Lewis turned to Zhao. “A bit gory, isn’t it?”
“It’s a shooter game. Were you expecting puppies and unicorns?” he scoffed.
“Just seems a bit excessive, that’s all.”
Zhao shook his head, watching Jenna slaughter more NPCs on the screen. “I believe violence in video games is an underappreciated art form. It comments upon society’s need to satiate bloodlust, yet also fulfills it at the same time.”
Jenna swung her plastic prop, smashing the butt of her weapon across the man with the yellow visor’s head. He stumbled back, dazed, as Jenna held the rifle at her hip and opened fire. The projectile hailstorm tore him to bloody bits at close range, and what was left fell to the floor in a gory mess. Judging by the entrails strewn about, these enemies were not cyborgs, merely men outfitted in heavy futuristic gear.
Lewis watched as his girlfriend grabbed something imaginary from the side of her waist and made the motion of jamming it into the bottom of her gun, sliding a fresh clip of ammunition home on the screen.
Having cleared the area of enemies, she jogged toward the street. Redirected motion once again tricked her into thinking she was moving straight, whereas in reality she nearly completed an ellipse around the gaming area.
She burst out onto the road and a police officer, dressed in similar attire to the enemies but with a visor that alternated between glowing blue and red, ran out in front of her. “Rookie, thank God you’re here.” He peered around behind her. “Damn, you made quick work of the Dragon Syndicate’s men in the building. But the fight’s not over yet. Come on, we’re trying to fend ‘em off up the street.”
He took off running down the road to the left. Jenna took one look in the other direction, where a massive police barricade had been set up, then sprinted after him. There were a couple of DeLorean cop cars parked at different angles, and more S.W.A.T. officers taking cover behind them, occasionally ducking out to fire. Further up the street, the villains shot back from around the sides of ominous black vans with logos of neon orange dragons adorning their sides.
Jenna crouched down by the rear end of a DeLorean and looked up. Tall, black skyscrapers with neon blue and purple windows reached up toward a starry sky. She leaned out from her cover and fired at one of the Syndicate henchmen at the side of a van.
Lewis glanced at the others. Even in the dim light of the Studio, he could still see that Katelyn and the security guard had their attention on the monitors with an occasional glance at Jenna to see how her movements correlated with the virtual world.
Zhao, however, had his eyes fixed solely on Jenna.
After slaughtering countless henchmen on her way up the retrofuturistic street, Jenna’s character was finally told by one of her cohorts that she was due for a promotion and a special medal from the mayor. Then everything froze, and the words MISSION SUCCESS appeared in front of her.
Placing the prop at her feet, she pulled the VR rig off and shook her head to straighten out her hair. She looked sweaty and tired but appeared to have enjoyed herself.
“Well done,” Zhao said, clapping. “I’ve never seen someone move like that through this game. Your skill is unparalleled.”
Lewis tried not to roll his eyes.
“Thanks,” Jenna said in a professional tone, strolling toward them with the headset tucked under her arm. He realized she must’ve learned how to deal with this kind of attention from all her events, championships, and conventions. It was something she’d probably had to handle a lot given her looks and the predominantly male demographic of her profession.
Zhao turned to him. “Mr. Lewis, don’t you think you should play the game yourself? You are writing an article on it, after all.” An unpleasant tone had crept into his voice.
“Sure,” Lewis said, looking at the Game Over screen on the monitor. “Although I’d prefer to play something a little less bloody.”
He smirked. “I have the perfect one for you.”
15
Lewis opened his eyes inside the Nebula headset. Legions of stars populated the sky above him, more than he had ever seen before. Slowly, he sat up and looked around. He was in the middle of a vast white, barren rocky landscape full of craters. Nothing else was in sight no matter which way he turned his head. An eerie track played softly in the background, emphasizing the oppressive loneliness of the setting.
Lewis got to his feet, trying not to panic. It’s just a game, he told himself. He looked around again. There was no buggy or spacecraft to indicate how he had gotten here. It was as if he’d simply teleported to the middle of nowhere. Up in the sky, he could see the Earth far off across the frigid, empty void, and the sun shining its rays brightly down upon the moonscape.
He knew if this were real life, he’d have been blinded by looking at the star, but staring directly at it yielded no pain in his corneas. That was good, reminding himself that he was still on planet Earth, in a darkened room in the middle of the Nevada desert, wearing a bulky headset that showed him a high-definition virtual environment.
Lewis breathed in and out, feeling calmer. Zhao hadn’t told him anything about the game, just that there was no violence. He’d directed him to lie still on his back in the center of the gaming area in Studio 1 and to “use his instincts” once the game began. Unlike Retrowave Rampage, there hadn’t even been a title screen. He supposed it was all for effect, throwing you out onto the Moon’s surface with no explanation.
He turned around in a 360 spin. No, there really wasn’t anything in sight. Only one thing to do then. Lewis picked a direction and started walking, one footstep after the other. On the real moon he would’ve felt lighter and been able to bound across the rocky terrain, but here it just felt like walking normally. Suspension of disbelief was evidently required.
After a while on the same track, he abruptly stopped. Studio 1 wasn’t this big, he was clearly being tricked with redirected motion. Lewis walked forward again, paying careful attention to the path of his legs. When he really focused on it, he could tell he was moving in some kind of circle, but his vision showed only forward motion. Noticing the difference made him feel slightly motion sick, so he stopped and went back to pretending he was walking regularly.
It felt like minutes were passing by, but there was still nothing in sight. The creepy soundtrack snaked its way into his ears, making him shiver. “Alright Zhao,” he said aloud. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
No reply.
He knew they were all standing there, the fuckers, watching him stumble around in circles like an idiot. He imagined Zhao with that big, smug smirk on his face and Jenna standing beside him uncomfortably.
Lewis spun around, aggravated, then froze. Off to his right, he saw an American flag in the distance and some kind of vehicle parked beside it. He walked toward it as quickly as he could. As he came closer, he saw the moon buggy was much sleeker and more advanced than the original rovers back from the Apollo missions decades ago.
Just as he walked up to the vehicle, he felt a strange sensation. The same feeling he’d had as he entered the Mirage yesterday.
The feeling of being watched.
Lewis turned around. And then he blinked to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. Another astronaut was making their way across the Sea of Tranquility toward him. Its facemask glowed an otherworldly blue.
Frantically, he turned around and climbed into the buggy’s driver seat. It somehow felt like he was actually sitting in a chair. Lewis guessed something had probably risen out of the trapdoors. He looked over the controls in a hurry. It seemed like a standard driving set up: steering wheel, accelerator and decelerator, etc. There was a holographic dashboard panel that displayed his current location, speed, and battery remaining. Right now, the charge was at 67%.