Game of Drones

 This is a story idea i've had for a little while. Inspired by Charlie Brooker's black mirror series, it's meant to be a darker story idea in the same vein of the series which is about the darker side of technology and our relationship with it. 

The war was on the TV again. It always was. Ever since he could remember, he'd always seen footage of the war. Footage of a war-torn landscape, burning trucks, demolished houses, soldiers in camo gear herding civilians to safety, sometimes bodies strewn around.

Liam barely noticed as the footage flickered silently across the muted TV, barely looking up from his cereal.

He was on his own again. His mum had already left for another double shift. She was barely home anymore, and even when she was, she rarely spoke—not since his dad had been called up. Liam had stopped asking when he'd be home. It was always "soon," then it was "classified," and then nothing.

His phone pinged and he looked up. It was an email. The subject read: “FRONTLINE – the future of combat.” He was used to game companies sending emails about their new products, and he was about to delete it as spam, but something was different about this one. He read on: “This is not a game, this is the future of combat.” He clicked the link and was taken to a site asking for his address and, for a nominal delivery fee, offering a “free state-of-the-art VR combat rig.”

He scrolled further, unsure if this was a scam, but the reviews looked good. He pulled out his wallet and entered his card details. His phone pinged again with confirmation of his order.

He stood up, placed his bowl in the sink, and set off for college.

Two days later, he arrived home to find a large cardboard box on his porch. He carried it upstairs and dumped the contents onto his bed. Inside the box was a VR headset, a haptic vest, gloves, boots, and a gun.

This was impressive stuff.

His email pinged again with a download key for the software and instructions on how to calibrate the peripherals.

He had a few hours to kill before his mum got home, so he clicked the download and set the gear up.

He zipped up the haptic vest and pulled down the visor of the VR headset; he was instantly transported to a desert landscape. He'd played all the usual war games—Call of Duty, Battlefield—but this was like nothing he'd ever seen.

The graphics were beyond anything the other companies were producing. The sand kicked up in his face as he walked, and he almost felt like he could feel it, along with the baking sun on his back.

The interface was simpler than most games: a basic heads-up display showing his life counter and remaining ammo. He tried shooting a wall, and the haptic feedback in the gloves stung his hands.

This really was some next-level tech.

He walked over to the glowing waypoint and was greeted with a message—an older man in army camo with various medals pinned to his chest giving him instructions about movement, ducking, strafing, objective markers, and his mission. Standard fare for this kind of game.

His HUD changed and showed an arrow pointing east. He began to follow. Suddenly, from behind a burnt-out Humvee, came the chatter of gunfire. Liam ducked, taking cover behind another burnt-out truck.

He fired back, although the feedback still hurt his hands as he fired. He made his way through the landscape, ducking and dodging through more gunfire, finally getting used to the controls and firing back. He reached the objective marker. A screen flickered up: 25 kills. 0 deaths. x3 streak multiplier.

Not bad.

He checked the leaderboard. Already, he’d ranked 86th worldwide.

He played every day after that, racking up hours in the game and rising quickly up the leaderboard: 86th, 50th, 33rd, 19th. He was good at this. Maybe too good.

No game had ever pulled him in like this. The missions were short but intense and sometimes scarily immersive. The NPCs acted like no other game—the cries and screams from the scared civilians, the way the enemies dropped when shot.

The next night, he was eating dinner with his mum in the lounge when the news showed footage from the war again. As the report went on, something caught his eye. The reporter was standing outside an abandoned town. Liam froze, food halfway to his mouth. It wasn’t just familiar—it was identical. That sloped rooftop, the graffiti scrawled across a broken wall, the overturned truck near the market square. He’d fought a mission there yesterday.

A chill settled in his spine.

That night, the game changed.

After completing more missions and ranking up to 16th, he received an email: “Congratulations soldier. Basic training is complete. You are now authorised for the next phase.”

The screen reloaded and suddenly everything was different. The stylised display changed to a darker, colder interface.

He looked at his reflection in the dark screen. For a second, his hands weren’t there—just black shadows buzzing faintly with static.

“Operator 86,” a cold voice said through his earpiece. “Congratulations on reaching Level Seven. You are now authorized for live missions.”

“Live?” Liam whispered.

For the first time, he saw other players—not AI. Real people. Moving with a precision no NPC ever had.

The voice returned.

“Awaiting orders, sir. Are we go for strike? We have the enemy commander surrounded. There is a small group of our own men in the area, but this is the best shot we have. We have to strike now.”

Liam hesitated.

“Sir, we need your go-ahead.”

“Confirm strike.”

A plume of smoke. Screams. The feed shook with the impact.

Then silence.

His score updated. Leaderboard climbed again: 12th. A small message blinked at the bottom of his screen: “Target eliminated. Mission success.”

He pulled off his headset and scrolled through news sites. A breaking report showed rocket strikes on an enemy base—his latest mission. Reports of friendly soldiers caught in the blast.

Surely it couldn’t be?

He put the helmet back on. Back in the game, he rushed through the battlefield toward the blast site, avoiding debris and scorched corpses littering the ground like discarded action figures.

That’s when he saw him.

A man in his early 40s limping toward him, badly injured. Blood covered his face. His left leg looked broken. His face was half-obscured by dust and shadow, but Liam didn’t need to see clearly.

He knew that gait. That build. That same old patch on the sleeve—the one he’d seen in a photo on the mantelpiece a hundred times.

“Dad?”

Suddenly there was a rush and a burst of gunfire. Without thinking, Liam picked up his gun and returned fire—realising too late that he’d hit the man in front of him instead of the enemy soldier behind.

The body dropped to the floor ahead of him.

Liam ran over to the body, confirming what he already knew.

It was his dad.

He tried to reach out—but then realised he had no arms.

As he watched the life drain out of his father, he heard a single, hoarse word:

“Liam?”

Then he was gone.

The screen faded to white.

MISSION COMPLETE.

The feed cut.

The leader board flickered. His name slid to the top: Rank #1.

He removed his headset and sat in silence.

He scrolled through the news again. The live report confirmed it:

An ambush on the 73rd division—his dad's unit. A malfunction with experimental drone technology had resulted in the death of three men.

He ran to the bathroom and threw up.

An Hour later he lay on the bed in his bedroom, staring at the ceiling. Contemplating what he'd just seen.

A soft knock.

“Liam?”

His mum’s voice was barely a whisper. He could hear the tears before he saw them.

“There’s been… something’s happened. It’s your dad.”

The war was still on the TV.

But now, it stared back at him.