I woke up this morning in a bed that I had paid imaginary money to make more comfortable than any bed I could possibly experience in the real world. It brought me no joy. I listened to Fez chatter on about how his experiences as a fairy had broadened his horizons and opened his eyes to concepts he had never processed before. Things almost as important as hats.
I was just numb.
I knew that at some point in my past life, playing games like this had been my whole life. Gaining levels, fighting enemies, and progressing my character had been everything to me once… And it could not be again. That morning, entering the common room, the advertisement changed again. This time, the common room was utterly transformed into some kind of coffee shop. A skilled Naga woman was making lattes as an elf in an apron took orders behind the counter. A dwarf rambled to me about the mythic quality and epic flavor of the brew.
That’s what they wanted me to look at. That was the distraction. I knew that this was my moment. I saw Argyle just sitting there, sipping out a large mug. I didn't know if he was seeing the advertisement or not, but I knew what I had to do.
The last time I had almost gotten through the door, past the range of the advertisement, before it had pulled me back in. This time I would get free.
“Buddy, where are you going?” Fez’s voice was near panicking as he followed behind me. I hauled Argyle up out of his chair and carried him with me out the front door and into a gray world. A world with no color or definition. Main street... both like and unlike the one that I had walked down so many times.
“Wwhhaaaaaat'sssss gooooinnggg ooon?” asked Argyle, both right next to me and far away.
“We're leaving,” I said “I’m getting us out of here.”
For a moment, my vision doubled. I felt as though I was both still at the foot of the stairs and walking down main street. Somehow they were the someplace else.
“Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no... game can't... game, game, game, game. La, la, la, la, logic is breaking down, down, down,” said Fez, fluttering behind me. “There’s another call, call, call for for admin, min, min, min, mins. You really, really, really stepped, stepped in it now, now, now buuuuuddy...” Fez’s words came across distant and tinny.
“Can steer us toward the Cyberrush game?” This was somewhere between a thought and speech. To me, it was clear I could only hope that Fez as an admin would be able to hear me and help.
The world became blotchy and more pixelated. I pressed on. I had to keep going. I glided more than walked through a featureless gray world. From a distance I heard Fez’s voice, “Buddy, I resolved the error, but we're not not in the game anymore.”
Argyle spoke next to me in a unusually deep voice, as if he was speaking in slow motion. “What does he mean? Not in the game?”
“We found the edge; we’re leaving the game behind.” I said. “We're doing what I tried to do from the beginning. I'm trying to find Kara.”
“But I am in a deep dive capsule. I can't get out without a technician.”
“Programs can always crash. They can always break. There's no such thing as a perfect system.”
“But I don't want this. It feels so wrong,” complained Argyle.
In the distance I could see what seemed like two colorful tunnels. One that seemed to be leading to bright neon flashes of light and another set were comforting, cartoonish colors in blues and greens.
“I'm pretty sure the bright, flashy one leads to the Cyberrush game. The pastel one will get you to the social media program,” said a dull, flat Fez voice. I chose the Neon Path and continued floating forward.
Before long, shapes started to load in the distance. First large, blocky shapes, buildings... no, skyscrapers. Gigantic skyscrapers and smaller billboards and signs. Street vendor carts, car billboards. A gorgeous Asian woman with pointed ears winked at me while sipping from a soda bottle with neon lettering, exclaiming, 'Drink Slugo cola! The slimiest cola in the galaxy!'
Grey blobs became rectangles, then became people walking along the street pushing the vendor carts and arguing over the price of goods.
TV screens on buildings showed sporting events and Korean pop singers dancing on stage. Cars raced by at nearly incomprehensible speeds. The buildings loomed hundreds of stories high above us and above them I could see bridges and flying cars. Walkways suspended in the air and floating buses. An aircraft shaped like an old fishing vessel floated up to an office window and sold street food to the office workers.
“What is this place?” marveled Argyle, almost, but not quite back to his normal speed.
“This isn’t Endless Adventure Online anymore,” said Fez. “The metadata confirms it. This is Cyberrush2337.”
“I heard about that game. Some kind of cyberpunk, open world action, crime and adventure game. So, what are we doing here?” asked Argyle, finally at his normal speed.
“If I may,” said Fez, “it appears that our friend Finch brought us here. It seems like there may have been three applications running on that phone you logged in through. One of them was Endless Adventure Online Another was this place and the third was some kind of social media program. All three of which were connected through the consolidated media advertising platform. When you meatbags view an ad, it temporarily overwrites the input from the game. When he tried to leave the advertising platform, it didn't know where to drop you off. So it dropped you off here since you clearly left there and this was still an active program.”
“Wait, so we're just here in some sci-fi game with our fantasy skills and gear?” exclaimed Argyle.
“That's the long of the short of it.”
“She's got to be here,” I said. “Kara's got to be here somewhere.”
“Sure bro, but how do we find her?”
“Well, I guess,” I looked around at the imposing, skyscrapers, and speeding traffic, “we just have to explore.”
“May I give a suggestion?” asked Fez.“I think, and hear me out here, I think we need to go shopping. Just imagine the kind of hats that there are in this sort of setting.”
“Sure, if we see a hat shop, we can go inside." I could tell this was my people pleasing coming out. Quite frankly, I was over listening to Fez on anything after he made such a huge deal about saving the fairies and then changed his mind at the last moment. There was something that just wasn't sitting right with me. Helping Argyle felt good; I knew he was a real person and his sister was a real person and it meant something. Helping Fez just felt like another game quest. A distraction. Emotional manipulation to get me to avoid what really mattered. “For now, let's get going. Keep your eyes peeled. Kara is here. I can feel it.”
For long minutes we walked like a pair of tourists, gaping mesmerized by the flashing neon lights, the speeding cars, and the din of voices all around us. After having spent so long in a nearly empty medieval village, the brightness and din was overwhelming.
“Alright,” said Argyle, “but can we go back? Like, this is a neat field trip and all, but I still need to keep crafting. Do we even know if our crafting Skills work here or if we can sell in the same way we could back in Endless Adventure Online?”
“Not sure,” said Fez. “Your character is still technically an Endless Adventure Online character. You're just kinda here by accident. Who knows if this game will even accept all your inputs. Really, this is completely uncharted territory. So many wires have been crossed. There are more tangles and loopholes in this than there are in a beanie by a first time crocheter.”
“So we're back to hats now?” I asked. “I thought you were all about flowers and things.”
“Oh, I am, but you know. The best plant metaphor I could come up with was your like an Endless Adventure Online tree plumb grafted on to a Cyberrush2337 trunk, and well, while that is accurate I just don't know if it would’ve made as much sense.”
“Since when do you care how much sense you make?” I asked.
“I’ve always cared. Maybe I'm just getting better at interacting with you because I've been doing it for so long. After all, I've known you almost a quarter of my digital life so far. So you know, that's something”
“Okay, fun and games aside, how do we get back?” asked Argyle with a note of desperation.
“Now, that's a bit of a complicated question,” said Fez.
“How?”
“Well, I'm not entirely sure how it is you got here in the first place. So getting back... well, I don't really know how.”
“But what if I can't use my Skills here?” said Argyle, desperation building to panic. “What if I can't craft anything? What if I’m stuck here and can’t make money for my sister?” He was starting to talk faster. I could tell he was building up a head of steam and if we couldn't calm him down soon, it would be all over for him.
“Look, Argyle, we’ve got plenty of time to figure this out and craft enough for your sister's treatment. We've got this.”
“Really? You’re sure?” He asked.
“Yeah. Yeah,” I said more confidently than I really felt. “We've definitely got this.”
“Oh good.” He practically collapsed with relief. “So what's the plan from here?”
“Well,” I said, looking around as three police helicopters chased a hang glider across the sky. “First, we explore a little bit.” The hang glider launched beams of bright red energy at one of the police helicopters which promptly burst into fire and crashed into a building. “We'll just have to explore carefully. Keep a low profile.”
We picked a random direction and started walking. The gigantic city block seemed to stretch on for nearly a quarter mile. At the very first intersection we came to we almost got run over by an ice cream truck in a high speed chase with police cars.
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No sooner had I jumped backwards out of the way then the ice cream truck launched a rocket back towards the pursuing police cars. It managed to explode directly in between two of them, causing them both to flip over and land on the two cars behind them.
Without the police chasing them, the ice cream truck simply parked. The driver, a man wearing a leather jacket with green star-shaped sunglasses and aggressively blue hair spikes stepped out. He casually walked away like nothing was the matter. After a moment, he disappeared into the crowd of pedestrians and street vendors.
Argyle and I just stood there with our mouths open, unable to fully verbalize until I was snapped back to my senses by a prompt.
“Jack of all Trades class Skill ‘I Can do That’ activated. You have learned the Skill Blend in with the Crowd. By learning the Skill from someone who is advanced you have learned it at a higher level. Current level Blend in the with Crowd level 5.”
“Well that's odd,” I said
“What's odd? Is it the panda bear on top of the ice cream truck that continues to Bob back and forth? Is that what's odd? Or is it the fact that me, a dwarf, is just hanging out in this clearly sci-fi themed game?”
“No. I mean, yes. Both are odd, but I just gained a new Skill.”
“You what?”
“My class ability activated and I just learned ‘Blend in with the Crowd’ from that guy.”
“So, wait, your class Skill still works? You can still, like, learn Skills from watching people?” This was said with manic intensity, like my answer to the question held the weight of life and death.
“Yeah, it’s weird, but apparently I can learn Skills from this game too.”
“Oh thank god. But, wait, didn't you already have the Stealth Skill?”
“Yeah.”
“So how can you have both? Isn't that some kind of conflict?”
“I don't know how any of this works. Maybe I can only use Skills from this game while we're here. Maybe I'll just be able to use the Skills from both games. I mean, after all, I did pick up some really weird Skills from advertisements already.”
“Yeah, that's true,” said Argyle. “That golf Skill really has saved our butts countless times.”
“Well, when we get a chance, we'll have to experiment. See if this Blend in with the Crowd Skill is worth anything?”
“That pointy-haired punk guy sure seemed to use it pretty effectively.”
“True. Well, no time like the present.” I walked towards a street vendor selling brightly colored sausages in oddly-shaped buns. The cart seemed to have a crowd around it, so I figured this would be the perfect way to test the Skill.
I thought about blending in with the patrons. After a moment or two a prompt appeared in my vision.
“Blend in with the Crowd successful.”
Then I heard a voice that sounded like greased back hair and bad intentions.
“Good job. The heat is off. The fuzz isn't looking for you anymore.” A meter appeared in the corner of my vision labeled Notoriety. It was set to zero out of 100.
The smarmy male voice in my ear continued talking to me. “Here in megalopolis, you better keep your head down. Otherwise the cops will get you.” I looked around to see who was talking. The voice didn't seem to be coming from anyone in particular. “Here in megalopolis we live by one simple rule: Make your own damn rules. The cops think they're in charge, but we know better. If you're not on their radar, you can get away with more and earn more profit. Here, cash is king.”
“Fez, what am I hearing?” I asked.
“I think this is the level one intro.”
I heard a woman's voice yell, “Stop! Police!” and the sound of someone running and guns firing. I looked around and couldn't see anything. “Yeah, you're not, like, in the newb intro area. So this is just playing. You're supposed to hear this and watch a cut scene to help you get acclimated, but this is so weird.”
I did my best to ignore the voices as some kind of a police shoot-out played in my head. Then the greasy-voiced narrator started to explain something about political influence and connections. Then he explained how to join a mob, start a crew, and start earning reputation. As far as game intros go, it was very informative and also somewhat problematic when it prompted me to interact with people I couldn't see and try out my Skills. How was I supposed to snatch a purse that wasn't there?
I realized after a moment that Argyle was just staring at the crowd, looking for me. He didn't know anything about what was going on. He didn't realize that I had spent the last 10 minutes learning about the game. I could see the worried look on his face as he scanned the crowd again and again. I walked back over to him. He didn’t seem to notice me until I was right next to him.
“Oh, there you are Finch! I was getting worried.”
“Good news: apparently there's a game intro. Bad news: we have to find it. We just need to find the starter zone, but we could probably learn a lot more about this place.”
“Could be helpful, but do we really want to get all wrapped up in this game? I mean, sure, you might be able to pick up some of the Skills around here, but does this game even have a crafting system? And I'm a Spirit Summoner. Is it even possible to summon spirits in cyberpunk?”
“Hmm, no clue,” I said. “Want to give it a try?”
“What have we got to lose? Worst case scenario, nothing happens. Okay, why the heck not?” The dwarf started banging on his spirit drum and chanting his nonsensical Words of Power. After several seconds, a smaller version of the giant meatball boss appeared in front of us. It rolled down the sidewalk, upsetting a cart full of sunglasses and ‘I heart Megalopolis’ t-shirts, before running into a crowd of school children in knock-off Japanese school uniforms. The ball knocked over several of the children like bowling pins before bouncing into the road and landing on top of a delivery truck.
Argyle and I looked at each other and laughed, but my laughter turned into puzzlement as the notoriety meter in the corner of my vision started ticking up. The numbers jumped from one to 10 to 20 to 30 and the bar next to them went from blue to green to yellow. And finally as the numbers hit 75, the bar went red.
Argyle looked at me.
I looked at him. “Do you have a notoriety bar too?”
“Yep.”
“Is yours at 75?”
“Nope, mine’s at 65. Still not good.”
“Nope, not good.”
A siren wailed somewhere not far off. Out of the corner of my vision I could see red and blue lights flickering, reflected off of the shop window next to me.
We looked at each other again. “Run!” We both yelled at the same time.
We bolted down the street, barreling through crowds of people, and knocking over carts. At one point we even had to jump over a line of benches that were in our path “You have gained the Skill of Parkour. Current Parkour Skill level 1. When you jump, yell parkour! parkour! That way no one will think you’re crazy. They’ll just know.”
With that new Skill I could somewhat intuit paths that would be easier or harder for us to run along. Objects were subtly highlighted if I probably could make it over. They seemed to be color coded by difficulty.
“This game is amazing!” panted Argyle, struggling to keep up. “I just wish I wasn't playing a dwarf. Parkour with such short legs just does not work as well.” His beard got caught in a magazine rack that he tried to leaped over.
“This way,” I said, grabbing him and pulling his beard free from the racks. I pulled him down a dark alley. We jumped behind the dumpster almost immediately my notoriety started to fall. When it hit 50, the meter went from red to yellow and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“They went down this way!” came a voice from where we had just come from. A bright flashlight shown on the wall in front of us, creating a silhouette of our dumpster.
My notoriety bar had frozen in place. “Stealth Skill don't fail me now,” I thought.
A long moment passed while we sat there, waiting to see if we'd been discovered. After far too long, the footsteps moved on
“Whew, that was close,” said Argyle standing up. “We almost…”
“Wait, there they are,” came the voice from behind us.
“Crap!” we said in unison and took off running.
Ahead of us, the alley came to a dead end. Thankfully, Argyle had noticed a door. Flinging it open, he pulled me inside. We found ourselves in a kitchen. A large wok steamed on an open fire. Someone with a giant cleaver was butchering a fish. We ran through, upsetting plates and creating chaos. My notoriety jumped up 15 points as I knocked over a vat of noodles and broth. Argyle ran right into a waiter holding a tray of large steaming buns.
We burst out into the main room of a ramen restaurant. A narrator's voice started playing. “Come see the wonders of Okinawa.”
“Crap,” I said.
Views of a city flashed before our eyes. Scenes full of gardens and temples played as a voice told us about all of the sites to go see in Okinawa, Japan.
We were frozen there, listening to a sales pitch for the traditional culture and ancient landmarks. We were hit with the smell of street food and a whirlwind of nightlife. We saw bustling crowds of people and busy streets. As the images started to fade, I had an idea. “Why not put this new Blending in with the Crowd Skill to good use?” With an extreme act of will, I pulled Argyle into a booth as the ad came to a close.
I pretended like I was supposed to be there. In my mind, I thought the words “Blend in with the Crowd” in hopes that the system would understand what I was trying to do. The notoriety meter paused for a moment. Three uniformed officers ran past our table and out the front door.
My notoriety meter turned green and a waiter appeared at our table. “Can I interest you in today's special?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, without thinking. “One special for each of us. Thanks.”
“Excellent that will be 20 credits.” I looked at Argyle and he looked at me. “Do you take gold?”
“No, credits,” said the waiter and once again our notoriety started to tick upwards.
“Um, maybe we better find a different restaurant,” I said quickly.
“Yeah,” said Argyle. “Let's go do that.” We jumped from the table and started walking towards the door.
We found ourselves once again on a bustling streets full of vendors and crowds. Thankfully, the uniformed police officers seemed to have run off. We were able to blend in until our meters reached zero.
At which point Argyle froze, listening to the distant voice. I smiled and gave him several minutes to listen to the intro while I looked around the street and scanned the skyline, thinking of what to do next.
Once Argyle had fully listened to the intro, he looked at me. “Yeah, that was definitely some useful information.”
“I know, right? I only wish that we could have been in the starter area to complete those initial quests. I'm sure we would have learned some very valuable Skills.”
“Yeah. Darn shame that we can't pick those up, but we'll have to figure it out as we go along.”
“Okay, so if I'm figuring things out right, it seems like this game rewards theft, violence, and other antisocial behavior. Most of the Skills line up with getting away with breaking the law.”
“That's what I got out of it too,” he said. “So, we still haven't really answered the question. What are we doing here? And more importantly, how do we get back?”
“I’m still working on that second one,” I said, looking at the ground. I was just a little distracted. The warning in the upper right hand corner of my vision, “Dehydrated. Exit game and hydrate immediately,” had only been getting bigger and more insistent.
“I know we need to get back, but I’m worried. I'm dehydrated and I want to find my partner and get out of here.”
“Do you think she’s here? Also, how are you dehydrated? Even cheap server motels have IV drips.” There was clear concern on his face, but also he was starting to get a bit of the manic glint in his eyes that made me think he may be working up to a whammy.
“I don’t know, but I think she got pulled into the game at the same time I did. Maybe we got pulled into this game because she’s here.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. Why not just activate the exit command?”
“I don't know why I hadn't tried that yet! Oh wait I did.”
“No need to get snippy.”
“The game is warning me about dehydration and that I need to leave immediately, but isn't giving me a way to leave the game.”
“Wait, let me get this straight: We are in the wrong game, we don’t know how to get back, your girlfriend may or may not be here, and you're slowly dying of dehydration?”
“That’s pretty much it, yeah.”
“What do we do about it?” It seemed that concern was winning out. He steadied himself, and put her hand on my shoulder. “What ever you need bro. We look out for each other.”
“I guess we need to keep on exploring. We broke the system to get here. Maybe we’ll find an opportunity to do it again.”
“I've been meaning to ask you about that. We got here because you were able to break the ad.”
“Yeah.”
“Why can’t you do that again to get us back?”
“I might be able to, but now that I'm here I wanna at least try to look for Kara. I know you're eager to get back, so if we don't find her in a few days, we'll head back. Besides, now that we're here, maybe we can learn new crafting Skills, or find materials that will be super rare back in Endless Adventure Online. Who knows? We could turn this into a major opportunity.”
Argyle seemed to brighten, eager to hold on to any good news. “Well then, let’s play the game until then.”
“Okay, so, we've got to move the plot along. Maybe if we do what the game asks we'll get more of the intro and get Skills that we can use to move forward.”
“Maybe we can find an inn? The inn was the beginning of the other game.”
“This is a sci-fi setting; there are no inns. What, do you think the inn would have just followed us in to this world? Like some wandering inn? Is there just going to be a door in every city we go to that will take us back to the inn?”
“Finch, you don’t have to be rude about it. I guess we can explore a bit until you figure out how to get us back.”
“Thank you.” I knew I was being unreasonable. If this game was anything like Endless Adventure Online we would have no problem finding ads to test my theory, but part of me hoped that there was a reason we were here.