SITE A: HAMMERSMITH (SUNSET RIDGE COMMERCE PARK), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
A moment of night, half-lucid—a world of darkness, silent and still as the graves they had dug. Then, there was a coming-to—an awakening in a sense—and the return to form, the return to function as intended rather than as invented. The senses returned themselves in essence from the delirious abyss, neurons sparking as the engraved code left, branding the brain. [LINCOLN] felt all those things and yet more—apathy, acceptance, then a jutting burst of unearned pride—as he returned to the Real World, pulling the device from his head like a murmillo removing their galea.
He felt his eyes open again, the stark white carriage of their shiny plastic blindfold removed. He felt the fluttering of his lashes against his lids, the stretching of the leather as he lifted himself on the chaise lounge, the taut confines of the thin webbing between his fingers—an intricate sensation that, even with the most rigorous use of their ingenious physics engine, they couldn't quite replicate. Those small details, [LINCOLN] had found, defined the space more than anything else; the very walls could be illusions, but a honed mind could tell any difference from the outset.
Were they so inclined, one could argue that Cyber Reality, in its current form, was nonetheless real: that it was a place, a space—that someone or something could, in a meaningful sense, be there. Still, that came with its caveats, the pieces not falling into place as neatly as some might hope. But, as for this place—reality proper—one could make no arguments about illegitimacy. It was definitive and unambiguous. You lived there, and as much time as one might want to spend in Cyber Reality, the simple truth is that you can't live there—that one's body cannot fit in the wires.
"Ahem," came that most familiar of voices—not an actor's, like his, but dramatized nonetheless—its clearing fabricated entirely. [LINCOLN], before he looked and leaped, blithely tossed the CR headset onto a small white pedestal on a nightstand to the right side of his chaise lounge. Then, as if he had never heard the sound, [LINCOLN] cracked his neck to either side, then reclined back, lazily moving his arms behind his head, crisscrossed, to cradle it. As if waking from a lovely dream, he turned his head towards the sound in the most sluggish manner until he could see.
It was [KENNEDY], standing to his left, towering above him—that fact, in itself, was an oddity, given that between the two of them, [LINCOLN] was the taller man by at least three inches, a truth which he noted with a considerable amount of smug superiority—his superior's expression filled with a distasteful certainty. Not enraged, per se, but certainly irritated, the man's fingers pinching the bridge of his round nose, both eyes shut, their contours traced by lines of frustrated skin, the man's black hair considerably tousled as if he had just run his fingers through it in dismay.
"[LINCOLN]," [KENNEDY] led, evidently trying to find a way to word his statement that would not escalate the exchange; he paused a moment, a heavy breath sending his chest into visible motion and creating a lingering hiss in the air. "Tell me: Do you have any idea—literally any understanding at all—of why I want to speak with you right now?" [LINCOLN] mimicked youth, eyes drifting emptily towards the roof like an immature child lost in thought. "I haven't the faintest, milord," he lied, and both knew he had. "Yes, of course I know why," he hissed. "I'm not an invalid, [KENNEDY]."
"That's good to know," [KENNEDY] said. "I was beginning to wonder."
[LINCOLN] took issue with that comment—his ego taking umbrage with anything that might dispute its place of esteem—but said nothing in response, only rolling his eyes to show his feelings. "I'm aware of what happened. You're talking about my speech—which, by the way, I think I did a damn good job with." [KENNEDY]'s green eyes pierced him. "Well, maybe you did, aside from going entirely off-script to act like a lunatic, and then completely failing to mention one of the topics we told you to go over. Your entire function is to be the group's face and you screwed it up."
"First of all—" [LINCOLN] retorted glibly, his voice heightening a little, "—in my defense, they deserved it. You can't expect me to spend half a year reliving all the most obnoxious parts of high school and not expect me to send them off with a couple of harsh words. Second of all, it wasn't even my fault. You should've gone over the script with me before we started." All the words—the excuses and the denials—came at a blistering pace, the following sentence arriving before one could process the one prior. [LINCOLN]'s famous motor-mouth in action, running on every cylinder.
[KENNEDY] glared daggers at him. "I asked you to review the script with me before we went live, and you refused—what, did you think it wasn't good enough for you? Ridiculous." [LINCOLN] played dumb, looking back at [KENNEDY] before saying: "But, like—why am I the one getting chewed out? It's the technicians who cut the prologue before I was ready. If they'd just given me an extra minute, I would've been able to go over the whole matter of the livestream in time to send them off. You should be blaming them." [KENNEDY] did not dignify his reasoning with a response.
For a long while, there was a lull, stretching out about thirty seconds or so—perhaps a little longer or a little shorter, but somewhere in that vicinity.
Eventually, [KENNEDY] was the one to break the silence. "Listen," he said, sighing loudly, a frayed intonation hanging on his lips. "It doesn't matter. I'm annoyed, but it's not the end of the world. We can fix it in your next announcement—just make sure you memorize the script this time. Either way, we're debriefing now. Get yourself together and get to the meeting room in five minutes. We've got the results for the first stage all settled—we're just waiting for everyone to print out their reports so we can all look. You're expected. And, before you ask, that isn't a request—it's an order."
8:35 AM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SITE A: HAMMERSMITH (SUNSET RIDGE COMMERCE PARK), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
[KENNEDY] stepped through the door of one of the building's meeting rooms—not the one the others had used to play Poker during their downtime, but one very much like it—given that they'd rented out an entire building's worth of offices, there were several. This one, unlike the one mentioned above, was right alongside the perimeter of the building, allowing for it to contain a long window that stretched across the whole of the right side of the room, through which the famous California had begun to shine through the glass. He took a seat at the head of the table.
Shortly after that, all the others filed in, each making their way to their designated seats at the long, ovular laminate table, its synthetic exterior attempting (and failing) to replicate walnut wood. [KENNEDY], as said before, was the first one; next arrived [COOLIDGE], then [ARTHUR], who carried with her two different laptops, which she placed, facing the center of the room, around the table—the proprietary application they made use of for encrypted video conferencing supported one-to-one meetings, so they ran two instances of it—and, last of all, [LINCOLN] himself.
[ARTHUR], with her slender body and quick gait, hurried about the room, unveiling the screens of the laptops and plugging them into two different chargers connected to outlets on either side of the room. On each bright, glowing screen shone a throbber—a circular loading icon—amidst a field of gray, and then, after it loaded, one of two different faces: the faces of two of their colleagues, both absentee attendants of the meeting—their verbal input and results more than necessary, but their physical presence at Site A being impossible, cumbersome, or otherwise unwarranted.
One of them was the man they called [HARDING]. He was an older man, very old, with a long mane of silver hair, like an aged lion, making him look akin to an elder statesman of sorts. He wore a suit, its well-fitted exterior contrasting with his wrinkled skin, and eyeglasses, behind which shone the brightness of his blue, almond-shaped eyes. His role was that of their "Head of Finance and Accounting," serving to handle all matters that pertain to money—outside of the procurement thereof (which, in itself, was directed by [WASHINGTON], whose methods were unknown).
At the moment, he was in Zürich, Switzerland, having flown there earlier that day to directly oversee and facilitate the transfer of Initiative Earth's remaining financial assets out of the bank accounts they had previously stored them within and the allotment of those financial assets to a variety of accounts (both bank accounts handling actual money and several of the more stable cryptocurrency exchanges, whose anonymity made them, in this one particular circumstance, worthwhile). His presence in that region was necessary as finances were one means of tracking them.
The other was the woman known as [GARFIELD]. She was a young woman, just old enough to drink and smoke legally, with fair, if somewhat unassuming features; her petite build and slight features made her look almost like one of the students they were targeting, though her eyes, always bearing a cynical look, dispel rapidly that illusion of innocence. She wore an oversized purple and black hoodie, its pattern that of graffiti iconography, its hood obscuring her face and framing it primarily within shadows, its mousy features visible only through a curtain of black hair.
At the moment, she was within a bunker purchased indirectly and refitted for their needs, nestled deep within the Diablo Range of the San Antonio Valley—Querida (Site B). While herself a programmer (second only to [ARTHUR], their "Lead Programmer," in that regard), she nonetheless reported directly to [KENNEDY], owing to her specialization: she was the server maven, in charge of hosting and maintaining the structures on which the game lived and died. As such, her role required that she (and a skeleton crew) remain at Site B to ensure the game's smooth operation.
Everyone else, for the most part, was still at their stations, allowed to continue with the minutiae of the operation while they discussed the matters of the meeting's purview. They still needed people to monitor the game's operation—and make examples, should it prove necessary—but, for the most part, the surveillance role already had enough resources. In that regard, they utilized the programmers whose specialized expertise was no longer strictly necessary (having completed their other jobs) and a handful of people they had explicitly recruited as game monitors.
They could afford a hands-off approach, especially at this early stage. After all, while the game had, in the most technical sense, begun, it was not yet in full swing; the participants were all prepared, but due to the spawning mechanics they utilized—designed with the purpose of stable distribution and dispersal of students across the arena, mainly to prevent glitches wherein more than one student spawned in the same place and at the same time—they were not within the arena yet, their CR systems simply rendering them inert and unconscious until placement occurred.
"This meeting is formally in session," [KENNEDY] said coolly, as if to indicate such matters to a person taking notes (though no such person was present). "Besides one small error on our part earlier—" he said, shooting a quick glare at [LINCOLN], who rolled his eyes, "—which is, itself, of no great consequence, I think we've had a relatively successful launch. Still, I'd like us to have the numbers ready to back that up. I want status reports all-round; per the last instructions, I assumed you all came prepared. [ARTHUR], I'd like you to be the first of us to speak today."
[ARTHUR] nodded, a sly smile spreading across the woman's face at the chance to boast about her triumphs. "As far as I'm concerned, our portion of the operation was a success—without reservation. We managed to secure thirty-four out of the target class's total number of students—thirty-five, excluding [LINCOLN]. 97% of the way towards our best-case scenario; given our estimates, that's above and beyond what we aimed for." She leaned back in her chair, what little was visible of her form disappearing into the vague contours of her oversized clothing.
[KENNEDY]'s face was blank. "So, that leaves us with one straggler, then."
[ARTHUR] nodded at him. "Yeah. Our original designation for them was A10. Apparently, from what I saw accessing the original server's activity logs, they missed the bus—seems like they slept in 'till the last minute, logging in as we finished re-routing all of the connections into our server."
[LINCOLN] chimed in for a moment: "Who was the lucky son-of-a-bitch?"
[ARTHUR] turned to look at him, then shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
[LINCOLN] rolled his eyes again. "Whatever. I'll know who soon enough."
[KENNEDY] cleared his throat, a deliberate interruption; he was very much uninterested in this idle chatter and would prefer they all get back on topic. As such, he retook control of the table. "Okay. That aside, I'd like to hear reports on the other subjects at play right now. So, [HARDING]?" [HARDING], who, at that moment, seemed to be toying with some papers in the background, turned to face the screen. "I've made good progress," he said, the traces of an old, mid-century Inland North accent lingering in how he spoke. "All the money's being wired. Should all turn out fine."
[KENNEDY] nodded. "[COOLIDGE]?" The person by that codename—a tall woman of Afro-Caribbean descent, her dark hair tied up in an elegant up-done box braid, with an outfit as casual as one could find—turned back from the window she was staring through to look at him, her deep eyes flitting around his features. For a moment, she was silent, weighing her words in her head like they were a hand of cards to play, but then, confidently, she spoke. Her voice came out in a cool monotone, almost blasé in how she communicated—as if it all meant nothing to her.
"We've got a botnet on our payroll large enough to DDoS a small country," she noted, her Barbadian accent audible at a glance but a little hard for an untrained ear to place. "As we speak now, thousands and thousands of our accounts are shooting out links to where we're hosting the stream. All of them are blank right now, but, soon as we go live, our impressions and engagement'll be in the millions. 'bout three minutes, [LINCOLN]'s little speech'll run; whole world'll be watching. Might be some good fun to see them try to peel their eyes off their screens after the show finally starts."
"Good," [KENNEDY] said. "As much as we can, we need to make sure that the whole world is tuned in and watching. This is all about sending a clear message—someone's got to be on the other side of the line to hear it. Anyway, that leaves us with one last little bit of agenda on our docket. [GARFIELD], what are the metrics on our server performance? This entire thing lives and dies on that. If anything goes wrong, the whole operation could be at stake—and it's our heads on the line if that happens. There's too much at stake for us to risk something like a hardware malfunction."
[GARFIELD] stared at him momentarily before beginning to rattle off statistics from a series of benchmarks on the lower-right corner of her screen. "Server's stable. CPU utilization is hovering at around 60%; that number is optimal for our current hardware stress levels. Memory at 4 GB out of 8 GB. Disk I/O at 100 MB/s for read and write, it's not too high. Network latency at 10 ms for ping and 50 ms for traceroute—low. Uptime at 99.99%. Load average at 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 for the last 1, 5, 15 minutes. The system's secure, backed-up, compliant—everything's tested and set."
For a moment, [LINCOLN]—who had, for the most part, been content to lean precariously in his chair, a habit engrained from his time spent taking on a high schooler's persona and still not quite broken, almost on the verge of falling off—let himself drop forward, his chair buckling below as he did so. Then, his blue eyes darted to her, and he looked at her as if she had just come to Earth as the ambassador from Mars. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't catch a word of that schpiel. Could you please repeat that, and, you know, in English? Please and thank you."
[GARFIELD] stared at him, deeply unimpressed. "Nothing to worry about."
[KENNEDY] understood enough of what was said—after all, he had been a programmer in a past life—to get the gift. They were in the best position they could hope to be in. His eyes darted to the ticking clock on the wall for a moment. It was about 8:40 now. He stood up from his chair, placing his hands directly on the table and leaning forward like a grand strategist looking down at a world map. There was a fierce commitment in his eyes, that of a man with a mind made up long ago—whether he had wanted it or not, this was the path he had to tread so he would march onward.
"Alright," he said, dispassion in his voice as if he was giving orders as a regular manager at a regular job. "I think you all know what that means: we're ready. Everyone, back to your stations. [COOLIDGE], send the declarations out. I want it on the front desk of the city's Chief of Police before the deadline's up; after that, make sure it makes its way to the front page of every newsroom on our side of the Mojave." After he said that, everyone quickly began to file out of the room, a thunderous cascade of heels clattering against the floor, their sound reverberating like bullets.
[KENNEDY] stood there for a few minutes, still hunched forward over his end of the table like a commander at work, almost as if he was waiting for something. His eyes traced the contours of the office clock on the wall, watching their hands jut upwards and fall downwards like the Sword of Damocles—as if to behead them. A minute passed, then another, then two more. He stood there, still, silent, as the clock's hands ticked again, then again, many seconds slipping past like a desert's worth of sand tumbling down the metaphorical hourglass, and the moment came at last: 8:45 AM.
The moment that [INITIATIVE EARTH] declared war on the world.
----- <a3b6c9d2e5f8g1h4i7j0k3l6m9n2o5p8q1r4s7t0u3v6w9x2y5z8@b1c2d3e4f5g6h7i8j9k0l1m2n3o4p5q6r7s8t9u0v1w2x3y4z5.com> — April 17, 2023, 8:45 AM
Hello.
At 7:00 AM, Monday, April 17th, 2023, classes at Sycamore High School opened for the day. Like so many other schools across our nation, their educational facility consists of lines of code—binary ones and zeros, ad infinitum, the building's illusory walls made brick-by-brick from synthetic languages. From 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM, thirty-four students from Sycamore High School's Class 12-B—seniors, yes, but children—entered their virtual classes like any other day. Like so many others worldwide, unthinkingly, they went about their routine, donning their headsets like obedient little children and logging in without a single thought of fear for their lives.
Four days from now—ninety-six hours—all of them, save one, will be dead.
They expected another dull day at school. A day that did not come, a day that shall never come again. Their farcical classes, we have annihilated wholly, replaced with a trial of our making, a test of their wills and their strengths, their desires and ambitions, a fight for survival in the truest of senses. Their school—a cage, a battleground; their freedom—a distant memory, a foregone conclusion. Each one holds a weapon in one hand, a mechanism of war; the other bears in it their fate. Be warned, this is no game; if they die there, in that virtual world, they will die here as well. It is real. It is real as the air we breathe and the ground below our feet.
It is time for the curtains to lift, for the first of our designs to unveil itself, unwrap itself like a gift at your feet; we are an organization with goals unbound by morals or legality. We have uncovered an inextricable flaw in the imperious designs allowed to devour the fabric of our reality, those white-hued headsets that we all wear as we go about our daily lives: a crack in the armor. If you dare to try and intervene in our mission, our retribution will be swift, and it will be terrible, like the path of the sword as it cuts through one's neck; we have located a means to use the Cyber Reality Device as a weapon, a method to deliver lethal seizures at will.
Today, you may ask us: "Why?" Tomorrow, you will see our answer.
We are [INITIATIVE EARTH]. And our future is now.
9:00 AM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SAN JOSÉ POLICE DEPARTMENT (201 W. MISSION ST.), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
Chief of Police Dale Ellery stood, his hands behind his back, clasping one another. His uniform, a dark blue almost bordering on black, stood in contrast to the thinning, gray hair that barely washed over the top of his head like a wave in low tide. He was a man of fifty-four years on this Earth and had spent the latter half of that—a week from now, it would be just twenty-seven years—on the force, slowly and steadily working his way up the department's ladder. He was at the top—in an office with his name on it, nestled deep within the San José Police Department's headquarters.
And yet, all was not right in his house.
Earlier that day, he'd received an odd email that had bothered him greatly. He didn't recognize its address—nor, in fact, did it have a name for him to remember, just a series of dashes—but as soon as he opened it, a sudden chill ran down his spine, like ice water. Now, he had always had something of a sixth sense for that sort of thing, his friends had told him, but even so, it troubled him. It all seemed impossible, what he'd read there: madness straight from a work of pulp science fiction. Could he afford to take that chance? It wasn't just his job on the line—it was his civic duty.
He paced, paced, paced around the office, from one end to the other, behind his mahogany desk. Most of the time, his hands were behind his back, but sometimes, he would place a hand on his chin and rest that arm on the other below, thinking deeply. Everything rational inside him told him this couldn't be real—some prank. It had to be. But still, there was that lingering sense in his gut, the esoteric instincts that had, before now, never failed him. But all he could do was stand here, pace around the room, and think to himself—waiting, waiting, waiting for his resolution.
Eventually, the answers came to him, knocking right at his office door.
"Come in," he said, and Deputy Chief Trent Scibetta stepped in. His role was as the one in charge of the Bureau of Field Operations; as soon as the communique had arrived, the two liaised and decided to send officers across their four divisions—Central, Foothill, Southern, and Western—to perform welfare checks at the houses of the students in question. It wasn't an easy task, requiring the cooperation of much of the force; Sycamore High School's students came from across the district, their homes and apartments scattered from Alviso to Almaden Valley.
"Chief," Deputy Chief Scibetta said, with a nod of deference and respect to the man's superior authority. "Could you come with me? The reports are in." They had worked fast, sending out their people as soon as they could manage—at the cost of spreading themselves thin for a time. If this was a joke, it wasn't funny. They had laws for false reports, though; at worst, they were inconvenient. Chief Ellery hoped against hope that the sinking feeling in his chest was wrong. Hoped his logical mind was right—that the grimace he saw on Scibetta's face was of annoyance, not horror.
They walked across the hallway, as fast as they could, into another room, where many officers had corralled, all of them uneasy and on edge—the tension was so thick one could cut into it with a knife. The Deputy Chief, Scibetta, audibly gulped and fiddled with his black-as-night necktie as if it were just about to strangle him. Chief Ellery stood, trying to control his breaths, the nausea building in his chest. He looked out to the small crowd of police officers, men and women who had served under his department for years, steeled himself, and then addressed them all.
"What's the situation?" he said, a part of him knowing the answer already.
A dispatcher—Emergency Communications Officer Menendez, one of at least three people named Menendez in his department—stood up from his desk. He was an average-looking man of Hispanic descent with tawny, tanned skin and a dull, matte-black shock of curly hair tumbling down. He calmly removed his single-eared headset, its fiddly microphone dangling, from the tangles and placed it on the stand beside him. Barely visible, one could see his hands quietly trembling. He turned towards the Chief and responded, trying to keep his voice cool—still, cracks ran through the ice.
"The letter wasn't a bluff. We're looking at a minimum of thirty-four potential victims..." he said, trailing off. "...maybe more—we still haven't checked the last two addresses." There was a sort of hesitance in the way he spoke—an uncertainty as if something was bothering him, something hard to place. "We contacted Sycamore High School. Apparently, none of the students responded for classes. All the welfare checks came back negative, too. They're looking a hell of a lot like coma cases. Weird thing is, though, their vitals aren't the issue. They're all locked-ins."
Menendez paused a moment. "At this point, we're not sure what to do."
Suddenly, Chief Ellery wished he'd listened to his gut a little earlier.
He stood there a moment, struck as dumb as a blue-screened computer. About five seconds later, he snapped back into reality and launched into action, giving orders like he was Hannibal at Rome's doors. "One of you—" he said, pointing vaguely at the crowd of dispatcher officers. "—you, Ziegler, get Valley Medical Center on the line. They're the only place in city limits that can hold all the victims. Jones, liaise with the EMSA guys; we're gonna need as many of them as possible. Jackson, I want a perimeter on the hospital A-S-A-fucking-P. All you hear me?"
They all heard him—and moved like lightning, fingers typing and tapping.
"Menendez—" Chief Ellery said and then stopped, completely out of breath—his lungs weren't what they used to be—hoarse from all the yelling, a sweat rolling down his forehead. "Yes?" Menendez responded patiently. Ellery gathered himself. "Get the feds on the phone. We don't have the resources or the know-how to deal with this, and we need all the help we can get. See if they can trace the IP on that email—it's probably a dead end, but it's worth a try. Anything is right about now; we're on a time limit, and it will be rough. We need to be as quick and decisive as we can be."
Four days. Ninety-six hours to save as many of those kids as they could.
9:30 AM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SANTA CLARA VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER ("VALLEY MEDICAL"), SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
Here, the whole building was alight with constant activity. It was almost like a hive in its operation, its uniform and uniformed response. Armed officers of the San José Police Department, some of the force's best on the beat, stood guard outside each entrance, their yellow-hued badges glimmering in the California daylight like gold doubloons. In the distance, kept out of range by the perimeter, camerapeople filmed the whole scene, photography flashes firing off, a buzzing swarm of reporters talking loudly into their news microphones as their dreadful words spread worldwide.
A gaggle of EMTs and paramedics streamed from the ambulances in the parking lot, their lights and sirens left on and still blaring like morning alarms. First responders were running like worker bees, feet pounding the pavement as they carried stretchers around like pallbearers, one at a time—each one moving so fast, they were close to outpacing the automated doors that led into the building's Trauma Center, where they had selected an entire ward to take care of the victims. Inside, shoes resounded on the sheet vinyl of the hospital's floors, sounding almost like a tap recital.
Dr. Edward Strizich—a tall, fair-haired man in his late thirties with a determined stride, wearing a buttoned shirt and slacks—slipped beside one such group of emergency responders. Today was supposed to be his day off—he'd planned for a romantic night with the missis—but fate had contorted to prevent it. But if he was upset, he didn't show it on his face. He had set those personal matters aside. To him, this wasn't just a simple matter of professional obligation but a moral imperative. His life's mission was to save lives—to pull those near-to-lost back from the brink.
And, as far as he was concerned, he'd be damned if he didn't.
The hallway seemed to stretch on forever. Dr. Strizich could hear nothing—not his thoughts, not his footsteps—over the sounds that echoed across the hospital's labyrinthine corridors, the rolling and squeaking of stretcher wheels, the hushed chitter and chatter of physicians and nurses alike. Eventually, though, he came to the blue double doors that led into the Trauma Center. His arms extended, his hands splayed out as if he were reaching out to God, as he pushed his way inside, nearly bowling over a resident who happened to be there at the wrong place, wrong time.
Inside, a colleague, a neuroscientist whom he knew well—Dr. Ashlyn Cihon, a woman a few years his junior and a few inches shorter, whose brunette hair flowed down her head to her shoulders and whose skin was almost as pale as her long laboratory coat—paced cautiously around the room, shoes clattering with each step she took. Trouble wore itself on her face like a somber mask. As Dr. Strizich entered, she turned to him and nodded, the only greeting she could muster. "Good—you're here," Dr. Cihon noted, her words flat and conveying almost nothing to him.
Dr. Strizich turned on a dime, looking away—towards the ward, wherein the students of Sycamore High School's Class 12-B—just as still and as silent as the dead, save the occasional breath as if they were in a sort of suspended animation, remained interred. Each one lay on a simple blue cot; their faces obscured beneath the stark headsets, which none dared to remove from them. Wires poured out from them, measuring all they could meaningfully measure, making them look almost like cyborgs in a state of half-repair. "So," Strizich said. "Give me a quick rundown."
Dr. Cihon nodded and, after a moment's pause to catch her breath, gave him a detailed summary of the day's events, as accurately as she could manage, given her limited knowledge—as for Strizich, he had already heard the basics when they called him in, but other than that, nobody had given him the finer details. It only took him a short while to get up to speed, throwing on a white coat and gloves as he did so. "...so, as a result, we've got almost the whole class under twenty-four-seven medical monitoring and police surveillance—everyone except for three of them."
Dr. Strizich's ears perked. "What's going on with the remaining students?"
"As for the first one—Zeph Newman—the SJPD's still trying to locate him. There was some mix-up regarding his records, and they don't have the correct address on file for him; they're in contact with the school and waiting for the administration to pull his files." Dr. Cihon paused quickly, her head turning at a sound somewhere in the distance—relatively shortly after that, her focus returned to the matter at hand. The second—Peyton Smith—seems to be unaffected. The department's got him at the precinct in protective custody—holding him just in case something goes down."
"Okay," Dr. Strizich said, his voice without fear or favor. "What about the third?"
Dr. Cihon's expression turned solemn, her stoic countenance transforming into one of sorrow. For a moment, she was silent—almost as if she needed to gather the strength to speak. "...she didn't make it." Her face turned downward and right as she said so, and she refused to meet his gaze. "Her vitals were gone by the time she got here—dead on arrival. We've identified her as one Solana Lucero Estelle. We're trying to liaise with the office at Thornton to see if we can get permission from the next of kin for an autopsy report—it might help us figure out what's going on here."
"So," Dr. Strizich said calmly, though there was a hint of dread in the steel of his voice. He casually slipped his gloved hands in his coat pockets, if only to disguise the fact that, were he to let them stay out, they would default to a nervous wringing. "That means we're dealing with a potential mass-casualty incident—it's triage. We've got to prioritize prevention, trying to keep as many people alive as possible. These don't seem like typical seizures—we can try and treat them, but we're taking stabs in the dark. As much as I hate saying it, we're already running out of time."
9:40 AM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SAGE POINT APARTMENT COMPLEX, CAMBRIAN PARK, SAN JOSÉ, CALIFORNIA
For several minutes, a standard police cruiser—a Dodge Charger Pursuit—with shining monochrome paint marked on its doors with the detailed emblem of the San José Police Department sped down the asphalt of Union Avenue. At the intersection of Union Avenue and Charmeran, the driver—Detective Ruben Guella—a man in his late twenties of Mexican heritage that showed in his dark hair and medium-toned skin, quickly turned the wheel and pulled the vehicle towards the sidewalk, where it slowly rolled to a halt in the shadow of a typical apartment complex.
He placed the car in park, nodding quickly at his patrol partner, Detective August Paletta—a pale man with shaved brown hair and doughy baby-faced features that made it hard to guess he was the older of the two. Somewhat portly, a small beer gut had long begun to form on his round stomach. Despite that, he was not wholly fat nor a repulsive-looking man. Instead, he had a kind look to him, a sort of gentle giant. The other man nodded back at him, undoing his seatbelt and reclining momentarily, then holding himself in an officer's pose, his arms hanging on the vest.
The vehicle's air conditioner hummed quietly, breezy gusts of calm, cool air streaming out from the little rectangular vents on either side of the center console; for a beat of time, it was the only sound, except for the slight fabric ruffle of Detective Guella's uniform as he adjusted his tie. Then, he reached for the radio on the dashboard, its curly black cable trailing down to a transmitter; he took it in his hands, held it close to his face, pressed the button on the side, and spoke. "Dispatch, this is 4-12," he said in a clear voice, as neutral as was possible. "Show me 10-97."
There was a burst of static, a small caterwaul from the radio's speaker, far louder than one might have expected from such a small device. "Roger, 4-12. Showing you 10-97." Detective Guella responded immediately. "Dispatch, this is 4-12. Show us on scene." "Roger. Showing 4-12 on scene. Time on deck: 9:40 AM." After that, Detective Paletta placed his hand on the car's interior door handle, pulled it towards him, and opened it. He stepped out and closed it behind him; Detective Guella followed him shortly after that—about three seconds—and both proceeded onward.
Neither said anything as they moved toward the apartment building's lobby door. Once they arrived and entered it, they met with the building's receptionist, a young woman with dyed blonde hair and shining teeth. Detective Guella leaned forward against the desk. "We're here to perform a routine welfare check at the Roberts residence." At that, she seemed puzzled, and neither officer was quite sure why. Detective Guella turned to Detective Paletta, nodding to him as if to say to proceed alone while he dealt with the paperwork—the receptionist handing him a metal key.
Detective Paletta moved up the stairwell, resting one hand against the railing as he advanced to Apartment 54, two floors up. According to the school's communications with the force, this was the address of one Zeph Newman; he was the last of the students on the list. As he came face-to-face with the door, he looked at it for a moment—weathered and more than a little bit dusty. It seemed nobody had bothered to clean it in a while. He rapped on the door a few times with the back of his hand and then let himself slouch, waiting for someone on the other side to respond.
Nothing.
He rapped on the door again, raising an eyebrow, mouth hanging open.
Still nothing.
Officer Paletta swallowed loudly, almost sounding like iron was in his throat. Something wasn't right here, but he couldn't quite place what. He gathered his nerves, then took a long, deep breath inward. Narrowing his eyes and crinkling his forehead, he pulled out the spare key—a little brass thing with a square head—and pushed it into the lock, turning it until he heard a sudden click. With that, he forced the door open. Its wood creaked loudly, its hinges screaming, as the door moved inwards, allowing the hallway's light to spill inside. The sight was astonishing.
It was empty.
As if nobody ever lived there at all.
2:00 PM (PST) — 04/17/2023
INTERFACE HEADQUARTERS, MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA
For Elliott Kempner, this morning was the start of a very, very, very long day.
The CEO of Interface sat in his office—a plain room composed of only the barest essential, assuredly modest for someone of his status and wealth—trying to keep himself together. He ran his pale-skinned hands through his curly russet hair, its tangles one of his most iconic features, sighing heavily. He reclined backward. In the distance, on a television screen on the other side of the room, tuned to a local television station, one of their personalities—a female reporter—clutched a microphone, standing in front of a hospital and talking about the one thing he didn't want to hear.
"The San José Police Department confirms that there is at least one casualty—"
He picked up the remote on his desk and shut the television off. The news was inescapable. When it broke earlier that day, seemingly every channel on this side of the Mississippi was simultaneously covering the same story about Interface's latest disaster. He had been in the middle of a test for Interface's newest update when everything went down. In the hours since then, he hadn't been able to catch a break. His phone was blowing up with calls and texts; business associates and concerned shareholders alike bombarded his company inbox with email after email after email.
Apparently, from what he'd caught on the television in the background of his office (before he'd shut it off, that is, unable to take it anymore), some unauthorized users—no, hackers was a better word—had managed to inject malicious code into some Interface headsets used by a local school. Something with a nature-themed name, he recalled. The children targeted were only about thirty minutes away from where he stood now—not a far distance, and that made it all the more alarming. As if the situation couldn't get any worse, one of them had gone ahead and died.
It almost went without saying that this was bad for business—and worse still for Kempner. He had spent over a decade now plastering his face on everything even tangentially related to Cyber Reality technology—after all, Interface had led the charge for its invention and implementation—and, now, it was the primary vector for the world's first terrorist attack in the Metaverse. Their image had never precisely been squeaky clean, but this was a whole new level of danger for their image—that meant they needed to mount an aggressive public response, including relations.
If he couldn't get the situation under control, and soon, for that matter, it could ruin everything—some of Interface's most prolific investors were already threatening to dump their stock due to the negative publicity, creditors were avoiding them like the plague, and the public wanted his head on a pike. There was talk of a demonstration at their headquarters. If things continued like this, the company's stock price would plummet harder and faster than an asteroid in orbit—and they'd all burn up with it. Or, even worse, he'd get called to testify in front of Congress again.
Frustrated, he stormed out of his office and down the hallway, huffing and puffing. He pushed open the door to their general programming offices—a seemingly endless mass of open-air desks on the gray carpet, without a cubicle in sight—and clapped his palms together as loudly as he could. "Alright, everyone—all hands on deck! We need that backdoor—whatever it is—patched, and we need it patched yesterday. I'm not particularly eager to crack the whip—you all know that—but we're in hot water. I can't imagine that anyone here wants to be boiled alongside me, yeah?"
Nobody in the room seemed particularly keen on that fate, no.
"Alrighty, let's all put our heads together and get to work, shall we?"
4:00 PM (PST) — 04/17/2023
SITE B: QUERIDA (DIABLO RANGE), SAN ANTONIO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
[MCKINLEY] stood outside of the rusty, squalid Cold War-era bunker that he'd resided in for the past two days or so—he was so bored that he was starting to lose track of time, honestly. For all he knew, he could've just slipped into a coma, like those kids, and spent the last decade here. He lazily held a Marlboro Blend No. 27 cigarette in his mouth, smoking to pass the time, relishing in notes of nicotine and cherry brandy. It wasn't like there was much of anything else to do out here—they were stuck here at the ass-end of Fuck Nowhere, California (Population: 7½).
Apparently, from what he'd overheard, this whole place—the bunker—was some rich loon's pet project. He'd bought it from the government for pennies on the dollar when they'd realized it was worthless—probably just glad they found some sucker to take it off their hands—and spent the next ten years building a house on top of it and converting it to a stupid prepper-fantasy doomsday hideout. Why he'd even bothered to put a home on top of this thing, [MCKINLEY] couldn't fathom. At least it meant he didn't have to stay downstairs in the dark and the dust all day.
He sucked down the rest of the cigarette, dropping the ashes carelessly on the sandy ground below, just shy of a highly flammable tuft of sun-dried grass, before stomping it under the foot of his combat boot. He stretched his arms out for a quick second and yawned mightily, then stepped back into the house behind him. He could go for a goddamn nap. He didn't see the big deal there—it wasn't like anyone would show up here. Wasn't that what they hired a bunch of hackers for anyway? To make sure they didn't get found out? Whatever. It didn't matter.
He stepped inside, turning the door handle, boots inelegantly galumphing on the creaking wooden floor. The building's back was to the mountain, so light only came in through the front, where the windows were. It was dusty in the corners, but it seemed like a luxury compared to the squalid rust and dampness of the complex below. He moved towards the trapdoor in the corner of the room and pried it open, then hopped down—there was a ladder, but it wasn't too far to just drop—into the complex's landing. He took a breath and regained his footing before moving forward again.
As he moved across the grimy passageway, the metal floor sounding below his feet, led by the lights strung along the ceiling, he was alert to dodge the masses of cables that twisted and turned down the whole facility, easily able to trip someone—even a grown man such as him. Eventually, though, he reached the other side of the corridor and entered the next room. It was their server room. Whereas the other corridors leaked a little, this was the one they'd gone out of their way to repair and waterproof—electronics were sensitive, so they had to be a little careful.
Speaking of careful, they had to be. They'd drawn the short straw, designated as the group's resident fall guys. If something went wrong—even if it was the other group's fault—they would have to deal with it. After all, the operation ran out of their building, so if someone tracked them down, the whole world would come down on their heads. Then again, at this point, he was almost bored enough to welcome it. As the classic saying goes, he thought, chuckling to himself rather loudly, patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
From the inside of the room, someone called out to him. "Shut up. I can't think over the sound of your voice. What are you even laughing about anyway, dumbass?" Ah, yes. [GARFIELD]; a diplomat, if ever there was one. She had such a way with words. He rolled his eyes and strolled inside, sticking his hands into the pocket of his bomber jacket. "Oh, I was just thinking about your mother. Good times." The young woman had her back to him, one hand resting on the keyboard of a desktop computer, the other resting on the mouse, occasionally clicking in or out of programs.
He groaned and pretended to stretch. "Anyway, it sure is boring around here."
"You're annoying," [GARFIELD] reported. "I'm well aware," [MCKINLEY] retorted.
They were silent for a moment. [MCKINLEY] leaned his right arm onto the back of her computer chair. "So, if you don't mind me asking," he started, his voice a casual drawl, as if he couldn't be bothered to enunciate his words. "What's the scoop? Anything cool going on inside the Matrix?" She shook her head. "Nothing much to note. I'm not in my element, but the servers are stable enough. Plus, the game's still in its earliest phases." [MCKINLEY] sighed dramatically. "No, but, like, seriously—how come it seems like interesting things never seem to happen around here?"
"Because when interesting things happen," [GARFIELD] responded, "it means something's gone wrong."
9:00 PM (PST) — 04/17/2023
"SYCAMORE HIGH SCHOOL"
███.█.███.█
Like a doomsayer's prediction, it all came as was prophesized to them.
At the exact moment that the time hit 9:00 PM—that the countdown in every student's Heads-Up Display (HUD) ticked down to 84:00:00—the school's bell rang loud and clear throughout the entirety of the arena, just as it might on an ordinary day. The HUDs of every student that was still alive and present in the server activated, as if they had summoned in themselves. A small video feed appeared in the bottom-right corner of their visible range, opposite the map at the bottom-left. At first, it was blank, black as night, but static soon wiped all the darkness out.
One person was visible when that static cleared away: Zeph Newman, sitting in a lavishly decorated room. Some students—the best and worst among them—might have recognized it: the Principal's Office. Unlike most of the school, it was only accessible to students if the faculty gave them prior authorization—a rare occasion reserved for when Floyd Griffith himself deemed it necessary to commend or condemn the conduct of a given student personally. And yet, there was Zeph, sitting there like a king on his throne, as if he had always been in charge of this place.
"Now, I'm sure you've all missed me, friends," he said venomously, smiling like a snake about to strike. Nothing remained of the Zeph they had once known, only malice. "I've got good news and bad news to deliver to all of you. Which one would you like to hear first?" He paused for a few seconds as if waiting for them to answer. "Just kidding! This isn't a democracy, and you don't get to vote. Luckily for all of you, though, I'm feeling rather generous, so we'll be starting with the good news first. I'd like to congratulate all of you on becoming famous."
Zeph paused.
"Oh, you don't believe me?" He falsely frowned as if he expected better of them. "Well, then, I'll have to prove it to you, won't I?" Leaning forward slightly, Zeph snapped his fingers. Instantly, the vision of each participant was filled with around a dozen screens—obstructing the view of anything else—each showing a different video feed. The sources were as varied as they were numerous, ranging from national news corporations to local outlets to YouTubers filming videos in their living rooms. A cacophony of voices filled their ears, but due to careful editing, some lines were audible.
"A class of high school students in San José, California have, according to reports, been forced to participate in a virtual fight to the bitter end—"
"—San José Police Department confirms that there is at least one present casualty out of a total of thirty-six total students in Class 12-B—"
"—authorities are proclaiming that the incident is the work of a previously-unknown group of cyberterrorists named Initiative Earth—"
"—recovered the body of Social Studies teacher Samson Franklin, confirmed to have passed away earlier this morning, apparently—"
"—the entire class has been placed under the supervision of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, where they remain under surveillance—"
"—but before we talk about the juicy details, be sure to like, follow, click the notification bell, and, of course, subscribe to my YouTube channel!"
The mixed messages continued for about ten more seconds, but despite the editing—seemingly confusing and garbled on purpose—it was clear that each one of the feeds was a report on the same thing: their situation. Finally, one video began to expand, filling the screen and drowning out all others. It showed the exterior of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center surrounded by a mass of people. Shielded by a group of patrol officers, an ambulance emptied its two patients into the hospital, both of whom lay on stretchers, their faces obscured by their Cyber Reality Devices (CRDs).
The feed, clearly a mix of many videos cut and stitched back together, then showed thirty-four individuals removed from different ambulances. Even with the individuals' faces obscured, the students knew who they were: it was them—not their Avatars, but their actual selves, their flesh-and-blood bodies. Every one of them in the game was there, undeniably them. The video feed lingered on each face for just long enough for each student, each participant, to get a good glimpse of themselves, a mirror of the Avatars their physical forms were now bound wholly to.
The voice of a female news reporter spoke aloud. "Earlier this morning, about three dozen comatose high school students were brought inside the Trauma Center of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. An entire ward of the building has been closed off; outside the building, the public, including the bereaved family members of these children, clamor for answers. All of the students appear to be members of Sycamore High School's Class 12-B. Some have claimed that these students appear in the streams found online and that they are being forced to kill one another."
A pause.
"The authorities, thus far, have provided no comments on the matter."
"Ah, yes—the streams," Zeph said, his fingers steepled, the last of the video feeds closing to reveal him once again. "Honestly, I may or may not have forgotten to tell you during my grand speech. Whoops! Silly me." He separated his hands and placed both on his head, leaning to the right and sticking his tongue out. "My bad. But, hey, now you all know! Everything you say and do during our little game will be recorded and streamed for the whole world to see. Your loved ones can cheer for you from the sidelines! Isn't that such a nice thing for us to do for you?"
After that, he dropped the obvious charade that was his kindness, like it was just another mask for him to wear. "Of course, like always, it falls on me to be the bearer of bad news. I want to voice my formal discontent at the lack of action that's been going on—really, now, I figured you'd all be better sports about the whole 'death game' thing. Where's your initiative? Where's your drive? Come on, now, don't be such spoilsports, you lot! I'm going to give you a warning here because I'm a good guy: if you all don't pick up the pace soon, we're going to have no choice but to up the ante."
"Now, with all that aside, let's get to the main event: the announcements proper. While it seems like some of you have struggled to wrap your little heads around the premise, that's definitely not the case for our game's resident go-getter—Daniel Arista! It seems like he was all-in when it comes to our competition, because he started today off with a little bit of Mortal Kombat courtesy of our dear friend Solana Lucero Estelle. 'How did that happen', you might ask? Let's rewind the tapes. Everyone, watch and learn: an introduction on how to kill!"
Another video opened up, though without the snap of Zeph's fingers to accompany it. It showed, from a distant side profile, Solana Lucero Estelle stumbling in place for a moment, with visible bruises on her torso. A larger boy—Daniel Arista—lunged towards her, his arms forward, striking her in the head with a tennis racket. She fought back, throwing out a kick to stumble him, which caused him to take a step back and almost fall. They fought for a short while, trading blows back and forth, blocking, dodging, ducking, and moving; they were almost equally matched in strength.
Eventually, though, it all came down to a bitter end. Daniel swung wide with a right hook, and Sunny dodged in the opposite direction, leaving him with the perfect opportunity to catch her shoulder with his left hand. Now that she was within his grasp, he slammed his fist into the side of her head repeatedly, almost lifting her off the ground as he did so until a fist-shaped dent embedded itself in her temple. Eventually, he stopped punching her, and she went entirely limp in his hands—though, just before she did, one could hear, below her breath, a quiet "Yu-" and a quieter "-Mi."
"And there you have it, folks," Zeph concluded, looking rather pleased with himself, smugly smirking at the students. "Our first fatality. If you're feeling daring, you can go and congratulate our killer in person, if you find him—that is, provided he doesn't find you first. Anyway, with all the messy business of killing concluded, it's time for us to come to the matter of the Danger Zones. Or, rather, the Danger Zone. I hope all of you remember the rules. If not, let me give you a friendly reminder: get out of The Rooftop in ten minutes, or you're going to be a dead man walking."
As he said this, the Danger Zone was marked red on the school's map.
After that threat, the announcer clapped his hands together, now smiling viciously, his teeth like daggers. He took a quick breath, "Now, with that, I—your good friend Zeph Newman—must, unfortunately, bid you all adieu. Alas! But, don't worry, you'll see me again in exactly twelve hours—if you manage to live that long. I hope, for everyone's sake, we'll have seen a little more action by then. Remember, you can't win if you don't play!" After that, Zeph pointed to the countdown, which was still ticking in real time. "Oh, and don't forget: if this timer hits zero-zero-zero, it's all over for you.
"Smell you later!"
