Hope Engine

by Andrew Lynch

  The log out didn’t work. Again.

  I felt tears sting at my eyes.

  Thorn, I don’t want to die.

  “Shhh. Don’t cry.”

  That just brought forth the tears I was holding back, and a big sob wracked my chest.

  There’s still so much I want to do here. All my friends are meeting me tonight in the tavern. And there’s a guy called The Breaker who needs to be dealt with. And I have an army of high level players at my beck and call. Bri wants to get to know me better! The game’s only just started, Thorn!

  “Lies.”

  What?

  “All lies. Don’t you see?”

  More tears welled up before I could answer, even in my thoughts. No. I don’t see anything.

  “How could a level twelve beat an elite? Mow down dozens in an army? Have spells that ruptured enemy lines? And afterwards, there’s so much you’re looking forward to as everything falls into place. Compelling plots and intrigue to sink your teeth into. Friends and family everywhere you turn. It’s the game. It’s lying to you.”

  No. I’m just one player, it’s not changing everything just for me.

  “You’re not just a player. You’re an experiment. You tried to leave, and so the game changed. It made itself more appealing for you. Gave you the power fantasy you wanted.”

  Ridiculous.

  “If it’s ridiculous, then log out. Prove you’re not trapped.”

  I… can’t. I’ve got the N-plague. Thorn, I’m trapped! And I don’t know what’s going on outside. What’s happening to my body? What is that white room? Where am I?

  “You’re where you’ve always been. But you have friends. Friends that are with you. Friends that installed a blocker in your head against those experimenting on you. Gave you a weapon to fight against it.”

  A weapon… called Thorn?

  The voice laughed. It wasn’t a kind laugh. “That’s right. Do you want to see what this weapon can do?”

  I don’t want to die. I want to live! Can you stop the N-plague? Wake me up? Get me out of… whatever this is?

  “No. But I can take you away from here. I can wake you up. You just have to want me to.”

  I heard Ixly laugh at something funny Bri must have said. My friends would be waiting for me tonight. They needed me. Everything was ready for me. It was as close to perfect as I could ask for.

  Thorn, the N-plague means I never leave here, right? If I don’t let you log me out, then I live here permanently?

  “Yes.”

  Horace lived here permanently too. I’d be like an NPC, and if I’d learned anything in my time here, it was that NPCs were just as real as players. And Eyes, so many players practically lived in here already… I could too. And everything here was perfect for me. But – it wasn’t real.

  What’s happening to my body?

  “I don’t know. Yet.”

  Yet?

  He didn’t answer.

  Can I ever come back?

  “It should be possible, yes.”

  Then what would it hurt? I could leave Tulgatha, get myself to safety, then return to my friends. I made up my mind.

  Thorn, log me out.

  Before I’d even finished thinking it, the N-plague light tendrils exploded out of my wound and engulfed me in yellow light.

  The light slowly changed from yellow to white and it blinded me. Blinded the real me.

  ‘He’s awake, get him up!’ I heard a familiar voice say urgently. It was clearly female, but older and rougher than I remembered it. Yet it was unmistakable.

  ‘We’ve got no time, get him up! Now!’ Angie shouted.

  Chapter 56: The Beginning

  The room span as I tried to sit up, and I lurched to the side, vomiting.

  I felt the man’s hand on my back. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I must have splashed him. ‘We need you to get on your feet, okay?’

  I still couldn’t open my eyes fully, and the room was just blurred light. But it was still my room, I could tell that. Weirdly, everything felt fuzzy to the touch, like I was playing an old virtual reality game before they’d figured out proper haptics. There was no smell or sound, apart from when one of the two said something.

  One of the two…

  ‘Angie? Is that you?’

  I couldn’t see her through the blur, but the female voice responded. ‘Close enough, yes. Now get up and get walking because there’s no time for a tutorial here!’

  ‘But you’re in the game. You’re an NPC. What...’

  She sighed. ‘Screw it, splash him.’

  ‘He’ll come around, just give–’

  ‘Daniel, splash him!’

  I heard Daniel mutter under his breath and say, ‘Sorry, buddy.’

  ‘It’s just water. I can handle it… wait, Daniel?’

  I forced my eyes open and tried to focus on the man in front of me. He looked like the Daniel I knew from school, but he was older. He couldn’t have aged that much in just a few months.

  ‘Heh. Yeah, not cross-play, just real life. Brace yourself!’

  He pushed my head back onto the bed and covered my eyes with a device that Iatched onto the metallic pads at my temples. I felt the static of a program starting and connecting with my brain. I expected it to be like HOPE - for my vision to blank out and a game to start.

  I was very wrong.

  Pain coursed through me, starting in my head. My vision went black, but then exploded with every colour imaginable and then a few more. My ears popped and rang. My jaw opened as wide as it could go and was about to dislocate when it finally relaxed. The electric shudder continued down, making me arch my back and explosively throw my arms out. To my left I punched the wall, to my right I punched something soft, which must have been Daniel. The wave continued past my groin, making things go places they don’t belong, and finally my legs stretched as hard as they could, muscle cramp running through both calves, the muscles pulsating in anticipation of action that wouldn’t come.

  Then it was done. The device disconnected from my temples, and I could see clear as day. I could hear everything, and I could smell the soft antiseptic used to clean government apartments.

  I could see Daniel properly now. He must have been eighteen, twenty, something like that. Clean shaven, square jaw, slick backed blonde hair.

  I looked down at my now broken left hand. ‘Why the fuck would you call that a “splash”? It was an Eyes damned tidal wave, not a splash!’

  He smiled. ‘Horrible, isn’t it? They got me with it too. We can bitch about it together later, but right now, we need to move.’

  I looked behind him. ‘Angie is a–’

  ‘Construct, not an NPC. Long story.’ He stood up and held out his hand, which I took - with my right hand - and let him pull me to my feet.

  Angie was standing by the door, her back to the wall, looking nervous. She also looked in her mid twenties, the little girl from Tulgatha only visible in her hair and eyes. And condescending voice.

  My legs felt weak, but the splash had at least got them working.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked Daniel.

  ‘Saving you.’

  ‘No. We don’t live anywhere close. I mean, you’re…’ I reached out and poked him in the chest. ‘You’re here. Not digital. And Angie’s not digital. What?’

  ‘Two totally different circumstances, I assure you. Explain it later, okay?’

  Angie hissed from across the room. ‘Hey! Stop screwing around. Put it on him and let’s get going.’

  ‘Right,’ Daniel said to himself and pulled a white lab coat from a sling bag he was wearing over his red and black coveralls. He handed it to me with a, ‘Put it on!’

  I did as I was told. It was a stark white, but otherwise it had exactly the same cut as the Dirty Robe I’d been wearing for all my adventures in Tulgatha.

  ‘No, really, Daniel. Angie. What the hell is going on? Why are you in my home, why is the other side of my walls a two way mirror, and–’

 
; ‘Eyes above!’ Angie said, exasperated. ‘It’s not really your “home” even though it’s where you’ve lived your whole life. You’re a test subject in a government facility. We’re breaking you out because the experiments that have been run on you have worked and they were on the verge of weaponising you. Now let’s run before they kill us.’

  ‘Pfft. I don’t have any weapons. What are you talking about? A few low level skills from inside the HOPE engine hardly qualify me as a danger, or even competent, in the real world.’

  Daniel put a hand on my shoulder. ‘There’s much more to it, but look, we really do need to get out of here. When they put that thing in your head it caused such a huge disruption that our people managed to hack the engine and find out where you were kept. We came as fast as we could.’

  ‘What thing?’

  Daniel looked back to Angie who was too busy keeping watch to pay attention.

  ‘Let’s go!’

  He pulled me by the arm, and being totally confused by the whole thing, I let him guide me.

  Angie pulled back on a length of metal that she’d jammed in the way and shoved the door fully open. Daniel ducked through beneath her arm and motioned for me to go through too.

  I followed as ordered and found myself in a hallway with mirrors that looked back into my home zone. On the opposite wall were more mirrors looking into an identical apartment. The HOPE pod was in use, a faint blue glow seeping out from the gap between upper and lower casing. The wall of mirrors looking in on “subjects” continued for three more apartments to both the left and the right.

  Daniel added his strength to holding the door open and Angie slipped out, then took the metal bar, sliding it into her own sling bag, and letting the door slam behind her.

  Angie didn’t break stride and set a demanding pace. Daniel motioned for me to follow, and he fell in behind me. I could hear him constantly checking behind us.

  I had a hundred questions, least of all being why I was wearing a lab coat, but from their motions, I could tell they didn’t want to make any needless noise. So far, because I “knew” them, I was willing to bet I should do what they said. I mean, people wouldn’t go through all this effort if they wanted to hurt me. And the last time I’d been here, armed guards had knocked me out. This was the safe bet. For now.

  As Angie reached the end of the corridor, she turned left and kept walking confidently. I followed her but looked down the right corridor. It was another identical block of observation apartments. The turn we’d taken was the same. A grid of identical corridors.

  ‘Where are we?’ I whispered to Daniel.

  ‘Government military research facility. London. I think. Keep up.’

  I turned to see I’d fallen behind, and double stepped to catch up, almost crashing into Angie as she stopped at another corner.

  She held a hand up for us to stop, and I barely kept myself from falling past her. We waited. I was about to speak, but as I inhaled, she turned around and glared, shaking her head. She faced the way we were going, and the silence continued. I looked to Daniel, who put a finger to his lips for silence. Well, all right then.

  After a painfully long minute, Angie continued walking and Daniel nudged me forwards.

  I turned back to him and he didn’t motion for silence this time. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Never know with her. She can see things I can’t, but I’m just a reg. Constructs, you know?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t know. What’s a reg? And what can she do?’

  ‘Regular. Unaugmented human. And I don’t really know what constructs can do. I’m new here. But you should be able–’

  Not looking where I was going, I crashed into what I thought was a brick wall but turned out to be an annoyed looking Angie. ‘Would you two focus? If they see us, we’re all dead. And Daniel, no more talking.’

  He nodded.

  I looked at him. ‘Really? Nothing?’

  He shook his head and shrugged.

  She grabbed me by the chin and forced me to look at her. Her eyes were brown but had fine glowing blue lines of circuitry on them. That should not be possible.

  ‘This isn’t a game anymore. There’s no respawn. If we die, we die. This far from the central server, even I will die out here. So, don’t fuck around.’ She hesitated for a moment, then ran her thumb up to the metal pads at my temples. She shivered. ‘Behave.’

  She continued walking, pulling the lapel of my lab coat to make sure I was following.

  I was piecing things together now. Government research facility… because I had N-plague, maybe? And trying to escape from the government meant death. A bit fucking harsh, I would have preferred a stern talking to, but okay. And Daniel and Angie were breaking me out of here. Made sense. No, wait, that didn’t make sense at all.

  I tapped Angie on the shoulder and kept my voice low. ‘Hey, why are you guys… umm, breaking me free?’

  ‘That is too long a story to tell in the middle of an escape plan.’

  ‘No, yeah, of course. But summarise it for me?’

  ‘There’s no time.’

  I tugged on her hand and spoke slightly louder, the equivalent of a shout in these empty, white noise corridors. ‘Hey. A summary is very quick, and I suspect that you want me to come willingly, so tell me right now. Or should I start making some noise?’

  Angie rolled her eyes, turned away, and kept walking. She turned right at the next intersection. I looked to Daniel who still didn’t talk but was pointing urgently in her direction.

  ‘Shit,’ I said, then speed walked after Angie.

  After I turned the same corner as her, she’d stopped and was waiting for me. ‘And that’s a lesson. Don’t make a threat if you won’t follow through. Like I said, the time for games is gone. Follow and listen.’ She turned away and walked on. ‘I had planned to return after your fight at Hursh’s field, where you contracted the N-plague. But you weren’t evacced fast enough from your pod. One in a million chance, but you didn’t go brain dead. That marked you as a candidate. So, the government swooped in, and it turns out I was already on their radar, so they flushed my program.’ Another turn. ‘I then spent the next two years trying to find where they moved you. Then I entered the network and managed to coerce one of the orderlies to install a Thorn chip in you while you slept. That let you exit, although you had to figure that out on your own, of course. Now we’re here, taking you into safer hands.’

  So much data, I didn’t even know where to begin. ‘Two years? When did that happen?’

  ‘Time dilation of the game was screwing up your time sense. Also, the game can blank parts of time without you knowing. A loading screen or a death screen, and they can steal days at a time.’

  ‘But two years? How didn’t I know?’

  She turned and looked at me with nothing but pity. ‘They’ll do whatever they need to get what they want. Everything after your battle at Hursh’s field, once I wasn’t there to keep an eye on you, can’t be trusted.’

  ‘What about my friends?’

  She shrugged and kept walking, making more turns seemingly at random.

  ‘And – candidate for what?’

  She stopped, held up a hand, and waved me forward. ‘No, not you. Busy escaping, remember? Daniel.’

  Daniel moved up next to me.

  ‘They’ve surrounded us.’

  ‘What? How?! I thought you were checking cams?’

  ‘I was and am. We didn’t trip an alarm, but since we left the containment room, they’ve tripled their guard. They knew we were coming.’

  Daniel ran a hand through his hair. ‘Shit. What do we do?’

  She looked at me. ‘They won’t risk killing him, so the guns will only hold tranquilisers. Don’t be afraid.’

  He looked afraid. ‘All right. I can do it.’

  ‘Good. Get him to the bunker.’ She handed over a keycard. ‘Second door on the left. Go.’

  Daniel grabbed my arm and pulled me past the next intersection. As he dragged me, I saw bla
ck figures either side of me. They couldn’t have been more than ten paces away on either side.

  ‘Stop!’

  Daniel sprinted, and I followed. He slammed the card onto a seemingly blank bit of wall, and a door, that looked exactly like every other door, slid open.

  The last thing I saw, as Daniel whipped me inside a dark room, were the white clad figures rounding the corner in pursuit, and Angie raising her hands, her eyes glowing.

  The door shut behind me. ‘Wait, we need to help her. There were like ten of them!’

  ‘No, we need to be gone from here. And if there were only ten of them there, that means we’ve got a lot of shit to get through.’

  I could hardly see through the darkness of this room after the stark whites of the observation corridors. Daniel pulled out a mask from his shoulder sling and forced it over his head. It was a red and black balaclava. He tapped a button at the neck, and armoured ridges formed from the cloth. Portable full face and head protection. Next he pulled out a handle, which he flicked out into a forearm length baton with faint glowing blue lines inset along its surface.

  ‘Where are we? What are you going to do with all that?’

  ‘We’re behind the facade, and I’m going to not die. Ready?’

  ‘For what?!’ I heard several thumps and a loud crack from the otherside of the door we’d just come through. ‘And you’re all in black, why am I in white?’

  He grabbed me by the collar and pushed me ahead of him at arms length, forcing me to stumble through the darkness. ‘We want them to see you.’

  ‘Why?!’ I asked even though I already knew the answer. I was the target. Bait? Angie said they wouldn’t shoot me, but…

  My eyes started to adjust to the darkness just as blue underlighting stuttered and flashed at my feet. I looked back to Daniel who now looked nothing short of menacing, black lenses covering his eyes with a faint green glow seeping around the seals of the mask.

  He continued to push even when I stumbled. I could see enough to keep my footing now, and what I saw wasn’t what I expected. Gone were the smooth lines and pristine, antiseptic white of my home zone and the observation corridors. Wherever we were now was all naked steel, gratings, and exposed cabling snaking haphazardly across the floor and walls.