Around the same time and within Absolute Conviction Online the members of the Alliance High Command (for this was how they styled themselves) were holed up in a bunker beneath NS Wolf. This was a military base located in the Galapagos nestled in a low-lying area between Wolf Volcano and the extinct Ecuador Volcano. The last official memorandum the High Command had sent out banned any mention of Hitler and, actually, the concept of a bunker itself. They were in a ‘hardened facility’. In this respect this group of MMO addicts had come to resemble their real-life counterparts. Besides weasel words, other time-honored command level virtues they had elected to roleplay to perfection included: denial, arrogance, and table-thumping histrionics.
The somewhat grandiose and cavernous War Room they were hunkered down in had a number of screens arrayed around in a classical Hollywood sense, and the big tall one was focused out on the entire southeastern Pacific. Off the coast of Chile, and nearer to the southern tip than the northern, was an ominous array of slowly flashing red triangles. A handful of green triangles were slowly skating away northward.
The one currently on stage in the area between the conference table and the big board was a blonde player named Edge, whose character model was proof that, conceptually speaking, cool and lame formed a kind of horseshoe. He was the virtual Bismarck who had managed to drag nearly every other outfit in the game into a unified command structure in order to better counter the dominant global heavyweight, Titan. As a diplomat he was without peer. As a warfighter he had many peers, and not a small number of superiors.
“What the fuck happened?” he demanded, and pounded the table histrionically. He pointed to an equally lame black haired man with pince-nez glasses who was seated at the conference table. “This was your master-stroke? We spent five fucking months getting that fleet together doing jack-shit with it and your big idea was to attack before we were at full strength. That stuff was worth an actual fortune. I could have gold-plated every frame and tank and defensive battery on this island for what your artificial reef project cost.”
The pince-nez ran a hand down the front of his blue-and-gold uniform, which of course wasn’t necessary in a virtual world. He raised a white-gloved finger.
“No amount of gold-plating is going to save you if you don’t have air superiority or at least parity over Isabela Island. We attacked without NoCro to gain the element of surprise.” the pince-nez guy said.
Edge, the one at the front of the table, put both of his hands on the sides of his head and turned towards the big board. He groaned again on seeing it, and doubled over.
“Whose idea was it to put air power in this game.” he said quietly, “That’s not what it’s supposed to be about…”
One of the people in the room started chuckling, specifically the one from an outfit called ACOG. This anarchic crew had only joined the Alliance on the condition that they be allowed to dress like clowns as their uniform. The one they had sent to the war council was in classic-style harlequin. Individually speaking they were some of the best around, so the request was reluctantly granted. Upon seeing everyone looking at him expectantly, the harlequin leaned forward.
“Has, uh, anyone seen the movie Downfall?” he said, gesturing to Edge with both hands, “Because… come on.”
“We just talked about this, asshole.” someone said, followed by a gaggle of unhappy noises.
“Sorry.” the harlequin said, lying with his smile.
“Edge,” came a voice from the front of the table, “NoCro is calling in. She’s on grid.”
A hesitant murmur resounded through the room. The harlequin laced his hands over his head and smiled like a jackass. Edge sighed.
“Put her on the thingy there.” he said, folding his arms and turning towards the big board. The map flickered and was replaced with a young woman with long, straight black hair. The avatar resembled her fairly closely, except for the scarlet eyes and twintails. When she saw that she had connected to this group her neutral expression burst into an unhinged display of excitement and pleasure. She brought her hands up and clasped them together against her pale cheek.
“Hey guys!” she said, “Ultimate Idol, Northern Cross, reporting in! Golly it’s been so booooring tooling around doing nothing for months because of some silly-billy thing No-chan is too much of a dummy-dummy to understand.”
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NoCro tousled her hair back and forth to emphasize how much of a dummy she was.
“Fleet-in-being.” the pince-nez said, almost whispering. NoCro leaned so far into the virtual camera that only the whites of her crazy red eyes were in frame.
“Eh?” she said, all the bubbly energy instantly draining out of her voice. The glasses guy slunk further down and held up his hand to shield his face. The girl onscreen settled back into frame and painted another smile on her face.
“But that’s no biggy!” she continued her tirade, “My best friendsies in the Alliance know what they’re doin’, being the toppest of top men. There’s gonna be a big ol’ decisive fleet naval final battle between good n’ evil! Throw it all in the defense of Isabela! Well that sounds COOL I said. We’re gonna show those Titan dipshits the what-for, forever and ever, or go out in a blaze of glory tryin’! Grrrr!”
NoCro emphasized her statement by forming her hands into claws.
“NoCro,” Edge said, sounding contrite, “We’re s—“
“Noooooo.” NoCro said, cutting him off, “Why be sorry when you can be silent! When I heard you all went and did the big fun thing without me I was soooo sad, y’know!? No-chan wanted to go to the big dance too, she wanted to dance with someone special. Pu~n pu~n.”
In-spite of being couched in silly babytalk, her real disappointment seemed to have come through to the assembled.
“NoCro,” Edge said, “They have five strike groups left Titanside. We talked about it and it would be best for you to take the Cygnus battle group north and prepare to contest the airspace over critical areas of Isabela ahead of the landing. That would be the smartest way to delay them and give our ground forces some cover.”
NoCro took in a deep breath and went quiet. Everyone in the room waited through the long pause, some of them leaning forward at the conference table.
“Gentlemen, thank you.” she said, smiling serenely, “You broke the spell. After I pulled the knife out of my back, I understood what it was that killed this game.”
“What’s that?” Edge said.
“We killed this game.” she said, “Me, you, and everyone else in that room behind you… except for maybe that clown over there. We killed it by taking it too seriously. First it died in us, then we killed it for everyone else. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s something fun I’ve always wanted to do.”
The one at the table who had earlier noticed NoCro’s call had a new message: “Cygnus battle group has disconnected from our Network Warfare.”
“NoCro!” Edge said, “You can leave but you can’t just take the battle group. It’s tax-funded Alliance property and cost a mint. We’ll shuttle out a new core… I mean, a new player.”
NoCro winked.
“Don’t like it? Send your fleet after me. Ciaaaoooo~”
The girl vanished from the screen and after a moment was replaced again by the image of the Southeastern Pacific theater of operations.
“If we want to sink Cygnus we have to do it now.” the pince-nez piped up instantly, “While we still have her last known location from NetWar. She’s still near Point Luck, and that’s well within range of bombers from NS Wolf. We have to do it right now.”
The pince-nez gestured frantically to a grayed out triangle on the board that read CYGNUS(CVBG).
“What!?” someone at the table said, “Why? She hasn’t attacked us. Let’s not go making new enemies.”
Another player cleared his throat and leaned forward to throw in his two cents.
“We can’t just have people walking off with pooled assets. That’d be pandemonium. We can at least hold Wolf Volcano for 28 hours with our without her, but not if everyone does what he likes.” he said.
After that the discussion became rapid and heated, with everyone elbowing in to be heard. Except, again, the harlequin.
“We’re the ones she’s mad at now, she’ll attack.”
“What did she mean by ‘fun’…?”
And so on, until it was simply people shouting over each other. Edge turned to the screen and appeared to contemplate the action and the arguments for and against that had been presented.
“Everyone, quiet. Something has occurred to me.” he yelled, tapping the stubble on his chin-butt, “While she was on-screen, we weren’t watching the board. She didn’t disconnect from NetWar until the last second, so if she launched a strike it wouldn’t trigger as a hostile contact and we wouldn’t have seen it incoming.”
Everyone fell quiet and fixed their eyes on the big board. Just when it seemed they were in the clear they heard a series of booms, at first distant and then sounding closer and closer.
“Fucking finally!” the harlequin exclaimed excitedly. He leapt up on the conference table and reached his arms towards the ceiling. “Free me, No-chan!”
At least one of them got their wish when a bomb penetrated through the ceiling of the hardened facility and exploded in the middle of the room, sending them all back to their various respawn points around the island.