Kill Switch: Chapter 22
Some Kind of Weapon
“I’m a mass murderer,” I say. “but I didn’t know. I thought it was just a game. I didn’t know the heat blobs were actual people.”
Elijah grabs me by the elbow and lifts me off the ground. “Let’s walk,” he says. “I want to show you something.”
We leave the tent.
The sun is setting.
Music is playing somewhere. A type of music I’ve never heard before. The sound is warm and quiet.
We walk to the edge of camp.
We pass through a wooded area. The trees are gnarled and bare. I hear a leaf crackle beneath my boot.
“She must hate me,” I say.
“Who?”
“Claudette.” I run a hand through my hair. “I killed her father. In Derrick 9. I thought he was a NPC. She has every right to hate me.”
“Claudette is…” Elijah raises his head to the ashen sky. “…a very advanced thinker. She’s aware of the complexity of the situation.”
And I realize we’ve reached a kind of plateau. Below us, stretching for what looks like forever, is a field of derricks. Lightning crackles in the distance, streaking down the length of the grey surround.
We watch the derricks work in silence for a moment.
“Are all of these derricks being controlled by players in The Within?” I ask.
“That’s correct,” Elijah says. “It started with Derrick. Then Derrick 2. And then Derrick 3. All the way up to the current version, Derrick 9. Each time there’s some kind of software update or mechanical change, they come out with a new version. The worst was when they went from Derrick 4 to Derrick 5.”
“The machine gun update,” I say.
“That’s correct. We’d gotten pretty good at monkey wrenching the derricks…”
“I remember,” I say. “In Derrick 4, it was, like, you spent all your time, when you weren’t pumping, repairing the machinery. It was all about the repair bots. And then, in Derrick 5, they added the machine gun and the heat blobs. It was a huge deal. Everybody loved Derrick 5. It maintained all the fun elements of Derrick 4, like the incessant pumping and the repair bots, and then blended those with, like, the shooting elements of The Withouter Hunter.” I stop myself, embarrassed at my sudden celebration of Derrick 5’s groundbreaking gameplay.
“Before Derrick 5,” Elijah says, “we could fight the drilling without losing lives, but afterward, we had to measure the worth of a drill against a life. It’s not as simple an equation as you’d think, given that it’s impossible for us to sustain the wellbeing of our village with our land being drilled to shit every single day.”
I watch the pumps go up and down, up and down. “So, like, what about the other games in the arcade? Gatherer 12? Builder 2? Active Shooter 13?”
“What about them?”
“Are they, like, real or whatever?”
“Yes,” Elijah says. “They are all real.”
And I’m impressed by how assuredly he uses the word real, as if there’s no ambiguity to the concept, as if he’s certain about what is real and what is fake. I aspire to this level of clarity.
“Gatherer,” Elijah says, “is a game in which you gather coins, right, in a kind of maze?”
“That’s right. You walk through the maze, and whenever you see a coin, you walk into it and press a button. And then, you know, there are the occasional heat blobs you have to contest with. Which is why you have the blaster. The blaster was an update in Gatherer 7, after the success of Derrick 5. All the games, after that, incorporated some kind of weapon. If I’m remembering correctly, in Gatherer 6, you just had to run away from the heat blobs. Like Pacman in the olden times.”
“Right,” Elijah says. “Before, it was just these bots that would roam around, stealing from our fields and running away. But now, yeah, you see a bot in the fields, you better be careful, because you’re bound to get hit by a laser if the bot sees you.”
“So everything…” My head is spinning. “Everything in the arcade is, like, an extension of The Without?”
“Yes,” Elijah says, popping a walnut in his mouth. “All the machines are equipped with cameras, and they’ve developed software that is able to convert the images into gameplay. So the world of Active Shooter, for instance, even though it looks like you’re in a classroom full of children, or a ciny full of viewers, or a shopping mall or whatever, you’re actually controlling a bot in The Without.”
Something buzzes overhead. It looks like a bird.
“Duck,” Elijah says, grabbing my shoulder.
“A duck? I’ve read about those.”
“No,” Elijah says, “duck down.” He yanks me behind a boulder.
The bird thingy flies overhead, then dissipates.
“A drone,” Elijah says. “They’re equipped with cameras that feed into the gameplay. We should probably head back. Before nightfall. It’s hard to compete against the bots when they have night vision, and all we have are eyes.”
I glance one more time at the field below. I imagine all the people in The Within right now playing Derrick 9, gathering coin that they’ll probably spend on skins or pharmas or sexSimuls.
We walk back through the wooded area.
A strange disklike object hovers overhead.
“Is that a UFO?” I ask.
“Sort of,” Elijah says. “It’s a space transport. Owned by Vonn Industries.”
And I remember that ad I saw for Vonn Land, a theme park that Vonn Industries is building on the moon.
“The launch pad isn’t far from here,” Elijah says. “We’ve debated monkey wrenching the operation, but we’re not sure what they’re even doing in space, so we stay focused on our own backyard. If we could find a way to rid our land of derricks and bots, we could rebuild our community, make life sustainable again.”
“Why not go somewhere else?”
Elijah turns on me, and for the first time, I see a glint of anger in his piercing eyes. “Why should The Originals be the ones to leave? They were here first. This is their land. Their resources. It’s Vonn Industries that needs to go. At least The Originals want to take care of the land. Vonn Industries, all they want to do is deplete the land of resources in order to sustain the fuck fest in The Within.”
“The fuck fest in The Within,” I say, liking the sound of the phrase.
“That’s right,” Elijah says. “The Within is a travesty. It’s an evolutionary misstep. Corporatocracy is ruining our lives. Everyone in The Within is sexed up and doped up, and meanwhile, up here, we have to go without so that everyone within is satiated enough to do the bidding of Vonn Industries, so that Mr. Vonn himself can turn his profit into power. Can’t you see, Vonn 19? Vonn Industries has created a two-headed monster by severing The Within and The Without, but if we can find a way to work together…”
Elijah’s voice trails off at the sound of scraping in the distance. The pale glint of a bonfire flickers beyond the tree line. The tents punctuate the horizon. I hear the strange music again. It wafts through the ashen air.
The scraping stops.
A clicking sound echoes.
Elijah mimics the sound.
“Coast is clear,” a voice says.
Elijah waves me around a copse of skinny, grey trees.
We come upon two men digging.
Their shovels scrape against the dirt and the rock.
One of them tips his cap. “Aye, there, Elijah. Care to lend a hand?” He nods toward a pile of shovels.
“No, thank you,” Elijah says. He slaps my back. “I have much to discuss with our newest defector.”
One of the diggers straightens, wipes his brow. “X 38, is it?”
“No,” Elijah says.. “This is Vonn 19. X is back at camp.”
The digger nods and returns to his work. The hole stretches to just over a foot.
“Oh, oh, oh,” the digger says. “I think I might have hit something.”
The other digger grabs some kind of gas-powered earth auger and cranks it up. He presses the augur into the ground.
Elijah puts his hand on my chest and pushes me back.
“Watch out,” he says. “Anything can happen. Cover your eyes.”
But I don’t cover my eyes, because I’m too curious.
“What are they doing?” I ask.
Elijah yells over the sound of the augur. “They’re searching for ways into The Within.”
Sparks shoot up. I take a step closer. Down below are wires, mainframes, pipes. The auger stops.
“Looks like a server farm down there,” the digger says. “Could be a good entry point.”
“Excellent,” Elijah says. “Let’s widen the gap and cover it with a manhole. When you’re done with that, let Cosmo know so that he can add the entry point to the map.”
The digger spits. “We lost two entry points yesterday, is that right?”
“That’s right,” Elijah says, “but the first one, the one beneath the cave, we are closing down as a purely precautionary measure. There was an incident outside the dome that brought attention to the area. If, after a few months, there’s no sign of interest from Middle Management, then we can reopen the entry and, if nothing else, retrieve the mainframes.”
“It was a pain in the ass getting those mainframes down there,” the other digger says. “We had to rig up that pulley system.” He turns toward me. “You compromised that entry, too, right?”
“Well,” I sputter, “it was more, like, my colleagues…”
The other digger interrupts me. “Quick to rat out your friends, I see.” He turns to Elijah. “You sure we can trust this guy, Elijah? Doesn’t seem very trustworthy to me?”
Elijah puts his arm on my shoulder and takes a step forward, placing himself between me and the diggers. “Vonn here has put himself at great risk to return an important device to us, gentlemen, and he is learning the ropes as he goes, so let’s be sure to extend a little grace and gratitude.”
“Sure,” the digger says. “I’m real grateful to be working during the Festival of Abzu.” He tosses his shovel and picks up some kind of power tool.
“You’re right, Brett,” Elijah says. “You should be able to enjoy the festival with everyone else. Who told you this needed to be done today?”
Brett clicks the trigger on the power tool, but nothing happens. “Nobody told us to do anything, but they didn’t have to. Fact is, we lost our last entry point to The Within, which puts us in a very precarious position, so Carl and I volunteered to remedy the situation.” He replaces the battery in the power tool and presses the trigger again. The power tool buzzes.
“I appreciate the proactivity,” Elijah says, “but there’s no use volunteering if you’re going to be bitter toward the people you’re volunteering for.”
“We ain’t volunteering for him,” Carl says, pointing at me. “We’re volunteering for ourselves. Our families. So don’t come at us with nothing about being bitter toward the cause, Elijah.”
Elijah raises his hands, smiles. “I certainly understand your frustration, Carl. It often feels like we’re moving one step forward, two step back, doesn’t it? But I promise you, we are close. I can feel it in my bones. So why don’t you let me and Vonn take over? You two have done great work finding this entry. We can finish up. Y'all go enjoy the Festival of Abzu with your family and friends. You deserve a celebration for all the hard work.” Elijah steps forward and takes the power tool from Brett. He slaps the man on the back. “Go have fun. And I’ll see you later tonight.”
Brett looks at Carl, who shrugs. Then Brett turns toward me. “I don’t mind letting the snitch do the dirty work. Since it’s his fault in the first place the other entries got compromised.” He takes a step forward. “Might make him appreciate how valuable these entry points are. Might make him think twice next time he does something reckless.”
Elijah buzzes the power tool, smiles. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
Carl and Brett dissipate into the woods.
The sun has set.
Smoke rises from the village.
A drum pounds.
Elijah hands me a shovel.
“Let’s get to work,” he says.