“Turn
off the war and come to bed.” Marta
rolled over with a sigh and watched Chad, his body outlined in the dark by the
TV screen flashing with explosions and gunfire. He was addicted to the war,
unable to tear himself away from the television for more than a few minutes.
He pointed the specially
retrofitted remote at the television and clicked away. “But I almost have
enough points to reach the next level. Then I can upgrade.”
“What?” She shoved
the covers away and sat up. She’d grown tired of the rat-a-tat-tats and booms that
pervaded their lives, audible from nearly every room of their home.
His breaths came in
short bursts, like the gunfire. “I need one more cache of weapons – or a sniper
– for the five hundred points.”
Marta slid behind
him as he sat on the edge of the bed and watched the uniformed men run, aim
their rifles, fall to the ground. “Those graphics are starting to look too
realistic. I can hardly tell now which are the real soldiers and which are the
virtual.”
“Yeah, pretty cool
how they intercut the graphics with the real news footage. There’s supposed to
be an even better prototype in beta testing.” Her husband’s boyish enthusiasm
charmed her, despite the fact she could dredge up no enthusiasm within herself.
“Prototype?” she
asked absently, just to keep the first real conversation between them in days
on a roll. She could care less about the damn software, but in the personal war
between Virtual War Games and her
marriage, her only defense was to feign interest.
“One that lets you
shoot real bullets.” His voice was tinged with excitement.
Marta’s head jerked
upward. “Real bullets?”
Chad gave a short
laugh. “Only at the enemy. They probably won’t release it during this war,
though, dammit.”
It
couldn’t possibly be legal, allowing civilians access to such deadly weaponry. It
might appear to be a game from the confines of their bedroom, but the men on
the other side of the screen certainly wouldn’t see it as one.
Still,
Marta was glad Chad was not overseas fighting. Part of what kept her riveted to
news of the conflict was the human element. The lives lost to snipers or bombs.
The inability of the soldiers to discern between friend and foe. A friendly
face one moment might very well be the last face a soldier saw.
She
relaxed into him, and felt her breath ricochet off his skin. She kissed the nape
of his neck and began moving toward his ear, but Chad flinched, too engrossed
in the virtual world on the screen to take notice of her. She had ways to
change that.
“Come on, baby,”
she whispered, her lips at his ear. “Come to bed.” Her fingers slid from his waist to his
thighs, then inside his boxers. He moaned and leaned into her, tilted his head
toward hers. Shouts from the soldiers snapped his attention back to the
television. He straightened his back so quickly that his shoulder blade slammed
into Marta’s lip.
“Ow.” She pressed a
finger to her sore mouth.
He quickly glanced
back at her. “Oh, sorry.”
She pulled her
knees up and inched backward to her pillow. Her retreat tonight was temporary;
tomorrow, she’d relaunch with a new strategy. A bolder advance.
He flashed her a
smile. “Going to bed? ’Night.”
She frowned at him,
but couldn’t help but stare at the taut muscles gently rippling across his back
as he jerked the remote toward the TV. She remembered what it was like before
he bought this game, when their bodies naturally gravitated toward one another
until they were lying together in a sweet, sweaty entanglement.
Before this game
was released, he had occasionally played video games to relieve stress, but
having a game that linked him to an actual war in real time had become an
obsession. When this war ended, he’d argued, there might not be another again
for years.
Marta clung to that
hope. How nice it would be, she thought, to go out again – to dinner, to the
movies, anywhere they could both be engaged in the same activity. Not once
mention a weapon. Or death.
She tried to block
out the sounds of military action, tried to will herself to sleep. “Could you
turn it down? That machine gun is giving me a headache.”
Well
after midnight, Marta grabbed the remote from Chad’s grip. She pressed the OFF
button and threw it into the hallway. It bounced off the wall, the plastic
casing flying apart like so much shrapnel.
As
she drifted off, Marta heard Chad’s grumblings as he tried to find the last
battery that went MIA.
I enacted a momentary cease-fire, she thought
dreamily.
***
The next morning
she walked to the kitchen in a haze of sleep deprivation. Chad had left early for
work; Marta knew he would stop at Radio Shack for a replacement remote. She reveled
in the silence, but spilled her coffee when the telephone rang.
“Oh, Brittany!”
Marta slid onto the long-legged chair and leaned on the kitchen island
countertop. “I’m really getting worried about Chad. He’s become obsessed with
these war games. It’s all he does, every spare moment.”
Brittany’s voice clipped
through the receiver like a general’s command. “I wouldn’t let Rob buy the full
version – only the first level, and only for one squadron. He’s still mad at
me, but I told him – if you want to fight, join the military. It’s bad enough
we watch Total News Network all night.”
“I know, us too.”
When it wasn’t the game version, Chad had to keep up with every new strike, and
update his tally of casualties. “So you let Rob get the personalized interactive
version?”
“Yes, he knows all
the soldiers in the platoon – their histories, their families’ histories, their
war stats – everything.”
“War stats?” Why
were men were so intrigued by military conflicts? Marta wondered. Why couldn’t they just play chess, like her
grandfather used to? He’d known the horrors of war first hand. How
patiently he had explained the strategy of chess to nine-year-old Marta,
rolling her captured knight in his hand with the same look in his eyes as when
he told her his Vietnam combat stories. Those stories about fighting in the
jungles had both frightened and intrigued her.
The
stats, Brittany continued, told about any special training the soldiers might
have undergone, their assignment on the mission, even how many rounds they’ve fired
during any given fighting sequence.
“Well, that at
least sounds a little bit interesting. All Chad wants to do is blast away with
the remote. It’s so unnerving. I feel like I don’t really know who I’m married
to. I wish he’d get more involved personally with them, like Rob.” Maybe then
he’d see the other side as humans, too. Not just targets.
“Oh, yes, Rob’s
involved, all right. A little too involved, if you ask me. He emails at least
five guys every day. They tell him their field maneuvers, what they ate, what
the conditions are like. It’s monitored by government censors, of course, so
nothing sensitive gets through. But he can talk with them for hours. Sometimes
I think he knows them better than he knows his own kids.”
“Wow.” Marta didn’t
know what else to say. Her brain might as well have undergone de-briefing –
there was no further information readily retrievable.
“Hey
– cheer up, kiddo. It could be worse. They could be cheating, right?”
“Right.” Would that be worse? Marta wondered as
she said goodbye.
***
A few days later,
Marta heard Chad’s cell phone signal a text message.
He unclipped it
from his belt, then let out a whoop. “All right!”
“Wha’?” Marta was
in the middle of her teeth-brushing ritual, which she never cut short.
In the mirror, she
saw Chad bounce off the bed like a little boy.
“Version 5.0 is
available now,” he said, cradling his cell in his hands, still reading.
“Wha’?” She turned
off the tap, hoping she’d misheard.
“The upgrade --
it’s ready early. I’m ordering it now, okay, hon?” He dialed and held the phone
to his ear. Standing tall, with a hand to his hip, he could have been a
military commander, awaiting orders.
Marta knew why Chad
was so excited. The conflict had advanced more quickly than predicted, and the
soldiers were about to lay claim to their target city. The upgrade would allow
remote users like Chad direct involvement in the war’s outcome. She opposed it,
and not because it cost ten thousand dollars. Marta could justify that; the
company said part of the proceeds went to war relief efforts. But the thought
of Chad sitting in their bedroom and actually – not virtually – shooting the
enemy… it sickened her. But Chad, infected with some sort of combat delirium,
seemed dead set on it.
White foamy spittle
dripped from her mouth, and she ran to the sink and spat as if she’d swallowed
poison. She listened to Chad press the interactive ad on his cell phone to
connect with the software company. Delivery would be instantaneous; as soon as
the company verified their credit card information, Virtual War Games would download the software upgrade directly to
the game box perched on their bedroom television.
She closed the
bathroom door and pressed the water button outside the tiled stall, watching as
the water ran in rivulets down the drain. She stepped inside and let the steam
envelop her. By the time she toweled off, Chad was crouched in front of the
television set like one of those toy green plastic army men, poised for an
attack. His eyes darted as he clutched the remote, at the ready for any action.
“I’m going
downstairs for a drink,” she said. “Want anything?”
His eyes didn’t
leave the TV. “Can’t stop now.”
She paused in the
doorway. “Yes. That’s the problem.”
It wasn’t worth an
argument. She would just have to live with a “special forces” husband. That’s
how they pitched it: Can’t enlist? You
can still help your country and be part of the action! Buy Virtual War today!
Maybe the war will end soon, she thought. This new war – all sand and thick dust – was
so very removed from their daily lives. It was a part-time hobby for Chad, a
diversion from work and stress. Marta tried to put it out of her head that real
men and women were being ripped apart by bullets there. The government had said
the war was a necessary evil; to achieve a greater good, some must, sadly, be
sacrificed. From that very same
television screen, the president had repeated this creed before the fighting
began. Before Chad had become a virtual soldier, as if he were programmed to dedicate
his every waking moment to the conflict and ignore all worldly things,
including her, while he fought the enemy. Marta was willing to wait for him,
just like the old days when wives waited at home for their husbands to return
from overseas. It was almost harder, she thought, to have him here with her; it
was almost like living with a ghost.
When she came back
upstairs, he grunted as he fired the remote. With each shot, a message appeared
in the upper left-hand corner of the screen: You missed! Try again.
So Chad did. Again
and again.
Marta sat on the
edge of the bed and hugged her knees as she watched.
“What if you
accidentally shoot one of our guys?” she asked.
He moved as if
ducking incoming fire. “Not possible. Program won’t let you. And you lose
points.”
“God forbid.” The
stakes in this private war were becoming too high, she thought numbly.
An automatic
intermission, timed to activate after two hours if the user hadn’t taken a
break, caused the screen to flash a pause message.
“Damn! Just when I
was getting the hang of it!” He nearly tossed the remote onto the bed, then
shot a suspicious look at Marta and slipped it into his pocket.
He stretched and
walked toward the master bath. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”
Marta let out a
sardonic laugh. “Can’t I change the channel while you’re in there?”
Chad blushed. “What station do you want?” He glanced at his
watch as if a bomb were about to explode. Marta knew he was ticking off the
minutes until he could get back to the war.
She sighed. “Never
mind. I’ll catch up on some reading.”
Chad bound into the
bathroom, and returned just in time for the break’s end. After a scan of the
screen to orient himself, Chad pointed the remote and fired. A buzzer sounded,
and the message 500 POINTS: SNIPER
DOWNED flashed several times in bright yellow letters.
“YES!
I GOT one!” He clenched his fists like a gladiator after a kill.
A flutter of dread
passed through Marta’s stomach. “You shot someone?”
Chad practically
glowed with excitement. “A sniper! He was about to…”
She leaned forward,
her gaze locked on his. “You shot a person?”
“This is war. You either shoot or be shot.” He
looked as if he believed this with all his being.
Her voice rose as
she got up to face him. “Chad – you’re not a real soldier. But you just killed
someone.”
He
whirled back to the television. “You think? It said he was down, it didn’t say
he was dead.”
“You
shot someone who could not even see you, let alone shoot at you!”
His
jaw clenched, he stepped toward her, pumped with indignation. “I did what I had
to do.”
Marta
realized her jaw had fallen open, and struggled to close it. His logic was
incomprehensible. Fatally flawed.
If
she didn’t know better, she’d think he was about to strike her.
“I
can’t…” She struggled to find words, any words. She wanted to beg him to go
away somewhere with her, leave the war behind before it became wedged too
permanently between them. Even while they slept, the darkened screen of the
television seemed to Marta like a soldier on watch, waiting for Chad to take up
his position again.
Chad turned back to
the fighting. “Another couple snipers, and then I’ll move to the next level.
That’s a little more expensive...”
Marta looked at her
husband with a mute plea. He could no longer distinguish what was reasonable
and what wasn’t. He’d become desensitized to the human element. Including her.
Shaking
uncontrollably, she climbed in bed as he went on.
“…but then I’ll have
the chance to fire at an enemy chopper. And after that,” he said, his voice
filled with patriotic awe, “the next upgrade is to the rocket launcher.
Wouldn’t that be something.”
“Something.” She
slid down the headboard, pulled the covers over her head. In a self-defense
mechanism, her brain shut out the offensive noises and she escaped into sleep.
When the alarm
buzzed the next morning, a saggy-eyed Chad was still wildly surveying the
television landscape.
Marta deactivated
the alarm and pushed the hair from her face. “Have you been up all night?
You’ll never make it through work today.”
His glassy gaze
skipped across the screen like a pinball. “I’m taking off. I have some days
coming.”
“Chad, this is
getting a little…”
His face hardened
into an ugly mask of anger. “Shhh! My squadron is searching this village, it
could be booby-trapped, it could have snipers, anything. I have to stay on
guard.”
She’d been about to
say crazy.
Shoving the covers
aside, she stood and walked to where Chad sat crouched on the carpet. He looked
like a refugee, Marta thought. It occurred to her he was a refugee from their
marriage.
“Chad – put that
thing down. It’s ruining our lives.” She spoke calmly and evenly, hoping to
penetrate his armor of madness.
His hands held the
remote at eye level in pre-firing mode.
“Quiet. Gotta concentrate.”
“You’re obsessed.
I’m turning it off.” She stepped toward the television, but he caught her arm
and yanked hard, so she stumbled backward.
“Don’t touch it!
And stay out of my way. How am I supposed to shoot if I can’t see?”
Anger swelled
within her. She pushed herself up. “Give me the damn remote. This is enough.”
Just as she reached
over his shoulder for the diabolical device, he fired again. Machine gun fire
answered, and a soldier leading his squad in a building raid fell forward. The
three other soldiers glanced backward, as if they could see Chad and Marta, who
were huddled in horror before the television. The GI’s sighted their rifles and
squeezed off a few rounds as they dove for cover.
“What just
happened?” Chad sounded as if the wind had been knocked from him.
“You shot him. One
of our own soldiers.” Marta’s voice was barely a whisper.
“That’s impossible.
The software doesn’t allow ‘friendly fire.’ Not real friendly fire, anyway. You
can only shoot the enemy. That’s what it says in the rules.”
The television
flashed a large red ERROR message. The game box buzzed, then popped like
fireworks as smoke curled upward from it. A high-pitched whiz stabilized into a
zapping buzz. Chad jerked backward onto the carpet as if having a seizure,
ripples of tremors making him flop like a fish on the .
Marta screamed for
what felt like forever until his spasms calmed to occasional shudders. He made
a strange gurgling noise and stared at the ceiling. Blood dripped from the
corner of his mouth.
While
too many thoughts swarmed in her head, Marta was embarrassed to acknowledge one
that worried the stain would not come out of the down comforter. Blood was so
persistent.
She gathered her
senses. Her hands shook as she reached for Chad’s cell phone, lying beside him.
She was about to dial 911 when the phone chirped. The caller ID said Virtual War.
“Hello?” Her voice
sounded strange, like a little girl’s.
A clipped male
voice spoke. “Ma’am? We have reports of an incident occurring at your home. Has
there been any sort of mishap?”
“Mishap? Your
stupid game electrocuted my husband!”
A succession of
sobs escaped from her, and her eyes darted to the television, where a
journalist embedded with Chad’s squadron peered out curiously. When his eyes
met Marta’s, she gasped.
She heard arguing
on the other end of the phone.
“That’s not
possible!” said a deep voice.
“I told you we
shouldn’t release it yet! It’s full of bugs!” said another man.
The rest of the
conversation was garbled, she couldn’t comprehend anything. All she knew was that
Chad’s chest was no longer heaving. He lay unnaturally still, his eyes fixed,
his face filled with a strange peace.
Marta sat beside
him, no longer threatened. His madness had calmed. His obsession had become
acceptance. A soldier at ease.
The television
flashed a new message indicating Chad’s connection had been terminated, and the
station resumed its normal non-interactive war coverage. Almost immediately,
the news anchor reported that an unidentified civilian had been injured,
possibly fatally, while engaging in battle via Virtual War.
“The company,” the
reporter said with a concerned look, “has locked down all users to prevent a
similar incident from occurring. Refunds will be issued shortly. Virtual War apologizes for the
inconvenience.”
Hysterical
laughter escaped her. “Inconvenience!”
“Later tonight
we’ll have a special edition of Total News Network – the CEO of Virtual War Games will discuss the
problems the company experienced with the current software version, contrasted
with the improvements of the next software generation. General Aaron Phillips
will also be here from the Pentagon to pay tribute to the first civilian gaming
warrior downed in this ongoing conflict. He’ll discuss how the military will be
working with Virtual War in future
conflicts to provide citizens with an avenue to assist their country. There are
plenty of older Americans who would love to be able to contribute to war
efforts this way, don’t you think, Bob?”
The second anchor
said, “That’s right, Jim. Just think of all the lives we’ll save by fighting
remotely.” He held a hand to his earpiece, and his face brightened. “Here’s breaking
news – the President is set to make an important announcement regarding the war
on live television at noon today. Sources say we will begin withdrawing troops
next month. Surrender was accepted just minutes ago, and other than a few small
pockets of resistance in outlying territories, the conflict has ended.”
“The conflict has
ended.” Marta turned to Chad, laying a hand on his chest. “Did you hear? The
conflict has ended.”
Their television
would no longer be hostage to war news, war games, war anything. “We can watch
a movie. Or a sitcom. What do you think of that?” She inched closer. “Chad? We
can go out to dinner. Or stay in, with the television off. Just you and me.
Chad?”
Sirens
wailed in the distance, becoming louder. She heard tires squeal just outside.
“Everything will be
all right now,” Marta whispered as she trembled and slumped onto the floor next
to her husband.
A
metallic rattle sounded, of equipment being rushed through the door downstairs,
the tramping of footsteps up the stairway.
The
Total News Network anchor smiled as he cheerily reported, “In other news, the
Yankees slaughtered the Red Sox last night twelve to nothing. More news coming
up after these words from our sponsors. Stay tuned.”
Marta
nodded.
(2007)