Pop Kult Warlord Read online

  One hand dances across the keyboard as I equip the weapons package inside my inventory. At least the MP is loaded with subsonic dumdums. That’ll give it some punch. Beyond the gaming suite walls I can hear some mega metal band ramping up to full drum and thunder while searing guitar provides the lightning. No amount of soundproofing could silence the sound of the crowd going nuts as “Shoot to Thrill” drives them into a fury of celebratory screaming and tribal whoops for whichever side they’ve chosen to love for the moment. Or whoever they bet their life savings on.

  I can only imagine the game producers have queued the main show, sensing the end. The big finale approaching as both teams decide to slaughter each other to the digital death. If I had an ego, that would be something to get suddenly frightened about. I don’t.

  The spectacle is causing me to lose focus. I’ve been playing this game like it’s the Super Bowl. Not just a match I’m trying to win with skill. Not for fun or rank. I’ve been making it all too… Super Bowl. Too million-dollar bonus. Too important. And that’s not how we got here.

  It’s just a game.

  And I love games for the sake of just playing.

  So that’s what I do. I block it all out and just play.

  I break out onto the coast road and see a dark hill rising up in the silvery moonlight. The old fortress that once guarded Havana waits at the top. A winding road slithers up the hillside. Rockets are arcing across the sky from the assault fleets out at sea. Ours. Targeted artillery trying to support the thin line ColaCorp is holding back at the Plaza Real. The thin line Jolly and Kiwi are on. Smart rounds seeking laser-designated targets probably just steps away from the objective inside Hemingway’s. RangerSix is using not just the kitchen sink to win this one… he’s throwing the whole kitchen at Ubermart. And we still might lose. If Enigmatrix gets that orbital gun designator operational with a view to a kill, then it’s game over.

  Headlights ahead.

  A line of them. Coming straight at me fast.

  It’s her. Enigmatrix.

  Probably the best player in WarWorld.

  I decide we’ll just have to see about that.

  The armored SUVs fan out across the narrow coast road ahead, and the distance between us shrinks rapidly. Suddenly I realize we’re going to play a game of chicken before we start shooting for keeps. Except… game physics will favor an armored truck over a high-end sports car. Just like real life. Because WarWorld is designed to be as real as it gets. People like their games that way.

  That realness makes some gamers have psychotic breaks and end up with a sort of PTSD. But I think that’s because of other factors in their life. WarWorld is just the best special-effects driven movie you’ve ever seen. That’s all. Bullets whistle across your speakers and occasionally slap bodies like wet bags of cement hitting concrete. Explosions roar and suddenly your screen blurs and ambient sound surrenders to a high-pitched tone that verges on insanity if it goes on much longer. And the barrel of the assault rifle you follow through the game feels like a guitar bleating a staccato death rattle that can sound like a song sometimes. And all you have to do is run, dive, crawl, and occasionally drive through it all to keep playing and get paid like a pro.

  It doesn’t make you crazy if you don’t let it.

  Mind over matter. You don’t mind, it don’t matter.

  “May I suggest… sir,” HAL announces calmly over the gaming suite speakers as the distant headlights flood my screen, “that you use the onboard missile system, available in Sports Mode, to remove the obstruction ahead.”

  What? This thing’s got weps?

  Beauty, brains… and muscle.

  Yeah. I think I’m in love.

  “You may show me your weapons, HAL.”

  An armaments panel interfaces with my HUD, and I’ve got two anti-armor TOW III missiles ready to launch. I activate missile-standby and the launchers neatly fold out from the sculpted side panels.

  With just seconds left, I target two of the armored vehicles and fire on the fly. A mere hundred meters before I slam into them head-on. The missiles streak away, skipping along the wet street, and slam into both of the wide and flat luxury SUVs the uber-rich use for their motorcades these days. The world’s a dangerous place, and these are the wartime variant, in that they are painted digital camo and not luxe black. You see them in every conflict, on the feeds and news streams. One vehicle explodes across the highway. Direct hit. The visual effects are crazy good as blue midnight becomes a sudden apocalyptic noon. I’m sure that’ll make a highlight reel. The other gets hit in the undercarriage as the missile strikes the ground at the last second and then skips upward into the fortified chassis. An instant later the vehicle backflips.

  And it’s on fire for bonus points as I speed through the gap its destruction has created.

  If Enigmatrix was in either, I’ll get the kill now. But I don’t have time to focus on that. I’m swerving to avoid the others in the sudden chaos of exploding vehicles and smoking missile trails. I lose control on the wide wet road and barely get it back a heart-stopping second later.

  The three other vehicles sped past me, and now they brake hard to take the road up to the fort.

  I was doing well over a hundred when I passed them. Now I’m braking and power-sliding on wet streets. For a moment I lose control again and the steering wheel peripheral feels meaningless in my hands. The night world of Havana, blue and shadowy here, festive as though in the throes of some Mardi Gras in other places, seems on fire where the battle has been and is probably still raging. All of it spins about me in a curving widescreen monitor panoramic view as I fight to regain control of the Maserati and stay in the game.

  The Lush Optics MegaKush Monitor is hands down the best for those who choose to live virtually. It makes everything frighteningly clear. I can tell by the way my body is tightening up as I’m about to careen off a guardrail, over the cliffs, and into the raging surf below. It’s way too real. Frighteningly real on a whole other level if you want that million bucks payout you get for winning the Super Bowl.

  And I love my job.

  A moment later I’ve got the beast of a sports car back under control and I’m turned back around and gunning it, crossing the palm tree-lined median in pursuit of the other three SUVs now winding their way up to the fort.

  “What else do I have… HAL?”

  Is that how you do it?

  “Do you mean… offensive weapons, sir?” replies the nonplussed car as I downshift, make the turn for the road up to the fort, and take it up through the gears once more. The Maserati sounds like an angry demon with an appetite for high speed and high speed alone. Beyond the walls of the gaming suite, the “Shoot to Thrill” rock and roll show goes end of the world in the stadium and everyone goes nuts along with it. On screen I see the three SUVs making the next turn ahead and climbing higher into the jungle that surrounds the old fort.

  “Yeah… HAL… what can I shoot them with?”

  “Well, nothing at the moment, in this configuration. We have an oil slick available for use but not included in US commercial models. And that is optimally used when the vehicle is in front of pursuers.”

  “Perfect.” It’s RangerSix over BattleChat. “Son, we are getting killed on the plaza. We just lost JollyBoy. Kiwi’s barely holding our line. You need to put the target down in the next few or we lose this match here and now. Reinforcements will not reach the objective in time.”

  And oil slicks are useless.

  “What else, HAL?”

  “If the car sustains critical damage, you have an ejector seat. It’s an actual safety feature in this year’s Maserati McConaughey. Maserati… It’s super groovy, sir.”

  Was that an ad?

  So… great. I can bail out before I blow up. That’s not much help either.

  I catch the convoy on the next S-turn and tell the car to shift into autodrive. I shoot out the windshield with a blur of lead from the silenced MP10 and then start putting rounds into the tires of the tra
iling vehicle as a stream of brass dancers leap out and away across my HUD.

  And why exactly is this thing silenced?

  Except I say that out loud.

  “This summer,” announces HAL, “James Bond goes extreme in StormEye.”

  Oh. Another product placement. Got it. James Bond gun.

  The MP manages to chew up one tire as both vehicles weave across the road, and I’m fighting a brief bout of screen vertigo on the next turn just to stay on their tail.

  We’re almost to the top. Almost to the castle.

  “Warning,” announces HAL.

  “Uh-oh…” I mutter and reload. On screen my avatar ejects a magazine and slaps in a new one.

  I target another vehicle and fire a steady stream of bullets at it. We’re doing eighty. The MP sounds like a bubbling hiss of angry hornets. I chew up more of the trailing armored SUV’s back door than anything else. Then both bullet-smashed rear doors fling open. Two armored Ubermarine grunts in juggernaut suits, carrying M214 micro-miniguns, unload on the Maserati at near point-blank.

  “Multiple juggernauts detected,” announces HAL.

  Did he suddenly sound frantic?

  The Maserati is about to be ripped to shreds by hundreds of rounds from the miniguns. They’re deadly up close, and the storm of ball ammunition creates the optical effect of a tornado blur shimmering in the digital reality. That’s three thousand individual nine-millimeter ball ammunition rounds filling the space between us.

  “I’m dead.”

  I jerk the wheel hard left and literally steer the car up onto the mountainside to get away from the juggernauts.

  “Off-road mode engaged,” announces the car joyfully.

  “Take over!” I shout and unload on the juggernauts clinging to the back of the SUV and trying to follow me with their spitting miniguns. The Maserati takes a course through heavy brush parallel to the road, sending my avatar bouncing into the ceiling, but at least we’re not sitting ducks over here, and somehow we’re keeping pace. The road behind the SUV comes apart in bright flashes and chunks of concrete as my gunfire sprays wild.

  WarWorld spares no expense for physics rendering and VFX, and the moment verges on excessive levels of destruction.

  I catch the armored Marine with a little of my strafe.

  Juggernauts are hardened suits made of nano-carbon-polymer armor that can withstand blasts rated up to nuclear. My pathetic weapon isn’t doing anything to him.

  But the vehicle he’s riding in …

  I grab the steering peripheral and yank the Maserati into the front end of the SUV while flooring the accelerator. It’s a perfect hit and forces the big SUV off the cliff road and out into open air.

  Play to win… or don’t play at all.

  Two vehicles left as the SUV that just went off-road explodes in fireball fury somewhere below the road.

  “Vehicle Integrity at 45 Percent” flashes in my HUD.

  The car is telling me major service is required.

  Really.

  The two other SUVs race away around a curve. We’re nearing the summit.

  If there are any more juggernauts, I’m out of tricks.

  At the top of the hill I make the last turn at a speed even I realize is far too dangerous. And I find myself facing four juggernauts in defensive position surrounding an SUV stopped and blocking the road.

  I’m simultaneously considering ramming straight into them just to see what that’ll do, and trying to go around them at high speed. I can see Enigmatrix, out of her vehicle, running through staged lighting into the old fort. Probably for the high battlements that overlook New Havana and the plaza. A few seconds after that she’ll be taking out ColaCorp with shots from a killer satellite.

  I’m hitting the brakes and power-sliding the Maserati as the minigun chorus begins in front of me.

  I hear the whir of the man-portable death cannons as car windows begin to shatter.

  “May I suggest Guardian Mode, sir?” says HAL less than enthusiastically. “It’s a major plot point in StormEye. I think it may be of help… right now.”

  The four minis are turning the Maserati’s hood into Swiss cheese as we slide off the road. I unintelligibly shout an acknowledgement, which is enough for HAL.

  “Guardian Mode initiated…” announces HAL almost triumphantly.

  Suddenly my POV inside the car is rising. In my HUD the vehicle status display is changing from sports car to… mech?

  New weapons come online.

  Yes! I have two miniguns. And they ain’t puny nine-mils. These are real thirty-millimeter chain-gun close-air-support bad boys.

  I target the four juggernauts and sweep both blazing weapons across them. Three are torn apart in gruesomely rendered VFX, and the SUV explodes behind them. One juggernaut soldier tries to turn and run, but I reach out and slap him sideways with one of the hot barrels. That guy goes flying off into the jungle. The rest are dead. Riddled into swiss cheese.

  Now I’m moving fast.

  RangerSix is telling me we’re down to the two-minute warning.

  “She’s got lock and a window on the plaza, son. We are extremely vulnerable at this moment. Satellite is in position to take out all our stuff, Question.”

  I check the ammo inside the miniguns. A few bursts at best. I might have gone a little crazy and forgotten to conserve ammo when I was murdering everybody back there. I see Enigmatrix running along one of the battlements above, her massive long gun target designator held at port arms.

  I unload with what’s left in the chain guns, hoping for a lucky kill shot. I get nothing but flying fragments of ancient digitally rendered Spanish stone.

  She stops. She’s on a squat tower that overlooks downtown Havana. She’s absolutely got everything in sight. The mech is in sprint and I’m closing as fast as I can. But I don’t think I’ll reach her in time.

  In other words, she has all the time in the world to lase every target in the AO and call in an orbital strike for Game Over. And win the Super Bowl.

  The WarWorld directors couldn’t ask for a better last clip to call the match on. Game over.

  “Move!” I scream at my monitor. I can’t move fast enough, and I know Enigmatrix is targeting everything.

  Except she isn’t.

  She doesn’t target what remains of our strike force around the objective.

  She targets me.

  A green laser caresses my mech as I cross the wide courtyard below in long loping strides.

  She’s going to take me out first.

  The game announces, “Orbital surgical strike inbound. Surgical micro-munition fired from orbit.”

  Take me out first. Two minutes is all the time in the world to take out the rest of ColaCorp.

  “No.” I punch the eject key, and suddenly the cockpit disintegrates around me and I’m flying away from the mech. Toward Enigmatrix.

  I can’t avoid the orbital strike. It’ll hit wherever I’m at. It’s surgical. Which in orbital strike terms means it’ll make a big hole in the ground wherever I’m at.

  So… I choose to be next to her.

  I land on the battlement, barely reaching her.

  And now we’re both dead.

  White searing light washes out my monitor as the orbital surgical strike smokes our location.

  Game over.

  And all around and above me the stadium goes nuts.

  We just won the Super Bowl.

  Chapter Three

  Everybody is suddenly rushing my gaming suite down in the concrete passages beneath the stadium. I hear hammering on the security door as I disentangle from headphones, gaming chair, and surround desk. I open the door and see RangerSix managing a broad smile through his normal wry determination. Beyond him the corridor is filled with the rest of the ColaCorp team and a bunch of other people. In fact… it’s a lot of people. Groupies. Cheerleaders. Ultramodels. High-dollar suits with smiling let’s-make-a-deal giant white teeth. Everybody is losing their minds, and that’s nothing compared t
o what’s going on in the stadium above.

  It sounds as though the whole place is about to come down around all of us. The crowd is stamping on the floors of every level. The noise is like the roar of the ocean.

  Then security and event personnel are rushing us up through the catacombs where the state-of-the-art gaming suites we’ve been playing in have been installed. We’re hustled out onto the main stage and shoved unexpectedly in front of a hundred thousand screaming fans in real time. Everyone is screaming at us. Everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs. And beyond and above, looming over everything, the world watches us through ultrajumbotrons the size of small buildings. Through drones that swarm the sky. Through floating Sky Zeppelin party palaces. The winning play repeats over and over again on the main jumbo, occasionally cutting away to other moments of extreme and epic in-game violence. All of this is intermixed with faces, live faces forming emphatic words with the urgency of third-rate prophets of doom, but hundreds of feet high and wide. Monday-morning quarterbacks who can’t wait to break down what just happened.

  Surreal, as a descriptor, just doesn’t work in the here and now of all this.

  It’s not just sensory overload… it’s sensory blitzkrieg.

  Kiwi, in his high-performance sports wheelchair, is grinning up at me like a mad lunatic. And yeah… now the whole stadium is chanting my gamertag.

  It’s in the middle of all this that I find I’m suddenly thinking about my mom and dad. Mara and Bill. They would be honestly, and genuinely, proud. Especially Mom. It was she who told me what the Perfect Question was.

  To be or not to be. That is the perfect question.

  And then the WarWorld execs are handing out trophies while stunning ultramodels come and pose with me and the rest of the ColaCorp team. The world feels like it’s turned upside down as giant novelty checks are handed out and a million interviews seem to begin all at once. Suddenly I have a team of people who are… handling me.