Interlude- Brandon (20 page)

Chapter 57

The General locked his office door, went to his desk and picked up the phone. This wasn’t a call he’d been looking forward to.

“Hello, Madame President.”

“General.” The President’s voice sounded cold and formal.

“What can I do for you, Ma’am?”

“Your… pet has become troublesome, Donovan. Thorn’s little game has swept the world in a wave that could very well drown us.”

“Yes, Madame President.”

“You understand games better than most, General. They are useful when they help us train soldiers for battle, or workers to perform simple repetitive tasks. They assist with learning new ways to improve society. Games allow us to harvest knowledge and productivity from the masses. Mindless games are even useful for entertainment purposes, helping normal citizens escape for a brief time from the drudgery and dismal nature of their existence, giving the population harmless activities to look forward to performing during their off time.”

The General knew all of this; he’d educated the President many years ago, teaching her about these exact types of benefits. She was angry, though, and he dared not interrupt her. “Yes.”

“Games deliver control, General. That was your last sales pitch to me, wasn’t it? The Sim and your successful Blurring project delivered control, turning regular children and adults into unsuspecting weapons who would gladly die for whatever cause we desired?”

“It was,” he agreed.

“Six months ago, Thorn Inc.’s virtual reality game, ‘Tygon 3.0’ went live. Six short months ago, General. Do you know what has happened in that space of time?”

The General sat down in his chair. “Yes, Madame President.”

“Tell me,” she said.

“Tygon 3.0 has become the best-selling, most played game ever,” the General said. “Samson Thorn is now the richest man who has ever lived.”

“I wish it was only that, General. Tell me the worst of it.”

The General closed his eyes and rubbed them wearily. “People are so immersed in Tygon 3.0 that they are ignoring their real lives. Adults aren’t showing up to work, kids are no longer attending school, and essential businesses and services are having to shut down due to lack of manpower.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen here, General,” the President said. “You leaked it to our enemies and assured me this would occur there… but not here. You told me there would be fail-safes built into Thorn’s game here. Limits to the amount of time a person could play, dampening programs to make the virtual reality not feel so real inside the simulation, that sort of thing. Do I remember incorrectly, General, or did you give me those assurances?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then tell me what’s happening, General. Everything I’ve built for over eighteen years as President is slipping away in the span of mere months. Is this part of your plan? Because if so, it is treasonous. You assured me there were measures in place to stop Thorn if this type of thing began to happen!”

“There were. There are, Madame President.”

“Do you know what happens if we try to unhook a VR helmet while a person is playing, General? They drop dead on the spot. We’ve tried to slow this down, but it’s become an infection. It’s worse than an infection! We are witnessing a digital plague that will destroy civilization as surely as any disease I have ever seen!”

“I can bring things under control, Madame President. Just say the word.”

Laughter erupted on the other end of the line. Strained, stressed, fearful laughter poured from the President’s lips. The General winced at the sound.

Finally the laughter subsided and he could hear her laboured breathing.

“Consider the word given, Donovan. Fix this. Now!”

There was a click on the other end of the line. A small wisp of a smile
touched the General’s lips. “Yes, Madame President,” he said to the dial tone as he hung up the phone.

Chapter 58

She stood backstage, smiling as the fans chanted her name.

Her manager had advised her to make them wait an extra ten minutes, and it turned out to be a great idea. The chanting and cheering grew in volume as the minutes passed.

She closed her eyes and remembered the long journey she’d taken to get here. All those nights playing in tiny bars with only drunks to listen, begging for small gigs just to earn a meal and a couple sales of her self-made albums. She’d travelled thousands of miles in a beat up old car just to follow her dream.

Her perseverance had paid off, though. While she was onstage in one of those small bars, a young music executive had walked in. He’d been searching venues in remote locations in hopes of finding the next big star. Fate had connected the two of them. She’d poured her heart and soul into her songs that night, and he recognized her talent when he’d heard her sing.

After that it had been a whirlwind. First the venue sizes increased. Then her music began to get picked up by the major radio stations. The appearances and live performances began to bring out increasingly large crowds. It had been worth it all; the sacrifice, the heartache, the miles covered.

Her manager walked up and grabbed her in a warm embrace, swinging her around before kissing her passionately. They’d become so much more than partners in music; they’d fallen in love and, before long, they'd gotten  married.

“Okay, baby, I think you’ve made them wait long enough,” he said with a smile. “Get out there and give ‘em what they’re begging for!”

She giggled and playfully grabbed at him; he was so good for her. “Come and watch me sing, lover,” she said.

She turned and walked to the curtain where a roadie was smiling, ready to open it for her as she approached. Through a narrow slit in the curtains, she could see the crowd; this was the largest event she’d held so far. It would be a night to remember forever.

She pushed the curtain aside and smiled as she took hold of the microphone….

“Mommy, mommy! Please talk to me, Mommy! I’m so hungry, and you said you would make us some food soon!”

The sounds of the crowd vanished as her six-year-old daughter pulled the VR helmet from her head. She found herself in her apartment, sitting on her sofa, in her drab living room. She grabbed the helmet from her daughter’s hands and pushed her off her lap as gently as possible, closely inspecting the helmet to make certain it hadn’t been damaged. “Give me a second, honey. I told you I’d make dinner when I was done playing my game.”

Katie would never have been able to take the helm off if she’d been fully within the game; it must have shorted out again. She shouldn’t have come out of Tygon until the concert was finished and the celebrations had ended. A quick glance showed her that her helmet had overheated. With a flash of annoyance, she checked the timer and saw that she’d been inside the game for over thirteen hours. The helmet was one of the original models and tended to overheat after twelve hours or so. She would need to let it cool down for a bit before she could get back in and finish her concert.

Sighing with disappointment, she shuffled to the filthy kitchen to look for something to make for dinner. Piles of dirty dishes and food wrappers lay all around. She rummaged through the cupboard. It was mostly empty, save for a few bags of dried goods.

“How ‘bout noodles, hun?” she said, looking down at her daughter.

“I’m still hungry after noodles, Mommy,” she said. Her hair was dirty and she was still wearing pajamas even though it was late afternoon.

The mother looked at her daughter and felt a momentary twinge of guilt.

              She smiled, though, because soon she’d be able to afford another headset. Then she could let her daughter play as well. There were new jobs inside the game where you could earn credits and even headsets to give to family members. Things would be better for both of them then.

“Soon Mommy will get you your very own headset and let you play in Tygon too, baby,” she said. “There’s much better food in there, but today noodles is all we got.”

The little girl looked confused, but she believed and trusted her mother, so she nodded. “Okay, Mommy,” she said.

The mother stood at the stove, waiting for the pot to boil and the noodles to cook. The entire time, she was daydreaming about her life inside the game. On Tygon she was a somebody. Here she was just a poor uneducated woman with a husband who had left her and a crappy little apartment. Here she had no job, no food, no real hope of anything good from life. There was nothing for her here.

She put the noodles in a bowl and put them on the table. “There you go, sweetheart, you eat those noodles up.”

“Thanks, Mommy,” her daughter said. “You gonna eat some too?”

Her mother smiled and shook her head. “No, Honey, I’ll eat on Tygon. You go ahead.”

She patted her daughter on the head and walked to the living room, grabbing her VR helmet from the table on the way. She looked at the timer and smiled. It had cooled down enough to let her log back in.

Adjusting a couple of dials, she placed the helmet on her head.

She thought she heard her daughter’s voice from the kitchen, saying, “I love you, Mommy,” but she was already back in Tygon, standing on the stage as the crowd cheered and applauded and chanted her name. 

Chapter 59

Brandon’s plane was a small single propeller model, the kind with pontoons that could land on water. He exited the aircraft, collected his bag, and walked up the pier towards an elegant hotel.

Thorn was there to meet him at the entrance; Cooper stood beside him. Both men smiled and took turns hugging Brandon.

“How was the flight?” Thorn asked. “Not too long or bumpy, I hope?”

“It was fine, thanks,” Brandon replied. “I had no problems at all.”

In Tygon 3.0, Brandon was now a grown man, six feet tall with dark blonde hair and blue eyes. He was muscular, with an athletic build. A few weeks after the game had gone live, almost all of the Elite groups had decided to change their avatars from children to adults. Average players didn’t choose child avatars, and being an adult was much more practical.

“Do you want to go to your room first and drop your bags off, or would you prefer to get right to it?”

“If everyone else is here, I’m ready to get started,” Brandon said.

“Okay, then, right this way.”

The three men talked and got caught up on the way to the main lobby of the hotel. Brandon had been here once before; it was a private island on Tygon, owned and controlled by Thorn. The only way to get here was by invitation, and in Brandon’s experience this wasn’t a place one would want to visit for pleasure.

They entered the main hall and walked to a private meeting room filled with team leaders from the Elite groups. Brandon smiled and nodded to some of them; many  had become friends and allies over the years in the Sim. Brandon spotted Lohkam who scowled at him and turned away to talk with his neighbour. The two had never grown close. In fact, Lohkam tried to kill Brandon almost every time they ran into each other, although most of their encounters ended with Brandon getting the upper hand.

Thorn walked to the head table and sat down, with Brandon on his right and Cooper on his left.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice; I’m glad you could all make it. I’ve called you here today to deliver a message. Real life, or the Dream as we call it, is in a state of extreme crisis.”

Thorn paused for a reaction, but no one
looked surprised or concerned. Thorn said something to that effect and Lohkam spoke up on behalf of the group.

“It’s never been our world, Mr. Thorn. We didn’t really get to live in it. All of us have spent our entire lives in the Centres and inside virtual reality. Quite frankly, if the Dream ceased to exist tomorrow, I wouldn’t care one bit.”

Others nodded in agreement; Thorn could see their point, and although he didn’t share their sentiment, he could understand it.

“I have one entire Tygon server dedicated to crunching numbers and figuring probabilities,” Thorn said. “The data overwhelmingly points to an outcome which we must avoid at all costs; complete extinction of our species from the planet. Even if you live your entire life inside Tygon or some other simulation, electrical power is still required to keep these virtual worlds in existence. That power is generated in the real world, and
without it you will die in here as well.”

The group of Elites looked at each other around the table and nodded grudgingly.

“How much time is there?” Brandon asked.

Thorn shook his head. “The absolute worst case scenarios indicate that we have a little over a year.”

“How can we help?” one of the leaders asked.

“To begin with, I need you and your teammates to complete another thirty year simulation,” Thorn said. “Because of the drain on our computer and energy resources from Tygon 3.0, that simulation will last three months rather than three weeks.”

Lohkam groaned, “That part doesn’t matter to us,” he said. “Three minutes or three years, it will still feel like we’ve been inside the simulation for thirty years! I can’t do that again.”

Thorn pursed his lips and looked out over the leaders. “I can’t force you to do it, but the experience you’ll gain from living another lifetime will be invaluable. I can tell you that this time around will be more focused. We need you to master one skill.”

“What skill?” another leader asked.

“I need you to become to become experts in the field of quantum computing design and programming.”