Armada (10 page)

“Zack!” Cruz shouted when we made eye contact. “What's happening? This is crazy!”

Diehl shoved him aside and tried to lunge in my direction, his arms flailing like a drowning man. “You lucky bastard!” he cried. “Tell them to take us, too!”

Then I found myself inside the shuttle, in the jump seat directly across from Ray and his two suited companions. The hatch slid closed, silencing the roar of the crowd. Following Ray's example, I buckled my safety harness across my chest and pulled it tight.

As soon as he saw that I was safely strapped in, Ray gave a thumbs-up to the lone pilot sitting up in the cockpit, who was wearing an honest-to-God Earth Defense Alliance uniform. For a few absurd seconds, I caught myself appreciating the attention to detail this dude had obviously put into his cosplay. Then he completed the shuttle's ignition sequence and fired its engines.

As we ascended, my internal monologue went something like this:
That isn't some
guy
cosplaying at SobruCon IV, Zack
.
To me, he looks like a real-life EDA pilot, in a real-life EDA uniform, who is currently piloting the real-life EDA shuttle you appear to be aboard. So, let me see now—multiply by two and carry the one—hey, that's really weird, but if my math is correct then THE EARTH DEFENSE ALLIANCE IS FUCKING REAL!

I pressed my face to the curved window beside my seat and gazed down at my peers and teachers, still gathered in front of the school far below, already shrinking to the size of ants as we zoomed upward in a surreal blur of speed.

But when I closed my eyes, it didn't even feel like we were moving. No g-forces were pushing me back into my seat. The shuttle wasn't even shimmying or vibrating from turbulence as it climbed through the atmosphere.

Then I remembered—according to
Armada
's backstory, all Earth Defense Alliance ships were outfitted with reverse-engineered alien technology, including a Trägheitslosigkeit Field Generator, which created a small inertia-cancellation field around a spacecraft, by “harnessing the aligned spin of gyromagnetic particles to alter the curvature of space-time” or something. I'd always assumed this was just more phlebotinum-powered pseudoscientific handwavium, concocted by Chaos Terrain's writers to make their game's impossibly kick-ass outer space dog fights seem mildly plausible, just as
Star Trek
and
Star Wars
used “inertial dampers” and “inertial compensators” so that Han Solo and Captain Kirk didn't get squished into heroic jelly every time they made the jump to light/warp speed.

I clamped my eyes shut again. It still felt like I was sitting in a car idling at a red light. So much for Sir Isaac Newton.

A dense layer of clouds obscured the stunning view, and I finally managed to tear my eyes away from the window. I turned to face Ray. He was still smiling. His two stoic companions remained stonily silent and expressionless.

“Nice jacket,” Ray said. But unlike when Knotcher had commented about it, there was no sarcasm in his voice. He leaned forward to admire the patches running down both of my sleeves. “I used to have a few of those Activision patches, you know. Not easy to get.”

I stared back at him in disbelief. He was making small talk with me, as if we were still behind the counter at Starbase Ace. As if he hadn't just turned my whole notion of reality upside down and inside out.

I felt a wave of anger. Mild-mannered, middle-aged Raymond Wierzbowski—my employer, close friend, and surrogate father figure—had clearly lied to me about a great many things. The deceitful bastard obviously knew what was going on—and had for quite some time now.

“What the fuck is happening right now, Ray?” I asked, unnerved by the amount of fear in my own voice.

“ ‘Somebody set up us the bomb,' pal,” he quoted. “Now it's time to take off every zig for great justice.”

He chuckled softly. I wanted to sock him in the face. Instead, I started shouting.

“Where did you get an Earth Defense Alliance tactical shuttle? How can this thing even be real? And where is it taking us?”

Before he could answer, I pointed at the two men seated beside him. “Who are those two clowns? For that matter, who the hell are
you,
asshole! Huh?”

“Okay, okay!” Ray said, throwing up his hands. “I'll try to answer your questions—but first you need to take a deep breath and calm down a little bit, all right?”

“Fuck calming down!” I shouted, straining against my safety harness. “And fuck you, too, Ray, you lying sack of shit! Tell me what's going on, or I'll lose it, I swear!”

“Okay,” he said in a soothing voice. “But first, I need you to breathe, Zack.”

He studied my face anxiously. I realized then that I did not, in fact, appear to be breathing. So I took a deep, gasping breath, then exhaled slowly. I felt a little better then, and my breathing began to normalize. Ray nodded, satisfied.

“Good,” he said. “Thank you. Now go ahead and ask your questions again, one at a time, and I'll do my best to answer them, if I can.”

“Where the hell did this shuttle come from? Who built it?”

“Isn't that obvious?” he said. “The Earth Defense Alliance built it.” He nodded at his two companions. “And to answer your earlier question, these two men are EDA field agents, here to ensure your safe transport.”

“No way,” I said. “There's no way the EDA can be real.”

“It's real,” he said. “The Earth Defense Alliance is a top-secret global military coalition formed over four decades ago.”

“Formed to do what? To ‘defend Earth,' I suppose?”

He nodded. “Hence the name.”

“To defend it from what?” I wanted to hear him say it. Out loud.

“From an alien invasion.”

I studied Ray's face for any hint of irony, but his expression was now gravely serious. I glanced at his two companions to gauge their reaction, but they didn't even seem to be listening to our conversation. Both of them had taken out smartphones and were studying their displays.

I looked back at Ray. “An alien invasion? By who? The Sobrukai? Evil humanoid squids from Tau Ceti? You're gonna tell me they're real, too?”

“No, not exactly,” he said. “The Sobrukai are fictional, invented by Chaos Terrain to serve as the alien antagonists in their videogames. But, as you're probably now realizing,
Armada
and
Terra Firma
aren't just games. They are simulators designed for a very specific purpose—to train citizens all over this planet to operate the drones that will defend it.”

“Defend it from who? You just said the Sobrukai aren't real. …”

“They aren't,” he said. “But they're stand-ins for a
real
alien threat, whose existence had to be kept secret until now to prevent global panic.” He gave me an odd smile. “The name Sobrukai is actually a play on the word
sobriquet,
which is just a fancy term for
nickname
. Sneaky, eh?”

A terrible thought occurred to me. “Yesterday morning, I was sure I saw a Glaive Fighter. …”

“That was the real deal,” he said. “You spotted a real enemy scout ship. EDA intel says a bunch of them have been spotted over the past twenty-four hours, all over the world. We think they're conducting surveillance on all of our hard-line intranet nodes—”

“But it looked exactly like a Sobrukai Glaive!”

“Of course it did,” he said. “That's what I'm trying to tell you. Chaos Terrain modeled all of the Sobrukai's forces after our real enemy. They re-created their ships and drones as accurately as possible inside the sim—in the games. To make them as realistic as possible.”

“So these aliens, they really have Glaive Fighters? And Wyverns—”

“And Dreadnaught Spheres, Spider Fighters, Basilisks—they all really exist,” he said. “Chaos Terrain made up those names, but everything else about the enemy's drones in
Armada
is completely accurate. Their appearance, weaponry, maneuverability, tactics, and strategy—all were based on direct observations of our real enemy's forces and technology, made during our previous engagements with them.”

“Previous engagements?” I asked. “How long have we been fighting them? Where are they from? What do they look like? When did they make First Contact? If—”

He held up a hand to cut me off, sensing the hysteria creeping back into my voice.

“I can't tell you any of that yet,” he said. “The information we've gathered on the enemy is still classified.” He checked his watch. “But not for very much longer. You'll be fully briefed as soon as we reach Nebraska.”

“Nebraska,” I said. “What's in Nebraska?”

“A top-secret Earth Defense Alliance base.”

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it again. Then I repeated this process a few more times, until I actually managed to form words again.

“You said the EDA was formed over four decades ago. So we've known this alien invasion was coming for that long?”

He nodded. “Since the mid-seventies,” he said. “That was when the EDA first began using certain elements of pop culture to subliminally prepare the world's population for the invasion. That's why the EDA secretly poured billions into the fledgling videogame industry back then—they recognized its potential military training applications.” He smiled. “They helped get
Star Wars
made back in 1977 for pretty much the same reason.”

“Pardon me?”

Ray held up three fingers—Scout's Honor. “I didn't believe it either, when I first found out. But it's true.
Star Wars
was one of the first movie projects the EDA helped finance, because their think tanks told them its unique subject matter could help the war effort. George Lucas never even found out about it. He always thought Alan Ladd, Jr., deserved all the credit for green-lighting
Star Wars,
but in reality, the EDA put up a large chunk of the budget through a bogus network of film and television financing companies that could never be traced back to—”

“Hold on. You're telling me that
Star Wars
was secretly financed by the Earth Defense Alliance to serve as anti-alien propaganda?”

He nodded. “That's a gross oversimplification, but yeah—more or less.”

I thought about the timeline my father had made in his old journal.

“What about all of the other science fiction movies and shows released over the past forty years?” I asked. “You're telling me they were all created as anti-alien propaganda, too?

“Of course not,” he said. “Not
all
of them. Just certain key properties, like
Star Wars,
which played a key role in the militarization of science fiction films, TV shows, and videogames in the late seventies.
Space Invaders
came out the year after
Star Wars
was released, and humanity has been fighting off videogame aliens ever since. Now you know why. The EDA made sure of it.”

“Bullshit.”

“It's true,” he said. “All of the recent
Star Trek
reboots and
Star Wars
sequels were a key part of the final wave of the EDA's subliminal preparation of the world's population. I doubt that Viacom, Disney, or J. J. Abrams ever knew what was really going on, or who was pulling the strings.”

I was quiet for a long time as I took all of this in.

“Why didn't you ever tell me about any of this?” I finally asked.

He gave me a sad smile. “Sorry about that, Zack,” he said. “It wasn't up to me.”

That suddenly drove it home. I had known this man for over six years, and that entire time he had been lying to me—probably about everything, including his identity.

“Who are you? Is Ray Wierzbowski even your real name?”

“Actually, no,” he said. “My real name is Raymond Habashaw. I borrowed ‘Wierzbowski' from one of the Colonial Marines in
Aliens
.”

“I mentioned that once, and you told me it was a fucking coincidence!”

He shrugged and looked sheepish. It made me want to strangle him.

“I was given a new identity when the EDA stationed me in Beaverton in the first place—to keep an eye on you.”

“To keep an eye on
me
? Why?”

“Why do you think?” he said. “You possess a very rare and valuable talent, Zack. The EDA has been tracking and profiling you ever since you first played a videogame online. That's why I was assigned to watch over you, and to help facilitate your training.” He grinned. “You know, sort of like Obi-Wan, watching over Luke while he was growing up on Tatooine.”

“You're a bold-faced liar like Obi-Wan, too!” I shot back. “That's for sure.”

Ray's smile vanished, and his eyes narrowed.

“And you're being a whiny little bitch, just like Luke!”

The other two EDA agents snickered—they were apparently listening after all. I shot them a glare, and they conspicuously returned their attention to their smartphones. I glanced down at the devices they were holding, wondering how they were even getting a signal up here. Each phone was slighter larger and thicker than a normal mobile phone, and hinged so that it opened like a portable gaming console. One of the agents appeared to be playing a game of some kind on his, but I couldn't see his display well enough to tell what it was. I looked back up at Ray.

“Listen, I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean that. I just thought you'd be a little more appreciative, that's all. Do you think I enjoyed living in Beaverton all this time?”

Now I was beginning to understand. Ray had spent the past six years of his life stuck with what soldiers referred to as a “shit detail.” Trapped behind the counter of a used videogame shop in a desolate suburban strip mall, with nothing to do but watch me play
Armada,
listen to all of my pointless adolescent bitching, or pass the time by ranting to me about alien abductions and government cover-ups—