“Yes, sir,” Sang whispered. It was hard enough to bear the horrible guilt of her partner’s death, but with Frederick hammering home the point, she felt herself growing bitter. This wasn’t fair.
“Good—now then, let’s move on from this and focus on the task at hand. You three were requested by me personally, and I’ve hand-selected the three agents who I feel will be the best for this investigation.”
Frederick’s change in focus was a welcome respite for Sang. She turned her attention to the holographic display which was now displaying a symbol of a Dragon biting a planet. The words Draco were beneath the Dragon.
Frederick continued, “Who can tell me about Draco?”
“Game company, sir!” O’Hara said. “They’re responsible for that fancy new VR game.”
“That’s right. Now, there are dozens of game companies out there, plenty of virtual reality systems, and even a few games like Dragon Kings of the New World,” Frederick responded as he waved his own hand over the console. Three corpses appeared on the holographic display, as well as several different news clippings and a picture of a strange, oval tube. “Yet, for all of the games, the companies, and the VR hook-ups, Draco here is the only one responsible for the cover-up of three deaths directly related to their game.”
“Deaths related to the game?” Sang asked. “You’re kidding.”
“Have you seen those new biofeedback systems that Draco designed?” Neil asked as he turned to face her. “Sang, those things are amazing. You slide into them, plug in, and then you can literally feel like everything is real. I mean, the wind, the sun, the sand between your toes. Everything.”
“Neil, there’s no way you afford one of those things on your salary,” O’Hara teased.
“They had a display at the mall the other day and I tried it. It was incredible,” Neil replied.
Sang growled a little. She wasn’t particularly fond of gaming, primarily due to the fact that most hackers were stereotyped to be savvy uber-geeks who were obsessed with video games. Her hacking expertise often put her in the same company of men who were constantly talking about fantasy worlds and magic. She wasn’t concerned with the fake world of gaming, but rather focused on the real world of her career.
“Anyway,” Frederick said, regaining control of the room, “there’s the small matter of the attempted cover-up by Draco to attend to. They apparently put quite a bit of money into getting the families of the deceased to be quiet about it, and the news articles suddenly vanished. Fortunately for us, we’ve been keeping an eye on them long enough to know that something isn’t right.”
“What, do you think they’re killing their players?” O’Hara asked. “That doesn’t seem like a very safe way to build a customer base.”
“I doubt they’re intentionally doing it, but who knows? Draco’s not a particularly open company,” Frederick said. “They were the ones who created all of those biofeedback machines, though, and they’re the ones responsible for this game. My immediate fears are that they’re cutting corners and aren’t properly checking on the safety of their equipment. My long-term fears are… well, they might be up to a little bit more. They aren’t based here in the U.S. and any attempts to get information from them have come up flat. They’re based out of Venezuala and the government skirt they’re hiding behind isn’t exactly friendly to our government either, so we can’t even get them to comply with our laws.”
“Why not just ban the game, then?” Sang asked.
“The game is very popular.” Frederick answered. “The reality is, we don’t have much to go on, but intelligence chatter has indicated that Draco isn’t all that they seem, and we’ve got boots on the ground already trying to figure out how to best gather information.”
“It’s not like we can hack them, either,” O’Hara said as she waved at the holographic machine. It displayed a series of circuits and security systems. Sang recognized the configuration well enough. It was a closed system, meaning that there’d be no way to connect into Draco without some kind of internal access.
“Getting into Draco is the real challenge,” Frederick said. “But if we could somehow get an agent into Draco’s system, we could hack their entire database and find the information we want. We can figure out what happened to these players when they were in Sleep Time.”
“Sleep what?” Sang asked.
“Sleep Time!” Neil replied. “See those tubes? They’re amazing. So great that you kind of forget about your regular old body. You don’t necessarily feel thirst or hunger while you’re playing a game, and you certainly don’t feel tired. So, the body tends to just up and die after several hundred hours of playing consecutively when none of a player’s basic bodily needs have been met. When the technology was first introduced, there was that huge case about a rich dude’s daughter being hospitalized due to the dehydration she’d suffered while playing, and so Draco was quick to implement a rule called Sleep Time. For five hours, every single night, the entire game closes down acess and kicks everyone out. So they can eat, drink, and probably dream about going back to playing the game. Draco uses the time to do server maintanence, but a certain demographic of players can hack into the game even when it’s in sleep mode.”
“You mean they literally have to stop the game so that gamers won’t kill themselves playing it? That’s insane,” Sang grumbled.
“The autopsies determined that those who were killed all died around the same time: 3:34. They were in their pods at the time, playing the game. Sleep Time occurs at 2:00 AM every night, no exceptions. This means that they were hacking the game. The fact that three people all died inside of a game they weren’t supposed to be in, around the same time, shows there is something more at play.” Frederick said. “We’ve got to find out the truth here.”
“So, what’s the game plan?” Sang asked. “It’s a closed system, so I don’t know what you want from me. There’s no accessing Draco’s servers from an outside source, and the only way to hack it would be if you had a hacker actually go into the game and get to the…” she trailed off as she realized they were all looking at her. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. You want me to go in there?”
“You wanted to play field agent, didn’t you? Here’s your chance,” Frederick said with a bitter sarcasm.
“Hell, no!” Sang complained. “Those things are dumb, petty, and colossal wastes of time. I’ve seen so many important and clever people burn away their lives because they were just interested in gaming instead of living. They’re nothing more than… than rat wheels designed to simulate accomplishment.”
“Be that as it may,” Frederick said, “you aren’t going in to play the game. You’re going in to do your job as a hacker. Get in, find a way into the central database of Draco, and get the information we need.”
“There’s got to be some other way to investigate this thing,” Sang protested.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Neil said, “the rest of us would all jump at the chance to play a video game for our jobs, but you’re the girl who’s got the skills.”
“What do I have that other people don’t? If this job’s so important, shouldn’t you send…” Sang trailed off as she realized something tragic: this wasn’t an important job. O’Hara and Neil weren’t particularly the highest ranking members of the CIA, and they were well-known for being utilized only on matters that weren’t critical. The fact that she had just screwed up severely had damaged her credibility. This job was just some kind of side project for them. They were interested in gaining information, but everything wasn’t hinging on this case being a success. This was just a mission for grunts.