Glitch Book Two

by Victor Deckard

  > You’re overloaded!

  So I was forced to get rid of some items. Once “You’re overloaded!” message disappeared, my movement speed got back to normal. I contemplated for a spell and decided it was time to return to the Resurrection Pod to have all my stuff deposited in it. After splitting the mall, I set off. Nothing nasty befell me on my way back.

  Still, I was disappointed to find out that none of the items I’d carried over could be deposited in the pod. It weirded me out. I commenced fumbling with the pod’s control panel, trying to figure out what was wrong. After some tapping on the screen, I opened a tab with a user’s guide of sorts and went over it to learn that a pod had the limited space. It could hold only one armor set, one weapon of any sort, and a few other small items, such as ingredients or first aid kits.

  So all those items I’d carried over here couldn’t be deposited it the pod unless I removed the biker armor set from the pod. Which I surely wasn’t going to do.

  I pondered over it for a short while. What to do? The duffel bag was stuffed with lots of goodies. I wasn’t intent on ditching them. But carrying them along all the time wasn’t wise either. If only I could stash them away somewhere–– An idea came into my mind. Yet before I could think it through, something happened.

  A needle-thin laser beam shot through the window the Resurrection Pod sat by, a small green dot settling on my chest. I quickly looked up to see two players in the street. One of them, a big burly guy with a mop of shaggy hair, wore tattered clothes. His brawny arms hung loosely at his beefy sides.

  > Name: Bigman

  > Level: 7

  By his side stood a smaller player. It was him who’d zeroed in on my chest with an assault rifle fitted with a laser sight.

  > Name: Crayne

  > Level: 10

  “Don’t move, lad,” He said when our eyes met. “Or else I’ll get you peppered.”

  I didn’t budge.

  “Aright, lad, now get out of there and come over here but do it slow. Real slow.”

  I sized the situation I’d found myself in up. I’d recently been killed by Kilgour who has level 7 then. So it was no use trying to defeat those two guys. Thus, I didn’t have much of a choice. I’d either surrender or die. Simple as that.

  Crayne didn’t like my hesitation.

  “Look, lad, you best ditch whatever you’ve got on your mind right now,” He said, his index finger caressing the trigger. “You’re only level 2 so my piece can rip you to shreds in no time.”

  “Okay, I’m leaving,” I grumbled and turned around to head for the entrance door.

  Crayne realized I was going to leave the building through the door, but he wasn’t all that keen on letting me out of sight even for a few moments.

  “No!” He said quickly. “Climb out the window.”

  I was forced to submit to his demand. While climbing out, I tried to figure out what they wanted from me. They would’ve murdered me already had they wanted to. Were they muggers? I doubted that. Bigman and Crayne were level 7 and 10 respectively. So what reason would they have needed my low-level stuff for? If they actually just wanted to take my stuff off me, why didn’t they open fire on me yet? Why would they need me alive?

  Still, all these questions occupied my mind not for long. I was well aware that there was no point in figuring the players’ intentions out, for I would learn it before long.

  After I finally got out of the building, I headed toward the players who intently watched me approaching them.

  Chapter two

  I came to a stop a couple of steps away from the twosome. Crayne kept his eye on me. His assault rifle was still aimed at me.

  Bigman observed me as well but with a bored expression on his face. Moreover, he looked uninterested in what was happening in front of him right now for some reason. Or he might just have been deep in thought, reflecting on some subject or something.

  His ragged clothes barely covered his big sturdy frame. He carried a huge and seemingly heavy backpack on his back. It struck me as surprising that Bigman was unarmed. Yet he surely had to have his weapon stowed away in the backpack. More to the point, I could tell beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bigman could easily take me down with his bare hands.

  Regarding the big guy, I noticed something curious. He had a strip of metal wrapped around his neck. What the heck was that? Some kind of adornment boosting the player’s stats or something?

  Crayne shifted slightly all of a sudden, which made me switch my attention toward him. To my sincere amazement, he lowered his gun and grinned crookedly.

  “I’m sorry for having freaked you out,” He uttered amiably. “As you know, it’s no crime to be twice as vigilant in this game. But I’ve got no nothing against you, so there’s no need to get your panties in a bunch. Chill out, bud.”

  “Whaddya want?” I wanted to know, still on full alert.

  “I see you got a pretty large bag,” He replied. “Lots of goodies in there, huh?”

  My body tightened instantly. It didn’t go unnoticed by the player.

  “Geez. Relax, man,” Crayne said pronto. “Like I said, I ain’t gonna mug you or something.”

  I simply clammed up regarding the player suspiciously.

  “From your level, you’re still a newbie. You’ve only recently started to play, haven’t you?”

  “Yep,” I responded curtly.

  “Look at my nickname. What color is it?”

  “White.”

  “Right. The same as yours. Do you know what that means? You kill players, your nickname gets gradually red. First, it gets somewhat reddish, then it gets more and more darker with each killing on your part. So as you see, my nickname is purely white. I haven’t killed other players and ain’t gonna start now,” Crayne grinned all of a sudden and added. “I mean, I’ve never killed white-nicknamed players. But some PK has sustained much harm at the hands of me. Killing PKs doesn’t change your nickname’s color, by the way.”

  Now I remembered something. Turned my head and took another look at Bigman. The nickname above his head was brightly red.

  “What about your pal? Isn’t he a PK?”

  A lupine grin spread across Crayne’s face.

  “Don’t mind him. Just treat him as nothing. This prick’s totally harmless now.”

  Bigman clenched his surprisingly large fists in anger. He said nothing, yet a furious expression on his face gave him away. Seemed as though he barely held back his wrath. I took a step backward unintentionally and asked, “If he ain’t your friend, why does he tag along?”

  “All right, if you’re so curious then listen,” Crayne began. “Long story short. This big guy here is a PK. He’s been working weaker players over on end. Including me. He’s been slaying me a few times a day. I had to play discreetly so as not to run into him. And then I struck up a friendship with some other players who had also been killed by him. So one day we teamed up to ambush Bigman. We managed to immobilize him for a few seconds, which was enough for us to put a slave collar on him. Sure we could’ve killed him while he was frozen, but then this whole situation would’ve been returned to its former state. After reviving, Bigman would’ve started to hunt us down again. He had level 14 back then while each of us had only level 7 or so. It would’ve been impossible to get him trapped once again. Like they say, opportunity knocks but once. So that’s why I came up with the slave collar plan.”

  As he told me this story, Crayne had this shit-eating grin spread across his face, which annoyed me a great deal. Obviously, he was awfully pleased with himself for having gotten even with the PK.

  “Truth be told,” Crayne continued. “Wearing the slave collar made him even angrier. He tried to kill me a couple of times. He even nearly managed to pull it off once. Like I said, he had level 14 back then. Each dying caused him to lose experience points and his level to drop. Now he’s weaker than me and no longer trying to charge at me.”

  Eventually, Crayne shut up
. I looked at the slave collar around Bigman’s neck. I wasn’t very keen on listening to Crayne’s smug blabbering, yet I had to learn more about slave collars. So I posed the question, “What exactly does this thing do?”

  “You’ve never encountered such a thing, huh?” Crayne grinned. “Watch out for these things. If someone once put one of those on you, you’ll have to become his or her obedient slave. Now have a look at this,” Crayne raised his left hand to reveal something along the lines of a metal bracelet looped around his wrist. “See this button? When pushed, it sends a surge of electric power through his body. It can electrocute him within a few seconds. He can’t get away from me. If he walks farther than a hundred yards away from me, then he’ll be getting electric damage. With having the collar on, upon death he revives not inside a Resurrection Pod but at my side. The same goes for exiting the game. He can quit the game whenever he wants to, but after reconnecting to the game, he always appears at my side. Also, he can’t take the collar off on his own. If he tries to do it, he’ll be getting electric damage. So he’s stuck to me and has to comply with my orders. As you see, he’s bearing my stuff now.”

  In his speech, Crayne accidentally touched on the subject I was extremely interested in.

  “About quittin’ the game,” I said selecting my words with utmost discretion. “I’ve got a small issue here. Can’t seem to quit the game. You wouldn’t happen to know what the matter with that might be?”

  Crayne stared at me for a second or two. Then he burst into a guffaw.

  “What, this is your first online virtual game, isn’t?” He chuckled. “Playing my first MMO, way back when, I had such an ‘issue’ too. I kept playing the game on end, day after day. Just couldn’t bring myself to quit it. I didn’t care about the real life anymore. Totally forgot my family, friends, online school, and even my girlfriend.”

  “You got me misinterpreted. I can’t quit the game literally. I’d be glad to do so but the Quit the game button won’t work.”

  Crayne wasn’t laughing anymore. The player made an attempt to disguise his reaction, yet I was able to notice his features cloud for a moment.

  “You mean you got stuck in the game? Trapped in here?” He inquired doubtfully.

  “Seemed to be that way.”

  “Quit putting me on!”

  “I’m tellin’ the truth, dude.”

  “Really? So you’re saying you’re trapped in the game? It’s impossible! Only the very first virtual games had such issues. And it was a few decades ago. Developers long since figured it out and fixed the problem. No such a problem was registered in more than fifty years. Players don’t get trapped in virtual games anymore.”

  So he didn’t buy it. To prove my story to be true I lifted my left hand and looked at the crystal. Once the Main Menu appeared, I shifted my gaze toward the gray-colored Quit button. Sure enough, nothing happened.

  “See?” I asked. “Does this convince you?”

  “Nope. When one stares at the crystal, their menu is visible only to them. Other players can’t see it.”

  I cussed under my breath.

  “So you still don’t believe me?”

  “Honestly? No.”

  “Why would I lie to you?”

  “Not a clue.”

  There was a strained hush as we both went silent for a moment.

  “Could you at least tell me what year it is now?”

  “Don’t remember. Why? Anyway, if you’re so curious, just look up this in the Encyclopedia, there’s the History of the World tab, y’know.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about the game!”

  “Then what about?”

  “The outside world! What year is it in the real world now?”

  Crayne grinned again but this time his smile looked shaky, insincere.

  “Whatcha talking about? You got only level 2 so you must be playing the game for only two days, tops. So how could you forget the current year?”

  I drew in a long breath and uttered, “Twenty-eighteen.”

  “Come again?” The player’s brow furrowed.

  “It’s the year two-thousand and eighteen.”

  Crayne looked at me as if I were insane.

  “This is patent nonsense. Are you nuts?”

  “I mean it was twenty-eighteen before I found myself in this game. I visited a clinic, blacked out in there for some reason, and came around in this game, havin’ no clue as to how I’d ended up in here. Quittin’ the game won’t work. The button is gray-colored, that is to say, inactive. So I was transferred farther into the future and dumped in this game.”

  A constrained silence fell over us again. Nobody said anything awhile.

  “Do I have to put up with this bullshit?” Bigman opened his mouth for the first time. “Leave that freak alone already!”

  “Keep your trap shut,” Crayne snapped at him, keeping his eye on me all the time.

  “You don’t believe me, but I ain’t makin’ this up. My story’s true and––”

  Crayne suddenly raised his assault rifle and pointed it at me.

  “Enough is enough!” He said sharply. “I ain’t gonna put up with this any longer!”

  “Finally,” Bigman muttered.

  “So you’d better cut the crap,” Crayne said to me, ignoring Bigman. “Or else I’ll shoot you down!”

  All this finally set my teeth on edge.

  “Go ahead!” I shouted. “Shoot me if you want to. Do you think I really care about it? I don’t give a rat’s ass about this stupid game! All I want is find out how come I ended up in the game and why I cannot split it.”

  I raised my voice without even noticing it and unintentionally took a step forward. Crayne instantly sprang backward and nearly yelled, “Stay back! I have no idea what you’re up to, what you’re trying to accomplish, but you best quit putting me on. No more mentions of your lame story or I’ll croak you, you hear?”

  I had level 2 while Crayne level 10. Fighting him would surely result in his defeat of me. We both knew that for sure. Nevertheless, he acted like a yellow belly. He deemed me to be a total nut. You never know what to expect from a crazy. You never know what a downright psycho is capable of.

  And it was obvious that Crayne considered me crazy. If I were to continue trying to make him believe my story, he’d surely gun me down despite him doing his best not to stain his reputation of being a nice guy who refrained from killing peace-loving players.

  Yet it goes without saying that I might’ve acted the same way if I were in his shoes.

  I regarded him for a spell. Once my wrath abated somewhat, I took a deep breath, and said, “Okay, forget everything I’ve just told you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  He lowered his weapon, the muzzle downcast now. But the player still eyed me in a suspicious way.

  “So what have you wanted from me?” I asked the question that I’d posed at the very beginning of our conversation.

  Judging from a puzzled expression plastered on his face, Crayne himself had already forgotten what reason he’d fetched me for. He then recollected.

  “Oh yeah, I just wanted to know what you bear in your bag,” He replied. “In order to trade.”

  “There’s only light armor and stuff like that. Only the green. Don’t think you need any of those considering the pretty big gap between our levels.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” He said. Given a slightly nervous note in his voice, Crayne still didn’t forget that he was talking to a possible psycho. “Because I need not your items themselves but ingredients that could be extracted off them.”

  Guess a perplexed expression appeared on my face since Crayne went on to explain further, “You probably didn’t learn yet that items could be taken apart in order to get ingredients they’re made up of, like chitin, metal, leather, you name it. But you have to unlock a particular skill in the Survival menu beforehand. So I’ve been hunting for all kinds of resources all morning long.”
>
  “What do you need them for?” I asked although I already knew that one needed resources for creating various stuff, but I asked anyway because I wanted Crayne, much more experienced player, to elaborate on that to get some helpful hints.

  “Ain’t it obvious? One needs recourses for crafting useful items of all sorts. You might as well go through skills in the Survival and Building menus. There lots of useful skills. Besides, one needs ingredients not only for creating new items but also for repairing the old ones. So even if you don’t need resources at the moment, you’d better gather them anyway. Sooner or later you’ll need them. There lots of players and only so many ingredients to go around in the game. So yeah. Think you get the idea.”

  “All right, what can you offer me for my stuff?”

  “You’re a Warlock, right? I’ve got a pretty sick pistol. I don’t need it, but you may like it. And in addition to the handgun, I can give you some money.”

  “Well, guess I’ll take a look at the pistol.”

  Crayne mentioned for Bigman to get the item. The big guy obeyed the given command, but rather unwillingly. I wondered whether he could get rid of the slave collar somehow. Because it was lame if a player, who once was put a collar on, had to wear it and comply with another player’s orders all the time. Perhaps a slave collar lasted for a limited amount of time. If this was the case, then Crayne had better watch it. I wouldn’t want to be around when the slave collar expired and Bigman could do whatever he wanted.

  Bigman dug into the backpack, pulled out the pistol, and showed it to me. It was the same Screamer I’d recently deposited in the Resurrection Pod. Probably the handgun Bigman holding in his hand had slightly different stats, but anyway, the pistol was “green”, i.e. uncommon, just like the Screamer of my own, and its level requirement was 5 as well.

  “But I’m only level 2,” I said to Crayne doubtfully. “Can’t use it right now.”

  “Sure you can’t. But you’ll level up to 5 in nothing flat. Especially now, when there’re few players online. I recommend you descend into the subway. Mutant rats dwell down there. They’re weak, yet there’re tons of them in there. You’ll get a few levels just in a couple of hours. By the way, it won’t take long to reach level 10 in this game. Just watch out for PKs.”