“I would sell my soul to get my driver’s license.”
My mother had laughed when I said it. It was just one of those stupid things a teenager would say when they really wanted something. And I did really want my driver’s license. If I had passed my test, my mother promised me that I would be able to use the car whenever I wanted, and in high school having your own car immediately put you in a different league than those who didn’t.
The only possible downside was that it wasn’t the most stylish car. It was a dark blue VW beetle with a faded yellow smiley face sticker on the bumper and a dent in the hood. Even from far away, you could tell that the car was old, but I didn’t care. If I somehow managed to get a girlfriend or a date to one of the many dances our school hosted, it would be less embarrassing to show up in the beetle than it would be to get dropped off by your mother.
So there I was, sitting in the car that the DMV provided for my test, and tapping my fingers nervously on the steering wheel. I had already adjusted my seat so that my knees didn’t hit the bottom of the wheel, angled my mirrors so I could see everything behind me and cleaned off my glasses so no streaks or glares blocked my vision. Despite my heavy breathing and stomach turning itself inside out, I was ready, and I was going to pass.
I jumped as the door opened and the test proctor sat in the car. He was short and fat with a deep tan and wore an ugly brown polo shirt, black pants and reflective aviator sunglasses. The man closed the door, buckled up and looked down at his clipboard.
“You Milo Walker?”
“Y-yes,” I stammered.
The man nodded and flipped over the paper. He pulled out a pen and handed both to me. “Sign here please.” The signature line was the only thing on the page. I signed my name in the only cursive I knew and handed it back. The man looked at it and then put the clipboard in the pocket of the door. “Alright, just take it forward and do as the voice tells you.”
“Voice?” I asked. “Like those smart cars.”
The man shrugged. “Not really. Now please begin.”
I put the car into gear, looked in each mirror twice for good measure and then lightly placed my foot on the gas pedal. The engine hummed, and the car moved forward. I drove the car through the large parking lot until we began to approach the curb.
“Do you want me to turn left or right?” I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road as I asked.
“Like I said, just keep going forward.”
Was this part of the test? If I kept going the car was going to hit the curb and dent the bumper. But what would happen if I didn’t listen to him? I decided it was better not to damage the car and was about to turn the wheel when everything outside changed.
What was once a breezy partly cloudy afternoon had somehow changed into a dark red sky with swirling clouds. The abruptness of it made me jerk the wheel far to the left. As I did, words appeared on the windshield.
Please Note: The Vehicle Cannot Change Direction During the Tutorial.
I turned to the man. “What is going on?”
“Please continue forward. All will be explained once you have completed the tutorial. If you decide not to complete the tutorial, you will be ejected from this vehicle and permanently erased.” Before I could ask what he meant, a female voice came out of the radio.
“Welcome Milo Walker. My name is Tooty. I will be your guide. I have noticed that your foot is currently not on the gas pedal. Please place your foot on the pedal so we can proceed. And please do not worry about falling into the lava river below. For now it is only for show.”
I looked back out and saw a long stone bridge that was barely big enough for a single vehicle. As the voice had said, there was a lava flow that went underneath the bridge.
“Mr. Walker please place your foot on the pedal,” Tooty repeated.
Deciding that somehow my nerves were forcing me to hallucinate my driving test as some dangerous hell trip, I pushed the gas and the car began to move again.
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“First thing’s first,” Tooty said. “Please direct your attention to the gauges right in front of you. In most vehicles, this indicates your mileage, your fuel, and any other information you might need. Our vehicles function the same way, only with added menus that will be crucial to your adventures down here.” I looked where Tooty told me to and sure enough, there were all the normal things I had seen while learning to drive. “To continue, press the down button located on the left side of your steering wheel.”
On both sides of the wheel were controls like one would see on an old video game controller. The left side had a directional pack and the right had an A and B button. I pressed the down arrow with my thumb. The gauges were replaced with a menu.
“This is your main menu.” Tooty continued. “As she spoke, each option became highlighted.
“First is Diagnostics. This is where you can monitor the health of your vehicle.
Next is Loadout. This menu functions as your armory. While you need to be at a garage zone to equip weapons, this menu is used to load your ammunition. This isn’t an action movie, you have to reload at some point.
Moving on to Inventory. This is where you store everything that isn’t in immediate use.
Next menu is Navigation. It helps to know where you’re going, and this is the menu for that. If you get lost, it’s your own fault.
Now on to Social. It can get lonely being in a vehicle all the time, so make some friends so you can chat it up.
We won’t be going over the individual menus now. That’s for you to do on your own time, once you acquire your very own vehicle. You’ll even be able to put your favorite options on your main screen. But that’s for later. Please continue forward. If you have any questions about the menus please ask your proctor now.”
In all this confusion I had almost forgotten that I wasn’t alone. I turned to the man beside me and yelled. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, continuing to look straight ahead. “I can only answer questions about the menu system at this time. All other questions must wait.”
I took my hands off the steering wheel and tried to grab at the man, but they passed right through him. The car then lurched to a stop and words flashed onto the windshield.
Place Hands Back on the Steering Wheel to Continue the Tutorial.
“Do you wish to stop the tutorial here?” The man asked. “If you do, you will be ejected from the vehicle and erased.”
“You’ll kill me?”
“Correct.” The man said it with such a flat tone that I knew it was less of a threat and more a statement of fact. Like, the weather George Washington was the first U.S. President and if you don’t complete the tutorial you will be killed.
After a tense moment, I put my hands back on the wheel. The words on the windshield disappeared and the car began to move again. Even though we were moving, the bridge was so impossibly long that it was hard to tell if we were making any progress. It was like one of those nightmares where you keep running down a hallway but you never reach the end. I looked in the rearview mirror to see if I could tell how far the starting point was, but it had disappeared. Looking down the lava flow, which had looked like a river before, now spread out in every direction like an ocean.
I remembered learning in school that lava was supposed to be loud, but all I could hear was the engine. In fact lava was also supposed to be scorching hot, but the inside of the car was cool. I looked to see if there was an a/c control control console and there was, but it wasn’t turned on.
“Basic environmental controls can be adjusted in the vehicle’s Diagnostics menu,” the man said unprompted. “Advanced options will have to be purchased.”
“Oh yeah, that’s cool,” I said sarcastically. “Does it come with a radio too?”
“The radio menu can be found under Social. Every vehicle comes automatically equipped with the default station WRKS. More stations can become available with purchase.”
The car stopped. For a second I was worried I had done something wrong, but then Tooty’s voice came on. “We will now go over the next part of the tutorial.” Tooty chimed in. “Combat.”
Outside on the bridge a run down go kart materialized in front of us. As I looked at it a name appeared over it in blue lettering.
Tutorial Kart: Enemy: Combat Danger:0
“All enemies, players and non-combatant characters will have a nifty little indicator like this over them whenever they are in close proximity to you,” Tooty said. “In order you will always see their name and species name, what kind of character they are, and their combat danger. Combat danger is graded on a scale of 1 to 10. Non-combatant characters are always graded as a 0. Now check this out.”
There was a thud on the top of the roof and the car shook like something had fallen on top of it. Then a control column, like those used to steer an airplane, appeared next to the steering wheel.
“Please grab the control. You may take your hands off the wheel for this part.” My hand barely fit around the joystick looking mechanism. “Now, a targeting reticle has appeared on your windshield. I want you to move the control until it lines up with the kart in front of you, and then I want you to press the big red button.”
A crosshair appeared on the far right of the windshield. I pulled the control and it resisted against me. I pulled harder and the crosshair slowly moved across the window. It missed the kart on its first pass so I had to pull back. It took a couple more tries before I managed to get the crosshair just on the edge of the kart. I pressed the red button with my thumb and a small rocket launched from the top of the car, the force of which forced the vehicle back a few inches and shook my seat. The kart exploded sending fire and shrapnel in every direction, some of which harmlessly bounced off the car.
“Good job,” Tooty cheered. “You have destroyed your first enemy. Of course the other ones won’t just sit there and wait for you to blow them to hell. Also did you know that there are other ways to defeat your enemies? You’ll be able to figure all that out as you progress. And with that, congratulations, you have completed the tutorial. Now please place your hands back on the wheel.”
Sighing, I did as was told, and the car moved forward again. We had only moved a few feet when a stone portcullis appeared in front of us and opened. As we moved through it words again appeared on the windshield. They said “Welcome to Wreckless Abandon.”