by Hugo Huesca
The cybernetically enhanced velociraptor squeaked in that high-pitched velociraptor-like cry of his. The couch was clearly bent in his favor, since he weighed several times more than Spark Bandit, even in her power-armor.
“Yeah, I have no idea what you’re saying, silly. Dinosaurs can’t talk.”
She waved her hand around and created a poll for her audience. The consensus was heavily in favor of the raid, which wasn’t really surprising.
Turns out, when a big, mean, secret corporation tried to establish a foothold in a player-driven videogame, they fit like a glove to a hand the role of big bad end-game dungeon.
Everyone had raided Sleipnir’s—nowadays re-branded as Jottun—secret bases once Irene Monferrer had made their locations public.
Raided for fun. An absolute massacre, poor Jottun never had a chance. Players of all levels and skill-sets had joyfully caused millions of dollars (real money used to pay for in-game labor) in damage to the corporation, repeatedly tearing apart their stubborn attempts to become a super-power in the virtual world. They even completed quests while doing it.
Jottun had complained, of course. It had tried to sue. But who was there to sue? It was a videogame. The corporation that created it was a sister of them, but it was dead. Rune survived on its own, hosted by no-one.
They tried to demand a law be put in place so they could sue the players. But it was a videogame.
Jottun was the butt monkey of the world, and it was very, very angry. But said anger was nothing compared to the mad fury of an entity that called itself Savin Keles and was currently rebuilding its shattered sense of identity somewhere in the framework underneath Rune.
“Okay, poor Jottun is getting raided once again. Hear ‘em, my girls? Asshole meat is back on the menu! Get everything ready on the double.”
The Elite Liquidators cheered loudly enough for the stream to hear.
“I hope you fucks at Jottun are hearing this,” said Spark Bandit. “So you put up a better defense than last time’s attempt. How much did that giant robot cost you? A million bucks? It really sucks to be you.”
Rex the velociraptor jumped out of the couch with an anxious glint in his predatory eyes, and Spark Bandit did the same in a movement that looked almost identical to the dinosaur’s.
Around them, the Liquidators were arming themselves and recruiting the offline members of the group.
“Anyone who wishes to join us,” said Spark Bandit while she checked her favorite stun-lance, “can get to Sector 23-z near the Teardrop System. You’ll be checked there, as usual. If anyone’s new, you can ask a veteran to guide you through the process. The theme of today’s raid will be stun weapons. The subscriber who gets the most frags will win a gaming laptop!”
She made a cute wave to the camera before pausing it and redirecting the stream to her music channel. Then, she walked towards her second-in-command, a quiet Vietnamese girl who was starting her college education.
“I’m going to check if Rylena wants to Battlemind the raid this time,” Spark Bandit told her. “I know the UN meetings have been hard on her.”
“Got it, boss. I’ll handle the raid while you’re out.”
Van Dorsett took off her mindjack. Her bunk stared back at her. The gray, concrete walls weren’t of her taste, but military housing didn’t come with an interior decorator. Only the hope that her family wouldn’t need to live in the PDF base for much longer kept her going. It was a foolish wish since there was no evidence of things calming down in the future, but she chose to believe it nonetheless.
She left her room and knocked on her brother’s. “Hey?”
“Come in!”
Her brother’s room wasn’t as bare as hers, but it was messier. There were old science fiction books strewn everywhere, mixed with DVDs—
How did he get his hands on those antiques?
—and a couple of old flight simulator consoles. Cole was sitting on his bed while his girlfriend played on a barely functional laptop. Both of them bore grim expressions.
Cole Dorsett and Irene Monferrer hadn’t watched any of the UN Emergency Councils besides the first one. Each of them for their own reasons. But said reasons always put them in a foul mood when they knew the meetings were taking place, so they bunkered down somewhere and pretended the outside world didn’t exist.
“Hey, Sis. How was the stream?” asked Cole, glancing up as Van inspected the gloomy atmosphere of his room.
“Y’know, the usual. Gained a dozen thousand subscribers while insulting their mothers.”
“That’s the life.”
She bowed in appreciation, then turned to Irene, who was still focused on mashing the keyboard and mouse as fast as humanly possible. “So, uh, Irene? Wanna hang out for a while? Girl’s night out.”
“Do I have to go outside?” asked the Monferrer heir.
“Nah.”
“All right, then. Give me three minutes? This ass is still killing my workers…”
Cole smirked. “You’re seriously losing to a cannon rush?”
“It has been a long time, okay?” Irene exclaimed. “I don’t remember it being this hard!”
“Well, the only people playing a decades-old game are probably really good at it,” Van pointed out, watching as Irene’s structures in her videogame burned slowly.
“Oh, she isn’t playing a vet. It’s her opponent’s first time, actually.” Cole’s smirk intensified as Irene’s expression soured.
“Uh,” said Van.
Cole simply pointed at the smartphone hooked to the laptop by an obsolete USB. “Francis wanted to try his hand at empire-building, so we dusted off some real-time-strategy games for him to play. Irene thought she could teach him a lesson in a match. Turns out, she can’t.”
“I’m not dead yet,” the girl in question muttered. In-game, she was stubbornly trying to rebuild a hidden base in a corner of the map. “You’ll at least learn this about humanity, Francis. We’ll not go quietly into the night! We won’t go down without a fight! We’ll—oh.”
Irene slumped while Van watched Irene’s base get nuked to oblivion.
Player 2, username Francis, typed, “GG, no rematch.”
“That’s not ominous at all,” Van said.
“I try not to think of it, for my sanity’s sake,” said Irene. She closed the screen and unhooked the phone. “What’s that about a girl’s night out?”
“We get to shoot a lot of people and cost Dervaux millions of real dollars in virtual property damage.”
“You’re a saint,” said Irene with a bright smile. She turned to Cole and handed him the phone. “See you later?”
“Sure,” he grabbed the phone while the girls left the room. “I’ll see what other game our crazy AI can break.”
It was like the three of them lived in the eye of a hurricane.
2 CHAPTER TWO
THE PDF
THE DRILL SERGEANT’S name was Bradley. He was standing with me near the firing lane of the PDF’s military base, alternating glances between the lane and the block of papers in his hand.
“This is… amazing, frankly.”
A couple soldiers in nearby lanes were looking in our direction with the same disbelieving expression that was on Bradley’s face.
“Told you,” I said in a deadpan. I discreetly unloaded the practice rifle and let it rest over the plexiglass board in front of me.
One of Caputi’s rules for recruits in the PDF Alliance was that they must receive basic military training—or some hacked-away version of it.
This rule was the reason the PDF had been so successful. The normal players that contributed to it loved the chance of getting to play at being part of a real army, with real soldiers that’d teach them how to be bad-asses. Of course, “military” training over a videogame mostly meant a bunch of annoyed Drill Sergeants trying to teach eleven-year-olds how to shoot in a straight line.
Since I was the first civilian that got to live inside Puente del Diablo Fort, Caputi had shrugged
and declared that I should at least learn to shoot straight with a real gun.
This decision proved to be as annoying to me as to poor Bradley, who got was now stuck teaching me.
“I saw you aim,” he muttered to himself as he scratched his chin. “It was right. Not great, but no mistakes either.”
I shrugged again. I wished I could be back in my quarters teaching Francis how to play space-combat simulators.
Bradley took my rifle and examined it. He traced the trajectory of the barrel all the way to the humanoid target made of clay, five yards away from us. The target had a neat bullet hole right at the center of its forehead.
It was also three lanes away from my own assigned target.
“Someone must’ve screwed up during maintenance,” Drill Sergeant Bradley said with sudden determination. “When I find out who did it…”
“Uh. I’m sure the rifle’s fine,” I told him. It had been fine the last two times. “But can I go while you check it out?”
“Dismissed.”
While I turned to leave the range, I heard him whispering something about, “adding civilians to the mix, really—”
Well, you can thank your Machiavellian overlord for that.
I glanced at my phone and saw it was about 4 pm. Irene and Van would still be getting ready for their “girl’s night,” and Mom was off with Officer Harrison. I had the rest of the day for myself.
Life in Puente del Diablo Fort had quickly become a comfortable routine for us. It was amazing what one could get used to, but I had to admit, it could be much worse.
The base was a self-sufficient territory located in the outskirts of San Mabrada, near the mountain range that marked the start of the countryside. The fort provided housing for the family of the soldiers, entertainment, amenities, and all the things you may find in a small town.
I could, sometimes, pass the entire day without seeing one of the drone-tanks that routinely patrolled the fort.
To me, living in the fort felt like an ongoing vacation at a luxury resort, not counting the almost-daily reunions with Caputi and her officers to do Translating work in Rune. And the shooting lessons.
See, unlike Lower Cañitas District, no one in base wanted to shank me or send me to jail. And unlike the FBI’s safe house, I didn’t have to go around fearing for my safety. Who’d dare try something at an army base?
Irene had it harder than me. She used to live in a mansion! I couldn’t imagine how the bare, tiny rooms of her bunk-quarters felt by comparison. She’d never complained, though.
We didn’t talk much about the circumstances that led for her to live at the base. She’d tried to convince her father to break ties with Charli Dervaux and Sleipnir.
Results of that attempt spoke for themselves. She was here, hidden from the world, and Monferrer was a guest member of the UN Emergency Council.
Irene had led a lot of raids against Jottun. We’d had to take turns to keep her rhythm.
I wandered about the civilian part of the base as I made my way back to my quarters. I didn’t have access to most of the fort, only those parts normally open to civilians. An intermittent stream of jeeps passed me while I crossed the open field.
The shooting range and the civilian housing were about a mile away from each other. I could’ve used some of the drone-jeeps to hitch a ride, but I enjoyed the exercise. I kinda needed it after all those day-long raids in Rune.
Down the paved road, I saw a tall, blond teen with broad shoulders who was playing with a small, remote-controlled toy car by the side of the road. He saw me approaching and waved at me.
“Cole!” said Misha Ivanic, Gabrijel’s oldest son. “You’re back from the range already?”
“There was an equipment malfunction,” I told him with a poker face. I reached his side and pointed at the toy car. At a close glance, it looked roughly built, like someone had tried to polish it with a hammer. “Did you make this, Misha?”
“This place is boring,” he said. “There’s no one my age around here, except for you guys. So I decided to make my own army.”
The tiny car was careening around his feet, occasionally smashing against his shins without enough force to hurt. I realized Misha wasn’t operating the controls.
“Uh, did you make it a drone?”
It was a dumb question. You couldn’t just make a drone brain out of spare parts, they were specially manufactured. But this was Gabrijel’s kid. At this point, I’d believe them if an Ivanic told me they’d made a real interstellar spaceship and were using it to avoid traffic lines.
Misha laughed. “Nah, that’s some kid in Tahiti, I think. My website selects pilots at random, and they get to goof around.”
“Neat.”
“I want to have tournaments when I have enough cars. Have them race against each other, bet, and give me a cut. I’m going to be filthy rich, Cole.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Who cares?” he proclaimed. “The PDF has more important shit going on than a teenager genius building an illegal betting ring in their turf. You saw Cotton’s performance last night?”
“No, not really.” I suddenly didn’t want to pursue the conversation any longer.
“President Panarin kicked his ass. Monferrer’s, too, for the matter. The guy just doesn’t give a shit. I respect that.”
“That’s fair.”
He must’ve read something in my blank expression that wasn’t there before because he winced and then corrected himself:
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that! I’m sorry, I don’t actually think anyone’s closing down the Signal, that’s why I’m just cheering their one-liners and shit—”
“It’s okay.”
“I mean, you must be worried sick! You’re technically stuck inside there…or a version of you is… And, well, they can still prosecute you for turning on the Signal in any case. Damn! Sorry, I’m mouthing on again!”
“Seriously, it’s okay. I’m fine, Misha. Stop apologizing.” I laughed. “It’s been almost two years already. Seriously.”
“But…” Beneath us, the toy car had managed to flip and was pathetically trying to save itself, not unlike a turtle in the same predicament. “I mean… The UN and all. They want your head.”
Nowadays, I worried about fewer things than when Kipp had gifted me his mindjack. My family had somehow survived a huge amount of danger…Mom had been kidnapped, my AI had killed a bunch of people to save me, Van had tried to break me out of jail at some point…
If what finally did me in was a bunch of suited bureaucrats, I was okay with it. I’d made my point. We weren’t alone in the Universe, and whoever was out there didn’t want to kill us. They were more like us than we had any right to expect. Flawed, but trying.
Hell, for what the other Cole told us, our Alien friends were an environmentalist’s wet dream. They used their trees to build their cities instead of cutting them down. It was poetic.
“Eh. The best defense against decapitation is having backup heads,” I said.
Misha eyed me with awe and I had to contain a laugh. The kid may have been as smart as his father, but he would need to learn to recognize a defense mechanism and distinguish it from real courage.
Or, like the base’s psychologist had told Mom, Van, and I after we were sent for mandatory therapy:
“I mean, you’re acting perfectly fine when we account for all the emotional trauma you’ve suffered—”
“That’s great, right?” asked Van. “I think that’s great.”
“It totally is,” I had told her. “It means we’re invincible! The Dorsett clan is built for action.”
Even Mom had smiled. She was taking her kidnap-and-rescue surprisingly well. Perhaps it was because of the gold band on her finger.
“No, that’s not what I mean—this is a textbook case of denial! A defense mechanism—” The psychologist tried without much success to pitch in.
“Totally fine!”
“We’re like superheroes at this point, no
thing fazes us—”
“—and you have to face those emotions eventually… Oh, okay, you’re high-fiving now.”
It’s the little pleasures in life. You learn to cherish them while they last.
My phone buzzed. I took a glance at the screen and realized it was a summon from Stefania Caputi. The woman was away for the Councils, but the Translation work was in the dead center of international attention, and it had to continue.
Technically, I wasn’t needed for it to work. The other Cole did all the actual translating. He could’ve reported it back to Caputi on his own.
But the software that allowed the creation of my other-self in the first place only allowed the process of Translation to occur if I was present.
Apparently, some automatic process scanned our brain waves (or his digital equivalent) to make sure there hadn’t been any “mental pollution” during the process. And so it could be “treated” if it happened. Whoever programmed it made my presence mandatory to save themselves debugging time.
So, for a brief period of time, while humanity figured out how to get their own versions of the Device to work with the Signal, I was one of the most valued assets in the world.
Puente del Diablo Fort was very well-protected for a standard military garrison, but you’d never notice unless you were counting the amount of tank-drones and the anti-missile batteries. And if you went around taking close notice about that kind of stuff, it was very probable the turrets were about to make your acquaintance.
“I gotta go, Misha,” I told Gabrijel’s kid. “Apparently it’s time to earn my keep.”
He nodded and his frown turned serious. “Cole? What’s it like? Speaking to them?”
The question gave me pause. We’d gotten grilled by a lot of people about the subject, of course. Psychologists (hell, the world’s first xeno-psychologist, at that), generals, politicians, journalists, scientists…
It was hard to be sincere when everyone’s fearing you may start a massive intergalactic war if you insult your host’s tentacles by mistake, while at the same time they’re hoping you find the secret to ending world hunger by shaking your own appendages at their problems.