Chapter Five

Over the next couple of weeks Janet and I developed ‘Swat Raid 2 – Terrorists’. This was to be a similar format to the original game but with a much tougher opponent who had automatic weapons and we also included hostages, some with bombs strapped to them. It was going to be a little harder to code but doable.

We also went into the city and researched public buildings, finding a library that had lots of rooms and corridors. We spoke to the management and they agreed to allow us access after-hours to film the interior. I discussed it with Butch and we created a cart that had four cameras on it; one forward, one each side and one pointing backwards. It would be pushed down a corridor with a small electric motor and the resulting pictures could be synchronised into the game to show an actual place.

Over the next few weeks we filmed the entire building and all of the rooms in this fashion. In the game there would be a point at each intersection where the gamer could select which way they would go. There would also be an option to backtrack. It was going to be several steps higher than the first game which was now on the market to much acclaim from gamers and attacks from the old guard as being too bloodthirsty. Wait until they see the new one as we had added a minus score when the shooter kills a civilian but that gets converted to a plus score if they kill one with a bomb, of course, allowing that the exploding bomb doesn’t kill the shooter and end the game.

It then took us two years to perfect the game into a workable one, during which time Sony sent us the specs of a new platform to be released in 2000, called – you guessed it – Playstation 2. It was decided to save the new game for the new platform which had much better graphics planned. In the meantime we made changes to the original game to include some of the new options and called it Swat Raid – Code Red.

I stayed at the cabin the whole time, swapping the camper for a Jeep so I could go back and forth to the main office. I also bedded Roland several times until a newer and prettier girl came along. In early 1999 I got a message from my father to tell me that my mother had died from a heart attack and I was asked to go to Phoenix for the funeral. I drove the Jeep and stayed at a hotel before attending the church. My father did not recognise me as I was better endowed and far more assured than I was when I had left. I gave him a hug and said that I may not be the girl that had driven away but I still was his daughter – close to the truth!

The funeral was a sombre affair for some but my eyes remained dry. At the wake afterwards I met up with some of my old college friends who seemed to lose interest in me when I didn’t want to listen to the local gossip. The only thing I thought interesting was when they told me that Hector had contracted AIDS and was now very sick. My father gave me a few bits that the original Shirley had left behind as well as some of my mothers’ better jewellery that she had not designated for anyone else. I thanked him and said that I would cherish it. He asked me how I was doing and I told him that I was in a very interesting and responsible job and earning good money so he was happy at that.

Next day I went to the college and sought out my old computer lecturer. He congratulated me on how I looked now but said he was unhappy that I had not completed the course as he could not award me with any marks for graduation. I gave him a copy of the tweaked Swat Raid as well as a copy of the beta version of the new game, telling him that the ‘Gamesmistress’ in the credits was me. I also left him a voucher to redeem on the new PlayStation when it was released. He wrote to me via the company after he played the original game and sent me the completed graduation papers. After he had watched the new game in 2000 he sent me an honours award along with a note to say that his two sons were now addicted to the game.

Later in 1999 the Columbine massacre occurred with thirteen dead and thirty two injured. This was followed by the Atlanta incident with twelve dead and thirteen injured and the aliens were really happy as it looked like the system was working. I could say they were over the moon but that was an everyday occurrence for them in reality. The plan, as far as they were concerned, was coming together. In 2000 the new platform was released and our game was in the top ten. The company had not even bothered to produce a PC version; the sale of over a hundred million of the original Playstation had shown them that we had the inside track on the future. We organised a big gaming party at the library where we had fifty of the towns best gamers trying to sweep the place clean and save as many hostages as they could. No-one was able to complete the task and this alone made the game very popular.

After 2000 we had a couple of hundred working on our games. Butch was now in charge of the section that developed scenery and figures with total reality the goal. Geoff and Terry had over a hundred programmers between them and Janet and I were in charge of R&D for new games. We were also the liaison between the company and Sony so we jetted to Japan on a regular basis. We had set ourselves a mountain to climb as we wanted to produce a game that could be played by multiple gamers at the same time by cable link to each controller as well as working towards a game that could be played on the increasingly available internet. It was a big task but, thankfully, Sony had told us that the next platform was more than five years away.

It was a strange turn of events but the Pentagon got in touch with us in 2002 to ask us if we would like to tender for a contract to supply war games software for simulations and training so I was in a party heading for Washington once again. With my previous knowledge of the military mind I was able to steer our negotiating team into a winning position and we returned to Silicon Valley with a letter of intent from the government, almost as good as a blank cheque. The really good thing about it was that I was working on a new game called ‘Invasion’ which would be played on-line, in real time once the internet caught up with me, and the gamer would take part in the D Day landings and work through France to Berlin (if they lived that long). It would allow the player to take time out as being rested but the game would continue and you may get back into it to find yourself dead or a prisoner. Every player had an individual part and made differences to the outcome as they played. Doing a war game scenario would be similar but with modern equipment. I had around ten years to perfect both.

2000and 2001 was a bit quiet on the random shooting scene, not that there were not many, just that the toll seemed low as far as the aliens were concerned. Santee in 2001 was a stand-out with two dead and thirteen injured but everything else was single digit results. 2002 was better with Grundy and Tucson with a total of seven dead and three injured. The aliens reported that we had a good result in Erfurt, Germany where sixteen died and another ten were injured. Beyond that it was minor events and 2003 and 2004 was much the same. I told the aliens that the gamers were so involved with the game that they did not think about going out to shoot anyone and to be patient as their time would surely come. I was shown right in 2005 with Red Lake and ten dead with seven injured.

My personal life took a bit of a change during this time. Janet was going to Japan and I was tasked with going to Washington. It was on one of these visits that I met Colonel Jaden Clarke (USAF), one of the advisers to the General Staff. Jaden was also on the short list for the space program as he was also a qualified engineer specialising in propulsion systems. We hit it off immediately and were married in 2004. As I was now able to work from home and only go to the office for meetings, we bought a house to be near the Ames Research facility as well as Edwards Air Force Base. It was a blast as when we both were needed in Washington he would fly me in a two seat jet fighter. The only problem being that you could not carry much luggage so we rented an apartment and had our Pentagon clothing there.

One evening, while I was outside our house, talking to the aliens, I asked them if they could impart some knowledge of their propulsion method to someone here and, as they considered that no-one from earth would ever go into deep space, coupled with the fact that some of the items needed were even rare in Alpha Centauri, they agreed to do so.

The following weekend I asked Jaden if he would take me for a flight in his light aircraft and that I would take a picnic if he would land it at one to the remote strips that dotted the Baja. After we had landed I told him that he was going to fly to the moon and he thought we were going to have sex on the blanket but I then contacted the aliens with my communicator and we were both transported to the spaceship. When he woke up I was there to calm him down before he saw the aliens. I told him that one of them would speak to him and when he could understand what it said to nod.

Marianne G 2020