“Felix is a shill working for Draco. They all are. So, no thanks, we aren’t going to flip them; for now, that’s way too hard, and too dangerous. You’re an outsider. Our perfect guy. And plus, we’ve got dirt on you, so that’s good, too,” Neil said.
“I don’t know why you think they’re up to something. They’re just—” Van’s words were cut short as O’Hara slammed him against the wall again.
“Let’s not be confused here,” she hissed. “We aren’t here to explain anything. We are not here to bargain or negotiate. You’ve got a deal here, sitting on the table. You can get our agent to where she needs to go—no questions asked, no tattling, and certainly no talking about what we’re doing here. In exchange, we make sure all supporting documents about your little exploits go away, we throw you a few grand as a thank-you, and who knows? We might even get you a whole new box of Gamer Chow, so what do you say, champ?”
“I’d say it doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice, does it?” Van asked.
“Well, what else are you going to do with your life, kid?” Neil asked. “You’re 23! You spend your days jammed up inside that computer anyway; at least, this way, you’ll be doing your civic duty. I mean, it’s about time you contributed something to society, isn’t it?”
Van glanced between the two agents. He was having trouble understanding whether the violence was just part of the act, or if he really was under duress. It was impossible to tell. Still, a few thousand dollars and his records being expunged didn’t sound like a bad deal. The only question was, could he trust these two? And... well, did it really matter if he could? They were with the Central intelligence Agency, a clandestine spy agency. If he was a liability, they’d just kill him after they were done. Or was that just some kind of fiction?
“Fine, I’ll do it. How much money are we talking about, exactly?”
“Enough to get into a closet almost twice as big as this,” Neil said as he grabbed Van’s computer, opened the window, and threw it out.
“Holy crap! My computer! You just—”
“Whoops! That just slipped right out of my hands!” Neil answered as he glanced out the window. They were on the fifteenth floor in a slum apartment. Van rushed forward, only to see that everything had completely shattered on the ground, smashed to pieces. There were a few homeless people already trying to salvage the computer for parts.
“That thing cost me almost all of my money!” Van said hoarsely. “All of my files, my… hard drive. How am I supposed to play this game for you if you’ve destroyed my computer?”
“Well, first off, we don’t know what kind of spying Draco does, so we had to make sure your machine wasn’t bugged. I mean, who knows? The moment you plugged back into that game, it could have had our whole conversation uploaded. Secondly, you ain’t using that hunk of junk for your escort job. We bought a few of those biopod thingies for this job, so that’s where you’ll be.”
“The immersion pod 2.0?” Van asked.
“That’s the one. And who knows? If you do a really good job, we might actually let you keep one,” O’Hara said as she opened the door. “Car’s waiting downstairs, so let’s get going.”
“I need my—”
“Anything you need will be provided at the facility, champ. Or are you getting cold feet?” Neil asked with a slight growl in his throat.
“I’m fine…” Van replied, glancing around his small apartment. He wanted to act all indignant about losing his computer, but the reality was that there wasn’t anything of value on that hard drive except for the install file for his beloved game, and even that was easy to access. If he gave them attitude, they’d probably just hit him again. “Let’s go.”
“Great, great,” Neil said as he closed the door behind them. “And one last thing, Van... your new partner, she’s... uh, she’s great and all, but try not to piss her off. She can be a bit... spiteful.”
Van finally grinned a little at something to look forward to. If she was going into his world, she would have to play by his rules, and not the other way around. “No promises, Neil, no promises.”
Chapter Four
Van looked out the tinted windows of the car as they drove on in complete silence. It had been a few hours, and they were travelling into an area he wasn’t particularly familiar with. Was he even in his home state anymore? He couldn’t tell. He had tried to chat a little bit at the beginning, but the two agents didn’t seem to have anything to say to him. Occasionally, he’d hear them muttering a few words, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He figured, the less he overhead, the better.
“Here we are,” Neil said as the car pulled up to an old, abandoned-looking building.
“This is the place?” Van asked as he climbed out of the car and looked the place over. There were no cars parked out front and no lights on; the place looked like it had been empty for a very long time. “It looks abandoned.”
“Turns out, when you’re working for a clandestine operations agency, you have to keep your people and operations hidden,” O’Hara commented. “Up ahead, in there.”
They marched into the building, up a few stairs, and into a room where he could hear some wonderfully familiar noises. The soft sound of computers and chatter.
“Here we are. Now, listen here, kid... one more time. Anything you see in here, you forget. Your job is to lay in a pod, not move for several hours at a time, and get our girl to where she needs to be. Got it?” Neil growled.
“Yeah, I’ve got it. I got the whole deal,” Van grumbled.
“Here we go,” O’Hara said as they opened the doors in front of them. The room was almost blindly white. It was almost like being in a hospital. Dozens of men and women were busy flitting around, checking monitors, adjusting IVs, and handling charts. Some of the people inside were wearing suits similar to those of the agents escorting him, but others were wearing what looked like scrubs that a nurse would wear. One of the agents, a shorter man, approached them.
“Alright,” the short man said, “we’re just about set up here. The haptic system has been installed, the software’s been loaded up, the machines are synced, and our bio-vital reader is a go.”
“Whoa!” Van gasped as he moved closer to examine the two yellow pods in the center of the room. They were long tubes which were each designed to comfortably immerse a human being into the game, and they were so expensive that most people could only rent them, if that.
“This our guy?” the short agent asked.
“That’s him,” O’Hara said.
“Great. Listen, kid, these things are top of the line. Best gear you’re ever going to use. We’ve got a medical staff to keep you going ‘round the clock. You’re not gonna need food, water, or nothing. Sleep Time is optional. Sure, you’ll have to pop out every now and then, but you could even log out early, catch some sleep, and then log in during the restricted time.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say we didn’t acquire these unmodified,” the man replied. “Anyway, your partner’s gonna be here in a minute, so I suggest you get changed and get situated for your physical exam.”
“Sure thing,” Van said, unable to take his eyes off of the haptic pod before him. The Immersion Pod 2.0 was the greatest achievement in the history of mankind, so far as he was concerned. No other pod was so realistic that it would even simulate taste, sensation, and texture to a degree near what this Immersion Pod could. It was a beast of a machine, and only the elite would ever dream of owning one. And now, one was sitting here, waiting for him. While his day had been relatively crappy, what with him having lost his computer, and assaulted and blackmailed by the government, maybe this would make it all worth it. After all... didn’t he like to spend the majority of his time online? He could maybe even look at this whole scenario he was in as some kind of a quest.