“Someone just threatened to kill me!” Josh announced. “I think you should call the police.”
There was no response from the others. When Josh turned round he saw that Ben had claimed the bed, while Timothy was sprawled on the beanbag in the corner, and both were thoroughly absorbed in their phones.
Wow, so much concern. Josh tried again.
“This kid threatened to get his Dad’s shotgun,” he said. “He told me he’s going to come around to my house and shoot me.”
Ben gave a disinterested grunt, but Timothy finally put his phone aside and said, “If we arrested everyone who threatened to kill you I think it would clog up an entire police station for the evening. How many people has it been so far? Fifty?”
“It was only three!” Josh protested.
“You’re doing really well!” Timothy said encouragingly, as if receiving death threats was the whole point of playing a game.
Josh refrained from rolling his eyes. He supposed that for some people, it actually was. Ben finally roused himself and looked up.
“We’re looking for a kidnapper, not a murderer. Shut up and play the game, before I’m tempted to murder you myself.”
“Fine, fine.” Josh turned back to his computer, which was currently displaying Spiralia Online. “But Ben, just to remind you in case you forgot, it’s the RTX 4070 TI I want.”
“What’s an RTX thingummy whatsit?” Timothy looked bewildered.
“It’s a graphics card,” Josh explained. “For my computer.”
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
Josh paused and recalibrated his brain from build-your-own-PC levels of technical knowledge all the way down to knows-how-to-open-emails-ninety-percent-of-the-time, which was Timothy’s default. He opened his mouth to explain but Ben got there before him.
“It makes his computer games look prettier,” Ben muttered, still fixated on his phone.
Timothy sat bolt upright.
“Wait, Ben, you’re giving him a ... a thingy? An expensive computer thingy? Josh is getting paid for this?”
“Bribed,” Ben corrected.
“Why is he getting a bribe and I’m not? I want to be bribed!”
“You’re just here for moral support. That’s free,” Ben pointed out.
“Also, I was recruited for my expertise,” Josh said smugly. “You barely have any idea what a computer game is, let alone how to play one.”
Timothy drooped on his beanbag.
“I’m crushed. Eight years of medical training, I even have letters after my name, and this is what it gets me.”
“How long are we going to keep doing this by the way?” Josh asked. “This game sucks.”
It didn’t suck. It wasn’t the sort of thing Josh would normally play but it had some nice mechanics, including a tiered class system, each of which had dozens of different customisation options.
Josh’s favourite thing in games, however, was exploring. He loved finding obscure corners of the map or jumping puzzles that no-one else knew about, although it was about more than just physical exploring. He liked finding all the Easter eggs, like characters named after internet memes, and he even enjoyed reading all the forgotten bits of background lore, the kind of dialogue that most players impatiently clicked through in order to get to the quest reward.
Spiralia Online had really gone overboard in catering to that kind of thing. It had a massively dense and detailed lore and Josh had only scratched the surface so far.
“Most of the missing teenagers on my list played this game for at least two hundred and fifty hours,” Ben said.
Two hundred and fifty hours was not a lot of time to invest in a massively multiplayer online game. Josh had only been playing for three weeks, and was getting close to that already. He was guiltily aware that he had neglected far too much of his university course work, and would have a huge amount to catch up on when he was finally done with Operation Catch-a-Kidnapper.
He wasn’t going to be doing any of the catching himself, of course. Ben wasn’t quite so ambitious that he was willing to risk the life of his younger cousin in what was, essentially, a highly unofficial sting. Not even Ben's boss had been told about it yet.
What Ben was hoping for was that the hypothetical kidnapper might befriend Josh in Spiralia Online, and attempt to set up a real-life meeting under dodgy circumstance, or recruit him into a cult, or whatever had happened to all the missing gamers. This would then be evidence Ben could take to his boss at the online magazine where he worked.
Ben’s boss would then be able to use his police contacts to set in motion a series of events that, Ben hoped, would culminate in a police investigation, and a warrant being issued to Six Spires Ltd, the company who made Spiralia Online, ordering them to release details of the missing gamers’ accounts, which might then lead to the kidnapper being caught. This was assuming the missing people hadn’t just run away from home, and that Ben wasn’t imagining the Spiralia Online connection purely out of desperation for a good story.
So far all they had caught was a catfish.
“LiLa wants me to lend her a thousand quid,” Ben announced.
LiLa was the catfish. She had claimed to be a sixteen-year old girl and had sent Josh a photo of herself to prove it. This, they had subsequently worked out via a reverse image search, was actually a publicity shot taken from the website of an Italian porn star. Ben had immediately assigned LiLa to himself in case it was a lead. For the last couple of days he had been exchanging private messages with her, while pretending to be Josh, or rather, Josh’s online persona.
“You should absolutely give, I mean, lend her money,” Josh said. “She sounded like a lovely girl.” He paused, and added, “Make sure you give it to her after you buy me my graphics card.”
“I’ll get it for you, alright?” Ben said irritably. “Anyway, now that she’s asked for money I can refer her to one of our online fraud guys.”
“Who’s asking for money?” a voice demanded from the doorway.
Josh and Ben ignored the newcomer, but Timothy immediately jumped up and blocked Josh’s screen with his body so that she wouldn’t be able to see what was on it, which was absolutely the worst possible way to hide something from a teenage girl. A real one this time—Timothy’s fourteen-year-old sister.
Josh didn’t see why Rachel had to be there at all, but she must have realised there was some kind of secret thing going on and, with her unerring instinct for knowing where she would be least welcome, had invited herself round.
This was easy for her to do, because Timothy’s family lived next door. Maybe Josh should have suggested they hold the gaming session at his flat instead of Ben’s house, but the internet here was much faster and he’d wanted to take advantage of that while he could.
“No-one,” Timothy said hastily, in answer to Rachel’s question. He was always acting as if he thought she was in constant need of brotherly protection and guidance, when in fact she was the scariest kid Josh knew.
“A catfish,” Josh said, at the same time. He was pretty sure Rachel would know what that was.
Sure enough, Rachel’s eyes lit up with gleeful interest and she opened her mouth, but Ben got there first again. He was good at that.
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“We’re working, and you’re interrupting.”
How could two men be so unbelievably clueless when it came to interacting with girls? Hadn’t they learned their lesson after the last time they’d tried to hide juicy secrets from her? Rachel’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, while Josh picked up his phone and quickly typed her message. Maybe he could salvage this.
“What work?” Rachel asked. “Does Aunt Jools know? How does playing games count as work?”
Aunt Jools was Ben’s mother, and neither Rachel nor Timothy were related to her, but they’d regarded her in the light of an aunt for their entire lives.
“Well … er …” Timothy looked helplessly at Ben, who gave him a look back, as if to say, she’s your sister.
“This isn’t the kind of thing you need to know about,” Timothy said, with an air of finality.
Why not just set yourself on fire while you’re at it, Josh thought. It would be quicker and less painful. He sent the message, and Rachel’s phone vibrated.
Her hand dived into her pocket while she announced, “I’m going to tell Aunt Jools you’re playing games in your sweaty man cave and pretending to work.” Her eyes flicked to the message. But apparently she could read messages and talk simultaneously, because she continued. “Anyway, Ben, didn’t you promise to clear all your stuff out of the garage today? When Aunt Jools gets back I bet she’ll wonder why it’s still floor to ceiling with boxes.”
She finished reading the message, flicked a quick, speculative glance at Josh, bit her lip thoughtfully while she considered his offer, then turned back to her brother.
“Fine,” she said. “Keep your secrets why don’t you?”
She stormed out. Timothy sagged in relief.
“Thank god, I really thought we were in trouble there.”
He ought to have been suspicious that she’d dropped the subject so quickly.
“I don’t get how she can have a go at us and read messages all at once,” Ben said resentfully. He was still annoyed about the time she had worked out that Timothy and Ben were planning to stake out a suspected local car thief, and had blackmailed them into taking her shopping, on pain of revealing everything to Jools.
“Because,” Josh held up a finger. “Women’s brains run on quad cores.” Even as he said it, he realised that his audience wouldn’t have any idea what he was on about.
Sure enough, Timothy asked, “What the hell does that mean? Why is everyone speaking in tongues today?”
Ben made a dismissive flicking motion with his fingers.
“It’s some kind of computer speak.”
Josh sighed and swivelled back to his game. Privately he thought that if Ben wanted a candidate to pretend to be an unsuspecting victim, Rachel would be extremely good at it. He’d known her to play games for twenty-four hours straight before, and she was utterly ruthless, vanquishing monsters and even fellow players with a focused intensity bordering on obsession. But while it was okay for Ben to risk a male cousin, there was no way he could endanger his best friend’s baby sister, even though the actual danger was minimal.
Still, if they didn’t tell Rachel what they were involved in, Josh knew she would inevitably insert herself into the proceedings anyway by spying on them, and the last thing they wanted was for either Timothy’s parents or Aunt Jools to find out what they were up to.
Telling Rachel about it was the safer option, Josh thought. She wasn’t a vulnerable teen—there was no way she would ever let some basement-dwelling neckbeard take advantage of her. If he told her voluntarily she might be grateful enough not to blackmail them all about it.
The call Josh had set up was now connected, so when he put his phone surreptitiously back on the desk he angled the screen away from Ben, so that he wouldn’t see that Rachel was listening in.
“So how many people went missing, again?” Josh asked casually, for Rachel’s benefit.
In the game, the player Josh had knocked off the cliff on his way up the Dragon Spire was still sending death threats via private message. He didn’t feel guilty for sending the little brat flying to his death—it served him right for deliberately blocking the narrow ledge which was the only way to reach the final section of the Dragon’s Egg quest.
“Six that I found so far, who fit the pattern,” Ben replied. “Most of them older, aged between seventeen to nineteen. The youngest was fifteen, though.”
The fifteen-year-old had been the latest to go missing several months ago, and there had been a nationwide manhunt for him, which was only just winding down. This was what had prompted Ben to research other missing teenagers from previous years, and in the process he’d uncovered what he’d thought was a pattern. The kid hadn’t had a computer himself, but Ben had recently discovered that he’d played Spiralia Online at a friend’s house, on his friend's account.
“But that’s just in the UK,” Ben added. “Spiralia Online has servers worldwide, so there could be more.”
“Wait, you think this is some kind of international conspiracy?” Josh said, startled.
Ben scowled.
“Look, just play, alright? And if anyone in the game asks, your parents are divorced or on drugs or something, you have no friends, and you’re depressed.”
“Right,” Josh nodded. “One sad, lonely, teenager coming right up.”
He’d been mentioning his supposedly vulnerable background to pretty much anyone he came across in game, and had dropped heavy hints about it in the world chat several times. Pretending to be a couple of years younger than he really was felt creepy, but he decided that as long as he didn’t act like a sleaze bag towards younger girls it would be okay.
He had managed to sneak the dragon egg away from the mother dragon while Ben had been explaining his theories about the missing gamers, so now he teleported back to the main city, Celespire.
It was a very pretty game, with Celespire in the centre of a circular world filled with varied terrain. In the north were snowy wastelands, bordered by a frozen sea, and in the south a vast desert separated arid mountains from a steamy jungle. The immediate lands around the capital city were mostly ancient woodland, broken up by patches of idyllic farmland, where green meadows full of wildflowers and sheep were criss-crossed by dry-stone walls. In every little valley nestled quaint villages of half-timbered houses with thatched roofs, overlooked by low hills bearing ancient, half-tumbled down stone circles or mysterious ruins.
Celespire, however, was the crowning glory of the land, a cluster of white marble arches, columned palaces, and slender shining towers with pointy caps that had probably made any Disney artist who came across it weep with envy. This was where beloved Queen Halina held her Court of Flowers, and where the Royal Council of Wizards doled out urgent quests to save the land from desperate peril.
Despite being regularly imperilled, Celespire was a happy place, where the citizens strolled about their daily business, exchanging their stock of daily comments with each other and happily greeting every heroic saviour of the land they came across.
Josh had returned to his house in the city—the player houses were another beautifully designed mechanic in the game—and started the long, complicated alchemical process that would hatch out the dragon’s egg, eventually turning it into a flying mount, when he realised that Ben had been repeatedly trying to get his attention.
“Yeah?” he asked absently.
Ben put a hand on his shoulder, and he realised it was nine o’ clock in the evening.
“Look, thanks for this,” Ben said. “I really appreciate it. But maybe you should take a break now? We’re close to two hundred and fifty hours, and I want to be there the next time you log in, in case this bastard targets you. We can try again at the weekend, okay?”
But my dragon egg, Josh wanted to protest.
“Yeah, no problem,” he said, and logged out of the game.
He waited for everyone to leave, and then logged straight back in again. He would play another two, wait no, another three hours, and then go to bed. He started a screen recording, just in case something happened and he needed to show Ben.
He spent some time sorting out his inventory, throwing stuff he wouldn’t use on the player market, restocking his chests with health and mana potions, and then he finished off a couple of daily quests, all of which took him slightly more than three hours.
He was just about to log off when he realised that the progression on his dragon egg had halted until he gathered firelily herbs, which you could only get on the smoky slopes of Vulcanspire, in the southern jungle. He had a teleport point near there, however, so the whole expedition would only take him twenty minutes, tops. While doing that he ended up running into another player who was trying kill fire drakes for their hides, but kept dying to their flame attack, so he stayed to help, and then his new friend offered to craft him an upgraded bow, which of course he had to test immediately by finding some monsters to kill, incidentally managing to clear a whole village of rampaging gryphons in the process.
And then suddenly it was four am.
Oops.
When Josh teleported back to Celespire, promising himself that this time he would really log off, he got yet another quest. The odd thing about it was that, as far as he knew, he hadn’t clicked on anything or achieved anything that might have prompted it. All his previous quests had come from interacting with non-player characters, or from discovering random things in the world, or from killing a monster. Normally there was some action that would set it off. This quest had just popped up out of nowhere.
[Do you want to be immortal?
Rewards
Items: None
Experience: 0
Gold: 0
Special rewards: The Adventure of a Lifetime
Accept / Decline]
That was ... odd. A quest with no rewards? And why did it ask him if he wanted to be immortal? His character was already effectively immortal, since he would just resurrect if he died.
He hesitated, then pressed Accept.
Nothing happened. The quest just sat in his journal, not doing anything, not pointing to anywhere, not asking him to go and kill one hundred giant toads as the first step towards immortality or whatever.
He was too sleepy to deal with this. He’d show it to Ben in the morning.
He logged out, and crashed straight into bed.
While he slept, he dreamed. He was walking through the woods behind Ben’s house, a small copse of scrubby trees bisected by a series of muddy paths where people walked their dogs. It was early morning, the clouds in the east luminous with the promise of the day’s sun, and the air was crisp and sharp in his lungs.
He wondered why he was dreaming of the woods. In the funny way of dreams, he could remember getting out of bed, throwing on some clothes, grabbing his phone and his wallet, and walking out of the house, all without actually having lived through those moments.
In the dream, Josh kept walking until he came to the road on the other side of the wood. It was a quiet little lane which saw few cars early in the day. He stood on the verge, a pleasurable sense of excitement and anticipation rising in him, like a tide surging in, fizzing through his bloodstream and rushing into his head. He heard his name being called and then there was light everywhere, so bright he closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he was somewhere else, and he was suddenly very, very awake.