The Player Blackout Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

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  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

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  THE PLAYER BLACKOUT

  Capes Online Book #1

  Lucas Flint

  Published by Secret Identity Books. An imprint of Annulus Publishing.

  Copyright © Lucas Flint 2019. All rights reserved.

  Contact: [email protected]

  Cover design by Damonza

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, send an email to the above contact.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  It’s amazing how fast your life can change in the blink of an eye. One moment, you’re a young police officer on his first day on the job, eager and ready to prove yourself and serve your community. You’ve just bought your first home, you’re engaged to your longtime girlfriend, and you’re even thinking about children. Oh, and your dad was just recently confirmed to the Supreme Court, too, which is pretty cool as well.

  But then you lose all that because of one idiot who robbed a bank and decided to take you on a high-speed chase down a crowded highway during rush hour. And then you get into a car crash due to the actions of said idiot and die. And that’s that.

  Everything you had. Gone. In the blink of an eye. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Now, of course, I don’t know that I am dead. If I was really dead, would I be able to think any of this? I was taught about heaven and hell and all that in Sunday school when I was a kid, but I am not sure how much of that I ever really believed.

  And if I was dead … was this heaven or hell?

  The place I stood in was a pure white … well, nothingness. For as far as the eye could see, it was just empty nothingness. No ground. No sky. No buildings or people or animals. Hell, there wasn’t even any wind. It was pure emptiness. It was also eerily quiet and had no discernible scent that I could smell.

  But the freakiest thing? I didn’t have a body, either.

  When I looked down at myself, I saw nothing. I didn’t see my freshly-cleaned, brand new police officer uniform. I didn’t see the scar on my left palm I got when I cut my hand when I was cutting some apples when I was thirteen. I didn’t see my shiny police shoes or my holstered gun. I saw nothing. Nothing at all.

  Again, I wondered … was this heaven? Or hell? Or maybe it was that purgatory place that Catholics believed in. I was raised Baptist, so purgatory wasn’t part of my theology, but maybe the Baptists were wrong and the Catholics were right. That would annoy my grandpa, who was a staunch Baptist minister who didn’t care much for the Catholic Church, for sure.

  “Don’t worry, Nyle,” said a voice behind me I did not recognize. “You aren’t in heaven, hell, or even purgatory. You aren’t even dead.”

  I whirled around—although it felt more like turning a camera around than actually moving like a human being—to see who had spoken. Sitting behind a desk directly across from me, as if he was supposed to be there, was an Arab man I had never seen before. He wore a fine blue suit which did not have a single cress or stain anywhere. His short beard was extremely well-trimmed, putting my old goatee to shame, and he wore thick sunglasses, although I wasn’t sure why he needed them because it wasn’t that bright in here. Then again, I didn’t see the sun, stars, or any sort of artificial light, which made me wonder how I was seeing anything at all.

  “Who are you?” I said. “And how do you know my name?”

  The man smiled. “I know everything about you, Nyle Maxwell. Or should I say, Nyle Maxwell II, son of Nyle Maxwell I, a fine Texas judge who was recently confirmed to the Supreme Court after Justice Peterson’s untimely death. You are twenty-five-years-old, an inhabitant of Cane, Texas, where you recently started working for the Cane City Police Department, and you are engaged to Sally DeLeon, also of Cane, Texas, a registered nurse, who you have been dating for two years now. She was quite relieved when you finally asked her to marry you, I heard.”

  I bit my lower lip. Privacy wasn’t really a thing nowadays, thanks to the way the Internet penetrated nearly every facet of our lives, but I found the way this man rattled off my every detail—even down to how Sally felt about me finally proposing to her—unnerving, to say the least, especially since I had never even seen him before. “I see you’ve done your homework.”

  The man raised a folder off his desk with my name, ‘NYLE MAXWELL,’ stamped across it. “Oh, I was never a very good student in school. One of my fellow agents did most of the footwork on you, although considering how much you and your fiancee used social media, I doubt it took him long to collect all of the pertinent information. And more. Much, much more.”

  I reached out with a hand toward the folder, but stopped when I realized that I had a body now. I looked down and saw that I looked much the same way I did when the car crashed, which was a very odd feeling.

  “Sorry about that,” said the man as he lowered my folder down onto his desk. “I have been informed that there are still some issues with the b
ody-scanning process, which means that sometimes the mind is uploaded before the system finishes scanning the body. I’ve been told that being a disembodied mind is very … disturbing, and potentially traumatic.”

  “Disturbing, yes,” I said, feeling my body just to make sure it was real. “Traumatic … guess I’ll find out. I’m pretty tough. I can handle things most other people can’t.”

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Confidence is a good quality to have, but there is a special abode in hell for the arrogant.”

  “So I take it this isn’t hell?” I said, looking around at the white void in which we stood. “Explains the absence of fire and brimstone and red, horned demons poking the damned with pitchforks.”

  “As I said, this is neither heaven nor hell,” said the man, “but it is an afterlife. Or your afterlife, anyway, if you choose to make it that.”

  I looked directly at the man. “Forgive me for my rudeness, but I find it a little unfair how you know everything about me—down to the color of my underwear, probably—but I don’t even know your name.”

  “It’s Charles,” said the man simply. “Charles Omar. I am an agent from the Department of Virtual Reality, assigned to help you and about five others smoothly make the transition from the real world to this one.”

  I frowned. I’d heard about the Department of Virtual Reality, of course. Established 14 years ago in 2029 by President Michael Crane, the Department of Virtual Reality enforced the law in the realm of VR, which had exploded in popularity in America and abroad with the release of VRMMORPGs like Capes Online and others. I only knew this because Sally was a big political junkie and she had a tendency to rant to me about whatever the current political hot topic of the day was, although I couldn’t give a darn about any of it myself.

  “What do you mean by ‘transition’ there, Chuck?” I said. “Do you mind if I call you Chuck?”

  Charles’ left eye twitched slightly. “No, I don’t. As for what I mean, I think it is time I told you exactly what happened to you.”

  “I know what happened to me,” I said, resting my hands on my belt. “I was driving down the highway trying to catch that idiot Bryce Cunningham and then we got into a huge car wreck because he slammed into me and then we crashed into a fuel truck and … well, after that, I don’t know what happened. I assumed I died, but given how I’m talking to you, I think that’s probably not a safe assumption to make.”

  “It is not,” Chuck agreed. “You are correct on the other details, however. On the morning of Tuesday, the second of January, two thousand and forty-three, at exactly ten o’clock in the morning, you went on a high-speed chase to capture the wanted criminal Bryce Cunningham, who had robbed Cane First National Bank that same day. You chased Mr. Cunningham for approximately ten minutes and thirty-one seconds before the two of you crashed into an automated fuel truck, killing both of you, as well as killing about a dozen other people on the busy highway at the same time.”

  I grimaced. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  Chuck waved off my concern. “It is not relevant to this discussion. Anyway, both of you technically were ‘killed,’ or at least your bodies were, but human beings, I hope you understand, are more than just our bodies. We have souls. Minds. Things which separate us from animals.”

  I cracked a grin. “I don’t know. My dog, Joey, was pretty smart, although the only words he seemed to understand were ‘walk’ and ‘food.’”

  Chuck continued as if I hadn’t said a word. “Allow me to welcome you to your second chance at life, to a second life, you might say. No longer will you live with a flesh-and-blood physical body. Instead, you will dwell in virtual reality. I welcome you to Project Second Life, where those who died prematurely get a second chance at life itself.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Project Second Life?” I repeated, staring at Chuck uncertainly. “What is that? And what do you mean I am going to ‘dwell’ in virtual reality? Are you telling me I’m in a video game? ‘Cause this doesn’t look like any video game I’ve ever played.”

  “You are not yet in the game itself,” Chuck explained. “The mind-to-virtual reality upload process takes some time. In the mean, you are stuck here, although it won’t be much longer before you are transported into virtual reality. I am here to simply explain what Project Second Life is and what it means for you.”

  Hmm. That explained why I had been just a disembodied mind for a moment there. The uploading process did not upload my entire self all at once. It was a weird thought and I still wasn’t sure I believed everything Chuck said, but so far I didn’t have any evidence against anything he said. He seemed to be telling me the truth so far, which was either a good thing or a bad thing. I still hadn’t decided which it was.

  “Okay, Chuck,” I said. I looked around. “If we’re going to talk, it sure would be easier if I had a chair or something to sit down—”

  A wooden chain suddenly appeared behind me and knocked me off my feet. The chair shot toward the desk, with me hanging on for dear life, and then stopped abruptly in front of Chuck’s desk. Based on Chuck’s barely-disguised smile, I could tell he had done that on purpose.

  “Now that we are both comfortable, let me tell you exactly what Project Second Life is,” said Chuck. He pulled out another folder from his desk and slapped it down on the desk, allowing me to see the words ‘PROJECT SECOND LIFE’ written across it. “Project Second Life is a joint project between SI Games and the United Nations. Its purpose is to experiment with the idea of digital immortality.”

  “Digital immortality?” I repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said Chuck. “Digital immortality is an idea first conceptualized by Robert J. Baker, a philosopher from the early twenty-first century, who theorized that the mind could be uploaded to a computer to live effectively forever. Back then, of course, it was impossible to do due to the rather primitive computer technology of that era. It was the domain of science fiction writers and people who lived more in their heads than in reality.”

  “It’s impossible nowadays, too,” I said. “Yeah, our tech might be more advanced than what people had back then, but I’ve never heard of anyone actually achieving this ‘digital immortality’ you’re telling me about. Still seems to be science fiction to me.”

  Chuck’s smile took on a slightly sinister bent. “Not publicly, no. But recent developments in computer technology has allowed for the possibility of digital immortality. And not merely a possibility, but a reality in itself, as you and many others have found.”

  “Others?” I repeated. “You mean I’m not the only person involved in this Project Second Life thing you’re telling me about?”

  “Of course not,” said Chuck. “As I said, Project Second Life is a joint project between SI Games and the United Nations. I should have clarified that not every UN member is part of this project or even knows about it. Only the UN’s charter members—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—are involved. Each one of those five countries has provided about a dozen citizens from their respective populations to test out Project Second Life.”

  “Well, I don’t remember signing up for this project,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “Don’t get me wrong. Better digital than dead, but I don’t remember signing up for this.”

  Chuck looked at me, but his smile was gone. “That’s because someone in the government pulled a few strings to get you into the program. It was a last ditch effort to save you. If you had not been enrolled into Project Second Life, you would have died for good, just like Mr. Cunningham.”

  “That monster is dead?”

  “He died instantly when your cars collided with the fuel truck,” said Chuck calmly. “You, on the other hand, were severely injured, but still alive, albeit just barely. You lasted just long enough for us to upload your mind to Project Second Life.”

  “Meaning my body is … gone?” I said. I didn’t want to say ‘dead,’ because I was afraid of
how final that word sounded.

  Chuck nodded. “Yes. The mind-to-VR upload process is a one-way trip, I am afraid. Even if your body was not dead, you wouldn’t be able to return to it. For all intents and purposes, this is your ‘real’ life now. Or soon will be, once the uploading process is finished.”

  I stared at Chuck, unable to find the words to say anything. I looked desperately in his eyes and face for a sign that this was some kind of horrible prank he was pulling on me, but he looked one hundred percent serious. He looked so serious that I doubted he was even capable of telling a joke.

  “What about my parents?” I said. “My brother? Sally? Do they know—”

  “Everyone believes you are dead,” said Chuck shortly. “Because Project Second Life has yet to be unveiled to the public, we are under strict orders not to reveal the true fate of its test subjects even to their friends and family. Your funeral is scheduled for a week from today, by the way. I saw it in the news, perhaps because you are the son of a Supreme Court Justice.”

  I leaned forward, putting my hands on my knees. “Why? Why can’t they know that I’m still alive? Why the lies?”

  “Because if knowledge about Project Second Life becomes public before SI Games has ironed out all the bugs, it could have … unforeseen consequences,” said Chuck. “Trust me, Nyle. There are many people in the world who would use this technology for less-than-noble purposes if they were aware it existed.”

  “Can I contact my friends and family?” I asked. “Is there any way to talk to them at all?”

  Chuck shook his head. “No. All Project Second Life participants are forbidden to contact their friends and family from real life. But don’t worry. Once Project Second Life goes public, you will be able to contact anyone you want whenever you want.”

  “When will it go public?” I asked eagerly.

  Chuck shrugged. “When it is ready, so approximately ten years from now.”

  I stood up and slammed my hands down on the desk, which shook under my pressure. “That’s not good enough, Chuck! Sally needs to know I’m alive. She needs to know that I’m still here. I need to talk to her. I need to talk to her now.”