The 21st Century Plague

The clothes that I wear are very itched against my skin as I walk through the markets of ancient Rome. It was probably wrong to wear an immersive haptic full-body suit tracking, but that made this experience feel more natural and added the adrenalin. It was a sunny day, and I could not tell precisely the time. Judging from the sun’s position just like it was rising, it was around 7 to 9 am — wandering around the crowded marketplace, mustering up the courage to attempt my first interaction with an NPC in this game. Luckily, the programmer who developed this virtual simulation was kind enough to put English as the primary language for all the AI, so I did not bother to learn Latin. But as an exchange, the programmer used the old English language for this game. A bit of pressure for me as I have to adjust my speaking so that I do not make mistakes that could cost my “life.” My first challenge was figuring out what period I was stationed in. Yes, we were told we were in ancient Rome, but that covered an extended amount of time. The teacher did not give away the details when we were placed, so the easiest way to figure it out was to ask someone who the emperor was.

I directly ask the trader near me and carefully not to make a suspicion that could put me in danger.

“By your leave, sir. Apologize for my rude behavior, yet I hast just returned from a longest pilgrimage. May I bid who is currently the emperor?” Hoping to keep my declensions straight, I waited for the response.

“Thou are not wrong to be lost. These are married trying times for us all. Justinian I hath been declared co-emperor for several months now, for all the good that shall doth him and the rest of us,” he replied.

Hmm, Justinian, I do not recall someone named Justinian ruling the Roman Empire in entire history, or I just forget. I had taken the time to remember every single Roman emperor in order. But still, there is no result for this guy. After logging out of this simulation, I have to crosscheck it again on the Internet.

After around the market for a day, I got back to my checkpoint, where I first appeared to log out. Yes, we are prohibited from logging out in any place because players will use it as an advantage when they are in danger just to log out whenever they want. Instead, we have to log out from certain places like a checkpoint and a bedroom in our simulated house or a shelter.

My name is written on the screen of my VR headset as I log out from the device. It says, “Thank you for playing, Cronos.” Yes, that is the silly name I used to play this simulation. But my real-life name is Sultan Mahmud. My parents gave me that name. They hope he grows up as a strong, brave, and wise man, like any other parents’ dream. I am a seventeen-year-old high school student.

Currently, I am in the middle of one of the biggest and toughest exams every student has to take at the end of their high school semester, the VAST (Virtual Autonomous Standardized Test). The results for all major subjects and electives selected will be combined for grades that will determine our choices for future education — the cut at the top is very precise and cuts the tail end of the bell curve thinner than machine sashimi. I have scored absolute marks for one semester (the VAST exam lasts the entire semester — most courses take an average of a month to examine their students). However, I have one final hurdle to pass, the history test.

About that Justinian guy, there was a confusing moment going on. Justinian I was the emperor of the Byzantine Empire, formerly known as the Eastern Roman Empire, which split from the Western Empire that had fallen. Technically, it is still Roman, but very different from what I used to know. Byzantine Empire history is not known well in my memory, the only history I know is the fall of Constantinople, but it is still far from the timeline where I placed it.

I do not know why the examiner would place us during the Justinian era, or it is the fact that there was a plague named after him. Yes, a plague called the Justinian plague spread across Europe from 541 to 549 AD. What a sick move from an examiner who tries to kill us all by surviving the third deadliest pandemic in history. So, this is the main goal of this simulation, to survive the plague of Justinian.

Oh yeah, by the way. The time here at the simulation is not the same as in real life, where 30 minutes in real life equals one day in simulation. So basically, I could just finish this simulation for a whole day. But I am not going to do that. The examiner gives us a week to finish the exam, so I will use that time effectively while making up a care plan.

Time to set up my gear again. The time shows day 3. I planned to get out of this city as soon as possible. I stuck to my original plan and became a clerk, giving myself two weeks to earn enough coins to buy my way northward. But the problem is, I don’t remember exactly where the plague came from. Still, I decided that it would be easier to travel overland than to risk crossing the Mediterranean Sea in vessels that I had looked at and couldn’t trust further than I could hoick an amphora (and trust me, those are not light at all). In that short time, I had made around 20 gold solidus — this would get me out of Constantinople and join a convoy where I hoped to earn more money by playing my new trade at towns that we would stop by on the way northwards. I would head to the Byzantine city of Adrianople (in present-day Edirne, Turkey) before leaving the Byzantine Empire for real.

I can barely do anything. Most cities are still unaware of the spectre of the plague that will soon descend upon the metropolis within weeks or even days. However, the signs are already showing in those who seek it. A strange corpse in a corner, blood coming out of the mouth and eyes, the price of medicinal and herbal ingredients slowly but surely rising, the roar of the whole city being found with a rare disease in the port of Pelusium, near Suez, Egypt. That means the plague has started to spread and soon becomes an epidemic. I do not care. None of this is real (no matter how ‘real,’ there’s a lot I have to go through on the streets), and the suffering is fabricated. Most of this city had been destroyed, but I had to leave the next morning.

Rushing from the small stall behind where I wrote letters and made contracts, I made my way to the inn where I was staying to start packing my meagre things for the long and arduous journey ahead. The sun was starting to set below the horizon, and I didn’t want to stay outside after dark. It took me a while to adjust to the extremely low light levels available after sunset. I was caught in the middle of the night exactly as it was. I don’t want to repeat that experience. Shadows extend and stretch across one of the stunning aqueducts making up the Byzantine landscape as I slip between several pillars. It was a little shortcut I knew would take me home a little earlier when I heard the sound of someone throwing up. Not having time to react, I turned a corner to find a woman hunched over with one arm propping herself against the wall. Bile splattered on the ground, and her dress was stained with stains from her toil. I look at the game’s menu, and it is day 5.

Plague. I don’t want to be near him. My life depends on it, both inside and outside of this simulation. Hoping he hadn’t noticed me, I turned around and-

“Wait! Please, I just want some shelter- Goddamnit!” said the woman. Her pleas were cut short with drier curses and vomiting. I quit. The AI in this simulation can’t swear, at least not in such languages. She was a student who was about to fail one of the most important exams at the end of her VAST regime. Heart pounding in my chest, I run.

We all share the same simulation. I’ve met a few other students but stay in character for formality if at least they try something funny, and they do the same, probably thinking that I’m not paying attention to them. Little things can expose them, like the way they wear clothes, haircuts, and even when they talk. I am sure there are a lot of other students that I missed because they did everything right, but it’s a matter not worth thinking about. No one looked as desperate as that woman, and for a good reason. I paused for a moment, breathing in the cold Spring air, silently scolding myself for this weakness.

I cannot help her. The chance of catching the plague was too great. Yet it still felt wrong to let her suffer unaided.

Moments later, I turned and headed back to where the woman was lying, curled up on the ground in a puddle. She looked at me with bloodshot eyes and opened her mouth with bleeding gums.

“Please. I want help!”

I shook my head and said,

“Thou are beyond help hither, yet I compose it more effortless.” It hurts me to see the glimmer of hope in her eyes fade quickly, but it’s true. There is little I can do. I took out the small knife I had kept for self-defence from my pocket and threw it at her.

“Good luck with the rest of thy life, Vale,” I shout.

The sobs didn’t last long before they were breathlessly cut short and drowned out by the frenzy of Byzantine nightlife.

I was cold, hungry, and desperate. Oh, how even the best-laid plans of mice and men. I rest up at a shelter and take off my gear.

On day 15, I finally spotted my chance. Two men on horses were having a friendly chat as they guided themselves down the road on a trot. I can’t believe my luck. As long as those guys don’t decide to point their horses at the canter (which I don’t have the stamina to keep up with), maybe I can attack at night while they’re sleeping. As they passed, I slipped from the bushes and followed them as far as possible, not wanting to be seen. The sun was about to set down, and I thought about how quickly things were slipping. I no longer feel like I’m taking a history exam. There’s nothing academic about this — I did it, but only barely! What about that poor girl who wasn’t lucky enough to catch the plague; it could be me! I couldn’t hear their conversation as the day went on, but soon the light began to fade, and so did my condition. If this doesn’t work, I’ll be dead tonight, a whole month before this test is over. I will still get decent grades and be placed on courses that will lead to a comfortable life, but it won’t be enough for me to have the freedom to choose what I want to do. That honour belongs only to the best students, and it’s something I deeply want.

Night came as I hungrily watched the flick flicker of flames and smelt the heavenly aroma of cooked sausage. My stomach grumbled its dissent, and the pain in my extremities continued to persist. I let the flames burn down before sneaking closer, ears listening for the slightest indication that the two were still awake and hearing the snap-crackle of every twig and dry leaf that had decided to lay out a red carpet towards the source of my salvation. A part of my mind reeled at what I was about to do. At the same time, another noted that I could barely feel the knife that I had my slightly purplish (or was it just a trick of the moonlight?) fingers tightly wrapped around. Reaching the camp without further ceremony other than my thudding heartbeat, I padded over to one of the sleeping forms to begin my dirty work. I would have to be fast. In the holo-movies, the assassins always slit the throat, did they not? A hand positioned above the mouth, ready to clamp down, my other trembling one poised just a little lower.

But wait. This man’s haircut was modern. Oh no. I straightened up and slunk over to the other person. Same haircut — he even had a book open that he had been writing in. Cursing my curiosity, I peeked at the writing, which is modern English. Screw me!

I would have to kill these two, but they would not accept me even if I told them I was a student. More fails meant a better chance they would get a good placement after the VAST. Stealing wouldn’t be enough — I did not know how to ride a horse, and I needed a lot of clothes and food to make it through the night. Closing my eyes, I steeled myself. Two lives for one; it wasn’t a fair trade, but the game had never been fair from the start, had it? How had they gotten horses? They had had it a lot easier than I did. There was no way of me knowing how well they were currently doing in the VAST; for all I knew, they were close to bombing out altogether, which meant they would be consigned to a lifetime of indifference in cubicle space.

No. I would not let that happen to me. Not at any cost. I bent down and did the deed. The first one was the hardest, and something snapped in me after the victim I killed stopped struggling and went limp. I stood up from the corpse and its now blood-splattered diary and quickly walked across to the second person. Smoothly and drag him. I said,

“I am sorry. I want this just as much as thou doth.” He was crying. I was too. Somehow, his struggles seemed more desperate; blood spurted out of the cut that I had made and covered my face. It horrified me that I found the sensation good, for it was still warm, and I knew that soon, I would live for another day. I had a fire, I had food, and I had clothing. Soon, it was over. Immediately, I went to grab the blankets and heaped up the fire, losing myself in the shorter-term battle to keep myself going. I knew I would never forget this night, and it was all I could hope that I would not hate myself for it in the years to come. Perhaps this was history, I mused. History was more basic, sensual, savage, and ancient than we would think. When had times ever been fair? A day later and a day earlier would have seen these two safely on their way; likewise, for me and the bandits that had driven me to where I currently sat, rocking myself in front of a rekindled fire, knife still clutched in my blood-stained hand. There was nothing to wash it with; I needed what little water there was for drinking.

This place probably was a bit too dangerous to stay for the rest of the exam leaving seven days left. I hope there are no witnesses. If so, I might be in big trouble and finish my exam as a murderer, which I already am, but as long as no one reports, then I am safe. The next day I would ride to Adrianople and sell my horse; that should net me enough money to live out the rest of my time here. I hope everything will be worth it in the end.

I would not imagine at first that this exam would turn into something like a nightmare for me. I started in a warm and friendly environment, then later started to kill people for my own sake. I feel bad for those people. If the examiner could see what I did in this simulation, they would probably ban me from this exam, but hey, there is no rule about that. We ought to survive for 30 days in this simulation, and that is it. They do not mention any killing rules, or norm rules, whatsoever.