Chapter 1. Wet Work
Thirty-six years living in this forsaken space colony, and my bank account didn’t have much to show for it. Sure, I had never had to subject myself to overheating in a half-rusted drilldozer on the asteroid belts- but I hadn’t eaten anything but nutrient paste for the last six cycles, too. There was a time in my life when I was younger. I was making tons of credits working for a Swapper, but since Yonder came out, my somewhat comfortable lifestyle had become one of tireless gaming to earn enough Platoon Tokens in the MMFPS Platoon Lords to keep the nutrient paste shipments coming. I’d been waiting for hours for a call from Yuri, the last Swapper I knew who still traded Platoon Tokens for credits. While the game was still popular enough for a good number of die-hards to continue playing; the number of in-game users had become abysmal, and so had my exchange rate.
[Call from: Yuri]
My AR-frames glowed with the text overlaying my shabby studio apartment, where most of the space was taken up by my VR-pod, an older rig I continued upgrading when I could afford it. The rest is dedicated to a small desk and a bed in the corner. I didn’t own much, especially after the divorce, but I still lived a more comfortable life than most of the spacers living on CX12.
“Connect.” Many augmented reality frames had mental interfacing, or at least eye tracking. My AR-frames did not. I had to speak out loud.
[Connected]
“Hey there buddy, I got some good news, and bad news- let’s talk in person at the usual spot.” A live video of Yuri, the grizzled old war vet, appeared. His background was replaced with a fake library full of ancient-style paper books. He probably thought it made him look rich and educated, but I thought it was pretty tacky. My video box just had a black square since I didn’t feel the need to show off my terrible living situation.
“I can’t go any lower. I’m already barely getting by over here.”
“It’s not that I want it for any cheaper, I just don’t want it at all, but like I said, I got some good news too. Come to the warehouse, and we can talk.” My eyes immediately began to water. I had known this day was coming, but I kept pushing it out of my thoughts and living day by day. I nervously chewed on my lip, letting what Yuri said hang for a moment before pleading to the buff white-haired man.
“Please, Yuri, I can go a bit lower if that’s what we need to do.” It had been two days since I had eaten anything, and the monthly ‘fresh air tax’ imposed by the leaders of CX12 was due in three days. If I couldn’t pay, I’d be put on an indentured work crew. And those usually forced you between renting equipment that would all but guarantee you’re permanently debt-locked into the crew or going with the bare minimum that was sure to get me killed. Not the two best options to juggle.
“Are you listening? I don’t want them at all. I still have everything you gave me the last two times. Platoon Lords is dead, buddy. I’ve been warning you for a while now. I took those out of pity, kid.” A noise could be heard in the background, like metal grinding metal. “I gotta go, I’ll be at the spot in thirty minutes or so. Meet me there, I got an opportunity for ya.”
And just like that, he hung up the call; the world spun around me as the gravity of the situation took hold. I wasn’t prepared in any way to move into a different line of work. He had been warning me for years that I needed to get into Yonder. By the time I was even slightly interested, I wasn’t making enough for the pod upgrades. The company that launched Yonder used state-of-the-art equipment that was too expensive for most to afford, and although plenty of third-party companies now offered Yonder compatible pods, it was still too much for an average person to afford. I leaned a hand against the wall and began moving towards the front door, steadying myself from the starvation-based fatigue. I grabbed my dirty jacket off of the lonely hanger at the front door and stumbled outside.
Bright screens with scrolling advertisements promising Earth-quality products and services were packed into every space they could get them. Besides the blinding advertisements, it was hard to look in any direction without seeing spacers indulging in drugs, alcohol, gambling, or prostitutes. A flavor for every buyer trying to ease the burden of being alive on this shit-hole. Dredges shambled down the larger streets like they couldn’t see anything around them. Sometimes corporate bigwigs power walked past them wearing their personal breathing apparatuses, too good for the low-quality smog that passed for air in this wretched bubble. I walked while running worst-case scenarios through my head. There were many businesses that operated full-time out of Yonder. Because of the unreplicable time dilation within the game, places use that as a way to shurk labor laws and get weeks of labor out of someone for one day of pay. Some companies used Yonder in their indentured servitude packages, and that would make for a much better job than risking my life crushing asteroids for precious metals in hazardous conditions. CX12 sifted through the Kuiper belt and was mostly a mining focused spacer colony, but there were bound to be some companies on station that needed a person for a Yonder Data Entry position. I rounded a corner into an alley, and the greasy stench of human filth made me gag. I quickly raised my shirt over my face and quickened my pace, more falling forward than actually walking faster. I arrived at the big iron door that led into the small warehouse, where some musclehead always worked as the doorman, and today was no exception. This guy was a bit smaller than the usuals I’d met but wore an industrial exoskeleton to make up for it. He must have anticipated my arrival because he just nodded and talked past me into his AR display.
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“He’s here. Open the door.” The door swung open, and another goon waved me into the building. The first room had a few basic weapon scanners about as unlevel as I had ever seen. I always had to awkwardly position myself into their line of sight instead of them just being properly placed. The place looked like a shitty drug lab. Yuri technically didn’t break any laws, although he might be breaking a few terms of service. He just hired hard-ass veterans and bulked-up juicers to guard his place since he dealt in so many credits. That, mixed with the stench and run-down look of the warehouse, and you got what most people would assume is a gang run drug lab. I was brought to a small table with a full coffee pot. Yuri always offered his guests coffee, a luxury I could never afford. I poured myself a mug and took a long sip. It wasn’t nutrient paste, but it helped keep me awake for a bit longer before the fatigue fully got to me. Eventually, the large, white-haired Yuri made his way to me and greeted me with a big smile. ‘He sure is in a chipper mood for a guy that basically just signed my death certificate.’ I thought, peering at him over the coffee mug.
“Noah, how are you, my boy?” He said as he sat down and poured more coffee into the thermostat he had been holding. He sported a black sweater with his dog tags from when he fought against some big rebellion that happened before I was born. People today would either praise Yuri or call him a corporate lap dog. Either way, he had his own property on CX12 and a heap of scars that crept up his neck to show for it.
“Could be better, was hoping I could talk you into-” He held up a hand to cut me off, I was dizzy and didn’t mind taking a breather between sentences.
“No tokens, Noah, I’m not running a charity. I’m going to offer you a chance to earn your own rig to play Yonder; no predatory debt to enslave you either. You don’t complete the job, and all you do is give back the pod.”
“What…My own rig?” That couldn’t be right, either the job was going to take me my whole life and he was, in fact, trying to debt slave me or the job would be highly illegal. ‘No, Yuri isn’t that kind of guy. I know him, he’s solid.`
“Yeah, I just need you to kill a few people for me,” Yuri said nonchalantly while screwing the top back on his thermostat. He looked up at me to see my concerned face. “In…Yonder. You know, I mean like PVP in Yonder, right?” I tried to play it off like I knew what he meant, but we both knew I thought he was going to send me to someone in real life. A Yonder ready pod is a lot of credits after all.
“Okay, I did my fair share of that in Platoon Lords. I don’t have an account in Yonder, though, I've never played. I might be too new to do that kind of thing.”
“No shit, dude, that's a PVP only game. And I know, you’re the best PVPer on my payroll that doesn’t play Yonder yet. Meaning you are perfect for what I need done. Corporations put indentured ‘clients’ in the game. I need you to take out some of them during the tutorial stage of the game to set back their progress. The early stages of the tutorial are based on momentum- I need you to put an end to some new conscripts momentum. You in?”
“Of course,” I said, almost desperate for the opportunity. The smile Yuri had before I implied I thought he wanted me to kill real people returned. He extended his hand, and I shook it.
“There are also bonuses to be had. You take out ten for me, and we’re square on the pod, every batch of ten after that, I’ll give you 1000 credits. The tutorial instance lasts 10 days, so you’ll wait until I give you the green light, and you’ll log on. The pod will record everything you do, and you just send me the clips.” I didn’t know how hard it was to kill someone in Yonder but twenty kills in Platoon Lords was achievable in just a few days. Less, if you worked with a team to ambush players.
“Sounds like a steal, is this some impossible task or something?”
“Nah, it shouldn't be for you. Worst case scenario you give the pod back. But I think you’ll manage no problem.” I must have looked starved because Yuri gave me a pitied look and grabbed a small box of nutrient paste and handed it to me from his mini-fridge behind the bar. “Not to mention it’s the best game ever made, it's really fun.”
“I thought you didn’t play VR-games? That’s why I always swapped with an intermediary, and what do you mean by momentum?”
“Nah, I didn’t play Platoon Lords, shooters aren’t my thing. Got enough of that in real life,” He said, lifting his shirt to show the metal prosthetics running up his gut. I recoiled a bit at seeing the muscular old man's prosthetic stomach. “But Yonder is much different, plenty of different ways to go about playing. Character classes are procedurally generated at the beginning, then curated by AI based on your playstyle. I’m no mere rogue in this game, but a ‘Armored Smuggler Mage.’ I've yet to meet someone with the same class as me, though I’ve met a few other people working as smugglers our abilities are worlds apart. The momentum deals with the actions I did that led me to my class. It wasn’t what I was looking for but it suited me well, and since I just kept rolling through the tutorial without setbacks, I got a pretty nice setup. When you die, you go on a twenty-four-hour in-game timer, I just need you to set some people onto that timer.”
“Sounds overly complex, I like it. Any guides on how I might get a sniper class?”
“No, during your first ten days you’ll just need to do things a sniper would do and you’ll get something in the realm of what you’re thinking. There’s also a huge tree of sorts that players call the Ability Tree, though it's named some awkwardly pronounced fantasy name, everyone refers to it as the Ability Tree. You’ll get to pick whether you want a random ability or if you want to try to climb this huge hulking tree to get a slightly less random ability. Your three abilities and unlocked stats will determine your Class. After that, you just gain spells and skills that fit the parameters of your class.”
“I’ll look up some basic guides before starting, I really appreciate the opportunity, Old Man.”
“Get some rest, my guys will be by later tonight with the new pod. I’ll even store your old one for you.” My eyes watered in appreciation, he could have paid me much less than this. I would have accepted a flat one thousand credits and just used one of his rigs here. He even saw I was starving and gave me some nutrient paste.
“Thanks, Yuri.” He patted me on the back and gave me a single arm side hug.
“No problem, kid.”