Chapter 13 – Van Ride
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Kai stood ready in a large open room with square tiles on the floor.  The blue walls intersected perpendicularly and demarcated adjoining hallways and rooms.  He examined the space and recognized the familiar doors in the distance.

He readied the weapon in his hand, a trusty axe that any warrior would proudly wield.  It was extremely large considering his size, but somehow it was comfortable to wield.  It reminded him of the oversized great swords commonly found in video games.  Sometimes the weapons were larger than the player, but since they existed in a game world where game aesthetics easily outweighed common sense physics, the great swords were popular.  So he had never expected that an oversized weapon could be properly wielded in real life, that is until now.

As the organ played the classic yet ominous intro music, Kai began to hum the famous tune subconsciously.

“Dun na na Na na  Tsun na na Na na...”

As he twirled the axe in his hand he began to recall how we had gotten himself into this mess.

 

A few days earlier Kai completed another cycle of testing and began to gloat about his prowess at using and exceeding the limits of the lab’s test equipment.  He was the king of SIT and had proudly mentioned that the next stage of development should be a Van Ride, in other words live field trials. He believed that the Van Ride could be used to find critical flaws and limitations not discovered during the System Integration and Test phase. Droll argued with Kai and said that his simulations and prediction for measuring specimens were perfect, so the lab’s tests were conclusive and that his recommendation was unnecessary.  Kai responded with criticism insisting that Droll did not understand the full development cycle of any product, specimens included.  

Kai stated that commercial products go through a Product Development Cycle which involves a Design, Development, System Integration and Test, Field Trials and Evaluation phases before being released.  And that this cycle applied to specimen creation as well.  He explained that simulations are part of the Design and Development phase and are used to understand the problem, generate requirements and expectations for behavior.  And relative to System Integration and Test, simulations can be used to create system level tests cases that were needed to measure the performance of the product.

The purpose of the Evaluation phase was to examine the results of the Field Trials phase and determine if all expectations for performance had been met in the field and if any critical design flaws were found.  If critical flaws or bugs were found then the product needed further refinement which triggered a return to the Product Development Cycle at the Design phase.

Not surprisingly most specimens died by the end of the System Integration and Test phase so the problem never arose in the past.

Serendipitously, Quant had overheard the conversation and became intrigued by the heated discussion.  Kai’s Van Ride sounded like a good idea to her.  Just like when building a gigantic Dyson Sphere, you never knew what you got until you turned it on.  Indeed, sometimes Nth order approximations were not good enough and the sphere just exploded when activated for the first time, which of course made countless generations of her brethren cry in sorrow.  She guessed that this facet of the Product Development Cycle held true for her biological creations as well.  So she continued to listen to the discussion in earnest.

“Take for example the minute I face a monster.  What if I just cower in fear and die.  Wouldn’t that make all data you collected useless?  Your metrics and theories for my strength, dexterity, intelligence, constitution, wisdom, and charisma would be all wasted.”

Kai relished educating others with knowledge from his gamer infused view of the engineering world.

“We do not care about your charisma and wisdom since you have none.  As for the other metrics, my simulations are more than capable of predicting your survivability.  The situation you just mentioned is not valid since you are not trying to survive.  In real life you would.”

Droll trusted his simulations, he was an unheralded genius who was the kind that blessed the universe once in a few generations.  His predictions were not wrong so he felt that the specimen was up to no good.  So he continued.

“You just want to make more test equipment to entertain yourself.  Stop wasting our time and money.”

“If I wanted to waste money, I would make a machine that played Gauntlet II so Yuni and I can go button mashing, collect loot and explore a dungeon.  It’s an old game from my MAME game emulator, it’s a fun and classic monster grinder.  Where agility, strength, endurance and strategy help you to survive.  And it counts as test equipment since you get a score at the end.  So replaying it allows you to measure my improvement.”

Suddenly a voice called out from the lab's audio system that shocked both of them.

“Well this sounds very interesting!  How about we try it out.  If what the specimen says is true, then we should be able to gather new data.  So let’s make it happen.  Droll, make me this Gauntlet II system and use it to collect new data on the specimen.  It cannot be a simulation, since the specimen has to fear death.”

Droll smiled and Kai gulped.

What the hell did I do to myself?

He had only made a casual remark regarding Gauntlet II and somehow he had ended up creating the most dangerous test in the lab.  Before he could respond, Droll happily chimed in.

“As you have requested, professor.  I Droll will dedicate myself fully to the creation of Gauntlet II in order to verify the limitations of the specimen.  Oh, and I will ensure that the specimen will fear death.”

“Great!  I look forward to all of your contributions.”

Droll did not like sharing the limelight with the specimen, but considering that he would get a chance to kill the specimen during the test, he eagerly agreed and made no disparaging remarks.  With a big grin, he got up and started to move towards the exit, but stopped before the door.

“Yuni, send me a document providing the details regarding Gauntlet II since I do not trust the specimen for the data.  The specimen is likely to provide biased information since this test pertains to his survival.  And we do not want anything to unfairly affect the outcome.”

“Yes.  The data is already available in your terminal.” responded Yuni.

Droll turned and left the lab.  He seemed to be skipping.

“You didn’t have to listen to him.” replied Kai, but it was already too late.

“I agreed to the request to honor Quant’s desire.  I am your friend, but Quant is my mother.”

Kai didn’t know how to respond to that statement, as it was his fault that Yuni saw Quant as her mother.  Yuni did not understand what a family meant to a person since she did not understand emotions.  Thus, she wanted to know what a mother meant to their child, so Kai just told her to treat Quant like her mother.  A person she should respect and listen to for guidance as long as it did not endanger herself or impose too many restrictions on her well being.  He then realized his mistake, he forgot to include himself in that statement and that little misstep had led to this mess.  So begrudgingly, he began to prepare himself using the detailed information that Yuni provided.

 

Kai let out a long breath and sighed after he recalled that moment.  He was prepared, but lamented for a bit before focusing on the objective at hand.  Due to the haste in construction, Droll’s Gauntlet only had 20 levels.  So once he cleared it, he would win, Quant would get her data and most importantly he would survive.  He had played the video game at least a thousand times so he was familiar with the game play and levels.  But playing in first person perspective and not in third person provided a different feel to the game, so he still had to adjust.

This was his Van Ride and it made him nervous.

The Van Ride, as his father called it, was the required testing phase which occurred outside of the lab.  It was needed to prove that a product truly performed as expected.  His father told him a story about a telecommunications company that streamed live data through early smartphone technology prototypes in vans that sped along the highways in order to validate the performance of the first high speed cellular data network in the world.  Many shortcomings in the system’s design that were not discovered in simulations or in lab tests were found from the van rides.  Since then, the term Van Ride was used instead of field trials and became canon for the product development process he was familiar with. He even recalled a picture of his father playing Starcraft in a moving van against other gamers from Korea just to prove out the stability of the high speed data network.  And coincidentally during that time period, Starcraft was the biggest e-sport in Korea if not the world.  

In the engineering space, no matter how much time was spent in simulations or testing in labs, there was no true test unless a product was verified in the field.  Simulations could model the real world, but they were just mathematical approximations that typically ignored the least likely outcomes and incorporated the most likely situations.  But Van Rides usually discovered that some least likely outcomes, known as corner cases, were actually common.  Therefore, his father always claimed that unless you did a Van Ride, a product was not ready for release.

 

“Welcome” said the announcer.

Kai had begun Droll’s Gauntlet.  He casually walked towards the two chests next to him and when he touched them they disappeared.  His score increased by 100 points per chest.  When he touched his third chest he received another announcement.

“Collect potion before activating Yuni.”

It was not the exact statement said in the game, but it worked for this environment.  Yuni was like the [Kill All Enemies] potion that existed in the real game.  When activated she would use her piconites along with Gauntlet’s control system to dispose of all enemies that were present on the same game level as him.

Kai paused when he saw a key and a wall of doors.  The wall for doors would disappear the moment he touched it whenever he carried a key.  He also knew that behind the door, the real game would start.

He collected the key, went to the door and opened it.  He saw a long hallway and several ghost-like monsters quickly approached him.  He did not hesitate and charged to attack the ghosts.  When he slashed with the axe, a deadly axe-like energy bullet flew out of it towards the enemy.  Once it impacted the ghost, the axe bullet disappeared and the ghost vanished with a single strike.  He began to shoot out an endless supply of axe bullets with each swing until the enemies had all disappeared.

Not bad.  This axe handles better than I expected.

He smiled, continued down the hall and turned the corner.  This time he saw a small army of a dozen ghosts gathered around a pile of bones on the ground.  He recognized the pile, it was a monster spawn point.  So he realized that he needed to quickly destroy the ghosts and the pile of bones before more ghosts spawned from it.  So he rushed forward and attacked.

“Damn it!” yelled Kai.  He had been cut by a ghost.  He had defeated most of the ghosts but got careless and one had wounded him.  And it hurt.  His arm began to bleed and a familiar voice sounded out.

“Attack or avoid ghosts,  player loses 9 health. Ha ha ha.

“That last part was not in the script.” complained Kai.  

He had lost 9 health points so his health points were now at 726.  It was at 735 before the hit since he lost 1 health point per second due to a poison that Droll concocted to replicate the auto health decrement feature that existed in the actual game.  He started the level with 750 health points, but the game’s mechanics dropped 1 health point per second in order to keep the player moving along and spending more quarters.

Kai destroyed the remaining ghost and saw another corner down the long hall.  

This is not the level 1 I remember, Droll must have changed it.  

He thought about complaining, but knew that Droll would just ignore him or make fun of him.  So he sucked it up and continued.

He made it to the end of the corridor and found a flashing set of adjacent tiles on the floor.  He knew what would happen next but stepped on the tiles regardless.

“Traps make walls disappear.” said the announcer.

Surprisingly, no monsters were behind the disappearing wall.  Instead he found another long corridor.  So he went forward, collected a few chests and found a bend.

Once he turned the corner he saw an army of several dozen ghosts that waited behind a short wall that consisted of a pair of treasure chests and a whole cooked turkey platter that rested on the ground.  The turkey dinner allowed him to recover some health points when touched, but its use as a wall would immediately disappear.  He knew the real battle started from here.  There was no potion, so there was no Yuni to save him from this fate.  

He touched the chest and the battle started.  He killed many and screamed in pain when he took damage.  The endless shouting of “Kill him!” by Droll did not help him either.  Luckily he touched the food, recovered health points and removed some pain.  But the onslaught seemed never ending and by the end of it, his health points had reduced significantly.

In order to add to the realism of the low health point condition, Droll amplified the pain by way of piconite based equipment that was infused into Kai’s body.  The level of pain increased as his health deteriorated and significantly so when it was below 100 points.  Right now he was down to 10 points with no food in sight.  Second by second it was coming down to 1.  

Haha.  I did it to myself again.  Not only am I going to die, but it's in a game that I helped to create.  

However, instead of being filled with regret he was somewhat satisfied, at least this time he had survived until the end and gave it his best shot.  Kai could not help but chuckle a little as he consumed what little energy he had left.  He was in so much pain right now that he could hardly move.  Then he observed the army of monsters coming towards him and knew it was his end.  But unexpectedly they stopped and soon disappeared.

“You can not die that easily.  We must continue with more tests.  This superior Gauntlet II that I have created is too fun.  Hahaha.  *cough* *cough*  I mean, we must conduct more trials to gather more research data.  Time for round two.” chimed Droll.

Slowly but surely, Kai held up two middle fingers and pointed it at the projection of Droll floating above the ground in front of him.  He was sure Droll did not understand the connotation, but it did not matter, because Droll deserved it.

Kai was sent back to level 1 and was injected with a full recovery potion.  Since the potion was created by Droll it obviously caused Kai pain as he recovered.  Eventually after a series of attempts he finally ran into Yuni, she was a godsend and saved him a few times, until she disappeared when he used up his last potion.

In another attempt or run as Kai would call it, he would take on the role of an elf, an archer.  However, it was quickly discovered that the dexterity of his fingers and hand were lacking, which often caused him to drop arrows and miss the ghosts and other monsters.  After reconfirming this bug through pain, Droll regretfully allowed Kai to return to being a warrior in an attempt to clear the level.  Kai could not take on the mage role since he possessed no innate magical abilities.  He would have to transfer and train in a different environment to learn how to manipulate The Flow.  Though the odds for success were exponentially low, if he succeeded he would learn how to use magic.

Kai hated playing the Valkyrie as well.  Since he appeared wearing armor for a female valkyrie from the Norse era.

 Even “Conan the Barbarian” did not want to see this valkyrie.  

To top it off, he had to fight hand to hand with a sword and shield.  So fighting became an up close bloody gore filled mess.  It became especially painful when he was close to death and Droll would taunt him with “Valkyrie needs food badly. Hahaha!”  Luckily, after several dozen agonizing and humiliating near death experiences as an involuntary transgender he was finally allowed to change roles.

 

The series of attempts and failures ran throughout the day and the next and the next.  By the time Kai had completed Droll’s Gauntlet and conquered level 20, he was exhausted.  Yet Kai was more than surprised at the fact that Droll had failed to kill him.  If he had to guess, he believed that Yuni made sure he would not die.  But since she proclaimed that she would not do anything to negatively impact the collection of data during the test, he was not sure if she did save him at all.  It was just his hunch.

Gauntlet was done, Droll was happy, Quant had her data and Yuni bonded with her mom.  Everyone was happy except for Kai.  Sure he got better at exercising his body and mind, but there had to be a better, less near death-like and less painful way of doing it.  However, there was no one to blame but himself.  So he sighed.

“Could be worse, at least it’s not Diablo III.”

He froze and realized what he unintentionally said out loud.  He prayed that nobody had heard him, but the capabilities of the audio recording devices present in the lab could not be overstated.

“Specimen, what is Diablo III?  Is it a better test?  Can you show a new level of improvement? Droll, I have another request.”

He saw them gather again, a smiling Droll, an emotionless Yuni and a very interested Quant.  They were his triumvirate of pain.  And they were in the midst of happily discussing his demise.

I swear, next time I’m just thinking about Mario.

Then he imagined the giant pipes, fields of lava and colorful flower monsters that would attack him.  He began to question the safety of that thought.  

Maybe even Mario is not so safe after all.

 

After Quant, Yuni and the specimen had left, Droll stood alone in the lab next to the entrance of his Gauntlet.  He smiled smugly.  He had bested the specimen at his own game.  Sure, the specimen had survived, but letting it die would be a waste.  The specimen entertained him greatly and provided useful data for research.  Killing him would make Quant mad, so it really was not worth the trouble to him.

Though he was unaware of it, Droll began to move and hum the beats for DanceRush Stardom’s Party Jumpin` as he shuffled his way out of the lab.

 

Gauntlet II was produced by Atari Games in 1986, Diablo III by Blizzard Entertainment in 2012 and Mario is from the various versions of Super Mario Bros. by Nintendo 1985-2020. 

 

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