The Metaverse: Virtual Life-Real Death Page 6

  So was the cold metal of a gun barrel.

  Argosi shuddered at the thought of what was becoming of human beings. Large warehouses and factories were converted into H-pod facilities across the globe. These structures held individual living H-Pods where many people spent the vast majority of their time. Going in-world 24/7 was now all the rage.

  Even bodily functions occurred within the pod. There were whole corporations with virtual offices where people went to work without ever leaving their home or H-Pod. College students could take one class at Harvard and the next at Stanford, sitting in a classroom or walking around campus that they might be thousands of miles from.

  Naturally, with such a stationary client base, all sorts of products sprang up to take care of the distracting biological body. One of the most revolutionary was the world-changing “Nutrient” packs. Developed for long distance space flight, “Nutrient,” both the name of the company and the product, solved other human problems like obesity. And more pertinently the need for bowel movements. Nutrient came in a couple of forms: liquid or a Jello-like substance either flavored or plain. The plain could be flavored through aroma enhancement to taste like anything you wanted.

  Primarily H2O, Nutrient fed just enough Nutrients into the body to provide for daily caloric output. Calories in equaled calories out while making you feel satiated. Any excess would be passed out through the urine which could easily be dealt with in the H-Pod and monitored so as to not “over Nutrient,” which could cause protein buildup and lead to kidney stones or gout.

  The thought of it made Argosi queasy. You could always tell who was on it. Many of the younger cops training here took the stuff. They were the ones with minimal body fat and gaunt faces. Argosi sighed. He just did not know if he could trust a man who did not shit at least once a day.

  Argosi jabbed a knife hand at the tech.

  “Tell him that you had to deal with a door alarm or something that is going to delay his jumping in. I’m going to suit up as a controller to watch from inside the sim. Don’t let him know I’m here. I’ll handle my environmental and portal controls.”

  “You got it, boss.” The tech keyed his mike to Keyton to let him know it would be a couple of minutes.

  ***

  Argosi strode to the room that housed the H-Pods for the exercise controllers, support personnel, and non-student role players. These H-Pods were identical to the ones in the student facility but had a control panel that gave the capability of controlling or adding things into the sim as well as the ability to move about a sim at will.

  Argosi entered the windowless and cavernous room with its thirty-foot ceilings. Before him were two dozen H-Pods lined up in two rows with a walkway down the middle. Yellow lines marked where you could walk to avoid getting banged by one of the H-Pods moving about its hydraulic lift. Each pod connected to a multi-axis connector that allowed the H-Pod to rotate in any direction through the vertical and horizontal allowing for someone to be inverted or to lay flat in a prone position on their stomach or back or their side. The whole unit was attached to a hydraulic boom system connected to a circular base bolted to the floor that moved it into the air, like an airplane simulator, but with a full longitudinal and latitudinal axis. The H-Pod too could be raised or lowered the total distance from the floor to ceiling. Inside of it, one would feel gravity, acceleration, deceleration and centrifugal force all tied into the three-dimensional sights, sounds and feel within the H-Pod.

  It is what made Stezno’s fall so real earlier. In reality, her H-Pod was dropping very slowly so as not to run out of room before she hit the ground in the simulation. But when combined with the visual effects and falling over backward still in a sitting position as she was taped to the chair as well as inverted in the H-Pod the effects on the inner-ear in conjunction with everything experienced by her body, and more importantly her mind, made it terrifyingly real.

  Like anyone that watches a roller coaster ride on a screen from the rider’s vantage point. Even though you’re not moving, you still “feel” the drop as the ride accelerates downward after the steep climb. In fact, your mind is anticipating the drop even before the rollercoaster crests the top of the incline.

  Now imagine that while upside down and moving downward while the visual that you see is the ground rising at you at terminal velocity and the wind blasting you as it roared past your ears. The slight downward movement of the H-Pod amplified in the sim by the visual and sound that you experienced. That your mind convinced you were real.

  It was enough to scare a person to death.

  Still, it allowed humans to soar like birds in a sim with an appreciation for it that no bird could ever have. When Argosi dove head first in the simulation to escape the penthouse his body in the H-Pod went horizontal. When the rockets fired, he felt the initial kick as the H-Pod jerked him forward and up. To one of the techs monitoring the POD’s, the H-Pod would have been parallel to the ground angled up slightly and slowing rising towards the ceiling. At the apex of his flight, Argosi’s H-pod would have begun to angle down as the H-Pod slowly lowered in conjunction to what was happening in the sim.

  With the arrival of SecondSkin, this integration of human being, hardware and software had become seamless. It meant that all things digital could become three-dimensional and all things three-dimensional could be made digital. Now the organic nature of human beings could be transformed into a meld of machine, biologic, and digital.

  Argosi stepped up a ladder attached to the outside of the pod which separated into an upper and lower portion; the upper body part elevated several feet above the bottom one. He stepped over the outside of the lower torso of the H-Pod before sitting on the edge. Slowly he lowered himself into the unit, sliding each leg into its respective position. Argosi felt the exoskeleton expanding around his hips legs and feet adjusting to his particular size and shape. In a moment Argosi was completely stable supported by the system.

  Argosi glanced up at the upper torso hanging over his head. He pushed a button on the top torso edge which activated the top to lower onto him as he placed his arms into the sleeves into their respective places as he felt his hands go into the glove portion.

  As the upper and lower parts mated at the waist Argosi’s head popped into the head portion. Completely enclosed, the interior of the headpiece was sealed off, along with the rest of his body from the outside world. He could not see nor hear the outside. As it powered up, he scanned the blue tint of a computer screen that completely wrapped around him. In the sim, he could look in any direction up and down and see just as if he was standing there. At the moment it was blank with a transparent keyboard and controls floating out in a blue haze in front of him.

  Argosi felt the H-Pod inflating its air bladder that adjusted the exoskeleton to his body pressing firmly so that the pressure on his body was equal and neutral. This was the most limiting part of these first-generation systems; you could always to some extent feel the exoskeleton. Especially since, in Argosi’s case, he wore everyday clothing. If Argosi had been a full player in the current sim as he was earlier, he would have donned a tight-fitting suit similar to a wet suit that would have mitigated the presence of the exoskeleton and is far more comfortable. Known as an “Intermediate Suit,” it fit better and wouldn’t bunch up like loose fitting clothes tend to do after a time in the pod.

  The ability of humans to adapt to their environments was another key. After being in the H-Pod for an extended period, your body grew accustomed, and you no longer noticed the pod as you moved in a natural way. You were also preoccupied with other things occurring in the sim. For those reason officers undergoing training in the pod would spend a couple of hours before any operation doing the routine tasks of their jobs. Exercising or doing some activity before the training exercise. By the time the mission commenced they would have become used to the exoskeleton’s presence and in most cases no longer noticed it.

  Argosi moved his hands up and they came into view on the blue screen in front of
his eyes. He waved them over the keyboard and linked into the control room. As he did so, his whole headset filled with the sight of the building and the Las Vegas skyline. As if he was floating above the strip, the transparent keyboard, monitor, and controls were still visible over the images.

  In the control mode, he could see where anyone else was in the sim. Selecting a tab marked “Roster,” Argosi saw only Keyton’s name active. Argosi tapped on his name and a second menu popped up showing his location and other pertinent information. Argosi opened a window with a view of what he was doing. At the moment, he was in the stairwell where he had set the charge before when Argosi had exited the penthouse with the two male hostages in the earlier exercise.

  Argosi selected another set of controls and tapped one marked “Ghost.” This mode would allow him to go anywhere in the sim without being seen or heard by the participants. He could float and move through walls or any surface as he pleased. Argosi then tapped the “TP” button for teleport next to Keyton’s name. In an instant he was standing with Keyton and his team on the stairwell, Keyton completely unaware of his presence.

  Argosi looked at Keyton and the other officers. Keyton was the only actual live human in the sim. The other members of his team were represented by AE’s. They looked identical to the team members. The sim currently running was an exact duplicate of the exercise.

  These AE team members defaulted to a script based on their jobs or the directions given by Keyton. That’s where the tech back in the Control Room was needed. He assigned the AE’s to the copy of the exercise that they were now using. Likewise, all the other training participants and components would default with AE’s assigned by the tech. The sim would run identically to the actual exercise until a new action was introduced.

  When the sim began it would be a rerun and everything would happen as it did in the exercise. However, if a new element was introduced, an alternate ending, for example, could happen based on new actions taken. All the AE’s would adapt within their scripts and or assigned parameters. In essence, Keyton was going back in time for a do-over.

  The tech came over the controller link in his headset.

  “You ready, LT?”

  “Roger,” Argosi responded.

  Through the link, controllers in their H-Pod could see and hear anything they wanted or could talk and see each other in the sim without anyone else hearing them or seeing them; it was sort of like being God.

  The tech apologized for the delay and told Keyton that the sim would begin at the point he had requested. As the tech made the sim “live,” Argosi’s headset and screen filled with a list of current characters and locations. He tapped on the penthouse and a window opened where he saw himself helping the two male hostages to their feet.

  Argosi touched the TP button next to his name and instantly was in the penthouse, face to face with himself. He had done this before, but it always amazed him to see himself in real physical form. No different than real life.

  He stood there as his character moved “through” him, along with the two hostages. He followed them into the hall. Argosi passed through the wall adjacent to the door on the roof door side of the hallway. Following his character and the two hostages he moved down the hall. When his character and the hostages stopped at the bottom of the roof stairs, Argosi passed through the characters and went up the roof stairs and out of the roof doorway.

  He edged around to the right and over to the edge of the roof as the VTAL-11 swooped in to drop off the four rescue team members. The bird dropped off the team and flashed out of sight. He slid his feet onto the edge so that the top of his boots hung out over the edge. Looking down and leaning over slightly at the waist, he spotted the VTAL screaming downward at high speed towards the Las Vegas Strip below, at least before banking sharply as it pulled out of its dive and raced away. Standing at the roof edge on top of a structure 1000 feet above the ground as he leaned over taking in the sights Argosi had no need to worry about falling. In the ghost mode, he could step out into thin air if he chose to.

  He crouched down as Dave Leonard staged his team in place on the open roof door as the second VTAL flared into land. Argosi moved to within about two meters of the open door and waited. Someone shoved the assistant up the stairs. He squinted as he tripped into the sunlight, stumbling directly towards Argosi before trying to bolt. Two officers prodded him forward again.

  Argosi took a step back, not because he thought the assistant would bump into him but so he could get a better view of the doorway. Leonard swung into the doorway and was felled by two quick gunshots to the head. His eyes shifted to the assistant who disappeared in a flash. Argosi could hear the noise of the explosion, real but within a safety margin. As it would have been to the participants. The two teammates assigned to grab the hostage, along with the second designated shooter, disappeared as the explosive pressure wave hit them.

  Tapping the TP button next to Keyton’s name Argosi was again in the stairwell with the Breach and Hold Team. Stuart gave the “Compromise!” call over the net. Keyton replied over the inner team net, “go time.”

  At about that moment, Stuart’s voice could be heard telling Keyton to hold. Rather than responding to Stuart as he did in the actual exercise, Keyton ignored the radio transmission, stepped back and transmitted over the inner team net.

  “Fire in the hole!”

  Keyton detonated the charge, and the door blew apart into the hallway.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Keyton yelled as he took the point position and charged down the hall to the penthouse door followed by his teammates.

  Argosi skipped through the doorway as the team swarmed down the hall. Tapping his left index finger over the door of the penthouse in his field of view, Argosi moved instantly to that position.

  “Breacher up!” Keyton yelled as a team member moved around Keyton and the man behind him.

  The breacher stuck a golf ball size soft material to the middle of the double doors, stepped back and pushed a button on his rifle. The middle of the door disintegrated, and Keyton and the others shoved through what was left as they rushed in.

  Argosi moved with them standing just behind Keyton. He spotted Caroline Greshold in her chair leaning against the glass as his character applied the explosive charge to the window. Argosi’s character had begun to turn and bring his rifle up towards the hostage when the window behind him splattered with blood from one of the rounds that Keyton had just fired, ripping through his upper chest and out the back of his neck. Argosi cringed as his character crumpled to the floor. It was never pleasant to watch yourself get killed.

  Argosi toggled off the Ghost setting. He materialized next to Keyton who had walked up to Argosi’s dead character, a growing pool of blood exiting it.

  “Admiring your handiwork?” Argosi asked.

  Keyton, who if he was surprised didn’t show it. He smiled as he turned to look at Argosi. Before Keyton could answer, Caroline Greshold, being controlled by an AE began to shriek. “It’s about fucking time you got in here and wasted his ass. If you two frat boys are done talking smack, I’d like for someone to cut me out of this damn tape.”

  Argosi had to smile, for a moment he thought Stezno was still in the sim. Argosi took his index finger and tapped once on Caroline bringing up a menu within a circle superimposed over her.

  He selected “Mute” and her character turned into a gray silhouette of itself still leaning against the window. The butler still had a deer in the headlights look. The rest of the penthouse had filled up with Keyton’s team as they moved to secure it and do secondary searches. Argosi could hear Stuart’s team moving up the hallway.

  Clicking the link to the tech, Argosi instructed him to pause the sim. As he did so, all of the SWAT-HRT elements stopped in place. They did not “freeze,” rather they stood within about a meter of where they stopped. The avatars wavered with random gestures as humans might if waiting in line to see a movie or to be seated in a restaurant.

  Keyton looked at Argosi wearin
g the same black polo shirt with a gold badge stenciled on the front left chest, green BDU slacks with a 1911 style handgun in a holster on his belt that Argosi had worn in the debrief. Keyton nodded towards Argosi’s sidearm. “That antique loaded?”

  Argosi just shook his head as he replied. “Wouldn’t be much use if it wasn’t.”

  Turning more serious as he motioned towards his dead character bleeding out onto the fine wood flooring Argosi critiqued Keyton’s alternate ending. “It looks like it was only a partial win. There are still four dead cops and a dead hostage on the roof.”

  Keyton shrugged. “Well, that was fucked up. Yes, sir no doubt about it. But that was Lt. Stuart’s deal, nothing I could do about that. I had my area of operation and responsibility to contend with.”

  “And that includes violating an order from your commander?” Argosi asked, referencing Stuart’s directive that Keyton hold. Which he ignored in his do-over.

  “It’s not a violation if you didn’t hear it,” Keyton answered with a childish grin.

  Argosi frowned. “What do you say we go get a steak and beer—or two?”

  “There’s a steakhouse on the casino level?” Keyton answered with a grin, savoring Argosi’s irritation.

  “A real steak and a real beer in a real joint in the real fucking world! Not the make believe Nutrient crap that half the troops take!”

  “I know LT, just pushing your buttons sir,” Keyton said with a smile.

  “Good, let’s blow this joint. I’ve had enough of Vegas for one day,” Argosi replied. With that, Argosi clicked on Keyton as he had Caroline and brought up the circular menu again. This time, he clicked on “eject” and Keyton disappeared from the sim.