02

Plans

Darren Wiznitskiy woke up in his bed. He had a nice long dream of rampaging through the fields in a giant mech suit, ruining a battle of thousands of people dressed in medieval suits of armor, and goblins.

But the night was over and the day had already started. He had imagined that Bret would want to speak to him after his time in Default, checking up on things. Bret would undoubtedly want to update him on legal business, suits and contracts, and legalities they have to keep complied with.

They met at his house again, a nice large house on a hill. Bret’s butler served them coffee.

“So what’s it like in there? I heard you went to the race track and competed,” Bret asked, mildly interested. He always had a cool attitude, though his real geekiness always showed through.

“It was good. It was good,” Darren replied. “A lot of things to handle. They were playing soft. No one’s gotten up to my level yet, not even close.”

“You’d still win… even if they had blue-shells only?” Bret laughed.

“You’ve got it. But I made a few tweaks that will keep them at it for a while. I don’t want Default to lose it’s popularity too soon. Imagine if people started reaching the final boss and getting out before the end of this year. People would start making their own MMORPG in full immersion, we’d lose players and then we’d have competition.”

“I know. We’re still making bank on sponsors. Even their friends and families sponsor them. We’re killing it every new day on income. People like to see the players win. They throw in tons of cash just to give their players some help.”

They both sat back and laughed, enjoying their fortune.

“So, besides all the fun,” Bret said, sipping his coffee, “there’s another law suit. Someone had managed to jolt themselves out of an immersion bed and land themselves on the floor in uncontrollable convulsions.”

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Darren laughed, spitting a bit of his coffee out. “What? Nobody’s told me anyone has reached the portal yet.”

Bret shook his head, but smiled, “they’re suing for mental trauma, and some physical bruises too. It wasn’t lethal at all, hardly a drop of blood spilled, and the guy is totally fine, just shaken, of course.”

“So how’d he jump out of a bed if he was in the game? Sounds like a personal problem to me. He was in there on his own will. Legally.”

“I know. Whatever. But you can’t just tell them that. At least not that directly. We have to show the papers he signed and send playback footage of the game before he jumped, all the vitals and brain tracking stuff too. That’s even trickier, being legally confidential, but the lawyers are working that out.”

“Alright, so any good news?”

“We’ve made top game of the year, and won about ten different awards. I still have people calling me about more awards we haven’t even received yet.”

Bret’s phone buzzed. He looked at the caller and said that he had to take it. By the sound of the other person’s voice, it wasn’t a nice call. He hung up half a minute later.

“They’re concerned about the changes you’ve made.” Bret said, looking Darren straight in the eyes.

“Who?” Darren asked, wondering how the changes he made last night were already know about.

“Our lawyers. They said that you’ve already pinpointed the exact reason for all these heart failures and seizures people are having.”

“Who me? I don’t even have a degree in anything related to biology.” Darren gave a dorky smirk.

“Shall I continue?” Bret said.

Darren rolled his eyes and let him talk.

“The changes you’ve made seem to have been exactly what the doctors have been looking for… What they’re trying to get rid of.”

“Which was?” Darren asked, hardly aware that he was the one directly responsible for the law suits now.

“All the violent and traumatic stuff in the game. People are sensitive. They play games to get out of all the drama and have some fun.” Bret wasn’t angry, but he was making a point. “What exactly did you change?”

“A few handicaps on the racetrack, colors of things, car defaults, real-time motion being even more real. You know, things that will make them play longer.”

Bret gave him a skeptical eye. “Don’t be a sore loser. You shouldn’t want people to only lose. Let them have fun, enjoy the game.”

Darren rubbed his neck, remembering the quarter mile in under a second. “It’s just that much more fun. Plus we’re making money. What can go wrong now? We’ll be billionaires by the end of the year. We go for a few more years… we could retire today if we wanted to.”

“You might as well.”