NEO-KYOTO UNDER SIEGE
Megan moved around the common area of Mike’s virtual film studio, watching the actors playing their parts inside various virtual sets through the tentative framing that Mike and Kyu used as they simultaneously gave direction and edited the film. She also watched the scenes unfolding in miniature on the center table, with most of the environment of each set transparent so as to showcase the relevant actors and action sequences. She took a look at Mike’s background notes.
[Mike's notes for the day]: It was Ataraxia’s 19th iteration. The city of Neo-Kyoto, based on a detailed contemporary virtualization of Kyoto (with futuristic enhancements), had been transplanted from Japan into the post-apocalyptic battlefield of Ataraxia. It was populated by thousands of players who had adopted it as a thriving social hub and cultural center.
That ended in the 8th month, when Sure Fire took control of the city. Sure Fire, a.k.a. “SuFi”, a powerful faction bent on the domination of Ataraxia, had planned to use the city as a strategic wedge into Kirin territory. One month later, Kirin forces, having devoted themselves to stopping Sure Fire at almost any cost, laid siege to Neo-Kyoto, turning the city into a warzone.
While the Kirin maintained a hold in the East and were making some progress in the South, they had little luck cracking Sure Fire’s fortification of Western Neo-Kyoto. The fighting raged day and night. Most of the city's people had either fled or joined one of the factions, leaving its operations and upkeep to maintenance bots, which had somehow managed to maintain basic utilities, but were losing the fight against the numerous fires slowly consuming the city.
In the 10th month of the iteration, Zero Daisaku, one of the 9 Pandemonium, the most powerful player proxies in Ataraxia, was captured by Sure Fire forces. [/Mike’s notes]
*See "Tech Note 08: About the Virtual World Ataraxia" for more information on that world.
PRISONER ZERO
Elite Sure Fire agent Riful [played, as before, by Thomas] zoomed quickly to one of the many entrances to the underground transport tube system, controlled (for the most part) by Sure Fire. He exited his mech, which shrunk until it was small enough to phase invisibly into his human proxy. Riful was sped through the tubes, designed to suppress energy signatures to allow discreet travel, and entered the generically named “office 23” building.
He quickly made his way up ten flights of stairs and down a well guarded corridor to talk face to face with Sure Fire strategist Crenshaw [played by Mike]. Crenshaw, the main architect of SuFi’s Neo-Kyoto strategy, wore the inconspicuous uniform of a guard bot. With his well masked energy signature, few players, even on his side, would be able to pick him out as a human player, much less a significant one.
Riful, as usual, got to the point.
Riful: First question: Does Zero Daisaku favor a faction?
Riful: In other words, he’s yet another Pan with mysterious motives, probably playing a higher level game of some sort. And we may have just pissed him off by kidnapping him. Dare I ask if he’s contained?
Crenshaw: His cell’s containment is theoretically optimal. Its walls should rebound any energy or force coming from the inside. He shouldn’t be able to pinpoint his location either. If he wasn’t a Pan, I could tell you that he doesn’t even know for sure if he’s still in Neo-Kyoto.
Riful: But he really is a Pan?
Crenshaw: Oh yeah. Specifically, the Pandemonium of Mecha, which is frightening given the heavy mech based norm Ataraxia’s combat currently operates under. Before his disappearance, he was seen piloting the giant robot Blaze Snap, which is the unmistakable manifestation of that Pan’s power. Besides, we found him because he was doing an area broadcast of his “M” insignia.
Riful: He obviously wanted to be noticed.
Crenshaw: Right. He had no mech support when we encountered him and he put up no fight on being captured. Our scanners show him as a human boy with a minimal power level, but that’s almost certainly an advanced cloak of some kind. We’d have to actually harm him to get any more information on his proxy or his true power levels.
Riful: And we can’t do that because we don’t know what side he’s on?
Crenshaw: And why he is in the city, yes. He’s lying still in his cell currently. We haven’t decided how to approach him.
Riful: So he might be contained, he might be role playing, or he might be taking a vacation. Whatever. I’ll go in and talk to him myself.
Crenshaw: That’s not a good idea.
Riful: You have a better one?
Crenshaw: Use an expendable proxy at the very least. One of the guards.
Riful: I’m strong enough that you can get some useful data if he tears me apart. At the portion of my energy I’m using, it would take me at least 5 days to resurrect, recover, and get back here and rejoin the fight, but it would be worth it to learn about a Pan.
Crenshaw reluctantly nodded in agreement and Riful made his way to Zero’s cell. The hallway outside the cell was guarded by 5 bots and 2 fairly powerful, though somewhat bored, players. There were 3 other similarly guarded rooms in that building alone, 2 of them simply decoys.
Riful walked past the guards and through the 3 black membranes of the cell, each of which enveloped him and then released him into the next, until he was standing inside. Getting in was much easier then getting out, which required an authority on the outside to grant specific permission for an individual proxy to pass through each layer.
It was foolproof containment, at least for the vast majority of proxies. The inside of the cell gave the illusion of being the top of a grassy hill, with warm sunlight passing through happy clouds overhead. It simulated a beautiful summer day. But walk too far down the hill in any direction and you would find yourself back on top of the hill.
Zero Daisaku [played by Mike’s friend Miguel] was lying in the shade of a tree, staring at a game of Tetris, which he was projecting onto a cloud in the sky. Riful cleared his throat. This would require tact.
Riful: I apologize for your current condition. Is there something Sure Fire can do for you?
Zero kept playing his game.
Riful: I suspect that we share common goals. Why are you in Neo-Kyoto?
Zero: It’s nothing of concern to you. You should let me on my way.
Riful: Surely you understand why we can’t do that.
Zero: Catch a tiger by the toe...
Riful moved to stand next to Zero’s head and stared down at him, but failed to establish meaningful eye contact, as Zero stared back through him at the falling blocks.
Riful: Are you thirsty? Or hungry?
Zero: Not particularly. I don’t like this place.
Riful: We picked you up for your own safety. You were walking into a warzone.
Zero: You talk nonsense. I want to see the city. This place is boring.
Riful: [sternly] To be honest, you might be a potential threat to Sure Fire’s goals, and so we cannot allow you to run around the city without understanding your intentions.
Zero: I have nothing to talk to you about.
Riful took a few steps back, bowed respectfully, and sent a signal to Crenshaw, who guided Riful back out through each of the cell’s membranes. Riful returned to speak with Crenshaw.
Riful: We should kill him. Reinforce the containment and flood it with plasma.
Crenshaw: I don't know. This whole thing doesn't feel right.
Riful: We need to end this while we are in control of the situation. How often do we get an opportunity like this? I highly doubt he’s going to join our side, and he might fight for the Kirin. Killing him is safest. No Pan has ever returned from death, and killing one would definitely do good things for morale.
Crenshaw: Morale is a huge problem. This constant exchange of artillery fire is wearing away at us. The cease fires never hold for more than a few hours... but just kill a Pan? Like it would be that easy. He entered the game as "Zero Daisaku" on day one of this iteration. Granted, lots of players adopt hopeful monikers like that, but he ascended to the most appropriate class of Pandemonium in record time. Then, after disappearing completely for 4 months he shows up in a warzone wandering around like a tourist.
Riful: What do you think we should do with him then?
Crenshaw: We should give him some candy, drop him somewhere in the wilderness, and hope he stays far away. Let Pans deal with Pans.
Riful: But he is in our custody! And as far as I can tell, he's an idiot.
Crenshaw: That's exactly what I mean! We’re treating him like a child! The Gears selected him for good reasons.
Riful: Fine, alright. Let's see what SuFi Tower says about getting him out of here.
Crenshaw: I'll take care of that. In the meantime, there's another matter that's more pressing.
Riful: [with piqued interest] Oh?
Crenshaw: Neo-Kyoto has been chosen as the launch place of the Blue Dusk project.
At this news, Riful smiled with glee.
NOTHING EVER GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN
While actors were setting up for the next scene, Mike showed Megan a montage Kyu had put together of fighting from the next several days as the situation in Neo-Kyoto escalated. It featured such ridiculous carnage that Kyu had toned it down to make it comprehensible.
An animated map showed the clashing of thousands of mech in hundreds of incidents around the city over 3 days of intense fighting. Wide shots revealed large sections of the city filled with debris and smoke, the result of the numerous skirmishes at any given time. Maintenance bots had multiplied and were doing everything they could to contain the resulting fires raging across the city, but were losing steadily.
One area in particular, a long, half-mile wide strip had been bombed into smoldering rubble. This wasteland divided the city, with Sure Fire fortifications along its Western side and Kirin along its Eastern. The constant bombardment from both sides was deflected into colorful arcs by the heavy force field shielding along each side’s perimeter. It was a beautiful display, but few present at the time felt much aesthetic appreciation for it.
There were also a few quick shots of people attempting to question Zero. Sure Fire command could not decide what to do with him, and so he languished in his cell. He had taken to rocking himself and avoiding eye contact, with only one verbal response to any question.
Zero: Bored now. Want out.
Behind Kirin lines, propaganda from Sure Fire was continuously displayed on the billboards on the sides of many buildings. The ads enticed players to join the SuFi in exchange for power level boosts and new equipment. Far from combat, Kirin strategist Pawn [played by himself] was staring at one such ad and considering his next move. As leader of the Kirin “Operation: Crab Battle!” in East Neo-Kyoto, it was his mission to create a hole in Sure Fire defenses and keep them occupied while Kirin forces to the South moved in for a pincer attack. But there were delays as the Southern forces were occupied with unexpected resistance, and Pawn was having a hard time dealing with Sure Fire in the meantime.
Unlike most players, Pawn had chosen to fully merge his biological components into his mech, making him a grotesque mixture of flesh and metal. This configuration enabled him to regenerate most components easily, but death was hard for him to return from. His gruesome appearance kept most of his allied players at an emotional distance that helped him deal with situations dispassionately. This was useful near the wasteland, one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of that iteration.
Xea Fluon [played by her original user, Thomas] was one of the best squad leaders in the area, and an old acquaintance of Pawn’s. Pawn, receiving distressing news from West of the city, risked a possible insecure connection to confer with Xea. He considered secretly contacting her outside of the game, but wasn’t paranoid enough to risk it.
Pawn: [>Xea Fluon] Hey Xea. What’s your take on this hellhole? This city should not be this important to Sure Fire. The original plans had us taking control of it a week ago. As things are going, if one side doesn’t secure victory soon, there isn’t going to be anything worth occupying.
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] Should this city be this important to us? Maybe everyone’s just confused.
Pawn: [>Xea] It’s a god damned mess, that’s for sure. With the heavy casualties and all the secret plans and factions involved, I doubt that anyone has a good idea about what’s going on. Did you hear that some battles in the wasteland actually generated noticeable lag?
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] Lag? I guess the Gears didn’t anticipate all those explosions kicking around all that rubble.
Pawn: [>Xea] Supposedly they fixed it, but this is too much. I’m having trouble keeping track of the units under my command. Discipline’s breaking down, we don’t have a proper strategy, our scanner classes are overworked, and the front is a hellscape.
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] Tell me about it. We’re getting hit by our own artillery. Collateral damage is insane. How did the meeting with the representative from the Faint faction go?
Pawn: [>Xea] “The Faint shall not intervene in this city, at this time.”
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] Typical. Bunch of freaks. If they’re not going to get involved now, then when? They might as well leave Ataraxia if they don’t care what happens to it.
Pawn: [>Xea] And have you seen this shit yet?
Pawn sent Xea a 2 hour old report indicating unusual and very strong energy signatures emanating miles West of the city.
Pawn: [>Xea] Do you know if we have a scout out West that could check out whatever SuFi’s got going on?
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] Hold on, I’ll see if we have someone we can sacrifice.
The scout Xea contacted did a scan of the area and received a missile to the forehead in quick reply. She managed to relay the information back to Xea before being obliterated.
Xea: [feeding the scan to >Pawn] Uh...
Pawn: [>Xea] They’re putting together a damn giant robot! Like, a giant robot! Like, hundreds of feet tall! How did they get it this close without us noticing?
Xea: [>Pawn] I have no idea. This is not good. They must really need this city for something.
Pawn: [>Xea] What are we going to do?
Xea: [>Pawn] There’s always that option.
Pawn: [>Xea] Are we really that desperate?
Xea: [>Pawn] We can’t deal with a force of this magnitude. Sure Fire’s going to take the city anyway. I say, let them have what’s underneath it too.
Pawn: [>Xea] Set it off, see what happens, and then possibly escape in the confusion?
Xea: [>Pawn] Sounds like a plan.
Pawn got permission from the Kirin regional council and gave the go ahead to the appropriate project head. It was less than a day before Sure Fire was detecting vibrations from deep underground, moving toward their giant robot construction site. Given the limited state of Kirin technology, it meant only one thing: they had awakened a Deep One, a humongous monster from a previous iteration of Ataraxia.
Deep Ones, corporate entities controlled by numerous players working in tandem, lied dormant deep underground or at the bottoms of oceans. Once located, awakening them was relatively easy, but controlling one took a good deal more skill and planning. The only certain way to resuscitate and wield a Deep One required the cooperation of the players who had created or controlled them in previous iterations of Ataraxia, and they were not always easy to find, or eager to lend their skills to support any given faction. Luckily for the Kirin, Sure Fire had concerned enough veteran players to get a workable team together.
Fear of the Deep One sped activation of the SuFi giant robot, “Blue Dusk,” and its primary systems came online twelve hours later. Though it wasn’t fully prepared, the Kirin then had no choice but to send their Deep One to the surface to fight the robot. Thus began a classic struggle between a foul, gargantuan, amorphous demonic entity and a 200 foot giant robot. Neither was prepared for the battle, but Blue Dusk had the advantage of SuFi artillery support. It was almost immediately apparent that the Deep One was only going to delay Sure Fire’s victory in the city.
It was go time. In South Neo-Kyoto, the Kirin unleashed an offensive featuring a multi-segment giant robot spider named Yoink, a conglomerate of specially designed and incredibly resilient ribbons. Sure Fire found it resistant to their artillery, so they sent in heavy melee units to deal with it.
Pawn prepared his forces for a last ditch effort to cross the wasteland and break through SuFi defenses if the right circumstances arose, or to flee the city if things took a turn for the worse. Getting across the wasteland would take minutes, but breaking through SuFi shielding would leave a large part of his force exposed to artillery fire and close range blasting.
ZERO ESCAPES
Gakk [played by Sam] walked down the halls of the office 23 building toward one of the secured cells. For 6 months, Gakk had fought mercilessly for Sure Fire, rising in its ranks to become a member of Sudo Refresh. She was almost as trusted as Riful. Originally fighting for the Kirin, Gakk had burned all her bridges with them, leaving not a trace of doubt that she had defected to the winning side for personal gain. Now she was one of 5 people who knew that Zero was in that exact building. She also knew that Sure Fire was about to win a major victory in Neo-Kyoto, with or without the Deep One’s interference.
Gakk’s expertly masked power level gave no warning to the guards in the hall before she simultaneously shot them all down. She used an explosive to break a crack into the cell. Breaking in was difficult, but much less difficult than breaking out. The cell was empty. The other 3 cells began moving to random locations within the building, but Gakk had put tracers on them, and soon found a second cell. This time she got lucky and peered into the cell at Zero. Zero turned his head toward the crack and stared at her.
Gakk: Come with me if you want out.
Zero stood quickly and ran through the crack. He grabbed one of the fallen guard’s guns and followed Gakk. Gakk, upon confirming that he was truly Zero, initiated a virus she had installed a day earlier into the building’s security systems and guard bots, causing an information blackout and bot revolt. In seconds, the building fell to disarray as bots shot at everything that moved, including Zero and Gakk. Putting exceptions for herself or Zero into the virus would have made things easier for them, but would have been considerably more difficult to program and also would have immediately implicated her if it had been discovered.
Riful was dealing with the insurgency in the South when the alarms started going off. He returned as quickly as possible to assess the situation.
Riful: [>Crenshaw] I told you we should have melted the bastard!
Crenshaw moved to a player heavy area of the building while they tried to figure out what had happened. The little bit of information Crenshaw had indicated that Gakk was responsible, but that didn’t do him much good with the scrambling of communications throughout the building. There was even a looped feed appearing to come from his official channel commanding the defense of the first level from a Kirin attack. This ruse had diverted many of the human players to the first floor, allowing the bots to entrench themselves on most other floors of the building. Crenshaw was impressed, but too pissed to outwardly show much appreciation for Gakk’s attention to detail.
Zero and Gakk made their way up through the building, fighting floor by floor, evading trouble wherever possible. After a few floors, a watch formed out of Zero’s wrist upon detecting some random feeds from outside of the building. He fiddled with it as he ran, attempting to activate its tracking mechanism, but it was blocked by the building’s shielding. Every few minutes he attempted to activate it again.
Zero: [into watch] Blaze Snap, come in! I need help!
Gakk did the majority of the fighting, but Zero proved capable enough of defending himself. Gakk attempted to soak up as much of the damage as she could, but Zero ended up getting hit a few times, and healed almost instantly after each.
Gakk: Those are impressive healing powers. To be expected from a Pan, I suppose.
Zero: Not really. Just a side effect.
Gakk didn’t have a chance to inquire further before noticing a group of powerful players fighting bots down the hall ahead. She tossed the last of her explosives down the hall and narrowly diverted herself and Zero into a room before the hall exploded and collapsed. Then they climbed up through a hole in the ceiling and hid in a mostly collapsed room. Sensing too many powerful proxies nearby, Gakk and Zero waited.
Zero: [whispering] Why are you helping me?
Gakk: You’re a good guy. That’s all.
Soon they were moving again, and Zero seemed to be having the time of his life, grinning broadly as they shot their way to freedom. But it wasn’t long until Gakk had taken fatal damage. In the seconds they had left, she transferred what was left of her energy shield to him and ran as a decoy, drawing off several bots and clearing his path.
Zero: [>Gakk] I’ll see you outside of the battle.
Gakk: [a few seconds later, from outside of the game >Zero] I don’t have any backups and I’ve used too much energy. That was it for me, but it was fun. Have a good game.
Zero’s face dropped on hearing this. He started blasting through walls using a power he had not displayed before, going in as straight a line as he could until he saw a wall on his right with sunshine coming through bullet holes. Figuring that a wall leading outside would be reinforced, Zero grabbed the remains of a bot and pumped his energy into its main capacitor, turning it into an explosive. He sensed a powerful player coming up behind him at that moment and put his back against the wall, using the robot as a shield.
Riful had finally caught up with Zero, after burning through a host of bots following numerous false leads. Riful blasted Zero’s bot shield, causing it to explode. The explosion launched Zero through the wall and slammed him hard against the building across the street. His shield protected him from most of the force, but it still messed him up badly enough to kill a normal proxy. Zero ragdolled in free fall as Riful took a running jump out of the building after him. It took Zero 8 seconds to plummet 30 stories to the ground. In that time, Zero’s communicator wristband finally connected to his mech. Before he could use it, Riful hit him with a powerful blast, though much of it rebounded from Zero’s shield back on Riful. 2 seconds later, with well trained speed and accuracy, Riful managed to get off two high intensity shots that penetrated Zero’s shields, gashing open his chest and severing his left arm, with the communicator, from his body.
Just before he hit the ground, Riful extracted his mech from his proxy with the intent that it would catch him as they both hit the ground, but his timing was off and he hit the ground next to it. Though it was rapidly regenerating, Zero’s body was badly broken. Zero grabbed his left arm, which had fallen near him, and activated his communicator as the arm knitted itself back onto his body.
Zero: [yelling with panic through agony into his wristband] Blaze!
Riful stood, borrowed some quick power from his mech, and shot Zero over and over again into a scorched, bloody pulp. He entered into his mech and used his plasma torch on what was left of Zero. But Zero’s body kept regenerating, and Riful couldn’t scratch his communicator, which was sending off a wide ranging distress call.
A distress call from a Pandemonium ensured that, no matter how fortified, the area was about to go straight to hell, and so Riful scooped up Zero’s body and brought it back inside the building. He placed it inside a new containment cell and had it ferried away to a safer position.
Pawn was conflicted about whether the presence of Zero was enough to warrant a full attack.
Pawn: [>local Kirin forces] Zero Daisaku has been confirmed at the included coordinates. Move to assist if convenient.
A few Kirin units hiding in the area hurried to the street and fighting broke out there. Riful took this opportunity to organize a reception party for them and personally killed a few of the first arrivals before slipping away through the underground tunnels to a safer location.
Mike paused the action to show the crew one of the most intricate and impressive shots in the film, which Kyu had just finished putting music to. They were still trying to decide how to integrate it into the movie. It started with a close up of Zero screaming, “Blaze!”, rose above that street as fighting started there, then headed South through contested territory, showing innumerable battles occurring in slow motion in streets, on building tops, and throughout the wreckage of the city. As it reached the edge of the city, the view widened, revealing fires raging unchecked in the North, explosions throughout the wasteland, Yoink wreaking havoc on Sure Fire forces swarming over it in the South, and finally Blue Dusk wrestling with the Deep One in the West.
As the camera continued moving away from the city, it turned away to face the heavy mountainous South region. It swept over the mountain tops until it tunneled into one of them to reveal a giant robot sealed deep inside. The shot ended with the giant robot roaring to life as its systems came online.
It was beautifully done, complete with appropriately epic music, and it gave an impressive and informative visual overview of the situation. It reminded Megan how much work went into Ataraxia, and how there were millions of players struggling so hard at any given time to realize their vision for that world. She wondered if it was worth it.
BLAZE SNAPS
Riful, lacking secure access to information about Zero, had received a message from an outside-of-game source indicating Zero’s new location. Communication about in-game events from outside channels was frowned upon as cheating, but was, of course, rampant. There were serious social consequences for being caught, but it was sometimes worth the risk. In this case the information did little to help him, but would later hurt his reputation.
Elsewhere, Crenshaw looked at a map of the projected conflicts around Neo-Kyoto. The Deep One, though as tough as expected, was faltering. It was too early to judge the Southern Kirin offensive, but SuFi reserves could be called if needed. He had a few minutes of feeling good about the situation before scanners showed a massive and peculiar energy signature flying half a mile above the ground at improbable speeds from South of the city.
It had to be the Pan mech Blaze Snap, as no other entity could match such raw power. Its recorded energy signature was very different from what it had been 4 months previously, when the mech and Zero had disappeared. Since then, rumors had spread that Zero had died or left the game. No such luck.
Crenshaw: [>all Sure Fire forces] Pandemonium alert! Do not fire on the approaching giant robot! Approaching mech is Pan instrument. Repeat, Pandemonium alert!
Fighting paused around the city as players climbed buildings to get a better look at what was coming. Pawn, anticipating an opportunity, gave the order to prepare for a run across the wasteland.
A reaction shot showed Riful’s shock and utter disbelief as Blaze’s path took it directly to the building where Zero was being held. As it approached the building, it blasted a large hole into it, all the way through to pierce Zero’s containment cell. Even at its incredible speed, it managed to shoot a chain with ten small hooks at its end into Zero’s crispy, disturbingly still living body, and retract it into a compartment in its chest as it flew past.
A few short moments after Zero had been taken into his mech, Blaze took a sharp turn to the West. It dropped out of the sky and collided with Blue Dusk, which put up a shield to deflect Blaze just in time. Blaze came around and slammed hard into Blue Dusk. Blaze was 150 feet tall, making it 50 feet shorter than Blue Dusk, but as they began exchanging blows it was obvious that Blaze Snap was a far superior mech in every other way.
Still, Blaze was not operating at its full capacity, appearing to be fighting by ghost. His fears of antagonizing Zero now shown to be futile, Crenshaw made the fateful decision to fully engage the Pan.
Crenshaw: [>all Sure Fire forces] Fire at the Pan! Everyone in range! Collateral damage to Blue Dusk is acceptable.
Sure Fire barraged Blaze with every form of attack available to them- from lasers, phasers, and missiles, to catapulted rubble. Blaze’s shields held, but were weakening. Blue Dusk was also taking heavy damage from the barrage and from Blaze’s fists.
Pawn watched Blaze struggling and made his own fateful decision.
Pawn: [>relevant team leaders] Initiate Operation: Crab Battle! Expect no help from South Kirin. Zero Daisaku needs our help!
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] You know that we’ll be exposed in the middle of the wasteland, right? It’s a kill zone.
Pawn: [>Xea] Pretty much.
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] Suicide mission, for the win!
Kirin units flooded the wasteland, pushing forward through shelling and dancing around entrenched SuFi groups. Xea left her unit under another leader’s control and ramped up her power level as she ran full tilt, tripping into a few rolls as she went. Using that large a percentage of her power was a gamble, as it could make it practically impossible to return from death in any sort of effective form. A moment of bad luck could undo the power and equipment she had spent months of work on, not to mention removing her valuable active leadership from the Kirin. But it was a reasonable risk considering the gravity of the situation and Xea didn’t mind risking her life for a good. It was exciting and gave her a mental edge.
Pawn, whose integrated mech was not designed for this sort of combat, did what he could to orchestrate the attack from behind Kirin defenses. He monitored Xea as she passed enemy lines. He sent her a message over a channel known to have been hacked by Sure Fire.
Pawn: [>Xea] Xea, where the fuck are you going? That device is not properly tested!
Xea Fluon: [>Pawn] Now’s as good a time as any. Going dark until I blow it.
SuFi scanners revealed Xea’s energy signature going off the scale, indicating that she carried some sort of high explosive element in her mech. SuFi artillery was alerted and began to shell where Xea’s energy signature was projected to be next, but Xea was always one step ahead, weaving in and out of SuFi fortifications, smashing through buildings and around encampments, leading to significant damage and confusion from friendly fire.
Finally, she turned off the high energy illusion cloak and masked her signature into stealth mode. It was smooth enough to convince those tracking her that she had been destroyed. Using her skill at signature manipulation and infiltration, she used a cloak to match the SuFi colors and energy signature and then broke into the underground tunnel system to begin a campaign of guerrilla warfare and subterranean harassment.
Most Kirin forces engaged with the enemy line, attempting to break holes in it for their artillery to take advantage of. The boldness and seeming stupidity of the assault caught Crenshaw by surprise, but he delayed little in redirecting a third of SuFi’s artillery at the exposed Kirin. After a few more minutes of heavy fighting, the Kirin force had largely been repulsed from Sure Fire’s Western fortifications and were fleeing across the wasteland. The Deep One had retreated back into the Earth, probably to return to hibernation. Blaze and Blue Dusk had begun to throw each other into buildings as they wrestled, and while Blaze’s capabilities were unknown, it appeared to be wearing down. Unsure of their ability to damage Blaze Snap in that short interval, Crenshaw redirected most of SuFi’s artillery fire at the fleeing Kirin. This decision would come to be seen as one of the biggest mistakes in Ataraxian history.
In that moment of relative silence, Zero, who had been raging blindly, figured out that the Kirin force must have crossed the wasteland to buy him time, and were now suffering for it. Blaze Snap grabbed Blue Dusk by its left arm and rocket hopped over Sure Fire’s territory into the wasteland, easily carrying the much larger mech with it. Crenshaw refocused fire on Blaze, but now Zero had his composure. He used Blue Dusk as a shield, and produced a warping field that covered much of the wasteland, pulling all forms of fire toward his mech, providing cover for the fleeing Kirin while battering Blue Dusk.
The warp field was technology advanced enough at that point in the game that it might as well have been magic. Crenshaw quickly ordered SuFi artillery to cease fire, though much of his force continued firing in sheer panic. The six players managing Blue Dusk panicked as well and attempted to rocket back behind Sure Fire lines, causing it to lose most of its left arm in Blaze's grip. Blaze shot its shoulder cannon at Blue Dusk’s rocket pack as it attempted escape, causing it to malfunction, and Blue Dusk to fall into Sure Fire front line fortifications. Some of Blue Dusk’s missiles exploded at the impact, creating a hole in their defenses.
Continued fire from SuFi forces now was redirected into Blaze’s force field, which appeared to be efficiently absorbing it. Zero attached a pack of munitions from its back to Blue Dusk’s left arm and surrounded it in a force field, then threw it above the SuFi line and detonated it, instantly liquefying the arm and sending molten death raining down into the streets. A thin layer of plasma spread out, short-circuiting force fields, setting buildings ablaze, and killing units over several blocks.
Crenshaw: [>Riful] Is this really happening?
Riful: [>Crenshaw] Almost definitely.
Crenshaw: [>Riful] Just... inconceivable!
Zero sent out an area wide broadcast. His regenerating, but still burnt, face was streaming with tears and snot, contorted with a channeled focus which was keeping his mind from going to chaos as a result of his anguished rage. It took a moment for him to compose himself enough to speak.
Zero: Sure Fire! Today, you face me!
In his virtual studio, Mike pulled up a slowed down recording showing Zero’s amazing display of skill handling. He smoothly operated numerous complicated systems as he tracked and intercepted enemy fire with his warp field, and manhandled a powerful giant robot, despite the significant damage it had already taken. That one player handled it all so perfectly seemed almost impossible, but the recording was authentic. It showed that the Gears were right to pick him. Zero’s player had rare talent indeed.
With the Kirin forces largely safe behind their own shielding, Blaze Snap dropped its warp field. Weapons compartments all over the mech popped open as its offensive power ramped up. In a few seconds it was bristling with missiles, laser cannons, and high powered guns, and SuFi scanners revealed Blaze locking its guidance systems onto dozens of targets, from strongly shielded buildings to individual units.
SuFi artillery fire stopped and its power was redirected to reinforcing force fields along their Eastern front. For the first time in days, the wasteland had a single moment of peace.
Crenshaw: [>Riful] I’ve never seen so much power held in the hands of an entire battalion, much less a single crazed boy.
Riful: [>Crenshaw] It’s so beautiful. That we get to experience such a thing...
Crenshaw: [>Riful] I have a dreadful thought. What if Zero was out looking for a righteous cause? What if he didn’t know who the bad guys were?
Riful: [>Crenshaw] I suspect he’s got an opinion on that now.
Blaze’s shield focused to a single point in front of the mech and then exploded toward and over SuFi’s territory, raining down nearly pure disruptive energy which interfered with shields all over their front line. The next second, the wasteland lit up as Zero fully unleashed his massive arsenal.
MAKING MOVIES OUTSIDE
Mike’s proxy sat on a cushion which hovered about his virtual studio, while in physical reality he sat on his couch. He didn’t have a plant, but was able to maintain an effective presence in purely virtual spaces by means of his augmented reality gear. Use of a keysphere and haptic clothing enabled interaction with the sets and precision control over the movie. He also wore a stylish cap which monitored his brain activity and helped him move around the sets intuitively.
His role as Crenshaw consisted mainly of spoken lines and upper body movement. It would have been easier and more immediate with a plant, but he made do and it turned out well enough since Crenshaw was not active on the front lines.
Mike had been watching the scenes unfold in two ways- through a tentative framing of the scenes being recorded, and to the side, as if he was on a physical movie set. Between the two methods, it was easy for him to do things like freeze the action, give direction, and manipulate various aspects of the scenes.
Mike: That was great, guys! Take a break.
The actors returned to their primary proxies in the common area of Mike’s set. The common area was designed to enable the crew to discuss and plan the filming. There were multiple screens of different sizes littered about, displaying footage from various angles as scenes were recorded, along with miniaturized versions of the sets floating here and there, providing easy ways to watch the action unfolding from any angle desired.
Since most scenes were complete 3D recordings in virtual space, actors were typically fully immersed in their roles. Sometimes there was a visual mark to indicate a possible framing perspective where the “camera view” might be placed later, and occasionally Mike’s hovering proxy would appear in a scene to give direction, but often actors just performed the scene naturally, with no no impediments to their movement.
Filming inside a virtual space, known as “machinimation,” was basically free and far easier than filming with real cameras and physical locations. Even real physical locations were easier to work with once virtualized. Realistic environments, bodies, clothing, makeup, lighting, visual continuity, and most special effects were easily created and simulated. Scenes could be shot and reshot any number of ways, and individual elements in a scene, such as an actor, an object, or an explosion, could be isolated and manipulated separately. A perfect performance by one actor could never be ruined by bad lighting or the actions of other actors.
Megan watched the filming, fascinated with Kyu and Mike’s real time editing of the various shots of the film into engaging preliminary sequences. She approached Mike as he was artfully adding some gore into Zero’s falling sequence.
Megan: Thanks for letting me watch.
Mike: No problem.
Megan: You guys make it look so easy.
Mike: The technical aspects aren’t hard at all, especially since we’re working with Ataraxia’s engine and the actual game recording as a base. Everything is already so awesome, from the environments to individual proxies, because of all the work players put into the game. Modding the original recording authentically couldn’t be easier since it includes all the models and sensory information, right down to Riful’s peculiar smell.
Megan: I’ve tried making videos before and couldn’t quite get the hang of it. The impressive part is how you pull it all together into a story with a fixed perspective.
Mike: Kyu’s the talent there. Picking camera focus, framing, sound editing, and all that. The film's looking pretty sleek so far, but whether it’ll be a movie worth watching is another matter. All the cool effects and battles in the world don’t matter without a good story.
Megan: Well, what I've seen is pretty engaging. How many people are working on this?
Mike: Kyu and I are doing most of the technical stuff. And we have 7 actors doing most of the dramatizing.
Megan: And no one’s getting paid, right?
Mike: Ha! We’re unlikely to see much money for this, and what we get will be going into our next project anyway.
Megan: Do you think you can get a wide release?
Mike: It’s hard to say. Thomas is in it, so there are his fans. And Kyu’s got some name recognition as a director. But without an advertising budget, it pretty much depends on word of mouth and such.
Megan: I’m not clear on the virtual theater box office thing. How does that work with you guys getting paid?
Mike: We’re making it available for free download and asking for donations. Anyone can set up a virtual theater and show it with whatever ticket price they want. That’s usually not a lot, even for some of the more popular venues, since there will be so many theaters showing it for free and people can always just download it for themselves. They ones that charge are supposed to split sales with us, but that's up to them. In any case, every showing of the film is supposed to have a link to our site where people can donate money for our next project.
Megan: What about fan edits of films? It seems like most popular movies have so many fan mods these days it's hard to tell which ones to watch.
Mike: That’d be a great problem to have! We’re making the production models and raw recordings available on our site, so fans could edit the film however they want. With all the free tools out there and the original materials, people can add or delete scenes, change lines or perspective, enhance special effects, add details in the background, change a character’s style, or whatever. Mods can be tricky when it comes to who gets a fair cut, cause some of them will only use a portion of a movie production, or even mix different movies together.
Megan: And sometimes filmmakers go back and forth modding a project, right?
Mike: Frequently. That’s actually how I met Kyu. You know his movie “Spitfire?” I added a scene to it that he liked, which he then edited, and then I took his edit and extended it, and then we figured that we should just work on a new project together. The low cost and ease of making films with today’s technology, combined with a whole world of fans ready to put work into a project, produces feedback loops for making movies and shows that let projects continue to evolve over years or even decades.
Megan: That must make it complicated about who gets paid if there is a lot of money involved. Your entire project is actually a fan mod of real events, now that I think about it. So if you make a lot of money off of it, shouldn’t you give some of that to the original players like Crenshaw?
Mike: Oh yeah, if we make any amount of money, which is unlikely, we will definitely give at least some portion of it to the original players. That’s traditional for stuff like this. But there isn’t as much money to be made in non-interactive movies as there used to be, back when Hollywood was dominant.
Thomas walked up to Mike and showed him various vids of Riful reacting to Blaze Snap as it powered up its weapons. Mike nodded in approval to one and Thomas started tweaking it. Megan watched Sam and Miguel as they reshot various sections of Gakk and Zero’s escape. They repeatedly fought through the same floors, with some randomization to keep the fighting fresh. Kyu and Mike would later choose the best takes and edit them together so the action appeared natural and raw.
Megan: What sort of computing is required for this?
Mike: This whole studio is just running off of my computer. Kyu’s put together some of the footage for the larger scale battles on his computer, which takes more resources, but so far we haven’t had to use the cloud or anything. Kyu is almost solely responsible for the major enhanced effects and such. He’s very talented. You remember the third section of Spitfire?
Megan: Yeah, it’s spectacular.
Overhearing this, Kyu smiled and waved politely while considering camera angles for Blaze Snap’s initial barrage.
Mike: Did you know that he made it entirely by himself, including the characters, just using Space Forge?
Megan: How could you do both sides of a conversation like that? And even fight yourself?
Mike: You do one role and then play another role against the recording. For it to feel right you have to give your prerecorded role some flexibility in how it responds to you so you can get correct eye contact and mannerisms that match the characters’ positions and such. Space Forge has some nice auto-adjusting functions, but it’s still difficult to get the interaction between people to look natural unless you have a brain behind each one. Kyu just has great talent when it comes to engaging with himself.
Megan: Wasn’t there a sex scene in that segment?
Mike: Like I said, great talent.
Sam and Miguel re-inhabited their proxies in the common area and looked through the footage they had just recorded for any particularly exciting or funny bits of action. Thomas, satisfied with what he was working on, came over and helped Mike, who was still working on Zero's escape.
Megan: OK, I understand taking a game recording and giving it a perspective by editing together scenes and framing the action, but why reenact it? Wasn't it dramatic enough? People are damn serious about these battles.
Thomas: Oh, people are serious enough, but they typically lack cinematic drama while they're in the moment. Kyu and Mike give it better, more consistent graphics, add music, and it has better acting, my part excluded. They also organize the battles and cut out some of the boring stuff. They're basically making it more like a scripted movie.
Mike: Most of the players back then didn't even bother with “in-game” role playing. It’s a whole different dynamic than film or Ataraxia as people live there today. Even now people are too concerned about the situation to play it smooth or throw out cool lines.
Thomas: You know what Riful originally said when the office 23 alarms went off? "I fucking hate this game!" And then when he got to the building, he ran through it repeatedly yelling “fuck” until he jumped after Zero.
Megan: Ah, I see. And anyone can just watch the original footage if they want to see what originally happened.
Mike: Yeah, the original recording is included along with the film for comparison. Also, this is kind of a training project. We're working up to an original project, one with more interaction. Interactive media is where the really interesting stuff is getting done, and requires a great deal more technical skill. Even little kids can put together awesome, special effects heavy action sequences, but drawing viewers in, and making them an integral part of the story is where art is evolving.
Thomas changed his proxy to the film’s Riful/Thomas mixed proxy.
Thomas: The project is much needed practice for us actors too.
Megan: Hey, why does Miguel look like Zero while your look is mixed with Riful?
Thomas: We thought it would be fun if it looked like I was an actor in makeup playing Riful, like in some old movie. We mixed it with my current standard proxy, which is way more famous than Xea Fluon, my character at that time.
Mike: Zero’s kind of iconic, so we didn’t want to mess with that. We have Miguel playing him mostly to make his interaction with Riful more natural, and to get Miguel working with our team.
Megan: What is the deal with Zero, anyway? Did anyone ever figure out who his player was?
Mike: He’s still anonymous. I’m sure you’ve heard some of the speculation surrounding him. He was quite the distinctive player. Always in character.
Thomas: There’s a theory that Zero was a group effort, but we know from the proxy scheme he released after the game that Blaze’s controls all went through a single humanoid player proxy, which is unprecedented. For efficiency, you want as few people as possible controlling a mech, but for a mech of that size and complexity you’d need at least 3 or 4 players. Hell, Blue Dusk, which was somewhat less complicated, required a minimum of 6 people to operate. Blaze Snap’s control scheme is a marvel of automation, but still requires insane skill to juggle all of those systems like Zero did. Go try piloting that thing by yourself some time, see how well you can do basic maneuvers in it, much less respond to a massive bombardment.
Thomas brought up a detailed hologram of Blaze Snap’s schematics.
Thomas: And in terms of engineering the mech itself, no one has a good idea as to how he developed it with so little recorded activity over his missing months. I suspect a group was involved with acquiring power sources for it and integrating its various routines and devices. But no one has come forward to lay claim to that, so who knows?
Mike: There’s also the question of what motivated Gakk to rescue him, and whether she was secretly working with him from before.
Thomas: Didn’t it turn out that Gakk’s player had run into a previous incarnation of Sure Fire in a previous iteration of Ataraxia or something?
Mike: That was pretty circumstantial, I think. And then there was Zero’s strange, tragic death several months later. It’s all very intriguing.
Miguel: [walking over to the discussion after finishing with his part of the project] I’m fond of the theory that he was an untreated autistic. It would fit his personality and his amazing dedication to developing Blaze. And it would explain some of his neurotic behaviors, like the Tetris thing.
Megan: He didn’t play it very well. It looks like he’s not as concerned about the score as much as forming patterns.
Miguel: Yep. He liked to make stairs, always ascending to the left. People went nuts trying to figure out if there was some secret code in his Tetris game, but he was probably just being enigmatic.
Thomas: Classic Pandemonium obfuscation. Mystique is one of the attributes the Gears look for when selecting players to become Pans.
Miguel: Along with character, skill, vision, and a hatred for griefers and stagnation. Although Pans don’t usually become emotionally involved like he did, and they almost never lose their shit like that. Zero was dangerously unstable, perhaps unable to properly differentiate the game narrative from out-of-game reality.
Thomas: Unstable is one way to put it.
Thomas brought up a miniature Neo-Kyoto model and replayed the devastation that Blaze unleashed upon Sure Fire’s defenses.
Thomas: He burned through his power reserves in a matter of minutes, but he left quite an impression. Blue Dusk, a major project, never recovered. Pooling their resources, SuFi forced Zero to retreat, but the gaps he opened in their defenses led to their loss of the city after several more weeks of fighting. The two weeks I spent in the SuFi sewers during that madness were some of the most intense of my life. But it was worth it, because in the end there was even enough of the city left to make it worth our holding onto, and the whole debacle shifted power in the region. Sure Fire’s mistake was in engaging Zero at all. This is a classic example of what happens when regular players try to control Pans or bring them down into their conflicts. Your best shot is to avoid them and hope they go away. If he hadn’t been mishandled, Zero might have even joined Sure Fire, or at least stayed out of the conflict.
Mike: I seem to remember you saying that they made a mistake not killing Zero immediately.
Thomas: Well sure, once they had him in containment. In retrospect, it wouldn’t have worked. It was discovered much later that it was a secondary proxy in that cell, built for role play. His primary proxy had already integrated fully into Blaze. But killing him cleanly would have shown more respect and maybe wouldn’t have even set him off. As it happened, his intervention not only cost Sure Fire the city, but possibly the rest of the war. If things hadn’t gone down like that, Neo-Kyoto would have become a SuFi fortress, and they might have steamrolled the Kirin and doomed Ataraxia.
Megan: Come on, doomed?
Thomas: The norm for each new cycle of Ataraxia is determined by the norm from the preceding cycle. Sure Fire’s methods wouldn’t have left a workable norm at the end of the conflict if they had won. The next game would have started in the equivalent of a burned out crater and players would have had to rebuild the game environment from scratch.
Miguel: That’s not true! And at least Sure Fire was a reputable faction. The Kirin were basically operating as yakuza before they started messing with Sure Fire. They regularly used extortion, bribery, and outright piracy.
Thomas: Some of us did, yes. Mostly for fun. But we didn’t become a major faction before Sure Fire’s momentum became dangerous to the very fabric of Ataraxia and we were forced to step up to block their evil plans.
Miguel: Sure Fire’s goal was to provide a universal basis that would allow the various factions and norms to work together. They were trying to hold Ataraxia together, and it would have gone smoothly except for the Kirin’s entrenched sense of entitlement.
Thomas: Another victim of S.F.’s propaganda machine.
Miguel used this comment as an excuse to join Kyu in editing the film.
Mike: Ironically, Sure Fire did unite all of the various factions against them, and that comraderie has shaped Ataraxia since then.
Thomas: The Nazis accomplished the same thing.
As per Mike’s studio rules enforcing Godwin’s Law, Thomas’ mouth became a zipper and was instantly zipped shut. His enforced silence would last for 2 minutes.
Mike: And that’s the end of that discussion.
Thomas glared at Mike for a moment, but had no one but himself to blame. Seeing that most people seemed to be done with their work, Mike brought up Kyu’s diagrams, which visualized the various forces and strategic decisions of both sides during the battle.
Mike: The logistics of the Neo-Kyoto situation were nightmarish at the time, but they're pretty fascinating now. Supply line issues don’t matter in Ataraxia like they do in physical reality, since units are largely self powered, but forces can still be cut off or flanked. Considering that no one had planned for Neo-Kyoto to become a quagmire like that, the skill shown at every level of play in the conflict is just amazing. Leaders, strategists, spies, infantry, and even people just trying to survive kept finding ways to be surprising. Incidentally, we have time to work on the side project if people are interested.
Megan: What’s the side project?
Mike: It’s an exploration of alternate military history. There’s a long standing belief that if the Kirin had been more aggressive early on, Neo-Kyoto would have become a significant Kirin stronghold which could have shortened the war. We’re running a simulation of it that we’ll include with the film, and spicing it up with some alternate history battles.
Megan: Running a simulation of it? Like the whole city?
Mike: Basically. Using battle statistics and such. We use contemporary player ghosts where we can for authenticity, but it’s the large average forces that we’re mostly working with. Kyu has run the simulation dozens of times, and so far it looks like Neo-Kyoto gets trashed no matter what happens, although there have been a few surprising outcomes. One strategy that the Kirin almost used has shown them taking total control of the city just before the wasteland got carved out. So we’re having fun with that simulation. We’ve been putting human players into the scenario to make it look more lively and give our actors experience in producing cinematic fight scenes.
Megan: Can I help?
Mike: You could be one of Pawn’s units. Can you pilot a Strider class mech?
Megan: Sure, no problem.
MEGAN’S BIT PART
Mike linked Megan to a mech and she inhabited the proxy inside it. While recording was paused, she settled into her seat, calibrated the mech for her usual settings, and practiced with its weapons on nearby buildings.
Proxies in Ataraxia didn’t come with their own preset actions, requiring their users to control their every motion, or to automate them with ghosts. Reloading a weapon, aiming, firing, or even taking a step required more than just pushing a button. Each part of each action had to be done by a player or a ghost. This meant that players could do anything they could in the physical world, with just as much, or more, precision. But it required a good deal more experience than less fully articulated games.
Operating a mech in Ataraxia could be done indirectly using its physical control scheme, or it could be made an extension of a player’s proxy senses. As an extension of the player’s body, it could be controlled like any proxy body. A combination of control methods was common. Megan had mech experience, and so quickly adopted its sensations and limited the sensations from the mech pilot proxy, to engender the experience of being the mech.
The sensations of a mech were similar to those of a body. Megan could smell the exhaust from her engine, hear distant fighting, and feel the wind, the gravel under her feet, and the pull of gravity as she balanced the mech on its bulky legs. She also had a complete wraparound view of her environment, unencumbered except by a crisp, mostly transparent heads up display feeding her vital information. She could also feel the heat from the mech’s engines, which helped prevent overheating. If damaged, she would experience small unpleasant sensations in a corresponding part of her body, just enough to get her attention and assess damage.
Inside the mech was the male proxy she was inhabiting, but she only shared sensations with his face and vocal cords, for the purpose of communicating with other players. To Megan, the mech wasn’t just a machine she was controlling, or even an extension of her body. For all intents and purposes, to her brain at least, the mech was most of her body. This immediacy provided intuitive control, but more was needed for mastery of the complex combat required by games like Ataraxia. For that, your mech needed to have some life of its own.
Megan loaded her personal ghost into the Strider class mech and it came online gradually. It contained the personalized reflexes and automation she had trained into similar mechs over countless hours of practice and combat. Trained ghost reflexes were much like reflexes of a physical body, which are often faster than conscious decision making. Some reflexes of the biological body are relayed from the spinal cord, external to the human brain. In both biological and ghost reflexes, the brain becomes aware of the reflexive action only after it has occurred, but through immediacy and familiarity is often under the illusion that it consciously performed the reflexes itself.
Megan’s ghost managed predictable mech systems and anticipated Megan’s desires based on her motions and commands. It first took over managing the mech’s balance as it walked. It did this so smoothly, and so closely mimicking her own manner, that Megan still felt as if she was controlling every aspect of the movement, even as she paid less and less direct attention to it. The first few times she reloaded her hi-explosive launcher, she manually reached for new ammo from the dispenser on her back, and loaded it into the launcher. But then the ghost started taking over so that she only had to start reaching for the ammo and the ghost did the rest. This freed her mind to focus on less mundane details. Only rarely did her ghost misread her intent, and then it was easy to override by simply resisting the action or performing a new one.
The reflexes and automation Megan had built into her mech also helped her participate in high speed combat she could never have consciously kept up with, and helped bridge the gap regarding lag issues for when she was participating in a virtual space hosted on a server geographically far enough away from her to matter.
It turned out that the player Megan was inhabiting had heroically sacrificed himself in order to distract a group of Sure Fire units. Megan let the recorded ghost of her proxy’s previous resident replicate its movements through the streets of the city, but she stopped it before it sacrificed itself. She looked for a better way to deal with the situation, or at least a more exciting way to die. While exploring, she found some grafitti of Sure Fire's informal symbol, a blue universal no sign- ⃠.
Nearby, she rounded a corner and sighted several cloaked SuFi units. Before she could have consciously reacted, her mech’s ghost had taken over in response to the unexpected threat and had jumped back behind the building for cover. But it did it so much like she would have that her brain was convinced it had responded itself, even if Megan knew she wasn’t quite that fast.
As it was in an aggressive mode, it also autonomously sent a few scattered laser shots at the enemy units to draw their attention. Again, Megan’s ghost acted so perfectly in line with her intent that she couldn’t necessarily say whether it had been her ghost or an itchy trigger finger. As quickly as it responded, however, the enemy units sprayed plasma bolts through the building and critically damaged her mech, rattling Megan's teeth and giving her an unpleasant tingling along her right side corresponding to the damage.
Mike reset her scene to just before she rounded the corner.
Mike: Megan, that’s a good scenario you’ve discovered. Let’s try some playthroughs of it and then pick the best outcome.
Megan always wore a smile the entire time she piloted a mech into combat. Fighting and fleeing in an urban jungle with a high speed mech was like a combination of racing cars, gun fighting, parkour, and occasionally sky diving.There was nothing quite like mech combat, even staged as this was, to get her adrenaline pumping.
Megan’s mech came around the corner, again and again, feigning surprise each time as it jumped back to cover. Most of the time enemy fire hit her mech, but a few times she managed to jump back and climb the building to get high ground and then shoot back through the building. Occasionally she even took one of the SuFi mechs out before being nailed herself. She also discovered, by looking at a local map of events, that she sometimes managed to bring attention to those enemy units, disrupting what turned out to be their covert plans.
She decided to stretch her ghost a bit. She launched her only thermal grenade at the enemy, rocket jumped high in the air while shooting at them, then shot a grappling hook into the top of a building, and reeled her mech in at maximum speed to abruptly change course midair. She landed on the building and shot one of the mechs down as it rocket hopped above her in pursuit, before being blasted by another.
Mike: Thanks Meg, that was very impressive and should suit nicely. Thomas, Pawn, let's retake your section from second 22. Jazz it up a bit.
Megan returned to her proxy in the common area and watched the other section being filmed while chomping down one of T’s donuts as her physical had a granola bar. T and Pawn worked well together, orchestrating their teams to expertly annoy Sure Fire.
That is, until T shot Pawn's head off.
Pawn: Hey! That hurt!
Thomas: That’s what traitors get!
Mike: Stop that or I’m locking down your mech privileges!
They played through their scenario several more times until they had achieved a sufficiently exciting outcome and returned to the common area. Pawn looked annoyed.
Megan: Pawn, I was wondering, do you always use that name for your characters?
Pawn: No, I used others before I was Pawn in that particular game. I immigrated from Ataraxia to Sunshine City not long after those events and have been Pawn ever since.
Thomas: You turned traitor!
Pawn: I lost the taste for fighting. That hardly makes me a traitor.
Thomas: We still needed you in Ataraxia. You know how close Sure Fire came to wrecking everything!
Miguel: [unable to contain himself] Sure Fire was a valid faction with rational goals.
Thomas: Here we go. I suppose you’re going to tell me that the near destruction of Ataraxia that would have resulted from Sure Fire winning was an unforeseeable consequence of their momentum?
Miguel: It was heated on all sides. It wasn’t like they set out to destroy Ataraxia.
Thomas: There is evidence that Sure Fire intended to destroy Ataraxia.
Mike: Sure Fire was way too organized and large scale to be simple griefers like that. Surely they would have changed course if things were going to turn out apocalyptic. Anyway, enough of that. Who’s going to Omni?
Next- Episode 07: Club Omni (1 of 2)- Where Anything Can, And Does, Happen
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