by Nick Cole
Two dark-skinned guys in expensive light suits, no ties, step out of the limo. One goes to the rear and opens one of the doors, and out steps a kid. Maybe twenty at best. Smiling and good-looking. What you’d think the son of an Arab sultan would look like. He’s wearing white slacks and a polo t-shirt. The expensive Ray-Bans are no doubt SoftEye-enabled, and they make his white teeth look like shining sheets of pearl. He has a million-dollar smile on top of that. A smile that says he’s the king of the world. And as far as everyone around him is concerned… he is.
“That’s Rashid,” says Irv. “Your new boss. Other than his dad… he pretty much owns this place.”
And by place, he means the country we’ve just entered.
Chapter Eight
“My friend,” gushes Rashid as we’re stuffed into his limo. And yes, both drivers are carrying beneath sand-colored lightweight jackets. State-of-the-art subcompact SuperKriss MKX machine guns with collapsible stocks, along with big old pistols of the macho cowboy variety beneath their armpits and packed into their barely fitting jackets.
“I have watched all your clips and your streams!” continues Rashid excitedly. “This is for me like meeting a movie star—even though I have met many. They’re all whores of course. But fun. Just like whores should be, you know what I mean? But…” He stumbles, seeking the right words in English, which seems to be his second language, though not by much. “You’ve actually done something with your life. I can’t believe this. Ahmed—get us out of this hellhole!”
And by hellhole he means the border of his country.
From behind the smoked-glass windows of the suddenly speeding limo I see that we’re careening through streets swollen with foot traffic. The driver doesn’t seem to care much if he hits anyone. And my new boss is jabbering a million miles a second about every match I’ve played over the last six months.
“This is going to be truly great! Now we’ve got a real team. So far we’re, and I’ll just be totally honest with you, PerfectQuestion…”
I feel a thump against the side of the car. A receding muffled scream barely penetrates the soft luxury we’re swaddled in. Rashid doesn’t seem to notice, or care, that we just ran someone over. I think. I look out the back window, but all I see is another limo, identical to ours, and behind that some kind of ancient armored urban assault carrier doing its best to follow us at high speed.
“We’re getting beat to hell by the Japanese. They’re the absolute best right now at Civ Craft. They’ve got a fully functioning civilization going, and they’ve already set up mines on Tharsis. To get anywhere in the game we’ve got to take them out and secure that region. And now we will! You and the rest of the team are going to really turn things around for us here in Calistan. We’re going to make Mars great. Y’know, for Islam and Calistan of course.”
Now we’re on some kind of road that’s been barricaded on both sides. Old storefronts have been boarded up and alleys and side streets have been sealed off by graffiti-covered steel barriers. Massive red, white, and black signs in what I can only imagine is Arabic seem to indicate exactly what’s going on. But since I don’t read Arabic, I have no idea what’s going on. Maybe it’s some kind of private road. For limos only.
“Okay, so…” continues Rashid, oblivious to the third world we’re speeding through. “You’re going to love it here and we’re going to have lots of fun, but… we have something going down right now and we’re gonna need you to jump in right away, my friend. So we’re meeting a mobile gaming team that’s set up to connect you to the rest of the team.” He pauses. “It’s that important,” he says seriously.
I just got here. In fact, I haven’t even finished getting here yet. Here is somewhere up ahead. And I’m beat. I haven’t slept in an actual bed since before the Super Bowl. The thought of gaming makes me feel slightly sick. But the thought of five million in gold at month’s end… that makes me smile and nod affirmatively like there’s nothing I’d rather do than log in and start killing stuff.
“I hate to throw you right into the mix, PQ,” says Rashid as though he doesn’t hate it in the least. “But listen, you’re great, so I know you can handle it and all. One quick battle in the next few minutes and then we’ll get to my palace and you’ll never even have to set foot in this forsaken part of Calistan ever again the entire time you’re here. I promise. I get it—it’s my country and I hate it out here worse than you do. The people are dogs and savages here. But you’re going to love the Gold Coast once we get there. That’s the real Calistan. The kind you see in the advertising. Beautiful people. Not this…”
He smiles sourly and looks out the window. We’re passing through some kind of slum. Distantly I hear police sirens beyond the limo’s luxurious silence. People are crammed onto the sidewalks watching us pass. I see an old street sign. It says Beach Boulevard. It looks like any sign you’d see in the third world. Not some lost part of America that never made it back after the Melt.
“Hey,” whispers Rashid absently, as if only to himself. “It’s my kingdom and even I admit it’s a hellhole. I won’t lie to you about that, my friend. Not at all.”
Silence. Awkward silence.
“Seems nice,” I try. It’s the first thing I’ve said.
“It can be. In other places. It’s beautiful where these people haven’t been allowed to ruin it. The private beaches are glorious. You’ll love them. You can stay in my palace tonight, and for as long as you like. Or I can get you one of our state beach houses if you want that. We’ve got great internet, so no worries… you can game wherever. But you’ll probably be safer inside the Gold Coast. On top of the hill it’s paradise. Down here with the savages, not so much.
“Okay. Before I forget, here’s a badge. Keep this around your neck. Yeah… I know. Not sexy. But it gets you everything you want in Calistan. And I mean everything. Local girls will totally put out if they see it. It’s their big chance. So… have fun, buddy. But first…” He’s craning his head to look out the front of the limo. I do too and see a small military convoy encircling a massive semi hauling some sort of high-tech rig. “We’ve gotta fight off an attack that’s going down on Crescent City Station, in-game right now. We’ll use our state mobile gamer truck. We’ve set it up to link up with the rest of the team because it’s going from bad to worse as we speak. Our clans and most of my generals are idiots. Enigmatrix needs our help ASAP.”
He must be getting updates behind his Ray-Bans.
And…
“Enigmatrix?”
“Yeah. I hired her. Is that cool? You’re both team generals for the Caliphate of Calistan on Mars inside Civ Craft. So let’s rock and kill us some Japs, buddy!”
Chapter Nine
Once we’re within the mobile perimeter surrounding the massive idling semi, and past all the bristling security, it’s like a movie set. Or at least it’s like entertainment shows I’ve watched that take place on movie sets. There’s even a table laden with sumptuous food. Most of the people beyond the barriers look half-starved as they watch the production and security teams swarm like ants being attacked.
“Quick coffee and some sweets, my friend?” asks Rashid in a businesslike tone as I trail him toward the spread. It’s all well done. Bone china. Silver platters of strange confections. But only the coffee calls to me. I down two quick tiny cups and ask Rashid what we’re doing here.
“I’ll tell you everything once we get you logged in. This way…”
Then I’m following him as we enter the massive truck at the center of all the activity. It’s idling in a low rumble. Inside, an industrial-grade blast of air-conditioning washes over us, the opposite of the hot gritty streets of sweaty Calistan. I turn back and see crowds of people in every direction, straining to get a glimpse inside the perimeter. As though whatever is going on here will affect their daily lives in some way. I shudder. I get the uncomfortable feeling they think their fate depends on me somehow.
The latest in mobile gaming suites is set up at three stations a
cross the length of the truck. Techs escort me to a couch as Rashid straps into his own and tells me he’ll meet me in chat.
They try and take my messenger bag, and there’s a moment where I try to keep it and that almost seems not to be okay. None of us speak the same language. But I bluff and make it clear this will be an issue for me. Fear crosses their dark eyes as they weigh my happiness as Rashid’s new best friend against some arcane protocol they must navigate.
A moment later, I’m seated in front of a gorgeous ASUS Game Ninja Immersion Monitor, looking at a log-in screen for the MMO empire-building game called Civ Craft. On screen, a totally realistic Mars turns in orbit. On the night side, I see the lights of colonies far below. Massive dust storms swallowing whole regions. Rivers where greenery and life are starting to take hold, tenuously. Barely. Colony ships circling the planet in orbit, running support operations for all the national colonies. A few are shooting at each other, and occasionally some colony ship goes up in fully rendered apocalyptic bloom.
“We are pleasing to have you,” says one tech haltingly, in broken English.
I smile and tell him I’m glad to be here.
He’s unsure what to do with my smile, but he returns one barely. Nervously. He and the other techs point out the obvious peripherals and make me aware of other controls that can be provided as the situation demands. Then they show me a selection of keyboards, sweet high-tech stuff, and I choose one I like as though I’m selecting a bottle of wine. A moment later everything is set up and the techs are tapping in my login for me.
Then they back away and I’m in game. One of them slaps his forehead and hands me a helmet.
“Veee arrr,” he tries hesitantly.
This stuff never worked really well. People kept trying, but the motion sickness was always a deal-killer.
I shake my head. I’ll be fine with the super-gorgeous monitor.
“No… iss good. Try. Try. Please. Please.”
They put it on my head. It’s comfy. Underneath, the resolution is unbelievably lifelike. I swallow hard. Because this is as real as it gets for a gamer.
I’m in some sort of shadowy armory. Soft blue industrial lighting, stainless steel, and racks upon racks of state-of-the-art high-tech automatic weaponry in matte black.
Gun stuff.
Game on.
This is familiar, and it occurs to me that Civ Craft is supposed to be about building civilizations. And that leads me to wonder for the first time why they would offer me, an infantry operations specialist in gaming, a contract. I just break stuff and shoot people online.
I’m feeling my way across the keyboard, and everything is standard WarWorld setup. So I’m good there. I scroll through a few menus and I’ve got the basic gist within a minute.
I hear a small tinny voice in my helmet.
I tap the side of the helmet and find a volume control. It’s Rashid.
And there are urgent klaxons competing with blaring alarms going off everywhere. In-game.
“Hey… my friend. Listen… we just lost the base reactor so we gotta fight off an assault at the main gate. Otherwise we’re outta the game. Sorry to throw you in the soup. How are you at flying a gunship?”
Somewhere between not good and poor.
“Oh… uh… my specialty is really light infantry stuff.”
“Yeah. I know that,” replies Rashid overconfidently, “but right now we need close air support. Badly, PQ. Base is compromised. We can get our colony ship to nuke it from orbit and start over. But our resource base will be shot, to say the least, what with all the half-life radiation.”
Rashid’s avatar walks into the loadout room. A typical Space Marine. Light armor in Martian dust camo. Wicked gun. Life-support suit. Mirrored helmet. Red crescent and star and the flag of Calistan insignias all over his dust-red armor. He’s using an HCAR Widowmaker V for a primary weapon. Aaaannnd… it’s skinned in gold.
“Let’s get up to the flight deck,” he says.
Five million in real gold says I have to do whatever he says. If he wants to waste my skills as a dropship jockey… fine. I’ve pretty much gotten killed every time I’ve tried to fly the wonky birds in WarWorld. That’s why teams hire pro pilots. Like RiotGuurl.
But she’s on her way to Alpha Centauri for the next forty years. So… she’s currently unavailable.
I let that thought go, because what can I do? And also, I don’t need it right now.
On the way to the hangar, we thread a narrow maze of submarine-worthy passageways, stairs, and ladders. It all looks very Space Battleship. The environmental effects are great. At one point there’s a distant explosion. Everything tilts, and my avatar goes into a wall.
I check my weapons loadout.
I’m carrying real-world machinery. Not super sci-fi space blasters. An HK Marksman that fires supersonic rounds in eighty-round drum magazines. Six frags and two smoke. And my WarWorld standard-issue sidearm. The AMT Retro Longslide .45. As per my first endorsement deal from this season. Good stuff for all kinds of fun and games.
We reach the flight deck of the base, and I’m looking at a hangar full of dust-red dropships and gunships. And space beyond the hangar portal. We’re suborbital at least.
“We’re not planetside, are we?” I ask Rashid over chat. Lack of information is getting to be a thing early on.
“Um… no, my friend. That’s actually been a problem. We can’t seem to hold our beachhead below. We keep getting kicked off the rock we chose. This Japanese clan alliance keeps working us over day and night, and we’ve been getting killed wholesale. So… let’s take the base today and start to turn things around for Calistan!”
I see this is going to be a ground-up operation.
“Wait… you mean you don’t even have a base?”
“Uh… I mean, we do,” he says, clearly unused to being questioned. “We’ve had one for about six hours now. Technically. If we can fight off this latest attack, Civ Craft will award it to us and we can unlock the refineries.”
“But it’s not yours at this moment?”
“No. Ours got blown up. They keep getting blown up.”
Do I even want to ask by whom? Yes.
“By whom?”
“Long story. People who want us to fail in-game. Enemies of the state.” Then he adds, “And the Japanese.”
The gunship is a wicked little thing with a shark face painted on the front. Standard missile racks and auto-cannon pods hang beneath its stubby wings. Lean little hover engines jut away from the body. I hit ‘E’ and we’re in and powering up for takeoff. I’m driving. I scan the controls and start the flight sequence. Turbines hum to life over ambient as a taxiway lights up in front of me along the interior hangar.
“Strike leader, this is AceOfSpace…” says a voice over chat.
I wait.
“You,” prompts Rashid. “You’re strike leader for this one.”
Is this some kind of test? And if I fail do I not get my five million in gold?
Asking for a friend.
“AceofSpace, this is PerfectQuestion… over.”
“We’re on your six after launch. We’ll take you in and provide AA cover. Situation is hot over the LZ. Commander Enigmatrix reports she’s compromised and requesting evac immediately.”
I thought Civ Craft was a building game. Seems exactly like WarWorld… but on Mars.
Which is pretty cool when you think about it.
“No,” interrupts Rashid over the ether. “No evac. Tell her we’re going to take that beachhead today! Do or die, right, PerfectQuestion?”
Yeah… I think. Tell her that. And… Enigmatrix? That’s just so weird. And wrong. I just killed her like twenty-four hours back in Havana. But that feels like a week ago.
I wish I had more coffee. The sleep I got on the flight just didn’t do it for me. Even though I know there’s not enough coffee in the whole wide world to ever make me feel human again. More is still better.
Engines are at full, so I add throttle b
ecause that’s what I’ve seen real gamer pilots do. We begin to taxi out into the main bay of the colony ship. I scroll through the weapons loadout while panning my helmet to take in the hangar bay and see what kind of assets I’ve got to work with. If there’s any hint of motion sickness, I’ll just pull this VR helmet off and go with the monitor.
But there isn’t. My field of vision is as smooth as peanut butter and it all feels just as creamy. In fact, I’m digging just looking around. The inside of whatever this battleship, space station, colony vessel is… is immense. Like the old-school Star Wars franchise immense. The good ones. The ones they made before the Meltdown. Though the ones after are a lot less preachy.
We taxi into position and hold for takeoff.
We’re carrying eight air-to-ground smartmissiles. And ten thousand rounds of forty-mil ball. So if I can’t blow it up, I’ll turn it to swiss cheese.
I get the clearance for departure in my helmet and feel flight controls deploying across my desk inside the gamer truck. Throttle and joystick are in my hands, rudder pedals rising out of the floor beneath my feet. I test everything and then go with throttle up. Suddenly we’re racing toward the launch portal of the ship in orbit, and a second after we’re in space and falling toward Mars like a rock.
Vertigo.
But it’s not caused by the helmet. It’s because this is so fantastically real. The fall feels like a real fall because graphics are overclocking on every possible level to convince my brain we’re dropping toward the red planet at an incredible rate. There’re even vapor spirals coming up off the canopy. We’re falling through thin atmosphere, and details on the planet below reveal themselves in layers with startling clarity.
Rashid is whooping in my ears. The effects are way above WarWorld standards. It’s so real I actually feel like we’re cannonballing straight into the Martian atmosphere while strapped into an actual dropship. The cockpit inside my HUD is shaking as atmospheric turbulence begins to take over. Wind whistles and screams across the fuselage over ambient in-game sound.