by Shiloh Hunt
She cried out, sinking to her knees as she struggled for coherence in a game gone mad. Her medication. It had been too long. That incessant pain that tore through her — a neuropathic discomfort that was less discomfort and more agony — had been held at bay for more than fifteen hours now.
“Looking for me?” The new voice was familiar, even warped as it was.
“How did—?”
“She pushed me over,” Lucy said. “It takes a long time to reach the bottom. Nothing I could do until I hit it, I’m afraid. I respawned a few leagues away but, lucky for me, I always know where Kitty is.”
There was a sharp intake of breath.
“Now I’ve told you my secrets, wizard. Why don’t you tell me all of yours?”
There was a ragged scream. Kitty lifted her head, eyelids fluttering as she forced them to focus on the two men. Lucy had the wizard pinned to the cliff face, a blade through the man’s stomach. He twisted, and the wizard gritted his teeth.
“You can’t defeat me,” Rumple said.
“I don’t have to defeat you,” Lucy said. “I just have to weaken you enough to make sure you can’t defend yourself.”
“Against you?” The wizard let out a short, pained laugh. “I don’t have to—”
“Not me,” Lucy whispered. “Your game.”
“What?” The wizard struggled against the knife. “I don’t—”
“You mean you haven’t noticed?” Lucy glanced at her then, shaking his head.
She’d almost pushed herself up, but her legs weren’t co-operating anymore. A dull wave of terror soared inside her, nearly overwhelming her before she could push through it. Lucy dismissed her, turning his attention back to Rumple.
“Your game’s gotten a bit confused, mate. Maybe something brought on by the loaders we’ve been planting in every rift, maybe not. Who knows?”
“That was you?” the wizard let out a gasping laugh. “That code was pathetic. A child could have programmed a better—”
Lucy twitched the blade and the wizard cut off with a snarl.
“Then the fuck-up was inherent of your code. Because your game?” Lucy shook his head. “Your game doesn’t have a clue what to do with players that are stranded between here and terra firma. So you know what it’s doing with them?”
Kitty’s eyes felt too heavy. She tried to let them close, but instead they just kept blinking, blinking, blinking, throwing Lucy and the wizard’s debate into darkness every few seconds. The searing discomfort in her body ebbed, a shoreline of aching pain that washed up and through her in time to the forceful drumming of her heart.
“It recycles them.” Lucy’s voice was hoarse. “Forces them into the role of an NPC. Forcing them to replay that role again and again.”
“I didn’t—”
“No.” Lucy sneered. “Of course you didn’t. You didn’t care enough to. So what if there were a few glitches? Everyone knows consumers make the best beta testers. If anyone can fuck shit up, it’s them.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t even try. We know, wizard. I know. I was there, every fucking step of the way.”
The wizard’s head twitched to the side. He winced, his hands wrapping around Lucy’s fist where he held the blade buried inside Rumple’s torso.
“How? How…”
“That’s right,” Lucy mused. “You never came down into the dungeon, did you? Why would a wizard—” he spat the word “—like you ever interact with a bunch of code monkeys?”
“You were… in the dungeon?”
“From inception, mate. From that first day General Gaming told us what they were building, and from that first day I knew what a shit-storm it was going to rain down on us.” Lucy gave a soft, bitter laugh. “I tried to tell you so many times. But who on the top floor ever reads anything from the dungeon, right?”
Lucy was so intent on Rumple, so fixated on reading the man’s response or trying to illicit argument from him, Kitty could have stood up and walked away. Probably. Maybe. She could have tried, anyway… had she not suddenly seemed to have lost the belief that she had two operable legs again. Here, anyway. Had the pain not debilitated her mind to such an extent that every thought was an arduous trek through a scorching desert.
The wizard had done something to her. Something… he’d messed with the link. Between her body and her avatar. The connection was misfiring, or—
“And then it was one too many emails, and you fired me. Well, not you, of course. How could you? You never knew I existed. Never knew I’d been hired, never knew I’d been fired, yeah?” Lucy leaned in closer again, his nose less than an inch away from the wizard’s. His voice dropped to a hiss.
“But The Pirate Party knew. They’d been keeping track. Of me… of everyone.”
The wizard drew an audible breath and Lucy nodded slowly, repeatedly, his lips curling up at the edges.
“I said no every time they contacted me. Until the last. Until after I’d been fired for raising hell about your illegal downloads. Ironic, isn’t it? That The Pirate Party were just as concerned as me about the data you planned on mining from each and every player that put on your piece of shit Mindware?”
“We never—”
“No? Really?” Lucy’s voice was little less than a shout now. “So it was entirely coincidental that what you claimed to be a safe transmission of a few harmless thoughts became a direct link allowing you to download every action, every memory, every piece of data your players had stored in their brain?”
And now Lucy was shouting, and every semblance of serenity and composure evaporated in an instant. He slammed his fist into the rock beside the wizard’s head.
“We’re going to end you,” Lucy whispered. “And I’m going to love every second of it. Every… fucking… second.”
He ripped the knife free from Rumple’s stomach. The wizard slid down a few inches, pointy hat now askew. He wrapped both hands over the wound. There was a flash of intense blue light that speared out from between his fingers, gone an instant later. Rumple peeled away his fingers, mouth slack as he stared down at the rent in his robe: still bloody, still gaping.
“That’s… im—im—im” the wizard began in a breathless stutter.
“Impossible?” Lucy laughed and drove the knife into the wizard’s chest. “Nope. Just very, very difficult. The Party chose me for a reason. Reckon it’s cause I’m just so fucking good. What do you think?” Another twist of the knife, the wizard slumping. “You reckon I’m right, wizard?”
The wizard didn’t have an opinion on this. He would never have an opinion on anything, ever again. Lucy yanked free the knife, letting the wizard slither to the ground. He turned and kicked the old man over the edge of the cliff, leaning over to watch as he wiped his knife absently against the leg of his pants.
Kitty swayed.
She couldn’t have stood up if she’d been on fire.
She was on fire… back on Earth. Maybe she was burning to death: flames caused by some random electrical fire consuming her. That would explain the pain. She retched, shuddering as her muscles spasmed, the movement translating through the Mindware into her avatar.
Everything stuttered.
Lucy came closer.
The crunch of his footsteps wasn’t in sync with his footfalls.
His boots shifted left then right in her field of view, blurring between. He grabbed her hair and tilted back her head so she was forced to look up at him. Then he crouched down, holding her at the same contorted angle, studying her for a few seconds.
“Didn’t think you had it in you,” he said. “You keep surprising me, Kitty. Just when I think you’ve pouted your last pout, or huffed your last huff, you still have the guts to defy me.”
“I thought it was all my fault,” she whispered.
“You did, didn’t you?” Lucy shook his head. “You’re just as easily misled as the rest of the fucking world, aren’t you? I can’t blame you, of course. It comes naturally, in our generation. Too natur
ally. Like breathing.”
“Won’t tell you,” she said. “Never, ever.”
“You still holding onto that self-righteous sense of honour?” His eyes drew into slits. “You fucking two-faced pirate. What, because crackers are only good for cracking games so you can spend your slave-money on mass-produced shit imported from sweatshops, made by slaves just like you?”
He spat to the side, his gaze returning ablaze with anger.
“It wouldn’t even matter that I told you why, would it? It never matters why we do anything, does it? You call us hacktivists like it’s a dirty word, a little joke you tell to each other while you zone out to alpha waves disguised as entertainment?”
“I won’t tell,” Kitty repeated.
She held onto those words with a dreadful intensity, knowing that if she let them slip from her then she would vanish with them. Lucy’s face smeared, dissolving into Chimera for a second before snapping back into focus.
“Stop fighting me.”
“I won’t tell.”
“This can all be over. I can take you home, Kitty.”
“Never… ever…” her voice came from such a long way away.
“It’s just two or three little words. A place. A location. Where did you drop it?”
“Won’t…” her speech was slurring. Why couldn’t she form her words anymore? What was she hiding from? What was she hiding? The rootkit! She wouldn’t tell him. Never. Ever. Ever.
Hands gripped her wrists. They drew her hands from the floor. Lucy shook her until she opened her eyes and looked at him. His irises were so black, they swallowed his pupils.
There was nothing behind them. Just emptiness. A void.
She fell into them, sucked through the aperture like Rumple had sucked out her thoughts just moments — hours — before. She struggled vainly, trying to draw away from whatever waited beyond, whatever hungered for her presence.
But thank the void: there was only emptiness.
53
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Lucy? Where am I? What is this place?
LUCY_FUR_666: It’s nowhere. We’re nothing.
BAD_KITTY_69: What the fuck? How? Why?
LUCY_FUR_666: Because of my super-duper hacker skills, and because I don’t know where we’re going yet.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: I’m going to lose my mind. I can’t not have something to/a shape or/I need
LUCY_FUR_666: Solidity? I know. The sooner you tell me where the rootkit is, the sooner I can slap us back into an avatar. Pick your rift, mate.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: What are you talking about?
LUCY_FUR_666: Really? You’re going to pull that move out here? Now?
…
BAD_KITTY_69: I’m not showing you where it is.
LUCY_FUR_666: You don’t have to. You can’t, anyway. You’ll have to tell me. We’re nothing but thought out here. In here.
BAD_KITTY_69: Not telling you either.
LUCY_FUR_666: Then get used to the feeling of being nothing but a disembodied thought.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: I’m not telling you.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: You’re scum.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Lying, cheating, sneaking hacker/cracker scum.
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: You think you can do whatever you want? There are rules. Rules are there for a reason. I never got what made you so… so fucking malicious, anyway. I mean, I get cracking games. That makes sense. But randomly hacking peoples stuff… what: for the fun of it? Why? How does that do anything for you? Is there like some kind of hall of fame where your name goes up in flashing lights when you reach a high score or something?
…
BAD_KITTY_69: I mean, what’s your problem?
…
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Lucy?
…
BAD_KITTY_69: All hackers are scum. Really, really scummy scum. Bottom of the pond kind of scum. Or… drifting on top, disgusting pollution kind of scum.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Lucy!
…
…
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Lucy?
BAD_KITTY_69: I’ll never tell you.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Lucy… You can… Are you still?
…
BAD_KITTY_69: I don’t feel… I think I’m hyperventilating. Everything’s… I’m shaking… I think. I… my methadone. Once a day. I need it. Now, I think. I’ve lost track—
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Time. Lost time. Everything’s… am I still here? Are you… still—
…
…
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Here? Lucy? You? Still? Here? Lucy? I—You—Why… I can’t…
LUCY_FUR_666: I’m here.
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: I need to get out.
LUCY_FUR_666: Yes.
BAD_KITTY_69: Please.
LUCY_FUR_666: Yes.
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: It didn’t work. I’m still—
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Here. Lucy? You there? You can’t—
LUCY_FUR_666: Where do you want to go?
BAD_KITTY_69: Home.
LUCY_FUR_666: Where’s home?
BAD_KITTY_69: Durban. That’s in… South Africa.
LUCY_FUR_666: Yes.
BAD_KITTY_69: You’ll take me home?
LUCY_FUR_666: Yes. Where is home?
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Durban.
LUCY_FUR_666: We need to fetch something first.
BAD_KITTY_69: Will. But he’s… where is he? Where’s Will?
LUCY_FUR_666: Not Will. We need to fetch something.
BAD_KITTY_69: Will. Where’s—
LUCY_FUR_666: We need to fetch something. You dropped it. Something I gave to you.
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: I’ll never tell.
LUCY_FUR_666: You don’t have to tell. You just have to think. Think of where it is. Just a single thought. Your ticket home. Home to your flat in Amanzimtoti.
BAD_KITTY_69: Never. Never ever, ever. Hacker scum. I’ll never.
…
…
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Don’t leave again.
…
…
…
LUCY_FUR_666: We can be friends.
…
BAD_KITTY_69: You’ll take me home?
LUCY_FUR_666: Where is home?
…
BAD_KITTY_69: Durban. I told you.
LUCY_FUR_666: Where is home?
BAD_KITTY_69: Durban.
LUCY_FUR_666: Where is home?
BAD_KITTY_69: Durban.
LUCY_FUR_666: Where is it?
BAD_KITTY_69: Durban.
LUCY_FUR_666: Where is it?
BAD_KITTY_69: Fanta— No. I won’t—
LUCY_FUR_666: You just did.
54
Kitty opened her eyes to a trembling, shimmering world devoid of colour. The pain was gone. At least, she didn’t feel it anymore. Did that mean she wasn’t connected to her real body anymore?
She scrambled up and spun around, trying to fix on something concrete, something that would stop her mind spiralling into unending panic.
Then she found it.
It was Lucy.
He stood a few yards away, one hand pressed to the twisted shape of a black tree. His avatar jostled against the tree trunk, his hand sinking inside it before bouncing out and hovering an inch from its surface. He didn’t seem to notice. His attention, instead, was f
ixed on something in the distance.
Kitty lifted her eyes, focusing further. Her chin dipped to press into her chest as she turned stiff shoulders to scan the stretch of game visible ahead.
They stood on the top of an uncertain hill, its peak stuttering back and forth in relation to the sky above and the trees below. The grass was flat squares of black, gray splinters peeking out every few yards where textures were no longer accurately mapped to the game’s architecture.
Kitty took a hesitant step forward. Her feet had no difficulty moving, but she was standing on an invisible plane an inch above the fake grass below.
It was too still. Nothing moved except their jittering hillock. No trees shifted, no clouds drifted across the white sky. There was sound though. If it could be called that. A single tone, stretched to infinity. Like an isolated piano key from this rift’s score, forever trapped in the glitch that killed it.
“She was here when it happened,” Lucy said.
Kitty started at the unexpected sound. He turned to her, and she took a hurried step back. His avatar was some low-poly model of a man, his clothing nothing more than a dark texture, blurred at the edges, pulled taut over the ill-defined outline. She glanced down at herself and became rigid. Her avatar was identical to his: shapeless, sexless, as rough-hewn as a child’s first attempt at clay sculpting.
He beckoned her with an arm that didn’t have a proper elbow. She came closer, moving woodenly, slowing as she neared.
“What do you think happens to a player when a glitch that causes this—” his hand took in the distorted mind-scape below with an awkward sweep “—touches them?”
Kitty shook her head. “I-I don’t—”
“You wouldn’t know. I don’t even know.” He turned to her then.
His eyes weren’t the same. Despite being framed by the desolation spread out below, they looked too bleak to be real.
“Where is it?” Lucy's voice rasped.
“The health potion?”
“Where?” He pronounced the word carefully.
“Where are we?” Kitty asked, her eyes skittering away to scan the shattered rift behind him.
“Fantasia.”
“Then… here.” She swallowed. “Somewhere.”
His eyes bore into her, compelling her gaze to return to him.
“The witch’s cottage,” she said. “In the cellar.”
The world blurred, snapping into focus an instant later. Kitty stumbled and reached out to steady herself. Lucy twisted to face her when she gripped his arm, no expression touching his avatar’s rudimentary features. Jerking her hand away, Kitty glanced around.
