Virtually Undead Read online

  “I doubt most people would care.”

  “Probably not, but they care, and that’s what counts. I admire that. They’re striving for perfection in an imperfect world. Somebody has to.”

  Michael had rarely seen his old friend so animated. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “They plan a rollout in about six months. Prior to that, publicity and an ad campaign. Stoke the public interest. Get the game playing community excited and eager to participate in the next big thing.”

  It occurred to Michael that the next big thing was always superseded by the next, next big thing, but in the meantime, it did sound like there was money to be made. Michael, usually in response to one of Ralph’s pleas, had intermittently succumbed to the lure of game playing. Sitting in a cabinet in his old room in his parent’s house was an Atari Jaguar, an early Nintendo and a long since obsolete Sega Genesis.

  His early, sporadic interest in games, and at least in part, Ralph’s sincere interest in what his friend was doing, had morphed into Michael’s current research, an attempt (a goal, rather) to allow BCI’s to bypass and compensate for damaged areas of the brain. The research had started with the bright idea of using an EEG interface to control a Nintendo, and had snowballed from there.

  But games themselves were long in his past. Medical School, residency and fellowship, and of course, the piano had swallowed most of his mental energy for the next dozen years, and now that he was established, he had at least a little time for other hobbies. It briefly crossed his mind that Melody was more fun than Runescape. On the other hand, Runescape was not as expensive.

  “They’re arranging a series of tournaments,” Ralph said, “to demonstrate the potential of the new system. Cash prizes will be awarded.” A far-away look crept across Ralph’s face. “It’s gonna be big. I’m certain of it. As big as Fortnite. Maybe bigger.”

  That was big, Michael reflected. “Bigger than Xbox One? PlayStation 4?”

  Ralph grimaced. “Please. Game consoles are for kids.”

  In Ralph’s world, this was true. A gaming computer, such as a Dell Optiplex or an MSI Trident, equipped with every manner of VR tech was the connoisseur’s chosen system. Ralph, insisting on nothing but the best, had recently switched from the ASUS Strix to an Alienware Threadripper.

  “And what will your role be, in this series of tournaments?”

  Ralph took a satisfied sip of his beer and waggled his eyebrows at Michael. “I am the game master, supreme arbiter of the gaming universe.” Ralph smiled happily. “So, pretty much whatever I want it to be.”

  “You mean you’re the front-man,” Michael said.

  “Yup.”

  Michael gave his friend a doubting look. “I can’t believe you’ve finally decided to sell-out.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sell-out?’” Ralph reared back in his seat, offended. “I’m not selling-out. I’m buying-in. Their system is great. They’ve convinced me.”

  “A match made in heaven.”

  Ralph smiled. “Let us only say that our legitimate interests coincide.”

  “So, when do these tournaments start?”

  “Next Wednesday. One week from today.”

  Chapter 5

  Remington Simulations had paid three hundred gamers a hundred bucks each to participate in their first sponsored tournament. The money was a token. In truth, every one of the three hundred would have jumped at the chance to try the system out for free. Ralph Guthrie was one of ten in New York. The rest were scattered all over the globe, linked together by WIFI, Bluetooth, the internet and their brand new exosuits.

  The suits were black, futuristic and impressive looking, but constructed of light plastic, weighing only a few pounds, including the helmet, and came with a washable, internal fabric liner. Remington Simulations was striving for verisimilitude, but verisimilitude had its limits. The dedicated gamer wants his adventures real, but he wants reality to be comfortable while he’s hiking through the jungle or swinging his sword at some grotesque beast.

  Except for the real fanatics, of course, who wanted as much reality as they could stand. But no worries, Remington was more than happy to satisfy the fanatics. The suits could be programmed to provide heat, cold or joint resistance. Weights could be inserted into small pockets, making the armor heavy and almost unwieldy, for those few who wanted a more challenging challenge.

  Remington had big plans. The system itself, complete with the exosuit, the controls, the games and all add-on peripherals, would cost many thousands of dollars, but there was no need to purchase it all at once. The headset, gloves and vest, plus an entry level game or two would set you back less than two grand, along with a suitable game console or computer, of course, but anybody seriously thinking of purchasing a system like this one was already going to have the computer.

  You could start out small before going all-in, and don’t the majority of drug addicts start out with just a toke or two?

  And for those who wanted the experience but didn’t want to make it a constant part of their lives or shell out quite that much ready cash, particularly for all those eager but not wealthy adults with a house full of little kids, Ellen Scott and Jim Jameson had the perfect solution. They had excitedly described their vision of an actual, physical complex, something resembling Disney World, the center of its own little city (childcare, included), where gamers from all over the world would assemble and participate in tournaments, challenges and obstacle courses, storming castles, fording raging rivers and shooting balls of glowing plasma between the eyes of rampaging dragons.

  After which, they would retire to an excellent meal at one of Remington’s many fabulous restaurants and sleep well in one of Remington’s many excellent resort hotels, subcontracted to Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons or perhaps Montage.

  Hey, why not dream big? Nothing wrong with dreaming big. A far cry from the current campaign begging for public money, but the goal, and the road ahead, could clearly be seen, stretching into the glorious distance.

  For now, though, Ralph Guthrie was happy to be standing in a large, open room in Remington Simulations headquarters, wearing a suit of armor, customized just for him. The company, it had been explained to Ralph, was still conflicted on whether to sell individually customized or individually adjustable suits. Customized gave an air of exclusivity, and of course, would be more expensive. Adjustable made them cheaper but also made them seem just a tad less high-end. Ralph had gently given his opinion that the gaming community was fervidly egalitarian (also, mostly poor). The company would, in Ralph’s considered opinion, sell a lot more by charging a little less (okay, a lot less).

  For the moment, however, this suit was designed specifically for Ralph’s portly frame.

  The whole thing was being filmed and recorded. “Let’s begin,” a voice said, “take a step forward.”

  Through Ralph knew that he was standing in a mostly empty room, the exosuit’s sensors gave the very realistic illusion of standing at the edge of a flooded street. Across the street stood a row of abandoned buildings. Most of the windows were shattered, the doors missing or hanging from an isolated hinge. Here and there, scattered pieces of paper, blown by the wind, drifted down the street. A few tattered American flags waved sadly in the breeze. Ralph dipped a toe in the water and then stepped off the curb. The water came up to his ankles. Twelve haptic zones on the exosuit, each comprised of an oscillating frame actuator surrounded by a wire grid gave the sensations of wet and cold. He could feel the water trickling over his legs, muffled by the armor.

  A flock of pigeons flew overhead. He could hear birds singing and crickets chirping in the distance.

  Pretty damn perfect, Ralph thought. He let his eyes flick to the side. No distortion whatsoever. A different set of buildings, different birds wheeling in the sky, as far as the eye could see.

  “Alright,” the voice said. “Proceed.”

  Ralph trudged across the street, the slowly flowing water caressing his ankles. A block upstream, he could see a br
oken fire hydrant gushing. Judging by the decrepit state of the abandoned city, the fire hydrant had presumably been spewing water for months, or even years.

  Broken glass and bits of shattered concrete littered the sidewalk on the other side of the street. A skyscraper loomed in front of him, “Bancroft Building” inscribed into the marble frame above the door.

  He stepped into the lobby, which was partially lit by beams of sunlight shining through broken windows. A shuffling sound came immediately to his ears, a figure slowly approaching from the other side of the room, dragging one leg behind. Rotten flesh hung off the creature’s arms, the bones visible. Teeth and most of the jaw shone through a hole where its lips used to be. Bald, mostly naked, it reached toward him and moaned as it shambled forward.

  A walker, the lowest type of zombie, appropriate to Level 1 of the game. Walkers were slow but strong, easily avoided if they were by themselves. They often travelled in groups, however.

  Ralph grabbed a gun off the Velcro attachment at his waist and shot the creature through the head. It stopped for a second, blinked and something that might have been a smile crossed what remained of its face. It resumed walking.

  Ralph pulled his sword from the scabbard crossing his back, circled forward and sliced through the zombie’s neck. Its head fell to the floor, looking surprised. The body, still animated but now lacking a head, continued in a straight line.

  The thing could still cause damage, Ralph thought. Might as well take care of that possibility. He sliced off both arms, then the legs. The parts fell to the ground, still wriggling but no longer an active threat. Floating in the upper left segment of his vision, two points added to his counter.

  The lobby had apparently been looted in the past. A few broken tables and the remains of a couple of chairs lay overturned in a corner. The room was otherwise empty.

  A faint sound came from above. Ralph turned and looked up as a shadowy figure plunged down from the ceiling. He sliced, feeling little resistance from the blade as it slid through the vampire’s chest.

  The vampire wailed, collapsed and turned almost instantly into a small pile of dust. Five more points added to Ralph’s counter.

  The basic scenario for Level 1 of Virtually Undead was straightforward. An abandoned notebook computer in a Seventeenth-Floor office contained secret information on the mutated viruses responsible for creating the city-wide infestation of vampires, zombies and ghouls. The company that had conducted the research was now offering an enormous sum for its retrieval.

  All three hundred players had the same, identical challenge. They were playing against each other only at a distance, in the amount of time it took each of them to retrieve the computer and the number of points they could accumulate along the way. Higher levels of the game would require them to play against each other on the same battlespace, and thus would require them to virtually disable or kill their rivals.

  Fun, Ralph thought. Routine, but fun.

  What made this game different, and better than most, was the almost totally immersive nature of the experience: the hardware, not the software.

  He took a moment to pause, look and listen, scanning the walls and ceiling for any other little surprises that might be lurking. Nothing seemed amiss. Warily, he slid one foot forward, then the other.

  The navigational grid in his helmet contained detailed plans of the building. There were only two ways to get to the Seventeenth Floor, up one of the stairwells or up the elevator shaft…three ways, actually. He could also climb up the side of the building.

  Climbing either the elevator shaft or the building would not be smart, however. Climbing takes concentration. Climbing means you’re clinging to some vertical surface with at least three out of four limbs. Not easy to fight a slithering horde of vampires with only one free limb, while trying desperately not to get knocked off.

  Nope. It would have to be the stairs, which no doubt would contain both traps and enemies.

  That was the game, though.

  Level 1 shouldn’t be too bad, not for an expert gamesman like himself, but even Level 1 games killed plenty of players—the first time they played, at least.

  Virtually Undead offered a lot of options. In addition to the standard katana, Ralph had been given a choice between a wakizashi, a pistol or a bazooka. A pistol wouldn’t do much against zombies or vampires and he hadn’t even considered it. Maybe he should have chosen the bazooka, but in the confined quarters of a building, a bazooka seemed just as likely to kill him as the enemy. He shook his head. Too late for regrets. His choices had been made and nothing for it now but to press on. If the game killed him, then the game killed him. Next time, he would make a different choice. Drop down onto the roof from a helicopter, maybe. Or hang glide over from outside the zone of containment.

  Slowly, carefully, he glided across the floor and opened the door to one of the three stairwells. He paused, listening. Nothing. Alright, then. Over his head, the stairs rose until they could barely be seen, back and forth, a landing opening out onto each floor.

  Ralph trudged upward and soon found himself getting winded.

  Very clever, the way they did this. Ralph was aware, intellectually, that he was walking along the smooth, level floor of a large, open room, but the illusion of climbing was nearly perfect. The joints in the suit were designed to offer just the right amount of resistance appropriate to climbing up an endless flight of stairs.

  The first obstacle came between the Second Floor and the Third. Something, some large object, had crashed through the staircase, leaving a gap of perhaps three feet. He could jump it easily enough but the stairs between the end of the gap and the next landing could be unstable. Ralph pulled a three-pronged hook with a rope attached and threw it upward. The hook caught on a railing. Keeping a firm hold on the rope, Ralph jumped. The stairs held beneath his feet. He walked upward to the next landing and retrieved the hook.

  A hiss came to his ears. The door from the landing onto the fourth floor opened and a revenant, a newly made vampire, charged out. Revenants were nearly mindless, consumed by the lust for blood. Revenants were not capable of creative tactics. They charged forward, grasped their prey and tore out their throat. Ralph slid to the side, spun and cut across the revenant’s head with his wakizashi. The revenant’s head flew off, clattering down the stairway. The body dropped at Ralph’s feet.

  Revenants were too newly changed to dissolve into dust. The body probably still had living cells in it, and it would decay like any other dead body. Ralph shrugged. Inside his helmet, five more points added to his score.

  At the moment, Virtually Undead was providing a curious mixture of apprehension and boredom, and there were thirteen floors still to traverse. Tedious, but no doubt filled with further challenges. Gingerly, Ralph poked at the revenant’s chest with the point of his wakizashi. The skin split open, revealing a gold ring sitting over a realistic looking heart. Ralph reached in and picked up the ring, which dissolved in his fingers. A sudden vibration swept over Ralph’s body. The suit felt suddenly lighter. A strength indicator in his upper visual field increased from 1 to 1.2. The power gauge changed from 93% to 97%.

  Alright, then.

  One floor later, a ghoul charged him from the open doorway. Ghoul’s looked a lot like zombies, except they weren’t dead. The same stench of rotting flesh, the same hungry gleam to the eye. Faster than a zombie, as well, but no matter. The wakizashi was sharp and Ralph was ready. The ghoul’s head easily detached from its body. The head made a nice realistic, thudding sound as it bounced down the stairway, and the body fell at Ralph’s feet, twitching and gushing dark red blood.

  Gross, Ralph thought. Again, his score increased.

  Ghouls, according to the rules, did not contain any hidden prizes. Ralph left the body undisturbed and climbed to the next landing.

  This time, two mid-level vamps charged out in unison. They were fast, but this wasn’t Ralph’s first time at the rodeo. The katana in one hand, the wakizashi in the other, he spun
a web of steel as the vampires bounced around him, seeking an opening. Ralph dropped, jittered to one side, then feinted left, thrust to the right and the wakizashi was plunging through the heart of the vamp on the left. Ralph spun, and the katana connected to the second vamp’s neck as it tried to take advantage of what it mistakenly thought Ralph’s momentary distraction.

  Still not old enough to crumble into dust, but certainly old enough for a quick mummification. The skin over both bodies turned brown and leathery, stretching over the skeletons.

  Ralph shook his head and breathed deeply, his heart racing. Twelve floors to go, and it wasn’t going to get any easier.

  The next level contained a minor demon, which he quickly dispelled with a capsule of holy water, and the next offered a succubus. Ralph blanked the augmented hearing provided by the suit, making him immune to the succubus’ song, and cut her in two with the katana. She fell with one last piercing wail, which Ralph could not hear.

  Four more levels, four more challenges, getting harder and harder, but he dealt with them all, taking a minor injury to his left arm from a troll on the ninth floor. He selected one of the three all-purpose healing capsules from his belt and swallowed it with a sip of water. The injury healed within seconds.

  He paused on the stairs before the twelfth level, meditated briefly, which replenished his energy levels, which by now had decreased to 67%, back up to 77%, ate an energy bar and drank some water. Then, refreshed and ready, he went on.

  A colony of bats flew out of the door. They were large bats, with large, sharp teeth. There must have been fifty or more. He snatched the miniature flame thrower from its sheath on his back and shot a fiery jet across the landing. With shrieks of despair, the bats fell, their crisped bodies clattering down the stairwell.

  Okay. Five more floors to go.

  On the Thirteenth Floor, he was swarmed. Older vampires this time, so fast they could barely be seen, at least six of them. They didn’t stop. They didn’t speak. They charged, claws out, fangs dripping.