The X-Files

T minus ten seconds to engagement.

Whoo-hoo!

- Lo-Fat's goin' off! - Gonna kill! Gonna kill!

Stay out of my way, geeks. Going to the next level today. I'm a death machine.

Status: combat ready.

Situation: guerrilla units in immediate vicinity of insertion module.

Whoo! Yeah!

Let's do this!

Bring it on! Whoo!

Look at these heart rates.

If I don't let these boys out, they're gonna kill each other.

Four...

three...

two...

one“.engage.

VVhoooo!

- Do you see 'em? - They're out there, geeks.

Looking to fry your huevos.

Call it, Retro! Call it!

Now!

Whoa! It's a total massacre out there.

Phase two, geeks!

- Ready, knuckleheads? - Flank right!

- Flank left! - Go!

Lo-Fat's down.

- You got me, Moxie? - Got you covered.

- Retro's in. - Adrenaline redline.

The bloodthirst is unquenchable.

Moxie? Who's there?

- Who are you? - I am Maitreya.

This is my game.

Agents Mulder and Scully, FBI. We're expected.

I need to scan your ID.

Retina scan, please.

Cool.

Ma'am?

I'll need you to look over those nondisclosure agreements.

"To protect all proprietary or intellectual property owned by FPS,

a private California corporation, under the harshest penalty of law."

Signature at the bottom, please.

- FPS? - First Person Shooter.

- Video games. - Digital entertainment.

I can get in the Pentagon easier than this.

Dudes! Agent Mulder, what's up, wild man?

Welcome to the land where silicon meets silicone.

Can I get you a latte from the bar or perhaps a bottle of designer H2O?

Scully?

How about a simple explanation as to why we're here?

Take a moment just to feel the pulse of the new American gold rush.

You're standing on the launch pad of a rocket headed for the stars.

OK.

- There's been a little accident. - (Scully) What kind of accident?

Like an industrial accident.

How did the victim die?

- It's not exactly clear. - Was there equipment involved?

- No. - Yes.

Yes and no.

- What's your business here? - Our business?

We're consultants to FPS.

Langly did some programming for them. He created the bad guys.

Only the Euro-goons.

We don't wanna give the idea we're major profit participants.

Cash or stock options?

Options. Preferred rate.

Vested with a short-term exercise against venture collateral to bypass SEC regs.

- The lPO's in a week. - Game ships on Friday.

50 malls across the United States and Japan.

Only there's a dead body between you and untold riches.

I don't know about you guys but I'd be checking my shorts for cake.

- This man's been shot. - No.

When somebody is shot, there's a gun involved.

That is absolutely impossible.

There's no way anybody could ever get a gun past security.

What do you call this?

It's a laser blaster. For wasting cybertrash.

- It emits a low-frequency... - Just let me.

The weapons feed off the FPS mainframe. The effect is intensely real, but harmless.

You say this weapon is a toy, but this man clearly has gunshot wounds through his...

Stun suit. See, it's rigged with paint for wounds and kill shots.

Total bleeding-edge technology.

- He's dead. I got it. - Who was he playing against?

Against the game. You waste the cyberthugs before they waste you.

It's all about body count.

They're computer-generated images running on a projector.

It all happens in the game space.

It's a total digital environment. Nothing's real. It's all virtual.

Did anybody see what happened?

I was in the control booth with Ivan.

Retro was in the zone. His telemetry was solid.

He looked unstoppable, like he was on his way to the next level,

when suddenly he was cooked meat.

Well, the next call's gonna be to the local PD.

No cops! No cops. You said no cops. You said you had connections.

Connections or not, you've got a murder victim here.

Just what the Wall Street money dudes wanna read as we're going to market.

- This is Special Agent Dana Scully... - You said you were in the control booth?

Can you tell me exactly what you saw?

I'm still not sure we even saw it.

One minute everything was perfect, and then we crashed.

Ivan and I were sitting here. We both just looked at each other.

It happened so fast.

Moxie's covering Retro who's going inside to rack up beaucoup points.

And then - goosh. Retro's vitals spike like he's been shot.

And the system defaults.

And they're right back in the game space.

- Lo-Fat! Get over here! - What happened?

Retro?

Lights up. Game over.

What happened in there?

We don't know. There's no res images on interior game spaces.

What about the wireframe?

Maybe I can. I'll strip down to wireframe display.

I mean, we've never mapped this area before.

Retro was in noncombat space.

- It's a chick. - It can't be.

Can you texture-wrap her?

- Holy Toledo. - She's packing a flintlock.

That ain't all she's packing. Can you print that out for me?

Goddess.

Let me get this straight. You've got no murder weapon, no forensic evidence,

no motive and no suspect.

Scully?

My partner, Agent Mulder. This is Detective Lacoeur.

- Have you got something? - Yeah. Our killer, I believe.

Hey, I'll put out an APB.

For Frederick's of Hollywood.

- Mulder, you're not serious? - It's all in the computer.

That's any voluptuous vixen in any number of video games.

But she's not in any video game, she's in this one, and no one programmed her in.

Yeah, but even if they had, she's not real.

She's a character. She's some immature hormonal fantasy.

Darryl Musashi. You see who that is?

Darryl Musashi.

As I live and breathe.

- Who's Darryl Musashi? - The OG. Original Guru.

He slums as a game designer when he's not contracted to the CIA.

- The boy wonder of virtual mayhem. - What's he doing here?

Ivan must have called him to go in and slay the ninja babe.

Mulder, why does this game have the effect

of reducing grown men to moony adolescents?

It's Darryl Musashi!

- Mulder? - Huh?

- Do you want me to autopsy the body? - (clicks tongue)

Immersion module in descent mode. T minus 20 seconds.

Pay attention, worms. Darryl Musashi will show us how this is supposed to be played.

I heard he scored 90 consecutive wins on Demon Space Drifter.

91.

Look at him. The man's a sphinx.

T minus ten...

nine... eight...

seven... six...

five... four...

three... two...

one“.engage.

Hey, Byers, you gotta see this. Mulder, get over here.

Is that him? Is that Darryl Musashi?

- Yeah, that's him. - He just stepped into the game.

- Why is he just standing there? - Because he knows no fear.

- Yeah! - Unbelievable.

- Standing heart rate is 68. - He hasn't even broken a sweat.

He's not even waiting for the reset! He's goin' for the kill.

Aaaargh! Aaargh!

- What just happened? - She cut off his hands.

Preliminary external examination of deceased,

a 20-ish male, name listed only as Retro,

offers no additional clues as to actual cause of death.

Scratch that.

Cause of death is from a large entry wound at the sternum,

resulting in trauma to the internal organs and blood loss.

Wound is consistent with high-velocity impact from a large projectile

which passed through a three-ply Kevlar jacket.

Scratch that.

Wound is the result of high-velocity impact from an unknown object,

which even if it did enter the body left no damn trace evidence whatsoever.

No powder burns, no chemical signatures of any kind of explosive propellant...

- No luck? - I thought I was onto something.

You know, Mulder, this suit holds more than just exploding paint cells.

It measures the player's vital signs from heart rate to extant body chemistry,

then sends that information back to the computer.

Then when a player is shot, a battery pack sends a 12-volt jolt

that keeps him from getting up until the game is over.

- Virtual death. - Yeah, well, if only that were the case.

I thought at first maybe the suit had malfunctioned,

that one of the charges had blown inward.

But unfortunately that wasn't the case either.

I've got a birthday coming up.

You have to admit, this is a pretty amazing piece of technology.

Yeah, wasted on a stupid game.

Stupid?

Dressing up like hi-tech warriors to play a futuristic version of cowboys and Indians?

What kind of moron gets his ya-yas out like that?

Mulder, what purpose does this game serve

except to add to a culture of violence in a country that's already out of control?

- Who says it adds to it? - You think taking up weapons

and creating gratuitous virtual mayhem has any redeeming value whatsoever?

I mean, that the testosterone frenzy that it creates stops when the game does?

Well, that's rather sexist, isn't it?

Maybe the game provides an outlet for certain impulses,

fills a void in our genetic makeup

that the civilising effects of society fail to provide for.