by Ed White
Two large tanks of water sit on boilers to the rear of the room, with a simple channel and stoppers to the bath. I offer to drain and replace the water. She looks up at me over her eyebrows, her beautiful upside down face fresh and rosy.
“No, no, let’s enjoy the stew. Bring over the table and get in here with me.”
Lisa and I chow on the stew—there’s nothing romantic about how we shovel it down, but I’ve grown comfortable with Lisa. She described the awkward familiarity Jonesy affords her, but there’s something real between us. Something powerful.
“Not to ruin the mood, David, but Jonesy and I have never met outside the game. He doesn’t know what I look like.”
Careful to swallow my chunks of delicious stew I calculate my next sentence. “That doesn’t matter to me.”
“Not asking if it does, I’m asking if he told you he did, because that’s the impression I get and I think I’ve joined the group because he thinks I’m someone else.”
I nod. “He has dated a lot of women. Real player he is. A real ladies man like me.”
Lisa laughs so hard she snorts. Water splashes me as her hand shoots to her face, embarrassed by the noise. “Let’s not talk about him anymore. By the way he winks at you, it looks like he wants us together.”
Jonesy’s ever-changing behavior is the least of my concerns, while I’m enjoying the time with Lisa, tomorrow brings one less day to find and expose the hackers. I’m no further along in figuring out how.
Water splashes over me again. Lisa’s foot slides down my side as I wipe my face. Lisa’s face is set in a pout. “Where’s your mind wandered off to?”
“The hackers. Julia was here.”
Her head tilts. “Julia from the Conglomerate, the turn down girl, right? You didn’t have to keep that a secret. I promised to help.”
“Yeah, you did, and it meant a lot that you came back for me when I couldn’t Fast Travel.”
She smiles. “Means a lot to me, David.”
“Look, I don’t know how to find the hackers or why they think I can do anything. Maybe I am just bait for the hackers.”
Lisa places her bowl on the side of the thick marble bath. “What do you remember about the instance? The first one you experienced.”
“Like I told you, a whole lot of crazy shit.”
“Well, I haven’t shared something with you. They made me sign a nondisclosure agreement.” She leans forward. “I saw things they don’t want me to talk about.”
Say what? Things have taken a turn. “What did you see?”
Her hand on my knee, Lisa continues. “After the Battle Avatars defeated those black armored warriors, I saw things you hear about when people take LSD. You know what I mean? Is that what you saw?”
My hand rests atop hers. “That’s exactly what I saw.”
How much more do I tell her? Jumping bodies, mad crazy critters crawling around with land and sky rewoven around me? Was that any more bizarre than the Grey Zone? “You saw the fractals?”
“Yes, like a game patch was installed around us. You saw that? Because I couldn’t see you.”
“Didn’t see you either,” I say.
“See you now.” She tries to lighten the mood. “Look, once we’re cleaned up, why don’t we join all the gossip downstairs? Everyone’s talking about the latest game instance. We simply listen, maybe prompt a few people to tell us more. We’re bound to learn something about other possible hacker sightings. Why don’t we rest a bit and look through the message boards before we go downstairs?”
With a nod, I squeeze and release her hand. She squeezes my knee and runs her hand down my shin. “We’ll find them. But if we don’t, I want to meet in the real world. We’ll look for a new job for you. Maybe Jonesy can get you one at the restaurant until you do.”
Do I ask where she lives or take it a step at a time? I’m enjoying how things are. Why overthink it?
***
Players yell and gossip, packed within the tavern hall, as Lisa and I descend the main stairs from the second floor. Across the large room, in his usual corner, Jonesy sits surrounded by women, while atop the table, Granger and Paul reenact some part of their adventure against the War Makers.
Typical.
I turn to Lisa and tilt my head toward the table. Lisa sighs but follows me.
Jonesy chugs back a tall mug of ale peering over it at me. “D, how was it?” He gives me a lewd wink. I ignore him.
“You’ve been here the whole time? Did Malcolm tell you? We tried to rescue you guys.”
“Yeah well, you took too long and we respawned. No big deal, we’re still level one, whatever. We came back here, I worked on the deal with our rooms and Mal filled us in, yeah.”
“Whatever?” I shrug and raise my hands. “But we’ve only a few days left.”
Jonesy shakes his head and points at me. “No, you only have a few days.” He swings his arm in an arc, indicating the others. “We have a different agreement.”
I open my mouth but there’s nothing to say—nothing pleasant.
Lisa grips the inside of my elbow. “Let’s listen to the gamer gossip.”
We make our way to the exit.
A collective wisp of thin clouds, luminous in the dim light of a crescent moon, enhance the flicker of bright stars above the inn. The night air is cool, but only due to the lower relative humidity here on the cliffs above the jungles of the Wilds on the periphery of the Haven. Huge crowds mill in the tavern and along the terraces overlooking the edge of the Wilds on the far side of the inn. Ale and stew are flowing, along with loose lips and gossip. Lisa and I clasp hands as she guides us through the adventurers, traders, and settlement builders. A number of the settlement builders, avoiding their in-game homes, or having lost everything they established, are mad as hell and letting it be known in person and across message boards. The chaos of heated conversations fills the air, punctuated by curses and strained voices.
Thanks to Jonesy, many know we completed the Bemer Shield Quest defeating the War Makers, but in a blatant disregard for our collective nondisclosure agreements it seems our fame for surviving the Scythe attack is spreading through the crowds. Everyone wants to hear from witnesses of a game instance with stories to tell. Despite Jonesy’s comment, I’m sure Julia will meet each of us and return to grill me about our breach of contract.
In most of the questions thrown at Lisa and I, the idea of a battle royale dome is talked about as an upgrade to the game. While others theorize, hackers create the game instances rather than the developers. All sorts of crazy theories run rampant. Along with wild theories, players share their ideas about the loss of life caused by system errors as a result of today’s game instance. During the failure of the Way of the Walk, some players respawned, others found themselves forcefully logged out. Some suffered the loss of their avatar in the failed Fast Travel, while others dropped into the Wilds along the way to their destinations. But few present witnessed the recent game instance from within the quarantine dome. At least, Lisa and I believe the domes are a form of quarantine.
Lisa pulls me along. “Let’s…” I can’t hear her speak. She stops and lets me catch up to her. Speaking directly into my ear, she continues or repeats herself. “Talking with the settlement builders might be a good idea. We don’t usually follow their message boards, we should do that too from now on. They report strange things hackers might cause.”
“Okay,” I yell back.
It makes a great deal of sense—settlements across the Wilds provide a network of eyes and ears beyond the mercenary companies and guilds Jonesy’s crew—our group—usually rub elbows with. The builders and crafters are familiar with their surroundings and changes to it.
Most of the settlement builders gather at the rear of the inn and look out over the Wilds under the dark of night toward their distant homes. Numerous empty tankards, bowls, and plates rest in stacked clusters on the large oak tables and walls above the cliff face. Serving staff come and go in steady streams, spreading
gossip among the drunken groups, causing further exaggeration and misunderstanding.
The moon sits high in the night sky, the clouds long gone, the swath of the galaxy’s edge fills the blackness with pale hues. Many players of all types have gathered in the Haven, not just here at the Wilds Edge Inn. A wealth of information surrounds us and everything spoken is also displayed in text. I’m sure Julia is on top of that, with recordings of every conversation and reams of type that her staff data mine and analyze. Julia may command an army of data pushers, but it’s a matter of perspective.
Lisa hopes to hear things straight from the horse’s mouth and as the hours pass we learn the general subject of gossip among the settlement builders—the animals of the Wilds, mobs that attack in random encounters, are becoming ever more violent. While we experienced this in the saber-toothed tiger attack, it doesn’t help me much, but Lisa and I bond over the long evening, playing the crowd like a power couple. We unlock a number of our general skills—persuasion, diplomacy, sense motive and bluff.
We focus on two other points of interest—promising figures spoken of in many of the stories—two people who might be the hacker or hackers.
One is a figure usually dressed in green that many people believe to be either a former Battle Avatar or one of those same OP system guardians in disguise. He doesn’t seem to take part in quests and at other times, he almost acts like an imp, giving advice to new players. It’s possible he remorted after he completed the game. Many call him the First Player. I don’t think a first player would be the first one to complete a game, but this green Peter Pan fella’s an interesting suspect.
A second PC discussed by everyone, is a well-respected settlement builder named Zachary, which appears to be his RL name, who stopped adventuring in the first years of Lenscape. He established another well-known inn, this one at the edge of the Fell Lands. While he’s not an old dude, many mercenary companies and settlement builders respect him as they do the owner of the Wilds Edge.
A third theory seems far-fetched—that the AI running the NPCs and Dream Walkers in RL has developed sentience. This is manifested in Lenscape as unexpected play options and further anomalies. How this affects processing speeds during an instance is anyone’s guess, but may be caused by the increased system awareness requiring greater processing power.
I’m unsure of each, but it’s something to tell Julia. Most players threaten to stop playing if the instances and destruction continue. Most believe hackers are working for a rival company or out to cause mischief. Who knows?
There’s a fourth option that programmers and the like seldom consider. We don’t know what we don’t know, but we should ponder the possibilities. It is, as I’ve said, a matter of perspective.
The Peter Pan guy with a preference for the color green brings something to my mind—the strange monk who helped me during the instance. Did Lisa see him too?
She smiles at me over a tankard of ale. “That went well, we’ve learned a lot.”
I shrug. “Who do you think the green guy might be? He sounds more helpful than destructive or malicious.”
“More like a rogue imp.” She adds her empty tankard to a growing collection on a nearby table.
“That’s what I thought.” And I know someone just like him—Ex. My imp might match the description—except for the green colored clothing. Ex has a decided preference for blue, purple, and orange. Where’s he disappeared to? Where do imps go? He reminds me of a dwarf.
Lisa wags her finger. “And I can’t help but think about the green flames of your sedes. You’ve got to get that thing socketed.”
“I do.”
Lisa pulls on my shirt. “Let’s get some sleep.”
I take hold of her forearm.
She tilts her head to one side. “We’ll follow up tomorrow. You okay?”
I smile at her, this hot girl with a keen mind and open heart. Damn right I’m okay.
***
Two large tankards of ale await us beside the single large bed and minimal furniture in our shared room. Lisa sits on the edge of the bed and removes her boots. Standing, she unbuckles her belt and shimmy slides her pants over her hips, sitting again to pull each pant leg off.
She pauses and glances at me. “What?”
Her cloth shirt hangs off her shoulders and breasts, bunching at her thighs, showing off just enough of her in the dim light of the lamp on the side table.
I shake my head.
“Come on, sleep in your clothes or don’t, blow out the main lamp and get in bed. We’ll start over in the morning.”
“It is morning.”
She flaps her hand at the wrist. “When the sun is up, sweetie.”
She reclines on the mattress, punching the pillow to thicken it up around her head.
At the other side of the bed, I remove my boots and hesitate at my pants.
“Really, David?”
“I’m trying to be respectful.”
That laugh, her giggle. “David?”
“Spaced out. Sorry, doing all this inside a game, I’m not used to it.” I unbutton my shirt, letting the cloth hang loose.
“It? We’re not doing anything, but this is still a date, enjoy it. Let’s rest. We recover health and properly assign our rewards overnight.”
“That’s how it works?” I remove my belt.
“Well, all your stats update and reset when we sleep. Especially HP. Anyway, take off those damn pants.”
I lay down beside her.
She rolls over to face me. “I’ve never dated anyone inside a game, but as you noticed downstairs and in the baths, there are people who use the full immersion of the game to hook up without repercussions.”
I have noticed and it seems a large part of Jonesy’s visits to the game. He’s a player in and out of the game, pun intended. Maybe Jonesy thought Lisa was one of the women he’d met. How can anyone know when we don’t meet in person and social media allows anonymity or augmented reality filters? Maybe he’d done this so much he simply forgot. Such a double standard when a man who “sleeps around” earns a positive reputation. Still, what was the earliest immersive VR used for? Of course, the oldest form of “entertainment”.
Lisa studies my face. Knowing Jonesy all these years, I’ve honed my sense of innuendo, but it’s totally off when I read Lisa. She grins.
My eyes wander. There’s a great deal of light from the street outside our room. Open to the outside, the shutters and curtains allow the cool of the night to circulate. The heat of the room causes a sweet scent, mixed with lavender and oils, to rise off Lisa’s skin and hair. I follow the curve of her hip into the fall of her waist lost in the darkness. Her back to the window, Lisa is mostly in silhouette and all the more alluring.
“What’s the matter? Too much on your mind?”
A funny question, given the wants of my body, but I dwell on Jonesy’s strange behavior, of how much more familiar Lisa is with him than I am. It’s not really my fault for missing out. Jonesy may be my childhood friend, but people grow apart.
I fidget with my shirt tails and buttons. “Been thinking through what you said about Jonesy. I’ve never really discussed it, but he and I don’t spend much time together these days. I blame my job, but that’s not the whole story.”
Lisa catches my hands and stills them. Here I am in bed with a gorgeous woman and what are we talking about? Lisa stares into my eyes. “And?”
“We used to work together at United Foods, until he became a cop. Thing is, we chose to work there only until we got our business off the ground.”
Releasing my hands, Lisa sits up in the bed to face me. “So why did he do something so random?”
“Right? He just quit one day, already accepted into the police academy.”
We sit without speaking, the sounds of the crowds droning on outside. Don’t they need to sleep?
Lisa leans in. “And your personal venture? What was it?”
“Our own bar and restaurant. We saved up and worked extra hours.
”
“Any particular reason why Jonesy joined the police?”
“I don’t know why he suddenly wanted to be a cop, but that didn’t last long. Next thing I knew, I stopped by his place and he was gone, already in his current job, traveling as a chef and manager for popular restaurants. He answered my messages and told me Galacom offered him a reality show.”
“So he went on to succeed in the type of job you intended to start together.”
I shake my head. “This isn’t a Mozart thing.”
Lisa frows. “Huh?”
“I mean I’m not jealous. What pisses me off, if I admit to it, is that he quit without telling me. Becoming a cop, okay, random, like you said, but then he drops that to enter the hospitality industry—the very thing we always said we wanted to do together.”
“I’m sorry.” Lisa glances down.
“Nothing to be sorry about.”
She raises her eyes. “Remember I said I’d help you find a job?”
“I appreciate it.”
Her hands wrap around mine. “No, stop, let me finish. I suggested you might find a place since Jonesy is hardly at home when he’s at the restaurant. That must be the last thing you want.”
“Gotta pay the bills if I fail at this.” I gesture in an arc around the dark room.
“Yes, but what I’m trying to say is that when Jonesy quit the job, he quit on you.”
That’s it exactly. Lisa nailed it. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve felt this way for years. Trapped in my job, betrayed by my best friend who took the lifeline out of a shitty job and left me behind. Then he reaches out by phone, wants to reconnect inside online games. Literally, he wouldn’t face me. No wonder I’ve avoided Lenscape for so long, and held such misplaced disdain for something I once loved.
I return my attention to Lisa. “You know, I’ve associated Lenscape with Jonesy and what he did.”
“That’s why you took so long to join the group.”
