The Tiger tanks sat idling at the assembly point as their commanders peered through the viewing ports.

  They watched their comrades push forward to attack the mission objectives. Without the heavy firepower of the Tigers, most of them would be destroyed within minutes of confronting the enemy. It was all according to a battle plan that had been honed over many repetitions. They were the bait to lure the enemy into a trap.

  Each Tiger was assigned a precise position overlooking a strategic objective on the battlefield. Using the chaos of the initial fighting as cover, the Tigers would proceed to their hiding places undetected. They would then use their fearsome 88 mm main guns, and interlocking fields of fire, to destroy the enemy tanks as they attempted to capture the objectives. Most of their prey would never know what hit them.

  Combat Newt 331 glanced at the clock. It was almost time. The radio crackled with coded messages as the last seconds counted down.

  “Get some!” The tanks lurched into action as their big Maybach engines roared, belching plumes of exhaust into the air.

  “Attention to the designated coordinates!” This was code for a change to their assigned positions. They needed to immediately divert to alternate hiding spots. Ordering a change after the tanks were already rolling was not uncommon. It was intended to avoid creating recognizable patterns of battlefield behavior. Repetitive actions were vulnerabilities the enemy could exploit. Newt had seen the consequences of battlefield complacency before. He had watched as his brothers in arms were slaughtered by an enemy that seemed to anticipate their every move.

  The familiar route to the alternate streamed past his viewing ports as the heavy Tiger tank lumbered up a grassy slope. Newt called for more speed with a couple of sharp kicks to the back of the driver’s seat. They needed to hide before one of the fast enemy scout vehicles spotted them.

  Distant explosions could be heard as dense columns of black smoke rose into the sky.

  Finally, after executing a pirouette, the driver backed the tank into its u-shaped hideout. A semicircle of massive boulders surrounding a slight depression in the ground. The position afforded an unobstructed view of the valley below, while providing protection on three sides. Their assigned objective, Bravo, was visible from here.

  In the distance, two enemy tanks sped towards Bravo. The gunner sighted the targeting reticle just in front of the first tank, waiting for the commander’s order.

  “Fire!”

  With a deafening concussion, the main gun sent a HEAT round hurtling towards its target. The gun’s recoil rocked the big Tiger on its tracks, causing the world to swim briefly in Newt’s viewing port.

  The high explosive anti-tank shell struck the target in its vulnerable side armor. The tank immediately slowed to a halt. Initially, it appeared undamaged as it sat in the middle of the narrow dirt road, blocking the second tank. However, it soon began to burn furiously. A massive explosion sent its turret flying through the air as its ammunition load detonated. The second tank maneuvered desperately, trying to get away before the unseen predator could reload. It plowed deep furrows in the soft earth as it performed a slow motion U-turn just off the roadway.

  Inside the Tiger, the loader and the gunner worked together in a carefully choreographed ballet to discard the spent shell casing and reload the 88. The empty casing clattered onto the steel engine deck after being tossed through the ejection port. This was closely followed by the sound of the breech slamming another HEAT round into the main gun.

  “Gun ready!”

  Newt shouted, “Fire!”

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  The round easily penetrated the right flank of the enemy tank, stopping it dead in its tracks. Orange flames erupted from the hatches, as its crew was incinerated in a cauldron of burning ammo and fuel.

  Newt quickly did the math.

  Two premium enemy tanks destroyed within seconds of each other would earn a 4X kill multiplier. On top of the usual points for defeating the deadliest machines in the game, and including the bonus for another mission accomplished, he would add almost 100,000 points to his team’s total for the day. He would have a few beers back at the club to celebrate.

  He leaned down into the cramped turret to congratulate his crew. “Well done guys! You kicked ass today!” He could only see the gunner and loader from his position, but he knew the others could hear him.

  Both the gunner and loader glanced up at him. Their crudely rendered faces lacked sufficient detail to communicate anything remotely resembling a smile. Instead, they each made a thumbs up gesture with their mitten-like hands, acknowledging their boss’s praise.

  The company didn’t have the resources to waste on realistic graphics for non-player characters. Some of the more visible characters had a slightly higher level of detail but even a very visible tank commander like Newt only warranted three fingers. And it was unlikely that the company would ever have the funds to improve the graphics in the future.

  Management had surrendered their lead in gaming technology years ago in the interest of padding their own paychecks. This shortsighted strategy siphoned off capital that could have been reinvested to keep the game play exciting, and the graphics cutting edge. Consequently, interest in the game within the gaming community had eventually turned lukewarm, then ice cold. Battlefield Glory was a dying franchise.

  The fact that so much income was being diverted into the pockets of management did have one upside. Without sufficient funding for game updates, the NPCs were unlikely to be deleted and replaced by newer, more realistic characters.

  However, there was another drain on profits that management hadn’t anticipated. Somehow, in-game currency was disappearing. No matter what security enhancements were implemented, a significant amount of currency was evaporating at an alarming rate.

  Because it was only in-game currency, there were no law enforcement agencies authorized to intervene. After all, no lawful currency had been stolen, so the company was on its own to deal with whatever or whoever was stealing from it. Management was convinced that it was a few clever players who had hacked their monetization system. They had recently installed security AIs to augment their anti-virus software in an attempt to catch the culprits. But the drain on profits had only increased since the security enhancements.

  There was a sense of quiet desperation during the board of directors’ meetings. Management had assured the board that they were closing in on the criminals who had infiltrated the company, but in reality, they were clueless about how the culprits were stealing the company’s profits. The fact that they had a potential buyer for the company on the hook lent a sense of urgency to resolving the parasitic drain on profits.

  Consequently, despite his promises that it was only a matter of time before the perpetrators were dealt with, the board of directors was losing confidence in their CEO.

  During the most recent board meeting, the CEO of Battlefield Glory, Jim Ryan, again tried to reassure the board. “We are aggressively pursuing a resolution to this issue. We have employed the most advanced security technologies available, and I can promise you we will be able to move forward with the sale of Battlefield Glory … in due course.”

  One board member responded with annoyance “It’s not the board you need to worry about Jim. CGM is expecting a response to their purchase offer. If we keep stonewalling them, or they find out we’ve got an ongoing embezzlement problem, they’re going to walk away. And you know this is our only option to avoid a very messy bankruptcy. You can imagine the amount of litigation that would generate. We’ll be tied up in the courts for years.”

  There were nods of agreement from the other board members.

  The CEO could feel a bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck. “Listen, all I’m asking for is a little patience.”

  A second board member spoke up. His tone betraying his barely suppressed anger. “The problem here isn’t our lack of patience. It’s your inability to fix a problem that happened on your watch.” He threw his hands up in frustration, before adding, “I’m sorry Jim, but if you can’t get this fixed in the next 30 days, the board is going to vote to replace you.”

  Ryan sagged into his seat. He couldn’t believe it had come to this. Here he was, battling a criminal conspiracy and the board of directors had just conveniently thrown him under the bus. “They’re covering their asses.”, he thought. He ponderously collected his notes and stuffed them into his briefcase, while the directors sat in silence, avoiding eye contact with him.

  As he stood up to leave, he said, “Okay, I think we all know where we stand.” With that, he turned and left the conference room, quietly muttering obscenities, as he walked through the adjacent hallway.