The video on Nathan’s wall-screen stuttered, dropping frames.
“Come on, you stupid fucking thing,” Nathan cursed, slamming his small fist onto it.
The image kept faltering, giving Nathan brief glimpses of the fight taking place in the Jolly Holly’s tavern. Blythe knocking an arrow in her long bow, Jon and his two zombies running forward, Samuel diving sideways to the left—dodging again, smart—and Oscar, his true lesser ticket client who had so far spent 80% of the Game unconscious, falling off his chair, the blade of his one-and-a-half sword slicing into his good leg.
They didn’t have a chance. It may have been a 3v3, but it was as lopsided a power struggle as Nathan had ever seen.
The screen froze and then cut to black. Nathan punched the power button with no effect. It was dead as a Mataran who couldn’t pay his debts.
Nathan screamed, pounding the screen over and over, desperately hoping for the image to return.
“Gods damn you, Core!” he screeched. “Fix this!”
The Core did not respond.
Nathan tried fiddling with the power button to coax it back to life. He attempted to pry back the screen to look behind it at whatever internal components powered the damn thing, but it was adhered fast to the wall.
He gave up.
“If my clients just died, your dilapidated ass owes me back my entire fee! Hells, I want a refund even if they live, too! How am I supposed to counsel them at the first check-in if I can’t even watch them fight!?”
HELLO NATHAN.
Nathan was so startled hearing The Core address him by name, he lost his balance and fell off the pile of garbage he was perched on. It had been a long time since The Core had directly spoken to him, not since the end of Nathan's Game when they struck a deal to let him live in an Elysium Gardens building if Nathan gave up all of his gained powers and treasure. In the intervening years, Nathan had tried everything he could to get direct attention from The Core. He tried cursing, berating, screaming, cajoling, and even begging. Nothing ever seemed to work.
The weight of the situation sunk in and Nathan hardly dared to breathe. The Core's attention was a rare and potentially dangerous thing, and even Nathan knew better than to take it lightly. He was unsure of what The Core wanted from him now, but he knew he had to tread carefully if he wanted to come out of this unscathed.
“Hello,” he cautiously said to the God, climbing back up on top of one of his piles of rubbish.
THE SPONSORSHIP TICKET FOR PLAYERS ‘EMW35474-1: OSCAR ESTEBAN’ and ‘EMW35474-2: SAMUEL CARDWELL’ IS OWNED BY CITIZEN ‘MAT54329: DANICA HOOGERWERF’. IT IS NOT OWNED BY CITIZEN ‘MAT21890: NATHAN BURRUS’.
As Nathan tried to process the situation, his mind raced with different possibilities of how to respond. After a few moments of contemplation, his old habits kicked in, and he decided to play it safe. With a small, terribly humble smile, he lowered his head in deference, showing that he meant no disrespect.
Not content with merely showing respect with his facial expression, Nathan took it a step further. He crawled off his perch of garbage and prostrated himself on the floor, pressing his belly to the musty ground beneath him. The gesture was a clear sign of submission and showed that he was willing to do whatever was necessary to avoid conflict. At least that’s what Nathan thought he was showing.
“Yes, thank you, Core,” Nathan began. ““Your wisdom is as uncanny as you are mercurial. If I may, as your loyal subject, submit to the record that I purchased the sponsorship in question in a mutual agreement with Danica. As such, the sponsorship should be placed in my name... Could I have that made official?”
Nathan waited on bated breath.
“Lord Core?” Nathan asked.
The Core did not respond.
“You fucking stupid-ass bastard fuckwit!” Nathan spat, all pretense of reverence thrown out the window. “Answer me!”
Nathan was left in complete silence, with no one to turn to and no intoxicants to curb his frustration. As he sat in his tiny square of safety, he struggled to find a way to release his pent-up anger. It grew within him until he was overcome by a wave of fury that he couldn't contain. Without a second thought, he threw a grand mal tantrum, tearing into the carefully stacked garbage piles surrounding him.
Debris flew around him like a miniature tornado, the sound of its crashing and clanging filling the room. He grabbed a half-rotted pastry and hurled it at the screen in front of him, the gelatinous center sticking to the black surface before sliding down in a messy smear. He huffed in annoyance as the pastry fell to the ground with a plop. Despite the temporary relief of his outburst, Nathan was still left with the same problem—his screen was dead, and he had no way to check on his clients.
VERIFYING.
Nathan looked up at the ceiling, a look of incredulity plastered on his face.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
VERIFIED. ‘MAT54329: DANICA HOOGERWERF’ TRANSFERRED OWNERSHIP OF LESSER TICKET: ‘EMW35474-1: OSCAR ESTEBAN’ AND ‘EMW35474-2: SAMUEL CARDWELL’ TO ‘MAT21890: NATHAN BURRUS’ IN RETURN FOR 80% OF ANY POTENTIAL WINNINGS. YOUR SUBMISSION HAS BEEN ADDED TO OFFICIAL RECORDS AND WILL BE ADJUDICATED SHOULD THE NEED ARISE.
Nathan breathed out a sigh of relief. He felt emotional whiplash.
“Thank you, illustrious master,” Nathan said, bowing once more and giving a toothy smile. He sat back on his haunches, reveling in the success.
“Wait…” Nathan started. “I still need to have my screen fixed! And I want a credit refund!”
The Core did not respond.
Nathan was in a tough spot. Without his screen, he couldn't check if his clients Oscar and Samuel were still kicking. He couldn't afford a hand terminal, either, to make up for his lost screen, so his options were limited. Luckily, there were Games Bars in every district of the Core's city. Unfortunately, Nathan had zero credits to his name and couldn't even afford a shot of the cheap stuff they served as an entry fee.
But all hope was not lost. Nathan figured he could probably sweet-talk Unthár's cousin, the bouncer at the Arcadia Springs Games Bar, into letting him in. The rock-creatures were known for their tough exterior and propensity for violence, but they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed. With a bit of Nathan’s signature smarmy charm, he was confident he could gain entry and find out if Oscar and Samuel were okay.
Nathan climbed out the window and scampered down the fire escape.
At about a third of the way from the bottom, he halted and clung fast to the rickety ladders.
“You’re just the Mataran I was hoping to see,” she cooed, voice echoing up the seven floors of golden brick between them. “Imagine my surprise when I came all this way to your neighborhood to visit and your elevators were broken.”
“Have some Glandoroids in the stairwell, too,” Nathan said.
With Xæç below, there was no chance he could make it to any of the Games Bars to try and watch his clients fight there—and that was if there was even still a fight to watch. Watching any rewinds were out of Nathan’s budget.
“So I saw,” Xæç responded, her face screwed up with disgust. “Glandoroids should not be permitted to exist here.”
“Uh huh,” Nathan agreed amiably. “They deserve total genocide. Nothing less. Don’t suppose I could rent that screen off you?”
“I’d part with it for a 1400-credit deposit and a 200-credit hourly fee.”
“A bit steep,” Nathan muttered dryly.
Xæç smiled serenly. “Come on down and we can negotiate it.”
“Come on up and I’ll give you the deposit right now.”
“Would you, now?” Xæç responded wryly. “I don’t suppose the fire-escape’s security system would like my trespassing very much, would it?”
“One way to find out.”
“Nathan,” Xæç said, “I’d like to be friends, and all that’s standing between that is a measly 900 credits.”
Nathan began the long climb back up the fire escape and let the little alien keep talking, calling up saccharine and meaningless platitudes on the nature of repayment, and mutual respect. He rolled into his window and pulled it safely shut behind him. He let out a long breath.
He paced around the room, weaving through the alleyways between his stacks of garbage and wringing his hands in agitation. Nathan was a bundle of anxiety. He had to know if Oscar and Samuel was still alive, not because he had any particular attachment to the two men—he didn't care about anyone but himself. The only thing that mattered to Nathan was his investment.
A loud boom echoed through the halls, causing Nathan's apartment lights to flicker.
Nathan cautiously opened his apartment door to investigate the source of the disturbance. Directly across the hallway, his neighbor's door had been blown open. Black soot rung the doorway and debris had spilled out into the hallway.
Nathan crept into his neighbor’s apartment. His neighbor—the blackened husk that was left of him, anyway—was hunched over the remains of a portable screen spraying sparks. The corpse was burned to a crisp and shriveled in on itself. Smoke rose from the corpse’s crisped skin. Nathan counted himself lucky that his screen had only shut off.
If you could argue that it was even there to begin with, the utopian façade of the Core was cracking, revealing its true, chaotic nature. The Core was constantly pushing boundaries of what was possible, harnessing the power of suns, recreating planets, fabricating newer and more intricate games to distract its inhabitants, but it seemed as though the system was beginning to falter under the weight of its own ambition. It could create life en masse, establish a vibrant magic system, lord over billions of sentient creatures, and not be able to prevent one of its portable television screens from critical failure.
The smell of roasted meat caused Nathan’s nose to twitch and his mouth to water.
But food could wait.
“Be a greedy little bastard,” Nathan smiled, giddily humming to himself.
Nathan ransacked the small apartment with abandon, tearing open every drawer, cupboard, and box in search of anything valuable. The frantic search left the place in shambles, a chaotic mess of overturned furniture and strewn-about belongings. Some neighbors on his floor poked their heads in, curious about the noise, but Nathan snarled and bared his sharp teeth, successfully scaring them off. Despite being only a meter tall, Nathan's fierce and menacing demeanor made him the most intimidating creature on his floor. That fact alone filled him with shame, having performed in his own iteration only as well as the other inhabitants of Elysium Gardens.
He finished looting the apartment and sighed with contentment, knowing that the stolen goods would open his options immensely. One man’s death was another man’s gain. He looked over his haul and figured he could get a few thousand credits off it all if he really stretched it.
Unless more of his debtors came knocking. He could handle Unthár and Xæç, but they too were the bottom of the barrel. Nathan counted sums in his head. If he was being honest with himself, which he probably wasn’t, he owed roughly 145,000 credits across the board. This paltry sum would barely even make a dent.
Oscar and Samuel’s success was still his best current bet at financial freedom and buying safety back. A single lottery ticket clutched in the hands of a desperate Mataran. It felt like a last chance.
He still needed to be able to watch the games.
Nathan broke an arm off the corpse of his dead neighbor and got to chewing, walking down the hall with his bag of loot. The meat was stringy, burnt, and tasted more metallic than organic, but Nathan thought it was one of the tastier treats he had had in days. He knocked on his neighbor’s door.
With a bit of haggling tipping the scales in Nathan’s favor, he bought a second-hand portable screening device off the little creature. He returned to his apartment, secured his new belongings and tasty snack, and punched Oscar’s player ID number into the search bar. The screen showed a message that made Nathan's heart drop.
[Player Deceased]
“Oh, fuck,” Nathan whispered through a mouth full of meat, all joy from his haul forgotten. He punched Oscar’s number in again and got the same error message.
“Gods damn it all,” Nathan muttered. He punched in Samuel’s player ID and the portable device gave a loading screen. Nathan exhaled his trepidation in a shuddering breath. He thought of his neighbor’s device having blown up next door and scooted a few feet back from the screen.
Instead of seeing his buy-one-get-one-free client, a blazing fire filled the entire screen.
“What the shit?” Nathan breathed, licking his fingers clean of the oils from his neighbor’s arm. He leaned forward, pinched the image on the screen, and zoomed it out.
Jolly Holly’s tavern was engulfed in a blazing inferno.