I leafed through yesterday’s LA Times on my kitchen table, hands trembling. My head was buzzing with sleep deprivation. I had spent the night lying on my back in bed, staring through the darkness, seeing plasma lights and exploding aircraft. Was this me losing my mind? Was this how it began? No—crazy people weren’t aware they were crazy. I understood perfectly well how crazy this was, but if I couldn’t find that ad in the paper, I might just go crazy for real.
Then I found it: the ad for the NeuroNexus 9000, saying that one of the units was on display at the Valley Plaza Mall. I snatched my keys from the clay pot on the table by the door and jumped into my Bronco.
Forty-five minutes later, I was down at the mall. They had just opened for the day, and I hurried toward the electronics section. There was already a line of kids there to play, a Super Savers clerk in a blue vest supervising.
I stopped dead, staring. The kid at the front of the line was standing with some kind of stick in his hand and a wobbly helmet of gray plastic on his head. The cord from the stick went into a dull gray box with a big red power light glaring.
I walked up to the clerk.
“Hey… what is this?” I motioned toward the gray box.
“It’s the NeuroNexus 9000. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. It represents a quantum leap in—”
“I—I hear you,” I said, holding up my palms. “I hear you, but this isn’t the NeuroNexus 9000. It’s supposed to have a—a,” I snapped my fingers, “a friggin’ mask! Not a helmet!”
The clerk stared at me as if I was insane, which I just might be.
“That’s the commercials, my man. Everything looks better in the commercials, and nowhere in the commercials do they say the console comes with an actual mask. It’s like the Star Wars toys they sell in aisle 4—they don’t actually fire lasers like they do in the commercials. Get it?”
I got it. I dragged a hand down my face, blinking at the butt-ugly console in the glass rack.
“Are you okay, my man?”
“Fine. But what’s that helmet for, anyway?”
“Loudspeakers. They’re inside the helmet, creating unrivaled immersion. It’s like being in the actual game. Would you like me to put you down on the waiting list?”
----------------------------------------
I slammed the door shut and walked into the living room, almost hoping my NeuroNexus had turned into a lump of dull plastic while I was gone. Of course, it hadn’t. It was as sleek and beautiful as always, mocking me with its presence. I went to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, and brought it back to the couch, glaring at the Nexus. I sipped the coffee, and then the itch became too hard to handle.
I turned on the TV, and there she was—Alara, her purple lips and the tips of her fingers at her temple, as if she hadn’t revealed herself to me yesterday, turning my whole life upside down.
She pressed her fingers, and the visor vanished. She smiled.
“Do you wish to play?”
“I do.”
I grabbed the mask and pressed it to my face, feeling the coldness spread. Then she was in my living room again, holding out her hand. I should’ve been prepared for it, maybe even used to it, but it still shocked me to the core. The last fleeting hope that this had all been in my imagination was vanquished.
“Come with me.”
I followed her down the corridor with the floor of metal grating, my heavy boots thumping. It felt as if no time had passed since I was last here. She pressed the button to the airlock, and the sounds of battle rose toward us, the sky streaked with multicolored plasma bolts, a large greenish moon looming above.
“Look inside your inventory. You’ll find the EMRG-9 in there,” she said.
I did, and it looked completely ludicrous. If the Citri-7 had an absurdly long barrel, it was nothing compared to the EMRG-9. This thing had five barrels, each longer than me, mounted in a tight circle.
“The EMRG-9 is the most powerful non-energy weapon in existence. The acronym stands for Electro Magnetic Rail Gun, Model 9. The large flat box the barrels connect to is the electromagnetic chamber. It fires depleted uranium ball bearings, shredding anything in front of it.”
I pulled it out, and its weight was obvious, even with the power suit.
“Its weight comes from its size, yes, but also because it’s fully loaded. You can see the ammo count on the right side.”
I tilted the weapon. Red digital numbers on the side read: 999.
“It chews through ammo like a fat man chews through popcorn, so try not to waste it. Enemies approaching.”
I snapped my gaze to the mini-map. It was crawling with red dots, advancing behind a pile of demolished cars.
Alara cleared her throat.
“I reiterate, it will shred whatever is in front of it. Those cars down there? They don’t matter.”
I got the message. I pulled the trigger, and my eyes went wide. The EMRG-9 kicked into full rev in less than a second, its barrels spinning like crazy—a jagged star of fire blazing in front of the muzzles. The rifle howled like a mad wolf, and the superheated ball bearings fanned out like crimson rain in the darkness. They punched through the wrecked cars, leaving rings of fire and glowing metal. Sparks exploded like it was the Fourth of July. The red dots on the map blinked out of existence one by one. The pile of cars toppled, crashing down on the ruined platoon, hammering the point home.
The air thickened with the stench of overheated metal. The ammo counter on the side of the rifle now read: 000.
Christ, it had only taken a few seconds to empty the mag.
“Okay, looks like you can handle yourself. You’re ready to step into the actual game world,” Alara said.
“Just wait a minute,” I said, holding up my hand. “You need to give me a little bit more than that. Game world? Is this some sort of game? Is that what you’re saying?”
“In a way, yes, but the term ‘game’ is an oversimplification. It’s a term everyone understands, and it covers the basic premise.”
“So, who runs this show, then, and why?”
“Too many questions too soon. Are you ready to step into the game world now, or do you need more time?”
I glanced at the door.
“If I do, what does it mean? Am I trapped in there? Do I need to fight others to the death to return, or something like that?”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, please. You can return to your base world at your convenience. I can’t tell you everything, but you won’t risk anything by going into the game world itself.”
“Yeah? Really. Pardon my suspicion, lady, but you’ve given me zero reasons to trust you.”
“Have I given you any reasons to dis-trust me?”
“Well… no.”
“So? Are we staying here much longer, or are we going?”
I gave the door another glance.
“We’re going.”
“Glad to hear it.”
She pushed another button, and a door right next to me slid open with a bang, making me jump.
We stepped through.
A big swollen moon hung over the sharp tip of a skyscraper looking a bit like the Empire State Building. The streets beneath the moon were deserted, glittering with moisture in the balmy night. The buildings lining both sides of the street were dark and empty. I wasn’t wearing the bulky battle armor anymore but a suit much like the one Alara was wearing.
“What is this place?” I asked, turning around, taking in the scenery. I wasn’t even surprised to see no airlock door behind me, just the street continuing into the dim light of a lamppost.
“Breaker City. This is where the players have their home bases, where they go for rest and relaxation between missions.”
“Looks a bit deserted, doesn’t it?”
“The 1984 Expansion is brand new—only 27 days old. Players are coming in by the thousands, but it’ll take time to fully populate the area.”
“The area?”
“Bring up your display.”
“I’m not wearing the armor.”
“I’m aware, but you don’t need the armor to use your display. Bring it up.”
I did. I don’t know how, but at Alara’s mention, it popped up. It wasn’t the heavy green military HUD but a more pleasant one with light yellow letters, a menu on the left, and something like stats on the right. The stats read:
----------------------------------------
Brad Richardsson
Human
Delta Class
Level 1
----------------------------------------
“Pull down the menu and find the map.”
I did, and the map overlaid my field of vision. A green dot blinked at the bottom, indicating, I presumed, me. There were no other dots. The area depicted was long and narrow, reminiscent of Manhattan. A bluish-green line separated the area I was in from the one to the north, which in turn was separated from the one above it. The areas were numbered, ranging from 12 in the south to 1 in the north.
“This is Low Town. Everything up to Area 7 is Low Town. 6 and down is High Town. Everyone can cross their southern borders, but no one can cross their northern ones unless invited. Got it?”
“Got it. A bit discriminatory, but I get it. I can’t see any other dots. Am I alone here?”
“No. Your map would be cluttered if everyone showed up on it. When you meet other players, they’ll appear on your display, if they have that option enabled. Usually, players from High Town don’t meddle with players from Low Town—they have no reason to. You’ll be operating in distinct worlds. Still, be prepared for some of them to come down for a look. It’s not every day a brand-new area is added.”
“So, the deal is, when you hit level 10, you can enter Area 11 and buy a place there—if you have the credits for it—or you can choose to stay here. When you hit level 20, Area 3, and so forth.”
“Buy a place? What do you mean?”
“Top right of your display. See it? The credits?”
I did. It was a glowing symbol of a stack of coins, the number next to it reading 250.
“That’s your regular currency. You can use it however you want—buy extra ammo at the ammo shop, buy food, or rent a place to stay. You need a home hub to log out to your base world. If you don’t have a place of your own, you’ll have to use public restrooms and store your excess stuff in a locker at the train station. Cheap living, but it comes with a lot of hassle.”
“Sounds like I want a place if I can afford it.”
“You can. It won’t be fancy, but at least it’s a place to sleep and store your stuff.”
She wasn’t lying. The place was on the second floor of a run-down three-story apartment building. Plaster was peeling from the ceiling, and the wallpaper was curling. The floorboards creaked as I walked to the single window. Outside was a park that might’ve been nice if it weren’t full of shacks and cardboard homes. Probably other players—those who had opted out of renting. The bed in the corner was rumpled, like someone had already been sleeping there.
“150 credits a week. A bargain.”
“If you say so,” I replied, turning from the window. “I’ll take it.”
“It’s yours then.”
My pile of coins blinked yellow, and the 250 became 100.
“I’ll be leaving you now, Brad Richardsson, but in urgent cases, you can call on me. You have one call a week. Use it well.”
“Wait. You can’t just go. There’s so much I need to ask you.”
“And there’s so much I can’t tell you. There are players who’ve already been here for two weeks or more. Talk to them. They can provide many of the details you need to get started.”
“Started with what?”
“Well, that’s one of the questions they can answer. What I will leave you with is this: this world isn’t magic. It needs to function, and for that, it’s populated by NPCs. Being from the ’80s, you have no idea what that means, of course. It stands for Non-Playable Characters. They’re not part of the game—they’re here to ensure it works properly.
“You’ll have the Terms of Agreement in your inbox shortly, and I advise you to read it thoroughly. There are a number of infractions that’ll get you booted instantly. The most common infraction is not respecting the NPCs. They don’t have a base world like you. This is their base world. They were created, but they aren’t robots. They don’t have dreams or ambition. They don’t strive for anything except to do their assigned tasks as well as they can. That doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings. Never treat an NPC in a way you wouldn’t treat another human. And don’t try to take liberties with them. There are dedicated pleasure NPCs down at Saint’s Row in Area 3 for that purpose, but don’t bother any other NPCs with your hormones. Is that clear?”
“Ehrm, yeah. Clear as clear can be.”
“All right, good. Most players on this hub go to Anchor’s for R&R. It’s a bar on Wicham Street. I’ll mark it on your map.”
A yellow dot popped up on the map: Anchor’s.
“Nifty.”
“Sure is. I’ll leave you now, and remember, one call a week—that’s the limit.”
She didn’t wait for my reply, just opened the door and left. When I peeked out into the hallway, she was already gone.
I lay down on the bed. The springs creaked and groaned. Here I was, lying on a bed, staring at the water-stained ceiling, while my physical body sat on the couch back home, staring blankly. I couldn’t stay in Breaker City too long, but I needed to get down to Anchor’s and gather some information.
I got up from the bed and went to the closet, an old-fashioned thing in dark wood. It was empty, smelling faintly of mothballs. All right, then. I opened the menu and browsed, finding an icon resembling a shopping bag. I hit it, and my field of vision expanded to a scrollable list of clothes: pants, shirts, jackets, shoes.
I’d never been much of a fashionista. I grabbed a pair of jeans, a blue button-down shirt, and sturdy workman boots—pretty much what I’d wear at home. Actually, it was what I was wearing at home. I opened the closet door again, and, yep, the clothes were there. I could get used to this kind of shopping.
I took off the sci-fi suit, dressed in my new clothes, and rolled the sleeves of the shirt up to my elbows. Fashionable I wasn’t, but at least I wouldn’t be turned away from a bar called Anchor’s—or so I hoped. My shopping spree had already set me back another 30 credits.
I left the apartment and went out onto the street. Anchor’s was just a couple of blocks east. I glanced at the encampment in the park. No one was moving. Were there even people living there? Must’ve fallen on hard times if they did. Could there be hard times in a video game? Apparently, there could.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
I walked down the street, following the blacked-out buildings. Farther ahead, light spilled onto the sidewalk. A 24/7 Minimart. The fluorescent glow felt oddly familiar and normal.
A girl stood at the register in the otherwise empty store. Blue text floated over her head:
----------------------------------------
Rose Vitalis (NPC)
----------------------------------------
Rose Vitalis, huh? The NPCs had names? I couldn’t resist. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Rose Vitalis brightened and fired off a smile.
“Welcome, Brad.”
She knew my name? How could she know my name?
“Sorry, didn’t mean to be pushy, but you have your name and level on display. You can turn that off when you’re not on a mission.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Side menu, under settings. See it? The icon that looks like a cog.”
“Ah, got it. It’s off now.”
“Glad to help. What can I get you?”
“Some information.”
Her smile faded a little.
“I’m just a clerk NPC. Do you want me to get you a counseling NPC?”
I huffed a laugh.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I just wanted to know how long you’ve been working in this store.”
“Twenty-seven days. Since it was created.”
“And… how old are you?”
“I’m twenty-seven—days.”
I nodded.
“I just don’t get that. You’re an infant. How can we even have this conversation?”
“Oh, every NPC in Breaker City is an amalgamation of existing people. The Control has an enormous database of personal traits, and they roll the dice and use what comes out the other end. If you get a social personality, you can work frontside and interact with players. If you turn out grumpy or reclusive, there are other suitable jobs, backside.”
“Such as?”
“Well… The best restaurant in Breaker City, LaVern in Area 1, has a chef like that. He doesn’t speak to guests, hardly speaks to his crew, but the dice rolled in a way that made him a master of culinary art. It can go either way.”
“And you’re happy with this? Sitting at the register?”
“Oh, yes. I’m perfectly suited for the job.”
“And this is what you want to do for the rest of your life?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I want to do a job that I’m perfectly suited for? No other job would give me the same satisfaction.”
“So, you feel satisfaction?”
“I do. My work gives me satisfaction. When I leave after closing, I can’t wait to return and unlock in the morning. If I didn’t have this job, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”
“I guess not. Thank you for your time, Rose. I might come back.”
“You’re very welcome, Player 3452789!”
“Ehhr, yeah. Take care, Rose.”
I was back on the street, two blocks from Anchor’s. The NPCs were exactly what Alara had said—perfectly content with their lot in life. That was the one thing that gave them away as not being 100 percent human. If Rose hadn’t had the glowing text over her head singling her out as an NPC, I’d never have guessed. She looked like a girl from my high school.
I heard the music from Anchor’s before I reached it—a jumpy Irish tune with fiddles and flutes. The music hit me full blast when I opened the door. The bar was littered with round tables, and a long bar stretched along the right-hand side. A jukebox shone a dull red light by the pool tables. There was singing, laughing, yelling, fighting, and the clicking and clacking of pool balls.
A brawny dude near the jukebox raised his pitcher and yelled, “Fresh meat! Jellyfish walking! Jellyfish walking!”
What? People laughed and raised their glasses at me. I didn’t feel any aggression in the room, so I gave the crowd a nod and scanned the room. A table farther in caught my eye—three young guys hunched over their beers, glancing sideways with tense faces. Other jellyfish, I presumed. We jellyfish should stick together.
I weaved through the room and stopped by their table. They looked up at me, uncertainty written across their faces. I nodded toward one of the empty chairs. A boy with dark hair and even darker eyes gave a quick nod before taking a sip of his beer. The other two looked just as intimidated: one was Asian, with a frail build and intelligent eyes; the third had thick blonde hair, glasses, and angry freckles. Jesus, they couldn’t have been more than 17 or 18.
“Thanks for the invite,” I said, even though I’d invited myself. “Brad.”
I reached out a hand to the dark-eyed one. He took it, his hand cold and clammy.
“Rick.”
The Asian kid was Michael, and the blonde one was Mort. None of them had their names or levels on display, and if I were a betting man, I’d guess they were new arrivals too.
“How long have you guys been here?” I shouted over the music.
“Coming up on two weeks now. And you?” Rick asked.
“A couple of hours.”
“Wow, then you are the jelliest fish among us,” Michael said, laughing.
“Guess so,” I said with a grim smile. “Jellyfish for being fragile and worthless, I assume?”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “Sometimes players from High Town come down slumming. To them, we’re not players, not people, not even shit-flinging monkeys—we’re jellyfish. Touch us, and we break.”
“Well, fuck them,” I said, raising my fingers to catch the waitress’s attention as she swerved around the tables with a tray of foaming beer glasses.
She gave a quick nod, unloaded the beers at another table, flipped the tray under her arm, and came over. Her NPC tag read: Lola Fernandez.
“What can I get you, hun?”
“A round of beers for me and my friends. What do you have?”
“The usual—Bud, Coors, Pabst—or, if you prefer imported, Staropramen, Carlsberg, Heineken.”
“Ehhr, Staropramen sounds good. What do you say, guys?”
They nodded in agreement. I’d never had anything called Staropramen, but it sounded expensive, and I needed to get on their good side.
“Coming right up, hun,” Lola said. Before the drinks even hit the table, 10 of my credits were gone. Holy hell! Four imported beers cost a third of what my clothes had. Damn imported European crap beer!
“Thanks, man,” Mort said, pushing his glasses up.
That “man” didn’t really roll off his tongue naturally.
“No worries,” I said, but I worried plenty. I hadn’t even been here a few hours, and my credits had plummeted from 250 to a measly 60.
“You’re still level 1, then?” Mort asked.
“Of course he is, dweeb,” Michael said. “He’s only done the basic training. How would he have had time to get any XP?”
“Okay, okay, I was just asking.”
“XP?” I asked.
The guys exchanged glances across the table. Rick gave me a smile.
“Okay, seems like we need to start with the basics, friend. XP stands for experience points. There are hundreds of ways to earn XP, and you need it—lots of it—to level up. The best way to grind XP as a newb is to farm low-level dungeons over at Windersmyr.”
“Farm… Windersmyr? Like plowing?”
Mort and Michael sniggered, bumping shoulders. Whatever respect I’d built with these guys, it was evaporating fast.
“No, no, no,” Rick said. “Farming means doing the same thing repeatedly to milk it for XP. That’s the newb way to get points—running low-level dungeons. Windersmyr is one of the story campaigns available to you. It’s your standard Tolkien medieval fantasy world. Then you’ve got Metropolis, your classic sci-fi setting with plasma guns, railguns, and all that jazz. And then there’s the other campaign—the least popular one by far.”
“Yeah?”
“They say the rewards are better than in Windersmyr and Metropolis, but it doesn’t matter. People refuse to play it. The Game Maker keeps upping the rewards, but no one bites. The campaign is a total bust.”
“Alright, I get it. But what is it?”
“Survival horror.”
“Oh, I don’t like the sound of that at all.”
“Few normal people do. You have to be a bit unhinged to even think about starting that campaign. Some have, but most panic, bolt to the nearest safe room, and bail—taking the level hit just to get out of that goddamn mansion.”
“A lot to unpack there. Can you condense it a bit?”
“A’right. Zombies and lots of them. Hordes of zombies and you running around, shitting your pants without enough ammo to fight even half of them. Sounds like fun?”
“Ehhr, no. Not especially. What are the rewards then?”
Rick laughed.
“Can’t blame you for asking. They’ve got a constant double XP event running. The loot boxes are supposed to be amazing, and even low levels can find legendary artifacts.”
“They say that,” Michael interjected. “But I’ve never seen anyone actually carry a legendary artifact out of there. People talk—a lot—but trust only what you’ve seen yourself. If you don’t, you’ll waste time chasing rumors until you’re exhausted, running after a golden goose that doesn’t exist.”
I nodded and sipped my beer. Hmm… Christ, that was a good-tasting beer. Fuckin’ Europeans.
“You said something about a level penalty?”
Rick nodded.
“Yeah, you can leave a campaign when it’s finished or at a checkpoint. If you bail mid-mission, you get demoted one level. In Residing Evil, it’s not a big deal since you’re playing solo, but in other campaigns where people depend on you? You put everyone in the shit if you bail.”
“Residing Evil?”
“Yeah, that’s the survival horror campaign. There were some issues with the IP, so they changed the name slightly.”
He said that like it should mean something to me, but I played along.
“Can I ask what levels you are?”
Rick flashed three fingers, wagging them like a gangster.
“Me too,” Mort said, and Michael joined in.
“You’re playing together, then?”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “We’re grinding that dungeon in Windersmyr. Doing it again tomorrow, hoping to hit level 4 so we can join an actual campaign. No one wants jellyfish in their party. You can tag along if you want. We fly out from Rochester Square at seven tomorrow.”
“Ah, thanks. I think I’ll do that—follow your lead for a while and learn the ropes.”
Rick pressed his lips together and nodded, looking important.
“You do that,” he said, taking a tiny sip of his beer.
“We’re the four musketeers now,” Mort said.
“There were only three musketeers,” Michael said, rolling his eyes.
“They were not! There was Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and then D’Artagnan joined, making them four!”
“Okay, I stand corrected. The four musketeers has just as nice a ring to it as the three musketeers.”
“Guys, guys,” Rick said, holding up his hand. “If you’re itching to kick some ass, you’ll get your chance tomorrow, ‘kay?”
The side of my mouth twitched in a half-smile. Had I been this exuberant at their age? Probably.
“Oi!” someone shouted. “Turn off the music. Battle Clash is on!”
The whole room stirred. The bartender shut off the jukebox with a remote and turned on a TV that looked odd—flat, sleek, black, and mounted like a painting. It looked nothing like my state-of-the-art 32-inch Sony that weighed about 70 pounds. I soon forgot the TV itself and was absorbed by what was on it.
On the screen, two talking heads in suits discussed something in a studio, while two enormous, bare-chested men with long silver hair rotated on holo-pads at the center of the screen. They looked like they’d walked into the gym in high school and never left.
The left one read:
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Becher Ash: Lvl. 67
Black Blood Alpha Class
Weapon: Zemynia Carbon Blade
----------------------------------------
The one on the right read:
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Harris Rayne: Lvl. 62
Black Blood Beta Class
Weapon: Zemynia Carbon Blade
----------------------------------------
“Is this broadcasted from here?” I asked.
Rick nodded, absorbed by the TV.
“Yeah, they’ve got a studio in Area 3. The Battle Clash is a big deal. They run it twice a year. Sometimes it’s a big free-for-all where the winner is the last one standing. Sometimes, like now, it’s a knockout system where the winner advances to the next round. This is the quarterfinals.”
“Ah.”
The talking heads in the studio cut out, and instead, the camera followed Becher Ash as he sprinted through a pine forest, weaving between the trees to keep up. He held dual carbon blades. They were graphite gray, lusterless, and heavily curved, almost like sickles. The camera rushed past Becher to reveal what was waiting ahead—the other Black Blood, Harris Rayne. He stood, waiting, armed with two carbon blades of his own.
Becher stopped dead, facing his opponent, who was maybe a hand shorter. The blades in their hands suddenly lit up in an electric blue color. The two warriors circled each other, the camera circling with them. They rotated their blades slowly, as if in anticipation, making a lazy woo-woo-woo sound.
Then Becher attacked.
The glowing blades became a blur. The two warriors moved almost faster than the eye could see in a lucid, almost effortless battle. Their blades collided with cracks and blue sparks, a series of rapid micro-explosions that were almost blinding. Superheated metal shrieked through the air.
“I put money on that one,” Rick said, nodding at the screen.
“Which one? The big guy or the little one?”
“Little one? Your eyes deceive you. You’re tall, but I assure you that ‘the little one’ has at least half a foot on you.”
Becher Ash cut off his opponent’s hand, and from there, the rest happened fast. The air filled with floating strands of platinum hair, followed by auburn droplets of scorched blood from the platinum-haired man’s severed throat.
The bar erupted in cheers, hoots, and applause. Rick shot up and clapped his hands over his head.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” he screamed, pointing at the screen.
“Jesus,” I said. “Was that guy actually killed?”
Rick screwed the side of his mouth down.
“Well, hard to say. Look, it’s like this.” He looked down at the table, as if searching for the words. “You know when you dream and maybe find yourself on a mountain wall, high above the ground? Your fingers tremble, you’re about to lose your grip. You can’t go up, you can’t go down. You’re going to fall—it’s inevitable. And then you do—you fall, shrieking toward the ground, but then”—he snapped his fingers—“you wake up, panting, drenched in sweat. That’s a safety mechanism the mind has. You can’t dream your own death. The mind revolts, and you wake up.
“What happens in here? That’s a thousand times more real than any dream, but you can’t wake up. If you die in the game, your mind has to deal with it. It does so by spitting you out. You won’t be sent back to a checkpoint or a safe house in this world—you’ll be hurled right back into the real world. You’ll feel sick, maybe puke a little, and have the mother of all headaches. But eventually, you’ll be okay—if you’re low level.
“The further you advance in the game, the deeper you go, the harder it gets. For some, this world feels more real than the one they left. For them, dying isn’t just hard—it’ll flat-out fry their brains.”
“Fry?”
“Yeah, cook ’em.”
“Cook ’em?”
“Yeah, you know. They wake up cross-eyed, dribbling, pissing their pants. Can’t take care of themselves anymore—have to be sent to a nursing home.”
“And you know this?”
He shrugged.
“That’s what people are saying.”
“Well, people say a lot.”
“They do, but I believe it and will play it safe if I need to.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
“So, are you a cautious man, Brad?”
“I reckon… if I need to be.”
“How’s your base stats?”
“Base stats? Alara didn’t say anything about base stats.”
At the mention of Alara, Mort and Michael sniggered and bumped shoulders again.
“What?”
“Well, Alara, duh!” Mort said, making a snorting kind of laugh. “She’s hot.”
I nodded in agreement. She was. Rick rolled his eyes.
“She’s designed to be hot, guys. But for the life of me, I don’t understand why. She’s part of the interface and could just as easily be a voice. Why torment players with her presence?”
I nodded again. The man had a point.
“So, the base stats. How do I pull them up?”
“Care to share them?” Rick asked with an anticipatory grin.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Nice! I’ll link up with you.”
Suddenly, my interface floated above the table for all to see. Rick flew through the menus.
“Let’s see now.”
----------------------------------------
Base Stats: Brad Richardsson
Physical Strength: 6
Mental Strength: 8
Intelligence: 6
Endurance: 8
Attack Speed: 4
Dexterity: 3
Agility: 3
“Wow, nice, man!” Rick said, sounding like he actually meant it.
“They’re good?”
“Yes. The scale runs from 1 to 10. So, to sum it up, you mix brain with brawn, have the endurance of a horse, but you’re slow as hell and as limber as a refrigerator.”
“Oh, you have to go tank style with those stats,” Mort said.
“Could be a good mage. The intelligence is high enough for it. Some sort of battle mage, maybe,” Michael added.
Yeah, you got it right—I understood nothing from that gibberish.
“You could pick many paths with your stats,” Rick said. “But you won’t have to decide until you hit level 10. That’s when you pick your race and class.”
“Race?”
“You do like those repeat questions, don’t you? In Breaker City, we look like our normal selves and use our normal names, but when on a mission, you choose another race suited to the class you chose and the path you plan to follow. Orcs are great for heavy melee, for example. Human form is great for magic-based classes. So are elves, but they excel primarily as ranged units. Then there are more niche races, like fowls, lizards, and cat people.”
I just shook my head.
“Not a big D&D fan, are you?”
“No, I like Super Mario.”
The three of them burst out laughing. They stopped short as the door to Anchor’s opened with a bang, and a tall man entered, followed by two others with shaved heads. They were trailed by three young women, all exactly the same height, with the same bored features and uniform faces. They were dressed in short skirts and blouses that covered their necks: one blonde, one dark-haired, and one redhead, like they had been picked out to fulfill some kind of visual symmetry. Perfect porcelain faces bereft of anything that would make anyone remember them.
The room fell silent in an instant.
“It couldn’t just be an easy night with beer and laughter,” Rick mumbled, turning away from the entourage filling the far end of the room. The man in front was seven feet tall and then some. His ice-blue gaze swept the room and stopped at the screen where the Battle Clash was still on.
“Turn that shit off,” he said in a dead voice.
Lola, the servant NPC, accommodated him immediately. The man smiled, an arrogant curve of his upper lip, and continued to sweep his gaze around the room. His data was on display, and the blue text above his head read:
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Vinger Tooth: Lvl 48
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The two with shaved heads were level 32 and 37, respectively. The girls were NPCs—escort NPCs, to be exact.
At the tables, everyone stared into their glasses.
“Good evening, brothers and sisters,” Vinger said. “We have come from High Town in hopes of good company and laughter. Say, can you provide?”
One of the bored women lit a cigarette and took a demonstrative drag before pluming light green smoke out of her nose.
“Brothers and sisters! Don’t embarrass me in front of my friends. I’ve told them I’m a welcome face in the quarters of the less fortunate, and now you’re making me look bad. We are friends, yes?”
A low mumble spread through the room, ambiguous enough to go either way. I took a big gulp of my beer and banged the glass down on the table. Vinger’s eyes darted toward me. His mouth split into a cold smile. Rick, with his eyes closed, slowly shook his head.
“Didn’t I read you had a 6 in intelligence?”
Well, that’s the thing about me—if impulsiveness had been a stat, it would’ve been through the roof. Besides, I really hate bullies.
“Brother!” Vinger exclaimed, touching the tip of his nose before pointing at me. “A man of honor if I ever saw one.”
He made his way over to the table of the four musketeers. His entourage followed. Vinger stopped and looked down at me with eyes that were supposed to look kind but didn’t.
“Well, brother? Aren’t you going to invite me to sit? Maybe call for the girl to bring another glass and pour me some of that disgusting rat piss you’re drinking? What do you say?”
I kicked the chair out from under the table, and it struck Vinger’s leg.
“If you want to sit, sit.”
Another kind of mumble spread through the room. Looks were being drawn in our direction. Rick gave me a hard look. This was stupidity, of course, bordering on insanity. I still didn’t have a clear idea of what I was doing or why. It was just something about Vinger Tooth’s arrogance and smug face that set me off. But whatever I had started, it was too late to back out now.
“On second thought, brother, the beer doesn’t tempt me as much as I thought. Why don’t you get on your feet so we can talk face to face? You see, I don’t like talking down to people.”
I stood up, the faint buzz of the beer evaporating in my hammering heart.
“Your tone and behavior hurt me, brother. They say you’re all dirty savages down here, but I refused to believe them. Refused, I tell you! I came to make up my own mind, to share a glass with my brethren, and this is how you treat me? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
A glint of sharp, sadistic intelligence shone in Vinger’s eyes. The tip of his tongue came out to wet his lower lip.
“So, tell me, brother. Are you ashamed?”
“Naaah.”
The slap hit my face with a sharp crack. It felt like he’d hit me with a frying pan. The world wobbled, and I took a step to the side to keep my balance.
“Apologize. Animal.”
“Fuck you!” I snapped, swinging my fist as hard as I could. I hit Vinger perfectly in the jaw. It was like slamming my fist into the trunk of a tree. Nothing gave, except for the bones at the back of my hand, which split into screaming lines of red pain.
Vinger shot out his hand and grabbed me by the jaw. The pressure was hard and increased by the second. The joint creaked, and any moment now, something would pop apart and shatter.
Vinger lifted me from the floor and brought me to his face. I felt the cold realization that he was about to kill me. Nothing would stop him now.
“Vinger! That’s enough!”
Vinger’s smile froze, and he looked over his shoulder to see which of his dolls had spoken to him so harshly.
“Wha-a-at?”
It was the dark-haired girl. She splayed her fingers in frustration.
“This wasn’t fun last week, and it isn’t fun now. You promised us fun tonight. If we want to see people getting beaten to a pulp, we’ll visit the Arena come Saturday. Okay?”
Vinger looked at her, unblinking, and then cracked a big smile.
“For you, darling? Everything!”
He let go, and I fell to the floor, gasping for air.
Vinger closed his fist and stabbed his index finger at me.
“Next time, you pathetic pile of intestines.”