Duty Call
Copyright 2013 © Steven R. Parks
All rights reserved
In a humble town in the Midwest, sits a quaint two story home in a tranquil suburb. There's a yellow school bus motoring around the development at 6:45 a.m. A mother is cooking breakfast and packing a brown bag lunch. She is in her late 30’s, with shoulder length, naturally curly auburn hair. Slippers and blue jeans along with a button down un-tucked blouse is what she found suitable for a day of house cleaning. She’s a strong, relatable woman, smart and very perceptive, particularly when it comes to her son, Tommy.
“C’mon Tommy your bus will be here soon.” She hollers up the stairwell from the kitchen.
“I know," Tommy yells back from his bedroom on the second floor.
Tommy is a 5’11” medium build, seventeen year old brilliant and athletic high school kid, who has many friends due to his adaptable mind skills and agile prowess on the basketball court. He has short brown hair, a clean face, not very muscular and a little on the shy side when it come to the girls. His mother brought him up to be very polite and compassionate about everything he does, a little on the immature side, but has grown a lot since the passing of his father last year.
A moment later he appears in the kitchen.
“You’ve got your practice SAT’s today you know”
“I know mom.” Tommy snaps back, half awake.
“And basketball after school.” she adds.
“Yea, I know…that’s why I have the ball.” Tommy says with the ball under his arm sarcastically.
Tommy grabs his lunch along with his ball and heads out the door with a piece of toast in his mouth just as the bus pulls up to the house. He gets on. A kid in the back gives him a wave and he heads to the rear of the bus. He greets a few kids on the way and grabs a seat next to his friend, who’s about the same age with a sports jersey on.
“Hey” he says as he sits down and the bus starts to drive away.
“We’ve got those practice SAT tests again today you know?" Tommy starts in.
"You worried this year?” he friend asks nervously.
“I scored the highest in the school last year, I'm not worried. You’ve got nothing to worry about either; you did good last year too. Relax." Tommy calmly explains as he twirls his basket ball on his finger.
"You going to practice afterwards?” Tommy asks as he tosses the ball his way.
“Yea I’ll be there.” his friend says as he hooks it back to Tommy.
One kid in front of them, with back framed glasses and greasy hair, turns around and starts talking.
“You guys tried the new game yet?”
“Which one…Duty Call?" The kid next to Tommy asks.
"Yea, it’s amazing.” Tommy's friend continues.
“It’s so hard, and it seems so real.” the kid in front excitedly complains.
“Tommy, when you going to pick it up?” His friend next to him asks as he takes the ball away from him, and starts throwing it up and down.
“I was thinking about picking it up this weekend, maybe after the game on Friday.” Tommy says.
“Well let me know when you get it, I’ll stop over and show you some hints that I picked up. There’s no cheats in this game, so you really have to know what your doing if you want to get anywhere.” His friend says tossing the ball back to Tommy.
“We’re getting a club together so we can all help each other as we go along, so let me know when you get it too.” The kid in front of them, adjusting his glasses states.
“Yea…I’ll give everyone a call when I get the game…Okay?” Tommy says a bit annoyed.
The bus glides up to the school and stops, the door swings open with its mechanical arms and the kids start filing off. Tommy says ‘catch you later’ to a few people while he makes his exit. As he makes his way through the school hallways crowded with kids walking, talking, laughing and fighting, he ends his travels at his locker. It's over stuffed, but organized, with books and old computer games. He stuffs his basketball in, grabs a few of the books and heads to class. After a few rigorous morning classes come and go Tommy heads to the lunch room. Tommy’s sitting at a table with few of his friends when one kid walks up to the group looking a little beat and tired.
“Hey Tommy, you checked out the new game yet?” The approaching kid says.
“No, not yet.” Tommy says a little pestered.
“Maybe this weekend.”
“Man it’s brutal." The new kid expresses as he brushes his hair back with his hand.
“I can’t put it down; I’ve been up all night with it. My dad came in and ripped the controller out of my hand and had to drive me to school because I’d missed the bus.” The kid says as he seizes a chair from another table and sits with the pack.
“Sounds pretty wild.” Tommy says a little intrigued.
“It’s more than wild, its intense.” says the new kid.
“You won’t be able to put down.” says another kid from across the table.
"So when do you think your going to get it Tommy?" Yet another kid leans in and asks.
"Why is everyone in such a hurry for me to get this thing?" Tommy inquires as he takes a bite of his sandwich.
"Because you’re the best gamer around, you've beat everything like, three times at least, and this game just came out and none of can get past the first level." Another kid from the table excitedly explains.
"Alright." Tommy agrees, a little more intrigued.
"I'll meet you guys at the mall after practice tonight." As he picks up his trash and leaves the table.
After lunch, Tommy has a few more academic classes then basketball practice. He plays well, and hard. After practice he gets cleaned up and catches the late bus home. When he gets home it's already dark out.
“Hi Tommy.” his mom greets as he enters the front door of the house.
“Did you get your practice SAT score yet?” She eagerly questions.
“Yea.” Tommy says. “I think I did better than last year.”
“Good for you.” She congratulates from the kitchen.
“I knew you could do it, at least those video games aren’t pulling your grades down.” She continues as she’s cooking.
“Yea right.” He reluctantly agrees making his way straight up the stairs to his room.
“I’m heading to the mall with guys, I’ll have dinner there with them.” he yells down from his room as he’s getting changed and looking for his money.
“I’m already cooking some pasta.” His mom interjects as she bangs the spoon on the counter angrily.
“Save it, I’ll have it later.” he foretells as he walks out the front door.
Tommy gets on his mountain bike, and heads down the tree lined street. He takes daring twists and turns around cars and debris along the way. After about a twenty minute ride he ends up at the mall, some friends of his are already waiting out front. They converse for a short time with each other, and then head in the mall. They shuffle around talking and laughing with each other with no particular pace. They meet up with a group of girls from their school in front of the game store. Tommy shies away from the girls with just a wave and continues into the store and goes directly to the new game section. He peruses around the shelves by himself, studying the games. Joey, one of his friends from the group in the mall sneaks up on him and purposely bumps him from behind with a box in his hand.
“Here it is man. The game of all games.” and presents it to him, almost on one knee, like a crown.
Tommy looks at the box. ‘Rated 17 and up, real live action,’ is what’s printed on the bottom of the front in bold white letters. He shrugs his shoulders and makes his way over to the check out counter with his entourage, which entered earlier, behind him. Tommy pulls out a few crumpled bills that he received over the summer from doing odd jobs. Straightens them out and hands them over to the male clerk. All his friends follow him back out into the mall, discussing the game and giving pointers from their past experience with it. Tommy notices that some of his usual friends aren’t around.
“Where is Alex, Taylor and the other guys tonight?” he asks openly to anyone.
“They’re all in the game, sucked in, addicted. They got the game about 2 weeks ago and we haven’t seen them outside since. “One of his friends replies in a spooky voice.
“I’ll have this beat in a week I’m sure.” Tommy confidently announces as the walks out of the mall reading the back of the box.
“I don’t know man, this one is a little different then the ones that we’re used to playing.” One of his friends says from behind Tommy as the rest of his friends exit the mall.
“What? Find, shoot, kill, zombies, aliens, and monsters and stuff, they’re all the same. Learn the guns, the playing field, and bam, your done.” Tommy says as he gets on and straddles his bike.
“This ones a little different, it’s like your really there, real missions against like, Germans and terrorist and stuff, it‘s really weird” his friend declares.
“Yea, yea….same stuff, different targets….give me a week!” Tommy promotes as he rides off on his bike and waves goodbye to his friends.
Tommy rides home alone in the darkness through the neighborhood. As makes his way, he takes a few short cuts along his trip. He cuts through the baseball fields, sneaks around a house that contains and older couple that no-one ever really sees, heads down their driveway then back out into the street. He pedals fiercely down the road because he knows it’s getting late and doesn’t feel like hearing his mom give the riot act when he gets home. He silently glides up to his back yard and drops the bike by the rear porch. He walks around to the front door in hopes that he can just quietly sneak up to his room. However, as usual, he forgets that the old front door creaks when opened, and the fact that it’s nearing 10 p.m., and the house is soundless, makes it all that more impossible to enter the house un-noticed. As soon as he opens the door, the door lets out its haunting presence, echoing through the house. He walks in and casually makes his way to the stairs that lead to the second floor. In an instant, you can hear his mom from the distance bellowing,
“Tommy I cooked all this pasta and you just took off.” She complains from the living room.
“We’ll have tomorrow Ok?” Tommy yells back waving her off as he escapes the situation up the stairs to his room.
“What did you get at the mall, a new game?” his mom inquires as she looks up the stairs just in time to see him hurrying up the steps with a bag.
“Yea. Everyone says that it’s so amazing. I’ll kill it in a week.” Tommy replies confidently turning the corner into his room.
He sits on the bed and takes his shoes off and pulls the game box out of the bag.
“You shouldn’t be wasting your money on those things, you’re going to camp this summer, and you’d better save up.” his mom states from the kitchen as she’s cleaning up the covered plates from dinner, that she had set aside for him earlier.
“Yea I know.” Tommy says a bit quieter, shifting his attention, as he pulls the disc out of its container and starts to look at the supplied instructions.
He’s a little intrigued as he stands up, but only glances over them for a few seconds, then drops the paper to the floor. He spins the disc around on his finger haphazardly as he takes a few steps towards his gaming cube. He then insets the disc into his machine. The device slowly draws it in. Tommy then walks backwards and grabs his controller from behind him off the bed, never taking his eyes off of the TV screen, as the game starts up. He slides to the floor with his back against the bed. He puts his knees up, and gets into his game playing position.
The TV screen depicts some unusual syncing and sequencing that Tommy’s never seen before. He studies it for a moment, then shrugs it off, hits the enter key and gets more comfortable. Then an identification screen appears that’s very unique and odd to him. It reads:
“Enter your full name, age, city and state.” He tries to bypass the screen so he can get started on the game, but it won’t let him. Apprehensively, he fills in the appropriate information. The screen seems to freeze for a moment, but he can hear the machine making internal frantic noises, he wait’s a second, then makes a disappointed face because he thinks the game locked up already. He leans in to push the reboot button, but just before he does, his school identification card, with his picture and all his information shows up on the screen.
The screen displays;
“Please confirm identification.”
A bit taken back, he slowly falls back into his floor mounted gaming chair and stares at the screen. He thinks about it for a moment, picks up the box that the game in and looks it over again. He reads some of the wording under his breath….
“Mature audiences only. Depicts actual graphic situations. 17 and over.”
He lets the box slip out from his hand and fall to the floor. Shrugs his shoulders, and cautiously proceeds to hit the “OK” button. Sitting on the edge of his seat, like this won’t take long, he impatiently waits tapping his fingers on the controller. Then the game begins.
A new screen comes on. It reads;
“Mission:”
“Proceed to 3rd bunker house and retrieve brown leather suit case under desk. Return to the woods and place brief case in back seat of the black car on the other side of tree line waiting on the dirt road.”
“Sounds easy enough,” he mumbles under his breath.
“Lets rock.” he sounds out as he pushes the ‘begin’ button.
The screen changes to a first person point of view, like the camera lens is in your eye facing outwards. You can see the end of your gun in front of you, you can look all around, but you can’t see your feet when you look down. Your weapons and amino are listed at the bottom right, your objective is shown at the top left along with a map of the direction that you heading in and where you should be. Tommy looks around checking out the surrounding area. He’s in the woods. He can see a well lit compound up ahead. He starts to head closer to it. As he nears he hears people talking in German. He stops to asses the situation. There are two guards patrolling the fence, one at the gate. He stops for a moment and gazes at the amazing realism of the graphics. Then he sits back.
“Three guards, that’s all you got? This is easy.” he says confidently.
He heads to the guard at the far end of the gate on the right. He points his gun and shoots.
“You there stop!” he hears from the left in broken English.
The guard at the center of the gate turns and shoots Tommy before he can even get a thought out of what to do. A screen pops up immediately.
“Mission failed. Objective not reached. Try again, stay low.”
Tommy hit’s the ok button and the screen starts over. He starts out in a different part of the woods but same general area and makes his way to the camp. He gets closer, stops and studies the guards. The one guard that he shot has been replaced with another guard, but there are still three. He watches their routine as they walk back and forth along the fence. He notices that the two guards walk the length of the fence, turn around, and pass each other as they reach the other guard at the center of the gate.
“Should I try and take them out 1 by 1, or all three at the gate?” He mumbles quietly.
He takes a center position in front of the gate. He enables the silencer effect on his gun. From the darkness he shoots one when they are all at the gate and runs towards the left side of the fence. The other two start shooting into the darkness where he was. He finds another dark spot takes aim and shoots the other guard. The final guard starts to run for cover and Tommy shoots and misses, the fleeing guard is almost into the darkness, he takes another shot and hit’s the final guard, the guard falls. Tommy freezes, and waits to see if anymore come out. It’s quiet. He cautiously heads towards the gate.
All of the sudden his bedroom door swings open and his mom brings laundry into his room.
“Tommy it’s almost midnight, you better get to bed.” She instructs dropping the laundry basket next to him.
“Yea, yea, in a minute.” he snaps back.
His mom glances at the game Tommy’s playing for a moment, and then leaves his room. Tommy gets to gate. It’s locked.
“Dam…One of those guards must have the keys.” he says. He searches the first two guards on the ground at the gate. No keys.
“They must be on the other guard. Now I have to go and look for him.” He says reluctantly.
He travels down the path that the guard ran in and sees him up a head in the darkness lying on the ground. He approaches watchfully, then puts his gun to his side and starts to reach for the guard’s pocket. His mom walks by with laundry from another room, and yells in his room, startling him.
“Tommy, go to bed!” she yells into the room as she walks by.
“Bang!” the guard reaches up and shoots Tommy in the face.
Immediately the screen pops up again.
“Mission failed. Objective not reached. Shoot lock on fence.”
Tommy angry at the broken concentration by his mom. He starts over again using the same routine he used last time. Gets killed a few more times, never making it threw the gate. He starts again, same routine, makes it to the gate, shoots the lock.
“Tommy!” his mom shouts half a sleep with her pajamas on standing at his door.
Tommy jumps as her voice breaks the silence of the room.
“It’s 1:30! Go to bed! Now!” she demands, and remains there to make sure he quits the game.
“Alright, alright.” he argues back as he starts to stand up. He hits quit on the game. A screen pops up:
“Mission failed. Objective not reached. You have not passed level 1.”
Whatever he says to himself, and throws the controller on the chair and turns the game off. He takes off his clothes and slides into bed all the while he keeps looking back at the screen in amazement at how difficult it was. He falls asleep.
The next morning at the breakfast table with his mom, she throws a plate of pasta down in front of him, he looks down at it.
“Yea, last night’s dinner that you didn’t eat, we can’t afford to waste food around here you know.” he mom says as she turns to clean some dishes.
Tommy just stares at it half a sleep.
“You know that you have game today at 2:00 right?” His mom asks.
“I know, I know. I’ve been practicing all week for it, how could I forget?”
Tommy replies a little annoyed as he picks up some pasta with a fork and smells it.
“Well I just wanted to make sure that those videogames didn’t destroy your memory, we’ll leave around 1:15…OK?” she says looking at his back at the table.
“Yea fine.” Tommy says irritated as he pushes the pasta away grabs a piece of toast off of the plate, sticks it in his mouth, and walks away. He just makes it around the corner of the kitchen and his mom hollers.
“You didn’t eat your pasta!” She complains.
Tommy waves the toast at her as he keeps on walking.
Tommy heads up to his room, finds his uniform in the laundry, looks for his ball under his bed, finds it, and throws it on his bed. He goes into the bathroom that’s connected to his room and begins to brush his teeth. While he’s brushing he’s looking around his room and the game box on the floor catches his eye. I’ve got a few hours to kill, he thinks to himself. He rinses his mouth out, goes back into his room, turns the game on and sits down with his controller. The screen pops up.
“Welcome back Tommy.” With the screen depicting his I.D.
“Your mission is not complete. Proceed to 3rd bunker and retrieve briefcase.”
“Yea, yea.” he says and jumps right in to the game. The game always starting at a different place in the woods, he gets killed three times. His phone starts ringing, breaking his concentration during the fourth attempt. He picks it up and puts it to his ear.
“Yooo…. Tommy. You checked that game out yet?’ his friend asks from the other end excitedly.
“Yea, I’m playing it right now, it’s a little harder than I thought.” he says as he’s trying to maneuver through the woods in the game.
“I told you man.” His friend says excitedly.
“I’ll be right over.”
Tommy just lets the phone drop from his ear and land on the floor. He looks down with the corner of his eye, without moving his head, to make sure his friend hung up. Then he intently refocuses on the game.
Tommy keeps playing for a while, struggling to get through the fence. After a few minutes his friend, Joey comes walking into his bedroom sipping on an energy drink.
Joey lives a few doors down and has been friends with Tommy since grade school. He’s not athletic; he’s a little shorter and heavier than Tommy, but resolves to be a professional gamer all his life. With his baggy pants and T-shirt, he takes a sitting position next to Tommy on the floor.
Tommy’s getting all pissed off and frustrated.
“Calm down dude.” Joey quickly chimes in next to Tommy.
“Look at it like it’s for real. See those guards over there? If they see or hear you, that’s it, you’re done.” He tries to explain.
“You can’t use your guns, use your knife and keep it quiet.” He continues as he tries to assist.
“Alright, alright! Tommy says as he’s getting peeved.
Tommy starts again. Using his knife and taking his time, he gets past the three guards for the first time.
“Awesome.” Joey compliments.
“Now shoot the lock and head to the shadows by that first bunker.” Joey instructs.
“I see it, I see it.” Tommy says now getting a bit excited because he’s finally getting somewhere.
“Wait!” Joey quietly whispers.
“I hear some-one coming. Get back.” Joey instructs as he moves closer to the screen and waves Tommy back with his hand.
“Ok…..go!” Joey waves Tommy on.
“Now down to the third one. Get your machine gun ready.” He instructs.
Tommy fumbles around with the controls and finds the machine gun, paying close attention to Joey’s instructions.
“Ready.” Tommy says as he moves a little closer to the screen.
“Ok. Break through the door and shoot everyone in there.” Joey commands, pointing at the screen and looking at Tommy.
Tommy takes a deep breath, and pushes the “forward” button on the controller and the door crashes down. He starts spraying the room with bullets and four guards fall to the floor with blood squirting out of them everywhere.
“It looks so realistic.” Tommy says in awe.
“I told you dude!”
“Now there…under that bed! Grab that briefcase!” Joey yells and points at the screen.
“I got it, I got it.”
“Now wait.” Yells Joey as he motions with his hand towards Tommy to stop.
“Some of the other guards may have heard you. Just stick your head out the door and see if anyone is coming.” Joey whispers.
Tommy slowly moves his controls forward. He can see past the doorway. He pans left and right. No-one in sight.
“Ok…run towards the gate!” Joey screams and waves for Tommy to go.
Tommy moves his controls and maneuvers through the yard quickly on the screen.
“Watch it! another guard at the gate! Shoot him…Shoot him!” Joey demands as he jumping up and down.
“I got this.” Tommy says confidently.
Tommy shoots the guard. Makes it through the open gate at the fence, and runs into the darkness of the woods.
“Where am I supposed to go now?” Tommy questions.
“Look at your map, up here.” Joey gestures pointing to the upper left side of the screen.
“Head west, to the meeting point.” Joey continues.
Tommy makes his way through the woods and can see on the map he’s getting closer to the destination. Once he clears the woods, he comes to a dirt road. There, a truck is waiting. A man gets out.
“Nice job.” The man on the screen says, and reaches down and takes the briefcase from Tommy.
The man gets back in the truck. The screen goes blank for a few seconds.
“Now what?” Tommy questions.
“I forget.” Joey replies.
“I’ve only been here once.”
Then a message appears on the screen:
“Well done Tommy. You have just completed level one. Please proceed to mission two when ready.”
Just then Tommy’s mom starts yelling from the bottom of the steps.
“Let’s go Tommy, game soon”
“Holy shit man, you can’t leave now!” Joey says while holding Tommy’s arm.
“I have to go, I have a game.” Tommy says as he turns the game off and grabs his basketball.
“Ok…but tonight we hit level two.” Joey insists.
“I can’t get passed it, it’s an assignation.” Joey continues.
“How long did it take you to do the first level?” Tommy asks.
“About three weeks.”
“You’re kidding me?” Tommy says as they both start heading down the steps.
“No man…it’s brutal.”
All three of them head out the door. Joey leaves and heads home. Tommy and his mother go to the game. Tommy plays well, makes a few good baskets, girls cheering him on. He sits on the bench for a while to take a break. He’s watching the game when one of his team mates bumps him on his shoulder.
“You get the game yet?” the team mate asks.
“Yea…yea…I got it last night.” Tommy answers trying to watch and concentrate on the game.
“How far did you get so far?” his team mate eagerly questions.
“A….I don’t know….first level.” Tommy blurts out.
“You made it past the first level already? That’s amazing. Everyone said you were good, but that’s amazing dude.” His team mate praises.
“Yea…whatever.” Tommy says as he gets up, claps and cheers for his team’s effort.
His team mate comes and stands next to him.
“How’d you get so far so fast?” the team mate asks.
“A….Joey helped me out this morning a little, I guess.” Tommy replies not wanting to continue the conversation.
“Yea, it seems a lot easier when some-ones there to watch your back.” The team mate agrees.
“Yea…whatever.” Tommy says a bit annoyed and jumps back into the game. Tommy continues to play well and his team wins the game. A little while later after all the celebrating on the court, the team is in the locker room. Tommy’s getting dressed when the same team mate comes up to him again.
“You playing tonight?” he inquires.
“I don’t know, I’m kind of beat now.” Tommy answers putting on his sneakers.
“C’mon dude. I’ll bring over some energy drinks and we’ll blast through this game.” The team mate pushes.
Tommy annoyed about his persistence reluctantly agrees with a nod of his head.
“Yes!” his team mate high fives him.
Then another team mate leans in.
“I’m coming too.” He says pulling his shirt over his head.
“Yea, sure….we’ll make it a gaming party.” Tommy mumbles and walks out, not to happy about the situation.
As Tommy’s in the van with his mom driving home, his mom congratulates him on the good game. Tommy mentions how his team played well and the other team wasn’t up to the challenge. Then they pull into the driveway.
“Oh yea...” Tommy starts.
“I’m having a few friends come over tonight, is that cool?”
“Yea that’s fine. Tomorrows Sunday, you won the game. I guess you can have a little party.” His mom says as she pats him on the back walking through the front door.
Tommy runs up the stairs and gets out his phone and starts dialing a few numbers.
Later that night, Tommy and his friends are all in his room. You can hear them yelling and screaming, giving each other high fives and moaning all through the house. They’re all pumped up on energy drinks and really into it. His mom walks by a few times and glances in to see what’s going on through the night. Tommy’s at the controls and all his friends are telling him what to do. She heads back in around 12:30am with some more laundry. She starts folding the clothes and putting them away. The kids don’t even notice she’s there. She watches them play for a while and can’t believe how graphic and real the game looks. She watches over their shoulders.
“There he is! Shoot him.” His one friend yells.
“I got it, I got it.!” Tommy fires back.
“Get the sniper rifle.” Joey instructs.
“Was all ready thinking that my friend.” Tommy agrees.
“This game is a bit graphic, don’t you think boys?’ His mom inquires.
She gets no reply. They just keep on playing like she wasn’t even there.
“It’s getting a bit late gentlemen.” Tommy’s mom calls out over their commotion.
Still no response from the group.
“Let’s go….wrap it up guys.” She says in a louder persistent voice.
“Guys?...now! Let’s go…head home.” She loudly demands as she starts tapping them on their shoulders and poking them on their backs.
“Yea…alright…later Tommy.” They all start to say and begin filing out of his room. Tommy continues to play, not even noticing that everyone is leaving.
“Tommy. You should be getting to bed.” She says after everyone has left.
“It’s almost 1:30am.”
“Yea, in a minute. Just let me finish this last mission.” Tommy quietly pleads as he plays intently.
“Okay. But you have five minutes.” His mom says as she heads out the door.
“Yea…..Okay.” He slowly replies never taking his eyes off the screen.
Tommy plays intensely all night. Drinking left over energy drinks. Getting through missions and levels easier and easier each time, on the first tries. After about 35 missions, Tommy is really wired and is like one with the game. Then a screen pops up that he has never seen before.
“You have made it to the Elite Force Tommy. Well done. From here, you must complete each mission without mistake, or you will loose your Elite status. Are you ready to continue?
Tommy sits back for moment.
“What the hell does that mean?” he mumbles to himself.
He’s all wired up and broken down from playing all night. He takes a chug of an energy drink, and stares at his screen. He glances over at the clock. It reads 5:30am. Then he looks back at the screen.
“Oh…what the hell.” He mumbles, and hit the ‘enter’ button.
The next screen appears and reads:
‘Your first mission as the Elite is to make your way from the drop zone to the boat dock. There you will find a boat named, “Princes,” at slip number 22. Plant C4 charges in designated area shown on view finder map. Retreat to secluded area away from dock. Wait for timer in view finder to count down to ‘0’. Set off charges.’
“Sounds easy enough.”
Tommy shrug’s his shoulders and hits the continue button.
He begins. He starts in a dark wooded section but he can see the dimly lit boat dock and the water up ahead. He makes his way to the boat slip. Cautiously taking care not to get caught, he slowly maneuvers around loose boards, hanging ropes, and fishing poles. He spots a few people around the target boat. He watches and study’s their routine. He checks his view finder to see where to plant the C4 explosive. He waits for the right moment, when the dock looks motionless. He scrambles in while the occupants on the boat are nowhere in site. He plants the charges on the hull of the boat and gets back to the wooded area a safe distance away. He waits nervously as the counter counts down to ‘0.’ He wipes his sweaty palms on his pants and grasps the controller.
His finger poised on the ‘enter’ button. The timer slowly counts 4, 3, 2….
“Tommy!... Have you been up all night playing that game?” His mom bursts in the door scolding and walking in front of the screen.
“Mom! I missed the timer!” He complains as he dodges his head around her and looks through her legs to see people walking off the boat.
“You shut that off right now and get downstairs. I’ can’t believe you been up all night.” She says in and angry disappointed tone.
“Wait just let me do this.” Tommy pleads still trying to look past her.
“Okay, but that’s it.” His mom states as she moves aside and turns her attention to the screen.
Tommy refocuses on the game screen. It still says ‘0’. He hit’s the enter button. The boat explodes. People and parts of the boat go flying everywhere. His mother is a bit taken back by the graphics and realism of it all. Tommy drops the controller. The screen comes on in red.
‘Mission Failed.’
“See what you did mom?” Tommy complains to her as he points to the screen.
“I don’t care about your stupid game Tommy; I just can not believe that you stayed up all night playing that.” She says in an irritated voice.
“Now shut it off and get your butt downstairs.” She demands as she walking out the bedroom door.
Tommy gets up, stretches, and looks at the screen again. It just continues flashing:
‘Mission Failed.’
Tommy makes his way downstairs. He gets some breakfast while his mom is complaining the whole time about him being up all night. After he has some toast and cereal, his adrenalin starts wearing off from the game. Tommy collapses on the couch in the living room with the TV on. Later that day his friend Joey comes knocking on the door asking for him. His mother tells Joey that Tommy’s been up all night playing that game and now he’s a sleep. Joey excited to see how far Tommy got in the game, keeps pestering his mom to wake up Tommy. She finally tells him no for the third time and gets him to leave. She says she’ll have Tommy call him later. Tommy’s phone continues to ring all day, as other friends stop by the house, all excited to hear how far he got last night.
As the day drifts on into night, Tommy’s mom is cooking dinner in the kitchen while Tommy is still asleep on the couch. The news comes on and his mom is paying half attention to it. She hears something that catches her ear and glances towards the TV. She walks a little closer to the living room as the news man begins his story.
There was an attempted assignation this morning on the president of Egypt. The attempt happened while his yacht was at the dock in the West Nile River. The president, narrowly escaping the blast is now resting in a secured location. Footage shown here from the cameras at the dock, (the TV shows the boat blowing up). Show the huge explosion. Many think it was a terrorist attempt but the president escaped only seconds before the blast. Three of the guards and two guests were killed. All security forces from around the world are investing.
Tommy’s mom stares at the TV. She reaches down and tries to wake Tommy up by banging him on the arm. He just groans.
“Tommy.”
“Doesn’t that look like the boat in your game?” she asks still watching the news cast intently.
“What?’” Tommy mumbles.
“The boat in your game, on the news.” She repeats pointing at the TV.
“Tommy opens one eye and looks at the TV; it’s a commercial about toothpaste.
“What are you talking about mom?” He moans sleepily.
“The boat on the news that blew up looked like the one in your game.”
“Those games always use real looking stuff, it makes it more interesting.” Tommy says as he rolls over and tries to get back to sleep.
“Even the explosion looked the same.” She says a bit confused.
“Coincidence.” Tommy mumbles and fades back asleep.
“I guess.” His mom says as she makes her way back towards the kitchen.
“Sure is a strange coincidence.” She says to herself returning to washing the dishes.
A half an hour later Tommy’s mom comes back into the living room. She taps Tommy on the back with a wooden spoon in an effort to wake him up.
“Time to get up, dinners ready.” She says walking back to the kitchen.
“Dinner?” Tommy says a bit startled as he sits up and wipes his eyes.
“Why’d you let me sleep that long?”
“You were up all right playing that game, you needed some sleep.” His mom replies putting the dishes on the table.
“Damn.” Tommy says as he sits, still not awake.
“Did anyone call or come over?” He say running his hands through his hair vigorously, trying to wake up as he stumbles into the kitchen.
“Yes. Like all your friends, your phones been ringing all day.” She says a bit annoyed as she sits down with him.
“What did you tell everyone?”
“I told them that you were up all night playing that damn game, which by the way I don’t like you playing that game so much, you have more important things to think about” She says pointing to him with a fork.
“It’s just a game. I’ll beat it in a week and I’ll be done with it.” Tommy says confidently with his mouth full of food.
After dinner Tommy heads up to his room. Gets undressed and makes his way to the bathroom to take a shower. He walks by his TV and notices out of the corner of his eye that the game screen is still up.
“That’s funny; I thought that I turned that off last night.” He says to himself a little puzzled.
He stops and looks to see what it says.
‘Mission Failed. New Mission Loaded. Begin.’
Tommy stares at it for a moment. Shrugs his shoulders, turns the game off and gets in the shower. After he gets out and dressed he checks his phone for messages. 16 missed calls. He pokes his head out of his bedroom door and yells down to his mom.
“Can I have a few friends over tonight mom?’ he asks sweetly.
“Not until you get all your chores done and your room cleaned.” She hollers back.
“And none of that 1a.m. stuff either. You’ve got school tomorrow.” She adds.
“I know, I know.” Tommy answers as he starts cleaning up his room and empting the trash.
While he’s doing his chores he’s talking on the phone and inviting people over.
“Yea, 7 o’clock.” You can hear him says as he scrambles around the house to get things done.
As he puts his phone back in his pocket and finishes his chores, it begins ringing. He pulls it out and has a surprised look on his face. He watches it ring for a moment. Then he answers.
“Hello?” He shyly speaks.
“Hi Tommy, its Sarah.” The female voice on the other end greets.
Tommy pauses for a moment.
Sarah, a high school classmate and fellow gamer with all the other boys, tries to talk to Tommy from time to time, but he is to shy when it comes to women and avoids her. Sarah, non-conforming to all the Barbie doll look a likes in her school chooses to be more out spoken and carefree of what others think. She takes care of herself figuratively but dresses for the gothic era, though a straight ‘A’ student, she always plays down her intellect and passes herself off as just a rock and roll parting type.
“Oh, hi Sarah…what’s up?” Tommy quietly inquires.
“Joey says that you’re getting everyone together to play the game tonight, I was wondering if I could come over too?” She politely asks.
“Ah…yea, yea sure you can come over.” Tommy says with a bit of a hesitation.
“But I thought that you already beat the game?” he sheepishly questions.
“Nah…I can’t get passed the 8th level, been at it for 3 weeks now.” She complains
“But your one of the best girl gamers in the school.” He complements.
“This one is really tough, and weird, don’t you think?” I heard that you made it to the first mission.” She inquires excitedly.
“Well…yea. But my mom came in and stood in front of the TV so I couldn’t see and I missed the timer and failed the mission.” Tommy explains.
“Well…I’d really like to come over tonight and watch, if that’s okay with you?” She asks again.
Tommy pauses because he’s to excited and doesn’t want her to know.
“Ah…yea. That would be great. I think everyone’s coming around 7.” He answers calmly as he can.
“Great. I’ll see you then.” Sarah replies and hangs up.
After Sarah hangs up Tommy immediately calls Joey.
“Dude!” Tommy practically screams in the phone.
“Sarah’s coming tonight!” He continues.
“I know, I know. I called her, because I know you wouldn’t, and told her how far you got in the game.” Joey informs.
“Now you can have a chance to ask her out.” Joey recommends.
“I don’t know man, she’s pretty hot…she wouldn’t want to go out with me.” Tommy down plays himself.
“Dude…she’s coming to your house, she thinks you’re a god for getting so far in the game. She’s got the hots for you.” Joey pushes.
“I don’t know, maybe. I’ll see how it goes tonight.” Tommy mumbles.
“Perfect timing dude…you’ve been waiting all year for the opportunity, here it is, she going to be right in your house.” Joey informs.
“Yea, but she’s just coming because of the game, not me.” Tommy rationalizes.
“I wouldn’t be to sure about that bud. She sounded a little more interested in coming over your house then the game when I talked to her.” Joey explains.
“We’ll see.” Tommy downplays again.
“All right… Later.” See you at 7.” Joey says and hangs up.
Tommy all excited and nervous starts cleaning up his room. As he’s cleaning up and putting things away he notices again that the screen on the TV is back on with the same message:
‘Mission Failed. New Mission Loaded. Begin.’
He gazes at it for a moment.
“That’s weird; I thought I shut that off.” He ponders to himself.
He goes back to cleaning his room and making room for his friends. He smells his arm pits and heads back into the bathroom and puts on more deodorant and fixes his hair again. At around 7 o’clock the door bell starts ringing, and his mom starts sending kids up to his room. One by one they start entering, giving each other high fives, carrying energy drinks, and talking about the game. After each kid enters Tommy keeps looking past them to see if Sarah is there. Its 7:30 and Sarah hasn’t showed up yet. Four of his friends are excitedly crammed into his room.
“Come on dude lets get this gig rolling.” Joey says handing Tommy the controller.
“Yea….lets go.” The other guys chime in grabbing a seat on the floor and on the bed in front of the TV.
“But Sarah’s not hear yet.” Tommy informs as he pokes his head out of his bedroom door and looks down the hall.
“Forget her, she probably isn’t coming anyway.” One of the kids says, taking the controller from Joey and forcing it into Tommy’s gut.
Tommy a little saddened, shakes it off and tries to change his mood.
“Alright!... lets get this party started.” Tommy yells as he gets comfortable in his game chair, directly in front of the screen.
Tommy hits the begin button, and the games puts him back to level 8 because he failed the first mission.
“No problem.” He says.
“These are all easy.” Tommy implies as he settles in to his chair and begins playing the game.
As he begins all the kids are amazed at how good he is, and how fast he’s getting threw the levels, effortlessly. They are all watching his back in the game and helping him along the way. Tommy is very focused and flawless in his game playing. After about an hour Sarah walks into the room quietly. She just comes in unannounced and sits on the bed behind everyone. After a few minutes Joey takes a double take with his head in her direction, thinking it was one of the guys, and then surprised to see it’s her.
“Oh… Hi Sarah.” He says loud enough for everyone to hear.
Tommy quickly glances around the room and finds her and smiles.
“Hi Sarah.” He says shyly as he turns his head and gets back to the game.
Sarah just smiles and waves and sits quietly. None of the other boys acknowledge her even being in the room. All of the sudden Tommy’s not playing so well. He’s missing cues and not listening to his friend’s advice and keeps failing missions. He starts a new level, this time Sarah starts to yell out little pointers and such along with everyone else and moves a little closer to Tommy as she starts to get into the game. Tommy starts playing a little better, refocusing on the game. Pretty soon it’s like just her and Tommy are playing the game, she calls out the moves and Tommy works the controls. The rest of his friends can’t keep up with them two and just watch. At around 11:30 some of his friends announce that they have to leave. Tommy just puts his hand up and waves goodbye, still intently focused on the game. Now it’s just Tommy, Joey, and Sarah.
“Wow.” Joey exclaims.
“You two are like a one man army.” He says as he can’t even keep up with them.
Sarah just keeps guiding Tommy, and Tommy just keeps flying past all the levels.
“Well, alright guys, it’s almost 12…I gotta run.” Joey stands up and says.
Tommy and Sarah don’t even hear him as Sarah moves in closer and gets right next to Tommy.
“Then I guess I’ll just go then.” Joey says as backs out towards the door.
Sarah and Tommy are undistracted.
“See you guys in school tomorrow?” Joey says expecting a response.
Sarah and Tommy both just put one hand up and wave goodbye and quickly return to the game planning strategies and working through the levels.
“Okay then.” Joey says to himself and walks out the door.
Just as he leaves Tommy finishes a level and the screen appears again:
‘Welcome to the Elite Force Tommy.’
“Yes!”Tommy yells as he jumps up and high fives Sarah as she takes a sip from a random energy drink that was lying around the room.
Then Tommy realizes that Sarah’s the only one in the room, and turns a little timid.
“Where’d everyone go?” He asks looking around.
“Ah…I guess they left.” Sarah points out while taking another sip.
“Oh…I guess it’s just you and me then.” Tommy says as he slides back down into his seat.
“Let’s do this!” Sarah says as she gets down next him and leans in closer to the screen.
Tommy admires her hair for moment, and smells her perfume. Sarah quickly turns to him.
“Lets go!..what’ca waiting for?” Sarah says excitedly not knowing what he was doing.
“Yea…let’s do this.” Tommy says as he tries to refocus on the game and get into it.
Tommy hits the enter button. The screen appears.
‘New Mission.’
‘You will be dropped in a small wooded section on the west side of town. You have 20 minutes to make it to the center of town. There will be a speaker at the podium. Shoot the speaker, and return east to the woods. A black van will be there on the other side to pick you up when your mission is complete.’
“I heard that the last kid that got this far disappeared and was never heard from again.” Sarah chimes in reading the screen not looking at Tommy.
“Yea…like I believe that.” Tommy says sarcastically.
Sarah turns to Tommy and smiles,
“I’m just saying.”
“Let’s do it.” Tommy commands and hits the ‘begin’ button.
The game begins. The screen is black for a few seconds. Then slowly shows trees and the location in the woods. Tommy maneuvers through the woods; you can see the town through the brush. Sarah guides him a long. He makes it to the center of town and can see the podium in the distance; he hides by the side of a building.
“That’s the guys I guess.” Tommy says a little hesitant.
“Well…shoot him!” Sarah commands as she leans in. She points to the screen.
“You have a clear shot…do it.”
“Hold on.” Tommy says a bit agitated.
“I need to get in a better position.”
He maneuvers around a bit in the game to see the podium better. He brings up the scope on the rifle.
“Wow.” They both say in unison.
“These graphics are great, he looks almost real.” Sarah says a bit amazed.
“Yea, this game is definitely down with the graphics.” Tommy agrees.
They are both watching the guy talk. You can’t hear what he is saying, but you can see him perfectly. As they are watching Tommy’s mom comes into the room.
“Okay guys. It’s getting late.” She informs.
“Hold on one minute mom.” Tommy pleads.
Mom stands back and rests her shoulder on the door way and watches for a moment.
“Do it.” Sarah whispers.
‘Bang!’ Tommy shoots. You can see the guy fall back. Blood is pouring out his head. People are running around to aid him and looking to see where the shot came from.
“Run!” Sarah yells putting both hands up to the screen pointing and waving.
Tommy quickly maneuvers around, leans in and gets moving. He moves through the town and back through the woods.
“Where do I go, where do I go!” He yells a bit confused.
“East…east!” Sarah directs.
Tommy makes it to the other side of the woods and through the thick of the tress you can see a black van on a dirt road. Tommy makes his way to the van, the door opens, and the screen goes black.
“Oh…what the hell?” Tommy says discouraged.
“What happened?” Sarah says as she sits back.
“Okay guys, game over. Time to call it quits.” Tommy’s mom says as she walks in to the room a little further.
Tommy and Sarah just stare at the blank TV screen, anxiously waiting for something to happen. Then a message appears.
‘Nice work Thomas. Mission complete. Proceed to next mission.’
“Yes!” Tommy and Sarah say together ecstatically as they both jump up and high five each other.
“Oh no you don’t.” Tommy’s mother butts in.
“Game over for tonight.” As she bends over and turns the TV off.
Tommy and Sarah congratulate each other and shake hands smiling and laughing.
“Okay Miss Sarah, time to go.” Tommy’s mom says as she guides Sarah out the door by her shoulders.
“See you in school tomorrow Tommy.” Sarah says with a smile as she turns her head and waves goodbye to Tommy.
“Yea, see you tomorrow.” Tommy bashfully replies.
Tommy excitedly walks around his room and picks up his phone. Eager to tell Joey about the game and Sarah, he glances over at his clock, 12:45am. Maybe it’s too late he says to himself. He throws the phone on his desk and collapses on to the bed excitedly kicking and punching his pillows. His mom reenters the room after Sarah leaves the house. She walks around picking the empty cans and trash as Tommy’s in the bathroom brushing his teeth.
“That Sarah girl seems nice, a little weird, but nice”His mom blurts out nonchalantly.
“What?...yea. She’s really cool.” Tommy responds from the bathroom.
“Are you two going out or anything?” His mom inquires while straightening up his room, knowing that he hasn’t had a girlfriend since second grade.
“What?...No!” Tommy bashfully answers as he exits the bathroom and climbs into bed.
“We just make a really good team, she’s awesome.” He adds smiling.
“Okay, get to sleep…school tomorrow and it’s already late.” His mom instructs as she leaves the room with trash and cans in hand.
The next morning, Monday, Tommy is awoken by the sound of his alarm clock and the smell of breakfast. His mom is down in the kitchen cooking. The TV is on in the living room. She pauses a minute to watch the weather. Rain today, I guess I won’t be working in the garden she says to her self. Tommy comes down from his room and enters the kitchen already dressed with a big smile on his face. He drops his army green school backpack on the floor
“What are you all smiles about today?” She inquires while putting some bacon and eggs in front of him as he sits down.
“Nothing. Just feels like it’s going to be a great day, that’s all.”
“You going to talk to that Sarah girl today?” his mom smiles.
“I dunno, maybe, if I see her.” Tommy tries to deflect the question as he sticks more food in his mouth.
“Maybe we should have her over for dinner one night?”
“Mom!...I don’t think so. She’s just a friend, a gamer, that would be weird.” He replies as he gets up and tries to change the subject.
“I’m riding my bike today, so, see yea.” He informs as he puts his dishes in the sink and grabs his backpack off the floor.
“It’s supposed to rain today.” His mom tells him pointing out the window.
Tommy looks out the window while putting his backpack on.
“Looks fine to me.” He hurriedly says and walks towards the back porch where his bike is.
While Tommy checking his backpack to make sure he has all he needs for school his mother is distracted by the newsman on the TV.
“And this just in, Senator George Strait was shot yesterday as he spoke at a convention last night for US arms control in Brockton Ohio. “
Tommy’s mom heads out to the living room, still wiping a dish dry; to see what’s going on in the news, and to hear the TV better.
“The FBI believes it was an assassination but has not named a responsible party yet. This videos show the Senator moments before he was shot.”
The news shows the senator giving his speech at the podium.
Tommy’s mom recognizes the Senator from the game that Tommy was playing last night and drops the plate on the floor.
“Tommy!” She yells not taking her eyes off the TV.
“Tommy get in here!” She yells again, but all she hears is the screen door slam as Tommy leaves on his bike.
She hurries back to the kitchen and franticly looks for her pocket book. She finds it and starts pulling things out and dropping some on the floor. She finally finds a business card. Flips it over then turns it right side up and reads the number out loud. She finds her phone and dials the number that she keeps repeating. She’s paces around impatiently as she waits for some-one to pick up the other end.
“Hello.” A mans low deep voice answers on the other end calmly.
“Hello Steve? This is Amanda Pierce.” She greets quickly.
“You have a Minute?”
“Sure Amanda. After what happened to your husband the FBI is always here to help you. What can I do for you?” He responds reassuringly.
“Well.” She laughs worriedly.
“This might sound kind of strange. But do you know that Senator that got shot yesterday?” She asks.
“Yes, of course. We are investigating that incident now.” He responds as his curiously gets peaked.
“Well…this is really strange, and I’m not sure how to explain this, but I think, somehow, Tommy did it through his video game.” She says quickly and then stops and remains silent waiting nervously to see what Steve will say.
There is a dead silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then Steve begins to speak.
“Mrs. Pierce. Lets calm down for a minute.” His tone changes to stand down mode.
“Why don’t you try and explain to me what you mean, because I can’t see how that could be conceivable possible.”
“Well. He plays this video game, and as with all the video games he has to go and kill people. However, this one seems a little different then the rest. It knows his name; the pictures are really graphic, and when ever he does something big…it turns up on the news.” She tries to explain awkwardly.
“Mrs. Pierce. These games are made to be graphic. They get worse every year. It’s a competition with those companies. The kids love it, and there is nothing the FBI can do to regulate the graphic nature of them.” He tells her.
“No, wait.” She butts in.
“I’m not talking about the graphics. I’m saying what ever happens in the game, shows up on the news the next day…in real life.” She tries to explain again.
“Now you know that’s impossible Amanda.”
“I know it is, and I don’t understand it either. But the last two things that I saw him do end up on the news the next day.” She desperately attempts to explain again.
I know that your husband past away only year ago Amanda, are you sure that your not having some kind of a crisis? I can get in touch with some-one that can help you if you want?” He offers.
“No! It’s not a crisis or anything, I’m fine.” Amanda reassures.
“I don’t know what to believe. The things in the game look as real as life, he stays up all night playing it. He does these missions and I’d swear that they are the same things that I see in the news.”
“Amanda.” Steven leads off.
“I don’t really see how that’s possible. Think about what you are saying for a moment. He does things in the game, and then they happen in real life. It’s just a disc in a machine. It’s just not possible.” He tries to repeat what she says so she’ll see how inconceivable it is.
“I know, I know. It’s really weird. Maybe I am going crazy or something.” Amanda replies having second thoughts about what she’s saying.
“Why don’t you and Tommy go away for the weekend? Get him away from the game and you to some fresh air and new scenery. You can use my house down by the lake if want, I can swing by and drop the key off.” He offers.
“In the meantime, I’ll take a look at this game and see just how bad it is for him. How’s that sound?” Steven asks attempting to get her to calm down.
“It would be nice to get away for a bit. Things have been a little hard since Robert past away.” Amanda agrees.
“Okay then. Let me take a look at this game, and then I’ll drop by with the key and direction to the lake…maybe tomorrow night. Sound good?”
“Yea, that would be great Steven. Thanks.” Amanda replied.
“Okay then.” Steven says, happy to get her to calm down.
“Now why don’t you tell me a little more about this game?” He inquires.
Amanda, now a little calmer and not sure what to believe, goes on to tell Steven the name of the game and some of the things that she saw with it. After a few minutes on the phone with Steven they say their goodbyes and Amanda is a little relieved that at least he is going to check it out. She throws her hands up in air; it’s just a game she says, trying to remove all the weird ideas that she had. It’s just a game. She returns to her cleaning and daily chores. She looks out the window wanting to get to her flowers and her garden but it’s just raining too hard.
Around 4:30pm she starts cooking dinner. She keeps watching through the window to see if she can see Tommy riding home through the rain. Tommy talking to his friends at school pulls out his phone and looks at the time. He says goodbye to his friends and makes his way home dodging and weaving around cars and trash cans in the rain. As he makes his way down a long stretch of road, he notices a truck slowing down in front of him. He can’t get back to the sidewalk because of all the cars parked along the curb. He slowly paces himself behind the truck waiting for his chance to get around it. Suddenly a dark colored car with blacked out windows pulls on the left side of him. It slows its speed to match his. He glances behind, and there is another truck coming up quick. He wants to slow down more and get from behind the truck in front of him, but the other truck is closing in fast. It seems like the truck behind him can’t even see him. He tries to go left and almost hits the car next to him. Out of nowhere the truck in front opens its rear doors. A ramp falls out of the back. Sparks are flying from the steel dragging on the road. Tommy shields his eyes from the sparks and glances behind him. The truck behind is barreling down on him. He looks for a way out. Then the brake lights come on from the truck in front, and the truck stops. Tommy puts both hands on the handle bars and tries to stop. His tire slips in the rain. He slides right up the ramp into the rear of the truck. As he slide up the ramp the truck from behind come to a screeching halt at the end of the ramp. The ramp immediately goes up, the doors close. The car with the blacked out windows pulls away and then both trucks turn, and head out to the highway. Tommy is nowhere in site.
Tommy’s mom keeps looking at the clock. It’s nearing 6:00. He should have been home by now she says to herself. She finds her phone and calls his number. It goes straight to voicemail. She begins to panic. She calls his friend Joey.
“Hi Joey, its Tommy’s mom.” She says trying to stay calm.
“Have you seen Tommy, or know where he is?” she asks apprehensively, rubbing her hand through her hair looking out the window again.
“Last time I saw Tommy he was heading home after school.” Joey confesses.
“He’s not home yet?” he asks a bit concerned.
“No, not yet.”
“Well…maybe he stopped at the game store. He did say that he might want to get a new controller for his game.”
“Yea, maybe. What was the name of that place again?”
“The game place.”
“Okay thanks.” She says and hangs up the phone.
She calls information and gets the phone number for the store. She calls the store and describes Tommy to them. They know him well and say that they haven’t seen him in a few days. She hangs up the phone with them and thinks for minute. Then she dials 911. They tell her that some-one has to be missing for 24 hours to file a missing persons report. She franticly turns everything off in the kitchen, grabs her keys, and with phone in hand heads out to the car. She drives around for a while looking down all the rain soaked streets. She pulls over and calls the local police to see if any kids were involved in any accidents this afternoon. No incidents today they tell her.
She explains that her son is not home yet and that she can’t find him. They repeat what the 911 operator told her about the 24 hours, but say that they will keep and eye out for him and ask for a description of his clothing and the bike he is on. She calls his number again, still, straight to voicemail. It’s getting dark. She goes back to the house and rushes through every room calling his name and looking for him. She stops in the living room. Panic stricken and exhausted, she rummages through her pocket book. Pulls out a card and dials the number.
“Steven!” She says crying franticly.
“Tommy is gone.”
“Okay, okay, Amanda, just calm down a bit. What do you mean he’s gone?”
“He’s gone!” She replies franticly.
“He’s usually home by like 4:30, I called his friend Joey and he said that he saw him leave school. I called the game store he’s not there. I called the police, I called 911, and I drove all through the neighborhood. I can’t find him anywhere!” She informs as she burst out crying.
“Maybe he stopped over a friend’s house and just lost track of time.” Steven tries to rationalize.
“I called his phone; it goes straight to voice mail. He never turns his phone off.” Amanda informs as she continues sobbing.
“I’ll be right over.” Steven says a little concerned.
Amanda hangs up with Steven and continues to call Tommy’s phone again and again, feeling helpless. She calls a few of his other friends and they all say the same thing, that they saw him leave school on his bike after talking to him for a while. After about half an hour the door bells rings. Amanda jumps up and runs to the door, not knowing what to expect she wipes the tears from her eyes and braces herself for anything.
As she opens the door she sees that it’s Steven, She falls into his arms crying uncontrollable. Steven walks her over to the couch and sits down with her. He lets her cry for a few minutes, then lifts her head off his shoulder, cradles her face in his hands and looks her in the eyes.
“Okay Amanda. From the beginning, what happened and what do you know?” He begins his interrogation.
Amanda tries to straighten her self up. She sits up straight and wipes her eyes as she collects her thoughts.
“Well.” She begins slowly.
“Tommy left for school this morning on his bike, with his backpack. I told him to take the bus because it was suppose to rain, but he took his bike anyway. When he didn’t come for dinner I called a few of his friends and they all said the same thing. They were talking to him after school, and then Tommy headed home around….4:20 I think.” Amanda says concentrating so she’ll get all the facts straight.
“Then I called the game store. They said that they haven’t seen him, so I drove around looking for him, and then I called you.”
“Is there anything else that you could think of? Any place he might want to stop at? Steven begins to ask, but is interrupted by the sound of the rear screen door opening and closing shut. Amanda jumps up; heads to the rear of the house, Steven follows her.
“Tommy!” Amanda yells excitedly by still scared.
There is no answer. A figure makes it way out of the darkness into the kitchen. In a moment Sarah appears. Rain soaked and out of breath.
“I saw…” She starts, trying to catch her breath leaning against the wall.
“I saw them take Tommy.” She finally is able to get out between her heavy breathing.
“Oh my God!” Amanda yells and falls into a chair with her hands over her mouth.
“What did you see?” Steven asks intently as he grabs her shoulder and leads her into a kitchen chair and kneels in front of her.
“Two vans, Tommy on his bike. The one van had a ramp. Tommy had nowhere else to go. They forced him to ride into the back of the van. Then they just took off.” She finally gets out through her heavy breathing. Amanda begins crying heavily with her head in her hands.
“Did you get a look at the license plates or anything? Can you tell me anything about the vans?” Steven almost demands holding Sarah’s shoulders.
“No. They had no weird marking or anything. It happened down on Cherry Street.” Sarah says trying to remember.
“But then I thought someone was following me, a dark car with blacked out windows. When I tried to go home there was one there too. I’ve been hiding throughout the neighborhood all day. I think I finally lost them so I came here.” Sarah tells Steven, as Amanda looks on in disbelief.
“Steven stands up, pulls out his phone and starts making calls. He walks into the other room. Amanda gets up and walks over to Sarah and hugs her. They both start crying.
“I’m sorry.” Sarah says sobbing
“Don’t be sorry honey; it’s not your fault.” Amanda says calmingly.
Then Steven walks back in the room.
“Does either of you know any reason why someone would want to kidnap Tommy?” He asks pointing his phone at them.
“No.” Amanda answers quickly.
“Holy shit!” Sarah says as she stands up rubbing her hands through her wet hair in disbelief.
“What?” Amanda jump ups and grabs Sarah.
“I heard a story or a rumor, that when some other kid got to the same level in the game as me and Tommy, he disappeared. But I thought it was just a rumor someone made up.” Sarah says in disbelief.
“I told you something was weird about that game.” Amanda says looking at Steven.
“That game again?” Steven injects with disgust.
“I looked into that game, and found nothing suspicious about it. It’s from a new developer somewhere in the Middle East. It’s fairly new, so there wasn’t a whole lot of info on it. All the reviews just talked about the graphic nature of it.”
As Steven is talking the door bell rings and he walks to the door like he’s expecting company. Sarah and Amanda both stand up to see who it is. Four men in suits follow Steven back into the kitchen.
“I’m telling you Steven, something is weird about that game.” Amanda replies pointing at Sarah.
“It is pretty weird as far as games go, and I’ve played almost all of them.” Sarah agrees nodding her head.
“Show me this game.” Steven demands as he motions for Sarah to come with him up stairs.
All seven of them go upstairs and enter Tommy’s room. The four FBI guys fan out in the room and start looking through all of Tommy’s stuff. Amanda just watches as they go through all his drawers, closet, and bathroom. Steven picks up the box that the game came in and starts reading it. Sarah turns on the TV and game controller box.
The screen fades in on the TV.
“LOCKED”
“That’s weird.” Sarah says as she tries franticly to get it working.
“What’s that?’ Steven inquires as he is showing one of the other guys the game box.
“I’ve never seen this screen before. And I can’t get past it.” Sarah says confused a bit, still trying to get into the game.
“What do mean?” Steven questions as her bends down to Sarah’s level and looks at the TV.
“Well, every time we’ve played it before it just moved you onto the next level, or continued where you left off. Now I can even get in.” Sarah explains.
“Is it possible that they locked the game up because they have Tommy now?” Amanda states.
Steven stands up and tells one of his guys to go buy a new game and bring it back to the house. He tells the other guys to make some calls and find out where this internet and cable are hooked up to. Then he turns to Sarah and Amanda.
“Okay, here’s what we are going to do.” He begins.
“If it does have something to do with this game, then you.” He says pointing at Sarah.
“Are going to play this thing while we watch and we are going to monitor the transmissions coming out of this thing and see where they are going.
“Hold on.” Sarah speaks up.
“I can’t do this myself, Tommy and I worked as a team to get this far. This game is hard; I’m going to need some help.” She tells him.
“Okay, what do you need?” Steven inquires and he breaks out his pen and paper.
“Well…” Sarah thinks for minute.
“I’m going to need Joey, Louie, definitely Chris, some energy drinks and a pizza. This may take a while.” She adds looking at Amanda.
Steven, a little embarrassed, gives the list to one of the other guys. The other guy looks at it, laughs a bit and heads out the door.
“This better be something.” Steven mutters a little annoyed.
“What about Tommy?” Amanda blurts out in a panic.
“We have people on the street looking for him and those two vans Amanda; they’ll call me if anything turns up. Mean while we’ll stay here and see if this game really is anything.” Steven informs.
They all head back down to kitchen and get something to eat, pace around discuss possibly scenarios and watch the news. After about and hour or so the first FBI guy comes back with the new game, followed by the other kids, energy drinks and pizza. They all go up stairs and squeeze into Tommy’s room. Sarah pulls the game out of the box and slides it in the machine. She takes a big gulp of an energy drink and gets comfortable in the gaming seat. All the other kids swarm around her, eating pizza and sipping the drinks. The FBI guys and Amanda stand close behind watching.
“Okay boys.” She says.
“This ones for Tommy, lets do this.” She states as the game begins.
As the first screen appears it asks for all her information, as it did with Tommy. She inputs her information, then after a few seconds her student I.D. comes up with her picture on it. Steven quickly turns to one of the FBI guys and says,
“Find out how this game got that information from the schools data base. Talk to everyone in the schools main office. See if their computers have been hacked or have a breech.” He turns his attention back to the TV.
The screen comes on.
‘Sarah Conner, First Mission. Press ENTER to begin.’
“And away we go.” Sarah mumbles as she hits the enter button.
As the game begins, the missions are simple and similar to what Tommy and she were playing previously. All the other kids are really getting into it and giving her pointers and watching her back as she plays the game. They play for a few hours straight. The FBI guys are in and out of the room. Steven watches off and on as he converses with his fellow agents.
Then Sarah stops, and stands up.
“What’s wrong?” Steven asks as the other kids are looking at her curiously.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” She informs as she puts the controller down, heads to the bathroom and closes the door.
Steven turns to Amanda.
“I really don’t see anything weird or conspicuous about this game Amanda.” He says a bit disappointed.
“My guys can’t find any strange transmission or signals. Is there any other reason that you can think of that Tommy would be missing?”
Before Amanda can speak, Sarah comes walking back into the room.
“That’s because we haven’t gotten there yet.” She says as she regains her seat and grabs the controller again.
“There? Where is there?” Steven inquires.
“To the first mission.” Joey chimes in.
“These are all just warm up things and basic training for the real missions. You have to get past all these without any screw ups before you get to go on the real missions.” Joey explains to Steven and then gets back in position to help Sarah.
After another hour or so the sun is beginning to come up and the kids are all really wired up, yelling and pointing trying to help Sarah. She is getting all annoyed yelling back, I know, I know. She messes up a few times and has to start over a couple of missions; she’s totally focused on the game. She mumbles to her self, I wish Tommy was here. She finishes the next level then the screen goes blank.
“Oh crap!” One of the other kids yells.
All the FBI guys stand up and Steven and Amanda come walking in to the room from the hallway.
“What’s up?” Steven asks.
“We’re here.” Sarah says in a spooky voice.
Everyone watches intently as the screen forms on the TV.
‘Congratulations Sarah Connors.’ It says showing her school ID. ‘
You are one of the Elite. Proceed to next Mission.’
Sarah turns to the FBI guy,
“Should I?”
“Yea…it’s just a game.” He says shrugging his shoulders.
“But some-one might get killed.” She says cautiously.
“Don’t worry; we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” He reassures her as he stands with his hands folded behind him, watching intently.
“Okay.” Sarah says as she turns her head back around to the TV and refocus on the game. She hits ‘enter’ and the next screen appears.
‘Next Mission.’
‘You will be dropped in a wooded section; you will see some men playing golf. You are to shoot the gentleman with the grey hair, black framed glasses and tan pants. Then proceed back through the woods east to a van waiting on the other side. Press enter to begin.’
Sarah turns her head back to look at Steven. He is intently reading the screen. He folds his hands in front of him. After a second he gives Sarah a nod yes. Sarah turns back to the game. She takes a big gulp of an energy drink that’s sitting next to her, and hits ‘Enter.’
The screen is slow to appear but when it does she is in the woods. She can see the golf course up ahead. Steven kneels in closer to get a better look. She negotiates around through the woods in the game with the help of some of the other kids, who are quietly whispering tips behind her. As she is making her way through the woods to the course, one of the FBI guys leans down to the game and carefully ejects the disc out of the machine. He holds it up.
“She’s not playing the game anymore.” He says waving the disc around in front of Steven. Steven looks up at him and acknowledges his finding.
“Oh My God!” Amanda says out loud as she covers her mouth with her hands.
Sarah makes it out to where the gentlemen are playing golf. She stops in the woods just far enough away to see them.
“Hold it right there.” Steven tells her as he puts his hand up in a stopping motion.
He studies the screen for a moment. He stands up and breaks out his phone. He pushes one number.
“Give me the location of the vice president?” He demands on the phone.
Sarah freezes with a scared look on her face.
“Don’t move Sarah.” Steven commands her as he dials another number.
Steven gets back on the phone.
“Walker, get the VP out of there, there has been a breach. I repeat. Remove VP from course to secure location.” Steven directs the other person on the phone. Then he turns his attention back to the screen of the game. You can see one of the gentlemen with dark sunglasses on the golf course grab his ear piece and listen intently, and then nod his head. He waves a few other guys in and then they grab the man that Sarah was instructed to shoot and escort him away quickly. Surrounding him and looking in all directions as they go. Two guys in dark sunglasses remain. Steven gets back on the phone.
“Do you see anybody?” He asks.
“Look west, into the woods.” He directs.
As everyone in the room is watching the screen you can see the two guys in the game looking around. They are looking in the direction of the woods. They are talking back and fourth to Steven.
“Sarah, you’re going to have to bring that thing out of the woods and on to the course…slowly.”
Sarah gently moves the controller and makes her way out of the woods. One of the FBI guys points down the course and waves to the other guy to follow him.
“What is it?” Steven yells into the phone.
Then the screen goes blank. You can hear a faint explosion type noise through Stevens’s phone.
“Guys!?....Guys!?” Steven pleads into the phone.
After a few seconds of the screen of being blank, a message appears.
‘Mission Failed. Mission Aborted.’
Steven redials the phone.
“Is the Vice President secure?” He directs into the phone as he paces around the room.
He talks back and fourth on the phone with the FBI agents at the scene. Everyone in the room just follows him with their eyes anxiously waiting to hear what happened on the other end. It seems as though no-one is breathing as they listen in on his conversation. Sarah is scared that she might have actually killed some-one. Amanda keeps mumbling Tommy, Tommy, to herself as she folds her hands in front of her lips in prayer form. Steven closes his phone and stops and stares at everyone in the room.
“What’s going on?” Sarah finally breaks the silence with her hands in the air.
“Alright.” Steven announces as he takes control.
“You guys can go home.” He instructs pointing to Joey and the other boys in the room.
“Sarah, Amanda, come with me. And you.” Pointing to the FBI guys.
“Grab that game, the disc, controller and anything else that’s relevant to this matter.”
“Why, what’s going on?” Amanda begs for an answer.
“They found traces of electronics and metal debris at the explosion site. Like some kind of robot. Somehow, someone is linking these games up so the kids that are playing them are controlling these robots and carrying out these missions.” He explains as they are all walking down the steps.
“Did I kill anyone?” Sarah injects almost breaking into tears.
“No, the guys weren’t that close, they just receive a few shrapnel wounds.”
“What about the van and Tommy? Did they find the van with Tommy in it?” Amanda cries out full of hope.
“No…they searched the area and found no van.” Steven hesitates to say.
“We’re going to head down to my office and try and figure out who or what’s behind this, and find Tommy.” Steven States rubbing Amanda on the back.
Amanda starts crying and hugs Sarah as they collective sit on the couch. After an hour or so the FBI guys have everything the need from Tommy’s room. They all leave the house and travel to Stevens’s office. Which is more like command center by now. There is FBI agents’ set-up all over the place, on the phones, and on computers. Amanda and Sarah just follow Steven through all the chaos as he makes his way to one specific area. The two FBI agents that were at the house with them are already there setting up the game with a giant TV monitor. An older gentlemen, with a full head of grey hair, a beard and muscular build calmly walks into the area, it is Stevens boss.
“Is this the girl and the mother?” He questions motioning to Amanda and Sarah.
“Yes. I thought we might need them here.” Steven suggests.
“We’ll do everything we can to get Tommy back Mrs. Pierce.” The boss reassures Amanda.
Amanda just nods her head and says thank you silently to him. Steven and his boss walk a little farer away from the girls and start talking. But Amanda and Sarah can still hear them.
“There has been another incident.” The Boss informs Steven.
“Another failed assassination attempt in Europe on the prime minister. How’s ever is behind this is targeting all top officials around the world it seems like. They probably have that Tommy kid hidden off somewhere doing the mission because he is the top player.
“Has anything happened in the middle east yet?’ Steven inquires.
“No. Not that we know of. You have a lead?”
“No, not really, but when I did some investigating on this game, I found that it was developed in the Middle East, and I had a thought that if it was developed over there, and only top officials from other countries are targeted, there could be a possible connection.”
“It’s something to look at.” Stevens’s boss agrees.
“Let’s get the girl set up and see how this thing works. I’ll go make a few calls on the Middle East end. Let me know when she’s ready.” The boss prompts Steven as he walks away.
Steven rounds up a few people and they start hooking up all kinds of equipment and wiring up to the gaming machine. It’s so torn apart that it looks like it might not even work. There are wires leading everywhere, cables crossing over to other computers and other huge monitors. There are all kinds of people getting ready and checking their systems. He finds Sarah a comfortable chair, and seats Amanda farther back out of the way. He reassures her again that they will find Tommy. She patiently waits with the cup of coffee that some-one had gotten her.
Sarah just sits there awe stuck by all the electronics and the goings on of the entire place. Steven is hustling around talking to people, pointing at machines and checking on things. He looks very busy and very determined. After a few minutes he starts getting nods from people as he pats them on the back. Then he comes over to Sarah.
“You ready?”
“Who…me?” Sarah asks looking behind her and pointing to herself, then returning her wide eyes to him.
“Yes, we need you to do another one of those missions so we can track the signal and try and get a fix on where it is going or coming from.” Steven briefs her on the situation.
“I…I can’t do this alone.” Sarah replies with a shaky voice.
“Sure you can. I watched you do it at the house, and the game has your information in it. If we were to start it over again it would take to much time, and I don’t know how much time we have.”
“But the guys were at the house helping me. I need Tommy, or Joey or somebody to watch my back.”
“You can do it Sarah. You’re all we have at the moment.”
Sarah pauses for a minute and turns back and looks at Tommy’s mom. Tommy’s mom, quietly sipping on her coffee smiles, gives Sarah a nod and a thumb up. Sarah turns back and looks at all the equipment, the wiring, the huge monitors and all the people impatiently waiting for her response. She looks up and Steven who is standing next to her.
“I’m going need and energy drink or two.” She apprehensively advises Steven.
Steven smiles at her, looks around the room, snaps his fingers and points at some-one to go fulfill her order. Then he motions to some-one else to go get his boss. All of the rest of people start getting in their seats and reading themselves. About eight FBI technicians gather around Sarah poised to watch her every move.
“I’m going to need a little room here.” Sarah says taking control of her space and waving them away with her hand.
Steven motions for them to back off and some-one comes in and puts two energy drinks in front of her.
“Finally.” Sarah blurts out a little annoyed, like it took them to long.
She cracks open a can, takes a big gulp, settles her butt into the seat, grabs the controller and stares at the huge blank monitor.
“Let’s play, shall we?” She announces as she waits for some-one to start the game.
Steven signals one of the guys to put the disk in. He slides the disc in and backs off of the game and watches the monitor. The building goes quite of all human noises. All you can hear is computers running, fax machine spitting out information and some telephones ringing in the distance. After a minute or two, the words on the screen appear.
‘LOCKED’
All the technicians start scrambling around, tapping on their computer keyboards and picking up their phones. Noise erupts from everywhere. Steven stands up tall, looks around and announces.
“We have an issue here people lets fix it.”
Sarah sits back in her chair in disbelief. She throws the controller on the bench and grabs her drink. She looks puzzled, but calm, as thirty or so people are scattering around the area trying to get the game to start. They start taking the machine apart. Steven is walking around talking to different people and pointing at computer screens. Sarah just sits there staring at the monitor, slowly sipping her drink. Then she slowly mumbles to herself.
“Maybe because we took it out of the house?”
Steven stops what he is doing and immediately looks at Sarah who is still staring at the monitor, not knowing that anyone even heard her. The noise in the place slowly settles down as Steven looks at Sarah and thinks. Sarah turns to Steven and shrugs her shoulders and takes a sip of her drink.
“Where heading back to house people, let’s wrap this show up and get it moving.” Steven announces as he waving his arms around.
Before he’s even finished his sentence the place explodes into a commotion. Everyone is scrambling around, unplugging things and wrapping up cables, grabbing monitors and papers. Steven looks back at Sarah. Sarah just shrugs her shoulders again and looks back at Amanda. Amanda has a look of confusion and shrugs her shoulders also.
Sarah puts her index finger up and motions to Steven to come closer.
“I’m going to need the boys there.”
Steven smiles and nods his head, and then he turns and continues to takes control of the chaos throughout building.
After a few hours of people breaking everything down, putting it all into vans and transporting it back to Amanda’s house, Tommy’s room now looks like communication central. The house is full of FBI technicians. Computer, cables, and people fill the house in every room. There are five black FBI vans out front with the big radar dishes on top spinning around. All of the neighbors are walking the street wondering what’s going on. Amanda is running around asking people if they want coffee or anything amidst the confusion. Sarah and the boys are out back sitting at the picnic table eating some sandwiches that Tommy’s mom has made for them. They are discussing game strategies and throwing stories around of what might have happened to Tommy. It’s starting to get dark. The little back porch light goes on and Steven comes walking out through the back door and stands next to the table. He looks at Sarah. The boys stop talking. Everyone looks at Steven except Sarah.
“Sarah, they are ready for you now.” Steven reports as he puts his hand on her shoulder.
Sarah gets up, brushes the crumbs off of her jeans, fixes her bra strap underneath her black t-shirt, and turns to the boys,
“Game time boys.” She conveys.
They all get up and follow her into the house with Steven leading they way. All the FBI agents they pass along the way stop what they are doing and watch as they all pass by. It’s like a parade, and Sarah is the confident princess. Sarah walks with perfect posture and eyes fixed straight ahead. When they get to the kitchen, Amanda is standing there with a dish and rag in her hand, watching the entourage walk through. Sarah glances over to Amanda, breaks character with a frightened confused look on her face and shrugs her shoulders. Then returns her fixed stare straight ahead, as they head out of the kitchen and go upstairs to Tommy’s room.
When they get into the room, Sarah and the boys are completely overwhelmed by all the equipment that is setup, but doesn’t let it show. One of the FBI guys pulls the chair out for her and she sits gracefully trying to act calm. In front of her are a large monitor and two energy drinks sitting on the desk. She tries to act unaffected by all the attention. She sits calmly in the chair with her hands folded on her lap waiting for everyone to get everything ready. The boys collect what chairs they can find and surround them selves behind her.
Steven comes up to her holding some papers. He hands her the papers and pictures.
“There was another assignation attempt. Only one FBI agent was shot in the arm. Everyone else escaped unharmed. Does this look like Tommy’s work?” He inquires.
Sarah looks at the pictures of the scene one by one and hands them back to the boys behind her as she goes through them.
“I told you Tommy needs my help me to do this. This is the second one that he’s messed up.” Sarah proudly says.
“No…Tommy’s better than this. I’ve watched him for years; he could have down this with ease.” Joey chimes in as he’s looking through the pictures
“This was an easy shot, and he’s really smart. Maybe he’s trying to tell us something.” Joey continues.
“Do you have any pictures from the Europe thing?” Joey asks.
Steven leaves for moment and then returns with a folder marked “classified” and hands it over to Joey. Joeys pulls the pictures out and starts looking through them handing them to Sarah as he’s finished.
“This would have been an easy shot too. The guy was standing in the wide open. Where’d the bullet end up in the one?” Joey inquires.
Steven gets a few of the pictures from Sarah, looks through them then hands Joey one of them. The picture shows a bullet hole in a street sign. The street name is, ‘Washington Street.’ The bullet hole is in the word Washington.
“This is no accident; he’s trying to tell us something.” Joey excitedly informs.
Sarah grabs the pictures and stares at them for a few moments with Joey over her shoulder.
“He’s in Washington, being held by the FBI.” She announces.
“That’s impossible.” Steven interjects.
“These kids don’t know what they are talking about Steven, our own department trying to assassinate leaders around the world? Not feasible.” Stevens’s boss quickly leans in and speaks in Steven’s ear.
Steven looks at the kids while in thought. Stevens boss moves to the center of the room waving his hands around to everyone,
“Okay people; let’s get this game up and running.” He commands.
Steven hands Sarah the controller. Sarah reaches up and grabs her energy drink and takes a small sip while still looking at Steven. As the FBI tech slides the game into the machine Sarah puts her drink down and takes her quite focus off of Steven and they both watch the monitor. For a minute the screen is blank. The room goes mute for the first time in four hours. Then you hear Sarah’s bracelets as she shakes them down her wrist to get them out of they way. The screen on the monitor appears.
‘Welcome Sarah. Last Mission Failed. New Mission Loaded.’
The room erupts into joyous complements and high fives, you can hear Steven’s boss, who is still close behind, quietly say to himself…yes!
Sarah looks up at Steven. Steven nods yes. Sarah returns her eyes to the screen and hits the enter button. The new screen appears.
‘Next mission. You will be dropped into the woods. 500 yards due west you will see a cabin. Three men inside, two guards outside. You are to shoot the gentleman sitting in the leather chair smoking the cigar. Then return to the woods head north until you come to the van. Hit ‘ENTER’ when ready to begin.’
Sarah pauses, cocks her head sideways, then hits the enter key. The screen goes black, and then reappears. She is in game, in the woods.
“Let’s get a trace on that signal people! Where’s it going?’ Steven yells out to everyone in the room.
Sarah maneuvers through the woods and you can see a cabin up in the distance. It’s night time. It’s dark. Therefore, you can see clearly into the cabin through the windows. There are to guys walking on the front porch. There are three gentlemen inside, one sitting in the leather chair. The boys are behind her giving her pointers as she goes.
“Stall, take your time.” Steven leans in and instructs her.
“I can’t.”
“See the timer in the upper right side corner? I only have about five minutes to complete the mission.”
“But we need more time to find the signal.”
“I’ll stall as long as I can.”
Sarah poises her self in the woods. She brings the scope of the rifle up to get a better look at the gentlemen inside. She pans over to the man in the chair. It’s an easy shot for her, but she just holds her position. Steven leans in and looks at the screen. Stares at it for a moment but can’t figure out who it is. He backs up and questions the group of people in the room.
“Who is this person; I need an I.D. on this guy people.”
Almost everyone who has a computer in front of them is looking at the same thing that Sarah has up on her screen. Other screens are flashing pictures of random people from the FBI data base trying to find a match. The timer is counting down to two minutes.
“If I don’t do something, the game will declare a failed mission and I’ll have to start over again, from the beginner level” Sarah says nervously, not knowing what to do.
“Hold on.’ Steven says putting his hand up to her as he looks around the room.
“Anybody, anything yet?’ He calls out.
Steven boss quietly steps up behind Sarah’s chair.
“Just shoot him in the leg or arm or something.” He says quietly in her ear.
“Sir, with all due respect.” Steven chimes in having overheard the request to Sarah.
“We can not fire upon an individual without clearing knowing if he is friend or foe of the U.S. government.” Steven informs the chief.
“Yes, I am aware of that commander. However, if she doesn’t react we will loose time and the signal if she has to start over again. So shoot!”
“Sir shooting at an unknown combatant clearly sidesteps policy and procedure.” Steven argues.
“As your Chief and CEO I am directing you to side step those policies and take the shot.”
The timer on the game counts down to less then forty five seconds.
“Ah, the timer….what should I do?” Sarah says nervously looking up at Steven and pointing at the screen; her hand shaking a little, as her cheap gothic bracelets make a tink tink sound as they rattle on her wrist.
Steven looks at the screen and can see the three men inside talking, laughing and drinking. All dressed in business suits. The target is in the chair smoking a cigar and enjoying him self.
“People….anything?’ He makes one more desperate attempt to get information as he looks around the room and everyone is either busy with their computer or shaking their heads no.
The timer counts down to five seconds. Sarah fixes her stare back on the screen.
Three, two. The timer counts. Steven is silent. The room is in chaos with noise and people running everywhere.
“Shoot!” The chief yells in Sarah’s ear from behind her.
Sarah shocked and scared, closes her eyes and hits the button.
“Bang!” the shot goes off as the counter hits ‘one.’
Everyone in the room stops what they are doing and watches the screen as the man in the chair drops his drink and falls to the floor with his cigar still in his hand.
The guards at the cabin start firing into the woods in Sarah’s direction.
“Get the hell out of there!” Joey screams out as he jumps up and gets behind Sarah’s chair. Sarah opens her eyes and regains control of the controller and feverishly tries to maneuver out of the woods. Joey and the other boys are behind her are directing her where to go. The guards are following close behind, shooting at her. Sarah is dodging trees using the infrared vision that is in the game. She looses the guards as they trip and fall in the darkness. She makes it through the woods and spots the van about 500 feet up the dirt road, she starts heading towards it.
“Stop!” Steven yells as he puts his hand over Sarah’s controller.
“Anyone make out that license plate on that van?’ I need a year make and model, registration number….anything. Just stay put Sarah.” He patiently says to her.
Sarah freezes in her chair, afraid to make a move. All of the sudden the white reverse lights come on in the van. The night vision disappears from the game, so you can’t see in the dark anymore. The van quickly starts backing up. Sarah just holds her place. As soon as the van gets within ten feet of Sarah’s robot, the screen goes black.
“Anybody…Anything?” Steven desperately pleads around the room.
Then a new screen comes on the monitor.
‘Mission complete Sarah. Proceed with next Mission.’
Her picture ID is up on the screen and the game awaits her input. She throws the controller on the desk.
“Did I kill him? I didn’t want to kill anyone! He scared the shit out of me!” She loudly complains as she turns around to point at Stevens’s boss but he’s no longer in the room. Steven stops and looks around the room for him also. He motions his hand to Sarah,
“You guys wait here.”
He heads out of the room looks up and down the hallways, and then goes down the stairs.
“Holy Shit that was intense Sarah.” Joey leans in and pats Sarah on back as the rest of the boys do the same.
“Yea… no problem.” Sarah looks down at her torn weathered jeans and then stands up, a little shaken, but playing it cool for the boys.
She grabs an energy drink and takes a few sips and glances around the room. The boys are talking amongst themselves and are pointing at all the cool equipment around the room. Sarah stretches her back and quietly announces,
“I have to go pee.”
She heads out of the room, excuses herself while squeezing past people who are all diligently working around the room, in the hallways and all the way through the kitchen. She waves to Tommy’s mom in the kitchen as she passes her by and makes it to bathroom. She tries the door. It’s locked. She waits a few minutes outside the door, admiring and biting on her black finger nails. Finally a guy comes out of the bathroom and smiles at her. She watches him leave as he walks back towards the kitchen, then she enters the bathroom. She waves her hand feverishly in front of her nose because of the stench.
When she is finished, she checks her make up in the mirror. She fixes her eye liner with her finger and proceeds out the door. As soon as she’s in the hallway she has to squeeze up against the wall as a few people come rushing by making their way into the kitchen with more equipment. She decides to head out back to get away from everyone and get some fresh air. She goes through the back door, down the steps and past the picnic table where she and the boys were previously eating sandwiches from Tommy’s mom. She stops within the dimly lit backyard. Stretches her arms up and then bends down to touch her toes. She straightens back up and bends backwards with her hands on her back. Her jewelry jingles as she shakes her whole body a bit in an attempt to blow off the stress of the last few hours, fixes her bra, and starts walking forward a bit more, escaping the light of the house and into the darkness.
All of a sudden, while she is walking, someone puts their hand over her mouth from behind and grabs her arms. She starts kicking and screaming. However, there is so much noise in the house that no-one can hear her muffled screams. A dark figure comes in front of her and applies duct tape to her mouth and places a black hood over her head. As soon as the hood goes on two people pick her up from her feet and shoulders and carry her to a car that is already running. They put her in the back seat and bond her hands and feet with more duct tape. Sarah is kicking, screaming and crying, but the apprehenders pay no attention and Sarah can feel the motion of the car as it speeds away.
Back upstairs Steven comes into the room.
“Where is Sarah?” He asks the boys impatiently.
“I don’t know.” They reply shrugging their shoulders and looking at each other for an answer.
“I think she went to the bathroom.” Joey blurts out as a guess.
Steven turns to leave the room when one of the FBI techs comes up to him.
“We have some intel on that van. It’s registered to a company in Washington D.C. called Fiber Logics right outside of the capital. It looks like they are an electronics company, specializing in fiber optic and robotics.” The tech briefs Steven as he hands him the paper with the information on it.
“Good. We have an address.” Steven complements as he glances at the paper.
He pulls out his phone and starts making calls as he makes his way around the house looking for Sarah. As he enters the kitchen he is stopped by another FBI agent. He begins his report to Steven.
“The person that was shot was the son of the software computer giant Jeffery Tates. They couldn’t save him. The two guards at the scene could not catch the van either, but they have the tire tracks and are following up on that. I’ll let you know when we get more info.”
“Thank you.” Steven acknowledges.
He makes his way past all the techs and gets to the kitchen to where Amanda is washing cups and glasses in the sink.
“Have you seen Sarah lately?” He asks calmly, not to upset or arise any suspicion in Amanda.
“I saw her a few minutes ago heading to the bathroom down the hall. Why what’s wrong?” She asks as her mother’s intuition kicks in.
“Not sure yet, wait here.” He motions with his hand. He checks the bathroom, empty. Then he heads out to the back yard and stands within the light of the back porch, looking into the darkness. He takes a few steps forward. He feels something crunch under his foot. He stops, moves his foot, and reveals one of Sarah’s bracelets.
Meanwhile, Sarah finally gives up her fight in the back of car as she realizes that no-one cares and it’s getting her nowhere because she can not break free. She is terrified. The car is traveling at high rates of speed. The tires are screeching as it turns corners and is accelerating and stopping abruptly. Sarah is tossed around the back seat from the rapid motions. She lays in the back seat, helpless for what she figures is about an hour or so. She can hear two men in the front quietly talking, but she can not hear what they are talking about, due to the hood over her head and the roar of the cars engine.
After sometime she can feel the car slowing down, and after a few brief easy turns, it then finally coming to stop. She hears both front doors open and close as the two men exit the car. She is alone in the car. She franticly moves her head around trying to get the hood off or hear something. Then one of the rear doors open and some-one grabs her feet and aggressively pulls her out to the end of the car seat. They start patting her down, flipping her over on her belly and feeling around her pants until they get to her butt. They feel her cell phone and pull it out. They slide her out some more and then another person grabs her shoulders and they carry her through a combination of doors and downward stairwells. She hears one of them pull out some keys and unlock a door. They carry her into a room and place her on the cold concrete floor rather abruptly. She holds still, hoping they will at least pull the hood off. However, they don’t. She hears them exit the room, keys locking the door, and then foot steps heading away from the room that she was just deposited in. She franticly squirms around on the floor trying to get the hood off and break free from the duct tape. Then she hears more foot steps coming towards her. She freezes with fear.
“Hold on.” She hears the person say.
The male voice sounds familiar.
When the hood is pulled from her head she quickly looks around, but has to squint because her eyes aren’t adjusted to the light yet.
“Oh shit…they got you too?” The voice exclaims.
Sarah squints and looks in the direction of the voice.
“Tommy?”
“Hold still while I get this tape off of you.” Tommy tells her as he rolls her over on her chest and begins un-taping her.
“Where are we? How long have you been here?” Sarah starts firing out the questions as she is squirming around trying to see his face.
“Geese…hold still!”
After Tommy gets the tape off of her he helps her up to her feet. They look at each for a second and then hug tightly. They step apart and Sarah gets a good look at Tommy’s face. He has some cuts and bruises.
“Oh my God! You okay? What did they do to you?” She compassionately asks as she gently rubs her hand on his face.
“I’m Okay. But these guys mean business.”
“What is this place?” Sarah asks in amazement turning her attention to her surroundings.
“I think this is the central command for the game that we were playing.” He tells her as he heads back to a table with some food and soda on it.
Sarah follows slowly behind him looking at all the electronics, video monitors and little robots in the comer.
“You see over there?’ Tommy points to a section of video screens as he begins eating.
“That’s the people that they are watching. They will be the next targets in the game when some-one signs in. They already have one of these little robots at that person’s location. Therefore, when you sign in, the robot wakes up, then all they have to do is tell you the objective. You think you’re playing the game, but it’s really happening.”
Sarah reaches down to the table and grabs a roll. She begins eating like she hasn’t eaten in days.
“Who are these people?” she asks while she’s chewing.
“I’m not sure. A lot of people keep coming in and out of here. Some have Middle Eastern accents; some are FBI guys I think.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“I think we’re in Washington. When they picked me up I was in back of a van, I couldn’t see anything. However, I could kind of tell where we were going buy the highways we were on and tolls we went through. Where did they pick up at?”
“At your house.”
“How long do you think it took for you to get here?’
“About an hour, maybe a bit longer.”
“Yea, that’s about right.” Tommy throws some grapes in his mouth.
“How’s my mom?’
“She Okay, really worried about you though, but your house is full of FBI guys, so she’s safe.”
“That’s the problem; I think the FBI has something to do with all this.”
“Is that why you shot the FBI guy in the arm on one of those missions?’
“Wow. You figured that out?’
“Yea and you shot the street sign named Washington Street. So me and Joey figured you were in Washington DC somewhere. We Told the FBI guy, Steven, but I don’t think he believed us.”
“Steven is helping you?”
“Yea, you know him?’
“Yes. He helped put away the guys that killed my dad. He’s really good.”
“Yea, but his boss is an asshole.”
“I never met his boss.”
Just then they both hear keys at the door.
“Oh shit, here they come.” Tommy says in a panic and stands up.
The lock turns, the door opens, three men dressed in suits walk towards them. Two of them have guns in their waist. One man Sarah recognizes.
“Hello Sarah.” The one man in front greets her.
“You’re Steven’s boss!” She points out, as she stands up in front of him.
“Good memory Sarah.” He says sarcastically.
“Now that you are both here, we should have no more problems with our missions, right Tommy?” The boss directs towards Tommy angrily.
“And as for you Sarah.” The boss quickly raises his hand and backhands her across the face. Sarah screams grabs her face and falls in to Tommy’s chest whimpering and tearing.
“I’ve seen you play, so don’t get any smart ideas. We have a very important mission coming up for you two very soon.”
He turns and heads back out the door. The other two guys follow after him. They exit the room and lock the door again.
Tommy lifts Sarah’s head off of his chest, holds her by her shoulders.
“You okay?” He asks gently brushing the hair out her face.
“Yea.” Sarah says pissed off straightening herself up, and wiping the tears from her eyes.
“What are they talking about, important mission?” Sarah inquires to Tommy as she fixes her hair.
“I don’t know. They just come in here whenever they want and make me play the game. I try and act all stupid and miss the shots hoping they’ll let me go. But I guess they knew you and I were together. I’m really sorry for dragging you into this.” Tommy apologizes and hugs her.
“You didn’t drag me in. I was the stupid one and walked away from the house. You have any ideas on how to get out of here?” She asks as she backup a little.
“Well…kind of.” He hesitates.
“What?” she anxiously inquires.
“Well see all those robots back there?” Pointing to the back of the room.
“Yea, what about them?’
“They are the ones that are used in the game, at the locations. We know what they can do, and how to work them. If somehow we could rig up one of these machines to operate one or two of them in here, we might be able to get out of here.”
“Hmm….” Sarah thinks as she walks towards the robots to have a better look at them. As she gets closer she can see about 100 robots standing at attention. She kneels down when she gets to one. They are circular, about two and half feet tall. Some are painted a green camouflage, and others are painted a brownish color for the desert missions. They have only one eye that looks like a camera lens. Made from a hardened bullet proof alloy, they have a compartment that opens up in the middle that houses the gun. Their all-terrain eight inch tires makes then available to travel on any surface. They also have a small solar panel on the top to keep the batteries charged when they are sitting at a mission site for a while.
“Do you think you can do that?” She asks as she turns back to Tommy still kneeling.
“Well… I think the game controller runs through this cable to this wifi unit over here, which houses the software.”
Sarah gets up and walks back to Tommy to get a better look at what he’s talking about.
“Then it sends the signal out to the satellites, which in turn sends the signal to the wifi unit in the robot. All we would have to do is reconfigure the wifi signal in the router to match one of the robots that are here. It might take me a little bit to get into the main frame for the wifi’s and figure out which robot is what…..but yea, I think I can do it.
“I don’t think we have much time, so you’d better get started. I’ll watch the door and let you know if anyone is coming.” Sarah heads over to the door and watches the hallway as Tommy gets busy on the main frames computer.
After an hour or so Tommy is still deep in thought and totally immersed in what he is doing on the computer. Sarah is getting bored standing at the door and starts to wonder around the room a bit, still quickly glancing through the window in the door occasionally. She can’t go too far in the windowless room. She gets the feeling that they are in an old large storage room. It has a certain chill to it, like they are in the basement somewhere. The walls are grey and the beams are exposed in the ceiling.
She looks around for something with a mirror like finish so she can see her face where the boss hit her. She rubs it, it still stings a bit. She leans down to one of the robots and checks her reflection in the robots glass camera eye. Her cheek is red and raw. She tries to get some of her make-up from her other cheek and spread it around to cover it up. Then she feels something sticking in her ribs. She screams and falls back on her hands and butt. She looks at the robot and the gun is pointing right at her face.
“Tommy!” She yells
“Is it working?’ He asks excitedly without turning to see.
“Ah, yea….I thinks so. Don’t shoot it please.”
“What do mean?” He questions as he turns around to see her pinned down on the floor with the gun in her face.
“Oh…sorry about that.” He turns back to the computer and with a few key strokes the gun disappears back into the robot.
Sarah gets up, relieved. She brushes herself off and walks back to where Tommy is working.
“I see you have it working.”
“Almost. I found the wifi connect for that robot, but I still have to get the controller over here to control it.” He feverishly continues working, going through all these different screens. Sarah watching from behind him, stays for a moment then thinks she hears some-one coming down the hall. She runs over to the door. She peaks out the glass. Some-one is coming. A man with a gun and a large brown bag in his hand is making his way down the hall towards them.
“Tommy.” She whispers loudly.
She quickly tip toes over to Tommy and taps him on his shoulder.
“Some-one’s coming.” She whispers again to him pointing at the door.
“Shit.” Tommy says quietly.
“Go sit at the table and start eating something.”
Sarah quickly goes over to the table and jams some bread into her mouth, nervously watching the door and Tommy. Tommy is trying to shut the computer down so no-one will know he was messing with it. He turns a few computer screens off. He can hear the keys in the door.
“Tommy!” Sarah yells under her breath with a mouth full of bread.
Tommy turns the last computer off and stands up. The door opens. The guy pauses and looks at Tommy. Tommy puts his hands up as though he is stretching and does a fake yawn.
“Hey…what are you doing over there?” Pointing the gun at Tommy and hurrying into the room.
“Nothing, nothing. I was just walking around and stretching, it’s boring in here.” Tommy quickly tries to explain.
Tommy walks back to table and sit and grabs some food and starts eating. The guy heads over to where Tommy was and examines the area. Still pointing the gun at Tommy and holding the bag. After a few tense minutes he turns to Sarah and Tommy.
“You won’t be bored for long.” He says as he drops the bag on the table with a thud.
“Here, the boss said that you are going to need these.” Then he turns and walks back out of the room and locks the door as he gets on the other side. Sarah and Tommy look at each other for a moment wonder what’s in the bag, but a little hesitate to see. Then Sarah stands up and starts opening the bag. Tommy continues eating, but watches cautiously.
“Oh…great!” Sarah says disappointingly as she notices the contents.
“What?” Tommy questions with a roll in his hand.
Sarah reaches in the bag and pulls out two energy drinks and puts them on the table. Tommy laughs.
“He sure does know you don’t he?
“Shut up.” Sarah says with a discontented smile.
“Did you figure it out yet?” Sarah inquires motioning towards the computer that Tommy was working on.
“Almost, but I’m going to need a little more time. I need to get back in there.”
They both sit there for few minutes, eating and thinking. Then Sarah stands up and smiles. She walks over to the door and starts banging on it and yelling.
“Hey!...Hey!
“What are you doing? You crazy or something?” Tommy says as he starts to get up with a desperate look on his face, not nothing what she is up to.
Sarah bangs on the thick steel door again and then she sees someone coming down the hall. When they get up to the door and begin unlocking it she steps back, smiles at Tommy and gives him a low thumbs up. The two men enter the room and Sarah changes her mood to, pissed off with an attitude.
“What’s the problem in here?” The large man inquires with his hand on his gun.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” Sarah demands.
The two guys just stand there, looking at Sarah and Tommy.
“I have to pee…I have my period!” Sarah explains graphically.
The one guy escorts Sarah out of the room and the other follows looking back at Tommy as he leaves. Tommy still standing there just shrugs his shoulders at him and acts like he doesn’t know what she talking about. They all leave, lock the door and Tommy quickly hops back on the computer, starts turning on the monitors again, and gets back to work.
After about an hour Tommy can hear Sarah singing loudly as she coming down the hall. He hears the keys going into the door, the door opens. Sarah and the two other men enter the room. Sarah is smiling as she struts in. Tommy is lounging at the table with his feet up on another chair reading a magazine that he found lying around. He drops his feet and puts the magazine down. Sarah gets to the table, pulls out a chair and sits across from him smiling. The two big guys only enter the room halfway. Look for anything suspicious and then walk out the door. Sarah throws a wave their way from behind her back above her head as they lock the door. Tommy immediately starts in on her.
“You’re crazy! How did you know that that would work? And where have you been all this time?’
“Oh…I don’t care how big and scary a guy is, you mention that word and they get all freaked out and do whatever you ask. So I sat in the bathroom for a while. Did you figure it out?” Sarah anxiously leans in and asks.
“Yea, we should be able to go, watch this.”
Tommy picks up the controller and starts using the buttons. One of the robots starts moving around in the room.
“Does the gun work?” Sarah excitedly asks.
Tommy gives her a, ‘of course’ look, and pushes a few buttons and the gun pops out of the robot. Sarah watches amazed at how the thing really looks when it’s in motion. Tommy plays with it a little more, zooming around the room, stopping, turning, and then he finally puts it back where it was.
“That is incredible.” Sarah says walking over to the robot.
“No wonder they can never find these things at the missions. They are so small, and fast.”
“And deadly.” Tommy point out.
“So what’s the plan?” Sarah sits down and asks Tommy, as she puts her chin in her hands and rests her elbows on the table.
“I haven’t really figured that part out yet. Usually when they have me doing a mission those two big guys are here standing behind me watching. I can’t do anything besides play the game.”
“Yea, but I’m here now.” Sarah bravely reveals.
“There are three controllers here. This one.” Tommy points to the one on the table.
“Is for the game that they want us to play. The other two other there.” He points back towards the computer a few feet away.
“Are hooked up to two of the robots back there.” Motioning to the robots.
Just as he finishes talking they both are alerted to the sound of keys in the lock on the door. They both tense up, wondering if anyone heard then talking about their plan. The door opens. The two big guys come in with the boss trailing behind. The two larger men have guns stuck down the front of their pants in clear view. They stop a few feet from Sarah and Tommy and the boss comes walking up to them from the middle of the two.
“It’s game time kids.” The boss instructs as he approaches the table.
“Now that you are both here, there shouldn’t be any screw ups….RIGHT!” he yells slamming his hands on the table and looking at them both.
“Because if you don’t hit this target, there’s no back to the beginning…its game over, for the both of you.” He resonates through the room.
“Our objective is just about in place. This should be an easy one for you Sarah.” He turns his head and smiles at Sarah.
He snaps his fingers at one of the other guys and points to the other computer station. One of the guards walks over to the other computer and boots it up. The large monitor in front of Sarah and Tommy comes to life. When the screen appears it depicts an open grassy area. The boss begins to explain.
“In a few minutes, a helicopter is going to be landing in that grass.” He point to the screen.
“Then a man, a woman, and a child will be getting off the helicopter. They will stop at the top of the steps and wave before they walk down. When they are standing there, smiling and waving, that’s when you hit the man and the woman. Simple. Easy right? Shake your heads yes.” He orders so they both understand.
Sarah and Tommy both shake their heads. Sarah glances over at the two other controllers that are sitting right next to the guy who is working on the other computer.
“I’m going to go watch this on the news as it happens, to make sure you don’t screw it up.” The boss says as he straightens up from the table.
“As usual, William and Bruce will be here to assist with anything you need.” The boss says smiling as he exits the room and slams the steel door behind him.
“Okay.” Bruce begins with a deep disturbing voice.
“Who’s going to be in the driver’s seat this time?” he asks as he pulls the chair around in front of the large monitor looking at Sarah and Tommy.
Sarah nods to Tommy for him to go as she shifts her eyes towards the other controllers.
“I’ll do it.” Tommy reluctantly says and slowly gets up out of his chair and gets in the other one. As he sits down Bruce hands him the controller, Sarah gets up and stands behind Tommy’s chair. They both are watching the grassy field. Bruce is standing next to Sarah. Sarah glances over at him, he’s about foot away, and notices his gun tucked in his pants. William is about ten feet back at the other computer. Sitting back with his arm folded watching the screen, waiting for something to happen. All of the sudden the grass on the screen starts to blow and swirl.
“Game time.” You can hear William say quietly.
Tommy readies himself in the chair. His palms are sweating, he wipes them slowly one by one on his pant legs. Sarah twists around and looks at Bruce, who returns the stare with an angry ‘what are you doing?’ look. Sarah reaches back, still eyeing him in the face and grabs one of the energy drinks, takes a big aggressive gulp. Then slowly returns the can to the table with a clank. She turns back around and focuses on the screen.
As the helicopter lands you can see the United States of America seal on the door. The blades begin slowing down and you can see secret service guys moving the steps into place in front of the door.
“Wait!” Tommy suddenly realizes.
“You want me to shoot the president and the first lady?” He defiantly sounds out loud.
“Just another mission kid. Don’t mess it up.” Bruce’s commanding deep voice rings through Tommy’s head.
The blades on the helicopter finally come to a stop. The secret service guys are all in place, looking and watching in every direction. The Helicopter door slowly slides open and up.
“Ouch!....Ouch!” Sarah begins to call out as she grabs her stomach and bends over. Tommy franticly tries to look behind him, turning his head both ways to see what’s wrong with Sarah. When Tommy’s eyes meet Sarah’s, she gives him a calming look and a little smile.
“What’s up with her?” William calmly asks from the other computer desk as he starts to stand up.
“Ouch!...Shit…Ouch!” Sarah says louder and meaner bending over a bit more and walking backwards still holding her stomach. Bruce comes up to her, puts his hand on her back and leans down to her level.
“What’s wrong?”
“Cramps!...bad ones!” Sarah squeezes out in pain.
William makes his way over to Sarah to see what going on and Sarah stumbles around the table holding on to the chairs with one hand as she goes. Both Bruce and William follow her from behind, looking at each other not knowing what to do. Sarah slowly makes her way back to the other computer where the other two controllers are and falls into the chair bent over as if she’s is a lot of pain. Both Bruce and William just stand there looking at her dumbfounded.
“Ouch!” Sarah belts out again and starts rocking back and fourth.
Tommy starts to realize what she is doing and starts forming his on plan in his mind. Bruce glances up at the computer monitor where Sarah is and notices that the president and his family are standing on the ladder waving.
“He’s in position!” pointing at the screen.
Williams looks over at Tommy and Tommy is standing there pretending to push the buttons on the controller.
“The controllers not working.” Tommy says acting annoyed, looking at the controller and then back at the screen.
Bruce grabs one of the other controllers that are in front of Sarah, then Bruce and William head over and stand behind Tommy as he exchanges the controllers with Bruce. As soon as Bruce and William have their backs turned to Sarah she straightens up. She grabs the remaining controller. She turns it on. She looks back at the robots as sees one come to life. Tommy standing sideways to the screen turns his on and peeks up to see his robot come to life.
“You’d better take that shot now boy.” William directs, as him and Bruce’s eyes are affixed to the screen.
Tommy glances over at Sarah. Sarah nods. Then they both guide their robots to the backs of William and Bruce. Sarah walks over and gets behind the two men. Sarah and Tommy both hit the arming button simultaneously and the guns pop out of the robots and hit the two men in the back.
“Hands up boys.” Sarah confidently commands.
Tommy just stands there smiling with his controller in his hand facing the guys. The guys quickly turn their heads to see what’s behind them, and slowly raise their hands when they see the robots with the guns behind them.
“One button, one bullet.” Tommy informs them coolly.
“And remember, we’re both good shots.” Sarah continues as she makes her way out in front of the guys.
As the guys are standing there, Sarah reaches into their pants, and one by one pulls their guns out and sticks them in the front of her pants, holding on to her controller with her other hand poised over the fire button.
“You guys will never get out here.” Bruce informs them.
Sarah regains her position next to Tommy with the handles of guns protruding out of her pants facing opposite each other like a gangster or cowboy would.
“Go get the duct tape.” Tommy nods to Sarah.
“Gladly.” Sarah obliges as she hands Tommy her controller.
Sarah runs to one of the back desks and returns to Bruce and William.
“On your knees pigs. Hands behind her heads.” She yells from behind them as they slowly follow her orders.
She begins to tape them up, first their ankles. Then she grabs their hands and puts them behind their backs and tapes them up tight. Bruce gives an evil laugh.
“I don’t know how you guys think you’re going to get out of here, and when I get free again….your both MINE!” He says extremely angry and annoyed.
Sarah comes around in front of him and pulls a piece of tape off the roll forcefully, and slaps it real hard over Bruce’s mouth. Then she slaps it again to make sure it’s tight. His face turns red and his eyes grow large. Sarah just smiles, does a little head bop to the side and forcefully kicks him on his chest with her sneaker, and he falls backwards. He falls on his side and Tommy moves the robot closer to him and aims the gun at his head. Tommy walks over to Bruce, looks down to him, and starts to explain.
“These robots are very quiet and stealth, as you already now. And Sarah and I are the Elite in this game, as you also know. So really don’t see anything stopping us from here on out, do you Sarah?” Tommy finishes as he looks over to Sarah.
Sarah finishes slapping the tape over Williams’s mouth and kicks him over too.
“I don’t see a problem.” She says getting her controller off of Tommy and positioning her robot over William.
Sarah slowly struts over next to Tommy and leans in his ear, nervously she asks,
“Now what?’
“Here’s the plain.” Tommy begins as he heads over the computer desk where the main computers reside.
“Get them up, and get them in that closet over there.” He nods towards the closet as he’s turning on more computers and monitors. Sarah lays her controller down and pulls out one of the guns from her waist. She orders them up, and helps them up. Then makes them hop over to the closet. She pushes each one in with her foot on their butts and they both fall, one falling on top of the other. She slams the door shut and locks it. She tries the handle to make sure it’s locked. She puts the gun back in her waist and heads back to Tommy.
Tommy is already seated and moving his robot around with the controller, watching the computer screen as it depicts the room that they are in.
“Hey…cool. You can see in this room.” Sarah says intrigued.
“Yea, here is yours over here.” Tommy points to another screen and hands Sarah her controller. Sarah tries it out.
“Nice.” She remakes.
“Now we can go around the building and clear it out with the robots, and when no-one is left, we’re outa here.” Tommy confidently spells out as he high fives Sarah.
“You ready to do this?’ he asks looking at Sarah.
“Hell yea!” Sarah excitedly answers settling in to her chair.
“Oh wait!” she says jumping up.
“What?” Tommy inquires as he follows her turning his head to the other table.
Sarah walks over to the other table and grabs her energy drink and walks back to her chair. Sits down, pulls her chair in closer to the bench, takes a sip of the drink, and picks up her controller.
“Okay…now I’m ready.” Tommy just shakes his head and returns his focus to his screen.
As Tommy is explaining the layout of the building and where the other guards might be, they are both stunned when they hear the steel door behind them swing open and slam into the wall. Sarah quickly turns her head, and immediately upon seeing who it is she screams,
“Oh shit!”
Tommy without missing a beat, never turning around to look and see who came in the door, grabs his controller, spins his robot around and starts rapid firing the gun left and right. Sarah shields her eyes as bullets are ricocheting and small pieces of concrete are flying all around the room. Tommy stops. He throws his controller on the bench, stands and turns. Sarah looks at Tommy in awe, and stands next to him.
“How’d you know it was him?” Sarah asks Tommy.
“He said that he would be upstairs watching the news to make sure we killed the president. And since that didn’t happen, I knew he would be back soon, pissed as ever.”
“But you didn’t even turn around to look to see who it was.”
“First lesson in the game….never take your eyes off the screen. I seen him coming through the robots lens, and then you said, oh shit, that kind of sealed the deal.”
As Tommy and Sarah are calmly discussing the incident the FBI boss is lying on the floor holding both of his knees, trying to keep the blood from emptying out of his body in agonizing pain. Moaning and squirming he tries to crawl back out the door with his hands, dragging his feet. Sarah quickly grabs the tape off of the table and they both walk over to him nonchalantly, because he’s not going anywhere to fast. They pull him back into room and close the door. They tape up his hands and feet. He begins to yell at them saying how he’s going to kill them and all. Sarah and Tommy pay him no never mind and Sarah slaps a big piece of silver duct tape over his mouth. The boss continues to yell and squirm through all the bondage as Tommy and Sarah drag him into the closet with the other two guys. When they open the door the two guys quickly shimmy back into a corner in fear, they drag the boss in and flop him on the ground. They pay no attention to the other guys and shut and lock the door as they walk back to their places at their computers.
“Okay.” Tommy starts in grabbing his controller and pointing to the monitors as he talks and sits. Sarah stands next to him.
“We don’t know how many guys are up there, but I think this building is only one level. Now that they heard the gun shots, they’ll probably be here real quick. So let’s get our pieces out into the hallway and slowly make our way upstairs. Once we’re up there we should be able to see they layout using our screens.”
Sarah stares at Tommy and listens intently, nodding occasionally. Tommy turns his head to face Sarah.
“It’ll be just like the game, except we’ll be able to hear things. Just shoot them in their knees…if you can. You got all that?” He looks up into Sarah’s eyes waiting for confirmation.
Sarah reaches her hand over to the table without taking her eyes off of him. She slowly brings an energy drink up to her lips, takes a sip, and gradually pulls it away and says,
“Let’s play.” With an anxious smile quickly turning to her computer screen and grabbing her controller.
Tommy gets up and goes over and opens the steel door. Sarah attempts to sit in her chair, but the guns are poking her in her stomach. She stands up again and pulls them from her pants and puts them on the table in front of her. Then she sits again. Using their controllers, working in unison, they maneuver their robots out into the hall. Sarah’s follows Tommy’s. Once out into the hallway Tommy shuts the door and returns to his seat next to Sarah. Now they are both ready, they shift their point of view on the robots lens to wide, they guide their pieces up the stairs. Using their all terrain tires the robots easily negotiate the stairwell. Cautiously and quietly they make it to the top floor. The robots are very precise and silent, as their design was intended. Suddenly Tommy whispers quickly.
“On your left!”
Sarah without a second thought turns and fires three shots, hitting a man dressed in a dark suit in the legs. He falls to the floor dropping his gun and clutching his knees. They vigilantly move on. Another guy wearing a suit comes out of a door on Tommy’s right.
“Tommy!” Sarah injects.
“Got him.” Tommy says as he turns and fires two shots, one at each knee, hitting both. Crippling the man with precision.
As they slowly precede down the hallway, Sarah drives her robot in reverse behind Tommy’s to make sure no-one comes up from behind. When they get to one room, Tommy peers around the corner, and then tells Sarah to wait outside. Sarah waits by the door. Tommy heads in. Sitting at a rather large desk with lots of papers on it is an aged looking man dressed like a terrorist, with an automatic rifle hanging off his back. He is talking on the phone. Tommy motions for Sarah to look at his screen. Sarah glances over, is extremely surprised, but quickly returns to her monitor and continues to watch the hallway. Tommy waits a second or two. Then the terrorist notices Tommy’s robot. He jumps up from his desk. He drops his phone and swings his rifle around. He takes aim. Tommy lets loose several rounds into the desk in front of him, spraying bullets left and right. The terrorist drops down out of site. Tommy quickly maneuvers around the desk. As he comes around the corner, the terrorist shoots five shots at the robot, with his automatic rifle. Tommy rapidly backs up around the desk, and checks his systems.
“Huh….bullet proof.” Tommy is surprised to see and he leans over to Sarah and tells her.
“Of course, they didn’t waste anything on these guys.” Sarah affirms without taking her eyes off of her screen.
Tommy heads back around they desk. The terrorist takes more shots at Tommy’s robot. Tommy aims, and shoots him in the head. He pauses there for a moment.
“I just killed this guy.” He remorsefully says.
“Did you have a choice?” Sarah asks eyes still affixed to her screen.
“I guess not.”
“He’s an F-ing terrorist, of course you didn’t”
“We’ve got company.” Sarah announces as she sees two men in suits hurrying down the hall. Tommy swings his robot around and gets up to Sarah’s. They both quickly propel out into the middle of the hallway, side by side. They simultaneously shoot and hit the two me in their knees. The two men drop to floor in agony. Then Sarah and Tommy start again scouring the floors.
The only thing that they can hear from where they are in the basement control room is the gun shots in the distance, and the occasional screams and yells of their victims. They proceed on their mission around the building. They spot and kill another terrorist. This time it was Sarah who had the deadly kill. She is unabated by her actions. She takes a sip of her energy drink and follows Tommy from behind, still in reverse like two marine Special Forces agents.
The floor seems pretty empty now, as the two of them roam around on their search and destroy mission. They finally make to the far end of the building and look out the barred windows using the robots camera eye. They can see a highway in the distance.
“When we make a run for it, that’s where we’re headed.” Tommy points to his screen.
“Right with you chief.” Sarah agrees.
“Let’s take one more look around the floor before get out of here.”
“Roger that.” Sarah affirms as she takes her position behind Tommy’s robot again.
They start to creep their robots down the back hallway and come across another room with the lights on.
“Wait. Let me take a look inside.” Tommy says putting his hand up to Sarah.
Sarah just nods and takes her position in the hallway. As Tommy slowly directs his robot around the doors entrance, he sees about five men in the room. Three of the men look like terrorist, and the other two are dressed in suits with dark glasses on, resembling FBI agents. Tommy backs out of the room. Sarah busy watching the hallway didn’t see the occupants.
“We’ve got an issue here.” Tommy informs.
“What’s that?”
“There’s like five guys in there.”
“So…shoot their legs off.” Sarah remarks callously.
“As soon as I shoot one, the others are going to take off, and probably head down here…they know where the control room is.”
“I’ll go in with you, and we’ll both take them out.”
“These robots aren’t that big, they can still jump over them.”
“Plan?” Sarah asks slowly turning to Tommy.
“How good is your aim?”
“Probably better then yours cowboy.” Sarah laughs and returns to monitoring her screen.
“Okay…here’s what we’ll do.” Tommy starts to conjure up a plan.
“We’ll both go in together. Go in deep and start shooting, then start backing out towards the door backwards as your shooting. As the guys starting falling, watch their faces. If they are not in pain, then we missed. Watch the head count. Make sure all five stay in the room!” He says with inflection.
“If one manages to get out, I’ll chase him down the hall. You stay in the room and take care of the rest…you got that?” He intently asks glaring at Sarah.
“Yup.” Is all she says waiting for the go signal.
Tommy turns to his screen. Sarah sits up straight and readies herself.
“Okay…ready?” Tommy asks again nervously.
“Yup.” Sarah repeats firmly holding her controller.
“Oh wait!” Sarah quickly yells.
Tommy relaxes and looks at Sarah.
Sarah picks up her energy drink and puts it to her lips.
Bang!
The sound of the steel door crushing against the wall echoes though out the room.
The door in the basement control room that they are in suddenly swings open and slams against the wall. Sarah without missing a beat, lets the drink can slide through her hands away from her lips. She drops her controller. She grabs both guns off of the table and simultaneously swings around and stands up. She is poised aiming both guns at the door behind her and Tommy. Tommy, not registering as quickly as Sarah, spins around in his seat a fraction of a second after her. Sarah with her fingers on the triggers ready to shoot, suddenly notices who it is.
“Hold on!...don’t shoot!” the man says ducking and weaving around the room with his arms in front of his face.
“Steven?” Tommy stands up and questions excitedly.
“Put the guns down Sarah.” Steven motions with his hands as he straightens back up.
“Holy Crap!” Sarah lets out as she lowers the guns to her side.
“I almost filled you full of lead.”
“I see that. Now just gently put them on the table. It scares the hell out me seeing a kid with them.” Steven says calming down and walking over to the table where Tommy and Sarah are.
“Thank God you’re here. How did you find us?” Tommy inquires as Sarah listens in.
“The clues that you left in your missions that your friends figured out.” He starts, pointing at Sarah, as she smiles real big at Tommy.
“And some intel that we picked up from other information. Is that your work upstairs?” motioning up the steps.
“Yea…well we were trying clear the way so we could make a run for it. But we still have one big problem. There are still five heavy armed guys in a room upstairs.” Tommy says pointing at his screen.
“Can I see them?” Steven asks leaning in. He puts one hand behind Tommy on the chair and the other on the table.
Tommy starts to explain and moves his robot around the corner a bit to see in the room. The five men are all around the room, some are sitting some standing. Sarah not feeling like she’s part of the conversation, starts wiping the spilled drink from her side of the table onto the floor. Her hands all wet and sticky, she pulls her chair back and looks for the empty can. She looks for some paper towels or napkins around the room. She spots some on the table with the food. She heads over to grab some.
“Ah…yea.” Steven starts to recognize some of the guys in the room.
“We’ve been watching them two for a while. The terrorist look familiar too.” He says pointing at the screen.
“Did you bring back up?” Tommy looks at him intently.
“Ah…yea. There are two guys outside and more on the way.”
“What should we do? Wait for the back up?” Tommy inquires.
As the two of them are talking, Sarah returns to the table and starts wiping up the floor. She wipes her hands off, pulls her chair back in, sits back down and grabs her controller. She checks her screen. The hallway is still empty. She turns her attention over to Tommy and Stevens’s conversation, wondering what the plan is. As she listens in, she notices one of the guns missing from the table. She looks around the table. She plunges her seat back and looks under the table, and then she notices it in Stevens’ hand.
“Well I don’t think that we should take them out.” Steven continues with Tommy.
“I don’t think that we should just sit here and do nothing. One of them is bound to come out of the room and find one of the other guys sooner or later. Then they’ll all be down here in a second.” Tommy says worriedly.
As their discussion goes on, Sarah begins to get suspicious. She gets back to her controller. Making sure that they are not watching her, she secretly maneuvers her robot back to the basement. She pulls it up behind Steven. As Steven and Tommy are talking, Tommy notices that her robot is missing from the hallway though the corner of his screen. He glances over to Sarah though a gap in Stevens arm. Sarah anxiously motions to the missing gun on the table with her head, then motions to Stevens hand behind him. Tommy’s eyes go wide, and he begins to get suspicious also.
“Well…what do you think we should do then?” Tommy calmly inquires.
“Should I just take them out before they get to us?” He temps Steven.
“No Tommy…” Steven says as he puts the gun to Tommy’s back.
“Maybe you should just stand up and back away from the controller.” He commands as Tommy puts his hands up and begins to get up. As Steven has the gun to Tommy’s back he turns to talk to Sarah.
“And don’t get any funny…” He stops in mid sentence because Sarah is already there pointing the gun at him with one hand and holding her controller with the other. She moves her robot in to bump Steven in back with its gun. Steven without moving his body turns his head and looks down at the robot. He turns back to Sarah.
Sarah smiles confidently and says,
“You’re move.”
“You kids don’t know what you are doing, you don’t understand. We are trying to rid the world of all the evil and injustice. So better people can get in power and run things the way they are suppose to be.” Steven attempts to explain.
“You just want to remove the people you want, so you can be in power, and run the world the way you want.” Tommy injects moving away from Steven. Steven drops his hand with the gun to his side.
“Listen, you guys, how about if we hook you and you parents up real nice. Fill their bank accounts, move the two of you somewhere nice and warm?” He tries to bribe.
“No Thanks.” Tommy angrily replies.
“We like things the way they are.”
“Well if you’re not going play then…” Steven starts as he flips the gun up and turns to shoot Sarah.
Sarah closes her eyes and crunches up her shoulders as soon as she sees the gun coming her way, Tommy shields his face.
A single gun shot rings through out the basement. Sarah opens her eyes and sees Steven falling on to the table, and then sliding to the floor. She quickly looks at the gun she didn’t fire and the controller she didn’t initiate then looks over at Tommy in surprised confusion. She sees Tommy looking at the door. She turns her head and sees three swat team guys there, in full gear. One positioned on one knee on the floor with smoke coming from his gun, and two standing behind him with semiautomatic rifles at the ready. Sarah and Tommy both look at each other, then at Steven on the floor. Sarah mumbles,
“That’ll work.”
Then a secret service agent comes walking into the room from around the corner behind the swat guys.
“Nice job kids.” He says walking in looking at all the electronics in the room then stopping to look at Steven and his blood on the floor.
“You on our side or theirs?” Sarah nervously, cautiously asks, still holding the gun and controller.
“We’re on your side Sarah.” He says pushing her hand with the gun down.
“Look.” He motions to Tommy’s screen.
Tommy runs over and Sarah peaks at the screen. There is a squad of swat guys in the room where the five guys were upstairs. They have all five pinned to the floor and are getting cuffed. Sarah drops the controller, places the gun on the table and sits down in her chair.
“How’d you find us?” Tommy asks.
“You mother surprisingly. She had explained the situation. How agent Steven and his crew were on the case, but to her didn’t seem like they were helping to stop it. When they left your house, she had called us and told us what she knew. She told us about the robots and the missions. We knew that this operation was going on, but couldn’t get any leads. Now I know why. They were working from the inside.” He explains bending down pulling Stevens badge off.
“Oh…the other insiders are in the closet.” Tommy says pointing to the closet.
The swat team yanks open the door and points their guns in.
“Sir.” One of them asserts.
The secret service guy walks over to the closet and peaks in.
“Just as I suspected. Get them out here.” He commands to the swat team who start pulling them up and out.
“Quite an operation they have here.” He states looking around at the robots.
“Yea, they wanted us to shoot the president.” Sarah informs.
“We know, and the US government is greatly in debited to you. The president would like to meet you.”
Tommy and Sarah just look at each other in awe.
“How about we get you guys out of here.” The secret service guy motions towards the door.
Sarah and Tommy walk out the door and to the top of the steps. There are swat team guys everywhere, going from room to room, looking through documents, walking the bad guys out in hand cuffs. As they exit the building, Tommy’s mom and Sarah’s parents coming running up to them. The all hug.
After a few weeks go by, Tommy, his mom, Sarah and her parents all dressed up, are walking down the steps of the White House leaving the big event. Sarah and Tommy are showing each other their metals as they make their way to the limo. They all get inside and the limo pulls away. Everyone is talking about the dinner party and meeting the president. Sarah turns to Tommy,
“So…who you taking to the prom?” She asks directly.
“Ah…I don’t know.” Tommy hesitates shyly to say, looking at his metal.
He looks at his mom. She nods hard at Sarah, and motions for him to ask her.
Tommy looks at the floor and quietly asks,
“Do you…want to go to the prom with me?”
“I don’t know, Tommy… you’re and assassin, what would people say?” Sarah begins laughing.
“Sure dude.” She quickly responds jabbing him in the ribs while taking a sip of her energy drink.
Tommy grabs his ribs and begins laughing.