Worlds Beyond 5
* * *
Gil stood there nervously, and licked her lips. Megabyte was staring at her with a thoughtful expression.
"Well..." he said finally. "What CAN you do User? Any particular skills that might be of any use?" he drummed his fingers. "Quite frankly, you're too young for several occupations I need filled. You might make a good spy since no one outside the Tor knows about you yet but the Firewall makes that a rather useless option right now.
"Um." Jill said, brain working overtime. She got the feeling that she should come up with a good reason Megabyte should keep her around very, very quickly. She had rushed up to his chamber after the summons.
A small plan came to Jill's mind.
"Erm. Well, I heard someone mention game cubes. Um. I'm pretty good at some games." She started fiddling with her filelocker. She hoped this worked. "From what I can tell the whole city is upset by the guardian losing, right?"
"I'd hardly term him a *guardian* but yes, they were."
"You need someone to win games, right? People got upset when their hero lost-they got depressed. And when people are listless like that, they're easier to control. Erm. Am I right?"
Megabyte regarded her with a semi-bored expression that was somehow worse than anger or contempt would have been. It nearly made her bolt right then but she forged on. "Go on."
"Just imagine-" she took a breath. She wanted so desperately to be anywhere but here. "How they would feel if someone on your side, a viral, was better at the games than one of their own had been?"
Megabyte tilted his head to the side and sighed. "I HAVE tried propaganda...it didn't quite go too well."
"Actions speak louder than words?" Jill ventured. "What do you have to lose?"
As if to punctuate her words, the system voice rang throughout the city once more. "Warning. Incoming game."
"Let's see..." Megabyte punched up a window. "It's landing on...well, well."
"Pardon?"
"It seems that you're going to have a chance to prove yourself then, User." Megabyte said. He pushed a button and his legs came up. Jill's eyes widened a bit as he attached himself to them. She tried to regain her composition and asked, "How so?"
"The cube's landing here."
* * *
"Ah, Quake. A classic." Lisa said. "You just can't beat a game where the only point is to blow up everything in sight."
* * *
Jake stared anxiously at the gamecube. "Will they be okay?" he asked anxiously.
"We do not know. It is...hard to tell with game cubes."
Phong adjusted his glasses and peered at Jake, who had taken an almost protective feeling to the city. The User mumbled "I wish I knew what was happening in there."
* * *
Gil looked around. Damp walls dripping slime, cold rock floors, chilling moans echoing throughout the level...
"Oh, wow...Quake?!" she said, staring around.
"Hmmm...new one, I suppose." Megabyte commented.
"I played this." Jill said, half to herself. "Oh wow-in my world, I mean, when you play all you see are a few figures on a screen and you move your figure around and-I never knew it would be so REAL."
"Of course it's real." The virus said. "Cubes change reality."
"No, I mean-it's so IMERSIVE." Jill said gesturing excitedly. "THIS is what people have always wanted-virtual reality. Do you know how many people would PAY to do this? My God! If I could copyright this I'd be rich!"
She snapped herself out of it and got started. Jill looked at her PID. What was it you did? Oh yes...
"ReBoot!" she cried and tapped it twice. A column of green slammed down onto her and she ReBooted into a soldier outfit-the User's outfit in fact. The game still read her as a User character. She looked down at the assortment of weapons it had also given her.
"Oh WOW." She said, staring at the shotgun in her hand.
It was cold, heavy and shiny as Jill had always imagined it. She had always wondered what it would be like to actually shoot it in real life, except she had always know (almost comfortingly) she'd never have actually have a chance to.
Until now.
"User?" asked the virus looking around with only mild interest.
"Gamer." Jill said automatically.
"Tell me the exact nature of this game."
"Shoot everything that moves."
"That's it?"
"That's it. I used to play it all the-"
A snarling demon screeched and hurled itself at Gil. For a second, she felt time freeze and then it was as if she was back at her computer console.
*Let's see, she thought, dodge to the left and fire off a few rounds-*
Jill did, feeling the shotgun jerk and blast, a spray of blood pouring out of the demon.
*And then duck his claws, backspace a LOT and shoot a few more times, now go behind him 'cause I'm running out of space right HERE and-*
The last shot killed the demon, who collapsed with a dying breath. Jill shakily stepped back a bit.
I've just killed something, she thought.
It was a demon though. And technically it was undead so it wasn't like it was alive in the first place.
Okay, okay. I've just SHOT something then, not killed. Does THAT make me feel any better?
No.
Stop arguing with yourself, Megabyte's saying something.
He was staring at Jill with something approaching faint admiration. She had danced out of the way of the thing, spun around and fired, backspaced, fired AGAIN and then whirled past it and finished it off. It had taken her less than a microsecond to kill it.
"That was fairly novel." He commented, eyebrow raised.
Jill felt uneasy in the virus's presence. He didn't seem overly sick at the disgusting corpse or its death. Not that she had expected much of a reaction but still his indifference was...unnerving.
"Well...I'll just, uhm, look for a gun upgrade then." She almost babbled, taking a step back. The virus nodded slightly and went back to looking as if he shouldn't be suffering the indignity of being dragged into this.
Jill hurried out of the room.
* * *
So far Mainframe's core had only formatted Kevin. There was no need to format Gil-theinfection had done that automatically. The only one who *hadn't* been changed had been Jake. He remained human and untouched.
This would have been of considerable interest to everyone in Mainframe, because what no one realized was that meant was the system had recognized him as its User.
* * *
Kevin stepped into the place. Immediately, he knew it had been a mistake. The crowd made him feel ill. Fighting it back he walked into Al's.
The patrons stopped and stared then shrugged. The waiter yawned and asked blandly, "May I-take your-order?"
"Uh...no thanks...not yet."
* * *
The adrenaline rushed through Jill's body. Her thoughts would have been hard to track but went something like this:
*Okay okay, there's a zombie and I don't have a grenade launcher, don't panic, just come back later, it won't follow you too far, oh no one of those chainsaw wielding idiots...shitshitshitSHIT no no not the shambler guy oh GOD-whew, he's dead, FINALLY, and at least there's some ammo, pick it up dodge the zombie and -A GRENADE LAUNCHER, YES HA HA TAKE *THAT* YOU JERK!
She came to a halt near a door, and opened it up. Gil snatched up a rocket launcher. She almost giggled with glee.
Wow!
After leaving she had dodged from one sub-level to another, clearing a few demons and searching for the higher level guns. It was amazing-the walls rushing past as you sped by, the dazzling light from the launcher as the grenades exploded, the screeches of the demons-it was REAL.
It WAS real. And it completely blew her mind-she didn't *guess* people would pay to play in this, she *knew*.
Heck, she would.
Gil's train of thought was interrupted by a demon lunging at her from a side passage. She whipped one of her numerous weapons and fired. It exploded-literally.
Jill confidently turned away when-
*whish*
*splat*
She almost ducked too late as a still staggering demon scraped her arm with a taloned hand. Holding up the shotgun in a shaky hand, she fired again and it died with a gurgle.
Coming off her excitement rush a bit, Gil sat down and checked out her arm. It *hurt*-she knew she had beaten it up a bit when she arrived, but now it started to bleed-the armor had protected it from being punctured. But the thing had been aiming for her neck originally. If she hadn't ducked...
Suddenly, the point that you could really, truly die here was hammered in very forcefully.
Before, it had still seemed like a *game*, a childish fantasy that would be okay if you lost. The pain had brought her down from her adrenaline driven heights. She decided to get this over with quickly now that the thrill had been taken out of it. Reality set in.
And stepping around the corner she came face to face with the User's gun.
"Augh." she said very quietly then ducked.
Without hesitating Jill pointed the barrel of the rocket launcher up and fired repeatedly. The User's avatar was forced back then fired at Gil who twisted away out of panic-driven reflex. Gil brought the barrel of the gun up for what she prayed would be the last time-
"Game Over."
And then she was standing there in the throne room with her usual clothes. She took in a deep, shaky breath. Megabyte had been only a few wall lengths away and walked up to her through the now clear space.
"Not too bad." He remarked. "Very well, User-"
"Gamer."
"-you have a job. From now on, I want to you enter any and all games that fall within the Firewall."
"Yessir!" Gil said, ripping off an automatic salute. She then looked at her hand as if it had suddenly mutated.
"Gyahh..." she thought to herself as she walked off. "I just can't get USED to that."
* * *
Kevin had sat down at the furthest back corner. He huddled in the shadows, looking around a bit, lost.
To put it frankly, where WAS he?
A strange world made out of computer graphics...bizarre. At one point, he heard the system voice announce "Warning-incoming game..." and had peered out a window. His jaw had dropped in bemusement. A game? What in the world? After that, he began to put together an opinion out of bits and pieces of information. He was either in some computer like world or actually INSIDE a computer. But what had it done to him? Turned him into a virus? A virus was a program, not a person! This was just ridiculous.
"Hey, can I like, take your order?"
One of those small box-creatures, binomes, has skated up to him. He had an impatient look on his face.
"No." Said Kevin.
The binome sighed. "Yeah, I know, you people just come in here for the atmosphere-geez." He left but not before saying "And it's bad enough that we get all these VIRALS here."
Kevin's reaction to the annoying binome was less than civil. He felt a huge surge of annoyance and fought down the urge to kick him.
"Stupid, low level thing." He muttered. He then paused-"Low level? Since when is THAT one of my insults?"
He found bits of miscellaneous information floating around in his head as Gil had. Kevin placed his head on his arm and sifted through it with interest.
* * *
Gil wandered into the cafeteria again. It was more of a meeting hall actually. But the noise was just a bit too loud after the game-she wanted someplace to relax. She brightened up as she saw Lag and Vector again.
"Hi." Said Lag as she caught up with them just as they were about to leave.
"Hey! Um-I wanted to ask-
"What did you get assigned to?"
"Game playing. Very nice. But I wanted to ask you guys if there are any other places to eat here. You know-less noisy ones." She looked at them almost desperately. She was thirsty after that game.
"Try Al's Wait and Eat." Lag told her.
"Oh? Where's that?"
He gave her instructions, but as a parting shot, told her "They're really, really, REALLY slow though."
"As long as it's not loud."
* * *
Gil stepped in. The low-key atmosphere seemed nice at first-until you felt the layer of tension underneath. People looked nervously over their shoulders while they munched on their orders or waited for them.
As soon as she stepped in, all heads turned to her and gasped. She took a small step backwards, confused, then she realized her viral status most likely lowered her popularity.
"Uh-take your order ma'am?" said the waiter at the counter nervously.
"Um...sure. Energy shake please. What's my number?" She had seen other people with little numbered vid-windows-their version of a ticket stub she supposed.
"Oh we do all viral orders first." He said shakily.
"Um-it's okay. I'll wait. Really."
A vid-window popped up.
"304? Okay...thank you..."
Jill headed towards a dark corner. Most of the restaurant was full. She was almost at the seat when she saw someone in it.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She said as the person there turned around. "I thought it was empt-" She blinked as she saw who it was. "*Kevin?!*"