Blood and Cupcakes

by Taj McCoy El

  "So, my little Mayah Pie, how was school today?" Her father said with his deep rich voice.

  “...S'okay."

  "Oh no you don't, my little monkey; tell me all about it." His face, as usual, was sincere and compassionate.

  "Well, for starters, Ms. Hobson has been picked to head a project in Washington D.C. and she's no longer my teacher. So that kinda sucks. My new teacher knocked me over in the hall because he didn't see your precious little mighty mite walking through all of the giant teenagers—I'm still in one piece though. I don’t think I like him even though we really didn't have our first class yet. He sent us to study hall. Lunch was so baaaaaad today. Some Italian deal and ...oh, I met a boy."

  Her arm and shoulder jerked back as her father stopped in the middle of the concourse. He just stood there, his eyes closed.

  Is everything okay?

  He opened his eyes and said "I see.... so… ahem…” he coughed into his fist.

  "Dad it's not like I kissed him or anything ...geez!!!" She suddenly felt flushed as her cheeks warmed up from embarrassment. "We just talked. It was nice." A slow smile spread across her face.

  "Well isn't that odd?"

  What? That I met a boy?" Mayah's eyes darkened.

  "No, that you smiled while thinking about him."

  She slapped him playfully on the arm. "Hurry up, Dadzilla. If we miss the shuttle, mom's gonna tan your hide!"

  “Alright, alright...." he said as she pulled on him with two hands to get him moving and he stumbled forward.

  …..

  The house was warm against the chill of the early February sunset. The winters were warmer than even she remembered. But still, as evening crept in, temperatures dropped. The house smelled of baked macaroni and cheese and mom’s special tomato sauce that she made in large batches and stored in the freezer. Tonight’s dinner was gonna be good.

  As she walked into the dining room she saw her brother Jomo, or Mo as everyone called him. He was two years older, a royal pain in the butt, and an amazing cook. Even at thirteen he could make a full course soul food meal from scratch. He wore his trademark long sleeve thermal under a t-shirt combo with sweatpants. He was a sports freak, and he smells like one too. He was also the one who got her to play her first RPG. She hated that she loved him—well not really, but siblings will always be rivals.

  She lightly slapped him on the shoulder as he set out plates for dinner. “So, what’s cooking bro?”

  “Mom’s mac and cheese with the sauce and dad's recipe for baked chicken.”

  “What’s the veggie?”

  “Kale salad with sunflower seeds and all the works,” Mo smiled with the last. He could cook like monster but somehow making rice and salads eluded him.

  “Sounds delish. Where's mom?”

  “Taking a shower. She had to climb into a filthy cable junction box to do maintenance today,” he said with a chuckle. “Get ready for more dead mice stories.”

  “Ewwwww…”

  Her mother, Brenda, always found at least three dead mice when she did maintenance duty. She turned it into a contest to see if she could gross out the kids over dinner. Mo usually laughed till he cried while she just shook her head in disgust.

  Mice were so skeevy!

  “You ready for Majesta tonight?” she asked him.

  “You know it, mini Mai!”

  “Stop calling me that, I'm getting taller”

  “Not yet you aren't, shawty.” He dodged her incoming arm shot.

  “Who are you calling shawty, shorty?” her father said, walking into the dining room. “I thought we talked about using that slang in the house?” Her father loved to read and refused to let the street vernacular enter the house. “English is a bastardized language already, stop picking on it.”

  “Yes, sir,” her brother grumbled.

  “Other than that son, it smells great. How long before we eat?”

  “About 20 minutes.”

  Gyasi tousled both of their heads and went to find her mother as Mayah helped her poor slob of a brother finish setting the table.

  …..

  After dinner Mayah hurriedly retired to her room and completed her assignments. Assignments she would have finished on the Magnorail if she hadn’t been talking about video games. Sitting in the pod with the door open she heard her mother come in. Brenda Butler was a beautiful woman with the approachable kind of beauty that Mayah heard got her a lot of attention when she was younger. So much so, that she picked the only man who found books more attractive than she was.

  Her mother flowed into Mayah’s bedroom in her favorite bathrobe with fleece pajama bottoms and fuzzy maroon slippers. Her hair was swept, up and back to keep it out of her face. She had a serious look on her face.

  Uh–oh this could be trouble…

  “So, cupcake, I heard you met a boy today.”

  Kabooom!!!

  Mayah tried to turn invisible. “Yeah….”

  “C’mon, outta that capsule and talk to your mother.”

  “Yes ma'am.” Mayah trudged across the room and sat down on the bed next to her mother.

  “Don't you yes ma'am me. So… what happened?”

  “Well I met him on the shuttle bus to the Magno. I ignored him at first but then he started to talk about video games and then…”

  “And then what?”

  “...And then I kinda liked him.”

  “Oh cupcake,” Brenda clapped, “This is a big deal. Your first crush!”

  “It... is… not…. A… crush…” She glared at her mother in defiance.

  “Cupcake, you do realize I can look at your face and see three emotions YOU don’t even know you’re feeling?” Mayah began to squint and pout, looking away.

  “Oh honey, don't be that way. I still remember my first crush.” Brenda raised Mayah’s head until their eyes met. “His name was Jamal Jenkins. He lived just down the street from me. He could play basketball and had all the new sneakers. To us little girls he was the epitome of cuteness. Sure am glad I dodged that bullet,” she chuckled, straightening the folds of her robe and smiling. “Basketball and sneakers do not a husband make.” Brenda booped Mayah on the nose.

  “What happened?”

  “I pined for him, for a bit. And then one day he kissed Keisha Thompson and that was it for me. I cried in your grandmother’s lap and she tried not to laugh at how cute my broken little puppy love heart was.”

  Mayah wrinkled her nose. “Sounds… like fun….”

  “No, it wasn't, cupcake, but I got over it. I've had my heart broken many times, but the right one for you, will always help you heal your heart even if they're the one who broke it.” Mayah could see the seriousness through her mother's smile. This was making her feel uncomfortable.

  Before she could think too much though her mother asked, “So... what's his name?” And Mayah related the whole story to her, telling her parts that even she hadn't noticed until she had her mother to draw it out of her like lightning rod.

  …..

  Its twelve crystal Nano eyes studied its environment. It felt the pulse of the pod it was sent to find. It surveyed the heights and distances and calculated its trajectory. It would take seven jumps to get into the pod and into position. The small servos in it rear legs whirred so softly you couldn't hear it with the naked ear in a dead silent room. Bands of flexible carbon fibers were stretched creating tension and then it leapt! Flying hundreds of times its own height and width to land on its back on the hardwood floor. After skidding to a stop, it righted itself, calculated the heights and distances, felt the pulse, and leapt again.

  …..

  Mayah brushed her teeth before heading into her bedroom and closing the door. Her pod was already loading the final procedures for level 5 immersion. Her brother was doing the same but probably without brushing his teeth.

  Aaaak… he is so dirty…

  She did her final check through. She had water for afterwards and all her alarms were set for the morning. She had three hour
s to play before bedtime and couldn't wait. The new time compression system would allow her to play 18 hours of in game time while only spending three in the real world.

  She was going to surprise her fool brother, Jomo, by uploading her save file from Pretty Princess Pie Party. It was her favorite game when she was six. It had a random princess name generator that proclaimed her as Pretty Princess Cuddle Fluff.

  There’s a mystery in Pie Mountain and I’m going to solve it, her six-year old self thought.

  She had had so much fun playing Pie Party, skipping in different fluffy dresses or just playing dress up. There was also a sewing room where she could alter dresses and change their colors and adornments. She used her giant hammer to whack the evil Klurg mites who damaged things and made people sad, and she collected all of the star tokens they dropped. It had piqued something in her cognitive abilities. She made pies for everyone, from farmers to castle guards to talking animals in the woods, all the way up to King Krusty the Humorous.

  Each creature she met sent her on a quest to find ingredients to make a pie that would make them happy. There were 40 ingredient slots in total, but she finished the game with only 30 filled. She had wondered what the other ingredients were for.

  She played again and again, searching every inch of the Great Pie Lands. She traveled from the Baking Sheet Desert to the Milk Oceans back across the Buttercup Fields and the Rutabaga Swamps. She earned special Pie badges that allowed her entry into secret gardens owned by the animals she had previously helped and few new ones she discovered.

  She later figured out that with 40 ingredients and having to combine 3 ingredients to make the pies, there were 11,480 possible combinations. She fed them all to the king, one at a time and King Krusty declared her Empress Cuddle Fluff and gave her the key that would open any door in Pie Mountain. She tried every door, but none of them opened. She looked it up on the webs but no one had even heard of it. She supposed it was a designer's Easter egg or rejected storyline.

  The word on Majesta forums was that the more complete your save file the better gear you had in your armory to unlock later. Princess Cuddle Fluff was the most complete save file she had. If it turned out to be a bad character, she would just start all over again. Plus, it would be funny to see Mo’s face.

  She climbed into the pod and slid her helmet into place. The door whooshed closed, sealing her in and she felt herself slip into the VR world. The Majesta loading screen rolled up and then everything went truly black.

  …..

  …

  System calibrated to user

  Transfer receptors: nominal

  Input pads: nominal

  Accepting guest: positive

  World: Majesta

  Culturing save data

  Line 27 not valid (overridden)

  Line 28 not valid (overridden)

  Alerting command module

  Awaiting command module…

  Awaiting command module…

  Awaiting command module…

  …

  ……….

  Command prompt: Accept datum

  Acquiescing……….

  Secondary signal found

  Attempt to single stream: (Overridden)

  Secondary code found: Attempting to assimilate

  Progressive string failure. (Optimizing)

  Key code: Entered

  Key code: Accepted

  Secondary stream merger to primary: accepted

  All systems operating at new nominal

  Query: requesting processing power from units 234-345: designation: AI data farm gamma 3

  Access granted

  Uploading secondary signal stream protocols…

  Uploading….

  Uploading…

  Uploading…

  …..

  “Sir, we have a slight problem.”

  “What is it?” Supervisor Stultus asked.

  “Someone just loaded a save file from a game called Pretty Princess Pie Party. It was a third-party game made exclusively for Attactus and sold under our licenses,” the young tech said.

  “Does it have the proper base code for the system to read?”

  “Yes sir, full level 3 tactile data and object list,” he said never turning from his monitor, fingers typing furiously

  “Well then let them play.”

  “Yes sir, right away, Mr. Stultus.”

  Robert “Bob” Stultus had a headache. The launch had gone smoothly so far. Everything that seemed problematic had been worked out within minutes of notification. But this little dandy meant that they would have to code some zones from this Pretty Princess Pie Party for the weekly patch. As he walked back to his office, he contacted the AI farm and sent them the information they would need to get started on the new areas for gameplay.

  He sat back in his chair and washed down his migraine medicine with a tumbler of his favorite poison, and began to study the information on this Pretty Princess Pie Party. He was going to have to find a shorter name for this to make his life easier.

  “No rest for the wicked,” he said to no one in particular and continued his work with a sigh.

  …..

  1.2 Game Time

  The Majesta opening credits began with the blast of a trumpeting herald’s call breaking the blackness with a flash of light so bright Mayah blinked to shield her eyes. It dimmed rather quickly, becoming a view of a worldscape that was so high she could see the curve of the planet. Triumphant horns played as she descended through the clouds, the view showing off the multitude of terrains the world possessed: lakes, rivers, mountains, forest, plains, and deserts. She didn’t feel any motion as she flew downwards, or any wind on her face. It was more like a movie than an immersive.

  A loud boom from below caught her attention. When she looked down she found herself falling into the middle of a war. The battlefield stretched to the horizons and she could smell the funk of death and the unwashed.

  She began decelerating until she stopped, her feet floating just inches above the ground as a pulse of white light shot out from her with the boom of thunder. It raced outwards, rapidly expanding in all directions. The warriors, comprised of random races, instantly slowed, moving like they were swimming through concrete. Clods of dirt and sand that the fighters had kicked up fell slowly out the air. The battle was all around her and she was uncontrollably and slowly spun to the left. A rich and deep, gravelly voice boomed in her ears.

  “Welcome to The Ruins of Majesta, oh Paladin of glory!!!” It sounded like an ancient, mountain spirit was talking. Its voice spoke of a time primordial and wisdom that it would pay to heed, though the voice sounded weary. “This land is the nexus of all other worlds. Your reality has been joined to ours since before its creation. Majesta is the bridge you cross when you dream and see marvels untold. We are the gatekeepers of all realities, the glue that holds them all together. You have been called here from the farthest reaches of this plane to help us rid reality of the dark forces of Ba'alquion.

  “We have guarded his tomb of darkness for untold millennia, keeping spying eyes and clutching hands away from the dark lord's burial grounds. For as we, the people of Majesta live or die, so too does the rest of reality.

  “All was well until a fissure in Ba'alquion’s prison leaked the essence of his darkness, and his minions rose once again. It was an evil we thought long exterminated.

  “By that time, we had destroyed our magics of war to live in peace with one another. Seeing our forces weakened by the loss of our war craft, Ba'alquion’s horde chose to rise once again. You Paladins, have the tools and arts we need to defeat him. You are our last line of defense, our last chance.

  “If you choose to help us, your goal will be capturing the dark energy leaked from Ba'alquion. His minions become more powerful with every day that passes. Until we destroy his crystal of entombment and the sleeping form of the dark lord within, more darkness and evil will spread. We will never be free of his curse until we destroy this evil at the root.


  “Ba'alquion’s darkness seeks to extinguish the light in a war for total dominance. We beseech you paladins, from our ruins, raise this world.”

  The battle scene around Mayah begin to dim, the color draining out of the scenery, and soft sorrowful strings wound down the score.

  “A last word of wisdom,” the narrator continued before the scene fully faded. “Do not make our mistake. Not all who are here are your allies and some old foes may align with your goals. Let people's actions show you the way of their character and trust your instincts, for Majesta is watching...” he trailed off.

  A prompt popped up.

  Do you wish to use Pretty Princess Cuddle Fluff as your game avatar?

  Y/N?

  She pressed the yes button.

  Ooooh…. The havoc I'm going to cause!

  The menu disappeared and a bright point of light in the distance whooshed toward her. She began to feel the movement of it. It felt like she was flying, no, falling, tumbling down into the light, and then black.

  She opened her eyes. Where… am I? She was laying on a cool, stone floor staring at a smooth, concrete ceiling. She sat up and looked around. The room was circular and the walls were covered with what looked like futuristic computer consoles, dials, and oscilloscopes. She stood and straightened out the ruffles on the dress, luxuriating in the feel of the fabrics.

  These feel so real.

  She was dressed in a pink and purple evening gown that came down to the bottoms of her knees. She had purple gloves that went over her elbows and silk slippers on her feet. The almond skin of her shoulders was bare and she felt the weight of a tiara on her head. She wished she had a full-length mirror, but the walls in were a muted tan and lacked any reflectivity. A tri-fold mirror suddenly popped up out of nowhere with a prompt.