Reaching up, I wrenched the helmet off my head in a daze. Blinking, I adjusted my eyes in the darkness of the deathly silent studio. Looking up at the screen I saw the same message with a loading wheel indicating I was being rerouted to the character select screen. My eyes shifted to Sydney’s screen where she had tossed her weapons at the feet of Cameron Lake’s character with his friend Dane standing behind him beaming and fist pumping.
I repeated, “Wha…”
Someone rushed up to me on my left and I saw a grinning Alice pointing a tablet at me and asking, “How does it feel to lose it all Voss?”
Ignoring her, my eyes shifted to the setup where Sydney still lay for the time being. My jaw tightened and I swung out of the dive chair yanking all the connectors free and sending them swinging up toward the ceiling.
The staff were all standing around the back of the room. Many had glum expressions while others looked stone faced. I rushed over to one of the consoles in the skinsuit and flicked my fingers across the screen opening up the EO Inventory Manager.
Sure enough, Voss and all of my alts had been deleted. I stared at the screen with a sinking sensation. Alice approached again with her tablet at the ready, smiling smugly as she asked, “Voss Hall, here is your golden god, on the cusp of tears. Come on Voss, don’t you have any parting words for your legion of followers?”
When I gave Alice a warning look she reacted with faux terror, “Oh no guys, he’s angry. Maybe we can get in a word edgewise when he sees this.”
She twitched her fingers across the screen as I glared down at her. My screen, that had been on Character Creation flickered and was replaced by a video.
As the video started I spotted Sydney pulling her helmet free and pointedly not looking at me.
The stream was painfully familiar but the most shocking thing was the point of view. It wasn’t mine or Lake’s, it was over my right shoulder… where Sydney’s character Eklipse had been standing.
My voice was filled with venom in the video as my avatar spoke to Cameron Lake, who was glaring, his fist tightening on the haft of his spear, “Come on Lake, who is everyone going to believe? Me, an internationally known streamer with tens of thousands of followers, or some nobody cheater like you?”
Cameron took a deep breath and shook his head, “The people your mercenaries are harassing are noobies Voss. I can understand you coming after me but why hassle people who can barely defend themselves?”
“Because Lake,” the barely restrained anger in my voice made me wince and look away from the video, “we have tried getting the message through to you and your idiot friends. You don’t listen. You can use your overpowered glitched item to beat me in a duel but you can’t be everywhere at once. Do I really have to explain this to you?”
A long and tense moment passed and Lake asked, “And am I supposed to ignore this threat of legal action your lawyers sent me? My mom and dad could lose their place because of this.”
The camera shifted uncomfortably and I heard myself say with thinly veiled glee, “I have no idea what you are talking about Lake. I wouldn’t ignore that call though. That might not turn out well for you.”
The video paused and someone at one of the other terminals spoke with clear concern, “Boss, someone uploaded all your correspondence about Lake. There is some pretty… concerning stuff here.”
I knew what was in those files. I had become increasingly obsessed with hurting Lake and his friends. At first I was determined to get his little AI tool taken out of the game for balance reasons. Then, the devs ruled it as legal and I took up the quest of forcing its removal from there.
Guildies griefed him with corpse camping.
Lower level players constantly harassed him with duel requests in towns.
High level guildies stalked him while he was leveling and made his life a living hell.
All at my orders.
Eventually, I challenged him to a one on one duel and despite all the strength of my guild and the tier of my gems and slots he had beaten me.
Taking things outside the game had been over the line. I just couldn’t stop myself.
Looking around at my staff my expression hardened and I gave a grim smile, “Are you guys kidding me? Have we all lost our fucking spines now? What did I tell you when we started this campaign to get Lake and his spear out of the game? I told you things were going to get messy and I didn’t hear you getting high and mighty with me then.”
When there was no response, just the quiet glares of my employees shadowed at the edge of the room, I threw my hands up and chuckled with a tinge of anger, “EO isn’t real life guys. It’s just a game.”
There was a long and weighty silence in the chamber and I sighed, “I guess I’m the bad guy now.”
My eyes shifted to Sydney briefly. She still wasn’t looking at me. She sat hunched forward in her rig fidgeting with her helmet. Turning back to Alice, I saw her smirk as her fingers flicked over the tablet.
Then… the second video started.
Above me the screen flickered to the point of view showing several non descript characters in a forest chuckling darkly as they stood over a prostrated form. I recognized the scene. I was logged in to a low level alt sorcerer I had created on another account. Several members of my alt guild, the one I used to carry out dealings that I didn’t want my viewers to know about, skulked about me. Most had expectant grins on their faces. My avatar stood behind them with a flat expression.
Suddenly another avatar spawned into existence amidst the leering mercenaries. They were a low level rogue wearing noobie gear and barely any gems slotted. Before my men could fall upon him again I heard a kid's voice stutter from between his lips and I could tell he was crying.
“Please… please.. I’m going to tell my mom!”
My men fell upon him again and butchered his avatar for what must have been the fifteenth time while he begged us to stop. There were hired killers throughout the forest doing the same to lowbies of Lake’s new guild. They were also camping the graveyards. As I watched the video I had a sinking feeling where this was going.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The video cut out and the screens were suddenly plastered not with videos or pdfs laying out my many nefarious schemes… these were news reports. It wasn’t some big media outlet. It was a report for a small town news channel somewhere in Ohio.
My eyes went wide as the ticker at the bottom of the screen scrolled past and I heard myself stutter, “Wha… no… no I… I would never…”
Their reporter continued following their introductions, “Tonight on WERZ we are bringing attention to what is becoming an unfortunate trend in virtual reality MMOs… cyber bullying. Sometimes these acts are just traumatic acts of cowardice and menace perpetrated by online miscreants and often they just scar the lives of the unfortunate players who are the victims of such acts… but not all people are so lucky.”
The video cut to a faded picture of what looked like a young boy at Christmas as the reporter continued, “Thirteen year old Sean Weston was one of fifty five million people who play the online game Eternal Online. Young Sean was bullied so relentlessly that just last month he chose to take his own life…”
The video paused and the dive room was suddenly returned to complete silence. My entire body had gone cold and my hands were shaking. I started to speak but closed my mouth slowly.
Alice sneered and raised her eyebrows as she asked sarcastically, “I wonder how those two videos are related?”
My eyes shifted and then I looked into the camera of the tablet. Turning to Sydney again, I found that her eyes were still locked straight ahead.
Running a shaking hand through my hair I turned, heading toward the doors to the dive room.
Striding through the deathly silent crowd up to the two security guards, who were both giving me pained looks, I offered a nod.
Alice called after me, “Suit belongs to the studio, asshole.”
Nodding, I spoke over my shoulder, “I’ll leave it in the supply room,”
Someone cleared their throat and Sydney asked with pained emotion in her voice, “Mal, can we talk?”
Rolling my shoulders, I finally managed to rasp out a hoarse, “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
–
The loading screen flickered away to show a stylized animated apartment overlooking the skyline of a city at sunset. Behind a desk near the penthouse window an anime avatar of a young man in a stylish suit reached up and adjusted his red tie and beamed toward the camera view.
The young blonde avatar glanced at the stream of chatters and rumbled in a deep voice, “Chatters it's March 23rd, 2034 and here is all the news in streaming that’s fit for content.”
He templed his hands together and looked over the tips of them as he said, “If you are a regular in the online streaming world tonight’s subject will be all too familiar to you. We are, of course, talking about the meteoric downfall of Malcolm Voss, aka VossHallVox. Thankfully, this little bit of drama has less to do with perversion than our usual fare, but,” he sighed as he leaned back in his virtual chair, “Malcolm’s crimes may come to outshine the typical Opnet pervert.”
A small video screen appeared above the avatar’s shoulder showing Malcolm looking upward at a screen with a terrified expression as the streamer continued, “As many of you know VossHallVox is probably the biggest streamer in Eternal Online’s history. He was the most subbed Settite male streamer for two years running, although recently his long time nemesis Cameron Lake’s stream was making ground on his numbers.
“Malcolm started streaming eight years ago and built an empire focused around VRMMOs. When Eternal Online launched he was one of the first players to reach max level. He immediately surrounded himself with a cadre of fellow VR streamers and founded his guild The Zenith Order in 2029.”
As he spoke images replaced the videos showing screen grabs from important events that Voss and The Zenith Order had taken part in. Many images showed either Voss or his character and immediately beside him was a smugly grinning Sydney.
The screen shifted to show an image of Cameron Lake streaming silently alongside the looping image of Voss’ defeated expression, “As many saw during the Tournament stream just a few days ago, Malcolm Voss is accused of widespread online harassment. This pattern of behavior seems to have not only ended in the un-aliving of one very young gamer, but more victims have come forward indicating that they were harassed by Vox or people hired by him. There are even unsubstantiated claims that there may be other deaths attributed to the campaign the streamer was waging against Cameron Lake.”
The avatar leaned across the desk, his expression darkening as he said, “Sources that chose to remain anonymous indicate that two years ago Voss became obsessed with what he claimed was an unfair advantage held by a new and up and coming streamer named Cameron Lake. At first their rivalry was great for both men’s numbers. Unfortunately, where previous great online rivalries were fueled by friendly competition Voss became progressively unhinged in his efforts to see Lake banned from Eternal Online, or at least see a powerful in-game item, The Spear of Deshin’lar, removed from the game entirely.”
The streamer sighed and shook his head, “Reports implicate Voss in activities that may be criminal. Law enforcement agencies are said to be using this incident as a springboard to finally curb online harassment. At this time VossHallVox, once one of the most beloved streamers of our generation, isn’t under arrest and has been awfully quiet in the five days since the stream that may have doomed his career.”
An image of a guild logo, two golden birds flying in a helix pattern, appeared and the avatar continued, “The Zenith Order and Myriad Entertainment, Voss’s streaming company, have both disavowed Malcolm’s actions. While many guild members were involved in his possibly criminal activities it was Sydney Cross, Malcolm’s long-time girlfriend and co-owner of the company, who collaborated with Cameron Lake and other staffers to bring his heinous actions to light.”
The desk faded away into motes of light and the avatar’s chair went along with it as he stood and walked toward the camera, tucking his hands into his pockets, “Maybe the empire that Malcolm Voss and his friends built can still survive, even if the man who built it won’t be there to watch it thrive.”
The avatar reached up to snap its fingers and said, “That’s all the News that’s fit for Content.”
-
The video flickered on and showed me standing against the railing at the beach. My face was pale and there were heavy bags under my eyes. I could not muster up my usual enthusiasm and just managed a sad half smile as I said, “Just like the title says VossHall, this is the Let’s Talk video.”
Settling back against the rail, I said, “Sorry about the quality of this video. I don’t have much in the way of equipment anymore.”
Clearing my throat, I tried to keep my eyes on the camera, “At this point you guys have probably seen a thousand of these. You are no doubt expecting the standard apology video that every streamer that gets caught up to no good puts out. You know the ones. The ones that sound like a lawyer wrote them.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I shook my head, “I hate to disappoint you, but that isn’t what you guys are getting today.”
I made a middling gesture with my hand and managed a weak smile, “Cassie might kill me, but this is the video that is going out.”
Searching the sky for a moment before looking back to the camera I said “All of the things you’ve seen are true. There is no excuse for them.”
Reaching up, I swiped away a tear and continued, “I let myself get out of control. I let anger dictate who I was and a lot of people got hurt because of it. If it weren’t for the ones who were brave enough to bring me to heel I probably would have just kept ruining lives with no repercussions.
“Some of you will no doubt back me up despite what I say in this video. I am no hero to be followed. The heroes are the ones who brought my actions to light. The net is not a place for monsters to prey on the innocent with impunity.”
I took a deep breath and considered what to say but finally just said, “I hope all the people who I hurt will someday find their way to forgive me. If just so they can find peace. As some of you have rightly guessed, I have been removed from Myriad’s ownership.”
Giving them the best smile I could muster I sighed, “My lawyer is in talks to provide as much of a settlement as I can to the family of the young man who was bullied at my orders. I will be providing a donation to an anti-bullying coalition and, even though I am no longer in a place to make such decisions, I would not be surprised if Myriad plans a charity stream to provide a similar donation.”
After a long moment I said, “This is the end of the VossHall. All social media platforms will shut down their pages for VossHallVox and my personal Sett channel will be shut down. I loved my time with you guys but it's time for this face to fade away and to let those who have been hurt heal.”
With a final tired smile I nodded, “I will not be making a comeback. There are more important voices to hear. Goodbye everyone.”
