“It is just below a regular citizen’s yearly stipend of a hundred fifty thousand yuan under Universal Basic Income,” Roger said.
Hi, uh, Gigi. Mario Bart here. Look, this is going to sound crazy, but I was watching the feed last night on the raid of a terrorist base in New Sonora in the gameOperation Bounce House.The feed was from some drop troopers who had tried to jump into the base before they got pasted on the way down, and I got a good view of the entire base, which was really a farm. I cross-referenced the image with some of the satellite maps from before all the base stuff was built all around it, and I couldn’t help but recognize that barn with that distinctive roof with the platform on top with the telescope. And then I cross-referenced those images with the screenshots I took from some of our private shows. (I’m sorry. I know that’s not allowed, but I did it anyway.) And I can tell it’s the same place. I can also tell the fields behind your house are the same fields as that last show we did.
And then I looked at your most recent blog posts and your location.
Look. You have friends here on Earth. I am a member of a protest group called Persimmon Intergalactic. I told them that I knew someone on New Sonora, and they told me that they think you might have messaged them under a different name, but they ignored the message because they thought it was fake. Apparently, you had attached images that were already circulating around, and they didn’t believe you. They said they’re going to message you now.
If it’s worth anything, these guys are legit. I don’t know if they can actually do anything to help, but we’re all on your side. Please keep safe. Hopefully when everything gets back to normal we can have another session of ho’ing with Gigi.
~Mario Bart
“Wow,” I said, upon reading the message. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t read that last sentence.”
Roger clicked. “Mario Bart’s real name is Mario Bartholomew, and he lives in a city called Turin. He works as a security analyst for a food processing company. He is married with three children, and there is no indication that this email is a subterfuge.”
“Did you know he was married?” I asked Lulu.
“I am not going to talk to you about my clients,” she said. “He’s very sweet. I believe he’s genuine.”
A strange anger suddenly hit me. “Yet he was watching the feed? Maybe he wasn’t participating, but he was watching.”
“He’s also a member of the Persimmon International or Intergalactic or whatever it’s called group,” Lulu said defensively. “They’re the ones trying to stop this. Maybe he was doing research.”
Persimmon Intergalactic was a human rights nonprofit that had sued to have the game stopped altogether, and they’d been laughedout of court. Still, they were the same ones who’d managed to force the government to call Apex to testify next week.
I grunted. “Maybe. Did you get the letter from them?”
Lulu nodded and hit a button.
This email had come into a different one of Lulu’s accounts.
Subject: re: Please help us in New Sonora. A message from a citizen under attack
Hello, Lulu.
Thank you for the letter. I am sorry for the slow reply on this. If you are who we think you are, you should have also received a message from someone named Mario on a different platform. I don’t want to give away too much information.
Tonight, one point five kilometers south of ground zero, you and I can have a short meeting. Yes, you may send a representative. Unfortunately, it would have to occur during the festivities. Good luck.
Also, Lulu, are your online listed measurements accurate? A combatant as petite as yourself, as long as you appear unarmored and unarmed and not in the vicinity of any of those dog robots, is one hundred percent invisible to the censorship AI that controls what the players see. It would completely erase you from the feed because it would think you’re a child.
See you tonight.
B
That was it. The letter wasn’t signed with a name. Only the letter “B” followed by a symbol of a lion’s head that was vaguely familiar.
“After the email was received, we examined the security on Lulu’s account. It does not appear as if this email is a spoof, though it’s quite possible it’s still a trick,” Roger said. “Something designed to lure Lulu away from base. If it is, I do not believe it is something originating from Apex Command since they do not need to resort to such tactics. There is a possibility that this is a legitimate party attempting to assist us.”
“What is this lion symbol?” I asked. “I think I’ve seen it before.”
“You have,” Roger said. An image of a mech popped up on my bracelet.
“Two nights ago during the battle on the Gonzales farm, there was an unaffiliated player driving an Attenuator armed with a shotgun arm and a sword over their back. The pommel of the sword is this same symbol.”
“So this guy is someone who raided us?” I asked, anger rising again.
“Possibly,” Roger said, “though it turns out this particular player is female with the gamer tag Bastet. I have replayed the feed of the fight, and Bastet did engage with the RMI troops, but something very curious happened during the missile attack. This was something I did not notice until I rewatched carefully.”
