Chapter 7
The control room at the factory was a conglomeration of blinking displays and monitors. There were no windows to allow the entry of natural light and the green-blue gleam from the multitude of monitors over powered the white light from the overhead fluorescents. Therefore the room and all of its occupants all had an unnatural off-blue pallor. Each control room station was setup to monitor the status of the players experience into Wild West Alive and the status of their selected hosts. The monitors were never intended to keep track of the activities of rogue hosts or kidnapped girls. The view of the events unfolding in Squabash, while sitting in the main control room and only twelve miles from the action, was essentially no different than any player who was Synapped in to control a host and thereby watching from the perspective of one of the rogue cowboys.
On the primary display, Henry, Anand’s lead technician on-site at WWA, continually clicked between various hosts who were positioned in different locations throughout Squabash in an effort to gain an improved vantage or perhaps get lucky and see the missing girl inside one of the buildings. Henry clicked onto the workstation and the view displayed on the monitor was looking out from behind the bar at the Saloon. From this vantage Henry and the other controllers can see the Saloon is occupied by three of the Saloon girls. Each of them is dressed wearing tight corsets and feathers. A piano is playing. The room is dim, but sunlight is filtering in through the wide windows that look out onto the main street. The windows are not clear, but they can make out the outlined shapes of men standing out front.
Henry clicks on the workstation again and instantly the display was changed. Now the view on the monitor is from outside, standing in the front of the Saloon. There are two other cowboys standing next to nearby. The monitor clearly shows the dusty main street of Squabash. Across the street is the barber shop with its distinctive candy striped pole. There are no people walking on the street or wooden sidewalks. The town is deserted. Inside the barber shop the barber is cautiously peering out through his wide window.
Henry clicks again and now the view shifts to across the street and Henry and the controllers are looking out from the Barbershop window. This is the same scene but from the opposite perspective, they are seeing through the eyes of the barber. From this perspective they can see the three cowboys standing guard in front of the Saloon. Two are thin, one is heavy.
There is no direct communication setup from the control room to the individual hosts. A public address was never installed system in the western town. There was no way to contact them directly. When the team in the control room accesses a Synaptic Interface device wired onto a host cowboy they can see from the perspective of the host and they can monitor statistics on the game related to each cowboy, but their ability to impact the action inside the game is quite limited. Inside the control room they had no more control than any of the remote players.
Henry opened a map display on a central vid-screen that depicted the town of Squabash from overhead. The position of each host was represented by a dot that would move about continually indicating the position of the host on the map and their relative position to other hosts. The color of the dot indicates the status of the relationship between the player and the host. If the host was fully compliant with the player’s remote commands then the dot displayed on the overhead map indicates as green.
Yellow dots indicate the host was resisting the remote player’s commands and red meant that the host was not responding to a player’s commands. A red dot meant we had a rogue cowboy.
The map display reminded Anand of the cut away views of human bodies that decorated Sahdna’s laboratory in Los Angeles. The dots moved about like synaptic impulses moving through the neural network of a strange animal. On the overhead display there were hundreds of dots moving about in and around the cut away buildings and on the streets of Squabash. Most were green, a few were yellow, and only one was red.
Henry used his work station controls to click on the red dot. A small display opened trailing behind the dot that indicated the Synaptic activity being transmitted to the remote player and viewers. This counter was designed to alert technicians if there was a failure in the Synaptic Interface device. Watching this display, Anand realized that if a host was killed in a real shootout using real bullets, the control room monitoring the synaptic activity would watch as the counter dropped to zero.
Henry typed in a command and a new window appeared with statistics about the rogue cowboy:
Name: Yang Wu
Role: Elijah - Outlaw
Age: 24
Sex: Male
Popularity: 83%
Player Control: 0%
Viewers: 2,678
As Anand watched the readout the number of remote viewers watching from the rogue cowboy’s perspective continued to count-up.
Henry re-positioned the statistics window in the corner over a relatively uninteresting part of the map. Then he entered another command into the work station and another window opened. The new window was labeled “host view”.
From this window we could watch from our rogue cowboy’s perspective along with the more than 2600 of our gamers. In the host view window, the perspective of the rogue cowboy was displayed as he looked over the top of a black horse. The rogue cowboy was riding at a steady pace. In the distance the square buildings and flat roofs of the town came into view. He would soon be inside the town of Squabash.
“Do we know which hosts have access to lead bullets?” Anand asked.
Henry was sheepish in his reply.
“There are no controls,” he said, and then added,
“We never thought they would shoot each other… the lead bullets are converted to rubber in the costume wing. Any host could access the lead bullets at any time.”
“Maybe we should go ahead and send someone over to costumes and lockup any lead bullets that are left” Anand suggested.
Henry spoke a few words in Chinese to one of the technicians standing in the room and the technician quickly exited in the direction of costume room.
Anand watched as the red dot moved steadily closer to Squabash. Anand was trying to understand the complex dynamics playing out in from of them on the monitors and at Wild West Alive. Was this a family vendetta; maybe a love Triangle? Whatever was the cause, something was boiling over.
“The rogue cowboy, is he the same one that shot up the village last night?” Anand asked Henry, “Do you think he has the missing girl stashed somewhere?”
Henry was careful only to answer with facts allowing Anand to draw his own conclusions.
“We know that they rogue cowboy was in the medical wing last night,” Henry said, “He required some extensive care for a broken right arm. The medical records indicate he was never properly discharged.”
“This looks like a vendetta.” Anand said.
Henry did not respond. He watched the map display stoically, the blue-green glow from the monitors reflecting softly in his glasses.
Anand had seen enough. He called Christopher Mark on the vid-phone that was on Henry’s work station. After some few minutes, the vid-phone display buzzed into focus; Anand and Henry could see Christopher Mark looking tired and rumpled.
Christopher said, “Anand, good. You are on site at Wild West Alive; do you have the situation under control?”
Before he answered, Anand glanced up at the status of the red dot on the map display. The rogue cowboy had stopped moving. He was standing stationary on the outskirts of Squabash. From the host view window, Anand and the control team could clearly see he was loading his six gun with lead bullets. In the statistics window Anand could also see that the viewer count was approaching 3000 and continuing to count up at a rapid pace.
Anand said, “Chris, the situation is spinning out of control. We need to shut down the game or we are about to broadcast a bloodbath to over 3000 players.” Anand tried to control the tense tone of panic that punctuated his w
ords.
“No way,” Chris said. “Not an option. Shutting down the game is proof that we have a problem. The players are expecting to seeing gunfights, this is what we do. They will never know the difference. We need to let this play out; the players will think it is the game, business as usual.”
“The viewer rate is off the scale,” Anand explained, “the players know this is real, they can see a rogue cowboy loading lead bullets into his gun. We need to shut it down. We need to shut it down right now.”
As Anand argued with Mark, the fabric of fantasy hiding the reality at Squabash began to unravel.