Gamer Army Read online

  Mr. Culum reached forward and tapped a button before speaking into a microphone. A click, and his voice came through into the room, slightly hollowed out the way speakers could do. “Good morning, gamers! It’s great to see you again. You are no doubt wondering why you have been brought here instead of to the game arena. I can tell by looking at you that you’re both a little worried, no doubt wondering what all this equipment is for. Well, you have nothing to fear. I promise you that. In fact, it’s time to get excited. I can’t wait to tell you all about it! But not from up here in the control booth. I’ll be right there!”

  He and Sophia walked off to the side and down a few stairs, emerging a moment later through a door and into the lab.

  “Good morning from me too, gamers!” Sophia said in an aw shucks, cutesy-teasing kind of tone that went perfectly with her festive green-and-gold dress. “How are my favorite finalists doing today?”

  Shay and Rogan exchanged a look.

  “Fine,” Shay said.

  Culum spoke up.“From the day that little white dot first bounced off a white bar in Pong, to Pac-Man’s first chomp on a pellet, to Mario stomping his first Goomba. That remarkable moment when the first gamers joined the world of Neverwinter Nights, the first fully graphic multiplayer online role-playing game. The explosion of virtual reality play on console and computer game systems. Then establishment of the hyperstream data network, digi-space, and Virtual City. Today is also a milestone in gaming history, the ultimate gaming accomplishment!” He nodded at Sophia who smiled back.

  “Throughout the history of video games, in car racing games from Pole Position to Forza Motorsport and shooters from Doom to Call of Duty to Space Marine, no matter how varied in their content, there has been one universal constant in all of gaming: the quest for better graphics, more intuitive game control, greater realism.

  “Today, gamers, you will be privileged to be the first ones to experience the ultimate realization of that quest,” Mr. Culum said.

  “You have something better than the suits?” Rogan asked.

  “Better than that giant arena?” Shay added.

  Mr. Culum looked as though he might dance. “The gaming you embark on today will make that and other VR systems, and especially old-fashioned button-pressing gaming, seem completely primitive.” He swept his arms around the room. “Welcome, to full Neurolytic Transduction Control. Or NTC.”

  Sophia elbowed him playfully. “Or NeuroCon.”

  Mr. Culum shrugged. “Patent and trademarks pending. The point is that with Neurolytic Transduction Control there are no more gimmicky controllers of any kind—you are simply quite literally in the game.” From each table he held up an inch-thick, four-foot-long, silver cable with a complex plug on the end. “With this simple connection you will no longer control your laser viper. You will be a laser viper.”

  Shay actually took a step back, as if she were preparing to flee the room. But Rogan noticed X standing a few paces away, looking intently at the both of them. “It’s OK,” X said quietly. “You’ll be safe. I promise you.”

  “You look worried,” Sophia said. “Don’t be. Like X said, NeuroCon is one hundred percent, completely safe. Atomic Frontiers technology is here to make life better for everyone. And you gamers are so important to us. I feel as if we’re family, or closer even than that!”

  Rogan and Shay exchanged a look. Sophia was laying it on pretty thick.

  “It works quite simply,” Mr. Culum said. “We connect to the software update and maintenance port on each of your deep brain tissue electrical stimulation implants.”

  Rogan’s insides twisted cold. How did Culum know about his implant? What did the thing have to do with gaming? He looked at Shaylyn.

  “You have one too?” they both asked at the same time.

  “ADHD,” Shay said.

  “Epilepsy,” Rogan said.

  “Takashi has one too,” said Shay. “He told me. He didn’t say what it was for.”

  “It could have been for the treatment of any number of conditions,” Sophia said. “It’s completely normal.”

  Rogan frowned. This was all too weird. “Yeah, but what are the odds that out of the five top gamers in our age group, three of them have …” Then he figured it out. “I bet all of us have implants.”

  “All for this?” Shaylyn asked. “But why? My doctor says all my implant does is stimulate the impulse control and focus centers of my brain.”

  Mr. Culum held up a finger. “That’s all it does for now because that is all it is programmed to do.”

  “Well, it’s not like my phone,” Shaylyn said. “It doesn’t download games and play movies.”

  “But it could,” said Mr. Culum. “If they knew how to program it. With a large software patch and a revolutionary data compression system Atomic Frontiers has developed, your implant can make a safe, passive scan of your brain’s entire neuroelectrical pattern, all your brain waves, all of your conscious and unconscious nerve signals, transmitting an exact real-time copy of that information into our gaming computers, while at the same time information from the game is being relayed directly to your brains in the exact same way your brains are taking in sensory information right now in this room. The end result is that you will effectively be put into the game.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” Shaylyn said.

  “What if the system crashes while we’re connected to it?” Rogan asked.

  “Then the game would end abruptly and you’d wake up safe and sound right here,” Sophia said. “It’s just a copy of your current thoughts and responses to sensory stimuli that interacts with the game. The real you is just fine.” She patted one of the two medical beds. “Safe right here.”

  “Wait,” Shay said. “You want to make copies of us?”

  Mr. Culum laughed again. “No, no. Not copies in the sense you’re thinking. There’s not a hard drive on Earth large enough to contain a complete copy of all your thoughts and memories. Think of this like live-streaming. The idea is to live-stream you into the games. If a politician’s speech or some breaking news is being streamed or broadcast live and your computer or television is destroyed, the real event is just fine, right? That is kind of what’s going on here.”

  “And it’s how you are both going to embark on the gaming experience of a lifetime!” Sophia said. “What we’d like to do today is let you try this new system, to familiarize yourself with it in an easy simulation environment so that you’re ready. Ready for tomorrow’s championship game round!”

  “What do you think, Ro?” Shay asked him quietly.

  “What he was saying sounds like it makes sense,” Rogan said. “And my mom’s always talking about how we have to fight negative stereotypes about brain implants.”

  Shay rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah. I’ve heard it all. Whenever people find out about my device, it’s all ‘Frankenbrain’ and ‘cyborg.’ ”

  “Exactly,” said Rogan, looking at the cables and connector plugs on the two tables. “Maybe we’re being like those idiots, afraid of a perfectly safe technology.”

  “I understand your hesitation,” Mr. Culum said. “And we can take all the time you need to get comfortable with NeuroCon. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. I’m here for the two of you.” Mr. Culum turned around and brushed aside some of his bushy gray hair. With the flick of a fingernail, he peeled back an inch-diameter circular synthflesh cover to reveal his own data port. “Trust me, gamers. I have tested this system myself. It is completely safe.”

  “You have an implant?” Shay asked, surprised.

  The brain implant technology had only been approved and in widespread use for about ten years, and it didn’t work nearly as well when installed in adults as it did in young brains that could still grow around the implant. It was almost unheard of for someone as old as Mr. Culum to have one.

  “Your brain didn’t reject it?” Rogan asked.

  “We at Atomic Frontiers are a little better with technology than people elsewhere. We’re always signi
ficantly ahead. Exponentially so.” Mr. Culum smiled and held his hands out before him, beckoning Rogan and Shay. “Now, gamers. Are you ready to ride technology into the future?”

  If Rogan had any remaining doubts about the new technology, they were assuaged by his trust in Mr. Culum. The man was a little weird. Geniuses often were. But what he lacked in normality, he made up for by caring about people, especially his gamers. That was enough for Rogan.

  “You’re sure about this?” Shay asked Rogan as the two of them lay back on their tables.

  Rogan didn’t answer right away. It wasn’t like Mr. Culum was asking them to undergo brain surgery. It was only a software update. He ran one of those every night. He’d meant what he’d said the other night at dinner about making friends, but he’d also meant what he’d said about wanting to win this contest. If Culum had a cool new way for him to do that, he’d do what it took. Rogan looked over at her. “If you don’t think you can beat me in the finals, it’s OK to back out now.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She tried to keep from smiling. “I hate you.”

  “Save it for the game,” Rogan said as he faced the strange, uncomfortable sound and feeling of the connector being inserted into his implant’s external port. “Where I will beat you.”

  “Connections secure,” X said.

  “Initiating system” came the sound of Mr. Culum’s voice over the speakers from the control room.

  “Dream on, Rooooooogggaaaaaaa …” Shay’s voice, stretched somehow and garbled, followed Rogan as he felt the brief sensation of falling. X standing next to him, the lights above, Shaylyn on the other bed, everything around him pixelated and digitally dissolved. “… aaaaaan.”

  Rogan nearly fell down. That was the first thing to adapt to, the fact that he was standing, not lying on a bed.

  Next he was startled to find himself back in the cavernous arena, only he was much taller than he had been the last time he stood there. He looked down at his Ranger hands, their weapons and grappling system built into the forearms. No surprise there. He was used to looking like a laser viper, to moving around, making the image of the viper move with him.

  What was new was feeling like a laser viper advanced combat robot. He could not have easily explained the difference in the way the new version of the game felt to someone who had not experienced it. He imagined it was like trying to explain the color blue to someone born blind. But the sensation of being inside his game suit was gone. The flight and jumping harness wasn’t there. His head wasn’t stuffed inside a tight, hot VR helmet.

  Instead, he felt a bit naked at first, being aware of the absence of clothes, but of course a laser viper didn’t need clothes, and in his head he knew his real body was lying safe in the med lab in jeans and a Mario Kart Turbo T-shirt.

  He watched Flyer moving around, checking herself out the way he had been looking at himself. The line of green light gleamed on her visual sensor plate. “Ro? This is amazing.” She tapped her left arm. “Like, I could feel my hand through my game suit when I did this, but this is like I’m hitting my own arm.” She was quiet for a moment, looking around the arena. “Kind of a lame practice level. No burned-out city like before?”

  “I guess they wanted to spend more time programming the actual game instead of a practice level?”

  Culum’s people had whipped up a sort of obstacle course, like in Army movies. Except this was a super obstacle course with much taller barriers, at least one of them fifty feet tall. Big plastic rings hung from the ceiling, wide enough for a person to fit through. Flight practice for Shaylyn, maybe. A couple of small swimming pools. An old van and a few cars parked all around.

  “So I guess we’re supposed to try out this new game mode?” Rogan said. “See how this works?”

  “That’s exactly right, Rogan,” X cut in on their channel. Rogan jumped, being caught up in the new experience, forgetting for a second they were always being watched. X continued, “You’re going to find a lot is different. No more hand gestures to activate weapons and other systems. This is all thought control. So, have fun. Test your weapons, your grappling—”

  “I wonder,” Shaylyn said. She shot up into the air like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July. Straight up so fast, she nearly struck the ceiling.

  Instantly, Shaylyn knew she was about to have more fun than she ever had before. She’d had dreams of flying. She’d loved the way her game suit and harness, combined with her VR helmet, had created such a realistic illusion of flying. But this wasn’t an illusion.

  She was flying! She felt every twist and turn, the heavy feeling as she soared up into the air, the fluttery-flip sensation in her stomach when she dropped altitude. No more pointing her hands opposite of the direction she wanted to fly. Now she thought about moving and she did. Moving through the air was as natural to her as walking.

  She laughed as she flew. How often had she watched a sparrow or some other bird sweep up from the ground to land on a wire? How often had she dreamed of becoming a pilot, of sitting at the controls and safely taking a sleek aircraft into the sky? This was better than any of that! Sure, it was just a game, but it was like Mr. Culum said, a game unlike anything she had experienced before.

  She landed on top of a fifty-foot-high wall, instinctively able to activate some kind of auto balance system so she was completely stable up there. “Rogan! This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done! Come on!” She fired an NLEP at him, simply imagining the blue-white energy pulse out of her forearm. It spark-smashed into the floor near Ranger’s feet.

  Rogan jumped back and then sprinted forward. Right into a low wooden barrier. The wood splintered and he burst through, spilling onto the floor.

  “What are you doing, dummy?” Flyer said.

  “So fast.” If Rogan had hit that wall at that speed IRL, he would have ended up with crushed bones and deep cuts. He’d probably be knocked out. Or dead. But Rogan could never have achieved that high a velocity. Ranger could have outrun the fastest car right there if he hadn’t crashed, if he would have been prepared for the ability to move that quickly.

  The game suit did its best to create the illusion of speed, and it was good for slowing down Beckett so that he moved like the slower Tank viper mod. But the micromotors within the suit couldn’t force Rogan to run faster. If they had, they probably would have torn his body apart. Now, though, with his mind sort of freed up in the game, operating this viper robot, there were no limits. Now, Rogan could run, maybe over a hundred miles per hour, and he could feel what it was like to run that fast.

  Flyer swooped down to land next to him, offering a hand to help him up. “You OK?”

  “Yeah,” Rogan laughed. “I just wasn’t ready. Watch this.”

  He sprinted again. Jumped to the top of a twelve-foot-high barrier. Feet on top. Leaping into the air. Grappling hook to the ceiling. Fast swing to within forty feet of the far end of the arena. He swept around in a smooth, fast arc before disengaging the cable. Barely thinking about it, he pulled his heels up, tucking his legs in far tighter than his human body ever could, and spun into a series of rapid backflips before touching down neatly on his feet.

  “How did you know how to do that?”

  “Your vipers are augmented with preprogrammed sequences for movement and fighting,” X said. “With the game suits, you had to select different programs from a menu on your Heads-Up Displays. Now you can access those programs by thought alone.”

  Flyer whipped into a blur-fast jumping spin kick, clocking Rogan in the chest and head three times before knocking him back to the floor. “So I basically know karate?”

  “Your viper is programmed to know it, and a lot of other techniques, yes,” said X.

  Rogan got back to his feet, tempted to retaliate against Shay’s little display, but not wanting to reveal how much her blows had hurt. “Is that safe? I mean, you’re reprogramming our brains?”

  “Can you just program us with everything we need to know so we can forget about school?” Flyer asked.
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  “Your brains aren’t being programmed. You are simply able to access programmed sequences in the game, at the speed of thought. Mario is programmed to raise his fist to break through bricks. If we had you connected to Super Mario Bros., you’d be able to do that, not by pressing a button but by thinking about it,” X said. “It looks like the system is working great, and you’re getting the hang of it. We want you to challenge yourselves, test out what you can do as laser vipers.”

  For the next hour, Rogan and Shaylyn had more fun gaming than they ever had before. They tested their considerable speed. They fired weapons at different targets. They punched holes through cars. Rogan laughed as he swung through the air like Spider-Man, with Shay zipping around cutting tight corners and testing her incredible flight capability.

  They even had a friendly martial arts fight, suddenly able to cut loose with fast-as-lightning kung fu moves, karate chops, aikido throws, jujitsu strikes, judo takedowns, and other kicks and punches. With their computer-assisted attacks and defenses, the two of them moved so fast, an observer would have seen only a blur, heard a rapid clank-scrape-clang of metal on metal.

  Miraculously, the two rivals kept up a friendly, even match, Flyer compensating for Ranger’s superior strength with more speed and flexibility, and by taking their sparring match up in the air, where she could claim the advantage.

  After the shortest hour either of them could remember, X interrupted them. “That’s all the time you have for practice, gamers. We’re about to commence system shutdown. You will want to stand still so it’s less of a shock when you find yourself resting on the tables in the med lab.”

  The practice arena level digitized out around them, and again there was a short, dizzying moment, like falling into a dream. Or in this case, coming out of a dream.

  Rogan and Shay opened their eyes, felt the scrape-click of the game system connection being removed from their implant ports. They turned to smile at each other.

  Then X stood over them, a hint of that strange expression once again on his face as he looked at Rogan and Shay. “You’re both ready for the final challenge now.”