Hypercage: Instant Reality Prequel One Read online

The rage building inside him in that moment caught him unawares. His heart was pounding in his chest. He watched as their car threaded its way through the multiple layers of traffic above the high rise before descending gracefully. As the car sliced its way through the adverts, holograms and animated artwork between the buildings, all he could think about was logging in. His hands twitched slightly as the drugs continued to fight against his withdrawal. Maybe he could make her see sense. If only she knew how important it was for him. Maybe she’d let him keep his gaming profile? Besides, it’s not as if he is doing anything dangerous; it’s just a game. With a big sigh, he walked after her. Autumn leaves from the giant Oak trees dropped all around him. As they hit the ground, they burst apart into a cluster of triangles, reminding him of his gaming construct. His fingers twitched.

  “Look Becks, I’m sorry. It’s just that he woke up early, and that’s why I couldn’t complete my mission this morning. And so, when you were taking ages looking at the menu, I just thought I’d quickly log in and pick up another one. No biggie,” he explained.

  Warning tones sounded and the oblong target glowed a deep red as their car landed. The door scythed open from its sleek body, the interior lights glowing softly in the dark of the plaza.

  “I’m not interested,” she said, making to climb into the car. As she was about to step into the vehicle, she turned sharply to face him. “Wait a sec. Tell me again how Jakey cut his head open,” she demanded.

  “Err, what? What are you talking about?” He questioned.

  “When Jakey smashed his head on the hearth. You said you were browsing for a new food template.”

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “So what were you really doing?”

  “Looking for a new template to rent. I told you.”

  “Really? So you weren’t playing that fucking game then?” She accused, stepping towards him, getting up in his face.

  Dave’s eyes darted backwards and forwards between hers, unsure of exactly where to look in case she guessed the truth. But in the end, he realised it was pointless. She was right, and she knew it. Might as well admit it now. Maybe there was some way he could salvage the situation? Appease Becks and still get to jack in? He couldn’t look at her anymore, the judgement in those eyes too much. He hung his head, hoping she would take pity on him.

  “I thought so,” she chided. “This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to authorise you a script for Bupropion. I’ll drop you at the addiction clinic at Goldmark Place and tell them you’ve seen a consultant. Once they’ve authorised the drug delivery, and you’ve had your first dose, come home and we can talk. Otherwise, don’t fucking bother.”

  Rebecca tapped through unseen menus, and with a final gesture in the air, a glowing prescription icon popped into the layer of augmented reality between them.

  He watched it as it spun around, leaving glowing trails from each of the corners that reminded him of torpedoes barrelling their way towards a capital ship. He reached out slowly, thinking about what it would mean to accept it, to admit defeat. To never jack in to Galaxy War ever again. His hand slowed to a stop in front of the spinning icon.

  “You bastard!” She said as she turned on her heel and climbed into the car in one smooth movement.

  “Becks… wait,” he shouted as the door of the car sliced shut. “Becks… Rebecca!”

  The car lifted smoothly off the ground, ascending to join the multiple levels of traffic flowing over the top of the city.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he shouted at the departing car, slamming his balled fists into the air as if he hoped to knock it out of the sky.

  He span on his heel to face the prescription icon, and was about to wave it away to dismiss it when he realised what it would mean. He’d probably never see Becks or Jake again. Is that what he wanted? Was the game really worth the sacrifice? His shoulders slumped. What would Becks tell Jake? “Sorry son, your Dad decided being someone in VR was more important than being a father.”

  “Fucking hell!” Dave said. Sighing, he reached out and touched the icon. It exploded into a thousand triangles that all shot down onto his HUD, as if caught in a tractor beam. One by one, they rebuilt the spinning icon, a glowing permanent reminder of his choice.

  ± ± ± ± ±

  Dave walked through the doors of the clinic. A pulsing green target painted on the floor in ARSpace directed him to an empty reception desk. As he stepped onto the target, the clinic’s AI detected his presence and loaded the default meeting protocol. A wash of static formed a silhouette of a man sitting in the empty chair, who then snapped into existence as if he had been there all along.

  “Yes sir, how may I help?” questioned the ARvatar.

  “I’ve got a script for Bupropion. I need to get authorisation for delivery,” Dave responded.

  “Please share your script,” the ARvatar instructed.

  Dave complied and the clinic’s AI interfaced with the digital script.

  “Please follow the green arrow to the waiting area for digital addiction. Your case will need to be reviewed and assessed,” it said.

  “My, err, consultant said that I would get a course delivered straight away.”

  “VR addiction can have wide ranging consequences, Mr Charlton. All cases need to be reviewed and assessed before a course of detoxification is authorised and administered. Please take a seat and a mechanical automated medical assistant will be with you shortly,” it said.

  “Can’t you just give me my goddamned drugs so I can go home?” he snarled.

  The ARvatar flickered with static and disappeared.

  “Stupid piece of shit AI,” Dave said as he stomped down the hall, following the glowing green arrow painted on the floor of his private ARSpace.

  The waiting room looked like a zombie apocalypse had ravaged the gaming community, and they’d all decided to come here to munch on some brains. Most of them looked like the scum of the earth. They were gaunt and malnourished, with distant eyes undoubtedly imagining a world that wasn’t this one. Most of them probably were in a different world. Jacked in to whatever virtual space had ensnared them. Fucking jack-heads. Normally you see them on the street corners, begging for a money transfer to get their next fix.

  He scanned the place for a decent seat, trying to pick one the farthest away from the jackers. He chose one in the corner, away from the double doors that led God knows where. To the end of his fun no doubt.

  He slumped down in the chair and let out a deep sigh, annoyed that it had come to this.

  The head and shoulders of the clinic’s ARvatar appeared at the top of his HUD.

  “Thank you, Mr Charlton. You are 17th in the queue. Calculated waiting time is currently forty-three minutes,” it informed him, gesturing over to the right hand side of his HUD where his queue position and anticipated wait time slid into view.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled as the ARvatar disappeared.

  Forty-three minutes? With his time dilation plug-in, that would be hours in Galaxy War. If Becks got her way this could his last ever session. Although he’d see about that. He had no idea what was going to happen behind those closed doors, but there must be a way to turn this around? He could dial it back, sure; he didn’t want to lose Becks and Jake, but surely he would still be able to play a bit. If he could convince her he was serious about cleaning himself up, whatever that meant, maybe he could keep his profile.

  He was about to connect when a jack-head loomed over him.

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  “What?” he spat, annoyed at the intrusion.

  But when he looked up, he was surprised to see it wasn’t a jack-head at all. In fact, she was extremely pretty. Pink hair all messed up. Deliberately torn clothes. And lots of bare skin. Her skin is what drew his eye immediately. Glowing lines and shapes flowed over her body, tracking her curves and contours. She was covered head to foot in ARt. At least he assumed it was all over. The constantly flowing tattoos appeared and disappeared beneath the edges of her
clothing. He queried her appearance with merely a thought.

  His personal AI assistant captured her image and cross-referenced it, delivering the information straight to his HUD. He scanned through it quickly. Dave cancelled the wiki feed with a thought.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you,” he said.

  “No worries, man. Look, any chance I can sit here? Those jack-heads are giving me the creeps,” she admitted, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.

  Dave looked behind her and two dishevelled husks were leering at her, practically salivating as they watched the glowing lines of her ARt flow all over her body.

  “Yeah, sure. Of course,” he said.

  She stepped past him and sat down, distancing herself from the lecherous creeps.

  “Thanks. They kept pinging my personal profile, over and over again, with disgusting pictures of themselves. Dirty bastards,” she said with disgust.

  “No problem,” he said.

  “So what you here for then? You don’t look like a jack-head,” she said.

  “Well, that’s not what my wife thinks. She says I’ve got a problem. Get detoxed or don’t bother coming home.” Maybe it was from talking to someone about it, even a stranger. Or else it was the fact the drugs had worn off. But either way, he noticed his hands were shaking again.

  “Hey man, we all need our jack time, right?” She encouraged as she took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  Yes, exactly. Why couldn’t Becks see that?

  “Fancy telling my wife that?”

  She laughed at his joke and he watched as her ARt flowed around her mouth, tracing her smile lines.

  “Sure,” she offered, giving him a big smile.

  “So, you into your gaming then?” he asked, a little nervously.

  She crooked her arm and clenched her fist. Her whole arm turned black. Pinpricks of white light faded in from the blackness. A familiar blue spaceship appeared around the curve of her wrist and shot up her arm, rocketing towards her shoulder. As it reached her elbow, a purple ship appeared from underneath her tank top and streaked towards the other craft. They started to dance and twist around each other, firing off salvos of laser fire. Eventually the blue ship pulled a manoeuvre that placed it right behind the purple one and it unleashed a torrent of destruction against its engines. The purple ship exploded. Fragments of smashed spaceship flew in all directions. Some of them exploded out of the confines of the scene on her arm and came flying towards Dave’s face. He ducked out of the way and watched them fade into nothing over his shoulder. When he looked back, the blue ship stopped on her upper arm and then unfolded. The metal flattened to reveal the Galaxy War logo.

  “Woah, that was awesome. Did you program that yourself?”

  “Yeah, most of it. I got a bit of a hand off my boyfriend, though,” she admitted.

  “So you play Galaxy War then?”

  “Have you heard of it?”

  Dave excitedly conceded the truth. “That’s pretty much why I’m here. That’s all I play. So which Outfit are you in?” He inquired.

  “DevilFish. You?” She returned the question.

  “The Gloaming,” he admitted to her with pride.

  “Alien loving freak,” she said.

  He laughed. “Better than being rebel scum.”

  “Fair point,” she acknowledged.

  “So how come you’re here then? You don’t seem like a jack-head either,” he said.

  “Me and my fella are doing closed beta testing for a new plug-in. We need to come in for a weekly check-up to make sure it’s not frying our brains. It’s a bit of a drag, but the app is amazing, so we don’t mind too much,” she explained.

  “That sounds pretty involved. What’s the plugin do?” Dave asked, his curiosity starting to take hold.

  “It’s pretty cool. It’s called Mul-T. It’s basically like a multi-tasking app. It allows your brain to focus fully on multiple tasks at the same time. It takes a bit of setup and you need to train yourself to use it, but it’s fucking awesome.”

  “Ah, OK. What sort of stuff can you do with it?”

  “I’ve been using it nearly all day today to tidy up the house and play Galaxy War at the same time,” she said with a grin.

  “Right. You been running it long?” He balled his fists to stop his fingers from twitching.

  “About two months or so. It’s taken that long to train it properly. Although, now it’s getting better and better every day.”

  “I see. And how did you get into the beta?” He asked, his heart racing.

  “Well, it’s closed beta, so it’s invite only,” she informed him.

  The cut on his head stung as a bead of sweat rolled over the broken skin, but he had to ask, “Any chance you could sort me out with an invite?”

  “I dunno. I don’t want to risk getting kicked out. It’s under NDA, you know.”

  “Not even for an alien loving freak like me?” He asked as his finger nails dug into his palms.

  “I might be able to convince my boyfriend. He’s pals with one of the testers, that’s how we got in.”

  To hide his increasing desperation, he clasped his hands together as if in prayer and pleaded, “Please. Honestly. Anything. I’ve got money — me and my wife, we do OK. She trains medical mechs. I can pay you… “

  She laughed, and for a second he thought she was just going to brush him off.

  “OK, OK, I’ll see what I can do,” she said, taking his clasped hands and lowering them.

  “Thanks,” he said, noticing his hands were relaxing a bit.

  “Mind you, it’s got some pretty steep requirements,” she explained. “It copies a large portion of your brain function to your home hub. It uses that to stream motor control and responses whilst you do something else. Which means you have to use it at home, at least for now.” She said.

  “So you can talk to people, too?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. I can still have a relatively decent conversation when playing. It’s odd. It’s like you know what’s happening, but you don’t control it. The plug-in controls it all. All your responses… everything. It isn’t good with tasks you’ve never done before, or any conversation that evokes a lot of emotion. But that’s why you need to train it. Once you do that, the multi-tasking just gets better and better. The dev’s reckon soon you’ll be jacked in permanently, but live a normal life at the same time. Like splitting your entire brain in half. Crazy, eh?” She said.

  “That sounds really far out. I didn’t think they could do anything like that yet,” he said.

  “Me neither. Some sort of new advancement in transcoding or something. I don’t know. I don’t care, really. As long as I can play Galaxy War uninterrupted, I honestly don’t care how they do it,” she said.

  Uninterrupted. That’s what he needed. He’d be able to do all the jobs Becks set him every day, all the ones he carried out metronomically, without thinking. And looking after Jakey too. Then he wouldn’t have any more accidents either. It was perfect.

  “Do you want me to talk to my boyfriend then?” She asked.

  “Yeah, definitely. That’d be amazing. Any idea when? Could I get an invite tonight? I’m going to have to get this drug delivery authorised, otherwise she will know something is up. But as soon as I get home, I can jack-in. My Outfit has a big combined operations night tonight,” he said.

  “Yeah, mine too. I don’t suppose you’re going after the Ashur Cluster, are you?” She asked cleverly.

  He chuckled. “I couldn’t possibly comment,” he said, a big grin spreading over his face. He never had an opportunity to share any gaming comradery with anyone in real-life, and the connection felt amazing.

  “Well, it was worth a try. Share GUIDs then, and I’ll see what I can do. No promises though,” She said.

  They pressed their palms together and a translucent cube appeared in the air. Dave traced a finger inside the cube, drawing a glowing blue circle. He pressed his palm against it and an imprint of his hand glowed red i
n the centre. She clasped her fingers and the cube collapsed in on itself.

  “So if I do get you access, will you get to play tonight?” she asked.

  “Yeah, my wife and kid will be asleep, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  He watched her eyes dart around her invisible HUD as she looked over his personal profile. He did the same, absorbing her data in a glance.

  “Woah, ninety-nine point six percent progress towards BR 40. Impressive! Hey, you really are a jack-head,” she said.

  “Very funny,” he said, suddenly serious.

  “Oh, come on, Dave. I was only teasing.” She tilted her head and her eyes were suddenly awash with artefacts. When they cleared, the Galaxy War logo burned brightly from their centre.

  “Forever war. Forever fun,” she said in a gruff military voice, mimicking the games strapline. The logo flipped and her eyes returned to normal.

  He burst out laughing. This girl was something else. Becks never just joked around with him like this.

  “Honestly, though, with this Mul-T plug-in, you’ll be BR 40 in no time.” Her eyes danced around her HUD again. “Right, my test results are in and they’re all clear, so it’s jack-time, baby,” she said, throwing him a repeating smile as she stood up. “I’ll try and let you know tonight, OK?”

  “Thanks, Starr.”

  Dave watched her walk out of the clinic, eager to make the most of every last second, drinking in every curve as the ARt flowed over her body. If only he wasn’t married.

  “Hey,” she called. “Good luck with the raid,” she said with a wink before walking away.

  Dave beamed ear to ear, ignoring the glares as he tracked her every movement out of the clinic.

  ± ± ± ± ±

  The heavy wooden door swung open just as he stepped up onto the porch.

  “Welcome home, Mr Charlton, you have one message waiting from Mrs Charlton,” the house AI said.

  He ignored it as he strode into the kitchen, straight to the nano-factory. He could guess what the message was, and frankly, after everything that had happened this evening, he needed a drink before he could deal with any more of Becks’ shit.

  “Lagavulin. Triple measure,” Dave said to the house AI. It accessed the template for a 16-year-old peaty whisky, and instructed the nano-factory in the kitchen to dispense his drink.