by Alden Odessa
I had to find my way out before my wife got home or else this would be my only trip here. I keep saying here; I don’t even know the name of this city! I needed to get more information and explore a bit. Who knows? Maybe I have time to have another quickie with a hooker with the money I have left. I still had enough money for a pretty good one.
As suspected, It didn’t take me long to get over my guilt, but I digress…
There was information in this game; I just had to find it. And we all knew where to find information…
Find a bartender.
11
The Tall Tale
In the hotel lobby, there was a bar. Classy joint. It fits in with the decor of the rest of the hotel. Deep brown wood all over the place and a dark atmosphere. I’d been damned if there wasn’t actually a haze to it. Like bars had been back in the day when you could still smoke in them. I didn’t know if this was a result of the patrons in the bar actually smoking or if it was just part of the game design. Either way, it provided an ambiance that just added to the realism of this game. It actually smelled like a smoky bar. The other thing that strikes me about this place, and the game in general, is how much it feels like I’m walking around in a movie, not a game. The way things are lit, the way the people talk, the way the air feels, it all feels very manipulated. Not how it was in real life, but again, better than real life. Like if a screenwriter sat down to write a script about what he wanted life to feel like. That’s what this felt like. More than lifelike, like it was stylized.
I sat down at the bar, and the bartender walked up to me. The bar was not full; in fact, it was pretty much empty. There were a few people sitting at tables near the bar, talking so low that I couldn’t hear them (like the sound was turned down so that you could hear the main character speak) and there was a man at the end of the bar, with his head down; he was probably passed out.
The bartender was fancy like you would expect in a bar like this. He was wearing a tuxedo. He was dressed just like someone would script it. This is how you script a character who has information; he sticks out. He walked up to me and asked what I would like to drink. I told him the usual. He cocked his head.
“Do I know you, friend?” He asked.
Really I was just checking game mechanics, wondering if the game carried the memory of my character to other non-playable characters. “Sorry, Whiskey, neat. Premium.”
He turned around and grabbed a bottle and a glass and then returned with the drink as I saw the money deducted from my till. I took the drink in my hand and looked him in the eye. “You got a name friend?”
“Bartleby,” he said.
“Of course it is,” I said with a slight laugh and then drank my whiskey in one gulp.
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind,” I said and then tapped my glass after I sat it down. “Another one please.”
“Would you like the bottle, friend?”
I thought about it, but that would be cutting into precious hooker money. “Nah, just the drink.”
Bartleby turned and did as I asked, quickly returning with my drink. Now that I thought about it, I wondered how tipping worked in this game or if it was even an option.
“Mind if I ask you a couple of questions, Bartleby?”
“Absolutely not, sir. I would be happy to give you any information I have.” He smiled at me, warm and inviting, but with a slight grin, as if he knew something I didn’t. “After all, what is a bartender for, if not information?”
Damn the writers of this game knew troupes. “I’ve been saying that for years, my friend.”
I took a sip of my drink, not wanting to down it all in one gulp this time. Bartleby certainly did feel real, but still, he felt scripted. Maybe I had already had too much to drink in the game, or maybe I was still woozy from having mind-blowing sex. Who knows?
“First of all, where can I get a good meal around here?” I asked.
“This hotel has a mighty fine restaurant if I don’t say so myself. Would you like to see a menu?”
I was worn out and was not in the mood to make another choice in this game. Needing to save what little brainpower I had left to figure my way out. “What would you recommend?”
“The house specialty, sir.”
“Which is?”
“Steak, potatoes with carrots and asparagus.”
I’ll admit, that sounded pretty delicious, but right now canned ravioli sounded good too. I’d eat just about anything. “Lay it on me, Bartleby.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Call me Buster. Buster Rockknocker.”
“As you wish, Mr. Rockknocker.”
Mr. Rockknocker! It was even better when I got other people to say it.
He walked away from me, presumably to order my food. I took a moment to pull up my menu, see what things were looking like and to see if I could exit yet. I still received an error screen, saying that this option was not currently available. In fact, the only thing that was available was my objectives, telling me to Save Betty.
I didn’t know what to think, but saving Betty’s dumbass appeared to be my only option, but I had not the first clue as to how to go about doing that!
The food arrived in an unreasonably short amount of time, and it looked perfect. I said thank you and noticed fifty dollars evaporate out of my account.
“Thank you, sir. More to drink?”
“A glass of water please.”
“Certainly, Mr. Rockknocker.” Never gets old!
I sliced into the steak and put it in my mouth. It was heavenly. Seriously, everything in this game tasted like it was supposed to taste like, not like it actually did. Imagine the best steak on the planet, and that’s what I was eating. The rest of the food was also perfect. It all tasted as it looked on a commercial. It was perfect. Maybe that was just the hunger talking.
I must have looked like a pig as I devoured my meal. The hunger pains were starting to dissipate, and I was starting to think with a little clearer head. I finished up and checked my stats. The meal got me back up to 90 health, dessert might get me up to a hundred, but I needed information more than I needed the calories.
Look at me, caring about calories in a computer simulation. That’s how real this shit is.
I looked up from my empty plate and pushed it towards the other end of the bar. Without missing a beat, Bartleby walked over and grabbed it and lifted it from the solid mahogany. Before he walked away, I grabbed his attention.
“What’s this place called, Bartleby?”
“The bar or the hotel, sir?”
Hadn’t thought of that. I was actually referring to the city. “Both.”
“This bar is The Tall Tale. We are in the Reference Hotel.”
“Interesting,” of course I already knew that about the hotel, but that mind-blowing sex with Ronette had made me forget it.
“Indeed it is, sir.”
“I’m new to town; this is the first place I have been.” That was only a half-truth, this was just the only place that I had been of any consequence.
“What brings you to Canny Valley?” That was the name! The name of the city, I remember it now from the crowdfunding page. This all took place in the city of Canny Valley, which was just a play on the term of Uncanny Valley, which was a reference to the look in the eyes of a digital character in games and movies. Or something like that. Either way, I got one of the answers I was looking for.
“Bartleby, I have a question for you.”
“Go ahead,” he said, still holding the empty plate that had held my dinner.
“You don’t happen to have a Betty back there, tied up to a train track or something, do you?”
He snickered. “No, sir. We have a Carol, but she’s only tied up in the freezer.” I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not as he said this with total earnestness.
Either way, it caused me to laugh abruptly. The game was funny, that was a nice touch.
“If you are looking for some company this evening, I am s
ure I could head you in the right direction.”
“I’m good on that front for now, but thank you.”
“I’ll be right back, sir,” he said and then walked back to the kitchen to put away my plate. I pulled up my map. It was working and now had a few names to places, showing me The Tall Tale, The Reference and also the street and alley that I had come from. It even showed me Chester’s Market, where I had previously bought the apple and cigarettes. Oh yeah, I had smokes. I pulled out the pack of Most Popular’s and put one in my mouth. I swear Bartleby appeared out of nowhere with a lighter. I nodded in thanks and took a drag. I had no idea what my next move should be.
I looked at Bartleby as I stood. “Thank you, Bartleby.”
“Certainly, Mr. Rockknocker. If you need anything else, you can always stop by The Tall Tale for information.”
I’m sure I could. I gave him a little mini salute and walked around to the back of the bar, where I saw a glowing exit sign. This was different than the way I had come into the bar and was curious as to where it leads, or rather what was behind The Reference. Whatever it was it would be new to me, and I figured I had better be getting on with the mission of saving Betty.
12
Getting On With It
The street behind The Reference was a smaller street than the first street that I had come upon. Apparently, my character spawned on the main drag. Made sense, with the hotel on that street, called The Reference, and it had been proliferated with strip clubs, and I assume brothels and pimps. Similar to the man I met that led me to Ronette.
This street was smaller and less traveled but still populated. It looked similar in aesthetic and design to the other street. Filled with neon lights, slick city streets, and tall buildings. The only difference was the width of the street and general population. I looked around to take it all in and figure out my next move.
There were a few more hotels, a couple of markets, another strip club; there was even a bookstore. This felt like a lived-in world, and I wondered what it looked like the farther you went into it. Were there homes, apartments, and businesses not related to entertainment?
It made perfect sense to me, where I spawned. That must be a common area where players spawned when they first entered the game. It had all the things that people, okay men, would want to do. It had the strip clubs and hookers, a few casinos, many bars. All places that you could log in and feed your vices, whatever those vices may be. It wasn’t a coincidence that I was able to be in bed with a hooker within an hour of logging into the game for the first time. I wonder how many other men fucked Ronette today, how many she teased on the tutorial screen and her face, ass, and tits were on their mind when they first selected a prostitute. This game knew what it was doing. It knew its core audience.
This did make me curious as to what would happen, the further I explored. What did the world look like? What did the rest of it feel like? How far did these NPC’s go and were they at all aware that they were all just part of a computer simulation for guys like me? I had so many questions at the moment. I had no idea what to do or where to go. By my estimation, I had been in the game for a little over two hours. It felt like longer, I had managed to cram a lot into those two hours, but it was still only a couple hours. The only variable was that I didn’t know how long I dozed off for. It couldn’t have been very long, at the most fifteen minutes. It felt like all I did was blink, but that blink may have been a few minutes. It had been long enough for Ronette to clean up the room and leave. How long did that take? Maybe I should estimate that I had been here for four hours.
Using that as a frame of reference, I could apply that to the real world. I had picked up the package at the post office at 10:30, gotten home just before 11:00. After unpacking and setting up the game and laptop, and then putting on the pants and headset, I think it was about 11:45. For ease of math, I’ll just say that I started the game at noon. Worst case scenario, I had been here four hours. That meant that my body was sitting in front of my laptop in my home office and it was four o’clock.
Shit.
My wife usually got home from work about five-thirty. That gave me an hour and a half to get the hell out of Canny Valley. That was a hard hour and a half too; I had no room for error as I am sure that, back in real life, I had some cleanup to do before she got home.
Shit, I hope I didn’t miss any work calls. Probably not the thing I should be worried about the most though.
The menu, I hadn’t checked it since I left The Reference. Maybe the hotel had been some sort of save point, and I couldn’t exit until I had saved.
I pulled up the screen and checked but was once again greeted with the message telling me that it wasn’t an option. There had to be a clue on this street, some sort of sign leading me to an exit or at least some sort of checkpoint. I’m sure it would be some business that was cleverly named and was way more obvious to find than it should be. It would be so obvious that I might overlook it.
I had to think like the game. I needed to save my progress and then log out. The most obvious spot would be a bank. Something cheeky like that made sense based on my experience so far. You save at a bank.
I scanned the street, scanning for a bank, one that would offer a savings account. I didn’t see any banks, but I kept scanning over the neon signs that adorned the street and buildings. Immediately my eyes went to the most obvious place. It was a green neon sign that read: CHECKPOINT.
I can’t believe my eyes almost skimmed past it and, as I thought, it was obviously a save point. I had been overthinking it with the banks.
This made the most sense, as it was on the other side of The Reference; on the next street over. So the game made you go a little way before saving. There had probably been a few side missions I could have done at The Reference or the market or someplace else. Who cares? Time to get the hell out of here.
It was just on the next block, opposite side of the street. I was heading that way when I heard a noise that made me jump.
A scream.
It was coming from behind me. It sounded a hundred or so feet away. I turned, and I heard a hit. Like somebody hitting another person followed by a cry of “Please! Stop!”
It was a woman’s voice. Behind me, there was an alley, and it sounded like it was coming from in there. I looked back at the checkpoint. Damn. What to do? I heard the girls voice again, with a plea of mercy and then another slap. Shit. I had to check this out, make sure someone wasn’t getting hurt.
I picked up the pace and walked to the opening of the alley and looked down it.
There were two people there. One standing, a man; and one on her knees, a woman. The man was standing above her, hand raised. She looked as though she was pleading and crying.
Shit. The checkpoint would have to wait. Game or no game, simulation with digital characters and NPC’s or not, there were somethings that you just didn’t do. One of them beat on a woman.
I walked down the alley hurriedly and yelled out to the two of them. “Hey!”
The man stopped what he was doing. He looked like he had been in mid-slap when I interrupted. He looked at me, and she, in turn, did as well.
“What the fuck do you want?” the man said in a menacing tone. He was a large man, tall and muscular. The woman, on the other hand, looked tiny in comparison, and possible tiny to begin with.
“Stop hitting her!” I yelled.
“Really? What the fuck are you going to do about it?”
I continued walking forward. As I got closer, I got a better look at them. He was as big as I had feared. Easily six-foot-three or four, muscular but hefty at the same time. He was just a big hulking man! She, on the other hand, wasn’t just small by comparison. She was on her knees, so I couldn’t be sure, but she appeared to be in the five feet two range. She had scraggly brown hair and was wearing a blue spaghetti-strap shirt, tight, showing just how thin she was. She was wearing tight pink hot pants, that covered down to about mid-hip. I couldn’t see her face very well as it was dar
k, but I could see that she was bleeding. I didn’t know if it was from his beating or something previous. Either way, she was hurt, and this man was hurting her worse.
“Stand back from the lady,” I said.
His face got confounded. “Lady? You callin’ this bitch a lady?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
He let out a large belly laugh. “Motherfucker, you got a real strange sense of what’s ladylike!”
I have no idea what I said that was funny. “Why don’t you just walk away?”
“What, walk away? This bitch is my property.”
“Please mister—” the woman on her knees said to me but before she could finish the man brought his hand across her face, striking her so hard that she fell to the ground.
That was all I was going to stand of that. I charged the man and bent down, ramming him in the gut. I knocked him off balance but in the process, was unable to keep my own footing, and we both tumbled to the ground.
“Now you fucked up,” the large man said. I jumped back up to my feet and backed up, fists raised. The man rose, he did not raise his fists. I knew I was no match for this guy, but hopefully, I could give the girl enough time to run away. I looked at her.
“Run!” I said.
She looked at me as if lost, and she may have very well been. She had blood coming from the top of her forehead and the corner of her mouth. “Where?” she said. She was not an exceptionally attractive woman. She looked a little older close up, and plain. I would guess late twenties. She was missing a tooth. Again, not sure if that was related to this current beating. She was a waif of a woman. If she weighed more than 100 pounds, I would be surprised. Flat chested with thin hips.
