02
Time to work
Darren Wiznitskiy, CEO of Omnicorp inc. was back at the office. He had plans. Plans to succeed, and plans to stop those that planned to stop him from succeeding
Currently he made sure that spawned enemies were at least double their current strength, and even more so at the higher levels. He didn’t want anyone getting to level-happy. He hadn’t factored in the intellect of some of these gamers.
Secondly, he ordered the graphics director to proceed to make the trees and plants a little more life like. The bark of the trees were too plain and patterned. Darren has an eye for these things.
Thirdly, he enhanced KevlarN.Lead to be a little tougher, and equipped with more damage dealing weapons. Actually he did that with all of his characters, going through all themed characters of his and doubling, tripling all stats. He had a good number of them, and couldn’t risk another close call.
On a more real-worldly note, he had gotten the president, Bret, to handle the lawsuits of “damaged” players who suffered heart attacks, strokes and seizures. It was a pity, but something that was known about loooong ago, from the first VR games. Precautions were taken in all aspects of technological advancements in this day and age, but there were still a few, and those few still had families and friends. But who cares? They signed the papers.
So now, after the morning business was taken care of, and like anyone in his field of programming and design, he craved for a good and healthy jaunt… inside the game.
Lunch was fast and he made it home to enter his customized immersion bed. It took time, but soon enough he was walking out of the elevator and taking a seat at his desk in the penthouse suite of the Omnicorp inc. tower.
The room was bare besides a desk with a phone and a laptop. But, once he logged on, the space in front of him became a reception point for everything he wanted here in Default.
Darren still had plans of perfecting Default from the inside out, and thus, through all his fun and shenanigans, he was working, finding bugs and flaws, little quirks that needed fixing. And today he planned on checking out the racetrack.
He chose one of his very own self built characters and it materialized in front of him. He donned the outfit.
McLightning - Level: Max - Racecar Driver
It’s time to hit the tracks and burn some rubber!
He took the elevator down to the garage and found the semi, loading the very best racing cars: a stock car, go-kart, F1, motorbike, a refurbed POS for the Demolition Rerby, a monster truck, and the special effects car for that fun one all about shooting down the other racers as they all race at high speed through a booby trapped track, the Death Race.
By the magical laws of game programming, all of them fit inside his semi and he climbed up to drive over to the racetrack.
As to what to do next, he had to make a decision. That wasn’t too hard, he was bound to his job as CEO to make sure everything was perfect, thus by getting one of his employees to handle it, and if especially important, he’s do it himself.
So the decision was to go to the first track and hit each one, all the way through. Sure, it might take some days. But what’s a couple of days worth when one is occupied with making a multi-billion dollar game even better?
The first racetrack was just a plain oval shape, meant for high speed stock cars and endurance races. He went up to the first person he saw.
“Hey, how’s it going? Planning on racing?” Darren asked.
“Yeah! I’ve got a big plan for today. I just bought my second car and I’ll be entering a competition today!”
The man was obviously not an NPC, but Darren had already known that, having executive access to everything.
“Good luck man,” Darren said, thinking about his own plans for the race.
“Thanks. How about you? Have any plans?”
It caught him off guard. He was used to being in the office and getting programs completed, not casually chatting about race day. “Yeah, I have plans. Just checking it out. I might enter a race or two.”
“Cool! What kinda car you got?”
“Uhh,” honestly he didn’t know, he’ll have to check it out later, he wouldn’t settle for something that barely went over 200 mph. Instead, he nodded and said, “It’s a good one.”
“Alright, alright. Can’t keep a secret forever though.” The player laughed and went on his way.
Mentally, Darren said, “check,” to the unlisted point of his checklist: characters have open dialogue. Indeed it was something he intended to have. But he’ll have to further investigate the potential of expletives. He believed freewill and an open mouth cured as much as it caused, and it was in the contract to not take offense of other player’s foul and unchecked language.
He continued through the busy parking lot making his way to the entrance of the racetrack. He made it to the door and found an NPC taking tickets.
“Tickets please!”
Darren, being very much himself, told the ticket-man that he didn’t have a ticket.
The NPC put his awaiting hand down and looked at Darren in confusion. “You don’t have a ticket? … Something tells me that you indeed don’t have a ticket and I should let you through anyways.”
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That would be his executive access…
“Yeah. But I don’t have a ticket.”
“Ok… then, let me call my boss…?”
He laughed and asked a sensible question. “Where do I go to enter a race?”
The NPC snapped out of it quickly and answered his question. “Right around back. Thank you. Have a nice day.”
Check. NPCs can’t be fooled. But he’ll have to try better later on.
He didn’t feel like walking back to his semi, so just put it on autopilot and told it to go to the back and park.
He looked around for more people to mess with. Competitors, spectators, more NPCs? Ah, what the hell, he’ll just walk through to the back and enter a race. Heading inside, he didn’t even spare a look for the NPC and walked right through the gate.
After a whole lot of sightseeing walking through the long atrium, and nothing all that interesting really, he had made it to registration.
“What’s the schedule today?”
“Indi 500 on the track, drag races all day.” The NPC said.
“Ok, sign me up.”
“Please choose one at a time.”
“Fine. Quarter mile.”
The NPC gave a bored smile and took a card, handing it over. It said, McLightning. Executive access to all races.
That’s right. Choose one? Ha. Ha. Ha.
Now it was just a matter of finding his ride and getting to the asphalt.
After a few minutes he had done just that and now was driving up, approaching the line for the drag races.
There was a lane open and he took it.
The guy he was racing had his arm out the window and was revving his engine, spinning his wheels, burning rubber and doing everything else one does prepping for the drag.
“All good over there?” Darren called out.
The man didn’t seem like such a newbie, he gave a nod and a middle finger.
“Wanna bet?”
“Sure.”
“500 gold. Deal?”
“Deal.”
McLightning did similar prepping, spinning his wheels and warming up the engine. He also checked out his skills in racing, and as they were all maxed out, he didn’t worry too much. He just made sure that acceleration was out the roof.
The lights flashed. Red, yellow, yellow, Green!
He barely pushed the accelerator and he felt the whiplash all the way to his immersion-bed. The car had literally vanished and reappeared at the finish line in under a second.
He looked back at the other player he was racing and gave a middle finger. “Haha, Asshole! Eat my rubbers.”
500 gold cha-chinged into his infinite account and he rejoined the line.
“Anyone else wanna bet?”
He decided not to max out his acceleration and kept it to a more normal level. Nobody would try to race him after so many of those.
He found another player, “Wanna bet? 1000 gold.”
The player was a bit hesitant. Obviously still a bit of noob, but enticed by the offer. “Sure. 1000 gold.
…Red, yellow, yellow, Green!
His car lurched forward, a little less violently, and he matched the speed of the other guy, inching up his lead.
The guy had some sort of speed enhancement, the player’s car was gaining, and fast.
McLightning didn’t care. He pushed all the way on his accelerator and slammed through the finish line.
Cha-Ching. 1000 gold.
He turned and went back to the starting point, not watching the face of the player he had just conned.
The day continued very much like that, another twenty racers, and he had been declared an undefeated champion.
Now players lined up to watch and race. And the line to race was spectacular. Lambos, Beemers, Demons, Mustangs, and more.
The stakes were even better.
One of the next in the long line was an AM. The driver shouted out the window. “I’ll go for pinks!”
The bystanders heard it and all started shouting, “Pinks! Pinks! Pinks!”
McLightning didn’t care what that meant, he accepted and didn’t look back.
The light blinked. Red!
The crowd was ready, all was silent but the revving engines.
Yellow!
The smell of burnt rubber filled his nostrils and caused him to sneeze.
2nd Yellow!
The man in the AM looked over quickly, a bit nervous, but he turned back with a competitive grin on his face.
Green!
They both shot forward. The AM taking the lead, and keeping it for a good three seconds. The NOS kicked in at the fifth second.
McLightning didn’t care. He full throttled, gaining back his lead and bursting through the finish line.
He turned and went up for the next race. The crowd was ecstatic! Players jumped onto the roof of his car and pounded his hood in love and respect.
The player in the AM drove up next to him and got out. “Here it is, all yours.” He didn’t share the other players’s enthusiasm. It had taken him the better part of a month to modify the engine and everything else. Not to mention the weeks of racing and betting to get enough gold to buy it.
McLightning got a prompt:
As winnings from the drag race, you have received an Aston Martin R20.
“Thanks,” he said. “Better luck next time!” And he pulled up for the next race.
The day went on just like that, his competitors getting suspicious very quick, but there were a few still willing to race. He took them on, every last one of them, until nobody had the guts to race the undefeated champion of the day.
McLightning called it a day as well, at least for the drag. He still had things to do and races to race before his day was really over. So he drove himself up to the starting line of the race about to begin.
100 laps.
That was the race. 50 cars raced, turning circles a hundred times?
Oh well, that’s what everyone is here for. Might as well try it out.
The race started, he wasn’t positioned very well in the beginning but had made it through most of them by the tenth lap. After his maneuvering and weaving through traffic, there was just over thirty cars left racing.
He kept on, getting into third, second and finally first after nearly breaking his neck going around the northern turn. No matter how highly banked the turn was, centrifugal force still worked.
Now thirty laps in, he focused on lapping the other racers. It was always bound to happen in these types of races, but he made it his goal to completely smash the competition… No matter what.
He got up close, bumping their tail and swerving around the cars, cutting in too close on the corners and even doing a few brake checks, at appropriate moments, like right in front of accelerating players.
All in all, he did come in first, five laps ahead of the others and only fifteen cars left. (Only ten players had defaulted in the resultant crashes and burnouts.)
But, after crossing the finish line there was so much excitement!
People rushed the track, he was given a trophy and a bottle of champagne. Confetti continually burst in the air, cars were doing doughnuts anywhere they could, and girls in shorts and tube tops were going around posing for pictures.
What a fun time it was! Maybe driving wasn’t all that boring. The after party sure made up for it.
Now he called it a day and went through his mental checklist of things to fix. Maybe, he could make the speed limit on the drag race a bit more exaggerated, the Gs was always exciting and it wasn’t really a competition with his own maxed out acceleration and speed. Then there was the girls, there could always be more. He’ll fix that. And… make the crashes more explosive. Those are always the best part of the races.
He stepped off the champion’s platform and looked at his winnings for the day.
You have earned 105,389 gold in winnings from the Racetrack today.
You have won:
2 Stock Cars
3 Super Cars
5 Sets of Racing Gear
10 Bottles of NOs
1 Exhaust pipe
1 Trophy
All he could think was, Come on McLightning. You can do better than that. He nearly made himself enter another race, but decided against it. He wasn’t here to have fun. He had work to do, checklists to check and, overall, be an executive… The Executive.
He walked back to his car, signing photographs, bald heads, arms, and titties, and drove back to his semi to get over to the next track.