Earth Interstellar_Proxy War

by Scott Olen Reid

  Thanks for reading

  (Continue to the next page for excerpts from upcoming books by Scott Olen Reid)

  Nova Academy: Bases & Lairs

  Read about Theo and Carly’s sophomore year at Nova Academy: Bases & Lairs, due out mid-2018. It will also be Maria’s first year when she starts school at the Academy! How will that work out?

  Chapter 1: (subject to editing before publication)

  The coals in the fire are glowing and rippling with changing colors orange to gold to white to black as the heat from the fire bathes my face. I’m watching the campfire burning, with its flickering flames heats my body while the darkness chills my back. This has to be the most meditative moment in life. Nothing washes away my troubles and brings peace to my busy mind better than sitting in a beach chair dug in the sand in front of a ring of rocks and watching a pile of logs burning. It has been a good summer. Maybe even a great summer.

  If I can’t access a fully functioning lab soon I might lose my mind. If that happens at least I’ll be half way to being a mad scientist. Maybe I’ll just go on a rampage of death and destruction and call it done.

  I think Maria will come with me, if I want. Although to be honest, she will probably go on her own to relieve all the anxiety she is feeling as summer comes to an end. She doesn’t talk about her feelings much, at least not her vulnerable feelings. Anger is not an emotion she has a problem with expressing, but don’t expect touchy feely from her. Maria is sitting beside me in her own beach chair. My chair is a loaner from her, too. I think she picked up these chairs, and a lot of other camping gear around us, a couple years ago around the time I read about a break-in at the Chuck’s Sporting Goods over on Belmont.

  With the way Maria is acting, I’m pretty sure she is missing something she needs and I won’t be surprised to read about how she acquired the missing whatever in her life in the news. If you give me two guesses as to what is bothering Maria, money will be both of them. Nova Academy is an expensive school and she is starting there this fall. I have no idea how that is going to work out between her and Carly, but it has been an odd summer, so I’m hopeful. That’s a problem for later. Right now is about the trouble Maria is about to get me into.

  “I need money for school,” says Maria, breaking the zen like state someone else could have achieved staring into the fire. I should note the mesmerizing effects of the fire are in a battle of attrition with my obsessive need to get back in the lab.

  I do not reply to her statement. There’s no need.

  “Can you help me?”

  I still do not reply. When Maria asks for help, she is not asking for a loan or a gift. She is asking for an accomplice. I know what kind of help she wants, so I continue to wait for her to get it out.

  “There’s a job coming up I need to do,” she continues in the most painful drawing out of her asking for something from anyone I’ve ever seen.

  It’s time to move this conversation along before the fire goes out, or winter sets in, “Where’s your crew?” I ask.

  Dropping her head in an unexpected and shocking display of shame, Maria replies, “I can’t afford to use them. I need the entire take for myself to get through the year.”

  Okay. That sucks for her crew to be left out like that, but I’m wondering why she would think I would do a job with her without taking a cut. “What kind of job,” I ask, drawing out the conversation while I try to figure this out.

  “Armored truck,” she replies, starting to become animated, “There’s a regular money transfer I have a lead on.”

  “What’s the take?”

  “One to two hundred thousand.”

  “And you can’t afford to split it with your crew?” I’m a little surprised a forty thousand dollar split wouldn’t cover her costs during the school year. She has to have already paid her tuition.

  “I still owe half of my tuition,” Maria tells me, with her head still bowed. This has to be hurting her pride, which is no small thing. “I only had half and I have to pay the rest by the first day of school or I can’t go.”

  Damn. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. The fire isn’t doing much to soothe my troubles away right now; I continue to stare into the flickering flames. Maria can make flames just like the flames in the fire pit. But, her flames are not known for soothing troubles away so much as making them appear. Come to think of it, she lit the campfire tonight. Maybe that’s what is wrong with the fire in the pit that it is doing absolutely nothing for me right now. Tangent, Theo. Stay focused.

  “What do you need from me?” I ask her, knowing that just by asking I am committing. I do not want to do this job. I don’t need the money or the trouble. This is Maria, though. We got close last summer and, Carly or no, I have feelings for her. Not that Maria and I have rekindled the fire we had last summer. She has been a best friend to me and we’ve spent more time together than not, but it has been like I’m with my sister. It was so odd and unexpected I checked my mind to make sure Carly didn’t manage to sneak in and change some of my settings with her telepathy, but everything was normal. If that is how Maria wants it, though, I will live with it as it’s probably for the best. If Maria and I had started up where we left off, Carly would have known about it the first time she met Maria at school and that would be the end of that relationship. Anyway, Maria and I are closer than we have ever been now and I have to help her. She won’t take money directly from me. It would hurt her pride, and my bank account, too much.

  “I want you to be my backup,” she tells me, finally lifting her head and looking me in the face.

  “What’s my cut?” I reply, returning the look.

  “You won’t be getting a….”

  “No.” Hell, I already do not want to do this; not getting a cut is a non-starter.

  “Wait,” Maria replies, leaning forward. Her hair is back in a ponytail and I can’t help but notice the lines of her face and that beautiful neck I used to…. Hey! It’s been a long dry summer. Lay off. “You don’t have to do anything. You won’t even be there.”

  “Where will I be?”

  “Nearby. You won’t come in unless there’s more trouble than I can handle,” she explains.

  “So, I’ll be on standby out of sight and not a part of the job until you need me? And, I don’t get a cut?”

  “You’ll get a cut if you have to come in, but you shouldn’t be needed. I already scouted this job three times. Their security is a Class 3 muscle and a fire elemental, Class 2. The ele can’t touch me and I’m not worried about the Class 3.”

  “What you need is someone to back you up if another super shows up,” I say. Maria knows better than to go into a job without contingencies. “But, I don’t get paid. Who is your lookout?”

  “I’m hoping you will be my lookout with some of your drones. You’re like a one-man crew, Theo. You could do this job solo if you wanted.” Maria is the only one back home I’ve shown my suit to. Not even Bubbles knows about it.

  “What’s my cut if I have to come in?” I ask her. Providing remote lookout capability is something I can do without much risk. I’ll consider that. Make me an accessory? There has to be a cost to that or she won’t think twice about pulling me in.

  “Twenty percent,” she replies, looking me in the eyes. Have to give it to her, she has big brass balls to offer me a tenth of the haul when the only time I can get paid is if the shit hits the fan.

  “No. If I come in it will only be because supers have shown up and I would be risking twenty to life on even odds at best. You want me to back you up and it’s just the two of us? Fifty-fifty. I get half, or forget it. I’m not doing it.” I have no idea how I can think I’m a genius when I’m being this stupid. Realistically, though, odds are I will not have to do anything on this job other than fly my Dragon Tracker drones around for an hour and go home.

  I don’t think I have ever seen Maria actually grimace. It’s not her best look. “All right. Fifty-fifty. I’ll make it work.”

  Good, becaus
e I need her to do everything she can to hold on to that half and keep me out of it.

  We finish the night watching the campfire and packing away two cases of beer between us. It is hard to get me drunk with my metabolism, but I can do it when I try.

  Galaxy.Net

  Galaxy.Net is the story of Nick Davis, a college student and professional gamer who is recruited by the U.S. Government to play the ultimate MMORPG: Galaxy.Net. The Net is the creation of long extinct aliens who made the massive multiplayer game as a means for alien species throughout the Galaxy to interact and work out differences without mass xenocide. Interstellar relations, trade, and wars are all conducted on the Galaxy.Net and Humanity has joined the game.

  Only joining the game was the easy part. Now Humanity is heavily in debt and no other species has any interest in trading with the low tech, backwater race living on the third rock from the Sun; they have nothing anyone wants.

  It’s up to Nick and his team to find a way for humans to make the Galactic Credits they need to pay back Humanity’s debt and Nick has just the strategy – Galaxy.Net is a game; play it like one.

  Chapter 1 “Where do I sign?” (subject to editing before publication)

  The pounding on the door wasn’t able to get Nick out of bed. Neither was the continued pounding on the door, although it was beginning to piss him off; just not enough to want to open his eyes and drive a light spike through his pounding headache — courtesy of a twelve pack of beer and war simulator gaming bro-fest that ran until three this morning. What pissed him off enough to go open the door, though, and make Nick want to rip the inconsiderate ass beating on the door to his dorm condo, was the third round of pounding on his door, this time adding an additional pound on the door in case he hadn’t heard the first three.

  Nick was half way to the door when a voice bellowed through the door, “Open the door! FBI!”

  If you’ve ever had to say the words “What the fuck!” and “Oh, shit!” simultaneously, you’ll understand the brain lock Nick had when he stopped dead where he was, popped his mostly closed eyes open to the size of saucers, and stared at the door. Four more pounds on the door, followed by, “Kick it down.” provided the second shock that spurred Nick back into motion and opening the door before he lost it.

  Two large men, with similar hair cuts, similar jaws, and similar looks of disapproval on their faces were standing in the doorway wearing dark blue wind breakers with “FBI” lettering across the front. The two were met with Nick’s singular mouth hanging open, set below saucer eyes, and a mop of bed head hair on top. The whole Mr. Bill look sitting dumbfounded atop his underwear only clad body.

  “Are you Nick Davis?” Silence. “Hey.” Snap, snap go one of the agent’s fingers in front of Nick’s face. Then the agents look at each other with the briefest glance and step into the door, grabbing Nick by either arm and gently moving him back into the room so they could close the door behind them.

  A little softer this time, “Are you Nick Davis?”

  “Ye-yeah. What’s going on?” replaces Nick’s silence.

  “We’d like you to come with us. So, why don’t you get cleaned up and get dressed.”

  “But, what’s this about?”

  “Get moving, we have a plane to catch.” Came from the only one of the agents who has said anything. Finally, the other threw him a bone, “We’ll discuss it on the way.”

  Looking to the other agent in hopes he’d take pity on him and tell him what was up, Nick continued to stand there.

  Finally, the silent agent decides to contribute to the discussion, “It’s all right kid. You’re not in any trouble. In fact, we’re taking you to a job interview. Your country needs you.” He says, completely straight faced.

  Nick, not really deciding to accept that as answering his question so much as piling on additional questions, simply goes into do-what-your-told mode and heads for the bathroom.

  “Leave the door open,” says the first agent.

  Stopping, Nick turns, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Agent Beck, and this is Agent Smith. Go get ready.”

  Looking at the second agent, who has lighter hair and a scar beneath is right eye, but is otherwise a carbon copy of Agent Beck, “Agent Smith? Really?”

  “Yeah, now shut up and go get ready or you’re going the way you are.”

  That got Nick moving. Hopping in the shower turned as hot as he could stand it, Nick was feeling his hangover again. Fortunately, the hot shower water raining down on his face gave him some relief, albeit temporary. “What the hell is going on?” Is all Nick could think. Getting out of the shower, Nick squeezes a glob of toothpaste directly into his mouth followed by his well used toothbrush.

  Looking at the two agents as he puts his shoes on, Nick wants to ask them what the hell’s going on, but they’re ignoring him in a way that’s pretty clear talking is not currently what they want to do. “I’m ready.”

  Agent Beck walks over to Nick’s closet and grabs his sparring bag. Dumping out the sparring pads and equipment, he finally looks at Nick, “Pack a bag,” and tosses Nick the bag.

  Not knowing what to pack, Nick grabs the first stack of shirts, socks, and pants, from his dresser drawers and his old pair of jungle combat boots he bought from an Army Surplus store a few years ago when he was dating Vicky, the goth girl, who was, annoyingly, more emo than goth. Zipping closed the bag, Nick looks around his place at his sparse collection of furniture and his gaming rig, then does what he always tries to do, control the situation. “Let’s go,” he says, and walks past the two agents out the door and out towards the parking lot.

  Agents Beck and Smith, both with eyebrows raised, follow Nick out the door, and as Nick could hear, thankfully closing the door behind them. It wouldn’t do for him to have to go back to close his own door when he’s just beginning to try to establish some control over the situation. Beck and Smith are both students of the fine art of establishing a dominant position in any situation and allow Nick his moment. When Nick gets to the end of the sidewalk going into the parking lot, he stops and looks around for the stereotypical black SUV, and isn’t disappointed to see it pulling up and stopping right in front of where he is standing.

  “Get in the back,” comes from behind him.

  Piling into the SUV, Nick gets his seatbelt on as he is thrown around in the back seat by the driver who slaloms his way out of the parking lot and out onto the main road. “Who’s he?” Nick asks, referring to the driver.

  “Agent Jones,” says Agent Beck.

  Nick sits tight to see where they might be taking him and only starts his questioning after they get on the 60 Freeway heading towards the Inland Empire. “We flying out of Ontario?” he asks.

  “That’s right.”

  “Where we flying?”

  “Virginia.”

  Asking himself, “What the hell’s in Virginia?” Nick asks, “What the hell’s in Virginia?”

  Being ignored, Nick asks another question, “What kind of job am I interviewing for?”

  Agent Smith, in his usual pattern of only talking when he’s decided he’s heard enough talking, says, “Look, kid. We’re not going to talk about where we’re going, or what you’re going to be doing there. Nothing bad is going to happen to you, so shut up and enjoy the ride.”

  The only words spoken for the remainder of the trip to the airport all the way to the guard gate Marine Corp Base Quantico was from Nick when he stopped at a Pizza Hut stand in the airport and responded to Agent Smith’s frown with, “Dude, I’m not eating airplane food.”

  Nick’s still trying to be in control of a situation he has absolutely no control in, speculates on why he’s been brought to a military base, “If you’re interviewing me for a job in the Marines, I’m going to have to decline. I do appreciate the offer, though,” which gets him no response other than to be led into an empty conference room.

  “Mr. Davis, I appreciate your being here,” offers a man in a military officer’s uniform, followed b
y what Nick can describe as a “career suit,” a man wearing a suit that looks like he wears it every day and has become as bored with his attire as he has with his career.

  I’m Colonel Jim Masteson, and this gentlemen is Mr. Evans.” The two don’t offer to shake hands; taking a seat opposite Nick at the conference table. Outside the window, Nick sees it’s raining, contributing to his feeling of being unable to escape whatever situation he is in.

  “Why am I here?”

  “That’s a good question. You’ve been identified as a candidate to participate in a program that we believe could make use of your particular skill set,” answered the guy in the uniform. Pausing just long enough to give Nick a chance to follow up his question, and getting none, the colonel continues, “this program is very sensitive, however, and does require a certain level of discretion. I do apologize for the manner in which we needed to bring you in, but it was necessary to maintain security.”

  Nick squirms in his chair, holding back his natural desire to snark on this guy’s phony attempts at being polite.

  “The fact is, the skills we are looking for are your gaming skills. My understanding is you won the Battle: Future War tournament in Seoul, South Korea, two months ago. Prior to that, in Los Angeles late last year, you won the Odysseus: Space Battles tournament, and placed second in the Trillium: Global War game in Pasadena four months before that.”

  “Okay….” Nick is looking back and forth at the two men, waiting for the punch line, “I’m sorry, but how does my mad gaming skills have any benefit to the FBI? I’ve been confused all day today and it’s starting to get old. Could you please just say what it is you want from me?”

  Speaking up, the suit, or Mr. Evans, whatever his name is, “Nick, we want you to play a game for us.” Nick could see he was gathering up in his mind what he wants to say, and decided to let the obvious question sit on his tongue for a while longer before Mr. Evans continues, “We want you to play Galaxy.Net.”