“Contact! Three o’clock! Large mob moving this way!” Abbot yelled from the rear of the front truck as he indicated with his off-hand.

“Gogogo! Marcus yelled back. “Get to the EP!”

Douglas gunned the lead vehicle before the mob could react. As the second truck raced through the intersection, Marcus watched them through his new display. Additional information popped up as he focused on various individuals. Weapons carried. Threat levels.

“Damn, this display would be useful in the field.” He muttered.

“That’s why it’s not part of training.” Neville answered “We don’t have that level of information in real life, so we don’t want people getting used to depending on it in the simulator. The only reason we have that level of detail is because we put it there when we built it. The Umpires get it so they can better understand the differences between perceptions and assumptions made in the heat of the moment, and the information available to the operators when they make those decisions. It can be used in debriefs, but not during the training itself.”

“Fair enough, but I can still dream.”

The trucks sped down the street, leaving the mob in their wake.

Marcus turned to Neville. “This is a lot of information to take in, but I saw something new when I scanned that crowd. Some of the characters had odd displays.”

“How do you mean, odd?” Neville asked.

“Like they stood out. Something about them wasn’t like the others. Most were moving towards us in…like a mob. But a few seemed to be independent of the rest. Is it possible to mix units? Could one have been moving through the other?”

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“It’s certainly possible that units of individuals can mix as they cross. It’s not like a tank, with hard edges. But all the units active in this run should be standard mobs. The only difference should be size and equipment.”

“Is this another thing that could be related to the hack?”

“At this point, anything is possible.”

“Is there a way to show you what I saw? Do these things have a record function?”

“They do, but I’ll have to see if I can access it from in here…give me a few.”

Marcus nodded and went back to scanning the streets outside.

****

“Got it! Recordings can be accessed in Umpire Mode. Pulling up what you saw and…whoa.”

“What’s ‘whoa’?”

“Close your eyes and I’ll copy my display to you. It’s faster and easier than flipping back and forth.”

Marcus closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat.

The blackness was suddenly filled with images. The display he saw moments before was playing back in slow motion. He watched popups appear and disappear as he scanned past the crowd he had seen. At this speed he could see more differences between the individual figures. Most were outlined in the red of hostiles, but several had the yellow borders of neutral or unaffiliated units. The unaffiliated units also had more information in the display, so much so that he had to scroll down the popup box to read it all.

“So these might be gamers or hackers?”

“Yeah. Look at their designators. Ours all say ‘Operator’, because that’s the default and our system isn’t designed to allow for changes to that sort of thing. Everyone is an Operator, regardless of role or rank. Their designators read differently, and they aren’t the standard blank entry for our opponents. Some are things you might accept if you weren’t thinking about it, like ’Sniper’ or ‘Assaulter’, but I doubt the military has an MOC for ‘Ass-Kicker’ or ‘Rocketman’.”

“Huh, I missed that. I’m guessing these ‘Ranks’ aren’t what I was thinking they were either?”

“Likely not. They look to be numerical rankings, not military ranks. It’s one way Unob 4, and to a lesser degree The Sandbox, works to make things ‘fair’. Just like you wouldn’t send out a recruit out on a job suited for a Special Operations unit, the game won’t let you do certain missions unless you meet certain qualifications, such as rank in a given specialty.”

“What sort of ‘specialty’ is ‘Ass-Kicker’?”

“Likely that’s a custom username, not a class designation. There are a lot of things in Unob4 and 5 that are strictly gamer-oriented, and we don’t use in the sims. Don’t you venture over that way?”

“I avoid the ‘gamer sessions’ and stick with the straight simulation exercises. Never thought it would be much use to play games with gamers. About as much use to us as playing paintball. Good for some laughs, but not terribly productive overall.”

“Okay, well it looks like some of those gamers have managed to hack their way into The Sim or piggy-back someone who has, and those are their avatars. Lanier only knows how they managed to get in here, or what their gear looks like. There’s no way they have the Tanks or gear we do, so there’s no danger to them if we shut everything down once we’re out, but it’s something we’ll have to look into…especially since we can’t record their displays like we can the system feeds.”