CHAPTER 31

As Slampa got changed, I spoke up to the gathered group, “So… this is weird. We can only remember what we’ve done in Babylon while logged in, yet we can remember everything that happened out there… I don’t know what to think about this. Like, I get why we do it, but still… it seems so violating, you know? Like a piece of every day from here on is just going to be… poof, not there.”

Everyone around nodded, looking thoughtful at this. Miller was the first to speak up, “Yeah… but its what we signed up for, and from what Safia told me before logging in, theres supposedly ways around it eventually.”

I nodded, “Yeah, Diondre said the same thing.”

Middleton shrugged, “Does it really matter? We do our jobs, collect our paychecks, and go home.”

Slampa, now properly dressed for the third time, spoke at this, “I mean, it doesn’t… but it does. We won’t remember we are team mates out there. Or the experiences we have shared. If you tell me something about yourself in here, I won’t remember out there. Its… so disjointed feeling. Not to mention they installed a chip in us! I don’t remember anything about that in the training manuals.”

I nodded in agreement, “I can tell you I definitely didn’t recognize a few of you outside. But Middletons right, right now all we can do is do our jobs. And we only have six more days to topple the base… and we have ten other people to find.”

Adams spoke up finally at that, “Nah, I know where they’re at.”

Everyone else looked at him, quizzically.

Adams shrugged, “I found a map while we were guests of Sami. Its kind of amazing, really. It shows me an overlay of the entire area, and I have a little mini version of it on my HUD. I can show you guys it, though you only get the mini-map if you have one in your inventory.”

Middleton scoffed at this, “What the… why didn't you tell me this?! Is that why we were headed this way?” He pointed behind him.

Adams smiled coyly, “Well, you never asked. I followed you into that fight, we didn’t really need the map. Now we do… so now you know.”

Middleton sighed exasperatedly as Adams unfolded a map on the ground. As we looked it over, it was extremely detailed. It was a topographical layover of the entire area, with the base in the middle. From the looks of it, the battlefield was a twenty by twenty mile zone. The small town we had recently visited was almost at the top right corner of the map. We could see areas of forest, hills, and the base which looked to be at the bottom of a ravine of sorts. It seemed like a poor place for a base, as it was surrounded by elevated areas.

As we looked at the map, Adams tapped the town. “Ok, so we just left here, and we are headed toward the base, here.”

He tapped the middle of the map. He started drawing a box around the base. “So, this is about where the defenders can go. While this map is useful for showing locations and terrain, its not gridded off to show things in relation to one another. But with the base being 15 miles away from the town, its pretty easy to assume the zone they can be in.”

We all nodded, watching as he continued. Tapping a few more locations, close to the box he had drawn with his fingers. “If you see here, here, and here, it looks like little clearings of some sort. If I were a betting man, these are probably more caches like the one we are at now. “ He tapped the map, another clearing area north east of the base. “According to my mini map, this is where we are.”

It dawned on me then, “Oh wow… so you’ve been using the mini map to decode whats what on here?”

Adams nodded, “Yeah. It didn’t come with any instructions or anything, its pretty intuitive honestly. So my best guess is…”

Slampa spoke up, “All the other teams will rally near the base. I honestly can’t disagree.”

Adams smiled and nodded. “Yep.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Miller said, slinging her Ak back over her shoulder. “Lets get moving!”

Two hours into our walk we saw no recon teams, or anything else for that matter. As we wandered I realized that, while we could hear the wind, I didn’t see any animals - birds, wolves, whatever they had in Afghanistan. To kill some time, I figured I’d ask Diondre about it.

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JAMES TO ADMIN CHAT: Hey Diondre, why isn’t there… well, anything out here?

DIONDRE: What do you mean?

JAMES: Like… birds, animals, you know… the fauna of the place?

DIONDRE: Hmm… I don’t think I've ever noticed that. Give me a minute.

I continued walking, the others idly chatting as we progressed. After a bit, I received a response.

DIONDRE: Well, the other assistants didn’t quite know; a few had seen it, but didn’t think of it. However, Theodore themselves chimed in on this one, and I quote… ‘Because it's a waste of my goddamned time. Why does it matter if there are animals? Do they want to start Taxidermy or something?’

JAMES: Huh… Alright, well I guess that's an answer. Why didn’t they pipe into the chat here?

DIONDRE: Who knows. It's the master AI, it sees all. It's probably akin to an ant asking for food from a human.

JAMES: Wow… so it introduces itself to us, makes us feel important, and now what… we are 3D printed sludge beneath its notice?

DIONDRE: I’m not saying that… just… it can’t respond to everything all at once. I’ll point out, you have a subroutine of it following you everywhere - Tay I believe it calls itself? She will respond when prompted if allowed. In cases like this, where you're questioning the system as a whole, Theodore typically doesn’t… like that sort of thing.

JAMES: So Theodore can’t take a critique?

I could almost feel Diondres smirk in his response.

DIONDRE: Does a child like when you touch their favorite toy?

A bit over an hour later, we arrived at the location of the first cache Adams had pointed out. We stopped maybe 300 or so yards away, ducking behind a small hillock. From where we stood we couldn’t see the area, but Adams pointed to a small cluster of trees, saying it was inside.

“I’ll go ahead and check it out, I seem to be unlocking a lot of… uh… recon skills. I have stealth now.” I said quietly.

Slampa nodded, “Copy. Actually, before you go, that's something we haven’t discussed… We haven't spoken about what skills we are unlocking.”

Everyone looked at each other. We were all new, and we knew we didn’t have much in the way of skills. But if we were to work as a team, we would have to figure out what each other were good at.

“I’ve unlocked a few skills with leadership, and a couple skills that help other party members; like COVER FIRE which is a skill where I literally get infinite ammo for a small period while covering an allies escape. Its pretty cool, but I suffer a 50% accuracy decrease, and my weapons cannot inflict lethal damage while its active.” Slampa continued.

Miller piped up next, “I’ve gotten a few damage absorbing skills; I’m going to assume it was from that… uh, hit I sustained. BULLET SPONGE has me take 10% less damage from ranged weapons, NEAR AMPUTEE means I take 25% less bleed damage, and I did get one offensive skill called BUM RUSH which lets me dash forward faster. I’m not sure how I unlocked that one. From what I gather it should have been lethal. But I haven’t gotten much else in the way of skills.”

Adams was next, “I’ve gotten a few things; one is called DUCK AND COVER which gives me an accuracy increase while shooting from behind things. We also… unlocked a skill for that ambush we hit you guys with, its called POCKET SAND and it increased any debilitating status effects I caused by 5 seconds.”

Miller and I stared blankly at Adams, and I asked, “Pocket sand?”

Adams seemed to blush, almost embarrassed at this. “Er… yeah… Theodore made some sort of joke I didn’t quite understand. But anyways, whats about the best I have.”

I didn’t mention his name for Theodore, as it was obvious Adams left them as they were. Everyone looked to Middleton, the last to speak. “I uh… have only unlocked one thing so far. I wasn’t… much use in the firefight, Adam’s did all the work. I kinda just… cowered. So my one skill is called PUSSYCAT . It uh… lets me redirect 50% of the damage I suffer to a nearby ally within 25 feet.”

The group of us scoffed, and Miller spoke up in anger, “What the hell… thats awful!”

Middleton blushed obviously ashamed, “Er… yeah. I… I’ll try and do better. I’m a lot of blusher, but no bite, as my mom used to say.”

I nodded, “Well… yeah, we need you to unlock some other skills. That can be a good one if your like supporting others, but by itself, it just sort of keeps you alive at the expense of others.”

Middleton nodded, not committing anything else to the conversation. We turned back to Slampa, who was looking thoughtfully at the group. “Well, I played a lot of Virtual Role-Playing sim’s growing up, this feels a lot like that in a way. What you do in here influences your growth, though I’m not entirely sure how, or why we grow the way we do. Like James’, when did you get your stealth skill?”

I nodded, “When we were sneaking about and I killed those two recon soldiers.”

Slampa nodded, "What's weird is me and Miller didn’t get the same skill. Instead, she seemed to get things for being shot, and I gained skills for protecting her and leading our small team. The AI must take into account things like personality, your base stats, and how you are performing actions here when unlocking skills. Performing the same action as someone else doesn’t necessarily mean you will gain a skill.”

Middleton was thoughtful for a second, then spoke up. “I hope this doesn’t mean I’ll only get skills for being a chicken shit…”

That broke the tension in the air, and Adams slapped him on the shoulder. “Nah, you're fine. You led us into danger, you just… need to learn to fight. Anyways, why did you ask this now anyway Slampa?”

A gleam was in his eye, and you could see him processing the information. “Well, if we are going to be a party we will have roles.”

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