Shepherd Moon: Omegaverse: Volume 1 (2 page)

“If you like,”
said Clive
“I can scrape your social media accounts for pictures, and put together a reasonable facsimile of you. Be advised, however, that while this service is free for the first time, any additional changes require a payment based on the amount of change as well as current market rates. Would you like me to make the change?”

“
Sure.
”

“There he is!” exclaimed Matt, “That’s the ugly mug I’m used to seeing on the barstool next to mine!”

The picture in the top left of the
Personal Info
page changed to mirror the picture he used on social media for his profile picture. Below was listed the standard social media information such as name, age, and location. All but his name were currently grayed out, indicating that they were not shared publicly.

Just then, the door opened, admitting Clancey and Vince.

“Well,” said Vince, “look who finally got off his ass and signed up.”

“Yeah, let’s go kill some shit!” said Clancey.

“Sounds good,” said Matt getting up from his chair, “time to saddle up,” and headed for the door. The two new guys did an about face, following him. Duncan jumped up and trailed his three friends, the door to Matt’s place closing behind him as the four crowded into the short hallway.

“Destination?”

“Mission Control” said Matt and Clancey simultaneously.

The door opened as Clancey, first in line, arrived. Once through, Duncan looked around into the space, much larger than even the first introduction room had been.

“C’mon,” said Clancey, “Let’s find a good 4 ship.”

“Shannon going to make it?” asked Matt.

“Yeah,” said Vince “but probably for not an hour or so. Plenty of time for a milk run.”

The four of them, Duncan in trail, entered through another automatic airlock, into what looked like a small booth, with two seats on either side. As they grabbed their seats, Clive piped up for Duncan:

“As this is your first mission, there are some differences between what you’re experiencing from the rest. Matt, as group leader, is currently selecting mission parameters; difficulty, duration and so on. All of them are currently selecting whether or not to rent mission equipment, or to insure equipment they own. Until you’ve had a chance to gain some experience and earn some credits, equipment or insurance will be provided to you, free of charge.”

A message flashed across the top of his field of view;

“Vinsanity and Clancey have been added to your group by Pope.
”

“Hey newb!,” yelled Vince “Set your nickname.”

“Clive,” said Duncan, “set my nickname to Taipan”. The cheers from his teammates told him that Clive had complied. Clive added:

“I’ve also taken the liberty of setting up a standard combat overlay. This will display the nicknames of your teammates over their heads, color coded to reflect their current health status, green, yellow or red. We can tailor this to your specific needs over time. During the mission, I’ll leave it off by default, but you can ask for it at any time.”

“When do we get there?” Duncan asked, looking around at his teammates, their heads crowned by the green letters spelling out Pope, Vinsanity and Clancey.

“We’re already there,” said Vince, “and we’ll un-ass this crate as soon as you’re ready. Lock and load, newb!”

Duncan pulled up his inventory screen,
“Clive, unbox those magazines and put them in the bandolier slots.”
He pulled the .45 from its holster slot, grabbed a pistol magazine from the bandolier, slammed it home, and jacked a round. After replacing the loaded pistol in the holster, he pulled the M4 off the large inventory slot on his back. To his friends, it looked like he reached behind himself and pulled the rifle off of his back. He pulled a 30 round magazine from the bandolier, put it into the rifle, and pulled the charging handle on the top of the receiver. He made sure the safety was on, then looked up to his friends.

“Ready.”

Chapter 2

the evening before

Charlottesville, Virginia. USA

Duncan pulled open the door and walked into the brewpub. After the hot Virginia humidity, the air conditioning made it feel like his skin was suddenly awash in cold water. As his eyes adjusted from the brightness of the late afternoon sun to the dimly lit interior of the restaurant, he made his practiced way through the crowd to his usual seat at the end of the copper topped bar.

He placed a large box on the bar as he climbed onto the stool. Reaching around the box, he lifted the pint of ale that Shannon had begun pouring as soon as she saw him walking down the street to the bar. He took his first, long deep draw from the glass, sighed, and set the glass back onto the bar.

“You’re late”, said Matt, one stool over. “For beer. Are you unwell?”

“Nah, just had to drop by the store and pick up a little something.” He used his pocketknife to begin slicing through the packaging tape on the box.

“The nagging finally paid off, did it?” said Clancey, sitting around the corner from Duncan and Matt who took the two seats at the end of the bar. “You’re finally going to join us.”

The opened box revealed what, to Duncan, looked like a kind of egg shaped vase; rounded at the back, more pointed in the front, with a large hole in the middle. He pulled it onto his head.

“Hey, Shannon! Does this make my head look fat?”

“No more than usual, fathead,” she laughed, “Now finish that beer, I’ve already pulled your next one.”

He took the helmet off, took a drink of his beer, and looked through the bottom of the box, pulling out a small container. He read the label.

“Haptic gloves?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Vince, “they go with the helmet. They provide feedback, so you can feel and use stuff in the game.”

Clancey nodded, “It’s pretty freaky until you get used to it, but once you do, it really does make it seem more real.”

“Much better than using a mouse and keyboard,” added Matt.

Duncan put the gloves back in the larger box, looked back at the smooth plastic egg of the helmet.

“There aren’t any connection ports,” he mused.

“Yep,” said Clancey. “It’s self contained. Computer, display, wireless connection, speakers. It’s all in that egg. There’s a little pad for charging the battery. Just leave it sitting on the pad overnight, and you’ll be good to go. Never had any battery issues.”

Duncan put the helmet back in the box, which he then closed. He took another long pull on his beer, slid the empty glass toward the bartender and replaced it with the one she’d just brought. He looked up as his friends let out a cheer of welcome. Their friend Jamie had arrived, in town for the weekend from Baltimore.

As Shannon ran from behind the bar to give Jamie a hug, Vince and Clancey changed seats to allow him one on the corner, in the middle of the group. After the welcomes were complete, Jamie looked to the box sitting on the bar in front of Duncan.

“What is that thing?” he asked.

“Virtual reality helmet,” said Duncan.

“Next gen,” added Clancey.

“Duncan’s doom,” laughed Vince.

“Your future,” said Matt in an evil whisper.

Jamie laughed.

“My future, how so?”

“We’ve got Duncan to finally get one to join us in the Omegaverse, now we just have to get you in as well,” said Shannon, shoving an overflowing shot glass of tequila in front of Jamie.

“And what the hell is an Omegaverse?” asked Jamie as he lifted the glass to his nose, sniffed deeply and then gently sipped through the surface tension of the liquid bubble of agave nectar that threatened to overflow the glass rim.

They began to describe it for Jamie. The Omegaverse was an online universe consisting of many games. The aspect that his friends focused on playing was a first person shooter game, called the ‘Soldier’. It consisted of a variety of mission types; some against AI opponents, some against human ones. The missions could be small, even solo, or could contain hundreds of other players working in cooperation or in conflict.

A large variety of equipment was available, so loadouts could be configured to suit any specific mission parameters. One mission could be a group of 3 players with rifles, hunting through a jungle covered planet for a deadly beast, the next could be a large scale invasion of an industrial world with hundreds of attackers and defenders fighting for control.

In addition to the Soldier class of missions, there were tracks for those who’d rather Pilot spacecraft. From the solitary, exploration based miner, to the space trading merchant all the way to the heavy, navy-like warship classes. The latter of which were often crewed by large numbers of players at individual stations such as navigation, weapons, helm and shields. Space battles between factions controlling hundreds of ships fighting for control of entire sectors of the galaxy had occurred.

Tangential activities were also springing up throughout the game. Player apartments had given rise to interior decorators. Some players had turned their apartments into stores; buying and selling rare game items. There was even a scholar class developing; dedicated to studying the fictional technology, to trace it to its alien origins through clues players had been finding in the universe.

Jaimie, and Duncan, were taking all of this in.

“So, what’s the game?” asked Jamie.

“Isn’t that what they’ve been telling us?” asked Duncan.

“Not really. These are all activities and, while I’m sure they’re fun, they aren’t really a
game
. Games are, fundamentally, problem solving as entertainment. I see the entertainment, part, but where are the problems that need to be solved?”

“I see where you’re going,” said Shannon, cleaning out a pint glass. “The reason for all of this running around and shooting. Control. Control of parts of the game galaxy. As we complete missions or grow our wealth, our faction gains in power, prestige.”

“Yeah,” nodded Matt, “and with those gains come individual benefits. Access to newer cooler stuff.”

“The game is fairly new, now,” said Clancey, “and the factions are still forming. They’re mainly focused around the space stations. Our station is made up of mainly east coast Americans, with some Europeans and a few close time-zones thrown in. Those are automatically generated. You’re placed in those factions when you start, but player generated factions are starting to spring up.”

“You can check the zones of control on the larger maps, and none of the neighboring zones have begun to overlap, but it’s a long term game. As players terraform and colonize, those zones will grow. Once the zones begin to butt up against each other, the conflict will increase.”

Duncan took another swallow of beer. “Colonize?”

“Yeah,” nodded Vince, “that’s done through a sort of real time strategy resource management game. And by
real time
they mean
real long time
. It looks like it’ll take years, in real terms, to terraform and colonize a planet.”

“Though you can colonize without terraforming, it’s just much more expensive,” added Clancey.

“How?”

“Domes. Underground cities. Floating cities in cloud giants. That sort of thing,” continued Matt. “Very expensive. Very.”

“But for now?” asked Jamie.

“For now, we just go in and have some fun. Our gains are mainly personal, even though they’re helping, big picture wise, the faction,” said Vince. “This is like a big game of chess, with lots of different players; and right now the only pieces on the board are pawns. The kings, bishops, knights are all being created. By ourselves, playing the game.”

“But for now,” continued Duncan, “you’re just a bunch of big bad killing machines?”

“Yep.”

“Even Shannon?” laughed Duncan.

“Stoofoo!” shouted Shannon, using her pronunciation for the acronym for ‘shut the fuck up’, “I’d kick your ass all over the place, newbie!” She smiled, “Besides, I’m not a
boots on the ground
type; I’m command and control.”

“Que es?” asked Duncan.

“I manage the fight,” she said. “As damage is taken by those morons,” she waved her hand to encompass Matt, Clancey and Vince, “their shield power drops. I manage the power supply that regenerates those shields. Naturally, the power supply isn’t enough to take care of them all at once, so I have to juggle their needs with the available juice.”

“Like the healer in a fantasy game?” asked Jamie.

Shannon nodded, “Yep.” then moved down the bar to take care of other customers.

“There’s more to it than that,” said Clancey.

“And Shannon’s one of the best,” added Matt. Clancey and Vince nodded agreement. “I can’t remember the last time we got croaked while Shannon was watching over us.”

“You’ll see,” continued Matt, “when we take you out. We’ll keep it nice and easy your first few missions. Just until you settle in and get used to the game.”