious that they were computer generated graphics. To describe the new version as photo-realistic would be a disservice. It was no longer as though he were in the middle of an environment, viewing it from all possible angles; now Duncan felt a part of the environment. There was no disconnect. No beginning and end between himself and the surroundings.
The user interface, too, had completely changed. There were no longer any metaphors representing aspects of the environment. No longer did he bring up an inventory overlay in order to manipulate objects in the game - if he had to find something in his backpack, he needed to take off the backpack and root around in it. In order to read or answer an email in game, he pulled a PDA from his pocket instead of having a translucent text box overlay his vision.
Clive, too, had transformed. Before he’d been as a voice over a radio. Now he was Duncan’s in-game subconscious. Duncan no longer had to subvocalize to interface with his assistant; he thought a question then received answers from a voice in his head - but it was no longer Clive’s voice. It answered in Duncan’s own inner voice.
Duncan began to wonder.
“If the voice in my head answers in my own voice,” he said to himself, running his hand through his hair, “who is answering me?”
Did he have a deeper connection to his in-game assistant, or did he have a deeper connection to the Omegaverse itself?
Chapter 21
The view from the balcony, four-hundred and fifty meters above Manhattan, facing south over Central Park into Midtown, was more than a little breathtaking; it was literally nauseating for Duncan. He grabbed the railing and forced himself forward, through the stiff breeze coming out of New Jersey, and looked straight down the side of the building he’d had ‘created’ to house his penthouse in the sky. His inner-ear reeled as he looked to the lights of the traffic ninety floors down.
It didn’t matter to him, physiologically, that he couldn’t actually ‘fall’ from the balcony; that everything he saw was computer generated. His mind, and thus his body, were completely fooled, completely immersed.
He lifted his head and marvelled at the beauty of the skyline, the lights in the darkness melding into an indistinct glimmer the further south he focused. There was no differentiating buildings at this time of night that far away; they all worked together to put on the absorbing light show before him.
He closed his eyes, pushed back from the railing, and tilted his head skyward, letting the breeze and the occasional drop of night rain, just beginning to fall, wash away the uneasiness. He took a deep breath, turned and, opening his eyes, walked back across the large, tiled balcony and through the open wall into his apartment.
The balcony ended in a metal meshwork walkway, twenty meters long, that thrust into the open, two story space that Duncan had designed and had built by an in-game architect. He’d just finished placing and decorating his residence, putting it in the virtual space within the Shepherd’s Crook.
As far as he could tell, the space station had functionally limitless space within which he could add new areas of interest. In addition to the apartment, he’d also had created a large store-front for Phani - with huge windows and doors - that was now in place on the main walkways just off of the hangar of the space station.
Duncan looked down from the balcony walkway, into the living space below. Faded leather furniture spread around a large fire-pit; filled with logs and roaring. The camp-fire smell of burning wood soothed his altitude jittered nerves even more than the breeze and
soft rain had. The waves of barely felt heat brought up the burning oak smell, but no smoke.
That was a beautiful thing about virtual spaces, he thought - you didn’t have to worry about mundane concerns like chimneys and smoke. He turned and looked to the other side of the elevated walkway, toward the two story high, floor to ceiling, windows that showed a night view of the Upper West Side of Manhattan and across the Hudson into New Jersey. From this height, he could make out the lights of Meadowlands Stadium. Safely ensconced inside the building, the view held only fascination for him; no fear.
He resumed walking, through the portal at the end of the walkway, which transported him instantly through to a matching portal directly below it; he walked out into the lower portion of the room, into the living area. The view across the large room through the floor to ceiling windows matched the view from the balcony, one floor above and jutting out into space.
Duncan smiled. He could just as easily change the view to what he’d actually see from the Shepherd’s Crook - the blue gas-giant planet, its orbiting ring system, and the stars beyond. He could, in fact, define pretty much any view he wanted from this space. He decided to leave it as Manhattan, for now.
He looked up, through the metal mesh walkway to the cathedral ceiling two stories above. This place was huge, he thought. If this was a real penthouse, on top of a real building along Central Park North, it would probably cost at least a hundred million dollars. Compared to that, he’d gotten the whole place for nothing. The station had been free, and the plans for the apartment had cost him little more than the profits on his share of one or two pets from Phani’s store.
Duncan left his apartment and entered the new storefront. Storefronts, he corrected himself. Every hundred meters or so, down each side of the walkways that bordered both sides of the hangar bay, sat a portal into the pet store. Whichever airlock someone used to exit their ship, they’d see, next to the transporter portal on the opposite wall, a large, bright, inviting window-wall, with a large opening in the middle.
Through that window, they’d see the hopefully irresistible draw of a playroom filled with puppies, kittens and sheep. Each of the entrances was a virtual instance, but they all led to the same in-game space. Duncan walked through one now.
He waved to Phani as his partner looked up from where he was pulling small animals out of his backpack, spreading them around the room.
“Howdy, partner!” laughed Duncan, picking up a kitten. He looked around the room, to the dozens of small animals playing with each other, and was thankful that Phani’s amazingly accurate reproduction of the various breeds did not include smells.
“Howdy!” replied Phani, wrapping his tongue around the unfamiliar word, “what do you think of the store?”
“I think,” said Duncan, “that we’re going to be rich!”
“I hope so, I hope so,” grinned Phani. “When were you thinking of making the station public?”
“A few days,” answered Duncan. Phani had readily agreed to making the station public, glad of the opportunity to open a storefront instead of having to merely use apartments in the main stations. He’d still do that, in as many stations as he could, but he saw the value in having a showcase store in their own station. He also saw the potential in establishing a faction and what that would mean for the planet, Shepherd’s Cross, and his ten percent share in it.
“How does it work,” asked Duncan. “Buying the pets, I mean.”
“Many ways,” replied Phani, “there are terminals around the wall where anyone can place an order for a specific breed or color or any of the customizable options. Or, you can place an order for a specific breed that does not yet exist in our inventory, and I will have it made for them, at an additional cost. There are also surveys that allow people to vote on the next addition.”
“One can also simply pick up one, or more,” he grinned, “of the pets in the store, and leave. When they exit, they will be prompted to accept the purchase price. When they do, the animal is theirs. If they do not, the animal stays.”
“I think,” laughed Duncan, “that the Omegaverse is suddenly going to become very crowded with people being trailed by small animals.”
“It does not, I’m afraid, work that way,” said Phani, “the animals are only allowed ‘out’ in personal spaces, not public ones. Once someone enters a public space, the animal returns to the player's inventory. Unless it has been, uhm, bonded to a private location, like an apartment. Then it will always remain there.”
“We can, of course,” continued Phani, “set the Shepherd’s Crook up to allow the public display of animals.”
“And we will,” said Duncan. “I think it’s appropriate that we have lambs, at least, running around the station.”
“And the dogs to shepherd them,” laughed Phani.
Duncan put down the kitten and looked to his right, drawn by a lack of movement inside the frenetic room. A puppy, larger than most of the others, sat there, still. Looking at him. When Duncan made eye contact the puppy - black with white snout and chest, with rust colored patches - cocked its head sideways, then back up. Then its mouth opened, its tongue lolled, and its tail began to wag.
The detail was incredible; much greater than the generic dog that had come with the game. Not only the way that it looked, but the way that it acted - it sat, expectantly, waiting for Duncan to say or do anything. Its excitement was obvious. Duncan decided that he’d return the first puppy he’d received, now in his Kepler apartment, to the store.
Duncan squatted in front of it, reached out to scratch the Bernese Mountain dog’s ears.
“I’m going to name you ‘Bear’,” he said.
Duncan walked back through to his new apartment, Bear padding along in tow. It had been a very busy, long day, and he was exhausted. He’d been in-game since this morning, exploring and sensing the heightened experience of the world around him. He turned to enter the bedroom, on the ‘east’ side of the penthouse, overlooking the Upper East Side, the Harlem river and Ward’s Island, to the rebuilt and newly reopened expanse of LaGuardia airport in the distance. He pointed to the foot of a large, four-poster bed.
“Go to sleep, Bear,” he said as he stripped off his clothes. The puppy obediently trotted to the area between the bed and the window-wall, circled twice, and dropped, sighing, into a heap.
Duncan pulled back the covers on the bed and slid underneath them, luxuriating in the smooth, warm, silky feel of the flannel sheets. He looked out at Manhattan once again, then rolled onto his side, curled into a ball, and fell instantly asleep; unaware or uncaring that his body was still really sitting upright on his couch in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Chapter 22
Eric read through the email, the response to his last dictate to the rest of Fleet Bigweek, incredulously. His edict was not only not being obeyed, it was rejected. They were no longer going to crew the HMS Westy. They had refused permission to recruit new members for the fleet. They had rejected everything. Rejected him.
“Mutiny,” said Eric, unbelieving. “Simple mutiny.”
What really tore through him, though, was their final demand - that he sell the HMS Westy and repay each of them what they’d put into the ship. As a group, they had decided that the space warfare aspect of the Omegaverse was not one that they were at all interested in pursuing. Eric was free to remain in charge - nominally, Eric snorted derisively - of the clan as long as he was willing to meet the conditions of the group.
They had then attempted to appease him by telling him how much they were looking forward to seeing him return to leading them in ground combat operations.
He snorted. Deleted the email. Lifted his head.
“Number One,” he growled, “set course for the hunting grounds.”
The HMS Westy and Eric West sat, expectantly, in space a few million kilometers out from the fourth, un-named, gas-giant planet. The ship’s electromagnetic cladding was on, reducing its albedo to nearly nothing, which rendered it functionally invisi
ble to the part of the spectrum centering around visible and infrared wavelengths. As long as the ship wasn’t scanned with a sensor outside of the terahertz range, Eric wouldn’t be spotted; and since those sensors were active, he could detect them. He’d know instantly if he was being sought, and could begin his retreat.
Eric’s own passive sensors, specifically the one that detected tachyon emissions from the passage of faster-than-light spacecraft, was focused on receiving the trace indicators from around the system transit point; the point in space that all ships leaving from or passing through the system had to go through.
He was ignoring ships that were making their way through the system, however. He was only interested in the ones that were obviously leaving from the system - appearing at the point without having arrived on one of routes to other star systems. That way, he assumed, he could be reasonably sure that the ship belonged to Taipan.
He moved from the sensor screen to the weapons screen.
“Number One,” he began, “please overlay the tachyon sensor on the weapons screen.” The icon indicating a passing ship moved through the space in front of him, but he’d been tracking that since it entered the system - from the direction of Kepler station - so he knew that it wasn’t his prey.
“Number One, open the torpedo console, if you please.” The controls for his plasma batteries and missile silos were replaced with a series of dials and gauges; the means for entering the firing parameters into the weapon.
At the top, center of the screen, was a highlighted, three-dimensional gimbal. At the center of the gimbal was a representation of the Westy. Selecting a target for the torpedo would result in an icon being placed on the outside of the gimbal’s sphere, giving the captain a visual representation of their relative attitudes in three-dimensional space.