Interlude- Brandon (22 page)

Chapter 64

“Are you going to kill me?” Thorn asked. He sat across from the General looking like a veteran lion tamer who’d just realized he’d made a terrible miscalculation.

“I haven’t decided yet,” the General said. “I likely should have killed you a year ago, but it looks as if I missed my opportunity. If I eliminate you now, then I’m forced to try and fix this entire mess on my own.”

Thorn nodded. “I know for a fact,” the General continued, “that there have been moments when you thought of eliminating me as well.”

“Certainly,” Thorn confirmed. “There always seemed to be something that made it not quite the perfect opportunity, which held me back. I assume those little ‘somethings’ were orchestrated by you to help keep me from making the attempt?”

“Of course,” the General smiled. “You did the same, and I assume for similar reasons?”

“Yes,” Thorn said. “Now here we sit, the world crumbling to ruin around us, and I think for the first time since we first met, each of us is absolutely safe from the other.”

“
Weird how the world works, isn’t it?” the General said.

“Most of the time.”

The two men sat and considered the situation. Finally, the General spoke up.

“I can’t rule a nation that no longer functions,” he said.

“I can’t get subscription fees from people who don’t bother to go to work to make money,” Thorn responded. “I have some ideas that require your cooperation. I think we can slow this degeneration down, and if we’re lucky, reverse it.”

The General thought for a moment. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“How many regular citizens belong to you, General?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Don’t pretend with me, sir,” Thorn said. “Your endgame might be too bold for many to envision, but I’ve seen more than most. How many Centre graduates — how many people who wear your Infinity symbol, and are loyal to their loving ‘Father’ — exist in our society today as a result of your decades of quiet scheming?”

“A significant number,” the General admitted. “Approximately one quarter of our society belongs to me. Most of them hold positions of power and influence within their communities.”

“Or they are in the military,” Thorn stated.

“Of course. The military belongs entirely to me.”

“How many years have you spent building this force, sir?”

“This will be the thirtieth year of my plan. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Thorn said, but his mind was curious. The Elite leaders had completed and were now in the midst of another thirty year simulation… An odd coincidence, he thought. When Thorn had come up with the number it had been random — or so he’d thought.

“Are your people playing Tygon 3.0?” Thorn asked.

“I would assume so. Video games were never a problem, and therefore not forbidden, until this one came along.”

“All right. I know you’ve never gone into the Sim, General, but I have a few strategies that I want to show you for halting and reversing the situation. The most effective way for me to do that is to take you inside the Sim and show them to you.” Thorn opened a cabinet and brought out two golden VR helmets. “I think it’s time that you came in and took a look around, don’t you?”

The General paused for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. “Yes, I think a visit to the Sim is long overdue, Mr. Thorn.”

Thorn nodded and moved to place one of the helmets on the General’s head. “It works the same as the copy that you tried to use before from your designers. Count backwards from ten to one and wait in the room when you open your eyes. I’ll come and get you, and from there we can go to the main centre. Once we get there, I can present the ideas that I think will work best to get us back on track with minimal loss of life.”

The General nodded and Thorn flipped the switch to activate the helmet.

The General started to count backwards slowly from ten and Thorn quickly sat down and put his helmet on. He wanted to get into the Sim immediately so that he could meet the General right away. He was about to hit his helmet’s power switch when he heard something strange coming from the General’s helmet. Thorn lifted his visor and looked in the General’s direction.

As the General reached the count of four, his helmet made another sound, a loud, hollow sounding metallic click.

Throughout the room a woman’s voice announced; “Recognized; General Donovan. Begin process Zeta. Mark.”

Thorn tore his helmet off and rushed to the General’s side. During the thousands of activations he’d witnessed, he’d never heard anything like this before.

The General stood up from his seat and lay down gently on the floor. He continued to count backwards, but as he reached zero his breathing became shallow, and Thorn noticed  that he wasn’t grinning.

Now Thorn immediately knew that something was seriously wrong. During the early days of prototype development, it was counterproductive to stop the helmet and ask if it was working, so they had built in the grin function. If a subject was properly immersed in the Sim, the corners of their mouth would turn up slightly and form a grin. The General appeared to be inside the Sim, but he wasn’t grinning. Not at all.

Thorn grabbed his helmet and quickly put it on. He counted down to ten and opened his eyes inside the Sim, a process he was very familiar with by now. He threw open the white door and raced to the room where the General would be waiting…

Thorn swore loudly and ran towards the main control room.

The General wasn’t there.

Chapter 65

“Is something wrong?” Cooper asked. Thorn looked shaken as he entered the room to talk with Brandon and his group.

“It can wait,” Thorn said. He sat down, put his hands flat on the table and stretched them as far out as they could go, then he took a deep breath with his head facing downwards, and exhaled as he looked up. His frown became a smile, and he nodded to the people surrounding him.

“Is everyone here?” he asked.

“Everyone is here, sir,” Brandon said. “I appreciate you doing this; bringing them all together.”

“All of you know what you’re about to enter into, and you all agree to join Brandon in this simulation?”

There were twelve individuals sitting around the table. Thorn made eye contact and waited for them to nod before moving to the next person. He wanted to make certain that everyone realized that they would be spending three months on a table in a controlled coma, and thirty years living a full life inside Tygon 1.0. Of the twelve, five were Brandon and his Hand. The others whom Brandon had requested were no real surprise; they were influential players with serious skills who joined Brandon whenever they could.

Carl was present; he looked refreshed and much more alert Cooper had gone to great lengths to bring him out of the field, and help him become
unBlurred. Carl still didn’t know that the thousands of innocents he’d killed in cold blood were real people. The killings had been the General’s attempt to cause fear among players, but the threat of psychotic killers coming in and killing players while they were playing Tygon 3.0 hadn’t slowed anyone down from subscribing or playing as the General had hoped.

Thorn frowned slightly as his eyes came to rest on the final member of Brandon’s chosen group. “Wesley? What are you doing here?”

“I want him with me,” Brandon said, “and he agreed to come.”

Thorn raised his eyebrows questioningly at Wesley, and the man nodded. “With your permission, sir, I would like to join them. I’m of no use here at the moment, and if they can find something for me to do to help, then I’m happy to try.”

Thorn looked at Cooper, who nodded slightly. “Okay, that’s fine,” Thorn said. “Now, before we send you in, would you please tell me what you’re planning on doing with all of these extra accomplices?”

“You said that you had plans to implement out here, but first you wanted the Elites to live one more lifetime to become adept at quantum computing and designing,” Brandon said.

“That’s right,” Thorn said. “After you all come out with the experience we want you to get, that will leave us six to nine months to implement actions on a global scale with the goal of safely ending this crisis.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Brandon asked.

“Then we’ve done our best and we move forward ,” Thorn said.

“How would you like to double your chances for a solution?”

Thorn leaned forward. “I’m listening,” he said.

===

They sat at their regular table in the mess hall. The other tables were empty, but the cooks had come in to prepare a meal for them before they entered Tygon 1.0 for their long simulation.

Everyone joked and talked; it was like being a kid again on a good day in the Facility, even though good days had been far and few between.

After the meal, Brandon stood up to address the group. “This simulation is a bit different from others. Some of us have done it before, but some haven’t. I’m going to tell you how it should go and then cover our basic plan. Interrupt me with questions any time.”

The others nodded and Brandon began the briefing. “We’ll be placed in avatars that match our current appearance and age. With one billion NPCs in the simulation, there will be more than a few avatars that match us, but most of us will likely end up being placed far from each other when we start off.”

Brandon paused to see if this raised any questions, but the group seemed to understand. “When we enter our avatars, the consciousness from that avatar is deleted.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” one of the kids said.

“How do you mean?” Brandon asked.

“We’re killing a person to take their place.”

“No, we’re not,” another shook his head and laughed. “They’re computer programs, with pre-programmed everything. They aren’t real, or important.”

“Good,” Brandon smiled. “I’m glad this came up. Let’s deal with it now and all come to an agreement.”

“About what?” Tony said.

“How to treat the population of the world we’re about to join,” Easton said.

“I think we treat them like we would each other,” Kay said. “They will be just like us, in shape, thought, and form. Our avatars will interact with their avatars. Our brain patterns will match theirs. We treat them like we treat each other, simple as that.”

“Does anyone disagree?” Brandon asked.

“They aren’t real,” Carl said. Others nodded in agreement.

“They will be very real to us for the next thirty years,” Brandon said. “We will be just as unreal, if you want to look at it that way.”

“But we come back here,” Carl said.

“As long as nothing goes wrong with the transfer,” Alan said. “There have been some kids lost in the trip out. Does that mean they weren’t real? And who’s to say the NPCs don’t go somewhere as well? Maybe it’s the mainframe to be debriefed and recycled, but that’s still a place for them to go.”

“I can tell you all from experience,” Brandon said, “that this can become a confusing topic. The easiest thing to do is agree that everything in the simulation is real, because it is. We feel it, we affect it, we live with the repercussions of each choice we make. I say we choose to value the citizens of Tygon as real entities.”

“What if a million of them die, or suffer?” Wesley asked.

“Then we react the same way we normally would,” Brandon said. “A million people could die from starvation playing Tygon 3.0, followed by millions more. I hear that number and although it’s a shame, it doesn’t change the way I live my life, for the most part.”

“I agree,” Easton said. “It’s not a war game that we’re entering. Let’s play it correctly. We value and respect NPCs because they are real beings.”

No one else disagreed. Brandon looked around and everyone nodded, although some shrugged their shoulders indifferently. “Okay, then, back to the plan. When we are solidly in place, the mainframe will reset the names to match ours, so when we go to bed and wake up everyone will call us by our names. Then we begin our lives at our current age. Some of us will have to finish school, some will have jobs they need to go to. We continue on the path we inherit until we are eighteen years old inside the Sim. Sound good to everyone?”

Everyone
nodded.

“We need to find each other sooner than that, though. Tygon 1.0 uses social media the same as ours, so we will use the catch phrase ‘Thorn Protects The Sim.’ Start a blog, make a website, do something, so we can track each other by looking for that phrase.”

Brandon grabbed another plate of food and sat down. He took a bite and waved his hand. “That’s it for now; we get into the simulation, gain our bearings, and we contact each other. We can talk about the rest inside when the time is right. Any questions?”

No one said a word.

“Good,” Brandon said. “Let’s have some fun and get old.”

Chapter 66

The General opened his eyes. The room looked exactly like the last time he’d attempted to enter into the Sim; the door was even in the same place in the wall.

He knew his instructions were to remain in the room, but curiosity got the better of him and he went to the door and attempted to open it. This time it opened with a soft click. He stuck his head into the hallway, peering left and right. A plain white hallway extended both directions with a closed door at one end, exactly how Thorn had said that it would appear.

The General nodded and closed the door. His instructions were to wait for Thorn, and he would wait, even though he was excited about finally getting to tour what he had hired Thorn to create.

The General had always been cautious, especially as his career grew. Kill a few people, then a few more, then take children who showed genetic potential away from their families to raise according to his plan… that kind of thing could eventually come back to bite a person if they weren’t careful. The past thirty years had been full of challenges, but the plan was sound. Taking each step had enabled him to make the next, more difficult one.

He had convinced himself early on that he wasn’t doing this for himself, he was doing it to save his people.

As a young soldier, Donovan had been different. He’d moved up the ranks through skill and by creating networks and allies in all aspects of both military and private life. His family had helped, of course. Donovan came from generations of wealthy leaders and public figures; his family connections ran far and deep. Before Donovan had drawn his first breath, his father had already made plans and set goals for his son’s entire life.

His upbringing, instilled values, and family connections had paved the way, but it was Donovan’s ingenuity and ideas that had set the stage for his long term goals and plans after he became a General. His father wanted Donovan to become President, but after living in the system and seeing the limited potential which could come from that, he'd decided to change the entire political system instead. A normal person would never consider such a thing, but the General saw it all very clearly. He understood from his extensive study of history that special men during critical moments could affect monumental changes to the world, and he’d decided that his father’s goal wasn’t nearly ambitious enough for him to pursue.

Donovan had developed an intricate and long term plan to reach his goal. Thirty years… a period too long for most people to comprehend, much less execute, but after he’d spent years developing it, he knew it was his life’s calling. To lead a world inhabited by a population of devout followers.

As the final year approached completion, Donovan knew he was close to getting exactly what he’d been striving for.

Tygon 3.0 appeared to be a catastrophe in progress, but Donovan had seen many threats to his plans before. He’d managed to deal with them all, and he was confident that with Thorn’s help they would bring this latest situation under control. With cleverness and hard work, and the bit of luck that always accompanied anyone truly successful, the General was certain that he was only months away from removing the President and installing himself as the nation’s new leader.

The door opened, interrupting the General’s thoughts. He stood and brought his full thoughts to the crisis at hand. He was interested to see what ideas Thorn had to fix this problem.

It wasn’t Thorn who entered the room, however. The General took a slight step backward, and his practiced façade of control faltered as he stared at the man facing him.

The man’s face lit up at the General’s reaction. He entered the room and closed the door behind him, deliberately taking his time to savour the moment as he turned to face the General.

“What’s the matter, Donovan?” there was danger in his tone, and the promise of much pain, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The General quickly regained his bearing. In a confident, commanding tone he answered, “It’s not often I’m surprised, but I certainly am right now.”

Brad laughed, his eyes filled with hatred and madness. “The surprises are only beginning, General. I promise you that.”