The team of infantryman stacked on the door of the current mission directive. The four man breaching team stood single file and pressed against the wall. The lead soldier took his knife off of his tactical vest and with the push of a button the blade clicked open. He stepped across the door to the side with the door knob and placed his blade tip between the door jam and the door stop. With a downward thrusting motion the tell tale click of the latch bolt retracting into the door knob notified the second soldier that it was his turn to do his job.
With the efficiency of a well oiled machine the second man entered the structure with his rifle shouldered. The team quickly and quietly entered the building with the first man stowing his blade and shouldering his rifle before entering. A loud bang resounded and all hell broke loose. The rhythmic crack of small arms fire being exchanged could be heard by the entire small village. Mixed in with the gunfire, louder, more concussive bangs could be heard and dust puffed out of any opening of the structure it could escape. Onlookers and nosey villagers watched the buildings windows as flashes could be seen as the fireteam moved thru the hornet's nest
Spencer's rifle was shouldered as he peaked around a wall and squeezed the trigger of his rifle, sending one shot down the hallway at a time. He was trained to adhere to quality of shots not quantity. Knelt in front of Spencer was their team's squad leader who would alternate with him and did not hold that same belief. The two were yelling out when they needed to swap magazines then the other soldier would peak out and fire at the enemy. Spencer was so focused on this game of peak a boo with his enemy he almost missed the laughter and sound of conversation around him as it slowly came into focus. A strong hand gripped his shoulder causing him to start and brought him back to the present.
"Hey! Is that Spencer Moyer sitting there! Welcome home bud!" A loud boisterous man drunkenly slurred as he forced his dazed victim into a big hug.
'Who the fuck is this assclown?' Spencer thought to himself.
"Hey man how are? Thanks, its nice to be home." Spencer played along with the guy as he was forced to continue the conversation when the drunk man did not catch Spencer's confused tone.
This was Spencer's life now. Running into high school classmates in a small town in the middle of the mountains and being forced to show interest in their boring lives. As the man talked his tongue out of his mouth Spencer's thoughts returned to just a few weeks ago when he was sat in front of his commanders desk being served separation papers for his Breacher's Syndrome.
'Medically discharged and thrown aside. I wonder what the boys are up to?' Spencer thought to himself as the old classmate finally finished his seminar about his last eight years of mediocrity since high school and walked over to another group, leaving him to his beer and his thoughts. His thoughts went to his squad who had spun up on another mission shortly before he finished out-processing the military. They had a new guy so green, his gear still had creases on it. Spencer was worried for their safety and their lives. He knew deep down that it was none of his business. His job now was moving on and finding something else to do with his broken brain.
A sudden wave of irritability came over the man as he flexed both his hands into a fist and back to full extension multiple times. Spencer took a big breather in and shook his head before sitting back down. Like many small towns in the mountains, the main watering hole for the locals was the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars bar. As Spencer took a swig of his beer he saw an old timer eyeing him with a knowing glance. He tapped the brim of his hat that had two campaign badges embroidered on it. Spencer awkwardly nodded back to the old war fighter before returning to his beer.
The sudden loud bugle of an elk startled him and he begrudgingly dug his phone out of his pocket.
"Who the fuck is calling me at balls thirty(0030) in the morning?" Spencer asked out loud. He finally excavated the phone from his hoodie pocket and saw that his cousin, Al, was the culprit.
'Of course this massive nerd would call me at this hour. Probably to ask me to get him sodas from the gas station.' Spencer swiped his thumb across the screen and held it up to his ear.
"What do you want?" His tone carried a weight of irritation that would make most men's hair stand on end.
"It's not what I want cousin." Al stopped joyfully for an attempt at dramatic affect. All it did was pick at Spencer's already short fuse. "Have you ever heard of Clash of Bloodlines?"
Spencer's silence was all his excitable cousin needed to go into an in-depth explanation. It was some new game that Al had bought an expensive full body dive pod for with his inheritance money. Spencer didn't get the appeal but he knew if he interrupted that his cousin would dive bomb down a rabbit hole and this conversation would take all night. After a few more minutes of details that Spencer outright ignored his patience had finally worn thin.
"Get to the point Al!" Spencer demanded a little more forcefully than he meant too. This caused an awkward pause. "Sorry I didn't mean to go all super trooper on you Al but what's the point in you telling me about this?"
"Did you not listen my favorite cousin?" Al paused again making Spencer want to crawl thru the phone and throttle him. "We are giving free full dive pods and lifetime accounts to Veterans to help them with their PTSD and I thought maybe it could help you release a little bit of that aggression there super trooper." Super trooper was their personal joke when Spencer got angry.
Spencer had moved in with Al when he returned. His fiancé had run off when she realized she wouldn't be marrying some tier one badass but instead a dude who had been involved in too many games of brain pong. His parents had cut ties after a particularly nasty Thanksgiving dinner where he cursed them both out with the eloquence of a professional and his five siblings were about as useful as a bag of rocks during a free swim course.
His older sibling had her own life and he would not impose on her and her husband. They were about as polar opposite as they came. She dyed her hair every two weeks and posted art on social media. He stacked bodies in foreign countries. They didn't see eye to eye very often.
His second older sister was a royal fuckup and he wasn't even related to her except thru his two younger brothers.
One of which was out in the oil field living out of a single bedroom camper and the baby of the family was still living with mom.
Spencer didn't have many options. Al on the other hand was from the rich side of the family and when his mother died and left him a substantial amount of money, he promptly invested it into gaming companies.
He had not only offered to give him a place rent free but he also showed up at the airport in person. They had always been close and with Al fully invested in the money markets within games he rarely came out of his pod except to change the nutrient pack that was administered god knows how. Sometimes he didn't even come out of game. He could make phone calls from inside his game and he had on multiple occasions made that call to Spencer in the last week.
"There has to be a catch Al," Spencer exhaled in a defeated tone, "there always is."
"Well we want to utilize our new full dive system to map pathways and see if the game helps repair them thru the nutrition and health aspects of the actual pod."
"Wait, did you say we?" Spencer pulled his phone away from his ear to look at it before putting it back up to his ear.
"Oh yeah I forgot to mention. I own the company that published Clash of Bloodlines." Al stated egotistically. "Oh and I own the primary shares in the company that produces the full dive system that it pairs with."
Spencer quickly pulled up the game and its publishing company. Right there it was on the main page. CEO and founder Phillip Alfred Moyer the Third in bold letters right beneath a surprisingly clean cut professional picture of his nerdy cousin.
"You still there Spence?" Al's voice trailed thru the phone.
"Uhm, yup." Spencer was still coping with the shock that his cousin was the owner of one of the largest VR game publishing companies. "So what do I have to do?"