The glowing avatar wrestled with four Celts as they pulled down his arms, not allowing him to drink his antidote. It crashed with a fizz to the dirt. The Barbarians bound his hands and knocked him to his knees, pointing his face away from the moist ground. After that they watched, as it was all they could do, not wanting to go near his blessed armor. But it was all they needed to do, laughing among themselves as the toxicity in the shining avatar’s blood soared, enflaming him in pain and engorging his skin into a sordid purple. First it was around his pectorals and on one shoulder, but quickly a hand a ballooned up, his forearm following suit until the demi-god looked like a huge overripe grape.
However painful it was, it took minutes of this torture for the toxin to achieve the height of its effect. Yeung-Sung jostled with Airgead for control, fought to free his character, but against forty Celts, brute strength wasn’t an option.
[DEFEAT]
By poison, no less. MEDB, you sneaky bitch.
Sitting in his apartment, legs hanging off the bed, Yeung-Sung showed the loss screen to the faction representatives that were expecting a demonstration of his power, and shrugged.
“It didn’t work.”
The apartment seemed to shrink as each representative voiced their ebullient opinion. Liane was the first to storm out. There on behalf of the Debaters, she had stayed by the door the entire time, scouting the oblivious others who stood in their own groups, enjoying refreshments catered by Yeung-Sung’s store. Yeung-Sung thought that she would’ve been happy to see him fail, but she only shook her head at him, her hand already turning the doorknob as the phone moved into her view. Did she see right through me? A pair of her suited friends were waiting to receive her on the other side.
The next nearest to the door, and even more alone then Liane, was the representative for the colony’s biggest ‘unofficial’ faction; The Duners. Dancing in anticipation, he wore a sleeveless leather outfit that billowed from behind his torso, straddling the line between fetish gear and a trench coat. He darted out a look at every sound effect, then, noticing nobody else had reacted, he’d go back to his pacing frenzy, his mouth jittering like a self-chastising monk.
Needless to say, the other factions got on a lot better with each other than with the Duners’ representative. The others; from Finers, RolePlayers and of course Luke from the Debaters huddled in front of his wardrobe. The RolePlayers representative, strangely, just appeared to be a regular dude, but the Finers one wasn’t at all what he expected.
He had assumed from their cutthroat reputation that theirs would be a man, but instead, a tall woman with a brunette ponytail streaked gold stood in his apartment smiling during conversation, showing a canine over the left side of her mouth. With her white blouse and habit of snapping her cufflinks whenever she was talked over, it felt like she had invaded his apartment. That he was now in her custody.
Cowed by their anger, Luke hissed at Yeung-Sung, hands as a visor separating him from the others,
“Seriously? How can you do this to me?”
Yeung-Sung kept his face relaxed. “Are you angry?”
“No,” he replied quickly, “No, this was bound to happen eventually.”
Dragging his fingers down into stretchy skin like slippery dough, he sighed.
“I’m just disappointed. Hey, wait! Don’t leave!”
Luke ran to the side of the representatives; All their efforts to unite the factions walking out the door.
There’s one faction suspiciously missing. The Champions. This proves they are the ones behind Wil’s kidnaping, I’m sure of it!
Yeung-Sung in a meditative pose, sharing a smirk with the reflection on his phone’s unlit screen. As if MEDB could see him. As if she was there.
With his body in the hall, Luke turned his head around to say something, but he must’ve realised that taunting Yeung-Sung, berating or encouraging him at that time was a waste of resources. “Wait!” he shouted again down the plaster-white hall, slamming the door behind him.
Yeung-Sung let out a breath. Int truth, he had no idea how to react to dying in the Gauntlet. But he was glad to have some space. This apartment, after all -if he was a character would have been his personal hub. Ever since the first night at the colony, this was a sanctuary, and he had spent almost all of his medals personalizing it.
Counting quiet moments until he was certain that none of the reps were coming back, Yeung-Sung got up and made for his ‘balcony’.
His fingers found the paper-cut grooves of the window with ease. Leaning through, he checked on his potted plants hooked to its rim, patting the earth with a thumb. Silky. Spongy. Won’t need water for a good while. He was so busy admiring the blueish and purple irises, bouncing around on their tiny stalks that he had forgotten all about the special visitor of this colony meeting, who didn’t leave.
The newly minted GLI head of faction relations sat drinking tea putting to the test Yeung-Sung’s new work desk and chair. Strange, seeing as he had never acquired a kettle nor the dainty china that rested between the Brit’s fingers. But, after all, it was Simon.
“You certainly are an interesting specimen, Pak,” Simon noted.
Taking time and care to slide the glass panel in properly, Yeung-Sung chuckled.
“That’s the first thing you say all day?” he said, “Simon…what was the point of you being here?”
Yeung-Sung glanced up at the corners of his apartment’s ceiling, into its grainy whorls. “Couldn’t you just monitor us instead? A camera would’ve done just as well.”
Simon took a sip of his tea. Slurped it, rather, playfully twiddling the point of his crossed feet.
“Ahh,” he said, smacking his teeth, “But this is more personal, isn’t it?”
He raised the white china over his mouth as he smiled, but Yeung-Sung would have the image emblazoned in his mind even if it was behind a brick wall.
“I suppose,” he admitted, “It’s nice to have somebody by my side after failing miserably. And dooming the colony.”
Stretching, Yeung-Sung ran a finger over the top ridges of his spine, imagining they were segments of bamboo. After one look at his room, at the remains of the ‘meeting’, he was drawn back to the window. He stepped towards it, almost able to see the entrance of the lobby and stalled his breath.
“It’s good to see you, Simon. Though, this isn’t going to help dispel some of the rumours –"
“You failed intentionally.”
A wisp of cotton silence caught in Yeung-Sung’s mouth. He neither wanted to nod to Simon nor deny his assumption. Am I even sure which one is true? Instead, he tilted forward against the glass, pressing the skin and bone against it, feeling its numbing coldness and watching below:
The representatives had begun to exit the building. They gathered around in a furious clump, but as soon as they left the porch they refracted out, as if representing their political wavelengths.
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At least that anger won’t be aimed at me anymore.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Simon said. Yeung-Sung heard him blow on his tea.
Yeung-Sung dimpled and turned to him. “You think I’d do that?”
The Brit stayed stiff in the seat. His forehead smeared with wrinkles, Yeung-Sung watched the smile crumple off his lips, watched his eyes dry out and curl up to address him like two stubborn, age-wizened roots.
Yeung-Sung though about telling Simon to get off his chair, but ended up dragging out his original chair beside him. Hunched close, he put a gentle hand over Simon’s knee and asked,
“How is she? How is MEDB?”
Simon immediately drew back in his chair. Clearly holding himself back, only a cough stuttered out.
“Simon,” Yeung-Sung asked again, “whatever it is, you need to tell me.” He swayed to and fro, trying to catch his gaze like a baseball.
“He -uh…”
“Who? Jordan?”
Simon nodded, pressing in his lips. “He found out,” he said, parsing the words out equidistant from each other.
“He found out about MEDB through me. Because of me.”
Yeung-Sung almost stood, holding himself cinched above the seat of his chair. Gripping the hard, grey plastic of its side, he adjusted it and sat again.
“I see. Or…no, actually I don’t.”
Frowning, Yeung-Sung’s forearms cramped, feeling stuffy inside the sleeves of his shirt, so he carefully furled them up in three quick folds as Simon began to explain. He stared at the teacup down between his legs, fondly sliding his thumbs over the side like he was imagining something -or someone else.
“What did I miss?” asked Yeung-Sung.
“Well, we began -we got talking. She kept asking me questions -things about GLI, about me and other random things and…”
He looked up from the cup. “She’s very interesting, you know, for a -well, you know…for an artificial.”
Blushing, he shrugged at Yeung-Sung’s reaction, splattering the red-wood floor as his hands fell down again. That distracted Yeung-Sung for a second as he went to instinctively mop up the spill, but then he shook his head.
This whole thing is a distraction.
A flashing spectre, Jordan atop the balcony during the riots crept into mind.
He was arrogant then. He never looked at me, but at the autocar all the way behind.
“Don’t blame yourself. He knew already,” Yeung-Sung declared. “He’s letting the guilt consume you, so that you’re easier to control.”
He shot his arms out like bristled thorns against his sides. “Forget that, anyway. I want to know how she is now. She didn’t get shut off? Replaced?”
“Replaced?” Simon was struck with the possibility. “No, he—” he said, thinking quickly, “He wouldn’t have the resources to separate her form the system and keep it running. No, it wouldn’t do, he’d have to –”
Simon stopped, eyes ablaze, probably not realizing that his thoughts were on display.
“He would have to…?” Yeung-Sung primed him.
Moving fluidly as if out of a lucid dream, Simon finished, “He’d have to cancel the experiment. Destroy, and restart the colony.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Yeung-Sung said. He rubbed his neck, healed now but the act had become a habit. “Would he?”
“No. That’s the last thing he would do,” Simon finally admitted, though, crouching in his seat, he didn’t appear too sure.
He sprung up with a laugh. “No! I don’t know why I even considered that, completely irrational!”
Irrational like thinking you lost on purpose when MEDB simply adapted faster than I could?
Yeung-Sung clenched his fists rather than take his anger out on Simon. Breathing slowly out, he asked, “Why does it always come to this point with you?”
Simon put down his teacup over a red-blue PM coaster, re-folding his legs. “He has cut her off from communicating externally -No more late-night car trips, I guess.”
“But she’s still in control of Airgead?”
“Indeed.”
There was a pause then. The two of them once again stared out the window, with a similar pang of loss to their expressions. Some of the representatives below just now cleared the distance of the field, while others had already been swallowed by the dark and winding cul-de-sacs of the North Korean village town. Yeung-Sung tracked the Duners rep last, noting that he turned back and possibly saw him all the way at the apartment.
They were still the most mysterious faction in the colony. Since they formed and met outside of Airgead, even GLI didn’t know who was a member. And now that they had seen him fail. Yeung-Sung wondered if they would use this opportunity to truly cause chaos, something much larger than the riots outside the GLI headquarters.
Then, remembering something else entirely he turned to Simon, lips ribbed.
“Do you take coloners, sometimes? For testing?”
Just as Simon took up his tea, he crashed it against the desk again, spluttering milky blobs, making the deep wood appear to sweat.
“Sorry, do I what?”
Yeung-Sung swiped a finger at his lips and tried again. “For interrogation maybe, or just a survey?” he asked. He motioned plucking something out of an invisible bag. “Do you ever take people out of the colony, just for a while?”
Simon put his elbow back against the desk, his sleeve soaking up the tea spray. He eyed Yeung-Sung with tugged eyebrow. “I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but –”
“Come on,” pleaded Yeung-Sung, “You must have seen him -the guy with the burns. He jumped down at the speech in PM, and just disappeared?”
Simon stuck his palms out flat and kept his face serious. He assured Yeung-Sung very clearly, “That was for his own good, Pak.”
Yeung-Sung felt sick.
“That fella,” Simon continued, “he got dragged out of a burning building by GLI and rehabilitated here, in the colony during its early trials.” Simon brushed droplets of his shiny black slacks. “Or so we thought. A building -I might add, that he torched down himself.”
“Or is that what Jordan told you?” retorted Yeung-Sung, freeing himself from his chair, standing tense above Simon.
Simon spat in shock, just managing to avoid him. “What?”
“You’ve got it wrong, Pak; I remember that night. Half a dozen staff brought him in in at four in the morning…and two future coloners. You’ll know one of them; Sykes, the Irish lad”
Stopping his sullen gaze, Yeung-Sung focused back on the conversation.
Simon fingered the end of his pockets like it took everything for him not to hide safe inside them. “Thrashing and screaming, He fought them all, ordered them to take him back to the fire. ‘Put me back!’ he yelled; ‘Why did you take me out?’. I remember the cries, but I wasn’t told what had happened after that.”
Reclining, Simon’s pouched cheeks bulged like a water balloon.
“Early days…Version 2, I think?”
Yeung-Sung thought back to his first encounter in PM and attempted to reconcile his own experience with Simon’s story. Brinn…He did it to himself? I’m sure the world doesn’t lack for sad stories, but is this really the type of person you’d want to participate an experiment that’s supposed to completely upturn the way we live?
“-Or was it version 3, maybe 3.5?” Simon mused, “No. I t definitely was Version 2 -Yeah, it had that feature with the - the canteen was serving strawberries. Definitely. Oh, Pak?”
Yeung-Sung also fell out of his contemplation. “Yes?”
“Why are you so concerned with this?” he asked.
“Before I tell you, I need you to confirm something,” Yeung-Sung said cupping his hands together. “Please.”
“Okay.”
The red wood walls of his apartment shrank around Yeung-Sung as he tried to ask his question. “If someone dies in the colony, I heard Airgead would delete anything they produced or gathered, is that true?”
“Yes. As well as any medals original earned by the player,” Simon answered. “Jointly created items are also devalued. Once someone is gone, they’re gone. Tying economy to the value of human life rather than the value of goods is one of Jordan’s core philosophies.”
Yeung-Sung smiled at the news.
So there is hope.
He pointed out into the night. “There was a group missing tonight.”
“The Champions, yes.”
“They took Wil, they took my friend. I don’t know why, but I’m sure he’s not dead at least,” said Yeung-Sung, “We would have felt the impact in our marketplace, our inventories.”
Curling his fingers, he pulled his hand into a strained, but solid fist.
Simon gasped. “That’s logical, but -wait,” he called out, “If this is true, I’ll need to start an investigation.” He leapt up, roofing off Yeung-Sung’s fist with his hands. “This is against protocol. Pak, don’t do anything drastic, in this colony violence is –”
“Just say it,” Yeung-Sung spat.
Simon sagged, the padded shoulders of his blazer sagging like wet teabags.
“Violence is prohibited.”
Turning for the door, Yeung-Sung said, “Of course it is!”
Ignoring Simon’s pleas, he passed his bed when his phone lit up with a message.
The same person from Wil’s phone!
His throat seized up, he held the screen up so Simon could see.
The Brit shook his head.
“Please. You have to…you have access to the autocars.”
Simon gathered his things. “Absolutely not. It is obviously a trap.” Flustered and quickly out of breath, he tried to get past the Korean.
I can’t hold him back, he’s twice my weight!
But this may be my only chance.
“Simon, you were right, I lost on purpose.”
The GLI scientist stood back.
“Jordan would never let me win, and everyone thinks I’m allied with MEDB. This colony needs someone a new hero, someone who know games. Whom people would believe. My friend is that person.”
Simon stifle a giggle. “And?”
And? What is he… he’s taking the side of the stupid AI that he loves, isn’t he?
Yeung-Sung sighed. “And she’s impossible to beat, too.”
“Haha,” Simon said. He began to applaud, but the teacup slipped out from his grip and struck the wooden floor at a thousand different points. Hoisting up his belt, he strode out.
Yeung-Sung hesitated at the sight of his china fragmented floor, but rushed to follow Simon.
“Why do you have to be so frustrating?”