The Sapporo Outbreak (23 page)

"Any idea what that's about?"

"Not yet, but believe me I'm working on it."
 

Skinner shook his head at the news. It was worse, much worse, than he'd expected.

"Ok - thanks Steve. I've run out of time and gotta go, but what I can tell you is that every crazy thing you've just told me makes perfect sense. I've got a theory that feels less and less ridiculous by the minute."

"Care to share it with me Professor?"

"Not yet Steve, it's a bit half-baked. Give me an hour, I've got one last thing to checkout then I'll make my excuses and call you. But Steve, if it's what I think it is, this thing is enormous. No one - and I mean no one - is going to want to believe it. Are you ready for a fight big man?"

"I hope you're not serious my pencil-necked brother. Just you call me back in an hour and let's compare notes. I don't care who we piss off, this thing has got to stop."

"I'm with you Steve - talk again soon when the line is a little better."

Skinner was just about to hang up when he heard the detective's voice boom.

"Ben?Hey Ben! Two more things before you go ..."

"Yeah Steve?"
 

"I probably should have mentioned - every one of the attacks occurred within a few kilometres of a WhiteStar research centre."

Skinner nodded silently to himself, no longer surprised by the news. "And what's the other thing?"

"Well, as far as I can tell, every attacker was also a volunteer game-tester at a nearby WhiteStar testing centre."

Just then, the call dropped out. Skinner examined his cell phone. No signal. The blizzard, Skinner guessed. Either that, or it had started snowing in space.

#

Skinner hustled back to the group bunched by the elevator bank. Santos and Hill were deep in animated conversation while Harper stood several steps away from the group, his eyes fixed on the elevator bank. Sakura was rocking on her heels and, for the first time was visibly angry at the delay.
 

As Skinner reached the group, Santos turned away from her conversation with Hill. She reached out and lightly gripped his elbow while looking into his eyes. "Everything alright Ben?"

Skinner felt a jolt of energy, the same one he always felt when the beautiful doctor touched him. He could feel Sakura glare at him as she hustled the others toward the elevators. His eyes narrowed as he gave one quick, curt shake of his head.
 

Santos examined the professor. His easy-going demeanour had gone - replaced by a man driven to act. She had seen this before - she'd seen how quickly he could switch from genial professor to a resolute, grimly determined criminologist. She had to find time to talk to him, find out what Clark had said.
 

Whatever it was, it wasn't good.
     

The glass elevator doors swished open, and Sakura almost pushed the group in. She whispered an instruction and the elevator whisked its way down two short floors, coming to a halt on level 3 - game immersion.

#

2:50pm Thursday, Level 3 Game Immersion, Sapporo (Minus 10 Minutes)

The group spilled out of the elevator and into a large communal area, beyond which a wide corridor split two white walls and disappeared into the distance.
 

Santos scanned the gleaming white tiles on the floor and wall of white stretching from east to west, brightly lit by rows of LEDs embedded into the ceiling tiles. It felt like an expensive Beverly Hills clinic pampering the rich and famous rather than the proving ground for an online game. She swivelled her head left and right. There were no security guards. No security doors. Surprisingly, other than the ever present cameras embedded into every ceiling light, there was no visible security at all. It struck her as a little surprising, particularly given the over-the-top security she'd witnessed elsewhere.

The open area they stood in was dotted with deep leather couches and armchairs, along the right side (or east as iSight insisted) was a long bench filled with bowls of fruit, nuts, pre-made sandwiches, biscuits and more - enough to feed a small army. Underneath the long bench were row upon row of glass-fronted fridges filled with soft drinks and bottled water. Dotted around the area - some relaxing on the couches, others milling around the food talking in small groups, were men and women, boys and girls. Asian, black and white. Men in suits mingled with leather-clad teens and smartly dressed women. There was something oddly forced - determinedly diverse - about the scene. Santos smiled wryly to herself, unsurprised to see iSight information bubbles suddenly float in the space ahead, using small graphs to illustrate how closely today's group of game testers mirrored the spread of age, ethnicity and lifestyle of the game's worldwide audience.

Without question, the most striking feature was the digital wall.
 

Stretching to her right (or east as an iSight bubble helpfully prompted) and left (west) of the communal area were large, solid whitewashed walls that had been transformed by iSight into massive real-time information boards. Resembling an enormous airport flight board, each wall displayed brightly-coloured floating dates, times and descriptions. While the schedules displayed on two thirds of the giant wall space, the final third was taken up by an endless series of short video messages. Some explained the area to new visitors, others described the testing process. Sandwiched between were videos extolling the virtues of the impending iSight 3 game and the philanthropic activities of WhiteStar. All were delivered by a parade of smiling and beautiful young women.

Santos flicked her eyes quickly up and to the right, and in a transparent bubble iSight helpfully explained that the information displayed was the training room schedules. Santos examined the scrolling ticker, and immediately recognised a familiar series of categories of social interaction being tested.

Yellow- Exchange || Advanced (14:00 − 16:00)

White - Reciprocity || Intermediate
 
(14:30 − 16:30)

Blue - Competition || Intermediate (14:00 − 15:00)

Red - Conflict || Intermediate
 
(14:00 − 16:00)

Green - Conflict || Beginner
 
(14:30 − 15:30)

Brown - Arbitration || Intermediate
 
(14:30 − 16:00)

Orange - Compromise || Beginner
 
(13:00 − 15:00)

Black - Mediation || Advanced
 
(14:30 − 17:00)

Santos felt a little overwhelmed by it all. The scale of the room. The odd forced diversity of the group. The massive scrolling screens flicking and flashing schedules and directions, interspersed with 3D videos floating out into the room. The contrast between this futuristic scene and the utter normality of the occupants seemed truly bizarre.

Sakura took a few quick strides forward, pivoted and turned to address the group.
 

"Welcome to the last stop on today's tour of the facility. You are now standing in the rest hall - a communal space for our volunteer and professional game testers to relax between sessions. This floor is dedicated to researching new features and testing new characters, scenarios and worlds before they are released to the world. It's what we call the 'Game Immersion Lab' - and we consider this to be one of the most important areas in our entire organisation. Every WhiteStar centre around the world has a near identical game immersion lab which - for the last few months - has been operating twenty four hours a day testing the impending release of iSight 3.0.

"Here, our professional game testers and a cross section of the public - some wearing iSight glasses, many more wearing iSight lenses - experience an area of the game only accessible inside one of our centres. This special game space is what we call our 'walled garden' - and inside the 'garden' testers can take part in new scenarios, enter new areas of the iSight virtual world and employ any new features. All tests take place inside specially constructed research rooms filled with extremely sophisticated monitoring technology. All of this allows us to accurately measure the reaction to, and so the likely popularity of, any enhancements to the game."

Santos cast a long, slow gaze over her colleagues.
 

Harper appeared to have disengaged completely, all semblance of focus had gone. Instead, his head jerked unnaturally from side to side like a bush turkey, alert and treading cautiously through the undergrowth. His natural curiosity overwhelmed by the endless supply of floating bubbles appearing before him. More facts. More quirky insights. Lots of self-promotion. All of it greedily devoured by the wealthy, tall security executive.
 

Conversely, Skinner seemed to have entered a heightened state of awareness, methodically scanning the surroundings like a bank robber surveying his next target. Even Sakura seemed distracted, merely reciting some well-worn script - or rather reading from a floating bubble visible only to her.
 

Only Hill, the nervous buttoned-up lawyer seemed to be concentrating intently as the beautiful young hostess spoke.
 

"Excuse me Miss Sakura, but why spend so much time and money on testing at this scale? I understand the game is enormous but surely constant, round-the-clock, round-the-world testing of a game is overkill?"

Sakura turned toward Hill, a look of mild surprise on her face.

"Mr Hill, I understand why this might at first glance seem excessive, but you have to remember that every day over a million new players - real and digital - enter or leave the game. The game's artificial intelligence engine is constantly evolving the world in response to the interactions of hundreds of millions of players. The iSight game is like a massive, ever-changing living organism. We need to test constantly because the game itself never stops evolving."

"I understand - but how can you possibly hope to test every possible new change? Every new... evolution?"

Sakura smiled and nodded graciously as if this was at last a line of questioning worthy of a response.
 

"Good question Mr Hill," Sakura smiled and scanned the group while speaking. "What these labs are really testing is how accurately the game is simulating human behaviour. A great deal of our testing and research focuses on the human or social elements of the game -which helps us create virtual personalities that act as realistically as possible. We monitor how players interact with other players - real and virtual - and how they respond to different situations. We watch how players respond during simulated conflict, or when the situation demands they compromise. It's truly fascinating to see how different players behave in the extreme worlds we create. As players immerse themselves in game scenarios, interacting with both real and virtual players in the controlled environment of these test rooms, we track the testers' reactions through sophisticated monitoring equipment."

Suddenly intrigued, Santos responded. "That's fascinating. It sounds more like a series of psychological tests, rather than just pressure testing a new online game."

Sakura smiled. "In many ways, you are correct Doctor Santos. To ensure players truly immerse themselves in the game, we need to create a complete 'suspension of disbelief'. We want players to feel that the game is as close to reality as possible. We've seen the impact this has. The more
real
the game feels the more real the emotions are that the players experience. And - frankly - the more addictive the game becomes. Mr Tanaka has been very clear that our goal is to deliver an online gaming experience which is almost impossible to separate from reality."

Sakura paused for effect, beaming with pride as she continued.
 

"We feel iSight3 does just that, and our game testers agree. Now - I'm afraid I really must insist that we press on. Please follow me through to the immersion labs where you will see testing in progress." With that, Sakura strode through the lounge area and into the long wide corridor leading into the game immersion area. Harper and Hill walked two paces behind.

Santos moved to follow but felt Skinner's tight grip on her bicep as he pulled her in tightly. When they were close enough that their noses almost touched, he nudged her on the stomach, and Santos looked down to see a hastily written note on the back of his business card.

Clark confirms - we have a BIG problem.
 

Take your lenses out now!

Will explain later

#

10pm Wednesday, Seattle Washington (INFECTION)

Music, loud and raucous, leaked out from the single-story student bar and into the cold dark winter's night. A blanket of thick fresh snow smothered the sound as it spread over the sidewalk and street. The road had disappeared, swallowed up by the winter's fall. The street lights flickered and blinked through the thick wet snowflakes as they drifted through the night air.

To the right of the bar stood a three-story green timber house. As with many buildings in Seattle's Lower Queen Anne, the building had been immaculately restored and converted into apartments - in this case, one per floor. The first and second floor apartments were in complete darkness, their blinds drawn. Snow lay thick and undisturbed on the wooden decks leading to the apartment door. The only sign of life in the entire building was a flickering light glowing from the third-floor window overlooking the corner of First and Roy Street.

Inside, Lewis Dodgson sat hunched over a large, tidy white desk somehow squeezed into the apartment's front room. The desk was crowded with translucent computer monitors. Thin panes of frosted glass crowded with a baffling array of windows. Some scrolled constantly through lines of dense code, others showed intricate diagrams, their lines pulsing to some unheard beat.
 

Dodgson's fingers slid, pushed, pressed and flew over the raised glass panel on the desk. He held his left index finger over the panel for a second - savouring the moment - before pressing down one last time on the panel. The glass monitors flew into a frenzy of code and numbers while a fractal diagram burst into life.