Earth Gamers

Earth Gamers

by D. B. Schrock
Earth Gamers

Earth Gamers

by D. B. Schrock

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Overview

The Earth Game is about to end
The first hundred thousand years of existence ultimately leads to boredom. And from that derives a need to create increasingly sophisticated entertainment.
Seven godlike creatures of Chroma, evolved over time to colored monstrosities of their choosing, ruthlessly compete in a sophisticated series of millennial games with the goal of deploying the most dominating force on a world-population. These Players direct their game strategy by inserting a set of ‘pieces’ onto the playing field who exert an unnatural influence in the inhabitants around them. The current game is called Earth.
The game grows dull and the leading Player calls for an end. After thousands of years and significant wagers at stake, all others are not keen to cede so soon.
A coma-inducing car accident leads to a game piece in play, twelve-year-old Sam, to discover his dual nature and that the Earth is not a fundamental reality. As in a lucid dream, Sam begins to realize the rules of the Earth game in which he finds himself no longer constrain him. The wildcard he now represents is besieged by the Players as the game drives to conclusion. Rather than follow their wishes, Sam decides to turn his abilities against the evil Players themselves, in an attempt to stop the end of the Earth game.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781546208594
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Publication date: 10/13/2017
Pages: 364
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

SAM

Those memories fueled his run as he passed inset stone busts in the walls matching those in the concert hall where his middle school class choir sang last year. His recollection of the event was blurry, but then again, most memories were. His heart skipped, prompting fears he might be on a path to a heart attack. Disconcerting for a twelve-year-old who wasn't ready to check out.

He turned the corner and as he feared, the hallway ended. Sam advanced to its terminus, leveraging what little strategic advantage a wall to his back would offer. The clicks of claws slowed as his nemesis strode into view.

Reyat's taut muscles contracted and released under his short black fur, the familiar long scar traced down his left side. Sam didn't know exactly what Reyat was, but the wayward offspring of a Hell-spawned hyena and Brahma bull seemed plausible.

Reyat lowered his head and glared. Saliva dripped from his jaws, sizzling as it struck the school's cheap tile flooring. Sam grimaced, offered a strained smile, and a nod of acknowledgement.

"Nice to see you again, Sam," Reyat said. The guttural voice rasped the words in a language that wasn't English, yet Sam somehow understood perfectly.

"Why do you have to chase me?" Sam asked.

"Because you're the reason I'm here."

Sam looked around for a weapon. The flickering fluorescent lights illuminated the empty hall flanked by bright orange school lockers. The colored paper outlines of school spirit posters taped to the walls weren't going to be of much use. He tried to stall, "Maybe you should go do something else. Like spend a little more time on personal hygiene. You smell like wet dog wrapped in old underwear."

Reyat cocked his head to the left, a torn gray ear partially covering one red eye. "I've never understood your attempts at humor." The creature opened its mouth, displaying three rows of teeth. A long line of slaver dripped onto the floor. Smoke rose from the bubbling tiles.

"I mean, really," Sam continued. "Do you find this rewarding?"

"Why, yes - I do." He cracked his four-jointed knuckles and idly carved deep grooves in the tile with his right foreleg claws. "Is attending middle school more so?"

"I guess not." They both stood poised and silent for a few seconds, considering.

"Shall we?" Reyat asked, muscles bulging in his haunches as he readied to charge.

"Bring it." Sam wished he had his sword with him.

*
Sam woke as his arm slammed into the headboard, tracing an arc matching Reyat's thrashing. He slowed his breathing and used his pillow case to wipe sweat out of his eyes. A piece of cheap, broken tile flooring dislodged from his hair. He picked the shard up, contrasted it with the hardwood floor of his room, and placed it on his shelf among a growing pile of artifacts.

The clock flashed 6:14 am, same as every morning. The familiar routine cemented him back to reality. Reassuring since he seemed to slip further away each day from his hold to the real world. He pulled himself out of bed and walked to the bathroom, exhausted. Tonight marked the third night in a row with an encounter. This past summer the attacks frequented him only rarely.

Sam rubbed his sore legs. Frenetic running in hyper-realistic dreams while attempting to avoid violent death must cause tension. Kind of made sense. He pulled his t-shirt off and inspected the shoulder Reyat recently tore off. The mirror reflected a new, ragged scar that appeared freshly healed. It neighbored four others. He didn't know how he'd explain their appearance the next time his parents saw him in shorts or with his shirt off.

He compartmentalized that concern and instead turned his attention to his next trial. Today was a Monday, the third week of seventh grade. A new school in a new city once again.

Sam finished readying, donned his uniform, and walked downstairs. Mom and dad sat at the table, reading their tablets while drinking coffee. He poured a bowl of Lucky Charms, accidentally knocking a half dozen of the tasteless brown pieces on floor. No worry, the world was a better place with a higher ratio of marshmallows, anyway.

"So, I was thinking of going to Geoffrey's house this weekend."

"That's nice, honey," his mom said.

"Hmm," dad added.

With no further discussion apparently necessary, he set to tackling eight towering spoonfuls arrayed with a varying assortment of thirteen types of marshmallow surprises. Each spoonful engineered with higher aspirations than the previous. Following a satisfactory assault and final mastication of a smattering of milk-sodden survivors, he mumbled a perfunctory goodbye to his parents. His mom told him to have a wonderful day and his dad winked. All good.

Sam exited through the back door and walked a half kilometer to the corner, largely ignored by the suburban cliques of kids who mingled there. He knew from experience he could have established himself as the center of attention by now. But it required only the first two days listening at the stop to determine little would be gained for the effort with these potential followers.

Five minutes later, they boarded the shuttle and its electric engine soundlessly transported them to the Seven Bridges Middle School campus. The kids on the bus buried their heads in online games or checked social media while he looked out the window. His new school was big and the other students in his advanced placement classes seemed smart. Not as smart as him of course, though smarter than most of the corn fed brutes in Pleasant Valley, Iowa. For the first time, he found he actually had to try - at least a little.

Cliques and kids aside, he felt comfortable here, having made three good friends in Geoffrey, Cara, and Jordan. They exuded a certain vibe that resonated with him. They held potential.

Sam exited the bus alone, walked the cheap tile floor between bright orange lockers, and looked toward a flickering fluorescent light. He entered his homeroom, sat in the back, and crafted strategies on his touchpad until the period began.

In class, Sam downloaded notes from the science teacher and annotated them with his stylus. The concepts, though new, didn't present a problem. He caught on quickly enough as she spoke to launch another app to complete the night's homework before class finished. Easy peasy.

Following the bell and a change of venue, Sam's wellness class started at 10:30 with an announcement from Mr. Wright. "Twelve-minute run today."

A collective groan percolated from the forty-two boys. Apparently this particular day's torture required each of them to run as fast and as far as possible for twelve minutes. The trial represented a degree of exertion beyond what most of them were accustomed.

The class members changed into their matching blue wellness shorts and wellness t-shirts with their names printed in large block letters on the front and back, centered above their grinning mascot, Charlie the Cardinal. Sam attached the standard biometric feedback and GPS units while his classmates complained. The run didn't worry him since his cardiovascular fitness exceeded virtually all the soft, spoiled rich kids in this new city.

As a sport, cross-country had peaked decades ago, back when the physical world still carried more importance than the online, Terrene world. Developing the skill for sustained physical activity wasn't as necessary anymore. Sam decided he would show off during the run, so he did, outdistancing the others by nearly four hundred meters.

"Great run today, Sam," Mr. Wright said. "I'd like you to sign up for the cross-country team."

"I'll think about it."

"Good. Sports are great to keep you healthy. Plus," he added with an air of thoughtful, grown-up seriousness, "cardiovascular endurance has been shown to improve online stamina and performance. And you want to do well in Terrene don't you?"

"Of course," Sam said, and walked away.

The boys returned to the locker room, awkwardly changed, and stood en masse under the ultraviolet lights.

"I'm gonna have my mom launch a forum against this," said one of the boys.

"Yeah," said another. "Mr. Wright should retire. He's an old bag a bones."

A boy who Sam knew chimed in, "My cousin tells me their school's wellness program is cool. Hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and stuff. Running is so lame."

The ultraviolets snapped off and Sam walked to his locker. He thumb-printed his door open followed by someone immediately pushing it shut. Sam turned and faced Austin, the biggest jerk in seventh grade.

"Hey kid. We don't like what you're doing to our grades."

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that your readouts are putting you at the top and wrecking the curve. My grades are going down. And don't even think of passing up my Terrene world status."

Austin used his large bulk to push Sam against the locker. He continued with his putrid breath, "Keep messing up the curve, and I'll give you more scars to worry about." He crossed his arms and glared. "What's wrong with you anyway, freak?"

Sam decided this exchange needed an intervention. Problem was, he had found kids proved much harder to influence than adults. He wished for an older person, easier to control.

Mr. Wright abruptly rose from his desk and trotted into the room. "Sam. Austin. There a problem?"

"No sir," Austin said. "Just helping the new kid with his locker."

"That's enough. Get changed and get moving." The teacher remained by Sam's side until he left the gym.

Sam returned to the scholastic wing and thumbed the locker door open again. Not even a month had passed yet, and this place was turning into Iowa all over. Middle school kids were as bad as adults in their intolerance for others disrupting their experience in the online world.

He skipped lunch, opting instead to hang out with Cara, Geoffrey, and Jordan. The four of them broke down laughing as Jordan's magic trick with the water bottle bitterly failed. The aftermath caught the attention of a teacher, who empty-threatened them to settle down. The preliminary bell rang, signaling time to head to class, so they fist bumped and disbanded. Sam was glad the school day's offline education was complete.

*
Like everyone, Sam's love for the experiences and freedom of the online world of Terrene far exceeded his interest in the offline world of twelve-minute runs and rides to the middle school campus via the shuttle. Here in the Carmel, Indiana school district, they participated in online learning from one to five every day.

Indiana ran an online curriculum similar to the one in Iowa. Adventure gaming, their current class, remained his favorite Terrene course. His teacher introduced it to their curriculum after Sam spoke to her regarding the course benefits. He knew she'd adopt the class after their conversation. He had a way of convincing people.

Sam slipped on the immersion gear, provided to the school for free by Terrene, the company which sponsored the online world. The equipment was decent though it lacked the attachments used for advanced immersion and top features released in the last couple years. He pulled on the motion capture gloves, and then the headgear that blocked out all light from the classroom. A gesture with his left glove caused the hyper-plasma 360-degree surround to cover the inside of his helmet's surface. Turning his head up, down, and to the side presented him with a corresponding view of a forested landscape without any edge, placing him on the top of an isolated bluff under a puffy-cloud sky. A hawk flew overhead without the accompaniment of the familiar screech while a muffled shout from one of his classmates imposed on the scene. He realized the prior equipment user must have minimized immersion sound levels. A simple adjustment via another gesture released the cry of the hawk joined by additional birdsong from somewhere among the quaking aspens to his right. Better.

Other kids popped into the Terrene world around him, moving in an irregular procession toward the instructor perched on top of a boulder. As Sam moved his arms while subtlety leaning forward, his online-self trotted ahead. He noticed several instances where the leaves in the trees waved a bit too uniformly, and the grass that blew in the distance, while fine, displayed a hint of artificiality. The education site rated only seventy-one percent immersion. Something to do with fire drill safety he thought. It lacked the aromatic sensory enhancement arrays and the refined tactile feedback possible when touching small items. Serviceable, but nothing like the best fully immersive environments.

The instructor spoke in an amplified voice explaining the day's challenge - learning how to use an old fashioned compass to navigate across the rugged terrain to capture a flag from a distant hilltop. They had five minutes to form teams if they wanted. He enjoyed teamwork, and led naturally, but didn't feel like it today. His new friends weren't in this class anyway, so Sam instead decided to have fun. He executed a complex immersion gear hack he'd developed that allowed him to access additional capabilities.

With a minute remaining before the kids were allowed to start their quest, Sam detonated his hack to exploit a gap in the school program which lowered the alpha levels for his peers and darkened their world. A stream of surprised and frustrated comments rang in Sam's earpiece as the other students' views suddenly dimmed. They stumbled blindly while Sam ran an additional program that plundered their helpless characters of choice possessions tied to their profiles. In the Terrene world, he dominated and didn't need to deal with jerky seventh graders with bad breath.

His artificially imposed night faded as he approached another character. The invisible refracting lasers inside the immersion helmet rendered a nearly perfect likeness of his classmate's features onto the image of her Terrene self. Like most helmets of this caliber, the relative crudeness of the stock hair applied to the user's face diminished the experience.

The girl turned as he arrived, with frustration accurately rendered as she spoke, "Do you know what happened?"

"Unhand thy pack, haughty wench," Sam said. Elevated speech entertained him. Besides, this particular adventure took place in the 1600's.

"I certainly won't," she answered. "It's not in the protocol."

"Then needs must I take it from you through force."

"Why are you talking like that?"

"What mean you?"

"Like that. Like an ancient retard," said the girl.

"I think it's the new kid," a boy said, arriving to speak with them. He paused momentarily while he confirmed Sam's identity. "Yeah, Sam1323. He's in our lab."

"And thou art?" Sam asked.

"I'm the guy that's gonna kick your butt."

"I say thee nay. Verily, I recognize now thy visage. It is a pity, I am afraid."

"What's a pity and why are you so weird?" the girl asked.

"Pity be this," Sam replied as their characters suddenly froze while he relieved them of their accumulated Terrene currency.

"Hey, that's not fair," said the boy. "I'm about to become a level four wizard."

Sam sighed. Level four wizard. Lame. "Begone, vile cretins."

Sam ignored their protests as the two rang the lab proctor. He decided to cover the confiscation to be safe.

The landscape on Sam's screen disappeared as the proctor, his two classmates, and Sam superimposed together against a plain white background in their 3-D plasma views.

"What's the problem, kids?"

"The new boy, Sam, is cheating," they said over one another.

Sam shrugged while saying nothing. The proctor retrieved the online experience from his administrator console and reviewed the recorded sequence.

Sam knew the man wouldn't find his original hack, because like in Iowa, most teachers weren't creative enough to investigate anything other than the use of standard, public code. They never suspected a seventh grader might author original attacks.

After another thirty seconds with no hits from his query and the investigation was over. "I can't find any inappropriate activity tied to Sam."

"But he took all of our stuff," the girl said. "It's not fair."

"No one ever said the Terrene world was fair," the proctor cliché'd. "I need to figure out what affected the alpha levels. Continue the lesson."

Sam didn't know why he had bothered. He would never even notice the 4,000 credits he confiscated when merged with his fat Terrene bank account. A quick look told him the bounty represented all these two had gained from their last three months of play. Sad.

Sam spoke to the girl, "Alas, harsh words stab as a cold knife through my noble heart. I knew not the despair my caper would wreak." That came out cool, he thought. There was a thin line to walk between speaking like a pirate and noble knight.

(Continues…)



Excerpted from "Earth Gamers"
by .
Copyright © 2017 D. B. Schrock.
Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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