The desert town is filled with beggars made up of players and NPCs. One thing about this whole situation is it turns out cyberpunk isn’t so fun when everyone suddenly has to live it for real. NPCs envy the players who have more money than they do; it only makes sense the game is built to make us rich. But the players aren’t all rich. Some who just started new characters don’t have anything, there are people who chose to have characters without a lot of money. Players envy NPCs because they seem to have all the connections. Trucks show up to deliver goods to resraunts on schedule with no contracts. It was all background ambiance before but now it’s a meaningful element of the game. Clothing and ammunition stores now have to wait for the inventory to restock. Most people like me didn’t think to put any skill towards crafting when everything could be bought so easily. Guys like Daamin did it because they were really into the role-playing element and wanted to impress other people like them.

It’s a real world that we all have to adapt to now, but everyone isn’t great at bartering and it doesn’t help the NPCs aren’t idiots. They’re out to get the best results for themselves not the players. A few players have built their own shops out here in the badlands, but some have tried to take the NPC shops. Things aren’t any better in the city so there’s no real place to run and hide until everything over. No matter how far you go, it’s always the wild west.

“No stop,” someone shouts from an alleyway.

I don’t want to play the hero. That’s Daamin’s thing, but the shouting keeps getting louder and nobody else seems to be doing anything. Another shout and I realize that I’m going to have to do something. I head toward the shouting and find myself in the middle of a standoff. An NPC man on the ground surrounded by three players. It’s a robbery.

“Let him go,” I make myself known.

The three turn to face me and laugh, they’re looking for a fight. I’m outnumbered but I’ve got a higher level so maybe I can get out of this. The NPC starts to crawl away only for one of the players to fire off a quick shot and put an end to him.

“What the fuck,” the words fall out of my mouth.

“It’s fine, he wasn’t real anyway,” one of the players responds to me.

They don’t even try to fight me, they laugh and walk away, stepping over the corpse. They don’t even loot the body of the man they were trying to rob. They killed him, just because they could. I lean against a wall and slide down until I’m sitting. I know it’s a game, but they’re just killing for no reason. It isn’t like before; these NPCs don’t come back. In some ways, they’re just as human as we are.

A few quick zapping sounds draw my attention to the corpse. There’s now a person draped in a dark cloth with a white smiling cat mask. They’re working, performing surgery. I can’t see their face, but they look like they’re working hard. I stand to see what they’re doing, and it’s surgery for sure. They’re adding pieces of metal pulled from their inventory. Eventually they stop, admire their work and take a step back. A few moments later the man sits up and looks around.

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“Thank you both,” the man thanks us. “There are still good players.” The man stands up and begins to run as if nothing happened to him.

“What did you do,” I ask the person.

“Nothing that a person with enough skill couldn’t,” they answer and I recognize the voice.

“Hey, do I know you from somewhere?”

“It’s a big game, I don’t think we’ve met.”

“No, I really know you.”

“You must be mistaken,” they start to walk.

“Let’s talk for a second.”

“No,” they person takes off into a sprint.

I wouldn’t usually chase a person who didn’t want to talk but this none of this is usual. I keep trying to figure out where I’ve heard that voice. Then it hits me, I heard the voice the same place I saw those robes. I’m chasing the creator. They’re just wandering around the world healing NPCs when they could be helping us get home. I run harder when I realize who I’m chasing, but they’ve clearly got some bonus stats in parkour. I can’t seem to catch up no matter how hard I run. At a few points it seems like they flicker and almost vanish before returning further up ahead.

As we reach the outskirts of town I’m tired, I never had to run so long in the game before. Part of me feels bad for what I’m about to do, but I know this is my only chance. I stop running and equip a sniper rifle that’s set to stun. I line up my shot and squeeze the trigger. There’s a flash of light and a scream before they roll to the ground in pain.

I finally catch up and stand over the person, “sorry I had to shoot you.”

“You dickhead,” they fling sand at my face but come up short.

“I know, but you could have just talked to me.”

“You shouldn’t go chasing women around you nincompoop, you caveman brute.”

“You’re not very good at insults.”

“You shot me!”

“It’s not even a flesh wound. Just a stun wound.”

“You shot me! You jackass!”

“I feel like you’re being a little dramatic here.”

“You hillbilly asshole!”

“Alright, now you’re just being mean. I really think it’s cool you created the game but you really need to chill out. I’ve been shot before, it doesn’t really hurt much, especially on a stun. That was just a grazing wound anyway.”

“You know I’m the creator?”

“Yeah, you’re kind of wearing the same robe you were wearing when we all got trapped here. Unique robe, pretty obvious.”

“I killed the creator and took it.”

“You just admitted you were the creator.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Wow, okay,” I’m in shock. I didn’t expect someone who made this massive game world to act like a kid. “I was just thinking we could help each other. Everyone can go home and it’ll be all good.”

“Why would I help you? You shot me!”

“Well if you’re going to keep crying I guess we’ll just do it the hard way.”

“We’re not doing anything.”

“Sorry about shooting you twice.”

“You only shot me once.”

A quick pistol shop from the hip puts them to sleep. I want to look behind the mask, but leaving it might gain me some trust. A snap of my fingers and a few minutes later my El Camino starts to head to me. I roll her into the bed of the truck and start to head back to our campsite outside of town.