by Hugo Huesca
It didn’t arrive soon, but eventually, it did come. I left for the day thirty minutes after my shift ended. I paid the bus an extra five dollars to adjust his route slightly and drop me as close home as it could. Since it was almost empty at this point of its route, it happily obliged.
I raised my hoodie and closed my jacket to cover as much of my face as possible and walked as quickly as I could without attracting attention. I arrived at my apartment without being jumped by a murderous giant.
Mom had arrived home early and was watching a show on the kitchen’s holo-projector. The only TV shows that had survived the Internet transition had been soap operas, and comedy shows which disguised themselves as real journalism.
“How was work today?” Mom asked me as I threw my suit’s jacket over a chair. “Did you do anything fun?”
I tried not look at her like she had gone crazy. “Eh. Not really. But things are going fine, I guess.”
“Great!” she smiled. “Tomorrow I’ll make dinner to celebrate. I’m so proud of you!”
I forced a smile. “Thanks Mom. I’m going to my bunk now, gonna rest a bit.”
“Ok. If you need to talk about anything I’m right here,” she said. I could see her eying me with worry, but she turned back when she felt my gaze.
Yes, after the Chapel, I hadn’t been really happy, but not sad either. Not a lot. It was as if someone had placed an emotional dampener right under my chest, an effort —I guess from my subconscious— to not think too hard about my friend’s passing.
Perhaps I was in denial, but I wasn’t ready to let go of Kipp just yet. After all, there was an entire universe he wanted to show me, right? Now he could, in a way. I was using his account.
The mindjack was just where I left it, in its place under the sofa. It seemed to be waiting for me, like it knew our break-up was just temporary.
“Just don’t try to fry my brain again if I take you out, okay?” I whispered to it. I closed my curtain to gain some privacy, found the most comfortable position to lay down, placed a small pillow under my lower back, and then powered on the mindjack.
“Welcome back to your Visage Engine Mindjack, version 3.00.2.2. Do you wish to launch your last program?”
“Yes.”
Begin Deep Dive immersion?
“Yup.”
Welcome to Rune Universe. Connecting to game servers…
This time, I was ready for the blinding light and the feeling of falling. In fact, it was fun, like a very fast roller-coaster. I managed to land on my digital feet, even.
My avatar —I— appeared right on the clinical bed I’d spawned into after character creation. Same room with the Sergeant, even. A message appeared in front of me.
You have died! A Mutant devoured you while you explored Earth. Time of death: 5:55pm. You’ve lost an item [Personal Assistant] during your Quantum Safeguard. Don’t despair! In Rune Universe, death is part of the adventure! And the adventure continues!
Right. Characters couldn’t log out while in combat. If a forced disconnection occurred, the avatar would just stand in there, helpless, until either the danger somehow passed and it could log-out in a puff of teleport-data, or it died.
There were AI enhancements that you could buy so your avatar would be able to defend itself and make a run towards safety if your Internet went down or something like that. They were worth a small fortune though.
I stood up and walked towards the NPC soldier. The room was empty except for us and a new player who was playing with his Options screen.
“Back so soon?” he asked me as I approached. “It’s a dangerous world out there, isn’t it? More so when you skipped basic training.”
“So, you remember me.” It felt weird talking to a bunch of data and pre-programmed responses. Still, if I wanted to succeed in Rune, I had to learn to play by its rules. “Know why I’m alive after being eaten by mutants?”
The Sergeant eyes lit up. “So, the mutants got you? The General is going to have a field day talking to the Academics. I’d never seen such careless safety protocols before, you know?”
“I bet.”
“You are standing here, alive and uneaten, thanks to a useful piece of technology called ‘Quantum Safeguard,’ recruit. Your genetically created body emits a special data-string that’s received by any Translight ansible. When you ‘die,’ that signal is cut. The Translight ansible emits the last data-string it got towards a Quantum Safeguard, and it finds your particles in the space-time continuum, envelops them in a pocket wormhole and brings them towards a medical facility, like the one you’re standing on. The medical procedure is expensive, so you need to pay money. Sometimes, if your body is very mangled or your brain was damaged, you may lose skills. If the pocket wormhole fails to envelop you completely, you may lose some of your possessions.
“Of course, it’s a complicated process filled with technical terminology. If you want to find out more, you’d have to talk to a scientist.”
He seemed to think that talking to a scientist was worse than being eaten alive by mutants.
“I think I get it,” I lied. What I really understood: die and you’re teleported to a safe-point. The process lowers your skills and costs you databytes, too, and items can be lost in the transfer. “I hope I don’t experience it again.”
“A good recruit has all the survival tools he needs to survive for a long time,” he said, proudly.
“Yes, about that… You told one… err, soldier, that you needed mutant DNA to develop a poison?” I asked.
“An anti-mutagen, actually. It’s currently in development. Mutants shouldn’t be a problem in a couple of days.”
“Well, I have some Mutant DNA around,” I explained. My open palm displayed my inventory screen where “Mutant Flesh” was still stored. Letting other players and NPC see my inventory was a simple matter of flipping a switch in the “Options” menu —which I knew thanks to my wiki binge. “I know you didn’t ask me… but if you guys still need DNA…”
The Sergeant studied the severed arm, but he refused to touch it. Putrefaction hadn’t settled in thanks to whatever science-y method the inventory used to store matter. It was still pretty gross, though.
“Well, we don’t really need more DNA, we have enough,” he began. I lowered the arm, disappointed, but he wasn’t finished yet. “Although, experiencing your first combat probably counts as finishing part of basic training, recruit. After all, the point of it is to get you ready for a real-life situation. Tell you what, I’ll give you half the reward you’d have got for basic.”
I was genuinely grateful to this NPC. A bunch of data and pre-programmed responses had just made me a favor, even after I was a dick to him.
Can they really be just canned lines? I thought. I shuddered. How is it possible he had a prepared line to answer to me side-stepping a quest like this?
Sounded like something in the realm of Artificial Intelligence, whose study and development was banned in every country on Earth. With good reason, too, after civilization almost came to an end eight years ago, during the events now known as the Corps Wars.
If Rune Universe used real AI to fuel its NPCs, there is no way the government wouldn’t know about it, I decided. Sergeant had to use some other method. Probably very complex and beyond my understanding.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said. I extended the mutant arm towards him, but he made a dismissive gesture and said it wasn’t really necessary. So I dumped it in the trashcan of my inventory screen. Good riddance!
The soldier keyed in some words on a screen. I heard a ping and a message appeared before me:
Quest completed! You have finished “Mutant Hunting” on your own! You have earned: 50 databytes, a standard-issue communicator, and access to Terran Federation orbital transports.
Then another one followed:
Congratulations! You have finished the Terran Federation basic training. You are now a -Rookie-!
And yet one more:
Your skills have increa
sed! Shooting(1 level) Endurance (1 level) Forestry (1 level).
Neat, I thought. My stats screen now reflected the rank increase to Rookie and included an entry about mutants killed. For the most part, it was empty, though.
“What’s the communicator for?” I asked the sergeant.
“You use it to communicate with your associates and friends across the vastness of space,” he explained. “It uses a very basic form of Translight ansible technology, so it can’t reach very far or hold a big list of contacts. You have to upgrade it for that. Here, since yours is empty, I’ll add myself.”
The communicator was a metallic ring you wore on your finger. After a vocal command, it displayed a small holographic screen and allowed you to add new contacts or talk with existing ones. Mine only supported text.
“Done. Now, if you don’t mind, I have new recruits to attend to,” he told me and he turned towards an approaching pair of new players.
I left the Sergeant and wandered without course across the research facility. No follow-up quest had been offered to me. This was a new feeling. Every game I played always included a clear path to follow. Rune encouraged you to find your own adventures. It had a “main-quest” in the form of the Terran Federation, but I had the sensation that, even though the Sergeant and I had parted in good terms, I kind of wasn’t invited to pursue that storyline.
By now, I was comfortable with the physical divide of real/avatar body. Doing a quick check-up using the Window had become second nature so fast I hadn’t even realized it. Noises from the kitchen and the constant background shooting that came from Van’s room were received by my brain and neatly classified into a “not interesting things.” As far as I was concerned, Rune was as real as that other world. While I wasn’t paying attention, even more.
And like in the real world, being surrounded by people, even if they were fellow players, soldiers, and scientists, made me feel as if I stood in a shrinking bubble.
Rune is about space exploration, right? Very well, let’s get some exploring done.
I headed over to the hangars where Lance and I had consigned the shuttle last time I played. There were ships in there, about the size of a bus, designed to ferry players and personnel towards a Space Station orbiting Earth.
The day before I’d read you could get your very own interstellar ship in Space Stations. They were the seat of commerce and military presence of any organized government. Some newbie tips mentioned that if you couldn’t pay the hundred thousand credits for the most basic one-passenger ship, you could always rent one. Fees would eat a good chunk of the resources I came across, but I’d be out there. As in, in outer space.
Rune was said to have almost a quarter of the stars and planets found in the Milky Way. More were constantly being generated, faster than if every player everywhere devoted 100% of their time towards cataloging every single one.
The thought was exhilarating. Almost overwhelming, actually. And I couldn’t wait.
Now that the time I spent on Rune was justified, in a way, I began to allow myself to have fun.
The bus-spaceships were AI —an in-game term, not really a true AI— operated and a scanner on the door designed me as an allowed user of its services. The door opened and I went inside. Like in a bus, the cabin consisted mostly of seats. They were empty except for three or four newbies in their military overalls just like mine.
As I went to sit in the back of the bus, my communicator device buzzed in my finger. My only contact was the Sergeant, right? So, why would he…
A text appeared in front of me. It had the portrait of a woman. She had cybernetic eyes which shone a green light over her pale face. Her hair was bright pink, as well as her lips. Her name-tag was “Rylena.”
The message said:
What are you doing? I’ve been waiting for you for days. Do you think this is some kind of game?
It was the girl from the hospital, I recalled. She looked different, in game. Older, taller, flashier. And she wasn’t the only one on my contact list. In fact, it was full. I didn’t recognize anyone, some were clear usernames and others were like mine, more or less a real person’s name.
Maybe it was a bug? I could check later with Player Support. Right now, I had a clearly insane girl hounding my communications channel. Cole Picard, intrepid space explorer, wouldn’t let it fly.
Waiting for me? No idea why, sister. But since you ask, yes, I think Rune Universe is a game. Maybe you should play a bit less? You are taking it a tad too seriously.
That should show her, I thought smugly. The ship shook as a robotic voice announced lift-off was about to begin. ETA to Argos Space Station was two minutes. I watched as the ship left the facility and rose vertically towards the sky, flying at speeds that would put to shame all but the most modern airplanes. Earth’s horizon became curved and the blue sky soon gave way to the deep blackness of the universe. It was littered with stars. More appeared as we left the atmosphere. More than I could count.
I could travel to any of those stars, if I wanted.
Most ships could do the trip in a couple seconds, but this was a free service. Distance, as well as travel-time, was greatly reduced on Rune. Otherwise, people would spend real-time years waiting patiently to reach Jupiter.
Planets, though, those were as big as one would expect. In fact, Earth had entire simulated cities, every single one filled with NPCs going about their business, with daily routines, friends, and enemies.
I couldn’t imagine the size of the hard-drives that hosted Rune. The game didn’t even try to store itself on the mindjack hardware. The hundred terabytes mine —Kipp’s— had installed thanks to Rune, were all textures and sounds. Everything else was handled online.
Rune would’ve never been possible a decade ago. And even now…
I recieved another message. Rylena wasn’t going to let go that easily.
Have you even looked at your inventory?
My inventory? Why should that matter, my inventory is empty. The only item besides my Blaster was one “Translight Message.”
“Huh,” I said, “I thought my communicator took care of messages.”
“For the most part it does,” said a player two rows behind me, close enough to hear me talking to myself, “but if you really want to reach a person on the other side of the Galaxy or something and your communicators aren’t good enough, you use a Translight Message. It counts as an item, so it’s harder to hack into.”
“You can hack communicators?”
“Sure, entire character builds revolve around it,” he said. Then, he went back to his seat.
Even when the player was helpful, he reminded me that Rune wasn’t a single player game and that people could hear me just as well. I decided I’d wait to open the message until after I had enough privacy.
Outside, the Argus Space Station approached the ship. I knew it was the other way around —us approaching it— but it was like a giant of steel rushing over to meet us. It began as a small dot in the distance and grew to be several times the size of the Research Facility back on Earth. It was triangular in shape and seemed to be composed of several modules of different size.
When we were close enough, a white beam of light shot out of the station and engulfed the ship. The AI announced we were now in Tractor Beam range and that docking was imminent. Metal doors parted in the surface of the station and I could see a hangar waiting for us.
I took out the Translight Message and materialized it on my hand. It looked like a message inside a glass bottle, a transparent cylinder with a luminous core in its center resembling a small sun in stasis.
The cylinder was warm to the touch. A small Details screen displayed itself over it, reading my curiosity as an order. It had no mention of its content, but it included the sender’s username.
It was from Kipp.
The Argus Space Station had at least a hundred times the crowd I had seen at the Research Station. Most of the new players gathered here to progress their quests, gather databyte
s, and try and get sponsored by an Alliance. The amount of new players who walked across the rails and clustered depths of Argus still reached the tens of thousands, two years after Rune’s release.
Finding a secluded place in the space station wasn’t easy. The Terran Federation’s construction philosophy was a functional one, which reflected real-world organizations such as NASA or SpaceX.
The ceilings were low. The life-support systems kept the atmosphere humid and hot, like a jungle. A jungle cramped into a tin can.
I found the spot I needed down a maintenance hatch mostly used by repair-drones to move across the tubes and shafts that formed the station’s entrails. It had a small stair for repairs which required human intervention (most of the time, NPCs, but I suspected players pursuing an engineering class got sent down here too). There was enough space for myself and perhaps another.
With the exit hatch almost hidden by cables and clutter I wasn’t able to recognize, it felt like being buried in a metallic cave. It made me feel so uncomfortable the Window opened several times to remind me I was perfectly safe in the real world.
Without a word, I activated the Translight Message the way the description suggested: to release the message catalyst, the stasis glass should be compromised. That meant, break the bottle. I threw it hard against the floor, my ankles and legs felt the splatter of a dozen tiny shards of glass.
The tiny sun, the instant it was free, underwent a fast reaction, not unlike an explosion. It released a wave of heat and light that almost blinded me and for a second made me worry I had just detonated a space-grenade at my feet. But then, a moment later, the light retreated into a shape.
“Kipp?” It was the figure of my friend, shaped by tiny golden threads of light, as he would’ve been if he hadn’t been born with an incurable disease. He was bulkier, stronger, and his eyes were defiant and mystical under the Translight interpretation of my friend’s avatar. I choked up, both in-game and outside, on my couch.