True Apocalypse Game

For days, the director had been sporting deep, dark circles under his eyes. Though he still came to the office on time, he was clearly not in good shape, only perfunctorily handling some official business and spending the rest of his time locked in his office.

And now, his explosive rage was a clear sign that something had set him off.

No one knew if another plan to topple a foreign government had failed, if an overseas spy ring had been completely wiped out, or if he was being pressured by his superiors.

Whatever the reason, it was best not to get on his bad side right now.

A young woman holding a file stood hesitating at the door, unsure if she should go in and ask the director to review the document at a time like this.

A senior agent behind her gently patted her shoulder, then raised a finger and shook it, signaling for her to wait.

Inside the office, Nick, the Director of the Eagle Country CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), stared with a dark expression at the computer screen he had punched through and the shattered keyboard, sinking into deep thought.

After receiving an invitation to the "True Apocalypse Game," he had become deeply engrossed in it.

As one of the most powerful spymasters on the planet, he had a tremendous interest in this mysterious game and the developer behind it.

At first, he only started playing with the intention of finding clues, but after he truly entered the game and experienced the first mission in the Stone Statue Apocalypse, he found himself thoroughly captivated.

The Stone Statue Apocalypse created by the game’s developer was so incredibly lifelike, it felt like a real, existing world.

Moreover, its depiction of the reasons for the outbreak and the subsequent spread of the plague was a sobering wake-up call.

When the character Nick controlled finally obtained the Healing Potion for the Petrification Disease after countless hardships, it felt as though he had gone through a baptism, even experiencing a sense of rebirth.

It was at this moment that Nick vaguely guessed that the thirteen doctors who had previously succeeded in developing a cure for the Petrification Disease had very likely come into contact with this game!

As a well-trained agent, he could sense the developer’s various guiding and selective mechanisms while playing the game, as well as an underlying benevolence toward humanity.

Because of this, when the second mission, "Nuclear Wasteland Apocalypse," began, he jumped in without a moment’s hesitation.

But the feeling this time was completely different from the Stone Statue Apocalypse; the overall style was much darker and more oppressive.

Fortunately, this kind of environmental mood naturally wouldn’t affect him. After all, his entire career had been built on the business of lying, cheating, and stealing.

Nick played the game patiently, even becoming the leader of several hundred-player squads and guiding them in various activities.

They put in a great deal of effort during the construction of the City of Hope.

The immense wisdom and humble character displayed by his teammates—the other players—also filled him with admiration.

Although there were some dark-hearted and morally corrupt individuals, everyone generally got along harmoniously, all striving toward a common goal.

They worked even harder, especially after learning that the penalty for failing the game’s mission was a real-world apocalypse.

Although most people were dismissive of the failure penalty set by the game developer, a small seed of doubt still lingered in their minds.

’But what if it’s real?’

Nick even harbored an ambition: after reviving human civilization within the game, he would re-establish a resurgent Eagle Country.

After all, while the game developer constantly hinted that everyone in this apocalypse should identify more with their human identity, people will always have races and nationalities.

When the City of Hope was finally complete and the surviving humans of the apocalypse prepared to sign a permanent peace treaty, with everyone gathered in the City of Hope’s conference hall, Nick was even one of the hundred-member council presiding over the signing.

As name after name was signed, even though he knew it was just a game, a strong sense of pride swelled within Nick.

After these few days of hardship and epic experiences, Nick had become completely immersed.

’In the real world, he was an elite. In the game, he could also lead humanity back to glory!’

Once peace was achieved, they would have completed two of the three major tasks. All that remained was to find the true cause of the nuclear war.

But all of it was destroyed by that damned nuclear strike!!!

’Human civilization was already nearly annihilated, and no government institutions existed anymore. So why were the nuclear strikes in the game still continuing!?’

As the director of the CIA, he was relatively knowledgeable about Eagle Country’s nuclear strike system. He understood that while a "Dead Hand" system designed to drag everyone down did exist, the people controlling it were by no means madmen.

Logically, after a global nuclear strike had already knocked human civilization back to the Iron Age, no one would continue to launch nuclear attacks.

’Nations no longer existed, so what was the point of a nuclear attack?’

’What in the world was going on?’

’What went wrong? Or was this just the game developer’s sick sense of humor?’

Nick’s face was grim. After a moment of thought, he connected the computer’s server to another screen, preparing to re-enter the game.

"KNOCK KNOCK." The door was knocked upon.

"Come in."

The timid female subordinate entered holding a file. She glanced at the broken computer screen on the floor before approaching the desk to have Nick sign it. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Nick raised his eyebrows.

’Only relatively important documents required a physical copy for signing these days. Official business couldn’t be delayed.’

He casually opened the folder, and a line of eye-catching text immediately appeared before him:

"Risk Assessment Report on the New Intelligent Combat Command System ’Zeus’"

He casually flipped open the file and began to read it quickly.

The CIA and the military were not just parallel organizations; they also had a mutual obligation to oversee the military’s intelligence departments.

Thus, he was also very well-informed about the military’s every move.

He had previously attended an internal meeting to learn about this "Zeus" combat command system.

’In his opinion, the thing wasn’t very reliable.’

As a veteran intelligence officer, he put more faith in people.

This risk assessment report also mentioned issues such as the system being hacked, which could lead to chaos in the command structure. However, the military was still only in the experimental phase with this system, keeping it basically confined to an internal local area network.

Initially, it would only be applied on local battlefields in the Middle East and wouldn’t directly take over the entire country’s combat system.

The Eagle Country military divides the globe into six theaters: the Northern Theater, Southern Theater, Indian Ocean-Pacific Theater, European Theater, Central Theater, and African Theater. It has also established 10 unified combatant commands, six of which are theater commands, and the other four are functional commands.

’This system will probably be tested in one of the overseas theaters, using Eagle Country’s enemies as test subjects.’

Picking up a pen, Nick began to sign the document, thinking to himself as he wrote, ’If this thing could really take over the entire nation’s combat system, the result would likely be a relentless, unending conflict...’

A relentless, unending battle!

It was like a thunderbolt striking his mind; he instantly made a connection.

Looking at the half-signed name, Nick unceremoniously crossed it out, threw the file back at his female subordinate, and turned to his computer. While operating the mouse, he said:

"Get out."

The subordinate fled in a panic at his words, not even daring to help the director clean up the shattered computer screen before quickly closing the door behind her.

Nick pressed his lips together, clicked on the "True Apocalypse Game" icon again, and logged in quickly, muttering to himself:

"I should have thought of it sooner... I just got stuck in a fucking mental trap..."

The game screen appeared. All the players had died in the recent nuclear strike and had now respawned in the initial ruins.

Because he had been delayed for a bit, he was one of the later ones to arrive.

Before Nick had a chance to speak, he saw someone was already shouting:

"...there’s a ninety percent probability that an automated strike system exists in this apocalypse. We have to find the source of that system to end the apocalypse..."

~

(Note: Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo once publicly stated in a speech, "I was a CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses...")