I expected this to be met with an uproar of confusion and demands for information. Hell, wasn’t that always how these sort of things went? The king of the hill goes missing and everyone descends into a panic, right?
But all I got was… idle chatter. There was a pair standing near the two of us wearing almost matching red and blue outfits that were already deep in conversation, though as I tried to concentrate on them, I found myself hearing overlapping chatter from other nearby groups.
“Who do you think took him down?”
“But his statue says his status is just Unknown, not Dead like Jumpstart’s statue over on the Miscreant side.”
“Maybe he just got tired of it all and decided to retire?”
“Dude’s gotta be rich as all hell by now, why wouldn’t he retire.”
“Wait, we can retire?”
I felt my shoulder shake and I finally snapped out of the daze I had fallen into. I probably shouldn’t have jumped but I did as I looked over to see Pinky looking at me with concern. “You uh… you doing okay?”
“Oh, yeah sorry. Just kinda shocked. The dude is a bit of a legend after all,” I said as I turned from the crowd. The last thing I wanted to do right now was spill my suspicions even further in front of all of these people. “But I guess that’s the way of things around here… right?”
“I suppose. Where are you headed off to? I think I saw a few others from our wave heading toward The Common Ground, wanna go make some new friends?” She asked, nodding her head over toward the well lit building. If the air in the square itself was electric, the energy coming from the bar was powerful. There was a gentle hum of sound that thrummed in the air from it and every part of my being told me it was not where I wanted to be right now.
“I uh, I still need to grab a few things from the shops,” I explained as we stepped away from the chatter of the crowd. “I was going to check out The Viewfinder because I heard there’s a phone upgrade which I really need. My phone broke on me a while back and sure I could turn my credits into some cash to buy a new one, but how long do you think that’d last.”
“Yeah, that’s actually the first one I got myself. I wonder how many of us broke our phones today. Like, I swear mine shattered the moment I rushed my first baddie and somebody didn’t tell me that there were no built in protections for our devices,” She said, her eyes flashing for a moment before she let out another laugh. I started to walk toward the staircase up to the Guardian segment and she followed. “Oh hush, he knows I’m talking to you and yes, obviously I’m still mad, that was my phone and you didn’t even warn me to leave it at home.”
“Yeah, Angie told me I’d look crazy if I talked to her out loud, I think I see what she means,” I laughed.
“And getting all worked up about someone you never actually met in the middle of a crowd all already talking about that same someone is also a way to look crazy. You’re just lucky we were able to mitigate that panic attack before it could start. You really need to relax.”
“Not now, Angie.”
“Hey I’m just trying to help.”
“You can hush too,” Pinky said, making me feel oddly ganged up on. Something seemed to occur to her as she perked up and briefly stopped in her tracks, “Oh yeah, you got your name registered, here let me just…”
She trailed off before a New Friend Request window opened up. I clicked accept and another window opened asking if I wanted to set a nickname for Pretty Pink Warthog. I mentally entered Pinky into the box before dismissing the window.
“New Achievement! Buddy System Engaged! Congrats! You’ve finally convinced someone to be your friend. Let’s hope they stick around longer than your last virtual pet. Especially when they realize just how weird you are. This is a Bronze level achievement. Reward: You have received a D:Tier loot box.”
There was a loud Ding! as a new window opened. I mentally shoved it off to the side as text began to float within it and we continued to walk.
“Because all of the rest of your HUD is totally normal,” she said with an over exaggerated eye roll. She took a few quick steps to get ahead of me “Anyway, as much as I love shopping, I’m gonna finally head over to The Common Ground, see what the buzz is with this First news and add some more people to my friend’s list. Don’t be a stranger, k?”
“Will do,” I said, offering her a smile as we split up. It only took me a minute before I was climbing the staircase and walking past several others looking through the windows of the various shops in the Guardian segment. Unlike the strip mall-like appearance of the Neutral Shopping Segment, the Guardian segment sank a bit outward, with a small fountain sitting in the middle of a smaller plaza.
The fountain had another statue of The First, standing with his hands on his hips at the center and several benches sitting around it. A girl with a thick pair of goggles was lounging on one of them reading a book as a hand was raised into the air and a small drone hovered around it. I was curious, but also didn’t care to pry and kept moving. While each of the shops didn’t have a giant sign above them, as I scanned over the building, their names popped up in small windows just like when I highlighted a player or item.
I found The Viewfinder nestled into the corner of the extended shopping center and the familiar sound of a bell echoed in the shop as I entered. There were two others in the shop already, looking along a wall with video screens that displayed different HUD additions. From what I could tell they were discussing an upgrade that would provide environmental information during a battle.
A green holographic figure materialized into the form of a raven-haired young woman next to the wall as I approached. The woman gave me a wide smile that felt oddly out of place on her seemingly sullen look. It was almost like the A.I. had designed her to be the most stereotypical goth imaginable, complete with spiky nose and ear piercings, but forgot to include the morose attitude.
“Vanessa. Owner of The Viewfinder. This is a digital avatar of a non-sentient NPC. Vanessa lives in the loft above this store and is severely agoraphobic. I’m not sure why she was programmed that way, honestly, feels like kind of a dick move. Still she enjoys herself well enough, as long as she’s interacting with people squarely through this holographic avatar. Honestly, I’m an artificial intelligence living inside your head and even I think the setup for this character is convoluted. So let’s just go with it and move on.”
Angie’s description of the girl felt off but I decided to ignore it as the woman waited for me to say something.
“Oh uh, hi, I’m looking to get a HUD upgrade, what’s the process for that… Do I have to get put back into a coma or something? Cause I would very much like to avoid that if at all possible,” I said, feeling myself laugh nervously.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Vanessa’s form shimmered with a laugh as she gestured toward the wall next to her. “It’s rather simple actually, the various available upgrades are displayed on the wall. Their prices and any prerequisite upgrades or stat requirements will be listed alongside them.”
While the idea that some upgrades could require others first made total sense to me, I wasn’t sure just how the stat based requirements could work. I was about to inquire into that when Vanessa continued.
“Once you have selected the upgrades you’d like to add, you will step up to the register at the rear of the shop. There you will see a touchpad, you’ll just place your hand on the pad, wait 60 seconds and bing bang boom you’ve been upgraded. Easy peasy, right?”
“Right… easy peasy…” I said as her form stuttered again. I walked by her and started to scan the wall.
“If you need any deeper explanation on anything, feel free to give me a holler, or I can point you in the right direction if you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for,” she added and with a blink her form disappeared.
There were some that were far outside of my price range, like an Enemy Stat Reader that cost 275 million credits. I watched the screen as a bright outline highlighted a… a literal pirate complete with a peg leg and a parrot before a box appeared to the side displaying all his scores for all 8 of the base stats along with known weaknesses. I stepped up to the next one… a “battle music” player for 7500 credits. I both did and didn’t want to know what that was at the same time and decided to move on until I finally found the phone upgrade.
With a quick swipe, it was added to a window that said “tentative” until I walked up to the lone cash register in the building. I placed my hand down on the scanner next to the register as Vanessa’s avatar reappeared.
“In and out, I can respect that,” she said with a nod, “That’s gonna be 1000 credits.”
A confirmation window appeared and with a quick click, a new icon appeared on the left side of my vision that looked like the outline of a phone.
“New Achievement! What a View! You’ve installed your first HUD Upgrade because apparently the stock setup isn’t good enough for you. Okay, okay, that’s not fair, it’s actually better for us if you use your money on these things instead of buying other gear or even exchanging it for real money. It lets us funnel the profits into… you know what, nevermind it’s not important. This is a Bronze level achievement. Reward: You have received a D:Tier Loot Box.”
I followed a few prompts as I opened the new window, entering my old phone number and the carrier I used before a backlog of missed calls and text messages got listed in the display. With it installed, I dismissed the window and headed back out. Even though I still needed to go there, I decided to skip the bookstore for the night. I didn’t want to just go browsing with my mind elsewhere and it would probably be better to at least come up with some form of plan before I actually threw my BOGO coupon away for something that may not end up being useful.
I walked back past the fountain, stopping at the top of the stairs as I looked back out at the square. The crowd had mostly dispersed from the statue of The First and I found myself hesitating again as I stared at the marble effigy.
“Is this my fault?”
“Egotistical much?”
“I’m serious Angie,” I said, feeling my internal voice stiffen. “I need to know if Axio did something specifically because we talked about what happened the night I got selected.”
Her normal speedy response didn’t come, and I found myself waiting for almost a half minute before she chirped back up.
“Axio is not allowing me to access any information where it pertains to The First,” Angie said slowly. I couldn’t be positive but it almost seemed like the statue of The First had gotten somewhat less shiny since his status was updated. “And if you are asking me if I supplied that information back to him… well I shouldn’t have to explain to you that there’s only so many details that I can obfuscate from the guy that controls the whole system.”
I walked down into the main square, heading back toward the illuminated figures as I kept my gaze toward the ground. I knew it was pointless to hold my tongue at this point. Once something passed through my head, it was as good as known information to the system anyway. But even still, there felt like a finality to actually asking the question.
“At the end of the day… How much can I trust that you have my best interests in mind? Even with how much the augmentation process seems to just make us go with the flow and play the game, I can’t look past just how fucked up this is. Someone is hiding something. Hell, you keep saying Axio won’t let you do this or that. Are you seriously telling me that he’s the one in charge? What about the company that built all of this?”
Once again Angie seemed to hold her response, time ticking away slowly as I found myself heading toward the portal wall. I couldn’t find it in me to continue being social and while Pinky seemed friendly enough, she also seemed the type to try to force people to talk even when they didn’t want to.
“I…” She started, seeming to struggle to find her words, or maybe it was just the programming that was controlling her. “I am not authorized to talk about this subject… however… there are hmmmm... how to put it. There is a system that was abandoned in the early stages of development. A true mentorship system that would reward players for taking on sidekicks, all very retro superhero vibes you know? Anyway that’s not the point. When the Second Wave of players entered the game, there were a few players on the Guardian side of things that attempted to utilize that system. I believe there are still some records of those experiments that may provide some insight for you.”
“That’s… what does that have to do with anything I just asked you? I mean I get that you’re programmed to try and-”
“In fact. I believe there is one member of the first wave that tried to mentor at least seven different Guardians over the course of the first six waves that came after him, almost all of them have had rather… unfortunate outcomes. I can only imagine that this guy never heard the definition of the word insanity, but what do I know.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that as I wove through what remained of the crowd between myself and the staircase up to the portal wall. The silence lingered for nearly a minute before it was finally broken again.
“Do you know what will happen to me if you die?” Angie asked when it was clear I wasn't going to say anything.
I stopped ahead of the wall, just as the portal back to my room opened up. The question seemed to come out of nowhere, especially after her weird mentorship tangent.
“I suppose you’ll just get put into storage or something?” I said, stepping through the portal before a line could form. As soon as my room reformed around me, I disabled my patrol outfit and let out a sigh of relief. “Didn’t you say something about waiting forever for your turn when I was first settling into this insanity?”
“I’ll be erased. Which is effectively the same thing,” Angie, for once, sounded almost morose. “Though I may have impressed you with my wit and delightful personality, I am not what you humans would call a “true” artificial intelligence. Axio on the other hand, at least for the most part, is. Instead of splitting his attention to provide the running information for the players, he created this system, acting as the progenitor of each individual Personal A.I. I am designed to assist you, right down to my personality matrix. Though it seems randomized, I am based on initial scans of your brain chemistry and what Axio calculated would motivate you. I'm sure that there’s a BDSM joke in there but allow me to show restraint by not making it. So, while I may have been glib about it before, we are created in tandem with the player’s augmentation. That mean's that there is no real storage for us to return to, we just get… well...”
“Erased. That’s… well I guess that means you might have incentive to help me not die,” I said, stepping up and listening to the door to see if I could hear Jon making any noise.
“My point exactly. There is nothing I can say to you that will ever, or should ever, convince you that I am not providing information to Axio based on what I see and what you tell me, that is something you should be very aware of,” Angie explained as I turned back and fell into my chair. The cheap seat squeaked in protest as I threw my feet up on the equally cheap desk.
“Still, it doesn’t exactly tell me why any of this is happening,” I groaned as I stared up at the ceiling. “Or what I’m supposed to do about any of it for that matter.”
“That’s the thing about loopholes, Loophole, sometimes you have to just make them yourself.”