Player is Waiting... (Ultimate Clan Wars)

by Wells, JB

  Kieran obeyed without a word and then was moved on. He saw a badge appear on his chest, it was a blue set of wings with the numbers 191 above.

  “On your Greys are Holobadge’s. Each outfit has a reader in the material and it can tell who you are from your DNA and therefore displays it on your badge and back.” Seal turned and pointed to her back to show her name and symbol which was a green Medic. “When you pick up Greys from the laundry it doesn’t matter whose you get as it will always show who is wearing them. Also, each Holobadge acts as a security card, which will give you automatic clearance to most areas. It’s only when you approach Level One doors that it will ask for a manual scan.” Seal walked fast, her arms weren’t weighed down like she was going to trek to the North Pole.

  Kieran and his friends were struggling, their arms constantly fumbling with their new items that they were starting to drop.

  Seal continued to talk as they made their way back to their barracks, “Level one doors are places like Main Control and Wing’s Lab because they are secure areas. You won’t have level one passes, only Officers or higher. You have to be cleared for entry so don’t worry if you get lost and can’t get through some doors. Okay, in we go.” She heaved open the heavy door again.

  They walked in and threw their new belongings onto their beds, each one of the cadets sighed with pain and tried to rub the blood flow back into their arms.

  “My arms are going to hurt tomorrow,” Owen grimaced and rubbed his aching muscles.

  “No time to rest, we have to get your rooms set up and then I need to show you the canteen. For tonight only, you will get your food and bring it back to the room so you can acclimatise. As of tomorrow you will only eat in the canteen. So, if you want the pick of the best grub we had better get a move on.”

  “What time is it?”

  Officer Seal looked at her watch and then at Kieran, “Time you got a watch?”

  Kieran smirked, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that joke.

  “It’s twenty past six.”

  “Oh wow, I am hungry!” Dexter stretched and rubbed his tummy. “We haven’t eaten since lunch.”

  Kieran remembered the brief stop they had on the motorway services where they were each given a sandwich and a piece of fruit. The only drink was water, milk or squash.

  “First things first, by the built in clock on the bedside table is a little pad. Place your thumb on it until a red light flashes.”

  Kieran found the little pad next to the clock, he placed his thumb on it and after three seconds a red light flashed around his bed. He removed his thumb and saw his name on the headboard, opposite him he could see Thomas’s name also on the end of the bed.

  “See that wasn’t so hard, let’s get these beds made.” Seal took Alfie’s sheets and beckoned them all to watch how it was to be made. “Lights go on at 0700 every weekday, 0900 weekends. Your beds need to be made for inspection by 0800 Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Whoever is carrying them out can and will throw surprise inspections, so it’s best to be prepared every day.” Seal was tucking corners in, straightening pillows and folding the blankets. “If anyone is seen as underperforming they can be subject to weekend inspections, but they are rare. Lights out at 2100 hours, later at weekends.” She placed her hands on her hips, pleased with herself. “There you go any questions?”

  The group looked at her and shook their heads, Thomas had already started making his bed and the rest of them followed. Dexter on the other hand had somehow become entangled in his sheets; he was on the bed having a wrestling match with a blanket. Seal had a little giggle at his attempts then decided to help before he did himself some damage.

  They had made their beds, and were making their way to the canteen. Again it was another, extremely busy room.

  “Looks just like the canteen at school,” Owen remarked.

  It was just a large white room filled with tables and benches. Along one wall was the food sitting in hotplates that was protected by glass screens. Runners for trays sat in front of the glass and stacks of trays, at least one hundred high sat at the start of the queue. A chiller was situated at the end of the food, inside were bottles of water, milk and fresh juices, and a chiller beyond that housed fruit and some different types of dessert. On the far side of the room there were no walls, just glass doors that filled the whole length. They were folding doors that opened out onto the garden.

  Completely confused and with their brains nearly fried, Kieran and the others grabbed some dinner and headed back to their rooms. Alfie tripped over just inside their room, someone had left their luggage cleverly right in the way. Kieran and Owen jumped in to clear the other cases out of the way.

  “I bet TakeDown were on luggage duty today. There is always competition between the clans, and TakeDown take it too far sometimes.” Seal helped push cases to their correct beds. “Right, eat up and then time to unpack. Lights out in…ninety minutes, and there is still a lot to do.”

  Kieran sat at the table and sighed with tiredness, he opened his dinner box and shovelled it in as fast as his starving stomach would let him. He and his friends pushed their empty food trays away and looked at their cases. “Best get cracking,” he said exhausted and scraped back the chair to tackle his luggage.

  8

  “Right Cadets, settle down please.” Sergeant Ex had entered the classroom and was waiting at the front of the room with shortening patience. All the voices quietened down and watched him intently as he stood in front of a large whiteboard. “Welcome to day one of your time here at WIPI. I am here to explain to you the ins and outs of what we do here, the reason this Institute exists and what the world would become without us. Then I will walk you through the steps of your training. In your first training lesson tomorrow you will be taken through everything you need to know and what you will likely face.”

  Kieran looked at Dexter, who in turn was looking at Thomas.

  “Eyes on me at all times Cadets, understood?”

  “Yes sir!” The class replied in a unanimous chorus.

  The white board sprang to life with a bright illumination. “WIPI is a government body that was sourced from all corners of the world. Scientists, engineers, soldiers and more with any computer skill were pooled in to help protect one of the most infiltrated sectors of life. The Internet. Forty years ago WIPI was created to protect people like you, your families, businesses and anyone else who uses the internet. Things like money, pictures, Nuclear War missiles and top secret military information is targeted daily. We have sections here that watch over each and every single piece of information on there. There are always threats from all over the world, but now we face a new threat, a threat from a new age.” Ex took a breath and moved to the other side of the white board. He pressed a button on the screen. “This is invirtuwear, the radical new virtual gaming software that was created here by Professor Wing. If you look closely…” Ex pressed something again and on each cadet’s chair, a little hologram appeared in front of them. The cadets gasped and some waved their hands through the hologram to see if they could touch it. Kieran had only ever seen that kind of technology in the movies, but here at the Institute, every chair had a projector on it. Thomas was nearly squealing with delight.

  “This gaming software is so technologically advanced that it would make your XOne, PS4 and WiiU look like the first ever Pong game.”

  “What’s Pong?” Dexter asked Owen loudly. A few people sniggered and even Sergeant Ex seemed to supress a chuckle.

  “Invirtuwear went through years of rigorous testing. It was thought that one day rather than soldiers going into war physically, they could send in a clone of themselves, their very own Avatar. If you imagine playing your favourite game, but actually being in it, that’s what Invirtuwear does. Rather than using a mainstream hand controller, you the player become the controller, you see and feel things from the point of the Avatar.

  Kieran felt a hand rising next to him, he looked and watched as Thomas nervously lifted his ha
nd.

  “Yes?”

  “So this is virtual world gaming, you become the avatar and can interact whilst walking around the game?”

  “Yes.”

  “So when the people are in the chair, are they awake or…”

  “That brings me nicely onto my next point,” Ex said pressing another button. All the holograms disappeared and a video started playing on the board.

  The footage was old, probably ten years old or more. Professor Wing was talking as things happened behind him.

  “This is subject D, a willing applicant for the gaming trials.”

  Subject D was a boy in his early teens, he smiled to the camera as Professor Wing spoke about him and directed him into the chair.

  “Once the game is on, Subject D will fulfil the tasks he has been specified. We will be able to watch his progress on the screen display above.” Professor Wing switched on the machine as Subject D settled his head, hands and feet into the points on the chair. “Ready?”

  “Let’s go,” the lad called.

  Professor Wing flicked a switch and a bright light sparked from the foot of the chair and it rose to the head of the chair. Within ten seconds the light was out and Subject D’s body was still in the chair. The shaky camera man pointed the camera to the screen where they could see an Avatar dressed in jeans and a shirt.

  “That’s that real life game, the one where you can make the characters get married, get a job and stuff.” Isabelle was gobsmacked.

  “As you can see, Subject D is now in the game. What can you see Subject D?” Professor Wing asked.

  “I can see everything but it all looks so real, it’s like I’m in a real house,” the boy replied as he moved around the house. “The sofa, I bump into it and it hurts. The legs, they move like they’re my own and the skin, oh wow, the skin looks like real but a little pixelated.”

  “Can you complete task 1 please D?”

  “Okay.” The character moved around the house with more fluidity than any avatar had, and he made a cup of tea. “I can’t drink it though, as I lift the cup up it’s just a solid brown lump, not real liquid.”

  Professor Wing turned back to the camera. “Subject D has been uploaded into the game. His body, or his “shell”, is still alive and being monitored by the staff. His body will remain where it is until he is downloaded back and he will return straight back in to it.”

  Kieran couldn’t believe what he was seeing; he had to look around him at the other faces. All of them matched his, they were in an utter state of shock.

  “As with any game, the player must exit it completely by heading to a designated portal. Subject D?”

  “Yep?”

  “I need you to head for the first door at the top of the stairs, that’s the portal to exit.”

  All the cadets watched in complete silence as the character on the screen moved through the house and climbed the stairs. He opened the door and the light on the chair shone again, this time starting at the top and finishing at the bottom. Within seconds Subject D was back in his body.

  “For some the transition effects will wear off instantly but for others it can take up to ten minutes. The upload and download can take its toll so the subject must always drink water on exiting the chair. This helps the messages from the brain to return quickly, it also helps remove the transition haziness. How did you find it, D?”

  “That was so unreal. I can’t believe I was in the game and playing it as the character.”

  Professor Wing and his other staff smiled back at the camera and the film stopped.

  “So there you go, that’s the Invirtuwear software. You cadets will be training and using that in your time here.”

  “Sweet!” Thomas called.

  “That is the most epic thing I have ever seen!” Dexter whooped and smacked Kieran on the back.

  “Cadets!” The class jumped, their slip in concentration would only be tolerated for so long, as it was their first day. Ex lowered his head once again, he took a deep sigh and paced back and forth. Occasionally he looked up and singled some of the cadets out as he spoke, “Some of you will have more refined skills that are needed in the control room or even at the other tech stations. Over the next few days we will determine who stays where and who needs to be moved. Your skills have all been assessed for months, and you have been selected to be here for reasons I will now explain.

  The screen lit up again and a boy with tussled black hair and piercing blue eyes looked directly at them all. He looked unhappy, as if he had a world of worries on his shoulders and he had a look of anger to him.

  “This is Adam Solan, a seventeen year old boy from Scotland. Adam was selected to trial the newest version of Invirtuwear and he became somewhat of an expert. He was put onto the system for four hours a day where he would trial different games, possibilities and more. He was our best gamer here for nearly ten years, he even helped develop some of the software here at the Institute. Unbeknown to the staff at WIPI, Adam had been sneaking onto the system late at night and creating his own exit portals. Now because no one was there to watch over him, no one could help create a portal. On 25th October…”

  “Your birthday,” Isabelle whispered to Kieran.

  “2009.” Ex continued. “Adam was logged into Invirtuwear. That night there was one of the worst electrical storms the country had seen. The systems all went down when a massive power surge ran through the machines. The staff found Adam attached to the machine the next morning.”

  “I bet he came out like some computer super freak,” Richard laughed from the rear of the room. Kieran cringed, he hated the thought that they would be in lessons together.

  “In a way he did,” Ex turned the screen off and turned the classroom lights back on. “Adam was pulled from the machine, but he never woke up. He is still in a coma, being held in a secure location.”

  “Ha, some kind of freak then,” Richard remarked.

  Ex didn’t look too kindly upon Richard for that remark, “Cadets will refrain from speaking unless they are spoken to. Understood?”

  “Yes Sir!” The class was doing well, they were soldiers in training and it was only the first day.

  “No, Adam’s body was pulled from the machine but he stayed in the software. Invirtuwear worked using the internet to transport the subject from outside to inside, and Adam stayed lost for months on the internet. Well…” Ex scratched his head, “we thought he was lost. Then, we noticed some activity coming from an unknown source. Anyway over the years Adam has been manipulating the internet, creating game worlds. He became the Pied-Piper. For four years Wing worked to bring him back, but he didn’t want to be found.”

  “Blimey,” Dexter muttered.

  There was an eerie silence as Ex surveyed the class. “He named himself after the 16th Century legend - The Pied-Piper of Hamlin, because like the character led the town’s children away, he is doing the same. He infects the children and keeps them in Plantranet.”

  Kieran felt a cold shiver run down his spine. He and the other cadets were all sitting in complete silence, their Greys all shining under the light of the room.

  “Manipulating the internet was something we didn’t think was possible, but it was. Professor Wing’s team managed to work out how Adam was doing it, and under the direction of Alpha One we managed to secure seventy percent of it back. Adam still controls thirty percent and he is always battling for more. Now if you’d all like to follow me I will show you some of the sections so you get a better understanding.”

  The cadets all filed out of the room following Ex in complete silence. They walked for a little while and came to a huge metallic door. Ex walked over and the panel on the wall spoke to him.

  “Level one clearance,” the female computer voice echoed down the corridor. Ex approached the pad on the wall, “Retinal scan accepted. Finger print accepted. Access granted.” The doors parted in the middle and opened for them all to enter.

  Thomas gave a little giggle of excitement, after all he wa
s the biggest tech geek Kieran or anyone knew.

  “This is Main Control.” Ex called for them all to hear.

  The room was glass, the ceiling, the floor, the walls, everything. Kieran looked around wondering why on earth a completely secret laboratory would be made using glass.

  “It is around three thousand miles from the surface to the centre of the earth, and we are a mere two hundred miles down. The temperature outside the confines is so hot that without the dome that surrounds us, we would all die within seconds. The majority of the internal building is made from a strong, heat withstanding metal. If you notice any metal surfaces you will see it is surrounded by glass, this stops any static from interfering with the machines.” Ex walked through the room beckoning the cadets to follow him. They walked through the room and noticed computers everywhere, and people working on each and every one. The front of the room was a wall size screen where data was filtering across it constantly.

  “Whoa, this is what I thought the NASA control room would look like?” Thomas whispered, scratching his head.

  “Euston, we have a problem.” Dexter’s voice was as meek as he looked, his face was scanning every inch of the room.

  “When I said you’ve been watched for months, well this is where it was done from.” Ex started to climb some stairs so he could address the whole class.

  “Attention!” A cadet called. Kieran and the other cadets followed Sergeant Ex who was standing to attention.

  “At ease,” A stern voice called.

  Kieran noticed Alpha One was standing right at the top of the stairs which led to a gangway with offices set just off it.

  An alarm rang throughout the room. “Sir, Alpha One, we have another one,” A cadet called from one of the computers in the room.

  “Details on screen,” he ordered.

  The large screen at the end of the room sprang to life. A picture of a young girl appeared, next to it were all her details.

  Age:9

  Height: 130cm