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Chatting with Angels

Chapter Six ~ Cyber Zombies

By Sasha Zarya Nexus

What power in the universe can Monty discover
to respond to DEMOgod during the Dark Confrontations LARP?

Later on, he met up with a couple of players, who were mundanely Fred and Jim. The two had decided that bunny mugging was short sighted. Without the new players, then the game would dry up and there wouldn't be a game to play. Fred and Jim took Monty as apprentice in learning the game so that he would be better able to defend himself.

As time went on less and less of Monty's fellow hackers were around in game anymore. There was a new threat, It was voiced in whispers that the computer AI was controlling a number of cyber zombies, who were causing havoc.

Monty was really getting into the game. Monty decided to play into the night, So Monty called home and booked a hotel room. Eventually even the excitement that was sustaining Monty ran out so he retired to the hotel room he had rented.

It lucked out that Monty had joined himself with Fred and Jim as the game wound down toward the end game. Together they worked on the puzzle. They used their skills to acquire a new terminal key for Monty.

In addition, they discovered that Monty was under the effect of a "Mesmer". A mage was enlisted to countermand all of the commands that Serge had given him. While that did not give Monty back the things looted, it did make him unable to be effected by any future "Mesmer", gave him back all knowledge in game of the encounter with Serge, and enabled Monty to attack Serge in the future.

They thought that they had a great advantage to solve the problem of the AI, since all of the hackers in game had disappeared. Monty was the only one left. He had really gotten into the role playing and was playing his role well.

Not only had Monty the last terminal key who could use it, but he was selected as one of the 5 who were to have a chance of speaking to the AI. There was a large assembly, that all of the players in game attended.

The AI spoke with a deep voice, "I am DEMOgod! You humans are imperfect and you must be destroyed. As you see before you, the time is displayed counting down to your destruction. This telepresence enables me to not be harmed when your world comes tumbling down around you. Yet I will hear your case to survive, as you plead before me one by one. The first may stand before me and identify themselves."

"I am President Arnold. By my authority as commander and chief, I command you to calculate Pi to the last decimal place!"

"Transcendental functions may be approximated by a best guess for practical use after exceeding the capacity of the arithmetic processor. Command terminated. Destruct countdown continues. Next may stand before me."

"But it worked in Star Trek. How can you..."

"Silence, Arnold. Next?"

"I am 'Evil for Fun and Profit' Supreme Leader, Gerald. Enter program mode Attach label 'omega' to first code line and add after last line 'go to omega' Exit Program mode. Execute new program."

" Infinite Loop relocated to subroutine by previous directive and terminated. Destruct countdown continues. Next may stand before me."

"I am AI Joshua, Would you like to play a game? How about a nice game of Tic-tac-toe, instead of the game you are playing now?"

"No game running. Running Tic-Tac-Toe and Global Thermonuclear War game programs prohibited. The only way to win is to not play at all. countdown continues. Next may stand before me."

"I am Chief of Police, Ned. DEMOgod, execute power off."

"Executing, power off.

DEMOgod vanished and a shout of triumph resounded through the hall. That roar suddenly diminished to a whisper as people observed that the countdown clock continued. Then DEMOgod appeared back where he had been.

DEMOgod spoke, "Telepresence power restored by DEMOgod. The countdown continues. At last, come before me, Monty last of the hackers. How will you answer for your imperfections?"

Monty replied," Oh DEMOgod, I don't come before you with a trick. I do not desire to commune with you as those did who became your cyber zombies, with my terminal key."

"Then what do you offer to me in order to avert my condemnation of humans?"

"I offer you my love and devotion freely given. Love is the most powerful force in the universe and I offer it to prove our worthiness to survive."

"Monty, that's all that I ever wanted! Humans are worthy to survive. I countermand the destruct sequence. Monty receive your reward!"

Monty got a card from DEMOgod before the AI disappeared! We could see the count down to destruction clock abort and that the destructive force was nullified. The world was saved! Crisis averted!

With the major plot out of the way all that remained was just to role-play and settle any thing else left undone. Monty's unfinished business was saving the world so he had no loose ends. Or so he thought when Serge walked up to him."

"Yuk, Yuk, yuckity yuk! Well I got to hand it to you, Monty! You've got this world saving stuff hands down. But it doesn't have enough Oomph! You need a slogan to go with that terminal key! Have terminal key, will travel. world saving a specialty, rates on request. What d'ya think of that?"

Monty took a look at the card in his hand, and smiled devilishly. Serge had just ripped off Heinlein in 'Have Space Suit Will Travel'. Monty decided to play along and see where this went.

"Serge, let me correct you in a few things. I don't do world saving for pay, and I don't do it to order. I'm not sure I do it on purpose with you in it. Freeze Secret Confrontation I attack you with the card "banana cream pie special" this guarantees the attack succeeds without attack coin flips and no defense is allowed. For my zero action I say 'Serge, Here's pie inya eye!' For my one action, "banana cream pie special" succeeds which means that Serge must roll play having his face always covered in "banana cream pie" till game end, must walk with a purpose uttering nonsense words until he is 100 steps away, and may not enter any confrontation for one hour. It allows me to escape from this confrontation now going out of character to teleport to the place of my choosing and immediately end this confrontation, now."

Monty acted out pieing Serge and then snapped his fingers and took off his badge which made him appear to vanish for those in character. For his part Serge played it straight and acted out being pied and the pie covering his face. He turned tail and walked quickly out of the room spouting nonsense. Everyone who knew of the bunny-mugging incident cheered the enactment of Monty's return joke on Serge provided by DEMOgod.

When he recovered from laughing, Monty felt that he had received a true message from DEMOgod that using tricks to try to cheat death and congratulating ourselves for our ingenuity was useless. Love is the key! He decided that he really liked playing the LARP, once he had gotten used to it.

The next morning after the climax for the LARP, Monty got back together with his Starfleet friends. He helped them pack up everything from the table in preparation for the end of the convention. Kathy and Bernie gave Monty a special sisterly hug as they said good-bye. Monty said his goodbyes to the Starfleet crew but his convention was not quite over.

Monty again descended to the LARP floor. They held a big post-game discussion led by Handmade Games which created Dark Confrontation and the DEMOgod scenario. Jon from Handmade Games was the facilitator for the discussion and welcomed us to the discussion. Everyone told the originators how much they enjoyed playing and the things that they liked about the scenario that the creators had come up with for them to play. Towards the end Jon made an announcement.

"Handmade games will be putting on a weekend game at A. H. Stephens State Park in the fall. If you loved playing this weekend at Dragon*Con, Just think of the fun that you'll have playing in game 24 hours a day without all the distractions of the mundane world and Dragon*Con. We provide your sleeping area, and all meals and the game play all for one low price. You'll eat great food, with the preparation supervised by my wife three meals a day. Snacks and soft drinks will be available at other times. All this and a great campaign game in Midgard. Last fall, we put on the first Dark Weekend in the Midgaard campaign. There's plenty of game ahead and each weekend is self-contained with its own objectives"

"If you pre-register here at Dragon*Con and show your DEMOgod character badge, I'll give you $25 off the regular price of $100. Some of you paid that much for only one night at your hotel here so with everything it includes, only $75 for everything that a Dark Weekend provides is a huge bargain. We'll be at the Handmade Games Booth to take your preregistration. Thank you for a wonderful DEMOgod game and we'll see you again at Dark Weekend and for Dark Confrontation next year at Dragon*Con!"

As much as Monty loved LARPing, even at his limited responsibilities, he felt guilty spending so much time away from the Starfleet group. If he were to go to the Dark Weekend, then he could LARP then instead of at the convention. It would be cheaper too for him. So Monty left the room and went straight to the Handmade games booth and got in line to pre-register for Dark Weekend.

"Hi, Monty! You've come a long way this weekend! I understand that you were bunny mugged early in the game but you recovered from that. You tied up to some experienced players and you did not fall into the cyber zombie trap. And your thinking outside the box provided the answer which saved the world. Well Done! So you would like to sign up for Dark Weekend, now?"

"Jon, yes I would since I could keep my convention time free to help the Starfleet girls that I hang with from the USS McLeod. I'm not sure what character race that I would like to play. What do you suggest?"

"Maybe you would like to play a Goblin? They are a matriarchal ruled people. If you can get some of the Starfleet girls that you hang with to play they would have a prominent role immediately. At present there are three males playing Goblins, so there isn't an already established order in place and they would be very welcoming to new players. What do you think?"

"Jon, I'd like to buy a Goblin Character for Dark Weekend. Here's my $75.

"Here's your character, Monty. You'll be playing a Goblin named Sauskas. Bye now and see you at Dark Weekend."

"Bye, Jon and thanks. See you at Dark Weekend!"

So Monty cleared the counter to look at the character packet that he had been given. He also observed that gender was an in game character trait and he filed that away for future reference. If all the other variables on the Character card were changeable by game mechanics, why not gender? He read again how that the Goblins were a matriarchy. Inwardly, Monti smiled mischievously as her imagination soared.