Out of the System

A section for that silly thing called "role play" and other forum games.

Moderators: th15, Moderators

Post Reply
Silver Swordsman
Commander
Commander
Posts: 247
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2009 1:38 pm
Location: A clustered inhabitance

Out of the System

Post by Silver Swordsman »

Out of the System

Okay, this was originally a writing assignment about holodecks, but I took it and twisted it my way.

“Corr, you alright?” Someone shook me. Groggily, I opened my eyes.
“What?” I stared into the eyes of Ellen. Her eyes read panic, urgency. Then they relaxed.
“Thank the Librarian you’re alive. You’ve been out quite awhile.” Ellen pulled me up.
“How long was I out?”
“I’m not sure. I came to just a few minutes ago.” Ellen scratched her head. I looked around our surroundings. Green walls, no decoration, no variation no textures—just an alpha of light green.
“Where are we now?” I asked. Ellen shook her head.
“I’m not sure. Weren’t we supposed to…?” She put a hand to her mouth. She looked at me. She remembered.
“We were supposed to find that Yiggurat official Hadrian and kill him. So why are we here? We were to deactivate the security perimeter…” I put a hand to my mouth. I remembered. That flash of light as my consciousness was taken from my body. I took a look at the walls. No textures. My years of training came back. I knew where we were now.
“We gotta find a way outta here. It’s a trap. We’re in a virtual-reality world. In other words, we’re not in our physical bodies.” I eyed my partner. We were still retaining our traditional Zotorian assassin suits. Thank the Librarian that whoever wrote the system had a sense of decency. Still, I knew that we were far from safe. Ellen and I were in a room with no exit.
“Corr, there’s no exit…” Ellen tapped at the walls. “What are we to do?” Apparently, she had never been into a simulation before. I didn’t expect her to. I was only a tenth grader at Utopan High, and Ellen was two years my junior. I was the son of a high-ranking Zotorian official, and I was privileged enough to attend courses that were not available for most my age. Advanced hacking, or modifying scripts while using them, was an art that only Elders knew. I was still a Mark III Assassin. I walked to the wall. I tapped it. It sounded hollow, good. That meant that it wasn’t a closed simulation. Then, concentrating on the wall, I began to scratch with my nail.
My finger felt like it was on fire. It was different from scraping your nail against a traditional surface. I was concentrating on my fingertip so hard that my vision went dark, and the only thing I could feel was my essence in my right index finger. I didn’t even realize that Ellen was holding my hand. I was sweating profusely, and my assassin suit did not help me. I finished drawing one side. I gritted my teeth, and turned another corner… I was done! I collapsed on the ground, utterly exhausted. We then opened the door that I had made, its edges still red hot, and crawled out.
We found ourselves in a long hallway. It was green, still, without texture. There were many doors, countless doors, innumerable to the normal eye. My digitalized ones counted 578.
“What is this place?” Ellen telepathically asked me. I responded back that I didn’t know either. I walked to the first door on our side. Ellen was the master lock-picker. Within a few seconds, the bolt clicked, and the door opened. I looked inside—it was the same room that we escaped out of! That’s nice, I thought, a door on the outside, but none on the inside—a well designed prison cell. I noted that our cell number was 101.
Walking down the hallway, we noticed from Cells 202 and beyond now had a bluish hue to the walls. From Room 225, a strong telepathic message jolted us. Help me… help me… help me… It’s Don…
I stiffened. Don was a cousin that had disappeared more than a year ago on a mission. I knew I had to get him out. Don’t worry Don, I’m here…
Ellen could not unlock the door, as it was automatic and hence didn’t require a key. I tried hacking the scripts again, but this time, the system was encrypted and inert. I could hear groans and indications of pain from within the cell, but we were unable to reach the poor fellow. Our telepathy transmitters were shrieking with our Don’s agony. And, as we listened, the vital signs slowed, then ceased. We knew that he was dead. Not in body, but in soul.
What was Don doing here? Then, it hit me. The complex we were in… was a virtual prison. Technically, Ellen and I were lucky, having escaped confinement, but we were well aware of the fact that guards were bearing down on our present location in the physical world. We ran towards the end of the hallway. I didn’t bother trying to unlock the door or to modify scripts. I took the gun out of my holster, and began shooting at the door. Sparks flew everywhere as the doorknob and lock disintegrated into a jumble of numbers and digits. Sucky matrix quality. The door opened, and we were outside. Our building appeared to be some sort of Cold-War era silo building in the mountains. I presently became aware of shooting and gunfire close to us. We crouched behind a rock.
Explosions! Where were we? I used the fiber optic on my finger to see what was going on. I could see men with guns… shooting each other? I placed my hand on the ground to read the script.
Blood and Bones IV
Map 13: Hemorrhage
Server IP: 11266474
Current Player count: 25
10011010111010010100010…
So we were in a game. I had heard of Blood and Bones IV before. Our prison was built into a game map on the internet so that we would be untraceable to whoever was trying to rescue us. I understood how it felt. Don’s father had led a group of strategic hackers into a Yiggurat government facility to try and figure out where his son was. They never did. I’m pretty sure that there were others still trapped in the building we just saw. Strategic hackers could have saved them.
Now that I knew where we were, we had to find a way back to our bodies, and hence, out of the system. Communicating with Ellen, we charged.
“Zotorians!” One of the computer players shouted, “I thought this was a versus game, not campaign! What are they doing here?”
I rolled my eyes. Yiggurat propaganda always portrayed us in the bad light. For centuries, the remnants of the Zotorian Empire had been forcibly integrated into Yiggurat culture. We, as Zotorians, considered it decadent compared to ours. Zotorians used to be feared in the galaxy, their weaponry eons ahead of the time. There was no explanation why we failed. We are now slaves to the gigantic Yiggurat kingdom, working, toiling, swept about… But we will triumph one day. Since the beginning of their rule, we had always fought. We are now an underground organization working to bring the proud to the ground. Our soldiers, thanks to the marvelous technology only we possess, are fitted with weapons no one else has. Now, our enemies advertise against us by making us the popular enemies of games!
Blood spurted unnecessarily from the player’s wound. Stupid gaming graphics—I only touched him! Zotorians were augmented with various tools and weapons, installing them within the body. The favorite was the claw, cat-like razors that could be retracted into the fingers. Upgrades were given by rank. Novices were only given the digital processor, Mark I assassins, Basic Claws… etc. I watched Ellen literally shred someone into matrix code. Some people were going to have a bad day.
The air sang with bullet whistles. Ellen and I had trained well for this kind of combat. We had been through similar simulations in the training facilities, only that the bullets were only blank templates. It was actually fun, letting those blanks pass through you. These, we knew, had killing potential. Running, dodging, hiding, we slowly pressed closer to the firing crowd. I would fire a few pot shots from my pistol from behind a rock while Ellen snuck around and slashed from behind, and vice versa. We were cold, lethal killers, definitely not the kind typical gamers were expecting.
The first wave was dispatched rather quickly, but we knew that online games as such respawned players. We knew we had to find the exit before they rejuvenated. We could see their chat logs asking for assistance. Welcome The Hammer. The game message log popped up.
From the start, we knew that this would be a different fight. The Hammer was wearing heavy armor, and carried two miniguns, one on each arm. We cleared out as the space turned into lines of death. I leapt for the cover of a rock. Simultaneously, I felt as if fire engulfed my foot.
Hiding behind the rock, I summed the situation up. The armor was too thick for typical melee attacks, and the only weapon that I had was a mini water pistol of a gun. I wasn’t trained to take on super soldiers geared for total annihilation. I was supposed to sneak from behind and stab someone before they knew what was going on. Elders had protective shields that rendered them invulnerable—they were supposed to take on these guys, not me. Furthermore, I was wounded—my right leg was useless.
“Corr!!!”
The Hammer was concentrating on Ellen now. In a matter of seconds, the lumbering giant would have an unobstructed shot at her. I thought about it. In the event of delivering high-priority information, one was supposed to jump at the chance and escape, even if that meant abandoning your partner to certain death. My digital processor was prodding me to run. But I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. I’m partially digital, but I’m also half human. I forced myself to think. Ellen and I had been partners for over five years, and we had been good friends since childhood. Was I really to give her up like that? Was I really that selfish? Was survival of the fittest this hard? Sweat was forming on my brow. Not because I was fighting the Hammer, but because I was fighting myself. I was never aware of how attractive Ellen was. The entire time we were partners, we never cast each other a single amorous glance. In school, I was the class eunuch, and practically the only virgin. I hate Yiggurat government schools. I thought of all the times that Ellen saved my rear—all selflessly. Was I really to abandon her?
I couldn’t. I found myself shinnying up the Hammer’s back. His body armor was well over ten feet tall and I was bleeding profusely, yet I found myself clambering up on top of his shoulders. I spotted a tiny rift in his armor, right where the helmet and the shoulder met. Pushing out my cat claws as far out as I could, I plunged my hand into the crevice.
The Hammer let out an awful scream. I felt his spinal chord pop. His hands still on the trigger, he convulsed violently, showering the sky with fiery hot metal. At the same time I heard the silent scream from Ellen. I leapt free as he hit the ground. The Hammer did not get up. I hurried over to the rock where Ellen hid. I turned the corner, and delicately, picked up her crumpled form and walked towards the teleportation portal. Blood was all over her face, but she was smiling…

The rest went by as a blur. I guess I’ll just spare you the details. The players, who had never witnessed a tender act by the “violent Zotorians”, did not fire upon us. I guess the Yiggurats aren’t as evil as I thought. We entered the portal unscathed. Once into the portal, navigating through the internet was easy. Finding the server to the computer that we hacked, I shredded the antivirus program and reinserted our consciousnesses into our bodies, which were still plugged into the computer.
When we came to, we found that Zotorian spec ops had already did the dirty work for us, and they were guarding us the entire time while we were vulnerable. Ellen was hospitalized and recovered after a few months. I told my superior everything that had come to pass; he nodded, and typed a few words onto his computer.

If admirals hate and trash your ships,
If you can't get it right;
Then off you go, but don't call quits;
Just go make custom sprites.

Solare:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4858
User avatar
Arcalane
Pseudofeline Overlord
Posts: 4034
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:37 am
Location: UK

Post by Arcalane »

This does not fit with the metagame/Alliance history backstory or universe in any way, shape or form, and has thus been moved to the actual Holodeck.
  /l、
゙(゚、 。 7
 l、゙ ~ヽ
 じしf_, )ノ
T-002
Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
Posts: 865
Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:51 pm
Location: Trying to get into someone's panties...

Post by T-002 »

That's some good stuff you have there. I'd love to see more.
[THIS SPACE FOR RENT]
Post Reply