Gamer (Gamer Trilogy) (7 page)

But what was this?!
In answer to my question, I heard a congested, almost
nasally, pre-pubescent voice begin to speak… B3ast.
“Xander, Xander, Xander – by far not you best move,” he
said. I couldn’t even locate in which direction the sound of his
voice was roughly coming from. “In case you haven’t seen it,
yet,” his tone became condescending, “I made that fissure
myself - with my power.”
And then, as if he was trying to make a point, something
began to wind its way up my legs. “EUGH!” I couldn’t help
but yell out, sending an echoing sound travelling straight up.
Tentacle things began to coil around my legs and with speed,
they managed to completely bind both my legs and hands.
They were vines – and B3ast had controlled them.
And then I heard B3ast stomp his feet and a thousand, tiny
rock-spikes emerged from the ground beneath me. It was
now painful to stand – but impossible not to – this was
torture.
It was very effective and yet a testament to his twisted mind
that he even managed to think of something like this.
“You just wait here,” B3ast said, the sound of his voice was
fading. I contemplated attempting to spit at him over the
walls – this was the first time I’d ever actually felt hate for
someone. Unlike Grace who had been attempting to kill me
outright, B3ast was sadistic. He was torturing me. I felt a
burning rise up in my chest, stronger than when I first
connected with my power.
Whoa – the intensity of that emotion was extreme – how had
I gone from Xander, best friends with Jacob Clarke, to
Xander, guy who wants to kill people?
Oh yeah, Jacob. This whole time I hadn’t thought of him
once – not since leaving my dorm… I wondered what he was
doing now…
B3ast’s voice snapped me out of my daze - “I’ll just go, er, get
Stefanie,” he said, “I’m sure that would brighten up your
day…” It was almost as if I could hear him smiling, he was
going to bring her here, to do what…? Kill her while I
listened?
“Don’t you touch her!” I yelled out. He just laughed.
Utter hatred is what I felt. And I wasn’t one to ever hate.
“Oh, and just before I go…” he sneered.
A shadow passed over the tiny opening that was the roof of
my prison. It was now completely dark and after a few
seconds, I began to feel water dripping… raindrops; he had
formed a cloud directly above me.
The air seemed to rumble and the sound of B3ast’s footsteps
faded away.
I then heard hundreds of low-lying clouds whoosh into the
clearing. It began to bucket down.
Right from escaping Grace to being trapped by B3ast. It
was terrible and now, tied up as I was, I couldn’t do anything.
There was no way I would be able to shatter the rock-walls
around me – I could just sense that they were meters thick.
And, of course, my power was fried right now… This sucked.
Maybe if I just kept a clear head…
And then my heart skipped a beat; somehow the water was
pooling at my feet aching feet – and steadily rising. Over my
toes, up to my ankles, my calve muscles, the backs of my
knees.
The rain that was pouring into my prison had no way out,
and so it just began to build up.
It didn’t take me long to realise that eventually I would
drown. I was going to die. Again.
The vines were tying me to the ground, stopping me from
even moving and tugging against them was impossible.
Speaking of the vines, I began to itch where they touched
my skin… reaching down as far as I could – I felt welts. The
vines were also giving me a rash. Then I realised that
amongst the rain, I was sweating a lot and finally, I could feel
my face begin to swell. It was like an allergic reaction – and
there was only one thing I was allergic too.
Poison ivy.
I blacked out – water still rising.

I glanced furtively at Xander who sat directly opposite me;
his glare was as intense as it had been fifteen minutes ago.
His expression was one of somebody who had lost everything
and I knew that I had been the cause of his resent.

“Xander!” the reporter chimed. “Obviously you know this
man we have just brought in,” the camera swivelled to focus
on me. “Talk to me about what, er,” the interviewer paused
for a second, going over what seemed to be an error in her
notes, “Tech,” she said with little certainty, “has done to you.”

Xander flushed with anger, his expression becoming more
intense. He looked like a bull about to charge.
Without warning, he stood up out of his seat – and even
though he was still only a teenager, I shrank back, scared
about what he might do.
He spat on the floor in front of my feet.
Silence.
He sat back down, still glaring.
The “Xander” I had put into the Simulator was no longer the
same person. He had been changed – for better or for worse.
The interviewer was in a state of shock and then quickly
revising her next course of action, she moved onto
questioning me.
“Begin from the beginning, please.” She seemed to dislike
me already. “We want to know who you are so that we can
attempt to justify why you did what you did… Talk to us,
Tech – who are you?”
And so I began.

*
*
*
I drummed my fingers nervously on the aluminium tabletop.
Watching the Testees in Simulator, I couldn’t help but be

It was many years ago when I walked through the gates of
the Academy, not knowing that I would never leave them
again. I had an interview scheduled with the headhunters
here and they were impressed enough by what I had achieved
already by that stage, that they offered me a position.

I remembered the buildings, the majority of them still the
same. The people who had been in my year level – all of them
just as scheming and self-glorifying as the kids on the screen
in front of me and I remembered how happy I was when I
was finally finished.

Out of all the Testees, I had to admit that I was most like
B3ast: one of those kids who liked to sit in the corner,
building scale-model aeroplanes and talking to myself. I
didn’t have friends when I was in school and even now, I only
had contact with other people when I was forced to.

Social defects aside, I was talented. I had been gifted by the
universe with eidetic memory. It was both a blessing and a
curse.

Possessing perfect recall, to the point where it was possible
for me to remember whether or not one’s shoelaces had
aglets, from any specific minute in my life since the age of
two, was astounding to most people. It was one of the things
that got me a spot at the Academy.

When I applied I was aged eleven and by the time I began, I
was twelve – I was sent out of home on my birthday.
My own parents never wanted me; well they wanted my
fame – but not me. In the first place, they had never wanted
children and yet when they surrendered themselves to the fact
that I was coming along, my mother had prayed for a girl.
From before I was even born, I had failed them.
My calling to Elitus was a godsend of them. They jumped at
the chance to have me shipped off - the less hassle I was to
them, the better.
Not only was my leaving what they wanted, but my success
was also something that their livelihood’s relied upon. Me
going to Elitus affirmed my status as an elite individual in
whatever career path I chose - something they believed would
make it easier for me to buy them a mansion when I
graduated. Sending me away and getting paid to do it Elitus was what they called a “win-win”.
From when I was young, my dad was an alcoholic and my
mother was a smoker. Between the two of them we didn’t
have enough money to even buy groceries, so it was easy to
see how going to Elitus was also a relief for them.
While I was here, though, I resented every minute. If a girl
like Stefanie didn’t like you, then neither did any of her friends
– or their friends. I was a loner that only found company in
making things. And that was the only thing Elitus ever did
for me – give me an engineering lab.
I spent every spare minute out of class at the dome-building,
both getting away from everybody else and trying to learn
about absolutely anything I could. One of the engineering
instructors used to even come in and check on me every now
and then - he was one of the very few people that ever showed
any interest in me. With him, I took my talent further and
being able to remember absolutely every manual I’d ever read
– I dedicated my time in the lab to constructing tiny models
that simulated real-life ecosystems.
One thing led to another and from feeble holograms to fourdimensional simulations, I came up with the idea of
Simulator.
After I graduated I spent a few more years on campus practically living in that laboratory - and with a stroke of luck,
I managed to land some funding for the Simulator project.
Between that and trying to put together a team of workers,
three years later here I was – seated in front of the world’s
only simulator powered by artificial intelligence and the most
efficient data processers in the world.
When I stood in that room and sent them into the game, I
knew billions of dollars were on my horizon.
Now, as I sat in my favourite electronic massage chair,
directly opposite the wall-sized screen, I watched Grace
sprint to the forest, still unsteady from her confrontation with
Alexander. She looked furious that she’d lost him.
The door on the furthest side on the room, bearing the
number three slid open.
“Master,” a stout, pock-marked, four-eyed scientist stumbled
in, “everything seems to be going to plan.” He gave a snort of
derisive laughter.
He was Number 1, the first and most experienced of my
three-member-strong mercenary team of engineers. The
circumstances under which I acquired him were peculiar
indeed but simply by the virtue of the fact he often had no
idea what day it was and at the same time was quite a good
programmer, he was easy to control as well as skilled –
someone very valuable to me.
I blinked several times, realising he was still there. “Thank
you for that, 1, now go get the others – we have a promo to
make.”
He did a half-jump of joy and left the room at an eager pace.
He was totally and completely my minion – without me he’d
literally be nobody - I gave him his very name.
Half a minute later, the doors slid open again, and in came 1,
followed by 2 and 3 – the rest of my team.
2 was just as oblivious as 1, easily controlled and desperate
for my approval. He had come from some institution like
Lily’s. For every minute he wasn’t being punished, he saw life
as a blessing, and so he was more than willing to do whatever
it took to ensure his place at my side as well.
3 on the other hand, was a bit of a different case. He took a
while to subdue. Room 4 wasn’t an unfamiliar place to him…
He was one of the actual students to first trial Simulator –
and he was the only one that made it out with his mind intact
– well close enough anyway.
That was the one obstacle that kept coming back to bite me
in the backside – the first trial.
It was two years ago and Simulator, at the time, had only
been worked on for a year or so. More or less, it was
pronounced ready. Everything was in working order and all
was good. The first trial had also taken place at Elitus. Six
students, much like the ones in Simulator at the moment, all
entered with the intent of being the ultimate survivor and
walking away with the satisfaction that they were the wittiest,
strongest and most proficient student in the entire school.
The Omega wasn’t part of the prize back then – this time
around I had to buy it off the school – but the chance to be
the first person in the world with a Simulator was.
With a little bit of endorsement from the school, of which an
internship with “the brightest young engineer in the country,
who graduated from Elitus himself” was offered, quite a few
students were more than excited to sign up.
The six that qualified were, as always, hand-picked by the
school’s leadership, and at 8AM on the following Saturday,
they reported to the hall where the stations and goggles were
set up.
I remembered it as if it was yesterday, they all put on their
goggles – there was no weapon selection then – and were all
wearing their blue nylon suits – the uniform at the time that
was needed to run the Simulator – and after the half an hour
of diagnostic tests, they were ready to go.
We hadn’t managed to rig the entire lab, as we did this time
around, to give the effect of a simulated environment. Also
their suits, which we didn’t have this time around, allowed us
to track them on a map as well as measure their heart-rates
and body temperatures. Since then, we’d condensed all that
technology into the goggles alone.
As they entered the game, everything was going to plan and
for the first couple of hours, we watched them, in a less-thanperfect television image, make friends and enemies of one
another.
But then everything went wrong.
The image on our screen went out, their positions on our
map were lost and a huge warning error came up. Pure
anguish was what I had felt. My entire schooling, in fact, my
entire life, had led up to that point – and I was failing, like my
parents always expected I would.
I rushed to the hall to see if they’d been ejected, but they
hadn’t. They were still staring into their goggles, literally a
world away, and I had to make a decision straight away. “Pull
the goggles off,” I commanded.
As I said this, I knew that they could potentially go insane.
Their minds were still in the game regardless of where their
bodies were. And that’s exactly what happened – bodies out
but minds in.
Only one of the six students actually regained any form of
responsive consciousness – 3. When we found him he was
barely coming to but was in a much better condition than the
others. We weren’t exactly sure why this happened, but we
didn’t complain – it was one less payout we had to make!
As alternative compensation – we gave him a job. Mostly
menial tasks and whatnot but occasionally, when he was
conscious enough, he did the odd programming task.
Nowadays, his mind seemed to switch between the two
worlds and more often than not, he found it hard to tell the
difference between reality and Simulator. However, he was
still in the game and I had no explanation as to how 3
managed it without any equipment…
After the catastrophe that nearly entirely crippled years of
plans and hundreds of millions of dollars of investors’ money,
all there was to show for it was a still-functioning map of the
lost kids’ simulations’ locations, the settlement records that
put the company on a blacklist for eternity, and now, a year
later, a somewhat smoky reputation that was overshadowed
by the promise of the Omega…
I focussed on the screen again, nothing interesting, back to
my reminisce.
Oh the Omega – the Academy’s one and final way to turn
even the best of friends against each other. It was the epitome
of the Academy’s outlook on life - win at all costs, including
betraying those closest to you.
And so there it was, the less than pristine past of the
company and the broken stories of the members of our
engineering team.
Now though, as I sat back in my recliner, looking up at the
giant screen, I couldn’t help but feel satisfied – this time, it
was all going to go to plan.
“Okay,” I began, dictating to 1 and 2, “we’ll need close-up,
moving, action-shot-type images of each of the competitors’
faces, a fast-paced backing track and some short-burst clips of
the kids running, fighting and using their powers. 1, you’re in
charge of visual, 2, you’re in charge of audio – I want you two
collaborating to make the best damn promotion commercial
possible – and 3,” he was zoning out again, I passed a small
sigh, “you’re with me, we’re going to watch these kids battle it
out.” The three of them stood there nodding, as if waiting for
me to say something else… “What are you waiting for idiots?
GO!”
And with that they darted off in attempt to show themselves
as more dedicated than the other.
“Pull up a chair,” I said to 3, who still hadn’t moved. Coming
to, slightly, he shuffled across the metallic floor and slowly
dragged a desk chair next to mine. He sat down and watched
the screen with me.
“Remind you of anything?” I asked him, half not expecting
even an acknowledgment, let alone an answer.
“Yes, it does,” he said flatly but surely.
It was strange, hearing him speak with such definition. I
turned to him and saw him staring at me with conviction. His
eyes were a piercing blue and my skin prickled. He made me
uncomfortable, but he didn’t intimidate me.
“Who do you think is going to win?” I asked him
nonchalantly.
His eyes seemed to glaze a little and he mumbled a
response.
Without warning his eyes widened and he screamed
“ELIZA!”
He was in one of his dazes again and I chose to ignore him.
He would often react to things that weren’t here and it
astounded me to think that perhaps he was reacting to the
Simulator he was still trapped in.
Looking back to the screen, I weighed up the contestants.
Personally, I thought B3ast or Victor would win. Victor was
physically stronger than the other contestants and would
probably have less of a problem betraying the others – he had
shown it with what seemed to be a love affair with Grace.
B3ast, on the other hand, could justify anything in his own
mind – and that made him dangerous. Frankly, I enjoyed
that.
Lily was just Lily. She looked alert, always a step ahead and
I had watched as her profile altered to display her new
premonition power – kind of useless if she couldn’t stop the
dangers she saw coming. She was the smallest threat,
regardless of how surprised I was of her performance in the
lead-up to the actual Simulator.
Grace, on the other hand, was lethal. She had somehow
convinced everybody that she was sweet and yet I watched as
she manipulated Victor into servitude. Her power was very
interesting and I was excited to see what she would do with
it, hopefully kill Stefanie.
I resented girls like Stefanie. Material girls whose minds
were in the clouds and whose bank accounts were even
further out of this world. Maybe it was because that crowd
had belittled me in the past, but I wanted to see her out of the
competition first – and it would please me immensely if B3ast
or Grace did it.
Finally there was Xander... he was a bit of a dark horse. I
wasn’t sure what to expect from him, but either way, nothing
too spectacular. The odds of him winning weren’t fantastic.
The screen caught my attention with a flash of colour.
Pointing at one of the smaller panels with a small remote –
there was one part of the screen constantly focussed on each
player – I opened Lily’s panel and watched it enlarge on the
main screen.
She was crouching behind a hedge as B3ast shattered a
clump of glass trees. When had he received that power? And
how had I missed it?
I enlarged B3ast’s panel, then, and watched as he opened his
computer screen.
I froze at what I saw – a run file that had accessed the
mainframe. I recognised the programming I had spent
months on and where I saw irregularities, I knew B3ast had
changed something.
At first I saw that the changes weren’t too big, mostly just
him experimenting – but I realised he had control over the
powers and I realised the potential for disaster. He could
easily exceed the data storage limit each player profile had if
he damaged the code that stopped it from happening – and I
didn’t even want to think what would happen then.
“3,” I began sharply, “I need you here.” I watched as he began
to stir. “NOW!” I yelled, voice shrill at the prospect of my
empire collapsing… again.
“Use that keyboard over there,” I pointed to a small panel
against the wall that was home to the computer that I
installed to help regulate Simulator.
“Open up the weapons.main file – and delete B3ast’s weapon
before he does something stupid.” 3 was unusually alert and
bustled over to the monitor, beginning his work.
I silently admired B3ast’s cunning. How he had thought to
use the computer I originally placed in there as just a digital
map, to hack the system, was nothing short of incredible.
“How’s it going?” I called to 3.
He just shook his head, a bad sign.
The room began to rumble. I shrank into my chair as metal
creaked and the image that filled the entire wall turned to
static.
MALFUNCTION.
Big red letters fixed themselves on the screen, behind them I
watched B3ast dance triumphantly. Using another set of
smaller screens to review the footage, I watched B3ast delete
the timekeeper.dat file – he may as well have deleted my
career too.