Code Jumper

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “You mean the thing that’s presently getting ready to explode?” I asked in the hopes that Quinn would change her plan.

  “The very same, I’ll need you to try and claw your way over it while I do my best to steer you toward the portal.”

  “And why not just blast me toward the portal at full speed?”

  “I… hmm, that’s actually not a bad idea.”

  I didn’t get the chance to tell her I was being facetious, no, instead I got rocketed toward the portal before I could say anything while, to my great awe and terror, the ship started to explode.

  “We’re not gonna make it!” I shouted as my mostly limp body flopped along uselessly behind me.

  “Eh, maybe not.”

  There was an explosion, a crash, then the uncomfortably familiar feeling of going through the portal.

  PTS-FROGGER

  Jesus Christ!” I shrieked as I came about an inch from getting absolutely demolished by an eighteen-wheeler.

  I was on the side of a highway, an insanely busy highway, and I was back in my regular Re.Gen clothes.

  “Oh thank God…” I muttered thankfully, “I was starting to wonder when we’d…”

  That’s when I discovered that I wasn’t actually in the base game. No, no instead I was in some kind of Hell where cars appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared when they hit a certain point.

  “Am I… am I in a glitch or something?” I asked with genuine fear in my voice.

  “No,” Quinn replied, alleviating my stress for maybe a second before I realized that it potentially could be something far worse, “it appears that you’re in some kind of minigame.”

  A small sigh of relief escaped me, “Good. So, where’s the portal then?”

  “This one’s actually pretty simple,” Quinn said happily, “it’s on the other side of the highway.”

  “Well… that’s great.” I replied as a dump truck came dangerously close to removing my nose, “What can you tell me about the code?”

  “Basic stuff, runs using solely assets from the base game. It was also clearly made by a human, so that’s good for you.”

  I didn’t appreciate the jab, but I suppose coming back from reading a language at her level to something so people-like would’ve been pretty annoying.

  Also, I was glad to be back in familiar territory and took the opportunity to focus on the code for a moment, which led to a little smile crawling across my lips as my brain wasn’t quickly turned to mush.

  “Alright then, this seems easy enough,” I said confidently, “and I’m not picking up on any security, you?”

  “Nothing at all. You should be in the clear, provided you don’t break the game of course.”

  “Puh-lease, like I’m gonna-” I said then stopped with a snap of my fingers as something thoroughly unexpected happened.

  “Hey, Eddie?” Quinn asked while my mouth opened and closed uselessly for a few seconds, “Did you intentionally give all the vehicles pink and purple checkered paint jobs?”

  “I… I… I think I’ve screwed up the texture data…”

  Now, I hadn’t done something like that since before I started high school, and back then it’d been deliberate because it was one of the few things I actually knew how to do.

  Then though? It meant that I didn’t actually recognize the code as well as I had thought, which, in turn, meant that snapping my fingers again could potentially make things much, much worse.

  “Alright, so… um, maybe don’t do that again?” Quinn suggested with what sounded like genuine concern but came across as mockery, “What happened?”

  “I-I don’t know. I mean, I… It was supposed to…”

  “Maybe the code’s too basic?” Quinn said while I continued to stammer, “Look, again, just don’t do anything, alright? Play the game as it’s meant to be played, and save us the trouble of you potentially turning all these cars invisible.”

  That was the thing that snapped me back, “Wouldn’t you still be able to see them?” I asked curiously, the stammer in my voice having been murdered by a question I’d been meaning to ask for ages but had kept forgetting.

  “Are you asking whether I’d still be able to see the vehicles if you made them transparent?”

  “Yes, I mean, it’s all code to you, right?”

  I think that’s right about the time I noticed that Quinn had isolated my hearing a bit, the sounds of the trucks and cars zooming by sounding like they were miles away, but I made no mention of it.

  “No, no it’s not all code to me.” Quinn finally replied after waiting in the clear hopes that I’d come to the conclusion by myself, “I don’t see a rain of green code.”

  Skipping over the fact that, once again, I was impressed with her seemingly randomly expanding pop culture knowledge, I let out a pained groan and shook my head disappointedly, “Fine, fine, I’ll play the damn game.”

  With no small amount of terror, I put my foot out and got ready to take a step, then immediately regretted it as a midsized family SUV just about stole my shoe.

  “Have you ever played Frogger?” Quinn asked as I had a minor panic attack and started walking around in circles.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of Frogger, and I suck at it.” I growled, flashbacks of playing arcade emulators on my crappy laptop flooding back to me, “Frogger and Minesweeper were the only two games I couldn’t get my head around.”

  My frustration wasn’t with her, I knew that, it was me, but introspection and taking responsibility is just so much harder than simply lashing out at everyone around you.

  “Well you best try and get your head around it, the last thing you need to be doing right now is having a fit. Remember, lives hang in the balance.”

  “I know.” I snapped bitterly before pulling my head in and taking a relaxing breath, “I know… Alright, what do you suggest? Because I have no idea where to even start.”

  Quinn waited a few seconds, as if she hadn’t already figured out the strategy that I knew she had, before making a sound like she was clearing her nonexistent throat, “I’d start off by making a beeline for the center. There’re three lanes between here and there, and they’re all pretty easy to get through.”

  “So… when?” I asked as another eighteen-wheeler went whipping by.

  “Now.”

  There was a moment of hesitation on my part, but I quickly did as I was told and stepped into the first lane.

  “Alright, wha-”

  “Now!”

  I practically leaped forward, a dump truck missing my heels by what felt like barely a hair’s breadth.

  “Okay, now wait…” Quinn said as a car spawned at the end of my lane and started toward me, “Wait…”

  My heart felt like it was about to pound right out of my chest, my lungs like they were going to collapse, and hands like they were going to vibrate clean off my wrists.

  “Jump!”

  Without so much as a second’s reluctance, I leaped, coming in just behind one small car in the next lane and narrowly missing the opportunity to become another’s hood ornament.

  “Jesus Christ that was close…” I muttered with a little laugh, “How far-”

  “Get on the island!” Quinn snapped, sending a jolt through my spine that made me jump forward up onto the safe strip of concrete.

  I just about threw up from the sheer shock of coming that close to death in a way that had gotten me far too many times in the past.

  “I… Why did I..?”

  “Stay on the last lane? I have no idea, but I’m guessing that it’s part of what makes this game hard.” Quinn said sarcastically, “Anyway, you’ve got three more lanes, then you’re clear.”

  “Alright, so you walk me through it again, yeah?”

  “No, I’m afraid that the reaction time required to pass across the lanes safely doesn’t allow time for me to tell you when to cross.”

  Not even going to pretend for a second that my stomach didn’t drop at the thought of doing the last bit, the ha
rd bit, by myself.

  It was like having the training wheels taken off your bike before you’ve learned how to ride it yet, then being shoved in the driver’s seat of some stick shift, beefed-out muscle car and told to go get a bottle of whiskey after you’ve paid your taxes and robbed a bank.

  Alright, so maybe Re.Gen’s Frogger rip-off wasn’t that hard, but it sure as Hell felt that hard for me at the time, especially when Quinn decided that she had another bit of news for me.

  “Oh, and you’re going to want to be go to where the cars spawn in, that’s where the portal is. Otherwise you’re going to get to the other side of the highway and get sent to the next level.”

  After that almost tear-inducing piece of information was dropped on me, I went ahead and started pacing nervously, watching as the cars zipped by on the harder side of the road.

  At first I thought I’d just try my luck, but once I got near the spawn area where, you guessed it, cars and buses and shit seemingly appeared out of nowhere, I couldn’t help but practically gasp so deeply that my testicles may as well have been sucked up into my chest cavity.

  “Who in their right mind would play this crap?” I barked, “It’s juvenile, it’s dangerous, and it’s downright stupid.”

  “And it’s a lot easier than it looks.” Quinn said with a soothing voice, apparently trying to ease my discomfort, “All you’ve got to do is time that first one, then it’s just a matter of pretty much running straight across.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked without making any effort to hide the fact that I was positively crapping my pants.

  “Of course I’m sure,” Quinn replied with a self-assured but still relaxing scoff, “it’s my job to know.”

  I wasn’t any less terrified, though Quinn’s little push turned out to be enough to make me feel confident in my ability to survive playing in traffic.

  “This is gonna suck…” I groaned as I tried to count the time between when cars came through, “Ah, fuck it.”

  With that, I held my breath, closed my eyes, and ran, ignoring the sounds of the cars coming dangerously close to me, blocking out the feeling of the wind tugging my jacket, one foot in front of the other.

  “Holy crap,” Quinn huffed in amusement as I leaped the final few feet, “I can’t believe that worked.”

  “Wha-”

  I didn’t get the chance to finish my thought.

  I’d already hit the portal.

  FIRST-PERSON FPS

  My brain was sufficiently mangled following the jump to my new world, the gruff voices and dark forms that stood around me only furthering my confusion as I woozily sat up.

  For a few moments I was absolutely convinced that I was in some kind of ghost world, but eventually the gift of sight was returned to me and I discovered that I was surrounded by six guys in what looked like blue sci-fi football gear, complete with three-quarter helmets with blue visors that covered their eyes.

  “Where… ugh…” I groaned following the burning burp that had rumbled its way through my chest and come to almost passive-aggressively dissipate in my mouth.

  “How’d you get in here?” a distant voice asked.

  “Obviously he’s just been makin’ the rounds.” another answered for me.

  “Nuh-uh, look at his gear. The guy’s obvs come from the base game.”

  I took that opportunity to take a look at my ‘gear’ which, to my surprise, looked remarkably like theirs, only with brown and faded orange.

  “Quinn?” I called out, the sound of my own voice like a cymbal to a guy with a hangover, “Quinn? You there?”

  There were a few tense moments of silence, followed by my friend finally letting out a chirpy breath, “Sorry about that, I feel… odd. Looks like you’re in some kind of team deathmatch FPS.”

  “Hold on a minute.” I muttered eagerly as I scrambled to my feet, my mouth feeling like it was filled with loose change, “You mean these guys are all… guys?”

  “Except for me.” a woman chimed in from behind me with a laugh, “You alright?”

  I spun around to face the person talking and felt something heavy clack against my armor, “Hmm? Oh, oh yeah, I’m fine.”

  “You sure about that?” the woman asked, a smile playing across her lips, “Because you’re talkin’ to some guy called Quinn that definitely ain’t here.”

  “Guy?” Quinn gasped in my ear, “Why would sh-oh, oh yes, I see now that it’s a unisex name, my mistake.”

  “She’s,” I clarified, rolling my eyes, “my AI companion. And no, I’m not from the base game, I’m from…”

  “From what I’m seeing, and this is just my opinion,” Quinn said while I stood there deliberating whether or not I should tell them, “they would not act adversely to you telling them who you are. Perhaps refrain from being too much of diva about your renewed ‘God’ status though, these players are very well armed.”

  I wanted to take a moment to rip on Quinn for being all worried about me, though I decided it’d be in my best interests if I started taking note of my surroundings.

  We’d found ourselves in a large room with four entry points, made of some sort of blue energy, in the scorched and dented metal walls that opened out onto a brown and gray wasteland.

  Beyond that, there really wasn’t much to see, other than the red painted circle in the middle of the floor that had a small hole in the center, the paint that made the circle having been worn down over years of abuse.

  “You’re from..?” the woman asked confusedly.

  I returned her confusion by tilting my head, then straightened up again as I realized what she was talking about, “Oh, oh yeah, sorry. I’m from the real world.”

  “Ah, newcomer.” one of the men said, “But… wait, that’s not possible, is it? I haven’t seen a new player in…”

  “Nobody’s seen a new player,” the woman finished, “and that’s because the game got shut off from RL.”

  There was something accusatory in her tone, like she was blaming me for what had happened, but I went ahead and totally ignored it, figuring the last thing I needed was to start throwing around the fact that I actually did have something to do with the cataclysmic event that had pretty much ruined Re.Gen.

  “That means he’s a Code Jumper.” someone else muttered, causing me to involuntarily curse under my breath, “Ain’t no way he got in otherwise.”

  Unsurprisingly, that created a wave of realization that washed over everyone in the bunker, somehow reminding people of what had happened hundreds upon thousands of years prior.

  “Seeing a spike in the neural net,” Quinn whispered, “looks like just about every player managed to find the Rapture event in their memory.”

  “What?” I asked concernedly as I started backing away from the soldiers who were practically foaming at the mouth, bumping my way passed the two who’d been standing behind me, “Is that even possible?”

  “It would seem so, yes. I believe it’s to do with the fact that it was such a large scale event for the people in Re.Gen.”

  “Okay, that’s great, they remember me.” I replied with faux enthusiasm, “What should I do?”

  “Well, in any other situation I’d suggest pulling you out, but I sincerely doubt that’s an option at the present time.”

  “Really? You think?” I snapped as my back hit a wall.

  “Hey, no need to get snippy with me, you’re the one who…” Quinn trailed off as she undoubtedly tried to think of a way to pin the whole thing on me, before realizing with a huff that I wasn’t the one who’d decided to come back to Re.Gen, nor tell the other players I was from RL.

  Speaking of whom, they’d started to get dangerously close, and I was sure I was about to be ripped apart by the angry soldiers, but then Quinn decided to let me in on a rather helpful piece of information.

  “Oh, have you had a look at the code yet?” she asked innocently, “Apparently we’re in another man-made game.”

  I didn’t even let her finish her sentence before snappi
ng my fingers, freezing the players in individual blocks of ice right as they went to make a move for me.

  “Thank God…” I breathed with a relieved half-smile, “I was genuinely worried there for a second.”

  “Perhaps I should’ve told you about the code sooner?” Quinn said as I circled around to behind my would-be dismemberers.

  “Perhaps you should’ve, but I suppose you have other things on your mind.” I said, trying my very best to sound sincere before turning my attention the frozen soldiers, “Now, I understand that you may take issue with things I have done in the past, but I assure you that I am here to help.”

  I was met with some moaning and groaning from my new ice sculptures, but even still I had hope that I’d be able to, at the very least, convince them that beating me to death with my own limbs wasn’t the best idea.

  “There’s gonna be some growing pains, I know that, but I could really use your hel-”

  “You’re going to want to hurry this monologue of yours up,” Quinn interrupted, “there’re a whole lot of players coming your way. Turns out that hanging around in one spot in an FPS for an extended period of time isn’t a great idea.”

  Before I could respond a flag appeared on one of the walls, its blue fabric embroidered with some kind of big cat, and I couldn’t help but let out a slightly irritated groan.

  “Okay, how ‘bout this? We survive this round, then we finish our conversation civil-like?” I asked before realizing that the troops weren’t exactly in a position to talk, “Grunt once for yes, twice for now.”

  There was a few seconds of silence as they either mulled it over or didn’t want to be the first to show support for the asshole who’d gone ahead and blown a good portion of their world to Hell, well, RL, same difference.

  Anyway, eventually I was given the grunts I’d requested and I promptly unfroze the soldiers, most of whom dropped to the ground from where they’d been suspended, before pulling their large sci-fi machine guns off their backs and taking aim at me.

  “Give us one reason why we shouldn’t just riddle you with holes.” the woman demanded, proving to me that there was still some doubt as to whether or not they actually wanted to kill me.