Video Game Recruiting (Corporate Marines Book 1)

by Tom Germann

  Behind me I can hear Tina firing slow, measured rounds, and the sensors indicate that she is taking out an entire reaction force on her own. Tina always does a good job. She’s kind of cold and a real bitch, but when it comes to gunning down stuff, she gets it done.

  The corridor is featureless and all doors are flat against the wall. Every few metres are shallow alcoves with some sort of alien art. Statues and shapes that make no real sense to us, but are there. Sensor scans indicate they are solid and inert. Just alien art in the blank halls of the complex.

  The enemy should be disorganized; there were two EMP bombs detonated in-atmosphere to mess up the civilian networks, and a kinetic weapon dropped on their main military base. Then, as we came in hot, the shuttle fired a scratch box. All electronic communications are now down to a distance of feet instead of kilometres.

  But electronics still work. Especially military-grade, hardened ones. I discover that as two automated sentry weapons appear. One drops from the ceiling and one pops up from the floor just off to the side.

  My sight carat slides on target for the one above and I pop three rounds into it, smashing it to pieces. The medium laser sparks and is useless. Jeff also put three rounds into the turret in his arc and it’s smashed to pieces as well. From the little I could see, it looked like a heavy slug weapon.

  Jeff pops his magazine out and reloads on the run. It’s smooth and he can keep covering his arc. I’m thankful that Steve hasn’t had any contact yet. He is heavy on the trigger and terrible to reload. Every time we run through training missions, Steve is the first to go down and doesn’t pay enough attention to his sensor feeds. We are here now, though, and this is what we have to work with.

  We are at the end of the long corridor that we initially entered. The T-junction ahead is another good ambush spot. In fact, we don’t even enter the intersection before laser blasts and streams of slug rounds are burning past the opening in a carefully coordinated pattern designed to cut anyone to shreds, with or without armour.

  All the fire is coming from the side that leads deeper into the facility.

  I pull a sensor ball and roll it out into the hall in the middle of the intersection. I scan both ways because this is a perfect ambush point from both sides. I bounce what I see to the other armoured members of my section.

  The side blasting fire at us has four enemy soldiers with a projectile weapon hooked up to a huge ammo supply. The medium laser next to it has three barrels and is connected to the building for its power supply. The slow rate of fire means that the weapon does not need to go onto internal batteries for the power, and the single shots coming from each barrel means that none are over-heating.

  Worse is the other side. There are two more automated defence weapons tracking the corridor entrance: a heavy laser and another projectile weapon.

  We move. Jeff throws a nasty grenade down the hall on his side while Steve does the same on his side. Tina is still covering the rear and we are almost ready.

  The sharp detonation of the explosives is nasty. Our armour dampens the noise and other effects, but I can still feel the overpressure from both sides. The sensor is still working. Jeff took out the two weapons, but there is still movement. Steve did not take out both of the weapon systems, but they appear damaged.

  I yell, “GO!” and lunge out into the corridor with Jeff on my left. Our weapons are up and as we cover the aliens, still trying to pick themselves up and deal with us, we fire individual rounds. There were three survivors when we leapt out. Three shots later, there are only bodies.

  Steve and Tina went on their side and I can hear too much weapons fire. The heavy laser that blasts a shot down the hall past me is not appreciated.

  I hear Steve scream and then the firing is over.

  Jeff and I move down the hall to just before the weapon systems and stop. Tina and Steve follow. Now we only have to worry about covering two sides, not three. Steve is showing as injured and he has taken damage to his armour.

  I have to call it. “Okay, we take fifteen seconds to patch up, rotate reload to full mags, and move out again.”

  Jeff turns and checks Steve’s armour while Tina covers the rear and I cover the front. The corridor ahead of me is huge and stretches into the distance. This facility is huge and covers more than a city block. We have to move fast to make up lost time.

  Processing data. The subjects are continuing to work as a team but functionality is now affected. Cracks are showing in how they work together. With additional stress, the weak members of the team will be eliminated and the survivors will not be able to continue on. Training does not overcome ability or the lack of that ability.

  Further evaluation is required to judge subjects for feasibility of program inclusion. Subject 4 is showing potential but none of the subjects understand timings or how important it is to meet them.

  Increasing sensitivity of automated defences and rerouting security forces.

  We are set and we can go, and it’s only been twenty-two seconds where we were stationary. Ammo is redistributed and everyone checked over. Steve took a glancing hit on the left arm, but he is still functional.

  We are in the same formation and take off down corridor again. The time we lost has allowed the enemy to get ready for us and I don’t doubt that the defences up ahead will be even worse.

  We are going at a slow run and come to the next intersection. We stop and I throw a sensor ball but there is nothing down the corridor that I can see. The range on them is not very long though. Steve is at diminished capabilities so I leap out while he stays back. There is nothing there. We reform and head on down the corridor. Sensors are indicating that we are almost five hundred metres from the target. There appeared to be lots of movement somewhere ahead of us.

  Just ahead of us two more doors pop open and I know there is movement ahead of us. Before we can move the statue in the alcove to our right explodes. The shaped charge that was in it blows straight out into us. Steve takes most of the directional blast and turns into a cinder. My armour takes some of the blast but holds up. Jeff and Tina are both fine but suffering from degraded sensors. I am the team leader I should have anticipated something like this. I would have done it.

  Jeff and I are firing and they all drop but not before Jeff takes a shot to the leg. Again the armour holds but his mobility is down four percent.

  We slow down and then shake out into a formation of Jeff and I up with Tina still covering the rear. Then we are off at a run again. The odds of successfully completing this mission have just increased against us by 10 percent. With the damage we have taken so far, the odds of our survival have dropped from 50 percent to 3 percent. I don’t know if we are going to make it.

  But we are going to try. I can hear Steve’s voice in the back of my mind griping over and over about how it isn’t fair.

  I shut him out. He’s dead.

  More security and some military pop out from different doors ahead of us. They aren’t very good and we take them all out.

  The kick of my rifle is hard and keeps me grounded in fight mode. Jeff forgets to reload once. We are all pretty shaken up at this point. But we can do this.

  Then we catch a break. There is a series of explosives on the floors and running up the wall ahead of us. I open fire and am lucky enough to detonate it, which drops the floor into a basement and shatters the local walls.

  We are far enough back that we take no damage, but if we had been closer, that would have finished us.

  We can’t pass the large gap in the corridor. It looks like we are closer to the outside on the left-hand side and the wall is destroyed there, so we carefully jump into the open space. But there is no way to carry on and we don’t have the explosives to crack the wall open. We hit a door that leads outside, with Jeff in the lead.

  He runs outside, weapon up, and starts shooting while he moves down the wall. I come out next and there
are laser blasts striking all around the door. Jeff is only a few feet down the wall, moving fast toward another door that is in the distance when he gets plastered by laser and projectile weapons.

  His weapon drops and he is hit over and over. He takes a tank round to his upper half, which tears his head right off and he collapses.

  I can track four military vehicles and a lot of soldiers.

  Tina is out and moving as well, taking out soldiers that are threats. A heavy weapon team is cut down. She is a blur of motion and is reloading on the run.

  I take a round in the leg and several shots in my chest. I can barely move, but I keep going.

  Processing data. Subjects have made suboptimal decisions and are clearly finished. Heading into a mission without every piece of equipment allowed them to move faster but did not give them the flexibility to deal with changes in mission parameters. The last member of the team will be dead within ten seconds.

  A rocket grenade comes in from the side and catches me in the head. I’m dead. I can still see Tina moving like a blur. She has been hit, but only with hand weapons. She’s gone through three magazines and all her rifle grenades. She is moving so fast that she can’t reload the grenades.

  She takes out one of the armoured vehicles and is moving toward the far door. If she made it, they couldn’t all fire on her as she would be in the building corridors.

  It doesn’t matter; there are over a hundred soldiers firing on her and more armoured vehicles roll up firing on the move. Hits are striking the walls all around her and I’m amazed that she can keep dodging given all the light grazing hits she’s taken.

  She lasted a lot longer than I did, and as the individual weapons take their toll on her, a tank round hits her in the chest, killing her outright.

  Everything fades and a large red “GAME OVER” flashes in front of my eyes.

  I take my helmet off and look at Jeff, Steve, and Tina.

  The VR room is kind of dull-looking, with grey walls and a black grid pattern over the floor, walls and ceiling. The AI that runs these games needs those grids to make sure everything is to scale. Sometimes, even with all the programming, something will be weirdly shaped, like a squarish tank when they are supposed to be all rounded. The four harnesses that we are in are spread out in the room on the running system.

  It’s a twenty-foot by twenty-foot room and all this gear, is mostly attached to the ceiling. It smells like sweaty socks in a gym bag. Reasonable, for the amount of use the system gets.

  When I look at anyone wearing the outfit, I feel like I am looking at some sort of messed-up bug in its web or nest. It looks stupid, but I’ve been playing VR with my friends since the system was released and it is the coolest thing around. Two years on and it’s still awesome.

  There have been several new missions added and there are rumours of hooking systems up across the country and of making the national and international game rankings and competition real.

  We gotta play now, though, because we paid for this time. The timer is running and there are dozens of people waiting outside.

  Steve is grumbling. “They should fix these guns of theirs. Mine keeps sticking, you know? I swear that I don’t really feel it kicking back either when I fire. I don’t think their recoil system is working.”

  Jeff’s eyebrows are up. I know exactly what he’s thinking: Your crappy gameplay is because you are a crappy player. NOT because your trigger is sticking or the recoil system isn’t working. If it did work properly, I doubt that Steve would even be able to hit anything.

  Tina just watches Steve with a look on her face that says exactly what she thinks of him.

  I wave at her. “Hey, come on, Tina. You’re right by the reset button. We have almost six minutes left and we can get at least partway through. Let’s see if we can do better. Everyone ready? Hit it, Tina.”

  I put my helmet back on and the boring, small grey room with the body harnesses fades away and the inside of an assault shuttle reforms. I can still see the faint shapes of the others around me, but I stop thinking like a high school student and start thinking like a Marine on a raid.

  Analyzing data. Two of four subjects have potential as defined by Level 1 testing. Increasing complexity of combat program. Enemy forces will have sixty seconds’ more notification of an inbound assault and will have better security forces located within the complex. Anticipated failure of subjects, two minutes. Beginning program now.

  We dive right back into it. Tina blasts the door this time and we go in fast and hard, but it’s like it’s a different scenario with the security forces. As soon as we are off the shuttle we come under fire. We make it into the building and there are more security guards, and the automated turrets wait till we are closer, popping out and firing on us.

  By the time we come to the first T-junction, we all have minor hits. At the intersection it’s the same trap as last time, but they have shields on the heavy weapons now so the explosives aren’t as effective at stunning the gun crews. We lose Steve and carry on.

  Before we get to the next intersection, two more automated turrets pop up in front of us and open fire. The laser targets Jeff and the other weapon is a rail gun. It starts firing at me and then fires past me, hitting Tina in the back. I can see the explosion roll over us as her armour goes up.

  Jeff and I blast the turrets and jump around the corner firing. There is nothing there and we stagger reload, then take off at a run, keeping an eye on the statues in the alcoves.

  The booby trap is in the ceiling this time and comes in the form of a series of directional mines that take us both out.

  The screen fades to black and the red “GAME OVER” pops back up.

  I take my helmet off and everyone is standing there in the room looking shaky.

  We lasted less than three minutes and that was the hardest scenario we had ever been in.

  I look at Steve and Jeff. “We still have just over two minutes. Last try? See how much damage we can do?”

  Steve looks upset. “Yeah, let’s do this and kick their teeth in. I want my money’s worth.”

  Before I can even look over to Tina she has already hit the button as the VR starts coming online. We take a second to change our load out and then we are walking off the shuttle.

  We had gone for the up-armoured long-range attack option. This gives each of us six short-range smart missiles that can target individually or mass fire depending on what you program in advance. The two packs of three missiles are mounted on extra armour on the shoulders. It looks weird, but it works as an extra punch when you need it and you can still operate with the gear.

  Jeff fires and blows the wall in, then dumps his extra armour. I walk in and turn and there are already security guards in the hall and some soldiers so I fire all my missiles and blow them clear away in a firestorm. When we come to the T-junction I throw an explosive where the automated weapons always are and Steve just steps out into the hall and fires all his missiles.

  That’s overkill, even though there are three manned weapons waiting for us.

  Steve gets shot up on that one, but is still able to move so we take off down the hall. At the next intersection I roll out a sensor ball. There is nothing in the hall so we go down at a run. Then Tina stops and turns to go through the door short of where the explosives kept going off and blowing the floor away.

  A timer appears in the upper corner of my view, counting down from twenty.

  We are almost out of time.

  I don’t know what Tina is doing but it doesn’t matter; our time is almost up. I just hope we didn’t waste the last few seconds. She runs at the door that leads to outside and hits it hard. As soon as she goes through she dodges right. Jeff is right after her and I follow through. I can hear Steve firing back down the hallway and the sensors indicate dozens of icons closing on him.

  I can see missiles streaking away from Tin
a and hammering two of the tanks, blowing them sky high with only four seconds left.

  We all open fire and volley our grenades at the last tank as we start taking serious hits.

  The last tank goes up in a greasy fireball that fades away and the real lights come up. Then I am standing there shaking, a fourteen-year-old soaked in sweat with his friends.

  They always want you out of the room fast ‘cause the line is so big. This mall has one VR room and it’s busy most of the day. At a hundred bucks for ten minutes for up to four people, it’s the best deal around. These guys could charge twice as much and most of us would still play. But the Glentol Corporation has tons of money, so no one cares, I guess. Better for us.

  We all clamber out of the harnesses and rack the helmets and weapons before walking for the exit. Someone comes through on the hour and quickly wipes everything down. Disgusting, but we make sure that we are in at the beginning of that hour.

  The rest of the guys come out. Jeff and Steve are already jumping around like crazy.

  They are both pounding Tina on the back. “You were crazy there, Tina! You took out two tanks with those missiles and we blasted that third one to bits with our grenades! They ain’t gonna forget us soon!” Steve is the worst gamer, but always the first to brag.

  We head out to get a drink before meeting our parents; after all, we had sweated out a couple of litres and the latest real fruit energy drink with twice the caffeine is out and I want to try it.

  Data analysis complete. Subjects Timothy (Timmy) and Tina show potential. Subject Tina has the highest rating alignment. Recommend that subject Tina be further evaluated in future. Saving and processing data for later retrieval.

  Chapter 9

  Smythe

  The man’s name was Michael Harley Smythe. He was a boring man that wanted power, even though you couldn’t tell that by looking at his face. The suit that he was wearing looked right on him. He had that stamp on his forehead that said “mid-level manager.” If you could read the fine print, you would see it also said “mediocre.” The presentation that he had prepared was still sitting on his pad, but it would never see the light of day. It was a review of the “Marine Trainer” video game. He had prepared for days to present, and sink the program with the three senior executives of the Glentol Corporation that were reviewing it. The call he had received just a few hours before the meeting had been very clear: If the project was closed, then he would be in charge of the janitors at one of the arctic research stations for the rest of his life.