“He went that way! Get him!”
Breathing heavily, the lone GSS employee hurried out of the derelict building, serving as a parking structure for the employees of the company’s Santa Monica branch, and into the cool early Autumn evening as he tried to shake off his pursuers. He wasn’t entirely sure who they were, he could hazard a guess, but he knew what they wanted from him and he would not let them get their dirty hands on it. Huffing, the shadowed game developer felt like a buck evading hunters out for blood as he exited the structure and came upon the scene of the sun setting behind the waters of Santa Monica’s famed beach, the last rays of sunlight sparkling on the darkening blue water and leaving a purple and blue hue with a lone gray evening cloud hanging over the water like a tapestry piece.
The year was 2046, in the first half of the month of October, over a year when the High Five and their Gunter allies had won the competition for Halliday’s Quest, the year of IOI’s supposed downfall and the preservation of James Halliday’s legacy. Only, folks who he suspected were former IOI employees or Sixers were gunning for him in order to learn the secrets of the OASIS or GSS’s newest pet project, which was confidential and was set to be introduced into the market the following year. That was the timeline that was optimal for all testing to be done and all bugs to be fixed before mas production.
“There he is! Don’t let him escape!”
Hearing the shouts of his pursuers, the pursued GSS staff member sprinted east of 5th Street , clasping a strap of his raspberry-colored backpack with a leering face of an Oni, a demonic ogre/troll in Japanese mythology, patched onto the center. The contents of this bag was the reason he was being chased by these corpos which was why he couldn’t let it get into their hands at any cost.
Wheezing and nearly out of breath, the GSS suiter weaved between a few people before he made a dash toward an alley to lose his pursuers. Letting out a yelp, he nearly collided with a prone body on the floor , the legs sticking out behind the filthy light blue dumpster. As he righted himself after stumbling, he scrutinized the shape he nearly tripped over and realized it was just a homeless man who looked to be sleeping. Or that was what he had hoped the man was doing. Closing his eyes, the marked GSS employee continued the rest of the way, muttering prayers that he’d lose his pursuers. Only the shouts and squeals of tires were the indication that he had not in fact accomplished what he intended to do.
“Box him in from both sides! ”
His head twisting from side to side, the cornered man spotted both the front end as well as the back end of the alley cutoff by two identical Lincoln sedans as black as obsidian. Breath hitching, he knew there was no escape on either side as groups of individuals dressed in street clothes and business attire poured out of the vehicles and prepared to enclose him like a fisherman’s net.
There needs to be an alternative exit here. Think! You played Metal Gear , Splinter Cell, Max Payne, and Tomb Raider. Surely, you can think of something. Ah, up there!
He spotted the ladder ten feet above him and decided to use that as an alternative method of escaping his pursuers. Taking a breath, the fugitive broke into a run and tried to leap for the silver rusty ladder’s bottom rung, but fell short. Panicking that he would not make it, the desperado spotted the an old air conditioning unit right beside the ladder and decided to use that as a platform.
Here goes nothing!
All those years of playing as Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, and Spyro should have trained him to land on the ladder. Or perhaps being Ezio or Spiderman made him think he was invincible yet he failed to factor in the load on him and couldn’t make it to the ladder. Glancing up after falling flat on his face, he noticed that his pursuers were only mere seconds from him so he did the next best thing. Wedging the backpack between the crack behind the AC unit, the hunted worker raised his hands as the crowd of his chasers surrounded him.
“On your feet, scuzz!” One of the alleged Sixers gave him a kick to the side before his fellow thugs hauled up the captured man and shoved him toward one of the parked cars. Once they arrived, the door to the shotgun seat opened up and a woman with light blonde hair in a ponytail dressed in a dark button up blazer and skirt stepped out.
“Put him in the back,” she ordered as she pointed toward him.
Once the goons roughly handling him pinned the terrified developer to the seat of the getaway vehicle and strapped him in, the woman, whom he presumed to be the ringleader of this gang allegedly tied to the disgraced IOI, turned her seat around and shot him a smile that resembled a viper trying to intimidate.
“Ethan Turner, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I believe you are part of the Gregarious Games inner circle, therefore, you must have valuable information about the High Five’s latest project. I look forward to having a little chat about your work that needs such high clearance to access, assuming you are not willing to talk right away. You can save yourself the trouble if you are willing to cooperate now.”
Ethan, the captive GSS artisan, just glared and spat at his captor. The IOI cell leader just chuckled and responded to him.
“Ah, as I expected, you aren’t willing to divulge sensitive information so easily. No matter, we will extract it later on back at the safehouse. I am certain you had to sign waivers and swear some oath of secrecy before you were let on the project. That, doubled with you having the urge to play the hero, which I have no doubt is conditioned by your past experience in gaming - that’s right, we have read your dossier-, makes you predictable, but you know what else is predictable? You telling us everything about project ONI once we have our talk. ”
The blonde woman clapped her hands. ” Anslow, hit the gas! We got what we wanted. You two, put the cover on him!”
The last thing he saw as the black cloth went over his face was the distant dilapidated ruin of a building that had the faded Riot Games logo plastered on it. Could the darkness that was overtaking the sunset behind the building that created some of his childhood memories be some ominous sign of things to come?
---
“You can take the veil off his face now.”
As the suffocating cloth that was over his head was lifted, Ethan gasped and shuddered as if he was jolted awake. He found himself in a dimly lit damp room strapped to a chair, his upper torso bare. Once his senses adjusted to the murky environment, he noticed two silhouettes outlined across the room. Once the lamp to the side was activated, the shapes of his captors were illuminated, the identities not being a surprise to the prisoner. Chuckling, the blonde from earlier took a sip from a champagne glass as she surveyed him while a tall figure wearing a green scarf and what looked like a ushanka stood beside her seat.
“Welcome back to reality, Ethan. Are you ready to cooperate or should we go ahead with the hard way?”
The young man ground his teeth in frustration and helplessness, but despite the hopelessness of his situation, he was not willing to give in easily.
“Tell me you aren’t Suxorz without telling me you are Suxorz.”
His main abductor burst into fits of giggles. “Ahh, still snarky till the bitter end now, are we? I like that attitude. I know we will have our work cut out for us, but I will enjoy every minute of your suffering. Make no mistake, you will eventually give us what we desire, but I am offering you one last chance to come clean and make this easier on yourself. ”
After about a minute of being on the receiving end of a dirty look from her captor, the woman decided to break the awkward silence.
“Very well, just know that you brought this on yourself. Since we will be here for a while, I deem it appropriate for us to get acquainted. Yes, those goons that roughed you up back there are allegiant to Innovative Online Industries. In other words, they are former employees who are livid that they lost their jobs and livelihood due to the actions of people such as yourselves. Have you no shame taking away job security and lifetime pensions from those who have mouths to feed or bills to pay? As for me, I personally oversaw the Oology Department as a personal aide to Nolan Sorrento himself, who is languishing in federal prison thanks to your ruthless employers, where some of the fellows who you met worked and let’s say you are better of here than in their clutches. Although, if you prefer, I can hand you over to them , but be warned that they are dying to tear into you like a pack of ravenous hounds.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Boy, do you love to hear yourself yammer on. Is annoying me enough to divulge the information a go-to tactic of yours? Well, I got news for you, woman. It isn’t gonna work on me. No wonder the Suxorz still suck.”
The woman’ s icy blue eyes narrowed in a menacing way. “If I were you, I’d watch my tongue if you appreciate it enough to keep it. There are other ways to get you to communicate if you won’t use your tongue. ”
The man with the Siberian hat, who had maintained silence all this time, leaned over and whispered in his boss’s ear. She smirked and nodded before turning back to him.
“Well, it is time to let Billiam do his job. Before IOI’s fall from grace, he was a consultant who dealt with anti-espionage and anti-subversive operations within IOI and was at his peak during the Halliday Egg Hunt fiasco. While his colleagues were out of a job, I personally decided to keep him around and bought his full loyalty. Now without further adieu, I’ll let him get his hands wet doing what he does best. I will enjoy seeing him break you until you inevitably give us what we want. Seeing how long you last will be far more entertaining than watching reruns of Friends and Suits.”
As Billiam retrieved a syringe and prepared a vial filled with an incandescent purple liquid, Ethan closed his eyes and prepared for a painful night ahead. He had desperately prayed that the panic signal he had sent from his phone had reached the ears of GSS. Perhaps someone could rescue him soon and cut his pain short. In the meantime, he would have to endure all he could and try to stay as conscious for as long as he could. Or maybe unconsciousness would be a gift that would deliver him from this living hell. Those thoughts swirled in the fugitive’s mind before the first scream left his lips.
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