Hypercage: Instant Reality Prequel One (4 page)

Dave flicked her the V’s as her image broke apart. He downed the second whisky and tossed the glass into the disassembler.

2 a.m. blazed brightly on his HUD. Fuck… that means Jakey would be waking up for his early feed any time now.

He started to pace the floor, wondering what to do. More than anything, he wanted to log in, but if Jakey woke up and started crying, he might not hear in time, and that would wake Becks up. And then he’d be screwed. His brain looped round and round trying to decide whether or not to risk it when a notification slid into his HUD.

This is command issuing an all units broadcast. Forseran is under attack. All players are to respond immediately. Recall to the broadcast warpgate.

“Shit,” Dave muttered. “Where the hell is that beta invite?”

If only he had that invite. He could get the plug-in loaded and get online. They’d held Forseran for months. If they lost it now, it would mean many more months of trying to get a foothold again. The final battle had been so close; they’d almost been defeated. One of the pivotal moments was when he had led an attack on a weapons factory orbiting one of Forserans’ moons. Part of a multi-pronged attack to sever the enemy supply lines and cut off their resources. It had culminated in him leading a boarding party to capture the facility. If it wasn’t for him, they would never have secured it, and what then? Maybe the whole push on Forseran would have unravelled. He had to log in. If he didn’t, they were sure to lose the system.

Dave was about to make his way to his gaming room when a little square camera feed anchored itself to his HUD. The noise of a baby crying flooded his ears. Jake was awake.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dave cursed.

If he could get Jake back off to sleep, he might be able to make the alert in time and get to the rally point. He sprinted upstairs and into Jake’s bedroom. The sweet stink of baby shit boosted through his nostrils. Soft lights faded in slowly. Jake was writhing in the cot. Face flush with blood. Screaming his head off. He glared at the inert MAMS in the corner of the room, hoping that his hatred of its pathetic state would suddenly spur it into action so it could sort out Jake. He snatched his son out of the cot and unceremoniously dumped him onto the changing table. A new wave of higher pitched crying replaced the first, but Dave just roughly stripped off his clothes and ripped off his nappy. He quickly got Jake changed and requested 5 ounces of breast milk from the nano-factory.

He grabbed the warmed up bottle, fell into the rocking chair next to the window, and stuck it into Jake’s hungry mouth. He started sucking down the contents and silence descended on the nursery.

A second alert slid into his HUD:

This is command. All players rally immediately at the Forseran broadcast warpgate. Technology equals might.

“Fucking hell, Jake, come on already.” Dave started rocking the chair frantically, trying desperately to get Jake off to sleep whilst he was feeding. He seemed to be taking forever. Each suck of the bottle was an enemy fighter escaping his targeting reticle. Suck, suck, suck. He imagined the enemies’ capital ships surrounding Forseran, bombarding the defence shield. Suck, suck, suck. Their fleet destroyed, they prepared for ground assault. The frustration rose up inside him, bursting forth, similar to his missile boat being ejected from the launch tubes.

“For fuck’s sake, Jake, will you hurry the fuck up, you little bastard,” he said. He jammed the bottle hard against his son’s mouth.

With a ping, another alert dropped into his HUD:

Mul-T closed beta invite.

Dave felt relief flood through him, and in that moment, he caught himself and felt ashamed. He slowed the rocking and snuggled Jake into the crook of his arm as he relaxed his grip on the bottle.

“I’m sorry, Jakey,” he whispered as he kissed the top of his son’s head, relishing in the feel of his baby soft skin and fuzzy hair. Everything was going to be OK. Jake’s crying subsided and he finished feeding. Dave whisked him to his cot, but gently placed him to sleep as the milk fugue did its work.

He tiptoed out of the nursery, making sure the electronic doors closed as slowly as possible. Just in case.

Dave sprinted downstairs to his gaming room, feeling like a kid about to see what wonders Father Christmas had left under the tree. He jumped in to the chair and it automatically tipped backwards. A huge grin plastered all over his face.

Dave reached out and touched the invite, and it unfolded from his HUD in front of him. Standard NDA type stuff. He pressed the green button straight away. The form folded away and a glowing logo of many hands dropped into his HUD. Dave licked his lips as a progress bar filled up. With a big grin, he eagerly jabbed at the logo as soon as the download completed.

Each hand of the icon peeled off one at a time, rotating in the air as they lifted up from his HUD and fluttered like falling leaves, recreating a massive version of the logo in front of his face.

A deliberately mechanical female voice echoed around the room.

“Welcome to the closed beta test of the ground breaking multi-tasking plug-in, Mul-T. Please press the logo to embed to your neural network.”

Dave nodded in appreciation to the skill and design of the plugin. This was already looking super-slick.

He immediately slammed his hand in front of him. Synchronised chimes sounded as ripples of colour burst out from the centre of the Mul-T logo.

“Cool,” Dave said.

A red warning box appeared.

Security warning: Untrusted certificate

Warning, IX cannot verify the identity of...

Dave dismissed the warning with a wave of his hand. Usual bollocks, he thought.

Another red warning box dropped down in front of the Mul-T logo, which was now softly chiming repeatedly. More ripples of light raced away from the centre of the logo, hidden by the big red dialog box hanging in the centre of his vision.

Plugin privileges

Warning, this plugin is requesting read and write access to:

Your system functions

Full cortical control...

Dave swiped it away, but another replaced it, and another. Jesus, how many screens do I have to swipe through in order to play? Goddamned nanny state. Home hub control. Integrated systems. GUID access. He didn’t even know what some of the categories meant.

Eventually he swiped away the last screen.

“Thank you. Installing now,” the mechanical female voice said.

He relaxed back into the chair as the progress bar filled up, each completed percentile sending pings of light dancing around the room. He sat forward as the indicator hit one hundred percent. The Mul-T logo split apart, similar to a sheet of wet meat. A screaming skull tore through the rags of flesh. Blood sprayed everywhere, coating him in a drizzle of red droplets. The skull looked like it had just been ripped out of someone’s face. Bits of flesh and gristle clung to the bone. It flew towards him, ribbons of torn muscle streaming out behind it. A wailing scream sent a shiver up his spine and he tried to cry out. His voice defied him and the scream wouldn’t come. He tried to throw his hands up but they wouldn’t move, locked in place to the arms of the chair. He felt panic rise in his gut as the skull closed in on him. It was an inch from his face when he tried to throw himself from his chair, but still his body wouldn’t respond. The skull snapped its broken yellow teeth right in front of him and then disappeared, uttering an evil cackle that faded away slowly, as if echoing down an old wet tunnel.

What the fuck? he thought. If that’s somebody’s idea of a joke, it isn’t funny. He felt as if he was shaking but his body wasn’t moving. He tried to rub his eyes, but still his body wouldn’t comply. What the hell is going on? His HUD flared as every icon activated at once, all outlined in red fire. His vision was a mess of burning icons. As the flames faded away, icons started activating on his HUD, but he wasn’t initiating anything. Windows dropped down into ARSpace as his HUD activated them. His banking system opened up and started accessing his accounts. Money was being pulled out of the joint account, out of his account, out of the savings and share accounts. Mortgage deeds were accessed and transferred to people he’d never heard of. Pensions were drawn down to unknown bank accounts.

He put every ounce of strength into moving, but it was no good… his body wouldn’t respond. He tried cancelling the actions by blink clicking, by thought control and eye-gestures, but nothing worked. Then he tried screaming again. In his head, he was shouting for Becks. To come and help him. Please. But no sound came out. He was a prisoner in his own body.

Who the hell was doing this?

Life insurance policies were checked for Becks. For Jake.

No. No. Please, no.

The documents streamed past, as if someone else was scanning through and reading them.

He heard the garage doors swooshing open. Was it the Police? Had they somehow been alerted? But then he heard the cars start up and leave. And the new bike he’d just bought. Engine rumbling as it drove itself away.

When he heard footsteps, he thought maybe Becks had woken up. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as a procession of their household mechs walked past the gaming room, walking straight out the front door. Jesus Christ. Was there anything they weren’t going to steal?

Then two camera feeds appeared in ARSpace in front of him. Becks’ and Jake’s rooms, side by side. The nano-factories in both rooms came to life, and started spewing out a thick green smoke. It rolled out and clung to the floor, the room filling with a noxious looking green gas. Dave could only watch in horror as Becks and Jake writhed silently in agony. He wanted to scream. Wanted to jump out of the chair and run and save them. To call the police. To get help. But he couldn’t. All he could do was watch. He tried one last time to fight against it, his veins and arteries feeling as if they were leaping out of his skin. He imagined muscles ripping apart, gouts of blood flowing over his body as he valiantly fought against his imprisonment. But the reality was, he never moved. Tears welled in his eyes as he realised this was his fault… all of it. Unable to wipe them away, the tears pooled on his face, smudging his view.

Then he heard new footsteps and thought it might be another chance at being saved. Maybe there was enough time to get to Becks and Jakey?

Two shadowy figures stood above him.

Someone wiped away his tears to reveal faces obscured by highly polished black helmets and bodies adorned in expensive looking combat armour, Section-X stencilled across the front in white letters. As one, they keyed a button against their necks and the helmets unfolded from their heads, retracting into the bulky collars. What the fuck? What the hell is going on?

The woman pressed a finger to her ear. “Command, this is Agent Starrix. Site locked down. Asset isolated and collateral secured. VTOL will be inbound in five minutes.” She paused to look him up and down. Was that disgust he saw in her eyes? Who the hell was she? “Roger that,” she said.

She turned to the man and ordered, “OK. Wipe him, doze him and get him stowed for the trip. You’ve got five minutes.”

“Yes, Chief,” he responded. A flap opened from his armour and he pulled out a small, cylindrical object. One end was smooth, the other covered in millions of pins. From the way they glinted, they looked needle-sharp. Dave suddenly realised the shittiest day of his life was about to get even worse. He tried to shy away. To curl into a foetal position and forget this was happening. The man lifted his arm up and Dave tried desperately to shut his eyes. But as much as he tried, they remained open. All he could do was watch as the man slammed his arm downwards. A million tiny laser blasts burned their way into his brain at the same time. The pain was excruciating. It felt like his eyeballs were melting in his head as his vision filled with static. Lines flickered up and down. All his HUD icons flared again and then disappeared.

Agent Starrix looked over her shoulder as she was leaving. Her eyes were suddenly awash with artefacts. The Galaxy War logo burned brightly from their centre.

“Forever war. Forever fun,” she said, winking.

Pain flared at the base of his skull, the purple hex grid of his gaming construct visible as he managed to scrunch his eyes closed. The glowing lines broke down and corrupted as a scream finally found his lips.

± ± ± ± ±

NFO: SECTION-X DELIVERY COMPLETE. 43 UNITS DELIVERED

>instruct – query failure

>instruct - destroy failed units

>instruct – spin up all units

>instruct – initiate black prism

>instruct – allocate all units to identify unknown inputs