The Mind Hack: Human testing

A Chapter by Peter

Our heroes become the subject

Chapter 1

It is a dark lonely night for Tolbert tonight, he sits in front of his computer building a character, the character creation is great and very dynamic. He selects features and colours customising the appearance of his character. ‘Hmmm this time I will be an alethic blond,’ Tolbert muses to himself as he hits the accept button and the game starts. The game starts and Tolbert is strolling around town looking for more monsters to kill, he sees several other people, Tolbert chuckles at a busty red head walking down the street in bikini armour, carrying a broadsword.
"Hey what's up?" Tolbert speaks into the microphone, sending his voice into cyber space.
"Hey," comes a husky reply. Yep totally a dude. No self respecting girl would look like that. He’s a little concerned that she would fall over from triple E breasts, but the physics engine in the game is a little off. A roar is heard down the street, a large green monster is beating its chest at us under the streetlight about a half a block away.
"Sweet, a greeny," the husky red head observes, "Can you help me with this one, mate? been trying for one of them, for about 3 hours."
"Sure," he replies. Tolbert quickly adds the red head to his games friends list. Before drawing his rifle. “Let’s get started.”
The red head runs forward sword drawn, and starts screaming into the microphone. He crouches down and aims at the head of the monster and fire off a single shot. The bullet flies passed the red head and hits the monster in the head right between the eyes. The monster is dazed and starts charging Tolbert. As the gap closes between the monster and the red head, he starts swinging his sword, and slices off one of the monsters six arms. The arm drops to the ground and the monster continues to barrel passed the red head. Tolbert curses and reloads aiming up for another shot, it rings out, smack between the eyes. The monster is dazed for a bit shakes its head and starts another charge towards Tolbert.
"Run!" Screams the red head. Tolbert glances up from his scope and the monster is nearly on top of him. Tolbert stands up and bolts away, his long legs eating up the distance. The ground is hard underneath his feet as he sprints away. Fear rises up in him as he looks over his shoulder and the monster reaches him and with two hands picks up his lean frame and like a rag doll, beats the ground with him. With each hit the sickening crunch of bones and the splatter of blood drowns out the rest of the world.
Everything goes black. Tolbert sits up screaming, ‘I am not on the streets of New York but in my bed,’ Tolbert thinks to himself. A cold sweat runs down his spine. The room is darkly lit with only the light from the moon coming through the window. He breathes a sigh of relief. His computer is on standby on the desk in the corner. All is fine. He lies back down into his bed and goes to sleep. He has work tomorrow. The bed sheets are a little sticky from sweat, but he soon falls into a dreamless slumber.

Striker was bored he had the set up but no motivation to use it. Everything was in its place perfectly within reach if needed. Loneliness pulled at his heart as surfed the web looking for a distraction. What normally worked wasn't. An add with a red head doing something provocative flashed on the side of the screen. It was a little banner add. Striker looked at the add with disgust. He went from the page really quickly and searched for combat game he hadn't already crushed. He sighed as he looked forlornly over the results and moved to the next page. Right down the bottom of the third page a monster killing genre game caught his attention. As he read the description, he smiled to himself. It wasn't what he normally played but the reviews seemed to say that it mixed martial arms with firearms quite nicely. Striker downloaded the game and installed it. As he went through the game log in screen he thought of the red head that had teased him on that far away page. So to get his own back he recreated her here on this game. Once completed, he then threw the proportions all out as a cruel joke to the gaming communities’ objectification of women.
The game play was simple and elegant, Striker quickly became proficient with his blades and went out hunting. He was dropped off into the stark contrast that the game provided, dark and destroyed New York. He appreciated the jarring sense of loss and the familiar as he walked down an avenue and carefully kept an eye out for the invading monsters. A few other players are in the game but most ignore him. Obviously not appreciating the joke. Striker checked his objectives and see that the first monster he wanted was a greeny not sure exactly what they look like, he straps the broadsword onto his back and his skin pricks as the cool metal slaps onto his back. That was odd striker thought. He moves forward and the cool metal of the broadsword becomes a counterpoint to the bouncing of his character’s breasts. He chuckles to himself, no wonder this game got great ratings it was like he was in the game itself, feeling rather than watching and imagining. His laughter attracts the attention of a small monster. The monster was bipedal and had two mouths and was covered completely in black fur. As they stare at each other Striker draws the broadsword and prepares to charge the creature. He is pre-empted by the black creature as it yells a guttural gurgle and charges him. Shocked he smiles to himself and tenses waiting for just the right moment to strike. The creature closes, still gurgling and it opens both its mouths and a putrid stench assaults Striker. He feels a little green as the smell is like that of rancid meet and puke. Striker pushes the feeling of hurling aside and swings the sword. He hits the black monster square in the upper mouth and sheers off the top of its head. The monster stops mid stride and collapses to the ground brain and blood showering Striker. He lifts the sword in both hands and laughs mightily, blood and brain dripping off the sword and his skin.
Moving off Striker begins to search for another monster. He turns the corner and sees what seems to be a cowboy, Stetson hat, leather jacket and flared trousers with even the spurs, the only thing that is unusual about this cowboy is the 50. Calibre sniper rifle on his back. He chuckles to himself this person is a walking cliché. 'He he for real?,' Striker asks himself. Until a greeting comes over the sound system. The cowboy had turned at the sound of his footfalls.
"What's up?" the cowboy calls out.
Striker chuckles to himself then replies, "hi."
A roar comes down from the street. A six-foot monster had heard them also and sounded like it was saying hi too. Striker and the cowboy turn to face the monster. The monster was six feet tall and glowing a faint green from his six arms, it had a small head with only a small mouth.
"Sweet a greeny," Striker exclaims "I have been looking for one of them for 3 hours." he exaggerates, hoping to elicit some help from the cowboy.
"Sure," the cowboy agrees unlimbering his rifle and beginning to aim.
Striker runs forward sword drawn. As striker closes the gap a sharp crack rings out across the street. The monster is hit in the head, an obvious choice, however it just seems to aggravate the beast. Striker raises the broadsword above his head as distance shrinks. The monster now quite angry turns and starts running towards them. As striker gets close enough he swings his sword in an expert slice, slices off one of the monsters’ arms. however, the monster in a rage just brushes passed striker and keeps running at the cowboy. The cowboy noticed this and fires off another shot at the head and hits, the monster right between the eyes the monster now blinded closes the gap and stretches forth a hand and grabs the cowboys and lift him off the ground effortlessly. His rage now having found the object of his hatred begins to beat the ground with the cowboy. Sicking crunching and squishing sounds can be heard as the cowboys dies. Striker with blood all over his skin and bikini armour, can't do anything but watch in horror as cowboy dies. Strikers tried to call out to the cowboy to run but to no avail. leaving the glowing green arm where it fell next to him striker charges back towards the monster and with a mighty thrust embeds the broadsword into the creatures back the sword passes easily through it piercing the heart and the monster drops the cowboy and falls to its knees and dies in a pool of its own blood. Striker climbs over the body of the monster and his eyes land of the broken and clearly dead body of the cowboy, arms and legs bent in unnatural angles bones sticking out and the most telling the cowboys head was caved in. Striker reaches out and grabs the broadsword and pulls it out of the monster. Covered in blood Striker walks over to the cowboys’ body and says a little prayer.

On a large screen, the image of the dead cowboy and the busty red head praying is displayed. The light of the computer screen, the only light in the room. A man sitting in front of the screen looks up at the two figures and frowns. On a screen to the left a simple green line of text that draws the mans attention as it scrawls across. He speaks clearly into the microphone, "Gaby be nice."
The line of text stops and then continues.
"Better," He comments.
Another line of texts appears, he chuckles to himself.
"Are we already ready for human testing?" he questions, musing to himself.
A line of text appears indicating the affirmative.
"Do you have some subjects?" he continues raising an eyebrow.
The screen in front of him flickers and a face appears on it seemingly ethereal, and smiles sinisterly.
“Well if you think we are ready for human trials, I guess we can proceed,” the man muses more to himself than to Gaby.
“So what do we need in test subjects?” he asks.
Gaby responds with a list of traits.
He leans forward and stares at the screen.
He raises his eyebrows as he peruses the list, “we can’t get all of that in one person!”
Gaby responds with a single query “how many can I have?”
“Hmmm I think you could pull this off with two people”, he responds.
Gaby queries that asking if she can have three.
Green words fly across the screen, and then scroll down.
“Yes that person would work quite nicely” he commented.
Gaby keeps comparing data to the people that have played Monster Hunt.
“Yes, yes he is perfect, frequently falls into the AI’s traps and is in the local area. Pity we don’t have more power for the projectors,” he mutters more to himself than anything, “this other guy … the one that keeps showing up at the end would be a remarkable control subject”
Gaby stops for a moment and then queries, if she could draw him into the test area, could she use him.
“Hmmmm, I guess you could, …. But how would you do it?”
Gaby doesn’t respond just places the two character profiles on the screen next to each other. And marks them as subject alpha and beta.