CHAPTER 03 — THE DEAL
Flint sat in an interrogation room. Whitewashed walls on all sides. A digital clock clicking with each second. There was a stainless steel table bolted to the floor along with the metal chair he was sitting in. In the middle of the table was a pylon where handcuffs could be attached. At least he wasn’t attached to them. Yet.
He sank into the chair, clutching his hair. How had he been stupid enough to get caught?
The door buzzed and opened, and a man appeared. He was tall and dark-skinned, with an iron gray beard and harsh eyes. In his hand was a bulb of steaming liquid with a tea string in it. Though the man was wearing casual jeans and a corduroy jacket—not the formal military-like attire Flint was used to seeing him in—there was no mistaking his identity.
“My name is Boyce Gannon,” he said. “I’m the Admiral of the Star Ark.”
Flint stared dumbly as the most powerful human alive took a seat across from him. They stared at each other for several long, drawn-out seconds. “You know why you’re here.”
It wasn’t a question, but Flint nodded anyway.
“You needed to pay for your brother’s cancer medicine,” Gannon said.
Flint felt a sting in both eyeballs. “How did you know?”
“Your brother is dying,” Gannon said. “This is common knowledge.”
Tears leaked from Flint’s eyes. But he said nothing. What was there to say?
Gannon raised the bulb and took a swig, returning it slowly to the table with a sour look on his face. “Our journey is ten years behind schedule, we’re carrying more passengers than originally planned. Essential drug shortages were inevitable.”
Flint heaved a ragged breath. “My brother doesn’t deserve to die.”
“People rarely get what they deserve.”
True enough, he thought. Especially Zeeke.
The Admiral took another swig of tea and let a long moment pass. “Dorn McCormick provided us with the evidence. Message logs. A video recording of your agreement. More than enough for a conviction.”
“McCormick turned me in?”
“Surprising, I know. But he’s been a Fleet Police asset for years. Why do you think we let him operate in an easily-located section of the cargo hold?”
Suddenly, the floor became the center of Flint’s focus. How could he have been so stupid?
“Don’t feel bad,” the Admiral said. “You aren’t the first match-fixer we’ve caught.”
“Don’t feel bad? My brother is going to fucking die because of this.”
Gannon glanced at the whitewashed wall, his face slowly scrunching up. Almost like he was deeply pondering something. Slowly his gaze returned to the prisoner. “Maybe we can work something out.”
“Work something out?”
“Yes.”
Flint’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe we can get your brother the medicine,” Gannon said. “But you’ll have to do something for me.”
A surge of irrational hope exploded in Flint’s chest. Without thinking, he said: “I’ll do anything.”
##
Ten minutes later, Flint sat in a conference room. On a large microLED, a video began to play.
##
A black screen with ominous-sounding war music began, accompanied by the rising hum of a tension-filled melody.
“Why do you fight?” a deep, menacing voice asked.
The blacked out image shifted to the scene of a great battle. Dozens of sword-wielding figures in Medieval armor clashed amidst a smoke-filled battlefield.
“For blood?” the voice asked.
The battlefield was replaced with new footage. A soldier in platemetal with the symbol of two suns on his breastplate was knelt before a dual axe-wielding shirtless man with only a helmet for armor. The bare-chested savage raised one of his axes and swung downward at the swordsman’s neck. The picture blacked-out to spare them the sight of the head being cut-off. A split second later, the savage came back into view, only his stubbly beard and grinned mouth visible beneath the helmet.
“For vengeance?” the malevolent voice asked.
Another twin suns soldier appeared behind the savage, swinging his sword downward in a great arc. The savage spun round at the last moment, crossing his axes in an X. A clang of steel, and the two were deadlocked, the camera panning out to reveal their place atop the parapet of a great castle. The soldier shifted his stance, being driven backward a step. The savage tried pushing him the last inch over the edge. A yellow burst of light erupted around the soldier as three identical clones of himself appeared on each side of his foe. Three simultaneous sword thrusts pierced the savage from three directions. The three phantasms vanished just as the corpse they made fell over the edge.
“Do you fight for the sovereign?”
The image shifted to the great hall of some palace. A red-caped man with a golden crown walked amongst kneeling soldiers. In the square windows of the backdrop, a brisk snowfall could be seen. After a few seconds, it shifted again—transforming the great hall into a red-sand beach with dozen or so warriors prostrating before a cladly dressed, buxom female carried atop a litter. Over her shoulder, a plume of smoke rose from a distant volcano.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“For glory?”
The image transitioned back to a battle scene. A woman with a wooden staff was faced-off against an archer. In the background was a coliseum filled with a massive audience whose cheers rose with the firing and evasion of magical fireballs and arrows between the two.
“For love?”
A new scene came into view. A shirtless man with his arms wrapped around a woman, lip-locked on a bed of straw. A great sword was leaned against the nearby wall next to a crossbow. The two lovers seemed to be going at it pretty hard, and the camera remained above-shoulder.
“For coin?”
The next scene was a group of five rough-looking toughs walked into a tavern. The leading man stepped forward, and removed a brown sack from his belt that was leaking blood onto the floor. He stepped up to a group of finely-dressed men at a card table and plopped the sack down in the middle of the table, causing the coins and cups to jump. A sultan-looking fat man peered into the sack cautiously and came up with a face looking unnaturally green. He reached into his great purse and produced a much smaller bag tied with a string. The ruffian caught the purse, a few fat golden coins spilling onto the floor with the unmistakable sound of falling money.
The background music reached its crescendo, and the image went black again. Silence reigned for three long seconds before a new scene flashed into existence. A tall, vigorous-looking man with a golden crown appeared. He was covered from neck to toe in silver armor polished mirror-bright. In his hand was a great sword held relaxed at his side, the pommel fashioned in the head of a dragon. The camera panned out, revealing a half-circle of monk-like figures surrounding him. The hooded men had their hands pressed together with heads bowed like they were praying to the kinglike person in front of them. The picture zoomed out again, showing the king and his retinue positioned at the top of a very high castle. The camera focused on the king’s face as his eyes narrowed then turned in the direction the king was looking. In the distance through a snowy veil, a motte and bailey castle came into view.
After a few seconds, the king turned ninety-degrees and the picture shifted a distant waterfall. The camera rose above a lush jungle until a mansion came into view.
The king turned a third time, and a treacherous oceanfront came into view against the backdrop of an erupting volcano. A series of black obelisk-like towers rose from the roaring sea. Giant red flags with a strange sigil flapped from their conical spires.
The king turned a fourth time as it beheld yet another great residence. This one a mountainous fortress towering over rolling green hills and turquoise rivers.
“Or do you fight for power?” this time the voice came directly from the lips of the king.
His gaze turned downward with the camera to reveal the sight of a great army approaching the walls of his fortress.
He gave a throaty laugh, suddenly cut-off as the part of himself on-camera twisted into a ballooning black mass. The sword clattered to the ground as the king finished transforming into a great black-scaled dragon. Not one of the hooded monks around him moved an inch.
The picture shifted to the point-of-view of the soldiers approaching the wall. Sheer terror filled their faces as they stood frozen next to siege engines. The dragon stretched its wings and gave an unholy screech. Visible panic exploded through the army’s ranks as the soldiers turned heel and ran. The dragon spread its wings and dove at the retreating army, laying a trail of green plasma behind them. Right before the plasma reached the line of soldiers, the picture went black.
This time, words spread across the screen in a glowing silver font.
FOUR KINGDOMS
A New Reality Forty Years in the Making.
Visit our FleetNET address to sign-up.
##
Admiral Gannon sat on the other side of the conference table with his hands interlaced in front of him. “What do you think?”
Flint shifted in his seat. “Looks cool. But what does this have to do with my brother’s cancer meds?”
Gannon frowned. “I thought it was obvious.”
“It isn't.”
“I want you to publicly endorse the game. If you do that, I will get your brother the Decel infusions.”
He stared at the Admiral, expecting it to be some cruel joke. But the older man gave no indication it was. “Why?”
“You’re one of the highest-profile Battle Smite players. With your promotion, we could get thousands more sign-ups by launch day.” Gannon pressed a button on the projector and the image transitioned to a picture of an egg-shaped pod with a glass opening. Dozens of cords were running into the back of the pod while a set of dollies on either side held-up bags of strangely-colored substances that looked oddly like something you’d be hooked-up to in the hospital. At the front of the module was a metal pole upon which dozens of branching poles with sharp-edged needles were extended. “These are the modules used to connect to the game. Their off-putting appearance makes people hesitant to sign-up.”
Flint recoiled in his seat. “That’s a Nero Casket.”
“It is.”
“My mom and dad were killed by that thing.”
“They were killed by the old version of this thing.”
Flint remembered learning the fate of his parents. The maiming from these Caskets was so bad they immediately cremated the remains. He remembered standing with Zeeke at the funeral asking when mom and dad were coming to pick them up. Then he remembered Uncle Geb taking them back to his shack on the Lower Deck. He asked the same question then over and over, until finally he realized they weren’t coming. “How can I endorse a game that killed my parents?”
“I believe that will make you a more credible spokesman,” Gannon said. “You will convince a lot of people worried about its safety to sign-up.”
A wave of anxiety washed over him. Match fixing should've earned him a prison cell, not millions of Scrip worth of cancer drugs and a new video game. Which meant there was a catch. “Why do you care if people play the game?”
“With the latest rounds of rationing and protests, we’re desperate to give people a new distraction.”
That reasoning he understood. Kind of. “Don’t you have more important shit to worry about?”
“Such as?”
“Oh I don’t know. Getting us to New World before we starve. Or before more people die of cancer.”
The Admiral scowled, and Flint wondered if he’d gone too far. A long, uncomfortable silence passed between them. Finally, Gannon heaved a sigh. “What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room. Can I trust you on that?”
Flint blinked. “Okay…”
The Admiral stared at him a beat. “The truth is, we won’t survive the rest of the trip. Not unless at least half the passengers play Four Kingdoms.”
Flint didn’t like the direction this was headed. “Why?”
“How much do you know about the original plans for the Nero Caskets?”
Flint thought about all the things he’d read about the failed project over the years. Shrugging, he said: “I know it was this super-ambitious project that my father and Jason Nero came-up with before the Star Ark left Earth. That it was some virtual reality thing that could connect you to a game world so similar to reality that you could play it non-stop for weeks.”
“Longer, actually,” Gannon said. “The project was meant to keep passengers occupied for years. When the game failed in beta, it caused a real problem for us in terms of resource utilization.”
“Resource utilization?”
“Part of Casket induction includes placement of a surgical feeding tube.” He pointed a finger a few inches above his naval. “Casket occupants subsist on formula delivered via these tubes. In preparation for the game’s eventual release, the Arks were provisioned with millions of formula bags before leaving Earth. This is a huge source of calories we’ve yet to tap into.”
“I see.” He didn’t, really. Things seemed to be growing more confusing by the second. He glanced again at the image of the Casket on the projector. If he was a regular Joe, there wasn’t any celebrity who could convince him to get inside one. They looked like Medieval torture devices. “Are those things really any safer?”
“There have been some safety improvements,” the Admiral said. “We have been rigorously testing them for the past decade.”
“Whose been testing them?”
“The FRB. Some select volunteers.”
“How many, exactly?”
Gannon frowned. “I could go over the details, but my time is limited.”
“Well, forgive me, but I did lose my parents to those things. I want some guarantee I won’t die after getting hooked up.”
“How about this for a guarantee,” Gannon said. “If you publicly endorse and play Four Kingdoms, I’ll get your brother enough treatments to keep him alive till New World. If you don’t, then you go to prison and your brother dies.”
In the end that wasn’t any kind of choice. “I’ll do it.”