“So nothing I need to deal with in the future to make sure you can complete your task without problems?”
“No, Madame Director, that won’t be necessary. Your name holds the weight we needed to get things done without problems.”
“Well at least I am good for that!”
Just as Bolden and Colvin looked to say something, Grissten held up her hand and interrupted, “Not fishing for compliments. Let’s get to what you found.”
“Given the task, we split this up between us. Nico is handling the research on the AltCon higher-ups, and I’ve been looking into the President/CEO Galvin Schneider, whom everyone calls ‘The Old Man.’
“I’ll lead off, since the information I have found is not much different than what was found in our archived collection of reports. Schneider started AltCon 40 years ago producing your run-of-the-mill videogames. Prior to that, Schneider worked in his family business, an investment firm started in the early 1900’s. Schneider came on the videogame scene with lots of money to his name.”
“Nothing nefarious about how his family made their money?”
“Not at all. The Schneider family was squeaky clean.”
“Continue.”
“Schneider got in on the ground floor of virtual reality. When the company went public, they were already experimenting with limited VR. Many of the advancements in the realm of VR were funded, researched, and developed by AltCon.”
“Has anyone figured out what AltCon even stands for?”
“No, but the consensus is ‘Alternative Consciousness.’ At least, that is what the folks down in Corporate Concerns told us.”
“Sounds about right. Sorry for the interruption. Continue please.”
“Not a problem, ma’am. With the advancements in VR, Schneider began exporting his company and his products. As was the case here in the United States, many countries had problems at first with VR. Schneider began a campaign to increase the awareness of VR’s benefits, and he also started supporting the individuals who shared his vision.
“Before you ask, all of this was done above board. Schneider never donated directly to a foreign government. Instead, he donated money to think tanks and non-governmental organizations that supported either VR or the politicians in their respective countries who did.
“I don’t need to tell you about the impact that VR has had on our society. In the 20’s, it took off to such a degree that our populace was turned on its head. There have been more laws regulating VR in the last ten years than there have been for any other particular product. At the forefront of all of it was Schneider. The power of his company, and by extension Mr. Schneider, grew exponentially. He is now considered one of the most powerful men in the world, given his extensive outreach and donations over the years. On top of all of that, those same politicians he supported in the early years of VR are now leading their own countries, and they all owe a debt to Schneider.
“He has never married and has no children. He has no apparent heir. He is rather reclusive and hasn’t done a public interview in years. He is rarely, if at all, spotted in public. He seems to live in the high rise that houses his business. And despite all of my research, no one knows what his overall ambitions or his endgame may be.”
“That’s pretty light, Agent Bolden.”
“Don’t I know it. The man is a ghost. He is rated as the second richest man in the world, but with all of his connections, some would say he is the richest man alive. Yet no one knows anything about him. Or if they do, they aren’t saying anything. Keep in mind, we aren’t able to interview any of those top-tier employees that Nico will discuss in greater detail.”
“Let’s move on to them. Please, Agent Colvin, what do you have.”
Nicodemus Colvin grabbed his files and opened the top manila folder labeled “Board of Directors.” From within the folder, he removed a newspaper clipping and several pages of handwritten notes.
“Before we go into too much detail about the different board members, of which there is little information of value, I wanted to highlight the one topic of interest that occurred recently. The former Director of the Board, Thomas Bradshaw, was recently the victim of a robbery gone wrong. According to the police, two unidentified men robbed Mr. Bradshaw, likely at knifepoint. During the course of the robbery, where the initial autopsy reported defensive wounds, Mr. Bradshaw received a number of knife wounds to his upper torso. This is the newspaper article of the incident.”
Director Grissten took the article and read the details twice. It read just as Agent Colvin described, minus the autopsy report.
“You noted that the initial autopsy report showed defensive wounds. Was there a secondary autopsy?”
“Not an official report, Director. I was able to get a look at the report and pictures of the body. If I was writing a report, it would surely be different.
“There were no “defensive wounds,” per say, like the report indicates. Bradshaw had two or three wounds on the inside of his hands but nothing that would indicate he fought back. More likely, he was putting his hands up and begging for his life.
“Secondly, there are numerous wounds on the upper torso, but almost all are superficial. Only one of the wounds penetrated farther than one inch. That wound just happened to be the one that penetrated and punctured Bradshaw’s heart.
“Finally, the police have no witnesses and no suspects. After two days, the case was moved to their “unsolved files.” No further work is being done on the case as far as I can tell.”
“Murdered?”
“Impossible to say, ma’am, but it certainly looks like more than a robbery gone wrong. Although, given my other interests in this case, I am probably biased. Still, it led me to the next part of my report.
“The day after Bradshaw’s untimely demise, Schneider appointed a new Director to the Board—Terrence Jolston, the head of AltCon’s Emerging Technologies department. Jolston is acting as both the head of AltCon’s current beta testing for their new game and now the Board of Directors. This is highly unusual, and it led me to look deeper into Jolston’s background.
“Jolston started with the company approximately 20 years ago. Initially working in the coding and programming sections of the company, he rose to prominence due to his excellent work. While working on one of AltCon’s previous MMORPGs, Jolston uncovered a catastrophic flaw in the game’s coding. The game was due for launch two weeks before Jolston’s discovery, and his work saved the company millions of dollars in potential hacks by issuing emergency patches. The Old Man took notice.
“In order to thank him personally, Schneider requested a face-to-face meeting with Jolston. During the meeting, Schneider learned that Jolston was recruited by the company after Jolston showed an affinity for coding.
“It’s just like every feel-good story you have ever heard or seen. Jolston came from a depressed neighborhood and had little chance of affording a university education. Because of AltCon, Jolston not only went to university but was also awarded a position within the company after graduation. Not long after he started, his mother became ill. Because of AltCon’s healthcare provisions, Jolston was able to get his mother the treatment she needed.
“In short, Jolston is a 100-percent company man. If Schneider wanted a yes man in that position, there would be no better choice than Jolston.”
“So Jolston does not have any of the qualifications necessary to run a Board at the level of AltCon?”
“Jolston doesn’t have the qualifications to lead any board, anywhere. It’s obvious to me and Bolden that Schneider chose him to be more of a mouthpiece than an actual manager of the Board.”
“What else is he working on?”
“The final stages of the beta for their newest game, Resurgence. He was also responsible for the design and release of the first fully immersive virtual reality platform—the VRAC, which stands for Virtual Reality Augmentation Container. All of our research indicates the game will work solely with the VRAC, and that AltCon plans to releas
e them at a discount for game use. Plans seem to be in the works to modify all of their former games with the VRAC technology, and their long-term plans are to revolutionize the VR market with their technology. Imagine anytime you want to enter into a VR conference, finding yourself doing so in full immersion. It has the potential to touch all aspects of life and make AltCon even more profitable than it is now.”
Director Grissten sat back in her chair and thought about the information she had learned. Honestly, she hadn’t learned much. She could have gotten any of this information from her Corporate Concerns division. She hoped her hand-picked duo would have more to offer.
“It’s not much, although the part about Bradshaw’s death does raise questions that need to be answered. What’s your next step?”
Bolden reached into her briefcase and withdrew a single piece of paper.
“We would like to request the assistance of Ryan Grimes from Forensic Accounting.”
Grissten read the request and saw that it was highly general. Per the request, Bolden and Colvin did not intend to disclose the overall purpose of their assignment. This suited Grissten, and she signed the request.
Grimes was the best Forensic Accountant the Bureau had, and it was the exact kind of outside-the-box thinking she was looking for from Bolden. “Where will you focus Grimes?”
“We are looking for outliers, so I plan to have him look at connections to the main headquarters, but not directly within their scope. AltCon is multi-national, with several international branches. Unfortunately, our ability to collect information on these international entities is limited. We can only investigate—and without a warrant, at a very superficial level—those actions that occur while entering or leaving the US. For example, bank transactions and the like.
“My belief is that if there was something nefarious, AltCon would want to keep it close enough that it could be dismantled quickly and with direction from HQ in real time. In today’s age, that can happen from almost anywhere, but human intuition is to keep these set-ups physically close as well.”
“Keep me apprised as to what Grimes finds. Follow the rabbit down whatever hole it takes you.”
Chapter 5
October 15, 2043
The time had come for us to range out again and begin our grinding. We still needed to make enough money to pay for upgrades all around, as I didn’t want to settle for only half best before we challenged the Trolls or Lady Tessa’s first quest.
Once we got to the front gate, I decided to take advantage of an earlier comment made by Jason and asked if I could “twirl the arrow” this morning; essentially, I was asking to choose which way we went. There was no argument from anyone.
I took Dan’s arrow and manipulated it to land in the general direction of the Undead location I had highlighted on my map.
“Let’s start heading in that direction. We kill everything that gets in our way,” I said. Looking at Dan I added, “keep your eyes on the map, Dan. We never know what might be out here.”
“I always do, my sneaky friend. So far it’s been a whole lot of trees!” Dan said as he headed out ahead of us to look for his first pull. At this point, the mobs near the Keep were all Green to us, so we wouldn’t get a single point of experience from them. However, if we saw one that would complete a quest requirement, we killed it without a second thought.
The forest here was dense, so we were unable to use our mounts for travel. This made for slow going, but we quickly left the easier mobs behind and started finding Blues that could give us experience. The occasional White was mixed in there. The experience wasn’t as good, but we often needed the items they could drop for our quests.
I kept watching my map, making sure we weren’t deviating from the path I had set for us to find the Undead. By my estimation, we would come upon the area in the next thirty minutes. Dan could potentially see it in the next twenty minutes or so.
After killing another mob, Dan ranged out ahead of us and finally yelled the words I was waiting to hear.
“Jackpot, boys!”
I hurried toward Dan, along with Jason and Wayne, as quickly as I could. Dan was standing near a clearing and was pointing in the direction of the marker on my map. We had arrived.
“Suck it, Allibong! The legend of TheClaw lives on. Look at what I found! No one ranges like this Ranger.”
Jason approached the clearing, and a large smile began to spread on his face. With an almost reverent whisper, I heard him say, “Undead.”
Jason turned toward us and said, “Amazing. I’ll admit it. You are truly amazing.”
Dan began to gather his steam and looked to be ready to start an epic soliloquy, when Jason turned to me and said, “I mean it, Alex. You are, without a doubt, amazing.”
“Of course I am Allib… wait, what? Alex? Why Alex!?” Dan exclaimed.
“Duh. He threw the arrow. Don’t try to take too much credit for walking in a straight line.”
“But… but… I found it!”
“Indeed you did, Dan,” Jason said. “And I will spread the legend of the Ranger who walks in a straight line through the woods to everyone who will listen.”
Dan walked off in a huff, muttering, “I totally would have found it eventually.”
I patted Dan on the shoulder as he passed. “No doubt, TC. No doubt at all. Now let me go see what you’ve uncovered.”
I activated my Conceal/Stealth and started toward the Undead area. After a few steps, I paused and gathered the shadows around me to add my Blacksuit to the mix. I had no idea what was in front of me, and I didn’t want to take the chance that there could be a mob that would see through the standard Conceal/Stealth.
A broken-down outpost was in front of me—not terribly large in appearance, but packed full of mobs. I easily ran through the structure and selected each mob to gauge its level and likely difficulty. The good news was that all of the mobs were at least Blue. There were also two Yellows. Those would need to be pulled last.
There was no boss, though. This was just a location that players could farm Undead. This was exactly what I was looking for. A cash cow.
After fifteen minutes or so, I arrived back at the edge of the clearing to tell the guys what I had found. Wayne was the first to approach me and said, “Jenny is so super stoked, bro. This is an awesome find!”
I looked over at Jason and asked, “How long?”
“You lost this one, brother. Pay up. He made it past five minutes.”
“Damn. Who won?”
“Dan. I had seven minutes. He had nine. Wayne made it an amazing ten minutes.”
Wayne was looking back and forth between us with a look of befuddlement. “What the hell are you guys talking about? Dan won what?”
Dan moseyed up and said, “How long it would take you to contact Jenny and tell her when we finally found an awesome spot to farm. Alex totally had the odds on you being 100 percent whipped. But I had faith you could hold out, brother!”
“Ten minutes is a hold out?” Wayne asked, looking annoyed.
“I had nine, brosef. You did us all proud.”
Wayne laughed at that and addressed the group, “You guys aren’t mad I told her without asking you right?”
“Nah, we planned to share whatever we found anyhow. We just figured it would be fun to see how long it would take you to tell the missus,” Dan said.
I relayed what I had found, and the guys were slightly disappointed there was no boss to fight. I reminded them we had two very good quests waiting for us, and what we needed now was money, not a risky encounter where we could get killed fighting a Red mob.
After explaining how packed the mobs were, Dan started to go around the outpost and gauge the best spots to pull from. I had no intention of interrupting Dan’s methods, as he had shown himself to be more than capable at his job. I gave Dan the info that it seemed all of the mobs were stationary and no roamers. He thanked me for the update and said that would make pulling infinitely easier.
After ten minutes,
Dan pulled the first group of two Blue mobs, and we got ready to begin the slaughter.
*
After doing two rotations of the Undead, we learned that their respawn time was one hour. A round of killing took us about 45 minutes with a plus/minus 5 minutes, considering how many Yellows spawned. Our first pull there were two, but the second round had four. More importantly, there were 47 mobs total. We netted close to 45 Gold on the first round and almost as much on the second round. Several days here and we would easily be able to buy all of our gear. This is what I was talking about!
During our second round of pulls, Jenny and her group arrived at the clearing. They wanted to see what the mobs were like. I hoped they would go out and range for a few days like we did, but I couldn’t get angry that they wanted to see this spot for themselves.
Jenny reported that the mobs were more Yellow than Blue for them, and they had stars in their eyes, thinking of the cash and experience that was in front of them.
Wanting to benefit both our group and our teammates, we decided that we would limit our time at the Undead to five hours. It would take us close to 30 minutes to arrive from Kich’s Keep and another 30 minutes to return. The area wasn’t safe for logging out, and we decided as a group that we would travel back to the Keep at the end of our time. Well, everyone but Wayne.
Just like with “Clerics for Hire,” there was a “Tank for Hire” as well. In that case, the Tank would do their role outside of the group, and the rest would reap the benefits as they would out-damage the Tank. The Tank got paid by the hour. I have no idea what Wayne was going to get paid in, but I heard Dan whisper something so inappropriate that it even made me blush.
With the weight of finding the Undead and securing our ability to outfit our group off my shoulders, I had another task that needed attention: figuring out who, or what, was the embodiment of the code that the Wanderer had told me about. That was the other reason I so readily agreed to five-hour rotations between our two groups. Sure, Wayne needed rest, but I also had work that had been sitting on the back burner for too long.
Restoration: The Rise of Resurgence: Book II Page 9