“I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee.”
Skyrim
EVEN THOUGH Mike Björnstad Hagen was partly of Scandinavian extraction, he resembled a Viking roughly the same way a Chihuahua resembles a Great Dane. He had a variety of nicknames such as“Crybaby Mikey,” “Little Mikey,” “Mikey the Wimp,” or even “Hey, you cocksucker!” No one has ever referred to him as “Mr. Hagen.”
The only time it almost happened was during a visit to a bank Mike had visited once in hope of getting a mortgage loan. “I'm so sorry, Mr. Hagen, but your loan request has not been approved,” said the man behind the counter without so much as trying to refrain from grinning smugly.
Mike would have smashed his face gladly if he only knew how to fight.
A home... A dream of a home of his own, one he could share with little Jessie, was all that had kept him going for three years. Then Jessica had deserted him for a trucker thug from Arizona — or was it Texas? At that point, it didn't really matter anymore.
What did matter, however, was that Hagen had dated no one for the following five years, and the reason certainly wasn't his pining for Jessica — there was none. It was just that no one ever found him interesting enough, including Sheila, a glum Goth girl covered in tattoos, who worked in the shop across the road. The shop sold comics, and Hagen would frequent it to buy fresh issues of Rat Queens andExtremity.
There was an occasion when Mike had had quite a few at Chuck's Bar and managed to get brave enough to invite her to see a movie — another installation of The Avengers. That was when Hagen had the temerity to declaim, feeling brave and cocksure, “Girlfriend, how about taking that glorious body of yours out with the coolest guy in the neighborhood?”
Sheila was flabbergasted. “Cool? You, of all people?” She then gave him the textbook phrase about him being the last man on the planet and her utter reluctance to spend any amount of time with him even in that scenario.
Mike didn't wait for her to finish the sentence. Hit by the realization of him having been rejected, his brain instantly launched the standard coping mechanism Hagen had developed back in grammar schoolwhenever he’d been called a freak and gotten pelted by a barrage of leftovers at the school canteen: “See no evil, hear no evil.”
He barely managed to move his legs, which seemed like foreign objects, as he left the comic shopnever to return. Thenceforth, he had to order his comics online which isn't quite the same thing as everybody knows.
Hagen didn't bear any grudges against Sheila. But how could he ever visit her shop again? That would be the worst humiliation one could possibly think of.
Then there was the evening when he’d come home from work — a Friday right after Thanksgiving. However, a family holiday seemed like any other day to Hagen. He'd never seen his father, and his motherhad passed away a couple of years back.
Hagen's mother was the only person in his life he'd ever truly loved. Some might have called her love overbearing, but Baby Mickey could never even think of it like that. She was his mother, after all — as well as his friend, and the most interesting person to talk to. Jessie tried to claim this part — it seemed like a success for a while — but then she walked out on him. When Hagen returned to his mother after his first“life cruise,” as his Uncle Pete had put it, mother was already deathly ill. The doctors said her treatment would have a thirty-percent chance of success, but there wasn't any money to pay the medical expenses, anyway. Another thing was that he'd have to go to Philadelphia. How could he possibly? His job and his home would never let him. Nor would anybody else.
Hagen's mother died in terrible pain, and he spent all her last days with her — holding her handunable to hold back his tears.
Mike spent the first year after her death as though he were trying to learn how to live again. He's gotten used to cooking, and tried to wash his own clothes and wake up on time, with varying success. The mother who had always taken care of her son was gone. There was no one to take her place, so it was the second time ever Hagen decided something for himself as an adult (the first one being moving in with Jessie).
He wouldn’t give up. He wouldn’t let himself crack under pressure. He would have no specific objectives; he’d go with the flow, but he would definitely stay alive.
So he eventually managed to cope with it. Mother's cooking was replaced by Chinese takeaways. Once a week, Hagen would go to the Laundromat, and the alarm clock would wake him up every morning. Life seemed to have gotten back to normal but he still missed his mother a lot.
The only imaginable relative Hagen knew was Uncle Pete, Mom's elder brother. Uncle Pete used to be in the US Armed Forces. He'd been through campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan; the few times he’dvisited Hagen and his mother, he did everything he could to be a male presence and help with his nephew's upbringing, but without any success. So Uncle Pete decided to skip the particulars and stick to enforce the three rules he considered important for every man: the ability to hold one's ground, to help one's mother, and to keep from whining, whatever the circumstances may be.
He failed in every case.
Hagen would get hysterical at any experience of physical pain, and preferred to give up or run away at once instead of “holding his ground,” even though he'd always dreamed of learning to fight like the famous Mighty Mouse — Demetrious Johnson, the UFC flyweight champion. Yes, the very wrestler thathad managed to become a champion eleven times with his height — less than five foot three, and weighing under 126 pounds.
Poor puny Hagen often imagined himself as Johnson's true heir. Crybaby Hagen. Height, five foot two. Weight, just a little over 123 pounds. And a UFC champion nonetheless! Such an unfunny joke.
Helping his Mom? Oh, that was so boring. So much more fun playing video games or reading comics. Not that his mother ever demanded anything of the sort from her only child, anyway.
And as for keeping from whining — Hagen tried as hard as he could, but without much success. What could he do if his first reaction to a hurtful comment had always been tears? Hagen was nearly thirty at that point but he would still sometimes find himself unable to hold them back. Just to think of that dumb customer with his damned laptop — a certain Mr. Goretsky. Hagen was the only person who’d any idea about computers in the shop selling digital devices where he worked. Each time Mr. Goretsky would have another virus infect his hard drive browsing through illegal adult sites, there'd be just a single person to sort it out. Namely, Baby Mikey. And Mr. Goretsky had gotten his Self-Importance and Asshole skills up to a level sufficient to blame Hagen for the infection each and every time.
So, the Friday Mr. Goretsky visited the shop again, he didn't guard his words in the least. Apart from the fact that he had onion and garlic on his breath, which almost made Hagen throw up, he erupted with expletives. The mildest expressions he used were “dumb freak” and “pimply bastard,” although there were plenty more epithets and characteristics. It must be fun to be as badass when you're six foot tall and your forearms are wider then my legs, thought Hagen, feeling the levee breaking and the tears running down his cheeks. It wasn't his best day all in all, Friday or no Friday.
Feeling utterly discombobulated, Hagen headed right for Chuck's Bar. His main objective was to get into a state of complete inebriation; the secondary one was fueled by the hope of picking up a chick against all odds. Anyone at all. Just someone moist enough for him to stick it in. He'd even managed to notice a likely candidate sitting on a bar stool and downing straight whiskey like there was no tomorrow. Still, he never gathered enough courage to approach her, although he was fully intending to. And once his ass finally left the chair, it was already too late. The lady in question guffawed at the stupid joke of some smug bastard wearing a suit and tie in the most vulgar manner.
So Hagen got fueled up with rotgut and headed homeward, wallowing in self-pity. He spent some time playing his favorite MMA fighter game on the PlayStation in his bachelor's lair imagining himself kicking seven shades of shit out of that bastard Goretsky, after which he watched a horror B-movie on his cable for a while, then just passed out.
He woke up almost at midnight to take a piss.
That was when everything started to happen.
The distance between the sofa and his bathroom would normally take some five steps — it was a cheap rented apartment, after all — but Mike still stumbled on his way. He never knew himself to be particularly agile, but crossing a completely level floor to reach the bathroom hadn't ever been a problem, no matter how drunk.
However, when he rose from the sofa and headed toward the can this time, the world seemed to blink. Hagen felt himself hanging in the nothingness of the universe for a few seconds, feeling no gravity, smells, sounds, lights, or air entering and leaving his lungs.
He didn't even have any awareness of his own existence. He felt enshrouded in utter darkness.
Once the world around him returned, his body continued with a series of panic-induced commands given by the brain: his diaphragm spasmed, his arms started to wave, and his legs eventually attempted to take one step after another. As a result, Hagen fell to the floor, bruising his chin rather badly in the processand almost biting his tongue.
It took him a while to decide to rise, feeling the kind of vertigo anyone who'd ever had more liquor than they could hold would recognize quite well. There were white dots in his vision which formedthemselves into strange symbols resembling the runes from The Predator. Hagen went silent, trying to keep himself from throwing up. He lay down on his back and closed his eyes, waiting for the white dots to stop moving so chaotically, but to no avail.
He tried to blink until they went away, and then tried to rub them out with his hands, but the shining dots clearly weren't of a physical nature. They disappeared some ten minutes later.
Hagen managed to catch his breath. Then he got up gingerly and made a few slow, deliberate steps, trying to ensure his feet wouldn't fail him on his way to the business that had woken him up originally.
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Then he went back to his room, got undressed, and fell asleep, leaving his clothes on the floor.
* * *
HE WOKE the next morning feeling parched as hell. It was Saturday, and he didn't have to go to work.
He cracked his joints as he stretched out, and headed toward the fridge. He polished off a carton of OJ in a few gulps and started to think about heading down to the supermarket for some supplies.
He sat down at his kitchen table, half of which was covered in computer parts such as video, RAM, and Ethernet cards. That’s when he realized something was wrong. And it wasn't the headache from the six pints of beer he’d drunk last night.
There was an object looking like a desktop icon in his field of vision, and it wouldn't go away. He’dnoticed it after waking up, but his initial assumption had been that it was just something in his eye or on his eyelashes — a bit of lint, perhaps.
Mike blinked, but the bit of lint didn't go away. If anything, it seemed to have gotten larger. He thought he needed to wash his face, so off to the bathroom he went.
As Mike splashed some water over his face, he decided to shave. He didn't do it often — there was no reason to waste time on scraping his face with a razor, after all. But why do it today? The very urgesurprised him.
He rubbed some shaving gel on his hand and started applying it to his face, looking at himself in the mirror.
That was when it hit him. There were two lines of text hovering over his head with its thinning fair hair. It looked like the kind of stuff you'd expect to see in some damn computer game.
Mike “Crybaby” Hagen. Age: 29
Level 1
Hagen ran his hand through the space above his head, his face covered in foam. The hand passed through the text without feeling any resistance. Could this be a practical joke of some sort? He looked at the mirror carefully, but found no signs of anyone tampering with it.
What could it possibly be, then? A hallucination?
Suddenly Mike had a morbid idea that made him back away from the mirror. His legs buckled under him, causing him to collapse in a heap to the floor.
Could it be cancer? The kind his mother had?
And what would happen then? He wasn't even thirty yet. He hadn't really managed to get any worthy experience in his life and come to know the joys it could bring. He'd been thinking everything was still ahead of him — that he would have time enough to get as strong as Mighty Mouse.
And what about women? He's never had anyone but Jessie. The thought that his time had run out and that he'd never get to know anyone intimately until the end of what would be a very short life made Hagen cry without making a single sound.
Then he started to bawl uncontrollably — but his mother was no longer there to hug him and comfort him, and it felt like his very life poured out of him as tears went by. A dark depressive state came upon him. Hagen no longer had any wish to do anything anymore, so he just washed away his tears and the froth, rubbed his face with a towel, and went back to bed. He closed his eyes and stayed like that until evening came, unable either to fall asleep or get up.
Long after sundown, Hagen realized he could stay that way no more. His body felt numb; his muscles ached for some exercise, and his brain finally switched from thoughts about imminent death to the basic instincts — namely, thirst, hunger, and sheer lust for life. His wish to stay alive made him grit his teeth, and he decided to find out what was really going on.
He got out of bed and stood up, staring into the darkness of his apartment. Still, no matter which way Hagen looked, some 3D object remained at the periphery of his vision. He seemed to be watching a movie in 3D, but he wasn't wearing any 3D glasses.
He focused his sight on the object and noticed its reaction. The icon, flat until then, started to rotate like a Christmas tree bauble spinning at the touch of a cat's paw, transforming into a cube with a human head silhouette at each side. Viewed from a certain angle, it actually resembled Hagen himself.
The young man reached for the cube. As if accepting his invitation, it floated towards his palm and became larger. Hagen touched it with his fingertips and felt some sort of tangible response. The cube blinked and turned into a window. Even if it was a hallucination, it was really top-drawer.
The window that appeared featured a topless Hagen in 3D wearing trunks. It was a ridiculous sight. He was thin, all ribs, but the expression on his face was one of pure malice. There was a text bar underneath Hagen. The active tab had two columns. The first one had the following written in it:
Mike “Crybaby” Hagen
Age: 29
Level: 1
Health: 4000 pt.
Battles/victories: 0/0
Weight: 123 lbs
Height: 5’2”
Mike read through the text, studying every line. As he focused, he saw pop-ups with prompts explaining the meaning of each of them. There was also some extra info for the first line — his ethnicity, nationality, as well as place of birth and current residence.
The second prompt explained the process of leveling up. Experience grew in combat, no matter what kind — a street fight or a training match would both count for something. The only condition was that the opponent could not be a minor. One had to have as many victories as one had on the current level to get to the next one. Defeats did not give any XP points, but nor did they take any away. Victory over a stronger opponent made the progress faster, but there were no details on just how much faster.
The second line appeared to reflect physical stats.
Main stats:
Strength: 1
Agility: 2
Stamina: 4
Hagen browsed the entire list, focusing his attention at each item as they came along.
The Strength stat equals 10% of the overall average for human strength.
It affects the damage one deals.
The Agility stat equals 10% of the overall average for human agility.
It affects the precision of your attacks and your chances to evade those of your opponent.
The Stamina stat equals 10% of the overall average for human stamina.
It affects health and its regeneration, as well as the fatigue rate during physical activity.
All of the above made it clear that Hagen was very weak — ten times weaker than any average human being, five times less agile, and had two and half times less agility. But he’d known this ever sincehe’d been a snotty kid. Tell me something I don't know, he thought.
The most important thing was that in order to get to Level 3, all he needed was a single victory over any opponent. Every level-up gave Hagen an ability point as well as a stat point which could be used to up his Strength, Agility, or Stamina.
Thus, ability levels could be leveled up in other ways but training, and upping Strength did not necessarily require a gym.
Once he managed to process that, he switched to the second tab.
It turned out to be inactive, with a silhouette of an attacking Hagen on it.
Mike tapped it without thinking and saw a series of icons with different abilities depicted on them. They were: Punch, Uppercut, Low Kick, Medium Kick, High Kick, Clinching, and Grappling. All the icons were gray with a lock displayed above them. The only one with color was Punch. It had the number 1 displayed in the bottom right corner over a green icon.
Hagen focused on it. A prompt bubble popped up over it.
Punch: Level 1.
Damage: 100.
You have to use the ability more often to level it up.
Below it was a progress bar at 2%.
Everything had too much detail to be a hallucination caused by an unquiet mind. The periphery of Hagen's consciousness registered the fact that he would have to see a doctor on Monday for a check. It wouldn't hurt, at any rate.
Hagen had a sudden brainwave and assumed what he considered to be a fighter's stance; then he started throwing punches at the air. His right hand, then his left, then the right, and then the left one again. He tried to imitate shadowboxing, made about a hundred punches, stumbled over a gamepad that lay underhis feet, and got sweaty and exhausted as a result. However, it was worth it: the progress bar had reached the 3% mark.
Hagen kept punching the air until late at night, only making breaks for snacks and visits to the bathroom. His low Stamina stat revealed itself in full — he would get tired easily. In the left corner of his vision, underneath the icon with his face showing his current level (which was 1), he also saw the HP and Vigor stats.
Vigor was the very thing he kept running out of. He grew so tired he was barely able to raise his fist. HP points were perfectly real, too — Michael found that out for himself as he punched the wall. His hand felt acute pain. The system message below told him he’d taken 100 damage points, and his HP bar hadshrunk.
Hagen leveled his Punch ability up to 2 by midnight. Flame erupted from his fists. It may have been virtual, but it looked terrifyingly real. It made his hands warm, but it didn't burn, so Mike didn't even get any time to panic. He was sweating all over and looking at his hands with sheer delight. The flames were gradually dying down.
Then he saw a system message appear right before his eyes.
Congratulations! You’ve received a new skill level!
Skill name: Punch
Hagen opened the stat window to make sure the ability level had in fact grown.
Punch: Level 2
Damage: 200
You have to use the ability more often to level it up
Thus, the level-up allowed him to deal more damage.
That was incredible!
Mike was as excited as any gamer who'd ever leveled up their character in a video game. The rays of the rising sun were already peeking through the gap between his curtains, and there he stood, punching air obdurately, pissed off by the fact that he'd have to throw a hundred punches more to level up again. Two hundred punches amounted to one percent of his ability growth. The first level had taken just a hundred. The third one would take three times as much.
However, those weren't the only features of the System, which was the term Hagen had invented to describe the new guest in his mind. He’d woken up famished in the middle of the night. There were no nutritious items in his fridge, so he’d had to order a takeaway from a pizza joint open 24/7. His starved body was in urgent need of calories, after all. So Mike ordered two Mexicanas at once, and went at them like a cat finding a pot of cream as soon he’d shut the door after the delivery man.
Once he’d finished his meal (he’d polished off everything there was, including the bits of topping stuck to the bottom of the box, up to the very last slice of olive), the System gave him another notification,
Calories consumed: 2,536. Proteins: 7.4 oz. Fats: 6 oz. Carbohydrates: 12.6 oz.
The Hunger debuff that had been hovering somewhere on the upper right of his vision had nowdisappeared. However, he got a new one: Sleep Deprivation. That lowered his Vigor by 25%.
By the morning, the Sleep Deprivation debuff reached Level 2, lowering his Vigor by 50%. Mike started to get tired faster, and had to take more breaks to restore himself. By sunrise, when the Punch progress bar reached 67%, Sleep Deprivation suddenly reached Level 4, reducing Vigor by 99% and giving Hagen another debuff by the name of Fatigue. This debuff did not lower any stats. However, it stopped the regeneration of Vigor completely. Thus, he had to go to sleep eventually.
Hagen wasn't disappointed too much, at any rate. His whole body hurt, his arms felt numb, and his eyes felt full of sand. He fell asleep the instant his head touched the pillow.