Play to Live

by D. Rus

Book 2

The Clan

Play to Live

Book 2: The Clan

Copyright © D.Rus 2014

Cover Art © Kadziro

Editors: Irene Woodhead, Neil P. Mayhew

All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

F rom the Analytics Department report made at the AlterWorld Corporation Emergency board meeting.

Subject: The surge of violence among the digital population.

The psychologists' reports show that after only three or four months, the digital population (later referred to as perma players) complete their adaptation period and cease to view the virtual world as a game. The memories of their past lives fade, the rich colors of their adopted environment forming an entirely new outlook. So how do the perma players see their new home? For them, it holds a wealth of virtually unlimited opportunities—a promise of an eternal life devoid of the concept of criminal punishment. In other words, it's a world of brute force in the absence of authority.

But this is only one side of the coin. Ask yourself for a moment: who are the people who come to populate those virgin virtual lands? I would like you to turn your attention to the chart included in the report.

Unstable teenagers, troubled war veterans, handicapped persons with all kinds of disabilities, the elderly and terminally ill, criminal elements a nd escapists attempting to flee reality.

We can only wonder why the once-isolated cases of enslavement and violence have taken all this time to swell out of control. In the last three months, our Customer Service has reported over fifteen hundred documented cases of personal violence. We do understand that until the legal status of perma players is finally recognized, all our attempts to help them will remain a gesture of good will and by no means our obligation. Following earlier instructions, we ignored most of the inquiries received from perma players, burying them in red tape. That made sense when such incidents were isolated because every such case demanded type A or A+ intervention whose consequences would be hard to predict.

Now, however, the situation careens completely out of control. The Informational Intervention Department works against the clock but still we find it increasingly difficult to influence public opinion and minimize the damage done by the independent media.

The cases involving minors are especially harmful for the image of our corporation. Technically, none of this is our fault as parental and age control functions are the responsibility of capsule manufacturers. Still, if some of the incidents were to be made public, the company's reputation and financial stability would receive an enormous blow.

In view of the above, we recommend the following measures:

To begin lobbying for new standards of software protection as well as hardware security and physical protection of the FIVR capsules;

To condition public opinion in favor of introducing the retina recognition login system as the basic player authentication tool. To ensure the Department of State's interest by suggesting the possibility of extending this function to cover cyberspace in its entirety;

To i ntroduce the Voluntary Death ability that would allow the player's transportation to a safe zone;

T o stall the ratification of the law confirming perma players' legal status if, or when, it is passed;

To arrange for a media campaign with the slogan The Law is Not Retrospective! under the pretext of shielding the digitized individuals from any financial claims of their past lives. Its real purpose would be to free the corporation from the responsibility of any repercussions involving perma players prior to the passing of the law.

J. Howards, Director of the Analytics Department

* * *

"Murderous scumbags," these were Dan's exact words as I told him the story of my imprisonment in the Forest Cats Castle. "That's it, then. No more Mr. Nice Guy."

They had thrown together an emergency meeting in the Small Hall of the East Castle gathering, by the looks of it, nearly all of the Vets' officer cadre. People kept coming. I could hear teleports pop open behind the open windows as new groups of personnel arrived. They had announced Code Orange—one below Red which stood for imminent military action.

In my house clothes, I looked pretty foreign within a crowd glittering with armor and artifact gear. I hadn't yet had time to do a corpse run. Another person who looked out of place was Taali. Tearful, she had refused to leave and was now sleeping by the fireplace cuddling the white Winnie the Pooh, shuddering in her sleep and clinging to the creature's silky hair. The others cast occasional glances in her direction, lowering their voices. They'd already had Cryl healed, fed and questioned; their debriefers had picked the best of his brains. Now he was fast asleep in a guest apartment next door, recovering before a new interrogation session.

Watching Dan issue tasks to one of his assistants gave me a decent idea of the effort involved. They had to sieve through the logs line by line, copying all suspicious names, stats and locations—going into a meditational trance as they searched every minute of their absolute memory for shreds of relevant information.

Captain Scarface, the commander of the special service company, rubbed his chin. "Looks like the world as we know it is no more. The Cats have robbed us of the illusion of freedom and immortality."

"Wipe the motherfuckers out," growled an Orc with Lieutenant's insignia on his tunic. "Obliterate them IRL!"

That was Fang, the commander of an elite rogue squad charged with the elimination of hostile wizards. He had a tendency to chain smoke and emotionalize. The pile of cigarette butts in front of him kept growing dangerously fast. Although tobacco hadn't hit the market yet, there was just about enough of it to cover the clan's needs.

"Wish it was that easy," Dan shook his head. "Most of them are permas, anyway. Getting to them is only a question of time. That's not the problem. But—we have to measure our response. Most of us have families in the real world. If we start taking the bastards out, the next day they'll be sending us pictures of our children's severed heads. Their millionaire daddies will never forgive us for mopping up their kids."

"Just don't tell me you knew nothing about it," I said. "Why did both you and Eric keep going on and on about the dangers of being a lone player?" Now that I finally got it off my chest, I stared at the 'cloak-and-dagger' waiting for his response.

He shrugged and took a sip from his enormous coffee mug. "There's a difference between guessing and knowing. We started noticing some funny tendencies about three months ago. Instead of growing, the influx of perma players in our area started dwindling. We received a few requests to keep an eye on some of the newbie permas. But we failed to locate them. We realized the full extent of the problem when a few of the more prominent moneybags started to disappear. There were dark slavery rumors coming from the Caliphate, the Asians and the Afros. There were a couple of Cats sightings we could connect to the sites of the newbs' disappearance. In other words, few facts but plenty of suspicions. Not that they could keep it under wraps for much longer. It's a mystery how you were the only one who broke out. How did you do it, by the way?"