In the Outer Game, Death Is Forever

By R.J. Pearson

This Novella is a Techno-Thriller in the same genre as the "The Hunt for Red October" and "The Andromeda Strain." In the story, a rogue artificial intelligence (AI) reaches out from the virtual world of computer games to try and murder a wounded warrior. In the virtual world of computer games, the AI's and human warrior's avatars, die and are reborn again and again. When their conflict moves to the real world, there can be no rebirth. Either the AI or the human warrior must die forever so that the other can go on living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796098686

Book preview

A DEAD MAN’S SWITCH

The mission was going sideways; Captain Connor Peter Davies could feel it in his gut. His Special Force Team was tasked with capturing or killing a high-value Jihadi target presumed to be hiding in a cave with his bodyguards. It had sounded so simple in the pre-mission briefing. Now, hours later, lost in a labyrinth of underground passages, the mission had turned into a confused mess, a goat rope. The passages ahead appeared to stretch on forever, in the green gloom of his night vision equipment. The crunch of his boots on the gravel floor reverberated off the cave’s stone walls.

The recon robot that should have been moving ahead of Connor was sitting motionless on the cave floor somewhere behind him. The machine’s batteries were exhausted by the long search the team had conducted so far. Without power, the bot’s advanced sensors and Lidar mapping capability were useless. Connor’s team was forced to complete the search the old-fashioned way—visually checking every chamber in the cave for the enemy.

Connor blamed himself for having not brought enough robot batteries to complete the mission. To assuage his guilt, he took the point position, where the bot should have been. Now, Connor was moving ahead of his squad.

He reached a blind turn in the cave five steps ahead of his team and stopped. Connor thought he heard movement in the next chamber. He raised his left hand, his palm open. His team formed up behind him. With his rifle up and looking through its night vision sight, Connor thrust himself around the corner into the next chamber in the cave. The sight hit an obstacle, recoiled, and hit him in the eye. Momentarily stunned, Connor staggered backward, losing his grip on his rifle. The weapon clattered to the floor. When he regained his balance, Connor found himself looking into the face of an insurgent who had rushed around the corner in the opposite direction.

The Jihadi Connor collided with was also trying to regain his balance. The fanatic was wearing a suicide vest and holding down a dead man’s switch connected to the vest’s detonator with his thumb. Connor knew if the Jihadi let go of the switch, the vest would detonate, killing everyone in this part of the cave. In desperation, he lunged forward and tackled the insurgent. Clamping his left hand over the suicide bomber’s right, he held the detonator switch closed.

The insurgent staggered backward and fell onto the ground, taking Connor with him. They wrestled on the cave floor; the suicide bomber tried to free his hands from Connor’s grip. Hearing the sound of the struggle, Connor’s team came rushing around the corner. They were immediately hit by fire from the other Jihadi further up the tunnel. Rounds whizzed overhead as Connor struggled with the insurgent.

The bomber grabbed onto Connor’s throat with his left hand. Connor flailed around blindly with his free hand trying to reach his sidearm, but couldn’t. Neither could he find his carbine. Instead, he found the face of the fanatic, stuck his thumb in an eye socket, and pushed hard.

The Jihadi screamed and twisted in pain. His spittle peppered Connor’s face, his foul breath assaulting Connor’s nose. Sweaty with effort, Connor’s hand started to slip off the dead man’s switch. A wave of guilt washed over him as he realized that he had led his team into a death trap.

The suicide bomber twisted the detonator violently, almost wrenching it free, when he suddenly froze, transforming into a lifeless mass.

Looking up, Connor saw Sgt. Jamal Johnson standing over the lifeless body of the fanatic. Jamal’s carbine was still smoking from the round he had put into the base of the bomber’s skull. As Jamal reached down toward Connor, the cave vanished.

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Connor woke up from his nightmare, covered in sweat. He was safe in his quarters, located at the center of a forward operating base. He was awake, but his memories of the cave still haunted him. The same nightmare had been robbing him of sleep every night since his encounter with the suicide bomber. He stared at the ceiling, waiting for his heart rate to go down and his breathing to return to normal.

Connor tried recalling the relief he had felt when the suicide bomber had suddenly stopped struggling. Instead, the memory brought him the feeling of complete helplessness when the detonator had begun slipping from his hand. Had Jamal been a second slower or missed his shot, Connor’s team would have died. The reality that someone else had to come to his rescue filled him with shame, shattering his self-confidence.

Connor knew that he had completely botched that mission. Even though his team had managed to wipe out the insurgents escorting the suicide bomber, the close-quarters combat had left some of his men seriously wounded. Only their body armor had shielded them from fatal injuries. Connor’s wounded troopers needed immediate medical attention. With Jamal’s help, Connor had wrapped the dead man’s switch in gun tape. With tape holding it down, Connor had been able to take his thumb off the spring loaded button. Leaving the dead Jihadis where they lay, he had led his team out of the cave. The team had almost made it out to daylight when the gun tape had given way, and the suicide vest detonated. The blast wave that roared down the cave had covered Connor and his team with rock dust. Coughing and staggering, the team had stumbled out into sunlight moments later. The detonation had caused a cave-in that buried the bodies of the insurgents and the recon robot under tons of rubble. The mission yielded no actionable intelligence; it was a total failure.

The encounter with the suicide bomber had occurred a month ago. Before the incident, Connor had been too egotistic to accept his own mortality; now, it all seemed too real. The incident in the cave had robbed Connor of his naive feeling of invulnerability. Some of Connor’s comrades had come to accept the inevitability of violent death, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel the same way. Before the incident, Connor had been supremely self-confident. Confidence was one of the elements that had contributed to his success as a combat leader. Now, that confidence had diminished. Nightmares and pre-mission jitters had sapped his strength and dulled his mental edge.

Despite his newly acquired regard for his mortality, Connor had duties to perform. As the sun rose, he rolled out of his bunk and suited up, strapping on body armor and collecting his personal weapons. By the time he left his quarters, he had pushed the feeling of dread to the back of his mind. He could feel a sense of relief as he concentrated on the details of the morning briefing. Striding across the landing field to his aircraft, Connor could feel his old confidence returning. Ahead the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft that would carry him on today’s mission came to life. The thundering of the plane’s engines obliterated the remnants of the previous night’s dream from his thoughts. Connor smiled as he ran up the plane’s rear ramp. The sound of the Osprey’s engines shot up, and the aircraft lifted off. As the plane climbed higher, Connor assured himself he was once again the Special Forces combat officer his team needed him to be.

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Captain Davies called Last Man as he ran up the rear ramp, his part of the mission over. The beat of the Osprey engines increased, and it rose vertically into the air. At five hundred feet, the engines of the tiltrotor moved from vertical to horizontal and it transitioned to normal-winged flight. The Osprey picked up speed.

Connor smiled as he made his way to his seat on the aircraft. He thought to himself, Well, you survived another one. Unlike the nightmare a month ago, there were no crazies in suicide vests this time. Today the cave was abandoned.

As he positioned himself on his seat and strapped on the seatbelt, he could feel the tension subside. His part of the mission was over. Although the team had missed their high-value target, they’d managed to retrieve his electronics. The Jihadis’ leader had left behind some papers, a tablet computer, and several disposable burner phones in the cave he’d been hiding in. The information his team had gathered should make the mission more than worthwhile. Connor and his men had met no resistance in this cave, and Connor had been able to get his men back to the landing zone safely. They still had a long and dangerous flight back to their base, but the responsibility for that was in the hands of Connor’s friend Kevin Werewolf Williams, the aircraft’s commander.

Across the center aisle, Kirtland and Hernandez, the team’s two intel specialists, examined and cataloged the devices they’d take in the raid. Seated next to Connor, Jamal had his tablet out. He was connecting the device to the aircraft’s com system to finish his homework. Jamal had had enough of soldiering and was determined to complete his MBA course work before he got out next month. Everything was going smoothly. Sitting back against the hull of the aircraft, Connor closed his eyes.

He was awoken by an argument that had broken out across the fuselage. Hernandez was trying to snatch the tablet away from Kirtland.

Give me that thing, you idiot!

What the frack, Hernandez? It’s charged up now. I just wanted to see if the thing works! See, there it goes …

Jamal yelled, Shit! What was that?

Suddenly, the noise made by the Osprey changed. The throbbing of the engines slowed, then stopped. The only noise was the whistling of the air rushing passed the fuselage. Far away in the cockpit, Connor heard the faint sound of alarms going off and the muffled voices of the crew. He looked out of the small window near his seat. The engine nacelle on his side of the aircraft was trailing a plume of dense vapor. The large blades on the engine had stopped turning

The Osprey’s huge rotor blades didn’t allow it to land like a conventional airplane. Deprived of engine power, the Osprey glided down toward the mountains, toward an inevitable crash landing. Connor felt the nose go down as the crew tried to pick up speed to prevent wing stall. Through the window, he could see the mountain terrain coming up even quicker, with hills rising on either side. Suddenly, the nose of the aircraft came up sharply as the flight crew tried to slow their dying bird before impact. There was nothing Connor could do but brace himself and hope for the best.

The Osprey hit tail first in a dry wadi, and its fuselage slammed down. The huge propeller blades sheared off, sending debris flying past the window. Completely helpless, Connor was flung around like a rag doll. The hull split open behind the wing. Connor’s seat broke free of its mount. Still strapped in his seat, he was thrown the full length of the cabin and slammed into the front bulkhead. Connor felt blinding pain as he spiraled into blackness.

A NULLIFIED NODE

Connor’s mind flickered in and out of consciousness. There were brief moments when he heard the slow bleat of medical sensors and smelled antiseptic before he faded out again. Slowly, he became aware of the medical personnel scuttling in and out, taking away bags of fluids and replacing them with others. He noticed a maze of tubes jutting from his body. As Connor tried to sit up to grab the attention of the medical staff, pain shot through him, and alarms blared. Connor felt a rush of confusion and panic. A nurse rushed in, Please, Capt., don’t move. You’ve suffered a spinal cord injury. Please be quiet. I’ll get your doctor to explain your wounds.

A while later, a sad-looking doctor shuffled in, sat down in the chair next to Connor’s bed, and rested his hand on Connor’s arm. How are you feeling, Capt.—err—Davies?

When I try to move, the pain is excruciating. I can’t seem to shift my legs. Are they … are they still there?

"Yes, yes, you have all your limbs. That’s the good news. The bad news is your spine is broken in several places. When you move, the vertebra presses against the nerves in your spinal cord, causing the pain you feel. If you move too much, you may permanently damage your spinal cord