Author’s Note:

The style of this story goes something like this:

“Words” = Speaking

‘Words’ = Thinking

*Words* = Power requiring thought

Game Windows

[table=grey]Digital information (Email, Code etc.)[/table]

Anything else will be context dependent and will be explained as they happen.

I want to point out that this story starts off a little slow. There is a lot of exposition needed in the beginning to get the ball rolling, but by Chapter 7, things pick up. I will be posting daily until then so I hope you will stick with it. Enjoy!

PerceptiSense Cameras – Development Headquarters, San Jose, CA

Bradley Cooper found life heading towards a downward spiral.

Sitting at his corner desk within one of PerceptiSense’s many labs and surrounded by the tools of his trade: Oscilloscopes, Multimeters and circuit boards, he performed his job admirably. Each of the different cameras coming from his company's Chinese manufacturing facilities had unique characteristics and he provided the "interface"; the tool which the Software team and other companies would later develop upon.

The work drove Bradley insane.

The same issues and problems, the same little bugs and minor fixes blended together into one monotonous mess. He wished for something more. He tried going to bars, dating, online forums, hobby groups anything; but nothing seemed to catch his interest. With nothing easing the tedium of his day-to-day life, he dreaded his future prospects.

“Hey Brad, do you have the camera fix ready?” a man said from behind Brad, startling him out of his work, “I can’t finalize the DSP until you fix that aperture modulation issue.”

Bradley turned away from his computer desk to see his colleague from the visual Digital Signals Processing (DSP) team standing next to his desk. This was the fifth time this week his co-worker had come by about the exact same issue. It mirrored an issue he resolved in the past and so he knew exactly what he needed to do, but the task was tedious and filled up his hours the past week with unrewarding work.

‘It's not even that I blame him, he’s only doing his job,’ Bradley thought with a sigh, ‘I just wish he knew how hard I was actually working and that I don’t need him constantly pestering me to keep me motivated. Doesn’t he know that annoying me is only making it harder to do my job?’

“I’m working on it,” Brad replied, turning back to his desk to continue working, “I’ve been talking with the hardware team for the last two days and I’ve got most of the configuration updated. I just need to start testing and-“

“Start testing?! Jesus, we only have a month left before the product release date!”

“Which is why I’ve made sure all the hardware issues are dealt with,” Bradley asserted testily, still keeping his back turned to his colleague. “I know the issue is fixed, I just need to figure out the exact parameters to use in the configuration before I can commit the changes. I’ll send you an email when I’m done.”

“Send me a-,” he fumed before trailing off. He looked as if he was about to escalate things to violence, but he stopped himself. “Alright,” the man groaned, “I guess that means I can head home early today. Just make this your top priority.”

“Will do,” Bradley let out with fake enthusiasm, watching as his coworker left the room.

‘It’s the same thing, day in, day out. Minor fix here, minor revision there, tiny little add-on to the microcontroller to fix this other tiny issue,’ Bradley groaned, sitting back in his chair. ‘Why am I so bored of this? It has only been three years and the work isn’t easy, that’s for sure, and this is the exact field I worked tirelessly at university for! What was it all for? Isn’t this what I wanted and planned for? Devising unique mathematical and physical models to map hardware to software was my dream! Why is real life so much different than what I imagined…?’

Bradley wanted to leave his thoughts at that, but he needed to wait for a test to finish. With nothing to do for the time being, he could only think.

‘I almost wish he had hit me back there,’ he thought darkly, ‘then maybe life would have gotten more interesting…’ The smile he was wearing at the thought then immediately turned sour. ‘…or it would get reported to Human Resources, been forced to write some forms and then we would both have to spend hours in non-violence seminars…’

He sighed. ‘Maybe I should take another vacation-‘

The phone rang.

“Hello, Control System Dev Team, Brad speaking,” he answered.

“Hi Brad, there’s a package for you at the front desk, looks important,” the secretary replied on the other end of the line.

“Alright, I’ll come down now to pick it up,” he confirmed.

‘Might as well do it now,’ he thought, ‘Heck, maybe it might be interesting…’

Hilton Hotel – Dallas/Park Cities, Dallas, TX

‘Well, I said I wanted interesting, and this is about as interesting as it gets,’ Bradley thought.

Having just finished his interview, he pressed the button on the elevator to return to his hotel room. With only a week having elapsed since he received the job proposal, the situation still overwhelmed Bradley.

In the mail—wrapped in official government packaging—a vague letter offered him a high-paying job in the military dealing with classified work. Included were airplane tickets to the interviewing location. Normally, one week’s notice would not have been enough, but with nothing planned and a formal letter from the United States Government excusing him from work for the duration, his curiosity was piqued.

Of course, he immediately thought the whole thing was an elaborate phishing scheme, however the job turned out to be legitimate. He confirmed the reference number of the job on a government website as well as the tickets with the airline. There was no way a phishing scheme could possibly make a profit if they needed to spend money on air fare for each 'catch'.

The interviewer was a regular office worker in a suit. The man confirmed again the legitimacy of the request and gave Bradley signed documents as proof that the request was arranged by the Department of Defense. The interviewer asked just the basic questions: confirming Bradley's identity, verifying that he understood that the job would deal with classified information and that he would need to swear to secrecy under punishment of treason, the usual things for a government job of that nature. He dealt with the government through his company before so he knew the deal.

By the time Bradley retrieved his belongings from his hotel room and made his way back down the elevator and into the lobby, the interviews were over. The personnel in charge now began a process of loading each of the interviewees onto a large coach bus.

That was when the interesting things really started to happen.

The first thing Bradley noticed were the people filing them into the bus. Each of the men and woman were armed with a handgun at their waist. Of course such things were not uncommon in Texas, but truly felt off to him was their matching attire. They all wore the same black pants, white shirts, and heavy, sand-colored boots.

‘The only people I’ve seen wear boots like that were in the armed forces,’ Bradley thought, ‘but then why aren’t they wearing a uniform?’

He could make no boasts of his military knowledge, but with how much he enjoyed war movies, he could at least pretend. He probably would not have noticed the discrepancy at all if it were not for the orderly and brisk way they moved. The faces of the other candidates made it clear to Bradley that he wasn’t alone in noticing this development.

The second disconcerting event concerned giving up his phone and any electronic devices the moment he entered the bus. He knew that the location and details of the job would be kept secret, but now he felt in over his head. This, combined with the blacked-out windows and the door which blocked the drivers compartment from the passengers, drove home the point that the classified nature of this job position was no joke. They would have no idea where they were going.

“Hey, tall guy with the blue shirt,” a voice said.

Bradley turned towards the voice, finding its source across the row and behind him on the right. A small Asian man in his thirties appeared to be the source of the declaration. That that information could be easily gleaned from the fact that only 18 of the 56 passenger seats in the coach were currently filled with candidates. No other person sat in that area of the bus.

“What is it?” Bradley asked. Being 6'4" tall and wearing a blue shirt underneath his blazer did fit the other man’s description.

“Yeah, you. Do you know where we’re going?” he asked, a tinge of nervousness in his voice.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Bradley shrugged, “I’m guessing they took all our phones so we couldn’t figure that out. They probably don’t want us talking with people outside either.”

“I figured,” the man sighed, sitting back in his seat before rubbing the bridge of his nose. He groaned. “Why did I try for this sort of job? I’m usually not someone that would do this kind of thing.” He then sat back up and looked Bradley in the eyes. “I’m guessing you’re here for the same reason? A package in the mail from the Feds offering a cushy job with no details?”

“Yeah,” Bradley replied with a smirk, “nothing suspicious about that at all, right?” He then took out his hand and brought it over to the man saying, “The name’s Bradley by the way, Bradley Cooper.”

“Alex Cheng,” the man replied, reciprocating the gesture and shaking Bradley’s hand. “So, what do you think this is: Area 51? A new 'Manhattan Project'? Maybe a clandestine bake sale?” He emphasized the last point with a roll of his eyes.

Bradley chuckled briefly at his antics. “Well, they sure as hell got the wrong man for that, my cookie making ability honestly sucks,” he replied, shaking his head. “No, with my qualifications I was guessing at A.I. development. I’ve read a lot online about some recent patents in hardware micronization looking really promising lately. If the military was willing to drop some real money into something like that, it could happen. No matter what else I can think of—even, for instance, drones or missiles—could be done without all this spy nonsense.”

“A.I.?” Alex asked, “You mean, Artificial Intelligence?” Bradley nodded. “Well, I guess that could make sense. I mean, I’m a psychologist and could help with some of the cognitive stuff, but I can think of thousands of people more qualified than me. I specialize in Social Cognitive Psychology—especially advertising and subliminal messaging. If anything, I was expecting the job to be about improving interrogation techniques or something.”

“Really, you were expecting a job like that?” Bradley asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow. It surprised him that the ordinary-looking man seemed completely indifferent to the idea of helping develop military interrogation techniques.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Alex defended, shaking his head, “I may be from Florida but I’m no psycho. I was thinking something along the lines of: ‘what to say to a suspect’ or maybe ‘using media to convince someone that something fake is real.’ I wasn’t going to invent some new way of torturing people!”

“Ah, I guess that makes sense, sorry,” Bradley placated before stroking his chin, “but then what could the job be? I mean, they wouldn’t have had only one recruiter to interview us all at the same time for different jobs, right? I certainly couldn’t help in an interrogation. Any electronics that they would use for something like that be purchased commercially.”

“Maybe there’s some kind of pattern?” Alex offered.

“I’ll ask around,” Bradley agreed, “it’s not like there’s much else to do.” He also figured that getting to know these other potential coworkers was not a bad idea either.

Besides, Bradley enjoyed a good mystery.

??????

Almost ten hours elapsed before the bus finally arrived at its destination.

In that time, Bradley talked with all the passengers but despite his efforts, no pattern was readily apparent. There were nine people with white-collar desk jobs, two other engineers, four scientists, a university professor, and an architect. None of them lived near each other, both genders were equally represented, they had never met, had completely different names, and none of their fields of work overlapped—even for the people with desk positions. The investigation quickly grew beyond his meager detective skills and he went to sleep instead.

In the end, Bradley could only assume that they were all applying to a variety of positions and there would be in-depth interviews when the candidates arrived. He concluded that there could be no doubt that other candidates would arrive on different buses to compete for his position. For the government to put in as much work as they did in keeping to keep it a secret, he imagined that the job must be highly coveted.

He woke up minutes before the bus stopped. When it did, a man wearing grey, camouflaged army fatigues opened the door connecting the driver and passenger compartments. He looked up and down the rows for a moment, making a quick tally before heading back to the front of the bus.

“Alright, you have arrived at the destination,” the man exclaimed, rousing the sleeping passengers awake, “everyone is to leave the bus in an orderly fashion and collect their belongings. I’ll escort you to the orientation when you are ready.”

As the candidates all left the coach, they were greeted with a sight they all expected since they were brought on the bus.

A large aluminum hanger surrounded the candidates and the parked bus. The space gave off a “high-utility, low-cost” look one would expect from a typical government clandestine facility. White fluorescent lights far above them did not adequately light the room and so left deep shadows on the shipping containers surrounding them. Bradley hoped to glance outside in the hopes of even a glimpse of at his location, but the enormous metal sliding doors of the hanger were already closed behind them.

In addition to the containers in the room, the candidates were also greeted by more army personnel. Unlike the plain-clothed men that escorted them, however, these men dressed like "real" soldiers. M16 assault rifles, MBAVs, helmets, radios and additional magazines; they were fully equipped. Two of them even carryed M249 Squad Assault Weapons and grenade belts. If it wasn’t for the freshness of their uniform, they wouldn’t have looked out of place on patrol in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Not versed in military terms and knowledge, Bradley still found it strange to find such highly equipped men in an enclosed space. He avoided their eyes as he collected his things from beneath the coach. They weren’t people he wanted to even inadvertently offend.

‘Why are look like they’re about to mobilize for WWIII?’ he thought. ‘Surely they don't think we're a threat, right? Just what have I gotten myself into…?’

The man who first greeted them, led them to at door at the far end of the hanger, leaving the candidates in the room beyond.

They now found themselves in a room completely unlike what they had just seen; a simple conference room. Several pens, and pads of paper lay atop a large table with chairs in the middle of the room. Several phones were also strewn about the room. A desktop computer in one corner of the room connected to a digital projector bolted to the ceiling via an exposed cable. This projected a simple white screen onto the wall with the words:

Experiment Group 18 – Orientation

Bradley considered trying to find out where he where he was by messing with the phones or the computer. One did not go through five years at MIT without learning something about computer networks. In Bradley's experience, the average user left many vulnerabilities he could exploit. Still, after seeing those serious-looking soldiers in the previous room, he felt that a criminal act would be a very bad idea. They would not take such snooping lightly. These became rhetorical thoughts, however, for just a minute later, a woman in a smart dark-green beret, blazer and skirt entered the room. Being a little over six-and-a-half feet tall and extremely fit, the soldier was certainly intimidating. Even without the medals on her uniform, the poise and confidence she exuded were clearly military.

When she reached a space between the computer and the screen, she turned towards the candidates and introduced herself. “My name is Major Alyssa Jackson and I’m here to give you a brief presentation on the job opportunity each of received today.”

She pressed a key on the computer keyboard and flipped to a slide showing the word “classified” predominantly.

“Everything discussed in this room is classified,” she continued. “Regardless of whether you accept or decline this job position, you will not be allowed to speak about anything mentioned in this room. Doing so is treason and we will demand signed releases from each of you before you leave. If that or anything else does not sound reasonable, then you are free to leave the room at any time.” She emphasized this by pointing to the door they came from.

The Major spoke with practiced ease and without reference. Despite the serious nature of her words and voice, however, most of the candidates rolled their eyes. These words echoed similar ones they already heard during the Dallas interview. None of them planned to "walk out" after spending over ten hours traveling by bus to get there.

“Alright then, I will continue,” she confirmed. “You have all been chosen as candidates for a new government initiative we here at the base have come to know as ‘the Game’. Should you agree, you will each sign a five year contract to participate as subjects in this experiment under the supervision of the medical, science and military staff here. You will be given 60 US Dollars an hour working 9 hours a day, seven days a week with complete coverage of any living expenses over the course of the experiment. This works out to almost $200,000 a year. In return, you will not be permitted to leave the premises of the facility for any reason for the duration of the contract.”

“Alright, I’ve heard enough,” one man said, standing up. “Why the hell was I chosen for this?! I thought this was something that actually used our talents or could at least get us an ‘in’ with the government, not some stupid experiment! There’s no way I can afford to waste five years like this! I make more that in a year than what you’re offering for this whole damn thing! Unless this is some sort of mistake, I think I’ve wasted enough time on this.”

Bradley recognized that the man who spoke out was one of those with a desk job; an accountant or investor for Wells Fargo. ‘I remember because he wouldn’t shut up about it,’ he thought with a sigh.

The Major wore the hint of a scowl as the man spoke. Despite that, she remained silent until the end of the man's rant.

“I can understand your frustration, sir, but those are the terms,” the Major replied impatiently, “Being a secret project, we could not give you this information earlier and so I apologize if we have not been clear until now.” The Major straightened herself a bit and calmed down. She continued saying, “That being said, you were all chosen because—based on sophisticated algorithms we acquired—all eighteen of you are highly qualified for the type of testing that we are undertaking. In fact, many of you will likely qualify for overtime and earn far more than the $200,000 a year I mentioned earlier.”

Shaking his head, the man again took his seat. He remained unconvinced, but after all the effort in being there, he was not going to leave after only a single minute of the presentation.

“Anyway, I would appreciate it if everyone kept their questions or comments to themselves until the end of the presentation,” the Major said, proceeding back on task.

She changed the slide to one showing many still images of a variety of video games.

“The reason this project has been colloquially called ‘the Game’ is that this project does, in fact, center on a game. The contents of this Game will remain classified until after each of you sign your contracts, but I can tell you that it uses both incredibly realistic visuals and your entire body to perform tasks.”

She changed to the next slide showing various commercially available VR headsets and soldiers training on treadmills with screens in front of them. “As I’m sure some of you may be aware…”

While Bradley felt intimately familiar with the topic of what "Virtual Reality" entailed, the presentation still surprised him. Apparently this “Game Capsule” device—that acted as the machine-human interface to the Game—could not only provide the realistic audio-visual feedback he was expecting, but also voice recognition, facial recognition, full-body haptic control, biomonitoring and even taste and touch stimulation.

‘What the hell kind of computer do they have that could process all that data in real time?!’ Bradley thought to himself. ‘I know that they say the military is always 5 years ahead of the curve, but this is ridiculous! Even just full body motion capture requires a suit but apparently you can just hop into the Capsule and it’s as though you’re really there! It sounds completely unbelievable!’

“…and so that concludes the preliminary presentation,” the Major finished, closing the slideshow. “I’ll now open the floor to anyone who has questions.”

Many hands rose, but Alex Cheng—the psychologist Bradley met on the bus—asked the first question.

“Why is this ‘salary’ so high?” he inquired, “I’ve been conducting psychological studies and surveys for almost ten years and I’ve never seen this kind of money offered, especially not for such a long time-frame. Is this ‘Game’ dangerous?”

“Well not physically,” the Major replied. After thinking for a moment she added, “That being said, there are some things with the Capsule that remain untested. There are many unknowns we are still working out in terms of how the machine affects the human body. There may even be the possibility of death if-“

“Oh well forget this!” the belligerent accountant from earlier exclaimed, surging violently from his chair, “I’m out of here! There’s no way in hell I’m risking my life for a paltry two hundred grand and some stupid kid’s toy.”

The man who first introduced himself on the bus led the accountant out of the room. Several more also took this moment to leave. Bradley made out several of them siting their reasons why: their relationship could not last being separated for that long, that they didn’t want to end up as a mere test subject for the government, or even that they were simply too old for video games.

Now only twelve of them remained and the Major continued on as though nothing happened.

“Anyway, as I was about to say before I was interrupted, there is a possibility of death, but it has never happened yet. The only risks we’ve seen have been the usual ones with this sort of technology: anxiety, stress, seizures etc. The Game is extremely real, so even if there are no physical problems, it can induce psychological ones. Of course, our highly trained medical staff will immediately address any issues you might have.”

Another man spoke now, a programmer named Garry. Bradley remembered as the only one that sounded as if he lived in Dallas where they had the interview. He also shared Bradley’s interest in MMORPGs despite having stopped playing when they each got a job.

“There was somethin’ one of those folks that left said that got me riled up,” Garry noted. “What about our families? Will we be able ta talk to ‘em at all? There ain’t no way Ah could go five years without seein’ mah little girl. Ya’ll couldn’t force me fer any kinda money.”

“Of course you can,” the Major confirmed, “this isn’t a prison. The reason we need you to stay is primarily for security purposes and because of the limited number of Game Capsules we have available. You are working every day so that we can get as much use out of them as possible so you need to stay nearby. You can take monitored phone calls with friends or family any time you are not working and video conferencing services will be available to each of you once a week. We may even be able to provide transportation for them to visit nearby when resources permit.

“There are also plenty of on-site recreation facilities, entertainment, and monitored internet access. Apart from the 9 hours of work each day, you won’t have to worry about anything else.”

This time, Bradley spoke his mind, “Okay, I get everything that you’re saying. It sounds great and all, but this whole thing still doesn’t make any sense. This seems a little much for a simple VR test. What is the goal of this experiment? What is the real purpose of this ‘Game’? What are we going to be doing in there?”

She shook her head with a simple, “I can’t tell you." Even at the worried expressions of the other participants, the Major said nothing to placate them.

With no other questions, Major Jackson handed out the contracts to each of them.

‘What is with this contract?!’ Bradley thought, incredulously examining the single piece of paper. ‘This is the most straightforward contract I’ve ever had! It basically just restates what we’ve gone over in plain English, only adding:’

[table=white]Regardless of any ignorance in signing this document, all Players are obligated to spend a minimum of nine (9) hours within a Game Capsule each day for the duration of the five (5) year period starting from the moment of signing.[/table]

Bradley began reading the contract a second time when a new female voice spoke up, “This is bullshit! There’s no way this contract is legal! How can you have us sign this knowing full well we’re ignorant of the most important information?!”

The Major smiled. “If you can’t take a risk like this, then we have no use for you,” she replied bluntly. “This project is too important. If we were to allow you to leave after signing that, we would require 24/7 tails on each of you should we disclose everything now. We can’t afford that; so you either do the job knowing what you know, or you can leave. There is no in-between.”

The Major again pointed to the door they came in from.

“Well I don’t want to have any association with this little ‘experiment’ of yours!” she exclaimed, “The government has no right forcing people to do things against their will and I’ll see to it that this whole place is shut down!” She marched out of the room after taking the time to rip apart her contract. Seeing the display and fearing the "contractual slavery" she mentioned, several others quickly left behind her.

Bradley debated leaving too. ‘It’s not as if I need the money,’ he considered, ‘I’ve got a high paying job already and this is five years of my life we’re talking about! What if this is something completely crazy they’re experimenting with, or even worse, what if this is just a complete waste of time.

‘Oh, but think of the things I could learn! This device is easily 20 years ahead of its time! Just the control software alone must be monstrously efficient to sustain real-time performance under that kind of workload.’ He groaned. ‘This decision is going to be harder than I thought…’