“Couldn’t we have done this in a simulator?” Roger asked. “I mean, seems pointless to trek all this way out to Nowheresville just to fire blanks at one another.”
“How is the whole game not a simulator?” June replied. “You want a simulator inside a simulator? What if that gets to be too real for you? Think we can put a sub-simulator inside that one?”
“I could probably nest like six of them before the server crashed,” Chase supplied. “After that, the processor load would loop too many times to keep up, and we’d end up with a packet overload.”
“Sometimes I think you’re making this shit up just to see if we can tell,” June accused.
“Enough chatter,” Reggie barked into the radio. “This is step one in remedial ass-kicking. We devolve into schoolyard gossip even under fire since we’re practically never in real danger anymore. We need to accustom ourselves to a competitive environment again.”
“We could recruit a second team,” Chase suggested, suddenly helpful. “I bet Wounded Legion will field a bunch of platoons, depending what shakes out once the format is hammered out in detail. We can have war games.”
Reggie liked the sound of that. “Good idea. Make it happen.”
“Shit,” Chase swore softly into an open mic. He’d just gotten saddled with extra work for making the suggestion. If Reggie kept doing that, he’d stop getting good suggestions.
“Nah,” Reggie corrected himself. “Roger, you handle lining up war games opponents for us.”
“Why me?” Roger whined. “I’m in field operations, not scouting or recruitment. I haven’t even interviewed a recruit in two good years.”
“Because you’re the low man seniority-wise,” Frank put in, forestalling any argument that might lead to him being appointed. “Low man gets the shit jobs.”
“Oh, come on!” Roger continued in his high-pitched voice. Reggie had obviously never met Roger on the outside, but he’d joined up as a teenager. Somehow, his voice had never really lowered since. “I’ve been in Alpha Platoon for three years. Nobody is new anymore.”
“Three isn’t five,” Chase added.
Five years. Had it really been so long? It seemed like forever ago that Reggie had been commanding a tank for the U.S. Army. But time inside Armored Souls passed weirdly, with no option to log out to the world of sunshine and breathable air. Sleep was optional. Holidays carried their own weird vibe that hardly made them seem real.
“Business, people,” Reggie said. “We’ll deal with the rest back at base.” Reggie tapped a command into his console.
[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 0/30]
“What?” June said when the prompt came up. “You’re actually attacking us with juggernauts we own?”
“Why not?” Reggie asked. “The NPC-piloted ones are insured, same as ours. We need to practice blasting, and we’re going to get it. We’ll fight these things all night if we have to. I expect to see us improve every time.”
“Um… how many times is all night?” Chase asked warily.
“What, you got a date or something?” Reggie asked sarcastically.
Chase sighed into his microphone. “I could have one like that in Cathouse Playtime.” He snapped his fingers. “But no. I don’t.”
The hula girl on Vortex’s console shimmied, but Reggie hadn’t budged the juggernaut an inch. “Incoming!” he announced.
Alpha Platoon sprang into action by reflex. This wasn’t the difference between noobs and veterans. This was the difference between veterans and aces. Alone, on their own, through tactics and superior piloting, any of them might take on the 30 NPC-piloted juggernauts all on their own. The AI was notoriously exploitable if you were a good enough pilot and had the right weapons loadout.
All of them did.
But this wasn’t about winning no matter what. This was about winning convincingly, as a team, and learning once again how to act as a single cohesive unit rather than a bunch of ace pilots delegating to a horde of low-level underlings.
The first of the enemy juggernauts popped up on Reggie’s heads-up display.
June was already on it. “Bogey at Hotel-four-five. Another at India-four-five. Wyvern-class. Loaded out with Ballistic Cannon-150s and Medium-Range Missiles—shit, with anti-laser reflective coating.”
“This is gonna hurt,” Chase said grimly. “Those shells don’t even have to hit us. And we can’t mass-laser down all the missiles.”
Frank gave a belly laugh. “Bunch ‘o tickles. Ain’t worried.”
“Maybe you don’t need to worry with a mile thick of armor,” Roger snapped. “For the rest of us, this is a death of a thousand cuts. You’re an asshole, Reggie.”
Reggie smirked. “Roger, Roger. That I am. Didn’t want this to be easy.”
[Wyvern[2] – To Hit 99%]
This wasn’t target practice. This was a tactical exercise. None of them were going to be missing the enemy Wyverns without taking extreme measures to show off. The point was to work together to keep the incoming damage to a minimum.
Reggie squeezed off a shot at Wyvern[2] as soon as it appeared to be lining up a shot at Artemis. The critical hit indicator flashed, and the Wyvern exploded.
[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 1/30]
“Showoff,” Chase muttered. Diablo took up a position at the mouth of the canyon, using the rocky wall as cover to limit his exposure from the return fire of the twenty-nine other juggernauts they knew to be out there.
Yawndark took a flanking position on the opposite side from Diablo.
TARGET DATA ACQUIRED.
Artemis was feeding updates on the approaching swarm. June had used her built-in Jump Boost to take up a position atop the cliff wall where she could put scanners on more of their foes. “I’ve located 20 of the 30 juggernauts in the mission tracker. Keep an eye out for the others.”
Frank waded into the canyon and took up a forward position at a natural stone pillar that bifurcated the passage. It was a sound maneuver, given Gremlin’s impressive armor. He might take a little more damage up there, but nothing would get to Chase and Roger without getting absolutely obliterated by Frank’s sword and close-range weaponry.
Reggie cringed.
The ground collapsed beneath the canyon mouth. Quick on their feet, and with piloting points allotted to prevent such a tragedy, none of the three juggernauts at the canyon’s entrance were swallowed up in the sinkhole.
“What the hell?” June shouted.
“Ambush!” Chase called out. “Think we found those missing Wyverns!”
In the following minutes, chaos swirled. Enemies ended up overrunning the Alpha Platoon position, and all five of the juggernauts took extensive damage before cornering the last of the Wyverns.
A blast from Reggie’s Plasma Launcher Mk4 melted the last 6 HP out of Wyvern[11].
[Primary Objective: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 29/30]
Frank’s massive sword descended on Wyvern[23].
[Primary Objective Complete: Destroy Enemy Juggernauts 30/30]
[Mission Successful – N/A XP - 10Cr]
“Ten?” Chase asked incredulously. “Just make it zero. Less insulting that way.”
“Where you get off pulling a stunt like that in training?” Roger demanded.
Reggie shrugged despite no one being on video to see it. “I don’t expect a single damn thing in this upcoming tournament to be fair. I expect curveballs, bait-and-switch, and misdirection—and that’s just from Valhalla West. I can’t even begin to imagine the bullshit tactics our actual opponents might come up with. So, get used to unfair. You’re going to be dating unfair. Play your cards right, you’ll be sleeping with unfair.”
Reggie took a long breath. “Before anyone wins those Valkyries, they’re going to get fucked over.”
Chapter Six
Reggie lay back in bed and looked up at the stars. By all rights, the night sky over Jenova City ought to have been washed out by the lights of the vast metropolis. But he wasn’
t going to complain about the view, just the company. June lay beside him with her head pillowed on his chest. She was still awake. He could tell by the breathing. Nights like this had become a contest to see who could stay awake longer and sneak away while the other slumbered—Reggie to go command more missions, or June to steal away to her waking life.
With a sidelong glance, Reggie looked at the bedside clock. “You’ve got work soon.”
June mumbled, “Yeah, yeah. I can be late once in a while.”
They hadn’t reconciled. June had just quietly forgiven him—or so it appeared. Reggie wasn’t going to question it. Reggie had enough on his mind. Maybe June realized that too.
“Fine, ten more minutes.”
June didn’t object.
Reggie focused on his breathing, the comforting weight of June’s head rising up and down rhythmically. He was so careful to avoid jostling her. How many more nights would he be able spend like this? Armored Souls made this all possible. Without the virtual environment, June would be stuck in the real world, and Reggie would be nowhere at all.
Nowhere at all…
“What is it?” June asked, rolling off of him and propping herself up on an elbow.
“What was what?”
She sat up, pulling at the sheets to cover herself. “You shuddered.”
There were, of course, downsides to such intimacy. Every little tic, every little gesture and mannerism got quietly catalogued, studied, and analyzed without either of them ever really meaning to. It just happened. And when they were deviances from those norms, the other one picked up on them.
The soldier in Reggie, the tough young man his father had raised, said to deny it. Tough it out. Bottle it up. Deal with it himself. June was as likely to put up with that bullshit as she was to actually forget that he owed her a date.
“The rumors. The tournament. The inevitable end of Armored Souls. I died once, but I wasn’t there for it. It was like some background process or a clogged engine valve that the mechanic tells you about after he’s already fixed it. This time I can see it coming. I’m perfectly healthy, in great shape. When this ship sinks, I’m the captain who goes down with it.”
“So that’s what this is about. You do realize that Valhalla West is more than Armored Souls. There are other games. Then the whole audience of war-gaming fans. They’re not about to let this place die off without something to replace it. Maybe a couple somethings. Maybe they try five or six that they test out and see which is most popular. Wherever we end up, I bet you can even restart some incarnation of Wounded Legion. The troops love you. Some will go to whichever game you pick.”
Reggie sighed and stared up at those stars trapped behind the glass of his skylight ceiling. So far. So infinite. So fake. They weren’t any distance away at all. Distance was an illusion. Thought was a simulation.
“Yeah, but what about the game after that, and the game after that one?” Reggie asked cynically. “How long can Ken Bradley and his cronies keep this crap up? Digital birdcages. Digital birds. It’s business out there. Some smart guys come by and create some new technology shinier and more fun than this place, and the whole system is going to collapse. This tournament… it’s a sign of the end times. If I were some medieval soothsayer, I’d read this as an omen.”
“Games have contests all the time,” June said.
“Not like this one.”
“So, what? So, they give out a few overpowered juggernauts. It’s not going to ruin the game.”
“Maybe.”
June stood and gathered up her clothes. She could just log out. Log back in, and she’d be fully dressed. “You know what? Go ask him. Go ask Ken Bradley. If he’s going to spill the beans to anyone it would be you. Look… I really do have to get going. What I don’t want is for you to spend the whole day brooding while I’m gone.”
She had a point. Kenny-boy just might be willing to tell him.
June logged out, vanishing before his eyes with a wink and a blown kiss.
[Apartment > Logout]
Reggie tapped the word.
[Really Logout? Y/N]
Reggie vanished.
Chapter Seven
[Relog options: Apartment - Armored Souls - Silent Shuriken - More Options]
[More Options: … ]
Reggie scanned down the list that followed until he found the Valhalla West corporate offices. In an instant, he reappeared in an important-looking office complex.
He breezed past a receptionist who sat at her sentry post behind the counter in the Valhalla West atrium. Towering walls of glass rose to the front and rear while the left and right corridors wound their way toward elevators that granted access to the rest of the building. None of it was real, of course, but Reggie had been lead to believe that this was an authentic replication of the actual Valhalla West corporate headquarters.
Back in his army days, Reggie hadn’t been big on metaphysical nonsense or science fiction. He lived in the real. High tech was satellite mapping and computer-aided fire control. But he read more in his spare time these days. The night passed slowly when the server population woke and headed off to face their days. There was only so much time Reggie could spend hanging around with Frank and the few oddballs and overseas players logged in during those quiet hours.
This was a parallel dimension. Earth 1.01 Alpha. Ken Bradley wanted a digital universe, Reggie believed, real as the computers on Earth Prime could make it. Armored Souls was practice. This corporate zoo exhibit was his attempt at making a believable Earth.
Digital employees greeted him in the halls. Reggie rode the elevator with one of the digital artists who worked on Cavern Crawlers, logged into the building to work in his sleep—a fanatic. Ken Bradley loved those.
Reggie was a fanatic too. He played more Armored Souls than anyone, even Frank. The old buzzard logged over to various sporting venues to spectate games as if he were a kid again visiting the Polo Grounds. Reggie had never heard of him actually getting out onto the field for a ballgame, whether it was baseball, football, or hockey. On occasion, Frank might lace on a pair of old-timey boxing gloves and step into the ring, but that was about it.
Still, it was more than Reggie got out.
Outside the door to Ken Bradley’s office, Reggie ran into the big boss’s secretary. He kept one logged in and one on duty in the real world at all times. This was Shirley’s shift asleep. Reggie sauntered over and leaned an elbow on her elevated desk.
“Boss-man got time in his schedule?” Reggie asked.
Shirley peered over her wire-rimmed glasses and raised an eyebrow. “Who you think you’re seeing? Some small-town mayor? Son, Mr. Bradley can’t be dropping his day every time some dead soldier shows up simpering and flirting.”
“I wasn’t flirting,” Reggie insisted.
“Uh huuuuuh,” Shirley replied. “Sure, you wasn’t. If I was a wrinkled old man instead of this fine piece of woman you see in front of you, you telling me you’d still be grinning like a fool and showing off them perfect digital teeth?”
“Wait. Come on. Cut a guy some slack. I live in a game where all the women dress in fatigues. Can’t blame a guy making nice on the civilian side of the servers. I’m just being friendly is all.”
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Shirley. If her avatar was anything to judge by, she might have been in her early thirties, not thin but certainly alluringly curvy. She wore a gray blazer over a pale pink blouse with a pearl necklace. The whites of her eyes stood starkly against her dark skin as she stared Reggie down from behind those glasses on their gold chain. She pursed crimson lips as she failed to buy Reggie’s excuses. “Uh, huuuuuh. Friendly like a shark.” Her accent hinted at an Alabama pedigree before she came to Silicon Valley North.
Reggie took a seat in the CEO’s waiting area. The chairs were all surrealistic shapes but surprisingly comfortable and ergonomic once Reggie dared test one out. Ken Bradley didn’t keep magazines or newspapers for his guests. Instead, a screen on the wall loo
ped gameplay footage from various Valhalla West projects, both current and upcoming. Closed captions flashed across the bottom in lieu of sound.
No clock marked the time.
Reggie hadn’t brought a tablet computer—the advanced tech from Armored Souls didn’t port into other environments.
He waited.
And waited.
And waited…
Patience was a finite resource. Some guys had more of it than others, but eventually anyone short of a Shaolin monk was going to get bored sitting in the same spot for hours at a time. The game montage had been a distraction—a real-estate shopping channel of post-Armored Souls homes—for the first few loops. But by the tenth time around, Reggie had memorized the captions and repeated them as would a narrator, had the sound been on.
“…and in Geology Gems, you enter the puzzle. Join your friends or compete with random players from around the globe…”
On the screen, an explosion of colorful sprites showered the player.
[Ruby x30]
[Diamond x5]
[Gained – Mighty Pickaxe]
[BONUS MINING! 20s]
The player glowed as a 20-second timer counted down, but the montage only stayed on Geology Gems until it hit 18.
Then it dawned on Reggie. He leaned over precariously on his misshapen couch and called out to Shirley. “Ken’s not logging in tonight, is he?”
Shirley shook her head slowly.
Reggie closed his eyes. Of course. It was daylight, working hours. Why would a CEO be spending his time logged into a game that required the user to be asleep? For a client demo, maybe. Certainly not to meet with a disgruntled player.
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