Game Slaves Read online

  Because that was all it was. I was still sure. Just ghosts in our code. Phantoms in our machine.

  I did understand one thing, however. We weren’t on the Old West map. “Dakota, how’d you arrange this? Again?”

  “We robbed a stagecoach a week ago. Jimmy was riding shotgun. While you were burying that marshal in the anthill, he whispered to me he was Charlotte’s brother and was going to try to build a tunnel. I didn’t get what he meant until we burned the shack.”

  So that’s where we were now. Jimmy had hacked a door, a cave, a digital wormhole from that HIGH PLAINS box canyon right into the test facility.

  Smart. It was the only way they could ever get me back to this test site.

  The lights came up, and yep, here we were. Back in the lab. Blank walls, simple doors, and the only way out was through the hole in the bottom of the far wall.

  But although they’d led us down here, I was certain they had no intention of making us go back up that way. The fact was: we were off-grid now.

  It occurred to me, why not just delete us? Reboot with our original files or something? Or write up a version of enemy NPC who didn’t wander off the reservation so often?

  “BlackStar’s going to reformat our butts,” I told Dakota harshly.

  “Probably the rest of our bodies too,” York added helpfully. “Even our hands and legs and feet.”

  “How’s that make you feel, Dakota? You’ll be responsible for the end of us all. You’re our angel of death. Maybe you infiltrated us, just like the gamers seemed to think you were infiltrating them with all your peace talk.”

  She wasn’t taking any crud from me, though, and spat back, “I’d rather die right here, right now, than live as someone’s war slave!”

  And with that she wrapped Charlotte even tighter, as if the little digital representation of the real world were her only hold on physical earth.

  Kind of funny, because Charlotte was, in turn, squeezing her teddy bear. One digital image clinging to the next. None of it was real. But for some reason they felt compelled to hug each other. To try to clutch connections that just didn’t exist.

  “You don’t understand,” Mi was saying, tugging at my arm. “Dakota is on to something. She may be right. I want to see this through.”

  “Right?” I howled, looking at York and Reno. Were they also buying into this crap? “There’s no right or wrong or up or down or anything about it! You’ve all got to come to terms with the basic facts here. You don’t really exist! You’re electrical blips on a mainframe. Good-looking blips. Tough as nails. But programmed to fight and die. On the other hand, we’ve also got it great! We play games all day! All our needs are taken care of! When it comes to toys, no one’s got playrooms like we’ve got!”

  Reno came around to my other side, so now he and Mi had me pretty much surrounded.

  “Phoenix,” he warned, “you better not mess this up for us. And, man, you know I love you and would follow you into hell, as I’ve done hundreds of times in the DANTE EXTREME! INFERNO series, but now you gotta listen.”

  “Listen?”

  “Listen . . .” Dakota said calmly. “Your version just doesn’t add up. Even the stuff you say, the stuff that makes sense to you. ’Cuz, Phoenix, there are huge holes in your logic.”

  “Holes?”

  “Gaping holes. Start with your love for us, for your team. Especially for Mi. That was one of my first clues. Would one program ever sacrifice itself for another? I’ve seen you do it. Think, Phoenix. Don’t just strategize.”

  “I agree,” echoed Jimmy. “You yourself are proving Dakota may be right, and right this very minute, Phoenix.”

  We all turned to look at the boy.

  He stared at me. “Look, when Charlotte told me that the NPCs were talking and playing with her, well, I thought she was making it up. You know, imaginary friends and all that. But now, it’s freaking me out, you guys are arguing with each other! I don’t think that’s in any code, ever. Talk about inefficient. That programmer would be fired forever.”

  He seemed to be calculating. The kid might have been preteen, but it was hard to forget that he’d grown up in a house where designing artificial intelligence was as common a topic of dinner conversation as book reports and youth soccer leagues.

  I watched him. In those ridiculously large clothes, the shiny badge, the belt that was wrapped twice around his trousers, he cut a funny image. But the brain in there was in no way undersize.

  Jimmy explained. “Intersquad dissension? Not really possible. Dreams? Unlikely. And lucid dreams, at that. Conviction that you’re not programs? This is like an anomaly chain that no one could even begin to write.” He squinted. Maybe that made his brain kick into overdrive. “OK, finally, a real-world test for my skills of awesomeness. I can solve this. I need to just start from the beginning.”

  I wasn’t convinced. Not a bit. He’d forgotten that we were supposed to adapt and learn, but he’d figure it out.

  Jimmy began muttering, going back over what he knew. “BlackStar is in trouble. The city is dying. Dad needs a smart NPC. Something that doesn’t just repeat the same enemy actions over and over again for his games.”

  “Is that when we moved out of the projects?” Charlotte asked.

  “Right before,” Jimmy said. “So then he introduces Phoenix for BLASTERS OF FREEDOM. Sales go off the charts.”

  “The game let me run free,” I recalled, kind of proud. “I had no rules. I could defend any position or attack any way I wanted.”

  But Jimmy’s brain was moving forward months at a time. “Sales spiked. Our economy got stronger. Enough food for everyone. Then that whole new generation of games was born. Each title had infinite replayability because the enemy used different tactics each time through . . .”

  “Sure we use different tactics,” I mumbled. “We’re not stupid. If we did the same thing and hid in the same place and carried the same weapons every time, we’d never win.”

  “Mmmmm.” Jimmy was calculating. “But this still makes no sense. Why name the digital combatants after locations? Plus, you have memories, uh, like leftovers of the local stuff there. How’d that leak in? Why the arguing with each other? Why Dakota’s affection for my sister? Artificial feelings would be a waste of drive space.” He was looking at Dakota. “Even the fact that we lured you in here. Or that you strategized to return to this place that first time you met Charlotte. None of it is a logical reaction to environment or conditions. It’s unpredictable. Independent.”

  I just stared at him. He was losing me, but Dakota seemed to follow along a little better. Maybe it was because she was newer. Perhaps the Dakota model ran on a bigger line or had faster processing or more RAM or . . .

  She suggested, “Jimmy, maybe you need to think beyond the limits of a simple program?”

  The boy gave her a long, curious look. Then his eyes started to get wider and wider.

  “I gotta go,” he blurted. “Take care of my sister for a few minutes.”

  And with that, he simply vanished. Back to the real world.

  Level 18

  Charlotte was in the mood for finger-painting, so Dakota and Mi found jars full of colored goop. The nice thing: in here, who cared if it was permanent or it got all over your clothes?

  The time on the clock was passing very slowly. York, Reno, and I just sat there, watching the kindergarten activity. It might have been hours. The second hand was absolutely crawling.

  This was probably the end for all of us. The first time we’d snuck off campus to play with BlackStar kids? Might have been a mistake. This time, though, someone was sure to find out. Jimmy was a bright kid but no adult. It’d be a miracle if he could play around in the BlackStar mainframe and not leave a trail to follow.

  I kept waiting to get deleted. It felt like I was having a heart attack. My chest got tight and I sensed the end was near. Wherever Jimmy had gone, this was going to be the last level for Team Phoenix.

  I also had to make a fist, not out of
frustration, but to hide the tattoo around my hand. I finally just stuck the thing under one of my legs. Didn’t want anyone to notice. The glow, the light effects, they were beginning to flicker. It was a strange interruption, like my connection was dying. We were probably all dying in our own way. I’d go first, of course. That was my role.

  And even though that afternoon dragged along, later, because of the news we would receive, it would seem like only an instant. I now remember those agonizing hours as if they were just a single tick of a real-world clock.

  We waited and waited.

  I guess that’s what it’s like when you’re so close to the end of your existence.

  Because, make no mistake, those last moments with Charlotte, they were definitely the end of life as we knew it.

  There would never be an opportunity to go back. Or to live again as elite warriors with nothing to do all day but deal mayhem and have a grand old time doing it.

  Upheaval. Complete and total. In three, two . . .

  So how long had we now been out of the game system? Did it matter? That’s like asking if you remember how long you spent in a crib as a kid. Those days or years are a blur.

  When Jimmy returned, he’d ditched the cowboy suit. Now he was wearing a lab coat that was way too long.

  “I’ve got, uh, news,” he reported grimly.

  I was sure we’d been discovered. My hand, that brand, had gone almost dark. Like a flashlight you have to shake and knock to get even a glimmer of yellow.

  It was quiet in here. Out there, I could only imagine the alarm bells. I mean, how would you react if you found out some warlike monsters had been sneaking around, meeting up with your young daughter? I’d carve them slowly.

  “News?” Dakota asked, wandering over, still holding hands with Charlotte. “Good? Bad?”

  “Depends how you look at it, I guess,” he replied.

  I interrupted. “So we’re actually malfunctioning NPCs and are about to get deleted or scanned or reprogrammed?” I could feel what was coming. They’d erase everything that had to do with this little revolution. All the players would be scattered across the system. We’d have no memory of playing children’s games or having dance parties with Charlotte, no memory of this place or the kids or the worm known as Dakota.

  I’d lose my team.

  That meant I’d lose Mi. The thought hurt me on a gut level. Even worse than the pain in my brain.

  “No, you’re not exactly malfunctioning,” Jimmy said. “Dad’s up in his office as usual, and no one’s around today, so I got to run a trace on the root files for the Phoenix and Dakota characters.”

  “A trace?”

  “It’s not that complicated,” he said. “If a game is just like any other program or system, basically, so are you. You should be a set of folders and files that interact with each other. Just like you’d find in any desktop folder.”

  “So you found the root files marked Dakota?” she asked. “And Phoenix?”

  “Sure did. Very clever. So there’s a master folder with all your intelligence on the main server. Then, when anyone anywhere plays a game, it gets opened and copied as many times as you need to be copied and you get assigned to the environment.”

  “But why . . .” Dakota began.

  Jimmy kept going. “The key was to crack open that root folder. I used a password scrambler in Dad’s tools directory. Guess what? More folders! Dozens! Hundreds! There’s some for your outfits and costumes and weapon preferences. Others for your skills and language, and even a couple for your moods. On and on. You would not believe how deep the database is on you guys. I kept digging deeper and deeper into the architecture. I figured I’d eventually reach the master folder where your read-only intelligence is stored. Wow, I thought, that was going to be like the coolest code ever! The most top-secret stuff at BlackStar! Think about it . . . your creative abilities as enemies, that’s what makes this company survive. It’s why other game cities are failing. Your superior abilities feed and house—”

  “And you found that file?” I asked, just waiting for my particular intelligence folder to be wiped clean. If Jimmy had been mucking around in there, accessing my data, you know it had set off bells somewhere.

  “Oh, I found it!” he exclaimed. “Man, did I find it!”

  He then turned to Charlotte and said very clearly, “Sis, I will never, ever call Dad a big dumb idiotball ever again.”

  She kind of twisted her head, not understanding.

  “Our dad,” he stressed to her, “is the most brilliant man who ever lived. I was wrong to call him an imbecile that time he couldn’t assemble my bike. I was so wrong, C. He’s a genius who should be worshipped as the master of everything.”

  “Everything? He can’t even do laundry.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” replied Jimmy. “What he did, what he’s doing right now for BlackStar, well, Charlotte, now I know why we live the way we live. Trust me, if anyone else could do what Dad can do, they’d be bosses too.”

  She still looked puzzled, but I wanted a final answer.

  “So you found our artificial intelligence folder? Or file? On a server or computer drive? What was in there that you think is so brilliant?”

  Jimmy paused for a while before answering. It looked like he was trying to find the right way to tell us.

  Eventually he looked up. “Remember when I said how that information is going to be good news or bad news depending on how you look at it?”

  I nodded. Dakota was doing the same thing, hanging on every word.

  “Well, the bad news is I didn’t find an artificial intelligence folder.”

  “What?”

  “And the good news is, there was no folder to find.”

  “You mean I’m not smart?” pondered York.

  “Oh, you’re smart. Despite all the patches and upgrades . . . So . . . The highest level folder, the master directory, did not actually lead to a file or program,” Jimmy continued, making motions with his hands to illustrate. “See, it went into a computer server, where I thought you lived and existed, but there was also a port with a big cable running out of it too.”

  “Out?” Dakota demanded.

  “Right. Out. You remember all those holes in Phoenix’s explanation, right?”

  She nodded.

  He went on. “Anyone with any clue about artificial intelligence should have solved that puzzle, Dakota, but only you caught on. The arguing. The dissension. The affection. From having downtime between missions to looking after each other in a fight. The way he takes special care of Mi over there. The way he grins when he looks in those green eyes of hers. Or how you—”

  I interrupted again. I didn’t need to be reminded I’d missed so many clues. “So the cable led out from the server bank?”

  The boy nodded. “Then down the hall. Then to another room. Through the floor, down a long, long service shaft. Then into the . . .”

  Jimmy now pointed to a wall. A big projection screen was over there.

  He waved a hand. The screen turned on, royal blue, and we thought it might be in one of those blue-screen start-up modes.

  But no, it wasn’t just a background. It was fluid. Thick, dense liquid. Something began to form. Something was drifting, lifeless, in the murky solution. Closer, closer . . .

  A body. A woman. Almost nude. Slender. Hairless. A creature in an aquarium, or a zoo, or buried so deep in the system that no one even knew she existed.

  And the heavy cable running into the side of her right eye glowed as gigabytes of information were pumped in and out of her skull.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t twitch. She was not awake.

  Jimmy finished, “The cable led to the tank in the basement.”

  “The tank?” Mi was now yelping.

  “Right again. The tank. Where the bodies are floating.”

  “Bodies?” I joined in. “Flesh and blood?”

  “Flesh and blood, yeah, sure. Pale as ghosts. Way slimy too. You each have these wicked cable
jacks drilled in the sides of your skulls.”

  “We’re connected to . . . ?”

  “Yep.” Jimmy smiled in a disturbed sort of way. “You guys aren’t programs on a server or computer creations at all. My dad is so brilliant. I know why he did it too. See, the only way any video game enemy could ever truly act randomly was if they were capable of real, organic, independent thought . . .”

  “Woooooow.” Charlotte was amazed, touching the screen.

  Dakota, surprisingly, then turned and slugged me on the arm. Hard.

  It hurt.

  “I TOLD you!” she yelled. “Things just didn’t add up! Like that we’d need to be from a city or state or some place . . .”

  “Yeah,” York agreed, “why didn’t I think of that? If I actually have memories of New York, maybe my body was born there. I’ve been kidnapped! Help!”

  “Any computer program,” Jimmy explained, “would eventually repeat. It could never be truly random, as at some level it’s all determined by a programmer.”

  “It totally explains why we’d need time off between missions,” Dakota was going on. “Our brains need time to rest. Like normal sleep. Humans go insane without it.”

  “It was obvious all along.” Now Reno was being a jerk-defector-agree-with-Dakota putz, just like his buddy.

  Mi too?

  Yep.

  She said, “Or why I’d even want to have a boyfriend. True computer programs don’t feel love or affection. But I always have.”

  “Or why it hurts to die,” York was saying.

  “Or why we’d rejoice and celebrate and feel good when we win . . .” Reno added.

  “All those emotions.”

  “All that humanity.” Dakota was staring at me accusingly, like I’d been in on some kind of plot to deny her mortality. “Did you know about this?”

  “No!” I answered. And I didn’t. And I probably, honestly, still didn’t want to know. Thinking I was just some computer program had never bothered me much. I liked the perks.

  “It all makes sense.” Dakota then turned to Jimmy. “So what do our bodies do? I mean, are they functional? Does it seem like they’ve been in the tank for years? Months? How old are we? Am I completely naked in there? Please tell me there’s underwear involved. Did your dad at least have the decency to put clothes on me before I got submerged?”