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By Terry C. Simpson
AEGIS OF THE GODS
Etchings of Power
Ashes and Blood
Embers of a Broken Throne
Forges of Creation
The Shadowbearer (Prequel)
THE QUINTESSENCE CYCLE
Game of Souls
Soulbreaker
Crown of Souls
Soulsworn (Sidestory)
THE FROST FILES
Void Legion
THE ARCANUS ARCHIVES
ShadeBorn
Table of Contents
Welcome
Books by T.C Simpson
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Copyright
Map
CHAPTER 1
A madman with a sword quoting what sounded like Shakespeare. Three cops with handguns aimed at the madman’s head. Desperate yelling. Screaming. People scrambling away, hiding behind pillars. Such was the chaos that greeted Andre Taylor when he stepped off the Maglev at the Neptune Avenue train station on a frigid October day in New New York.
Transfixed more by the man than the confrontation, Andre huddled into his thin jacket behind a pillar. Most people had their cellphones out, recording the incident. Three drones hovered several dozen feet above the debacle, one emblazoned with News 7 on its underbelly, the other with POLICE, and the last with NAIL. Some people shouted for the cops to shoot. Others stayed as far away as the platform allowed, many covering their mouths and noses with their hands or scarves.
The man looked as if he had bathed in filth. Froth spilled from his lips. His clothes were nothing more than rags, yet he seemed oblivious to temperatures in the teens. Sword in hand, he paced back and forth, a dozen feet of space between him and the cops as he muttered to himself one moment and yelled profanities the next. He stopped abruptly, pointed the sword at his imaginary foe, and then paced again.
Andre’s cellphone vibrated.
“Mom calling.” Bixby’s resonant voice piped through Andre’s Bluetooth headphones.
“Answer,” Andre said to the virtual assistant. A soft click. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
“Dre, are you almost home?” Mom’s voice was strained as usual.
“Just got off the train.”
“Hurry up, okay?”
Dre frowned. “Everything alright?”
“The twins are kicking my ass,” Mom said.
Dre smiled with the thought of the baby brother and sister he’d soon have. “That’s like every day.” He chuckled.
Mom laughed weakly. “Ain’t that the truth. Regi and Rayne can’t get here soon enough. What’s all that noise?”
“The usual Coney Island madness.”
“Be careful and don’t get caught up. Hurry home.”
“On my way. See you soon.”
“See you soon.” Mom hung up.
“You have sullied my queen, Lancelot,” the madman yelled. “I, King Arthur, challenge thee to a duel.” He brought his sword up, hand waist high, then he turned, and paced away.
The cops followed but kept their distance. The man rounded on them. The cops stopped, Glocks not wavering from the madman’s head.
Dre wondered why they didn’t shoot. Or at least tase the man. Another part of him was glad they were showing restraint.
The madman pointed the sword at the cops. “Bastard, I fart in your general direction. For honor!” He swung at the air and then parried an imaginary return blow.
Dre gasped when several people said the madman was a DeGen. It explained the presence of the North American Immigration Logistics’ drone. And why the cops had not engaged. They were afraid. They weren’t equipped to deal with DeGens. Not with standard-issue Glock 60s. They needed pulse weapons. Something that would cauterize immediately. Weapons that were the territory of NAIL and the Special Defense Force.
Dre shivered. And it was not from the cold. A very real possibility existed that the DeGen carried a plague. He could not see any bloody lesions covering the DeGen’s face, but their absence did not matter. The sores could be all over his body, hidden by his clothes.
Covering his mouth with his hand like many other people, Dre desperately sought another way off the platform. None existed. Not unless he wanted to jump down onto the tracks.
Left with no choice but to wait for NAIL or the SDF, Dre wondered if the madman was the same DeGen who’d tried to kick in his building’s front door a few weeks ago. Dre shuddered to think of the possibilities had the DeGen gotten inside. As far as he was concerned, DeGen appearances in Coney Island were becoming too common now. Ten times in the last five months since his family had moved here. Ten times too many.
“Do not flee now, vermin.” The DeGen dashed to his right away from the police. A cop yelled. The DeGen leaped. The incoming Maglev train struck the DeGen. Thud. The body burst like a melon.
Wincing, Dre turned his head. As a few idiots rushed toward the tracks, Dre and many others made for the stairs as fast as they could through the crowds. He’d be damned if he got stuck in the aftermath of this mess. The next thing would be calls for a quarantine.
Hunched into his jacket, Dre left the station and hurried home. He sought to clear his mind of the DeGen and the cold with thoughts of playing Ataxia Online. Smiling, he envisioned his sorcerer fighting a Giant Ugly Mofo. Dueling players. Raiding. Getting epic loot. He dreamed about the game daily, more so since he quit playing as part of a promise to Mom and Pops.
Rushing home to throw on Virtual Reality goggles and jump into an adventure had been the height of his days after school and then college. Back in Barbados, before his family emigrated to America, he played Virtual Reality games and simulators of all sorts. Pops had encouraged the habit. In fact, Pops had created many of the sims and made certain Dre spent hours in them every day. Dre had lived to game.
But no more.
Now, he was stuck walking all the way to and from the Neptune Avenue train station every day to go to a job with no future. A job Pops had gotten him. An off-the-Grid job. Airbus Guide and Customer Service Rep for some obscure company in Downtown Brooklyn.
Pops had told him about the job during one of Pops’ frequent talks abo
ut being a man. Dre recalled Pops’ deep voice and Bajan accent like it was yesterday.
Experiencing the struggle… overcoming it. Hard work. It makes you a man. Teaches you the value of things. Makes you understand why you gotta be wary of things that sound too good to be true… why I don’t take handouts, and you shouldn’t either. They come with a catch. Next thing you know, you’re trapped. Learn to stand on your own two. And remember that nothing worth doing is easy.
Dre scowled at the memory, and more so at his current life. If this was what being a man was like then life could keep it. At least in Ataxia Online he was somebody. Someone important. Rather than a useless Bottom Warder no one cared about.
Dre stepped in shit. He blew out a breath and shook his head. “Great. Just fucking great.”
He turned up his nose at the stench and hoped it was only dog shit. Cringing at the thought that it might be human, or worse yet, a DeGen’s, he muttered to himself, and found one of the few patches of dirt and grass outside his building and wiped his foot repeatedly. He considered tossing the sneaker, but these were his only good pair.
Stop bugging, dawg. It was only dog shit. With a sigh, he continued down 17th Street.
Thoroughly disgusted, he again wished he could work from home. But switching to Virtual Reality meant missing out on the rich folk who could afford actual trips to the city. Every credit mattered. Although, now that he considered it, working from home meant having the company’s language translation eye and ear wearables. He could claim he lost a set and sell them. He dismissed the idea, as tempting as it seemed.
A soft tone echoed in his Bluetooth headphones. He pulled out his cell and took a peek. Green notification bubbles lit up the UI. He poked the air above them. His OneWorld newsfeed displayed several new comments on the thread for Void Legion, Ataxia Online 2. Shit forgotten, he poked the notification box.
Ten minutes until the most anticipated trailer of 2050.
He hurried up the steps and along the catwalk. His mind flitted through a dozen possibilities Void Legion could offer. Even the new game’s name was epic. Upon reaching the front door, he pulled it open and entered the vestibule.
“Identify yourself to gain access,” the Voice ID chimed.
He opened his mouth to comply. And stopped. The mere thought of standing there, saying Andre Taylor twenty times until the ID caught the right inflection made him want to punch the thing in its virtual face. He had no time for that. A moment to fiddle with his keys at the inner door and he let himself into the lobby.
Bunch of worthless security measures. He huffed.
“Good night, Mister Taylor.” The MX1 guard behind the desk waved with an arm whose metal was pitted, the paint peeling.
Dre snorted and shook his head without acknowledging the android. Don’t even know why management bothered with that fossil. Fucking obsolete AI. Worse than my old Samsung phone and tablet. Can’t protect anyone from my nine-year-old sister. Much less if another DeGen tries to break in.
He pressed the elevator button and waited. A notice on the wall asked tenants to sign a petition to complain about building upkeep and security. Or the lack thereof. Another was to demand that the city extend the Maglev beyond the Neptune Avenue train station.
“Good luck with that,” he muttered. Stillwell Avenue hadn’t seen a train since Hurricane Donald wiped out much of Coney Island in 2020 back when there was only one New in New York.
One of the more ridiculous petitions was for Governor Morrison to pay for rezoning, completely evacuate Coney Island, and move them all to a higher Ward. Or to petition one of The Seven, preferably Sunrise Systems, to take up their cause.
Dre almost laughed. Unless the Corps saw some benefit in revitalizing the area, perhaps as the tourist attraction it once was, that idea might as well be dead. The Seven had more important things to do in New New York and the North American Republic than worry about a ghetto on a strip of land below sea level.
He returned his attention to his phone and swiped the Void Legion thread. The post opened up. The last comment was from GamerGod. It read, ‘There gonna loose a lot of players if we gotta start from scratch.’
Andre grimaced. He thought about leaving the comment alone. For about two seconds. He poked the air over the reply button. A text box opened. With his pointer finger, he swiped over the letters to form words. They’re. Lose. Then beneath them, he added: People like you shouldn’t be allowed to turn off the AI or Language Assistance. He clicked enter. Grinning, he imagined GamerGod’s pissed off response.
The elevator bell dinged; the door slid open. He stepped in, pressed 5, and headed up. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of old food and sweaty armpits. And shit. When he got out, he wiped his feet on the faded green carpeting then hurried to his apartment door.
The moment he got inside, he shouted, “Mom, I’m home.”
He dropped his backpack on the floor, slipped off his sneakers, and reminded himself to disinfect them later. Or soak them in bleach. He shrugged out of his jacket and put it in the hallway closet.
A moment to rummage through the backpack and he had his trusty Samsung tablet in hand. His heart ached for a moment. Every time he looked at the old thing, he was reminded that Mom had forced him to sell his VR headsets and even his Holotab. Right now, he would’ve settled for the Holotab. Its projections were better than watching the Samsung’s regular old video as if he were back in 2025.
He touched the screen. The tablet lit up. A promo for new Airbuses automatically began. Shane Constantine, CEO of Sunrise Systems, was promising that his Corp would make New New York a prime tourist destination again by increasing investments in the city and revamping AI for all Airbuses.
The admins chose that moment to post the Void Legion trailer.
Andre’s breath caught. He clicked on the video just as he heard a noise. With a wave of his hand, he paused the playback. Frowning, he looked toward the hall that led to the rest of the apartment, waiting to see if Mom had called him. Muffled voices echoed outside the front door. Probably those badass kids from next door going to smoke weed in the stairwell again. He waited a moment, but when he heard nothing more, he gestured. The Void Legion trailer played.
The narrator’s voice piped through his headphones. “Here at BioGen Studios we had put our very best techs behind our Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, or VRMMOs, because we knew your time was precious. But now we have taken VR to another level.
“We introduce Simulated Reality. With advances like you’ve never seen before, you’ll live your fantasies, become more than a player, become part of the world of Mikander, a home away from home in Void Legion, Ataxia Online 2, a redefining of the genre.”
New additions to the game popped onto the screen, boasting the new Simulated Reality tech they called Total Immersion.
Attention riveted, Dre nodded his approval for the changes to come. He had thought VRMMOs were better than sports. Better than movies. Better than books. Better than sex. Although he’d never had real sex yet. But who needed real sex when you had VPorn? He had enough experience with the stuff to be a pro, just like he did playing VRMMOs. He had been willing to bet VRMMOs were the closest thing to the most perfect entertainment ever created and not just the best games.
Where else could you live in your own world and not need anyone else? Where else could you literally lose yourself for days on end? Be whomever you wanted? Not have to worry about girls making fun of your looks? Discover incredible abilities? Where else could you fling the sickest magic, rescue damsels in distress, go on epic quests, rule a kingdom, lead raids into the most dangerous dungeons to defeat massive bosses, collect the best loot, or revel in the sheer joy of soloing a Giant Ugly Mofo?
And the best game of the lot? Ataxia Online. It was a masterpiece; Mikander, a revolution of world building.
And now they had
improved upon it with Simulated Reality. Testers claimed you could feel in the game. They said they couldn’t differentiate between the game and real life.
The promised changes sounded too good to be true. Immediately, Dre heard Pops telling him there was a catch.
Frowning once more, Dre looked up from the old tablet toward the hall. Again, he could have sworn he heard his mother over the narrator. Probably wants you to take out the garbage. Or wash the dishes. He groaned.
When Mom said nothing more, he headed to the couch and plopped down. He returned to listening and reading about Void Legion. Some cool shit was coming.
A new weapon popped on the screen. Some draconid tech. An aether cannon. Its Damage Per Second, or DPS, flitted above the weapon. His first thought about the cannon was Big Fucking Gun like the BFGs in DOOM.
Dre marveled at the new items. New skills. A new class: cannoneer. Increased level cap. Two raid dungeons. A world boss. Two zones: a beginner island for noobs and another with end game content.
There were several new Giant Ugly Mofoes or GUMs, the massive boss like beasts that roamed the world. Best of all was the Player Vs Player improvements. There were some stiff new penalties to dissuade Player Killers. As well as bounties to encourage the community to hunt down said PKers.
Then, of course, there were the castle sieges.
Oh, man, the castle sieges. He shook his head, imagination running wild. In the right guild, I could rise up the PVP ranks, maybe become a Nomarch. Better yet, an Exarch. He grimaced at the idea of being in a guild again. Or I could play a merc, do the shit by myself. Yeah, solo would be the way to go. Far more epic. Epic players do epic things.
The scatter of thoughts and the little smile he wore lasted about five seconds before they faded. He sighed; his shoulders drooped. None of that was to be. Between taking Kai to school and working every scrap of OT, he had no spare time. Add cooking and cleaning since Mom could no longer manage, and his day was completely shot.
And then there was his promise to Mom and Pops. A promise he regretted but would also keep. A man’s only as good as his word, Pops always said.
Dre let out a deep breath. He couldn’t wait for Mom to have the twins, for things to be easier, to have free time again, to quit his job, and have everything return to normal. To get away from this shithole of a building, go back to college. Although it would only be a college on the Grid. But the Grid meant VR, which suited him just fine. He wanted to disappear. To game.
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