Blinking in shock, I raised my freehand to block the sudden light. The daylight was far more intense than I cared for. Even in the backyard shaded by trees I could barely see. Shuffling across the yard I grumbled, “Drinking has to stop Mal.”
Tossing the last of the trash into the bin I said, more to myself than anyone, “What kind of company rep wants to come out for an in-person meet for a job like this?”
Lydia answered simply from my patch phone, “Mr. Speers indicated that their team will need to conduct an in person update of your hardware for you to take part in the beta.”
I had heard and read this answer at least six times at this point. Lydia was not advanced enough to theorize about complex matters like this. How was Catacomb hoping to release a game that outstripped top of the line hardware? My system and peripherals were well advanced enough to get me into any game on the market.
Making my way into the kitchen and through the adjoining door into the living room I asked, “What is his ETA?”
“Mr. Speers should be arriving at any moment.”
As if in answer I heard the front door rumble with a pair of knocks. Walking into the living room, I wrenched the door open. A tall man with perfectly styled short red hair and a goatee was standing there with a bright smile on his face. He was wearing an expensive well cut black suit and tie. Behind him several men were grabbing bags from a small van and making their way up the walk.
The young man extended a hand and beamed. Something about his smile made me uneasy. He introduced himself with a jovial tone, “I’m Jaime Speers. It’s an honor to meet you Mr. Voss.”
Returning the smile, I shook his hand firmly and the two of us stepped out of the way so his workers could make their way in, “You might be one of the only people to be honored to meet me these days and please, you can call me Malcolm or Mal,” as several of the workmen walked past I added, “that goes for you guys as well. The dive room is down those stairs between the kitchen and living room.”
Gesturing toward a couch, I asked, “I made some brownies yesterday for our meeting, and I have some tea on the stove.”
Speers looked a little surprised at that and said, “No need to be so formal Malcolm.”
Waving off his concern, I said, “It’s a thing my gram drilled into me when I was like eight. You always welcome visitors with hospitality. I’ll grab those and be right out.” As I stood to retrieve them I didn’t add that she often added that gram’s rule about visitors extended in particular to enemies often adding, “Share a cup of tea with those who threaten you, that way you will know what to add to their second cup.”
Gram was… intense.
Making my way into the kitchen, I glanced down the stairs to see the polo shirt wearing tech guys running cable across the dive room. Returning to the living room a minute later I set a tea tray laden with brownies and a teapot along with a stack of tea cups for each guest on the coffee table.
Grabbing the pot and pouring some tea into his cup I asked, “So, you guys do things a little differently?”
Speers nodded, “We are hoping that Dark Spiral will outperform EO on the open market. To do that we need to get this ProBeta right. We had one internal test before this and now we are stepping things up to professional scrutiny.”
He sipped his tea and smiled at the taste, “Wow, you know your stuff.”
Offering him a wry grin I said, “All thanks to my gram. When it came to tea and cooking she couldn’t be stopped. She said a lot of her secrets came from when her family still used to ride in wagons from place to place.”
When I dropped into a chair opposite him with my own cup of tea I could almost see my gram. She was willowy and cold with her nose turned up in the chair beside us, looking down at the tray with disdain.
Ignoring the apparition, I downed some tea as I asked, “So Dark Spiral? Give me the rundown.”
Speers fidgeted with his teacup and said, “It’s not a lot like EO. Their basic equipment and class system is based entirely on gems and sockets, as you know. Our system is a more traditional numbers, tier and rarity system. In the Beta our levels range from one to one hundred. Our tiers range from F to S and our rarity is the typical common to legendary that you are familiar with.”
Jaime took a sip of his tea and continued with a smile, “EO and other first generation RIG games play a lot with the direct neural link with the conventional chips that most users utilize to interface with the Opnet. We aim to be the first true second generation RIG interfacing software.”
I curled the corner of my lip barely avoiding a disbelieving smile at the proclamation.
While invasive neural chip tech went through its early phase of exploding monkey test subjects and horrendous failure in the early twenties the release of the RIG catapulted them and their Patch phone ancillary devices to ubiquitous use in 2028. The chips are what allowed gamers to be fully immersed in VR environments. The chip had basically made cell phones obsolete.
So called second generation RIG chips were the NFT and santo scams of the early 2030s. Gullible investors had lost their entire savings due to rug pulls for crowd funded second gen chip scams.
Speers smirked and pointed at me, “I see you don’t believe me.”
Chuckling, I shook my head, “I’m willing to hear you out man. You’re hiring me, after all. As long as I’m not putting any money into it.”
Speers smirked and glanced at the stairs where his workers had vanished a short time before sitting forward and setting down his teacup, “Tell me Malcolm, have you been keeping up with your training?”
Bristling a little at the question I ground my teeth a little before saying, “As much as I can.”
The truth was that I had tried to stay up with my workouts but recent events had put a damper on my performance. The typical physical training in martial arts and acrobatics that was required to maintain RIG cohesion that most pro play orgs required was difficult.
Most players had a limiter on their RIG chips that allowed their avatars to do all the physical work required to play the game but if you wanted to be the best… If you wanted to run the biggest channel on Sett… You had to take off the limiter and take control away from the machine. AI could not approach the ability of a skilled human operator. The absolute best could manage to have their avatar do sixty five percent of the work and do the remainder themselves. That kind of physicality was world class. There was talk of making it an Olympic sport.
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At my absolute best I managed 69.8%.
Speers spread his hands and smirked, “With our new tech ‘As much as you can’ is perfectly acceptable. I know this sounds crazy,” he seemed genuinely giddy as he leaned a little closer and whispered conspiratorially, “but with our new interface the machine does one hundred percent of the work with almost human-level skill.”
Blinking at that I started to speak. I wanted to refute that it was possible but instead I said, “How…? I mean, I hear rumors that the Chinese military got a good eighty percent cohesion but there are all kinds of rumors that the test subjects died.”
Speers held up a finger and leaned back seemingly amped up by the reveal, “Our system is completely safe and I promise that our avatars,” his smile broadened, “and for that matter our NPCs are so much more competent and the interface is so smooth that you will notice the difference immediately.”
He picked up his tea again and chuckled, “You’ll start to believe you can flip, jump and fight like a game character in real life.”
Shaking my head at that, I started to refute that suggestion but looked over sharply as I heard a thump from downstairs. Speers continued, “Dark Spiral uses a game system we are calling imprints to lessen the stark discomfort that comes with a sudden tier up in class. It’s like a tutorial. I’m pretty sure you’re going to encounter it quickly.”
I found it difficult to believe but put on the most genuine business smile I could manage. I picked up a small brownie and took a bite as I said, “I can’t wait to give it a try. I recognize that you don’t want to talk about it too much but what is the general vibe?”
Speers gave me that same unnerving smile as he poured himself some more tea and said, “It’s horror themed. The PCs races are all called remnants and they are all different types of undead. It all starts out pretty basic but eventually the classes and races become pretty distinct, especially the rarer ones.”
“Can I ask you a question?,” Speers asked with a gesture of his tea cup.
He smiled widely and asked, “I half expected you to turn our offer down given everything that is going on. Why are you giving us a chance?”
The question hung in the air for a long time. Sipping my tea, I finally set the cup down as I said in a wistful tone, “You remember the last time you played a game where you knew nothing going in?”
Studying the man’s face I didn’t see any recognition of the question. No nod. No change in his smile. Any good MMO player would gush about that feeling. Ignoring his strange response I continued, “That mystery of dropping into an unknown world. The last time I truly experienced it was with EO, and I fell in love in seconds.”
Beaming the first genuine smile I had mustered in weeks at the man, I chuckled, “I… I want one good day of being lost in another world. Just one good day.”
One of the techs shuffled by us and made his way outside to the van. I studied the red tea in my cup and asked, “This whole ProBeta thing, is everyone you are bringing on a former or current pro streamer or player?”
Speers nodded and put the cup to his lips as he eyed me, “Everyone is well versed in gaming and professional streaming and competition. Some of them have been out of the game for a while, but you can rest assured that you will be among like minded people.”
Glancing at the hall when a heavy thudding sound echoed from below I asked, “I just wanted to confirm something I read in the packet. I’m not required to stream, correct?”
Speers nodded and finished his second cup of tea, “We may occasionally use clips from your gameplay to advertise the game but your voice will never be broadcast. If you find yourself in another player’s stream we can’t do anything about that, but your avatar has voice modulation.”
Gesturing toward the hall I asked with a raised eyebrow, “What are they doing to my set up anyway?”
Speers offered that strange smile as he stood and straightened his tie, “Well, as you read in the NDA you signed we had to make a few small changes to make the Dark Spiral experience more immersive, not to mention the RIG connectivity issue.”
He led the way down the stairs and into the basement. The room was much the way I had left it only twenty minutes ago. There were more cables running the length of the chamber from my rig harness to the computer station and there appeared to be some pretty intense work going into the dive suit itself hanging from a hook on the far wall. The techs were still working away at it with a fervor.
I noticed for the first time that the men were a little strange. Each of them wore a deep black polo with a golden symbol of a mausoleum on the left breast and khaki slacks. Each of them was completely silent as they went about their work. They didn’t make idle conversation or even random comments. The most I heard from them was an occasional grunt.
I quietly wondered if they had been talking before we came down and Speers just inspired that kind of terror in his employees. Glancing at the strange man out of the corner of my eye I smiled wryly as I shook my head, “So the NDA says I can’t try to figure out what you guys did and if I do and tell anyone you will sue me into oblivion, am I right?”
Speers grinned over his shoulder as we reached the bottom of the stairs, “Oh, we’ll own your soul.”
“Without getting into specifics you are going to be ‘more immersed’. Things will be more reactive and smooth. You’ll have more visual acuity. Better sound and even smell.”
Scoffing at that, I gave him a look that told him I thought he was full of shit.
The man offered me a confident smile and hefted my battered black dive helmet. Without hesitation I grabbed it as Speers directed one of his men to the desktop station behind my rig. He spoke with smug confidence, “Run the set up test for Mr. Voss.”
Tugging the helmet over my head I found myself in a midnight black void. I stood there in awkward empty silence for a long time. It seemed to be taking so long that I said out loud, “Speers, tell your guy…”
The sound of rumbling thunder cut me off. It was above me and in the distance. As I looked in that direction I saw clouds flash throughout with purple lightning illuminating the expanse of a huge jungle below me. Below me the screeches and roars of animals of all types echoed as they retreated from the boom of the storm.
I could… I could genuinely smell the rot and vibrant life of the jungle around me. I could smell… rain. There was movement off to my left and I peered into the depths of the surrounding trees and saw something huge moving through amidst the rain slicked leaves.
The smell of the jungle around me was overrun by the smell of death. The fronds of the nearest tree shifted and a massive gray skinned face emerged cast in shadow. A grin slid across its lips. It was… familiar. The kid… The same kid I had seen beaming at me from that ancient Christmas photo in the news report. He was the size of a giant with massive even white teeth.
The empty sockets where his eyes should have been were writhing with…
Tearing the helmet up and off, I panted and bit back an angry curse. Tamping down my panic I managed a faux smile as I handed over the helmet to Speers who was looking on smugly. Shaking my head I stuttered, “In… Interesting set up environment.”
He said nothing as he walked over to the suit which the tech was just closing up, “In addition reactions to in game stimuli will be even more vivid. They obviously won’t actually be painful but it will be extremely clear where sources of damage are coming from. Our goal is to make it feel like you’re really there. Just another benefit of the second generation RIG software.”
Looking around at the techs who were starting to gather up their tools I managed to summon my trademarked smile, “Glad to help out with the beta. When can I log in?”
Speers spread his hands as his men made their way up the stairs and out of the basement, “You should be able to log in to the beta client this evening. Did you want any lore primers or…”
Holding up a hand with a smug smile I scoffed at the offer, “I’ll be fine. I enjoy being dropped into the fire,” I paused to call out to the workers on their way out, “grab a brownie on your way out guys.”
Speers nodded and made his way up the stairs as I followed in his wake, “It was nice meeting you Mr. Voss. I’m sorry about your recent troubles and I hope Catacomb will be an interesting new start for you.”
We walked to the front door where I saw that the workers had indeed grabbed a few brownies. I extended a hand and gave Speers another firm handshake, “Great meeting you, man. Thank you for the upgrades.”
The man nodded with that same strange smile and said, “Look forward to seeing you log in tonight.”
With a nod and a smile I said, “Thanks again,” and watched as the men climbed into their car and van and pulled out of the driveway through the opening gate.
I was about to turn back into the house when I spotted someone at the end of the drive pausing to look up toward me. It looked like a girl in a black t-shirt and jeans. She had chocolate colored skin and long braided hair. She watched the vans pull away and looked up toward me to offer a friendly wave. Waving in return I ducked back into the house to return to the dive room.
