part one: February 20 - The Back Door
Nick Havill’s life revolved around improving his grade point average, maintaining his place on the South Bend varsity soccer team, orchestra practice, and applying to the best colleges his parents could afford. He was the textbook example of a well-rounded student and had managed to keep his GPA in the top ten on the school roster throughout his high school career. This year he was determined to place his GPA in the top five before graduation, but after hours of studying for today’s AP chemistry test, he discovered that he had actually dropped three places. He stood in front of his locker, linked into the online roster, and scanned down the list of names. His name was now listed at number twelve on that roster. He had calculated that he should have been nearer to number seven, maybe number six. Nick scanned the list again, noting that some of the names that had never placed in the top 20—let alone the top 10—had somehow now miraculously jumped into the top rankings. He concentrated on the list as he ground his teeth, then abruptly, he plowed his fist into his locker.
“Yo! Nick, what’s wrong?” Jim asked. The two boys had met in the first grade and had been best friends ever since. While Nick had always helped Jim with his studies, it was Jim who kept Nick grounded to some kind of a normal childhood.
“Nothing!” Nick snarled at his best friend. As if to add emphasis that nothing was wrong, he kicked his locker. “I just studied my ass off for that AP Chem test, and three other students who’ve never placed in the top rankings just scored higher than me. I just dropped three places in the line-up.”
“Nick, you’ve got to relax before you blow a gasket,” Jim tried to calm his friend down. “Listen, why don’t you come to the game room with me and blow off some of that excess steam? I’ll get you in as my guest. It really helps me relax and let go of some of the excess tension. This cutthroat scramble for first place freaks me out. If I didn’t have an outlet, I think I’d explode.”
“I can’t, I have to go home and study for that calculus test tomorrow.”
“Look, take one hour to relax and I bet you’ll study better later.” Jim shrugged. “You won’t be able to study like this anyway. At least take a walk with me to the game room, have a look around, and count to ten a few times while we walk. My gran says it works for her.” He laughed and playfully punched his friend in the shoulder.
“Yeah, I need a breath of fresh air,” Nick grumbled.
A catty voice from across the hallway called, “Hey, Nick.” The girl simpered at him. “How’d you do on that Chem test?”
Chelsea Heflin—as far back as he could remember—had gone out of her way to tease and mock him every chance she got. He glared at her. “Shove it, Chelsea,” he snarled back. Nick could not stand the girl.
“Ah, did someone score higher than Nicky-poo?” She flashed a stolen test pad from under her jacket.
Nick stalked across the hall and glared at the test pad. “How did you get that?”
She smiled maliciously. “I’ve got friends in low places, Nickie,” she smirked, and then stepped closer and hissed, “If you weren’t so busy trying to be better than everyone else, you might have friends who would do things for you too.” She smirked at Jim.
“So, what? You stole a test pad and shared the test questions before the test? How many of you cheated?” Nick glared at her. “Shove it up your ass,” he snarled and stalked off.
“Come on, Jim, I need to get out of here.” Nick knew he shouldn’t let her get to him, but if he didn’t leave now, he was afraid he might plow his fist into her mocking face instead of his locker. He hated it when he let her get to him and felt his frustrated anger building to overload.
Nick followed Jim blindly down the street. His stomach was still clenched into a knot because Chelsea had cheated him out of his hard-earned grade placement. He had not been paying attention to where they were going. When he finally looked up, they stood in front of the women’s underwear shop.
“What’s this?” Nick looked at the storefront in confusion.
“Just shut up and follow me,” Jim said. “This game is not completely on the up and up, if you know what I mean.”
“Hey, I don’t need to get into trouble on top of my grade point average tanking,” Nick said. “I’ll have enough to deal with explaining why I dropped three points to my parents.”
“Tanked? Three points, Nick, really? If that’s tanking, where does that put me? Thanks, buddy,” Jim quipped.
“Sorry,” Nick apologized. “I didn’t mean it that way. You know my parents, they’ll flip when they see my GPA.”
“Look, your GPA didn’t drop. They cheated. Didn’t you just score higher than you expected to on that test? The truth is, Chels got one of her slimy friends to jack that test pad so they could cheat. Several of them needed to get their scores up or they’d be out of that class completely. Now that they’re safe from being kicked out, they’ll go back to their lazy-ass ways and you’ll go right back up the roster on the next test. But for now, just follow me and relax. Then you can go home and study for the Calc test. Alright?”
Nick shoved his hands into his pockets and shivered. Not a single ray of sunlight penetrated the shade in front of the building, and the wind felt like it was slicing right through his winter coat. Suddenly, going inside to get warm sounded like a very good idea.
“Yeah, whatever. Let’s go.”
Jim led the way down the alley to the back of the store and swiped a key card. The door clicked open and they walked down a set of stairs into a large, dimly lit room. The game stations were set up inside transparent halo bubbles with flickering lights emanating from the game stations crammed into every space around the room. A few of the stations were full of people linked in with their neural implants, their arms and legs twitching to some virtual action going on that only they could see. Nick could hear the muffled sounds of shouting from inside the enclosed halo bubbles.
Nick followed Jim as he weaved around the bubbles. There were different-sized bubbles depending on how many station seats were in each one. Nick could see the occupants moving and reacting to something. He could barely hear their muffled yells and laughter.
Jim walked up to the person at the counter who was intently working on a piece of equipment. “Hey, Todd. This is my friend, he’s my guest today.”
“Alright, just you two?” the young man behind the counter mumbled without looking up. “Sign him in, station seven is a two-seater and open.” Todd stopped what he was doing long enough to reach over and select a link adapter. “Here’s a guest link for your buddy.” He went back to working on the writhing mass of wires and computer chips spread out on the counter. “And remember to log off when you’re done,” he growled over his shoulder as Jim and Nick walked away.
Nick followed Jim, weaving around enclosed bubbles through the dimly lit room, weaving around station couches occupied by players oblivious to their passing.
Jim walked up to a clear dome bubble marked #7 and opened the door. Nick could hear the whirring of the station computers booting up as he stepped inside. Jim shut the door and the noise from outside the bubble vanished.
Nick handed Jim the link adapter and the halo headgear.
“Here, connect this to your main link—it will get you into the game. You won’t get all the options in the game as a guest, but you’ll be able to get the basics,” Jim said as he hopped over the armrest and nestled down into the cushioned seat, pointing to the seat next to him. “You take station seat number two. I’ll be the squad leader and you can follow me. Don’t worry about making noise, these bubbles are almost soundproof.”
Nick sat down in the seat that Jim had indicated and waited while his friend punched in a set of codes on the keypad on the arm of the chair. Nick plugged the adapter into his main link, then connected it to the station port. He was suddenly plunged into the middle of a battlefield.
“Whoa!” He dropped to his knees as a bomb exploded off to his right. Nick looked around in confusion. This seemed so real. He scrambled forward into a pile of rubble, the roar of battle all around him. He looked around—he was kneeling, not sitting, in a battlefield.
“Yo! Nick, over here,” Jim called from Nick’s left. Jim waved his arm for Nick to follow him. As Nick crouched down and ran toward the pile of rubble that Jim was using for cover, he was still adapting to the physical simulation of his body actually running, walking—or in this case—crawling on his hands and knees as he scrambled to the pile of rubble that might have been a storefront at one time.
Jim handed him a machine gun. “Here, you’ll need this. You have to aim pretty accurately. It’s not like those cheap arcade games where you just point and shoot. You gotta hit your target square on or it won’t count.”
Nick stared at his friend in horror. “This is what you do for fun? You’re nuts!” Nick yelled.
Jim laughed, “You gotta remember—it’s not real.”
Nick gawked at his friend. “It’s feeling pretty real at the moment. Now what?” he yelled over the roar of artillery fire and military vehicles rumbling past their position.
“Keep your eyes open for rogue scouts. There are three kinds. The regular humanoids—you only get one hit for taking those out. Then there are the robots—you’ll earn two hits for one of those. But the big score comes if you can take out these genetically altered war Neanderoids. Those monsters will earn you three hits. But you earn it—those things are hard to kill.”
“How many points is a hit anyway?” Nick scanned the surrounding battle scene.
Jim laughed. “A hit doesn’t count as points—you earn points by how long you stay alive. A hit is a DD—that’s a dopamine dump. The hit sort of gives you an energy boost, like an adrenaline rush, so you can keep going longer. The more hits, the more endurance, and the longer you stay alive.” Jim searched his friend’s face, looking for any sign that he was going to quit the game. “Do you want to leave?” he asked calmly.
Nick looked at his friend—this meant a lot to Jim. His friend had been trying to get him to come play this game for months now. “No, I’ll stay. I nearly shit my pants when that explosion went off, though,” he told his friend.
Jim’s face broke out in a big smile. “Yeah, the first time I played this game I nearly shit myself too. That’s what’s so cool—it seems so real. This will be a lot more fun with you here. So, let’s make our way up into the action. That’s where we’ll get the best opportunities to score hits.”
Jim took the lead, sprinting from one mangled building to another, with Nick still overwhelmed by the sensation that he was physically moving through this battlefield and trying to keep close on Jim’s heels.
Jim pointed toward his right. “See that brick wall? Let’s make our way over there and make a stand.” Jim took off at a run heading straight for the smoldering building. Nick jumped up to follow his friend when suddenly something huge jumped out from behind a pile of splintered wood.
Nick stopped in his tracks. What the hell was that thing? The monster’s muscles bulged and rippled over its grey-green skin as it moved, and it was focused on Jim’s back.
“Jim! Look out!” Nick screamed.
But the thing stopped and turned to see who had yelled behind it—and then it was focused on Nick. Nick thought his bladder was going to let go as the thing glared at him. The apelike face leered at him, showing its brown and yellow teeth in a rictus smile. Nick backed up, his stomach twisted, and he thought he was going to vomit. It’s not real, it’s not real, he repeated to himself—but it sure looked real. What a horror.
The beast started to stalk toward Nick, raising a serrated scimitar that had to be longer than Nick was tall. The apelike monster started to jog straight at him, its smile stretching across its nightmare face. Nick’s whole body was shaking and he struggled to raise the machine gun. Taking aim, he fired straight at the monster’s chest. He was frozen in place as the monster continued to run straight at him. Nick locked his finger on the trigger as tight as possible, emptying the entire clip into the thing’s chest. The nightmare stumbled to a stop one or two steps away. It swayed in mid-step, trying to take one last step toward Nick. Its breathing was labored, and he could hear it gurgling as it toppled over in a heap.
Nick stood, shaking all over. Then suddenly he was nearly knocked over as a rush of euphoria flooded through his body. Breathing deeply, he started to laugh. “Whoa! That was great!” He looked at Jim. “What the hell was that?”
Jim was suddenly there, pounding him on the back. “Holy shit, that was great! You just stood there and faced that thing down.” Jim looked at his friend’s face. “Oh, you just got a triple DD, didn’t you?” He laughed. “Great, isn’t it?”
Nick shivered. “Wow!” he panted. “That’s amazing.” He smiled at his friend. “I think I get it. What now?”
After an hour in the game room with Jim, Nick had gone home to study for the calculus test, which, to his complete satisfaction, he aced the next day—restoring his class ranking back into the top 10.
