“Oh. My. God.”
Isaac didn’t know who was talking. He did not have time to look. His mouth was too busy trying to catch flies. That had to be the single most impressive thing he’d seen yet with this game.
Morgan shook his shoulder, forcing him out of his shocked reverie. Turning to her, he could see that she had the same wide-eyed look he knew he had. “Did he just blow up a planet?”
Isaac took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, he did.” And then it hit him. “Holy shit, he just blew up a planet. This is going to be huge! When people find out about this, they’re all going to want to have a go! We’re going to need to get with the AIs to figure out something to keep people from getting crazy with things!”
“Chill out, boss! He already had planet killers. Most people understand that using things like that isn’t something to be done lightly. And the ones who don’t already aren’t allowed anywhere near the tech to do so.”
Isaac took a breath, and nodded at the GM that spoke up. “Thanks, Phillips, I needed that.” Turning back to Morgan, he grinned. “All right, minor freakout handled.”
Morgan just shook her head. “So, what happened? I only came in at the end. Why did our favorite beta tester blow up a planet?”
Isaac grinned. “In a word? Space zombies.” He chuckled at Morgan’s expression, and said, “No, really. Apparently, there were space zombies that started infecting this planet. The planetary governor was corrupt and in bed with the corporations, which tried to cover everything up to prevent their stock price from tanking, but that only meant that the entire planet and all the orbitals got overrun.”
Looking back at the feed, he said, “A second, nearby world was under attack, but Mollen sent in some of his Marines to clear them out, and they appear to have rescued the majority of the population there. Of course, since that world primarily existed as nothing more than resource extraction for the corporation that screwed things up, who knows what will come of that. I can’t see the corporation being too happy at the losses they suffered.”
Morgan wasn’t listening. She was scrolling back through the data, until she got to the crew of the Atlanta checking out the ship. She entered her authorization code to review private messages, and frowned. “Honestly, using the name of video games as codewords? Even if they weren’t the most recognizable games in the series, that’s just asking for trouble!”
Isaac shrugged. “They’ll be fine. Even if the messages are included in the stream that gets broadcast, it is not enough for the lawyers to get involved. I am, however, impressed that he decided to have a zombie apocalypse plan, in a science fiction game.”
Shaking her head, Morgan looked back at him. “Right, the zombies. Where the hell did they come from, and am I going to have to start putting PR spin on things?”
“Well, the best answer I can come up with would be to draw a phrase from the 40K fans, and simply blame ‘warp-fuckery’. Some nameless horror attacked an Ihm ship in chaotic space, and left the infection behind. Zombies happened, as zombies do, and because there were no nomads on board, no one had a plan for containing them until things spread out of control.”
“You mean, like the Legion Plague.”
“Yeah, except that fucker was trying to keep things quiet for as long as possible, so he deliberately slowed the rate of infections. The zombies did not care. And the corporations were too busy trying to cover things up and throwing half-trained corpsec at the problem that they not only didn’t fix it, but made it worse. That’s what happens when you treat a zombie outbreak like you do riots.”
“Right. So, going back to the zombies. Is this a one-off, or do I need to start prepping survival horror spin for areas of the game, now? I don’t want to be caught off guard.”
Isaac considered for a moment. “Not sure. Probably just a randomly generated event that the AI put in. But if it happened once, it could happen again. I’ll get with the AI in charge, and start coming up ways to add in preparedness plans. Start it with infectious disease outbreaks, I guess. If a quarantine had been put in place early enough, the planet could have been saved.”
Morgan nodded. “All right. And what about the zombies, did blowing up the planet take care of the problem?”
Isaac looked to the data feeds. “Yeah, seems like the zombies had mostly moved to several equatorial cities, where the last holdouts of the living were before they got overwhelmed. So, something like 98% of the zombies were atomized in the initial impacts. The rest, well, we’re talking about BIG explosions. Nothing survived. Even the area on the poles were broken up into a spray of material with the largest being the size of a bus.”
“So, the zombies are gone?”
“Yeah, unless someone else runs into the source of these things, then they’re gone, for now. And, yes, I already checked the logs, and none of them made it out of the system before Black Star got there.”
“OK. In that case, I don’t see a need to go into it, too much. The players already have a good handle on things.”
“Well, if you’re concerned, you can always check up on Mollen when we have that meeting with him.” When Morgan raised an eyebrow at him, he grinned. “Remember, regarding the psychic wave? I got word from the tech division that the medical people have gone over what happened, thanks to the data from his medical pod. They freaked out a bit when he went into what was basically a coma for thirty-six real-world hours. The doctor in charge wants to be in on the meeting, and speak with him, personally.”
“All right, I’ll set things up.”
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Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Memoirs of a Supervillain - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R9NWS8J
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354XBook I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y
City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF
Omnibus 1 - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FBPF6HR
SCI Stories (Dark Supervillain story):
Book 1 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RL93VQN
Winterborn (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):
Book 1 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082S3S3K8
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