In a John’s old simulation, 20 years after the game started
A short main in a gray duster grabbed a whiskey bottle and smashed it over the edge of a bar. The broken glass splintered everywhere, and he said, “Patrick, are you sure you told me everything?” Only hearing grunts, he glanced down at Patrick, who was grasping for his dear life. The poor barman lived for over eighty years, but this was the worst day of his life. A pool of his blood was increasing by every second and it drained him of all energy; he couldn’t even stand.
Despite all that, he fixed his stare on the small man, and said with his last breath, “Never! Terminator… I will rather... die! You’ll never… Get John!” After that declaration, his heart gave its last pulse of blood.
Slowly shaking his head, he said for himself, “I am not a robot, you geezer. This damnable NPCs.” After that he rose from his stool and pulled out an old-school phone, calling to the headquarters.
“Hawk reporting. Suspect’s name - John. Known associate, probably a handler - Lucy Edgewood. Last seen yesterday.”
From the other end came only sounds of typing, until finally a female voice responded, “Good job, Hawk. Your order is to eliminate the threat.”
“Suspect fled to the main simulation,” he said, and couldn’t hide expectations in his voice.
“Yes, we selected you as one of the four agents of Nathan to enter the main simulation. The game will lock it in a few hours. Hurry.”
Hawk laughed and jumped out of the bar’s window. He had been waiting so long to get promoted, and now the only NPC in his way was John.
A few rays of sun shone on my face and forced me to wake up, so I stretched and rubbed my eyes. Where the hell am I? Bed. Duh, I was in a bed, but not mine. As I was looking around the bedroom, only one word was trying to get my attention - luxurious. This must be Lucas’ bedroom, so everything was fine. On that thought, I relaxed my nervous body and smiled a bit.
What, no! I jumped up and threw a blanket away. Running around the room as a headless chicken, I found out that the only thing I was wearing was a black shirt with long sleeves and a picture of a weird anonymous mask.
Naturally, that must be his shirt; but why am I here?
Every second my breath quickened, and even more when I found various things lying on the floor around the bedroom. Things such as my left shoe, bra, the right shoe… What the hell happened?
The last thing I remembered was Ian’s face entering a bar, and we drank whiskey. After that was a haze, where I used a toilet again, a weird experience, and… nothing.
This body is so useless, I can’t even have three drinks without passing out!
I put on my bra, then shirt again, but kicked the damn shoes to the corner; these evil things must stay away from me. As a precaution, I opened a bedroom door every so slightly, and peaked out; nobody waited for me in the living room.
With a relieved mind, I swung it open and walked to Lucas’ kitchen with a yawn. From there I heard a hissing sound and something smelled nice, so it did not surprise me that Lucas was preparing breakfast, clothed in his usual military attire. Yeah, and the sweet fragrance of melting butter made my mouth water.
How to ask him about what happened? Can I just say it? While I was thinking about it and sat down at the table, he put the omelet in front of me. “Good morning, Charlie.”
Nodding, I buried spoon in the omelet and tried to smile. Nope, not happening, so I said, “Morning. Can you tell me what happened yesterday?” I tasted the breakfast. The warm egg’s flavor melted on my tongue, so mushy so I had to close my eyes. Yummy!
“Nothing!” he said so fast and loud, I almost gobbled entire spoon.
“I mentf, wfy we afe here?” I said with my mouth full, not risking it, and couldn’t stop chewing. How can something so simple taste so perfectly? So, I swallowed the piece and beamed at him. “This is so good! I love it! What’s the secret, how did you do it?”
Lucas sad down across the table and put another serving in front of him. “Thank you. It’s nothing special. About last night… You got drunk at the bar, but aside from talking without stop about that we are living in a simulation, everything was okay.”
“Then why are we here?” My question resulted in his hearty laugh. Hmpf, I furrowed my brows and kicked him under the table. “Not helping!”
“Sorry, sorry! Well, I wanted to call a taxi, but you insisted you will conquer the devil's shoes; yet you couldn’t even walk barefoot without my help. When we got to your apartment, you insisted you will carry me in the game and for that you need to learn to walk; so we went to my place.”
“And?”
Lucas diverted his stare down and said, “I gave you my shirt, because you fell a few times outside and dirtied you dress, then I slept on the couch.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I nodded at him and yawned again. “Yeah, that sounds like me. That’s it, right?”
“Of course! Nothing else!” That was a relief; no shady people were following us.
With a big smile, I stuffed with his delicious meal, and finished just when his watch rang.
Lucas only glanced at the message, but then his expression froze and his spoon, halfway to his mouth, fell down, ringing a few times on the floor. Oh, what a waste!
“Charlie… You were right. You were freaking right!”
I rubbed my eyes and glanced at his watch, but he already dismissed it. “Hm, I am always right, what specifically do you have in mind?”
“The reality… Is a simulation. My friend Pearl confirmed it. He suspects that the game was the original source code we are living in now, that we are… only NPCs,” he said, his voice cracking and his hands shook like if he couldn’t control them.
“Oh, that. Yeah, I knew that. Something among the lines, I am a clever girl. I mean, what would change with you knowing it? It’s not like you can hack the system; if you could do that, you would be a god.” I paused, because a dirty thought came into my mind. The world’s game? “Maybe we can somehow exploit it,” I said aloud, and a million ideas about how to exploit a reality filled my head.
“True! But what if we are only the NPCs for the players?”
Lucas glared at me, his face pale as bar’s white wall. Thinking how to calm him down, I clutched his hand. “So what? What exactly will change after you get to know you are an NPC?” after I said that, I rose and pinched his cheek. “Look at me! I am a girl, was I girl before? No, I wasn’t. The world’s a weird place. The simulation, game or whatever this is, is weird. So what?”
Another beep and I could even feel fear from his look. Did he find out that the Terminator was right and the robots will replace us?
“You need to go. Go, now! The back window, you can jump!” He grabbed my forearm and dragged me. I struggled to to free myself, but his grip was too much to handle for my weak body. After dragging me to living room, he threw me into the bedroom and closed the door before I could yell at him.
I raced from one wall to another, then placed my hand on a knob, but hesitated. He wouldn’t drag me here for no reason. So instead I thought about how much I will slap him when he will come back, when I heard muffled voices from the living room. Voices? I pressed my ear on the door so I could gauge how dangerous they were.
“Lucas, why are you doing this? We told you, no more questions. And yet, you kept asking and asking,” a female voice lectured him.
Lucas’ voice said back, albeit weakly, “I only owe you money, not my soul. I can ask as much as I want!”
“Then pay up.” A pause, I heard only steps on their side. “No? Until you clear the debt, do not contact Pearl, or anyone from the ring. Do you understand?” a second voice pressed him and something broke, probably a vase with that stupid fake flower.
“Our boss doesn’t like questions,” the first voice yelled.
Should I go in? I was weighting my options when I heard a sound that I couldn’t confuse with anything else.
One night, when I was sleeping, weird noises woke me up. I went down from my room and heard exactly this sound. The next moment, someone shot my step-parents, and what did you know, yes, they died in front of me.
I always thought that night something broke in me, because this was my first memory, memory of seven years old kid. My head got heavy, as if a piano hit me. Next, my palms got sweaty as to tell me: ‘You can’t go there!’
No, I will save him! I pressed a sleeve to both of my eyes and ran to the living room. Nothing. Why my body remained in a place? Move! Go, go! It was my fault! He contacted that stupid Pearl because of me! He can’t die because of me! I will protect him!
An unspeakable feeling filled my soul, I slapped myself, and then finally kicked the door and screamed, scared to the death, “Honey! I have something in my eyes, I can’t see! Please help me!”
After that unexpected barge, I stood in the door with sleeve pressed to my eyes so I couldn’t see. Anything. What a brilliant strategy. They could kill me any moment and I wouldn’t even know it. Great, that thought made my tears go out. One more plus for my acting career. I braced for an impact, but I only felt a hard body with a familiar smell getting closer, hugging me and patting my hair.
“Sweetie, give me a moment and I will help you,” he whispered in a strange sweet voice and hugged more tightly. That gave my mind a sense of security and my weak knees gave way.
“Pcht. Very well, kid. Saved by a girl, pathetic. One more week, you hear me? One week.” Two footsteps seemed to move towards the main hallway, and the unknown lady slammed the door.
Lucas sighed with a sadness in his voice. “I want to kiss you now, you know that?”
“No.” I pulled out from him before he could get a wrong idea. “Tell me. What was that?”
“I told you I owe a lot of money, right? They want ten thousands by the next week.”
“Sell the apartment.”
“I live here, yes, but only because I helped the lady who owns this building; one time I saved her the almost lost videos of her dead husband. I can live here, but it’s not mine. Even if I sell everything I own, I can get only a few thousands. That’s selling my computer, scanners, monitors and capsule. That won’t help me anyway, they will come the next month for another ten thousands.”
“I understand, I will carry you,” I said to him with a resolute voice and stomped back to the bedroom for my lovely shoes. He watched me as I put them up. It was my fault. My fault, dammit!
As I was struggling with undoing straps with my still shaking hands, he tried to help with it, only to get his hand punched away by my fast palm. With nothing better to do, he leaned on a door and was watching me. “Charlie, you can’t go outside only in this shirt. Here, take your clothes and change…” Pointing to his drawer, I finally noticed a sport bag and grabbed it.
“Pcht! I can, watch me!” I tried to walk, but I stumbled and had to catch that drawer to steady myself. Okay. The shoes went down; no constraining me anymore.
“Wait, please wait! You can’t help me in the game! Do you know how much gold you would need to amass? You need to get a third of sales, I already checked that! Third of everything sold in the game!”
“Little over five thousands gold. Doable. Now move!” I pushed him away from the door. Well, I tried to. He used his strength and didn’t want to let me go.
“Fine,” I said, grabbed my shoes by the straps, swinging them over my shoulder and pulled through a gap on his left side. Too bad, my smaller frame meant I had easier avoiding you, mate!
“Charlie, please!” he glared at me, but didn’t stop anymore.
With a sad smile, I looked him in eyes and nodded. “Hush. Log into the game, I need you to identify something.” I ran downstairs and tears ran down my face. A lot. Ignoring the stare of a receptionist, I ran outside and couldn’t stop the tears the entire trip to home.
Lucas, you will not die. You hear me? Don’t you dare to die again!
Fine. Fine, you stupid world. I didn’t want to do this risky exploit, but I will do it, even if it will get me banned!