Chapter 31
Game Conclusion
Monday, October 6th, 2059
10 days to the apocalypse
Players identified to avoid confusion.
Joseph–Howie
Gavin–Jason
Byron–Angie
Teresa–Mr. Osmond
Sophie–Liam
Nina–Charlotte
One thing was certain, playing a VR game was a lot more fun than watching VR footage of people playing a VR game. But since Leo had experienced the future and was the obvious person to do it, he tried not to complain too much.
Sadly, he hadn't discovered anything new. Sure, the game itself was filled with anti-government sentiment, anger at the healthcare system, and the importance of teamwork, but so far, had nothing on how to stop the goddamn aliens.
Over the past three days, Leo had alternated watching old footage in fast forward with watching the six players play the game. Watching the others play, he had to admit Howie was pretty good. Howie had somehow turned Joseph's Blade Master skill into Blades of Fury, a skill that allowed him to send a tornado of blades flying at his enemies.
He made sure to take frequent exercise and training breaks between marathon sessions of watching the VR footage. Even so, he couldn't help feeling like he was slacking off. The world was ending in a little more than a week. This was hardly the time to relax. But he was tired. His exhaustion ran deeper than physical, or even mental. It went down to his very soul.
Leo had encountered his mom on Sunday when he returned to the house. Sure enough, she'd thrown away his red muscle enhancer pills. She gave him a long lecture about buying strange pills from people he didn't know. He supposed he could go back to Mr. Al and get some more, but he didn't. It was entirely possible Mom was right.
Besides, he had a good character choice now. Paladin/Rare, which was one of the strongest characters in existence. He'd considered selecting it, and using his Demon Tears to level up his skills.
But it didn't feel right. Plus, there was a tiny chance he could somehow get an increase in rarity. Paladin/Epic would be even better.
He focused his attention on the VR game. The players had made their way out of the alien-infested forest and were approaching soldiers in the process of looting prepper supplies—events that led to the insane boss fight with the General. This was close to where he and Jason had been forced to stop, the last time the two of them had played together. He gave the players his full attention.
***
“Now Byron, you stand back,” Joseph was saying. “If you get yourself killed again, I will strangle you to death in your VR pod.”
“Fine,” Byron said. “Don't have to be a bleep about it.”
“Everyone ready?” Joseph asked.
There were nods.
“Let's do this,” Joseph said.
***
The battle went much more smoothly than it had when Leo had played with Jason weeks before. After all the crap he'd gone through to kill the General, it was embarrassing to see how much easier it was for the six-person team. Particularly since this General summoned an army of smaller monsters to help it out.
Byron used his size and strength to take out the smaller aliens surrounding them so the other players didn't get overwhelmed. Joseph and Nina used their speed and skill with edged weapons to harass the General, cutting off its tentacles at every opportunity.
Teresa stayed out of the way, using her drones to bombard the General, using one to kamikaze into the General's mouth when she got the chance. The drone exploded, doing significant damage to the General's health. Gavin and Sophie hung back, using their superior firepower to do damage to both the General and the surrounding aliens. Soon it was over, the battle was won, and the six players followed the DUMB (Divine Ultimate Management Bureau) official into the forest.
Leo noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the ground next to a tree that had the word “Sacrifice” carved in its bark. The paper contained a picture of a body of water with the words “Water Reservoir” next to the universal symbol for no swimming. Before Sophie stepped on it, Leo saw the faint outline of the numbers “5” and “1”. The rest of the numbers were blurred. 5191? He remembered the “Beware the Guardian 5191” warning and felt chills.
The DUMB official spat in their direction. “Idiots!” she hissed. “You've gotten yourselves into more trouble than you can imagine! My people will crush you. They will annihilate you!”
The players were then interrupted by the same constitutionally-aware prepper who'd stopped Jason and Leo last time around, telling them that the Constitution forbade torture.
“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” Teresa snapped. “There are so many precedents for the use of torture, particularly in wartime situations...” she went on grumbling as the six moved into a huddle.
“We need to discuss this,” Joseph said. “Do we torture the DUMB official? Yes/No?”
The six players looked at each other.
“Do we have reason to believe torture would gain us useful information?” Sophie asked. “The woman is obviously not playing with a full deck.”
Nina nodded. “Does she know anything?”
Gavin shrugged.
“She looks brainwashed,” Byron said. “She'll probably just start spouting DUMB propaganda.”
“Agreed,” Teresa said, sounding tired. “She's one of their brainwashed corporate drones. It's unlikely she knows anything of value. We need to torture someone higher up on their food chain.”
“So it's decided. We're not torturing the DUMB official. What do we do now?” Joseph asked.
“I believe we're supposed to trade with the preppers to get rid of our crap and replace our first-aid kits...” Gavin started to say when they heard the DUMB official scream.
The constitutionally-aware prepper had gathered up a cloth bag full of the DUMB official's own Happy Cakes, pinned the woman to the ground with his foot, and was proceeding to force-feed Happy Cakes to her, one cake at a time.
“Wait! Wait!” The DUMB official shouted while coughing and spitting out pieces of the brown cake. “Take me with you! I'll tell you everything!”
“So it's okay for you to torture her?” Joseph asked the prepper. “How is that fair?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Providing food and water to the prisoner hardly constitutes torture.” The prepper looked indignant.
“Those are the Happy Cakes she brought. They aren't that bad, are they?” Teresa asked.
“Actually they are,” Gavin said. “I tried one once. I'd tell you what they taste like, but the game would bleep me.”
“You'll take me with you? You promise?” the DUMB official looked desperately up at them.
Joseph glared down at her. “Start talking.”
The DUMB official nodded, took a shaky breath, and spoke:
“There are four groups of people in the world right now,” The DUMB official said, staring up at the six players. “First, and most numerous, are the mindless monsters you keep encountering, that eat anything they find. Second, and also the second most numerous, are the ordinary humans like those,” she pointed at the preppers, “who haven't been infected by the aliens. Third, there's you, the smallest group, who've formed a symbiotic relationship with the aliens, the so-called heroes. And finally, my group. The group myself and the late General are a part of.”
The woman looked around nervously, eyes wide with fear, terrified the wrong people would hear her, before taking a deep breath and continuing. “You see, the government scientists created a vaccine they believed would protect us from the alien protozoa. More than that, the vaccine would allow us to merge with the alien protozoa, creating a superior being. A human/alien hybrid with all the strengths of both humans and aliens, but with none of their weaknesses. There wasn't enough vaccine for everyone, obviously, so the vaccine was given to people with connections, people who matter. Myself and others. The vaccine worked, after a fashion. Most, like myself, became healthier and stronger than normal humans, but still more or less human. In a small minority of cases—less than one percent—the vaccine worked perfectly, causing the human and alien to combine—turning them into ultimate god-like beings. The General was one of the weakest of those beings. The others are much more powerful, and there are thousands of them. They are our gods now.”
“Bleep. How do we defeat them?” Teresa asked.
“These gods will tolerate me, and even them,” she motioned towards the preppers, “as long as they're sufficiently devout. But not you. The gods sense your evil, your symbiotic corruption. They will hunt you down. They will kill you all!”
“So what do we do? How do we defeat them?” Teresa shouted.
The woman giggled. “You don't. Your kind are stupid, weak, and few. You die. You die. You die! YOU DIE!” The woman's voice rose in volume and pitch until it turned into a scream.
Teresa pulled out a pistol and shot the woman in the head. She fell to the ground, twitching.
“Bleep!” Teresa shouted.
“Everybody breathe,” Joseph said. “What do we do now?”
The game went black.
“Fuck!” Leo shouted. Was that it? Was that their answer? There was nothing they could do? They were all going to die? There had to be more to it.
With groans, the pods opened, and the players disconnected themselves.
“What happened?” Jason asked, tiredly stepping out of his pod.
“What happened?” Howie echoed Jason as he opened his pod and sat up. “Did the system crash?”
“No, it didn't.” Mr. Osmond studied one of the monitors. “'This concludes the unfinished version of the game,'” he read. “'Thank you for Beta testing. We are working hard on the completed version of the game and will release it as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.'” He punched a nearby pod with his fist. “Assholes!”
“It's worse than that,” Leo said. “Is there any way you can pull up an image of the game from right before it ended?”
“Sure. Why?” Mr. Osmond asked.
“It's important,” Leo said.
A few minutes later, an image of the game appeared on Mr. Osmond's monitor, with the six frozen players surrounding the equally frozen, dead DUMB official.
“Look at the sky,” Leo said. “You see that dot? Magnify it as much as you can.”
The dot expanded to six smaller dots in a circle. The dots, in turn, expanded into six blurry, pixilated, tentacled blobs.
“Shit,” Angie said.
Leo felt sick. “You didn't know what to look for, because you haven't lived through it. You are looking at six High-Level Bosses. Each one of them is the equivalent of one hundred Generals.”
“Uh, guys?” It was Liam.
Leo ignored him. “One hundred Generals is my conservative estimate. The six of them will come down with the force of an atomic bomb, laying waste to everything within miles of them. That's before they actually do anything.”
“Uh, guys? Guys!”
“What!?”
“Check this out!” Liam held up his cellphone.
Leo read the message along with the others:
The human board of Directors of the human corporation of Bio-Blessed wishes to make an announcement. There is no—repeat, no, end of the world planned when the timepiece on our billboards hits midnight. Nobody is turning into a monster. A digital fireworks display is set to go off when the billboard timepieces hit midnight. This was meant to be a surprise gift for our loyal customers. But because of the end of the world rumors, the humans of Bio-Blessed feel the need to inform and reassure everyone. Repeat, the world will not be ending when our billboard timepieces hit midnight.
“That announcement came out right around the time we finished the game,” Liam said, a huge smile on his face. “Did we just save the world?”
“That definitely didn't happen last time around,” Leo said. “The not-ending-the-world announcement, or billboard fireworks.”
“I suspect the timing of the announcement was a coincidence,” Mr. Osmond said. “Thanks mostly to myself, Leo's end of the world predictions have reached a lot of people, some of them were concerned enough to investigate and make inquiries. I think that is what brought on the announcement. The question is, do we believe the aliens?”
Leo shook his head. He wanted to believe it, but this felt wrong. Too easy. “I don't know.”
“Would the aliens lie?” Liam said. “I never understood why they would end the world to begin with. As Ambrose pointed out, these aliens have trillions of our dollars. For them, destroying our world would be like one of us burning down our own house, with all our stuff inside, after canceling our homeowner's insurance policy. What could they possibly gain by destroying a world they pretty much own?”
“I don't know,” Leo said again.
“Might I suggest that this was all an experiment?” Liam said. “When the aliens gave Leo his implant, they also gave him a vision of the end of the world to see what he'd do about it, and the world itself was never in any danger.”
“I wish I believed that, Liam,” Leo said. “But I don't.”
“Game's over,” Mr. Osmond said. “Everyone out. Except for Leo.” He tossed Howie a debit card. “That's what I owe you.”
“Thanks. This has been really fun,” Howie said, pocketing the card. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
“What about the rest of us? Do we get paid?” Jason asked.
“Considering we've been playing your favorite game in my state-of-the-art gaming pods, Jason, I should be charging you.”
“Good point,” Jason said. “I'm out of here.”
Half an hour later, Leo and Mr. Osmond were the only people left.
They looked at each other.
“So now what?” Leo asked.