The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG

I was finally getting a good understanding of how Dina’s trope actually worked.
I could read all I wanted from the Carousel Atlas, but it wasn't until I started this storyline that it really came together and formed a complete picture in my mind.
We were cut off from the story.
Sure, we were there, and it was possible that some little indication of our existence might end up in the final film, but we were not really characters. We were warm bodies that happened to be in the same vicinity of the story, and I was clueless as to how we were going to fix that without causing bigger problems.
I had some idea of how to direct the action of a storyline when I was a character in one, and even though I was usually a secondary character—or at least I started as one—that was worlds apart from what I was here: a nameless voice over an intercom.
I had to imagine that the isolated nature of this storyline played into how Dina’s rescue manifested.
I could see that Dr. Andrew Hughes, or at least the NPC playing him, as well as Michael Brooks and Lila White, were On-Screen most of the time. That was a problem. As NPCs, they didn't need Off-Screen breaks. This storyline could end up being very quick. Even when we spoke to them, and they went Off-Screen to respond, they didn't stay Off-Screen long.
How were we supposed to make our presence known enough that we could affect the final film? Could we really pull this off from the shadows? I didn’t know.
Lila White was a Wallflower, and the NPC playing her was living up to that name.
I couldn’t blame her for that part.
I was so glad we didn’t run this storyline as prep.
I couldn’t imagine being in a situation like that myself. There was no way to kill the enemy; they were surrounded, and from the look of the bedbug tropes, I had the feeling the bedbugs were just not going to go away. They had a Plot Armor of 100. Could an enemy like that be defeated in a traditional way? Would it be a waste of time to try?
I didn’t know what to do to help with the situation, but one thing that made sense to me was that I had to talk to IBECS and try to understand how it worked. I couldn’t tell if it was just a series of prerecorded messages combined with a bit of old-school tech know-how or if it was genuine artificial intelligence by sci-fi standards.
I sat down in one of the chairs on the flight deck and opened a chat with IBECS. It was easy because all I had to do was think about it and press a button. And unless I just happened to press the right button, it would seem that Carousel didn’t care about the specifics. It was make-believe.
"IBECS, do you know what's going on?" I asked.
"It would appear that most of the employees and private contractors I am carrying have not awoken from their deep sleep chambers due to negative readings on their health monitors," IBECS answered.
He was talking to me and to the NPCs at the same time, two different conversations.
"What is causing the health issue?" I asked as the others gathered around me.
"While your concern for the private contractors and officers aboard my sleeping bays is laudable, I cannot disclose medical information that is deemed private. I hope you understand," IBECS said.
I was prepared for evil artificial intelligence gone rogue, but ultra-bureaucratic artificial intelligence was proving to be far more frustrating.
"There’s something on the floor and covering the sleeping bay. Can you tell me what I am seeing?" I asked.
I could see up on the monitor as the camera zoomed in close enough to make out the individual wriggling bed bugs marching to and fro.
"It would appear that….” He paused. “Excuse me. I have gathered the information that you require," IBECS said, "and I will make sure that Captain Marlin is apprised of it immediately."
There was something strange in his automated voice, almost like a disc skipping, as if he wanted to say something but immediately changed his direction.
"The image on the screen right now," Kimberly said, having found a tie to put her hair up in a ponytail, "what is on that image? Just answer that."
"Those are bedbugs, I believe," IBECS said.
"So you’re infested with bedbugs, right?" Kimberly asked.
"No," IBECS said. "The pre-launch procedures designed by KRSL have been tested as being 100% effective at preventing contamination and infestation of all foreign lifeforms."
We looked at each other in frustration.
"But the image on the screen showing the interior of the sleeping bay shows bedbugs?" Antoine asked.
"Yes, the image is of bedbugs," IBECS responded.
We looked at each other.
"It's like he has some kind of mental block," Cassie said. "He can't acknowledge what's going on."
That made me think of something.
"When you said you sent a message to headquarters, did you mention the bedbugs?" I asked.
IBECS took a while to answer, but then he said, "It is unclear whether you are permitted to know the contents of a message sent to headquarters."
I thought for a moment. "Maybe you should send a similar message to nearby ships in case there are any qualified officers on board who may be able to relay your message more efficiently," I suggested. Does your protocol forbid that?"
For a few moments, IBECS did not say anything.
"My protocol does not directly forbid that. I have sent a mayday beacon with a similar message encoded," IBECS said.
I looked over at Rudy, the captain of the Helios. "Did we get that mayday?"
Rudy looked at the screen and said, "Yes, we did." He clicked something, and an indicator appeared on his screen.
"Open the message," Rudy said.
The Helios' AI voice responded, "This message is for officers ranked A3 or above."
"I am the captain of this ship," Rudy said. "You will open that message. That's an order."
At that, it appeared that the message was opened.
Rudy read through it. "No, he didn’t mention bedbugs," Rudy said. "He just said it was some sort of mysterious malfunction or health problem."
That wasn't useful to us directly, except it did give us insight into IBECS's thinking.
"Okay," I said. "So the first thing we know is that it cares about corporate hierarchy to the letter but not necessarily the spirit of the rules. It could send a message for a high-ranked officer to this ship, and then the captain of this ship could order his ship to read the message, but he couldn't just directly tell us what was in the message."
"Sounds like wonderful design," Isaac said.
"What it sounds like," Antoine said, "is that they put all of their effort into advancing technology and nothing into stopping hackers."
"Well, that would be the 1980s sci-fi movies for you," I said.
"It almost sounds like it just can't admit there are bedbugs," Ramona said. "So that's probably why it didn't do anything about it."
I didn’t know if the programming was that simple. Surely, he wasn’t restricted from fixing problems just because he wasn’t allowed to admit to them. That would be ridiculous.
"IBECS," I said, "what is the procedure for when bedbugs are found aboard the ship in flight?"
"When a commanding officer is made aware of any infestation, such as bedbugs, they will first coordinate with me to develop a plan for addressing the particular needs brought up by the issue. For bedbugs, there are no insecticides aboard the ship, but there are both chemical and alternative methods for dispatching such an infestation."
"Wait," I said, "so your only protocol for dealing with bedbugs assumes that a human officer sees them first?"
"KRSL pre-launch procedures have 100% effectiveness at preventing emergencies like a bedbug infestation."
I started to respond, but Antoine jumped in.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Can you say something negative about KRSL for me? Just give me any criticism of the company."
"KRSL is an exemplary organization," IBECS said. "While year after year of increased profits and market performance are not absolute indicators of corporate health, they do suggest a general trend that KRSL is a rapidly advancing and evolving company."
"That’s not what I asked," Antoine said. "Can you see any news articles about KRSL that are not flattering? Do you have that kind of information?"
"Alas," IBECS said, "corporate sabotage and smear campaigns have touched many great companies, including KRSL. No meaningful accusations of malfeasance have ever been substantiated."
Antoine looked back at us. "It can’t disparage its company," he said. "It literally cannot say something negative or even seem to imply it. Somehow, the pre-launch procedures didn't work, but it won’t acknowledge that because it has to pretend those procedures are 100% effective. It’s practically blind to the bedbugs."
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That made sense when it came to actually talking to IBECS, but I had to wonder how deeply that behavior was coded. Was it not able to acknowledge problems that it was told could not exist or that would harm KRSL if discussed? That didn't feel like a complete picture.
There was a symphony of errors on that ship. The question was, which errors could we fix?
Bedbugs had a long tradition of hurting corporate pocketbooks in the hospitality industry. It would make sense if they had a similar effect on stock prices in a world where people were shipped off into space.
We continued to fiddle with IBECS more, trying to understand precisely how he thought and how he reacted.
Meanwhile, NPCs Andrew, Michael, and Lila were busy trying their own efforts to get out of the large warehouse that comprised the sleeping bay of the ship.
I hadn’t been watching them very closely because it didn’t seem like they were having much success. Based on the gimmick of Dina’s rescue trope, it seemed likely that they could never succeed on their own. The question was, how could we intervene?
The answer was not a happy one.
The Party Phase continued to fly by regardless of what we did or said because the story wasn't about us; it was about the psychological horror that the three NPC surrogates were experiencing.
Most psychological horror of this ilk did not rely on plot beats based on an antagonist's actions but rather on how a situation affected the emotional well-being of its principal characters. Based on that alone, the story flew by, and I was nothing but a fly on the wall watching it.
These NPCs were suffering as the bugs crawled all over. They spasmed and itched and were visibly miserable and jumpy.
I watched them through the monitors, which were kindly giving us a live feed of the surrogates.
I almost asked IBECS what the procedure was for when someone pulls a fire alarm, but I didn’t because I oddly felt like I would be ratting on the NPCs.
So, instead, I asked Rudy, the captain of our ship.
"It’s not a bad idea," Rudy said. "Fire suppression is critical in a spaceship, as you might imagine. The first thing that will happen is that oxygen will get sucked out of that room—not all of it; it won't be a vacuum, but enough that the fire won’t spread. Then CO2 will get pumped in, assuming they have enough of it in storage. It might be nitrogen. I’m not sure how the sedated passengers will factor in. It’s hard to tell with old ships like that, especially a modular build like that. We don’t know what the procedure is. It might help. It might do nothing."
Andrew dropped to the ground, straight to his knees.
Andrew, Michael, and all of the other non-officers on the ship were private contractors, not employees.
On some level, it made sense that a spaceship would not just let anyone trigger a fire suppression system.
"Can we still talk to them?" Antoine asked.
"I think so," I said, "but I’m not sure if we should when they’re On-Screen."
"We need to start telling them what to do, then," Antoine said. "We’re almost out of the Party Phase, and we need to take charge here."
"Why aren't they doing the obvious thing? Why don't they drag an officer out of his pod and put his eye up against the scanner or something?" Isaac asked.
There was no eye scanner, but his point wasn’t bad.
"Players would do that," I said, "but they’re not players. We need to direct them to do things."
"I say we do that," Isaac said.
"Couldn’t hurt," Antoine added.
Undoubtedly, the first thing players would attempt would be to wake up an officer. Of course, because it was the first thing people would think to do, I doubted it would work. Still, we had to play the game.
So we waited a few moments—long enough for Carousel to get all the shots they needed of the surrogates' depressed reaction to the failed fire alarm stunt.
As soon as they went Off-Screen, Antoine walked up to the console with the red button, pressed it, and said, "You have to wake up one of the officers."
Andrew heard him and asked, "Who is this? Do you have any way of getting the ship to let us out of this room?"
"Do what I said," Antoine said. "You have to wake up one of the officers."
"I don’t know how," Andrew admitted. "Even if we managed to get a chamber open, that doesn’t automatically wake up the person that’s in it, and we might be seen as hostile by IBECS itself for damaging property."
Antoine almost responded again, but then, remembering our team strategies, he gestured for Isaac to speak.
"Maybe being seen as hostile isn't the worst thing," Isaac said. “It might be what it takes to open the door.”
Andrew’s eyes perked up—I could see them even though he wasn't very large on the screen. The realization that he might have to poke the bear seemed to have registered with him.
"Wait," Isaac said. "No, don’t do that—oh, shit."
"Bad idea?" I asked.
He nodded his head. “Not the worst. But not great.
Isaac had
equipped. He could tell his action was not the best one.
But it was too late.
"Ramona, get Cassie out of here!" I said immediately, as soon as I realized what was about to happen.
I didn’t know if Ramona understood why, but she grabbed Cassie and dragged her down the platform and away from the side of the monitor.
Cassie had a trope that allowed her to share pain with others, and she had a bad habit of triggering it unintentionally, or at least without good forethought. I didn’t know if that would happen this time, but I did know that there was undoubtedly about to be a lot of anguish in front of us.
It only took a few moments for the screams to start. But they weren't huge, breathy screams—no, they were choked, miserable screams accompanied by gurgling and coughing.
Then, we saw on the screen just how terrible a little bug can be.
"How would bedbugs do all this?" Isaac asked, suddenly taking things far more seriously than I had ever seen him.
An idea struck me.
"IBECS, do you see those crew members trying to open the door to the sleeping bay?"
"Yes, they are not authorized," IBECS responded.
"Did you not hear the command from Officer Emhoff to help them?"
"I did not register that as a command to assist in opening the door," IBECS responded.
So he wasn't
stupid, but there was still hope.
"That's incorrect," I said. "Listen again."
As if scripted to do so, Dr. Hughes said again, "I need you to tell the computer to open the door to this room."
And as he had been repeating, Officer Emhoff whispered in a husky tone, "Help."
"See?" I said. "He's telling you to help them."
I was betting that a computer wouldn't be able to pick up on social cues and understand what was going on but would take the literal meaning of the words being spoken.
To my most incredible thrill, my little trick worked because moments later, the door to the large room containing all of the deep sleep chambers popped open with the release of steam and slid out of the way. Afterward, Officer Emhoff leaned over and either passed out or died. Either way, they loaded the officers back in their sleep chambers for life support.
We were learning. Now, what was next?