by Jack Crosby
I didn’t have much to say, so I cut straight to it. “This is going to be a very weird question, but do you know Yazmin Flockhart with Tanaka Corp.?”
“No.” He said it way too quick and hastened for that to be the truth.
I wasn’t about to give up. “I know you gave me the nickname Vector. Does it have anything to do with the original game they made, Neon Death Race? I know the main character’s name is Vector, too.”
His normally tan skin was turning a whitish, grey color. He moved closer to the glass, really looking at me for the first time since sitting down. “The only way you’d know that is if you found the backdoor in.”
“Dad, what’re you talking about?”
The guard yelled out one more minute. “I don’t have time to explain. Just nod, did you beat the Electric Mile and gain all five Easter Eggs?” I gave a quick tilt of my head. “The Lost Level will answer everything. That’s all I can give you. They’ll know I told you and I’m dead for it.”
The guard cut off our conversation and pulled him back into the prison. As his face disappeared from view, he gave me a smile and mouthed the words ‘I love you.’
Later that night, as I was watching the local news, the anchors reported that there was a fire at the prison killing four inmates, including my dad. I only remember dropping the slice of pizza I swiped from the Italian joint down the street. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. Way too many things weren’t adding up. I needed to get back into the game.
Grief finally took over as I was pacing around the garage trying to figure out how to reenter the digital world I knew I had been in. I fell to my knees, crying. I really hadn’t thought about my dad in years, but someone took him away from me for just trying to help. I was going to find out who and kill them.
The power flickered in the garage casting me into darkness. Great, on top of everything else, the city finally cut the power here. Or did it? There was a ghostly glow coming from the television. It was the game, on my screen. My GameStation X was off, so how was this possible.
I picked up the controller. This wasn’t the normal game screen. Instead:
Congratulations!
The Electric Mile:
Lost Level Unlocked
-??Continue?
Save
Option
Music
The Lost Level
I’d defeated The Lost Level and nothing happened.
It was a longer race against Draxler that encompassed all the different portions of the game’s world. It took me multiple tries to finally beat him and when I did, nothing happened. I didn’t know what I had expected, something obviously, but there was nada.
Zip.
Zilch.
It’d been twenty minutes since I’d beaten Draxler again and unlocked the final weapon to be used in the campaign mode again. I hadn’t even bothered to see what that weapon was. My thoughts and feelings were so conflicted about what happened. As the minutes kept rolling by, it became painfully clear that nothing was going to happen. I could continue to wallow here in self pity or I could get up and go do something.
I decided to go get another burrito.
As I turned around, there was a shadow standing just out of sight, in the street. As I left the garage, she became visible. “Ira? Is that you?” I asked.
As she stepped closer, the shadows left her face, matching up with the body I knew very well. “Well done, Ash. You unlocked one character to come into the real world and it looks like you chose me.”
Ira was not wearing her in-game avatar outfit. She was decked out in black spandex, high heeled boots, and had two briefcases beside her. This was way more badass than anything I remembered. She took her boot and slid one of the briefcases to me. I leaned over and undid the snaps. Inside, it was a gun I’d never seen before.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Zoe and Ali made it for you; they affectionately call it the Vector Blaster.”
Holding the gun in my hand, it felt like I was right back in the game. “Care to tell me what’s going on?”
Ira smiled coyly. “I’m here to help you end this, once and for all,” she explained.
“We’re going after Flockhart, the real one, aren’t we?”
“We are.”
****
“I’ve been expecting you, Ash. As for the administrator, I thought for sure you would’ve picked the warrior or the glitch,” the very much real and alive Yazmin Flockhart greeted us.
When we arrived at her offices, it was like they knew Ira and I were coming. We were quickly escorted to the elevator by two men in black suits and were sent upwards to the top floor. The moment the elevator doors opened, Flockhart was sitting on the edge of her desk waiting.
“What’s the meaning of all of this?”
“Your father didn’t tell you when you went to visit him?” she asked, knowing something I didn’t think she could. “Your father was an excellent help to get the vehicles right in the game. It’s a real shame he snooped around and got himself locked up.”
“You did that?” I began to holler.
“He did that. He had no reason to open the Blackest Night file. Had he minded his own business, none of this would be necessary.”
Ira chimed in. “What does that have to do with us, the characters in the game?”
“Everything!” She pushed herself off her desk and walked around on the porcelain floor, her black pumps clicking with each step. “I brought you into this world through code and I can soon insert myself into the digital world to live forever. These games, they were just experiments, perfected by the final code, Blackest Night.”
When she stopped walking, she was by a bookcase. She slid a book to the side and revealed a switch. “The code has been uploaded into this building. The Lost Level you beat in the game, Ash, was just a skeleton key to ignite the real programming. Once initiated, we will be in the game once more and there, I will end you.”
I raised the gun to shoot her just as she flipped the switch. What happened next, words can’t describe. The office pixelated itself into almost nothing before it reshaped back into the same office building I’d been in when I killed the in-game version of Flockhart.
Neither Ira or I could believe what just happened. “There are two ways you leave, dead or making it out of the building alive. And let’s be honest,” she said, starting to laugh. “I’m not letting you leave alive!”
The two side doors to her office opened up and shock troopers began to file in. “Kill them,” she commanded.
I didn’t have any of my Vector powers from before. It was just me, Ira, and guns. Ira pulled out two twin blasters and began firing as I pointed the Vector Blaster at the closest trooper and opened fire for the first time as myself. The blast hit the guard and sent him down in two shots. The first one knocked off his chest guard and the second was the death blow.
Ira, who looked as if she had no experience with guns either, was just blasting away without rhyme or reason. It was working, as the shock troopers began scattering all over the place. In the commotion, Flockhart ducked out of the office and into her elevator.
Well shit.
As the last trooper fell, Ira ran over to the elevator. “It’s locked.”
“I guess we’ll be taking the staircase,” I sighed.
Neither of us wasted time. We began scaling down, in pursuit of Flockhart. We’d gone down five or six floors when an energy barrier stopped us. The door to that floor swung open, giving us no choice. “Looks like we need to do something here ro keep going,” Ira said.
Lights began to flicker as we walked in. The door behind us shut and locked. “Shit, I know what this means.”
There was a roar from the end of the room and one of the monitor’s flared to life. “Welcome Ash and Ira,” Flockhart greeted us from the screen. “Your next test is a doozy. He’d been planned as a bonus boss for downloadable content, but I decided to save him for a rainy day. Please let me introduce you to Harbinger!”
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A giant lion jumped forward, blue lights lining his digital body and mane and reddish black fangs filled his mouth. Uh oh.
“Ira… any ideas?”
“Run.”
The massive digital lion jumped at us from the other side of the room. Flockhart’s evil giggles sent chills down my spine as Harbinger chased us. As we shot at it with our blasters, nothing penetrated the beast’s fur coat. We were in big trouble.
That’s when the glass broke and a sexy, busty ninja appeared, slicing at the lion with an electric katana. As she landed, “Miss me, Ash?”
“Ali!”
“You two distract it with your blasters, I’ll deal the damage,” she called out to me.
With a solid plan in place, Ira and I did just that, shoot to distract. The lion couldn’t properly focus on Ali slicing it up from underneath due to the blasts that kept peppering it in the face. It was a long, slow process as Harbinger had a shit ton of HP to beat down, but in the end, the three of us finally killed it. When I turned in triumph to the monitor that Flockhart had been gloating out of, she was gone.
“Flockhart re-wrote the code,” Ali told us. “There are no limits to a party size anymore, apparently.”
With Harbinger defeated, we left the floor we were on and continued our descent. We didn’t hit much resistance until the ninth floor. By the time, I was kind of winded from running down so many stairs. My diet of Mexican based fast food probably wasn’t the best of choices, but that was neither here nor there. As soon as we were forced to leave the stairwell and go into the main floor, we saw the obstacle facing us.
“This floor is what I like to call the Floor of Inner Strength,” Flockhart’s voice boomed out. Clones of me, Ira, and Ali all stepped forward. “For each person that walks through the door to leave, they must overcome themselves.”
Our clones were each wearing the opposite colors we were wearing. Mine was wearing black jean shorts, white sneakers, and a grey leather jacket. God above, did I look like that much of a tool, too? Both Ali and Ira’s twin were wearing white with accents of black, instead of their very vixen-like black outfits.
And all three looked very pissed.
Weapons materialized into their hands. My doppleganger received a large blaster, Ira’s received two smaller handguns, and Ali’s was gifted was a large buster sword. An alarm instantly went off in the back of my mind - that buzzing telling you that shit was about to hit the fan.
Then, something else appeared. “What’s that?” Flockhart demanded.
A chest appeared in front of the three of us. When I opened it, the first thing I saw was a note - Use these to end this. This was dad’s handwriting. Just how did he do that? He wasn’t a game programmer or hell, he couldn’t even sign up for his own email address. Yet, there was no doubt about it, this was his handwriting. Below the note was this weird sparkling substance. I placed my hand into it and I pulled out a skateboard.
Not just any skateboard.
It was an exact replica of the Bossman X Rider that dad had gotten me one year for Christmas. The longboard was the perfect vehicle for smooth riding and speed. Oh no he didn’t! Ira eagerly put her hand in, as well, and she pulled out a leather whip with a little spiked ball on the end. Wicked…
When Ali reached in, she pulled out a long buster sword, just like the one her clone had. Clone Ali didn’t look pleased at all that the real one had a weapon just as dangerous as her’s. The tide had turned, back in our favor. Thanks, old man, I said to no one but myself.
“Enough of this, the battle begins!”
Being an expert gamer, I knew the best way to handle a clone situation. “We each take someone else’s,” I yelled.
“I’ll handle yours, Ash,” Ira said, cracking her whip.
“And I’ll take your clone, Ali.”
The real Ali nodded in agreement. “That leaves Fake Ira to me.”
With a plan, I hopped on my skateboard and began rolling around the spacious room. It had appeared the ninth floor was some sort of wide open think space with little to interfere with the fights about to begin. As I began to gather speed, the Clone Ali took chase, with her large buster sword ready to bisect me. I made a sharp turn as she got close and unloaded with three blasts on her unprotected flank as I reversed direction. She got hit with the first two, but blocked the last one with her blade. Oh man, she looked even more pissed off.
Clone Ali jumped and brought her sword down hard. The shockwave the attack caused knocked me off my board. As I fell, I saw the real Ali and Ira were also having issues. We weren’t losing, but we were in the fights of our lives. Clone Ash turned to me real quick and tried to get a potshot in. Ali jumped in the way and swatted the blast back and it hit him right in the stomach. That served the little bastard right for trying a cheap shot.
The problem was, we weren’t getting anywhere. The three of us, without needing to say a word, switched opponents in the hopes that some new strategy would work. It was weird coming face to face with another Ira. The Ira I knew and had sex with multiple times always had this kind, yet mischevious look in her eyes. This one, all she saw was blood and death. She pointed her blasters at me and began firing without a second thought. I threw down my skateboard and began pumping my legs to get out of range. The blasters hit the wall right behind me as I made my move.
I moved to the perimeter of the room, where for the first time, I had a pretty good vantage point of everything. I quickly took a shot at Clone Ash, helping Ali out. Clone Ira got pissed that I took my eyes off of her. Was she competing for my attention? Then, I had an idea.
What if this Ira had the same feelings for ‘Ash’ that Real Ira did?
I skated up to my Ira and whispered, “When she’s distracted, shoot.”
She didn’t answer as Clone Ali was closing but I think she heard me. I made me circle around the room and moved straight into Clone Ira. She tried to pull up her blasters to shoot, but as I got closer, the angry look in her eyes began to disappear. Infact, she began to… smile?
“Hey, it’s okay, we don’t have to fight.”
“Really?” she responded by lowering her weapons.
“Yeah, you can do whatever you want.”
I hopped off the board as the rest of the battles were raging. “No one is telling you what to do right now, are they?” I asked.
Clone Ira looked around. “Flockhart, she’s always in our minds,” she whispered.
Clone Ash and Clone Ali were still fighting their hearts out, but upon closer inspection, they looked very strained. It was like they were worried about something. I knew that look; it was the look of trying not to disappoint a parent. That made sense! Flockhart had given them life when they had none. They wanted to keep living and the only way to do that, as Flockhart probably told them, was to eliminate us.
The real Ira looked over and I shook my head no. Her blaster stayed holstered as she cracked her whip towards my clone, keeping him at bay. I had this all wrong. It wasn’t about us beating our clones, it was about us overcoming their programming and freeing them. Determination hit me; Flockhart wasn’t going to ruin anymore lives. I held my blaster in the air and shot it three times, putting huge holes in the ceiling above us.
That got everyone to stop.
“Flockhart, you bitch, I know you can hear me.”
“What temper-tantrum are you going to throw, Ash?” her voice responded.
“These clones don’t have to fight us to live. They don’t need you to live, either. They are representations of us.”
“Is that so, my clones?” There was a clicking sound and for a moment, nothing seemed to happen. That was until each of the clones blew up in a cloud of digital dust. “Well done, Ash and team. It seems you were able to overcome yourselves and move on.”
Her voice cut out.
“She just killed them,” Ali said, softly.
“Like they were nothing.”
I knew it hit Ira and Ali more than me because they were just code brought to life,
too. Still, we powered forward and left the ninth floor, back into the stairwell. We went down two more floors before the door and the seventh floor swung open. That was ominous. There was no way around it, so we prepared ourselves for the next trick that Yazmin Flockhart had for us. As we entered, smoke surrounded the three of us, blurring everyone else out of focus. It was just me. I grabbed my gun and gripped it tight as I kept moving forward.
“It’s okay, Ash,” a voice said. A shadowy figure appeared, moving closer. “This is a safe place.”
“Baba?” I asked.
Sure enough, it was the witch. She was dressed as sexy as ever in a black and silver bikini, thigh high boots, and a cape trailing behind her. She had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes that no one could fake. Immediately, I knew that I was safe. But where were the others?
“Ali and Ira? What happened to them?”
“Ira is currently at a day spa, being taken care of by some very talented massage artists that I dreamed up. And Ali, well she is honing her skills with her new sword, unlocking a few new moves that should help once you face the final boss.”
Good for both of them. “And me?”
“Lucky you - you get to learn a little bit of history from me while we make love. For you see,” she said as she stepped closer, allowing her breasts to rub against my body, “a hero always needs his witch.”
My cock began to stiffen in my pants. “
Baba’s expert hand began to rub it, slowly and with very good intentions. “A rather unique phenomena has occurred called the Binary Glitch. When you beat the game and were forced back into the real world, the game’s coding changed. No more was our singular task to follow the flow of the game from start to finish. Instead, the glitch gave us the power of real choice. My task was to always help the hero, but now, I get to choose whether I help or not, whether I want you to cum before me or not.”
She freed my cock, allowing it to flop forward through the zipper hole. “There’s no longer a singular focus pushing you forward, you’ve been given a binary choice?”
