Volume 1 - Chapter 15

Tired and Hungry

I savored the lingering citrus tang on my tongue as I strolled towards the Hollow Court Apartments.

Claude greeted me when I entered. "Welcome back home, Mr. Jones."

"Yes, sir!" I said, "been a hot one out there!"

The older man laughed. "Yes, sir, it has."

After going up the steps, I went to my apartment. A folded piece of paper was stuck to the frame using a piece of tape. I pulled it off to find a brief note scrawled in pencil:

Ethan,

Need you to fix that window at Bluebird Court, in 3B. Ms. Harmon's place. Neighborhood kids busted it playing baseball. New pane's already cut, just needs to go in. Get it done before she bitches to me again. Don't tell her I said that.

- Gallagher

PS - Get your ass in gear like we talked, or else.

I stuffed the note in my pocket and exhaled loudly.

"Sure thing, boss," I said to myself.

I was happy that I'd done the right thing and told the truth. I still had mixed feelings about the fact my landlord was a killer in The Green Fists.

Oh, well. It was that type of game. I guess I was going to end up becoming a killer at some point.

With the door unlocked, I went in and locked the world out of my one safe space. Grimsborough Heights was a hellhole, and gangs were in charge of it.

In all the movies I'd ever watched about the mafia, they never let their business get so bad that it destroyed the entire city. It was bad for business.

I wondered if there was any other type of organization that could do a better job than gangs. If so, I had yet to hear about them.

I opened my affiliations screen again to see if anything had updated. No luck. That third group known as The Borrell Family, was still blurred out, with no visible dots indicating their alignment with anyone else I knew.

Something I hadn't noticed before was the toggle between groups, players, and NPCs. I went to the non-player characters first, and found a short list of the NPCs I'd interacted with.

Emma, Claude, Raymond, Samuel Donovan, Crooked Chris, Officer Packley, and some others were all listed there.

Out of curiosity I wanted to know more about Officer Packley. A short summary of the NPC told me that he was: "an officer in The Grims. He patrols precinct 17 during the night hours, working out of the local police department office at 4255 Jameson Avenue."

"Damn," I said, shaking my head to no one but myself.

I'd wasted hours of my time wandering around the city, when I had the address all along. Jameson Avenue was one of the main roads I had passed when I was out scouting.

It was becoming increasingly obvious the game was giving me what I needed to know, but I wasn't using it to my full advantage.

At least I had found The Bleeker while I was out wandering around. It wasn’t a total waste.

With a feeling I still missed something, I kept poking around. I went to the players tab in my affiliations screen, and saw two names there.

Stalvos Dyomin and Mia Haoyu.

Mia's summary showed me we were both neutral to one another. She also had no affiliation with any specific organization. Her short summary informed me that her character “is a journalist with The Gulf Horizon newspaper, currently assigned to a task in Grimsborough Heights.”

My mouth dropped open when I read that, as if every crime noir film or golden-age pulp story didn't have some type of journalist involved.

With this knowledge, I immediately knew that Mia's allegiance would probably not get swayed by any of the gangs. If anything, they would want to kill her as quickly as possible so she didn’t write stories about them.

Like myself, she was following the storyline, and she might go undercover, but she wasn't going to be loyal to them even if she did pick a side.

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I liked her more already, and I had no idea if we would ever run into each other again.

Looking at Stalvek Dyomin's summary also gave me some good insight into his character. We viewed each other as pure enemies, with his affiliation being The Cortez Family. His bio said that he "is a killer seeking fame and glory by any means necessary."

It was short and to the point. Clearly, that player could not be trusted.

After this I went back to my own profile, hoping for some new information. My personal description only gave away my own experiences, so I knew everything it now said.

I closed out my screens and crawled into bed, planning to look at the time and then think far too long about everything I'd accomplished throughout the day.

I didn't even manage to look at the updated missions screen to know more about this broken window Mr. Gallagher wanted me to fix.

My eyes closed and I was out for the night.

I woke up about 4 a.m., lying in the darkness for a while before I actually checked my watch.

The dreary wallpaper and old floorboards reminded me I was still living in this 1920s simulation. I hadn’t experienced any jarring scene shifts since the first night I woke up and started.

So far, my experience had been breathtaking, with only a few instances when I felt like the virtual reality was slightly off. It was crazy to think that within a few years this type of technology might be in households.

The world was well-designed, though it was of course obviously a video game. Some of the places I'd walked to in The Grims were downright awful, and I felt despair when roaming those streets.

In particular, Superior Boulevard had some of the worst urban decay I'd ever witnessed, and Jameson Avenue was absolutely horrifying. They definitely weren't normal neighborhoods.

New Horizon City was showing what would happen in a big city if the mafia was left unchecked. There was no romanticizing going on here. Grimsborough Heights was a dark alternate reality that needed serious fixing.

Something was needed to counteract the gang destruction, and I had a sneaking suspicion the answer wasn’t vampires.

Even Samuel Donovan wanted vampires gone, and was afraid of what the city might look like if they were in charge.

I couldn't find any details about them in any of my screens, and I hadn't encountered any vampires yet to find out directly.

Samuel Donovan had ended our conversation before I could get more out of him.

Of course, I'd been asleep all of last night, so I hadn't had the opportunity to encounter one. Even as I walked through the shadows in The Grims I hadn’t been thinking of them since I couldn’t be attacked yet.

That would change at level three, of course, and I would need to be far more careful.

I wondered how many players had already turned, or if some had started the game as vampires. Already nervous about running into Stalvek once I hit level three, I wasn't all that excited about also having to deal with blood thirsty fangs.

At some point I knew I would have to.

Sighing, I stretched my arms above my head, joints popping with satisfaction.

I loved that NexaTechNeuro had programmed genuine physical feedback into the game. Everything was so life-like. Despite being in a simulation, my body felt refreshed in a realistic way.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and glanced over my screens. The missions had updated overnight. Ms. Harmon's window repair had shifted to the top of my priorities.

The old lady lived in 3B at the Bluebird Court Apartments in The Green Yards. I knew the area well, since Mr. Gallagher owned pretty much that entire neighborhood.

Ms. Harmon wanted the window fixed today because it was supposed to rain tomorrow. It sounded like a reasonable request, and I knew my boss wanted it done quick anyway.

It was probably best to let her sleep in before banging around outside her window, but I would definitely get it done. I needed the experience from completing another mission.

I wanted Gallagher off my back about my real job, and I also wanted something to eat. My stomach rumbled when I thought about it.

I needed to find Officer Packley, and thanks to his tab in the affiliations screen I knew he worked the overnight shift at the 4255 Jameson Avenue office.

The mission summary said the department opened at 6 a.m., and Packley’s affiliation summary told me he was still on duty until 6:30.

A breakfast place could be open along the way, and I could kill two birds with one stone. Hopefully, I would arrive just in time.

I left Hollow Court Apartments quickly, breezing by Raymond with simple pleasantries. The sun hadn't popped up yet as I hit Whitaker on my way to Jameson.

The main drags looked awful, and I decided not to think too hard on them. The state of decay was depressing, but constantly thinking about them wouldn't help anyone.

I had to remind myself this was only a game filled with NPCs, and not real people.

My boots plopped against the cracked sidewalk as I made my way forward. I'd remembered seeing a little breakfast place down this way.

After a few blocks, a familiar neon sign came into view, its bright red letters beckoning me closer. Sure enough, a battered old "OPEN" sign hung crooked in the window.

I pushed through the door, a little bell jangling overhead. The place was pretty much empty except for a couple of hardened street types nursing cups of coffee at the counter.

"Have a seat anywhere, hon," called out a matronly woman from behind the scratched counter. She wiped her hands on her apron and ambled over, smacking her gum. "What'll it be?"

I slid into a booth, the cracked vinyl cushion creaking beneath me. "Just gimme whatever's quick. Maybe some eggs, toast, hash browns if you got 'em."

She nodded aggressively, pencil scratching on her pad. "You want bacon or sausage with that?"

"Bacon," I said, mouth watering at the thought of it.

The waitress scurried off to put in my order, not bothering with small-talk. That was fine, but I did kind of miss the friendlier aspect that Emma had to her personality.

While I waited, I watched the two NPCs at the counter through a haze of cigarette smoke. They were engaged in a heated discussion, punctuated by emphatic gestures with their coffee mugs.

My food arrived surprisingly quick. I had a couple of eggs over-easy, a pile of crispy hash browns, a few slices of bacon, and some buttered toast. I dug in, and the salty, greasy flavors filled me up despite tasting decent at best.

Emma had something special at her place, and it was likely I wouldn’t return to this restaurant.

I wondered if cholesterol was something I needed to be concerned about in this world. If I was going to be in New Horizon City for any length of time, I probably needed to find a place that had some healthier options.

Regardless, I savored each bite and washed it down with gulps of strong, black coffee. In the real world, my sleeping body was being pumped full of liquid nutrients every time my avatar ate something.

Despite feeling as though everything here was real, some things still gave me that uncanny valley vibe, and those instances reminded me it was all fake.

By the time I scraped up the last few crumbs, I felt reinvigorated and ready to take on the day.

Leaving two dimes as payment, I pushed away from the booth and headed back out into the city.

I had no idea how much the food cost, but I took my chances, thinking I'd left plenty. I had two dollars and fifty five cents left in my wallet.