Fragged

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “I dunno, pick a thing,” I replied with a chuckle, “that dude’s entire thing is that he wants to piss us off, so he’s just gonna say random shit until we give him the reaction he wants.”

  Pete turned around to face me with a confused expression in response to that, but it took him a couple of moments to actually ask his question, “Why’re you talking about him like he’s a real dude and not just random blocks of text?”

  “I…” I trailed off as I realised that not only was I talking about the contextual notifications like he was a person, I was actually thinking of him as a person.

  A person that was communicating with us.

  A person who was watching what we were doing.

  What I was doing.

  “Zoey?” Pete asked concernedly, pulling me back to reality by putting a hand on my shoulder and stopping me in my tracks.

  “Sorry, zoned out there for a second,” I said, deciding it was for the best that I played it off and pretended I wasn’t absolutely cuckoo, “anyway, yeah, just… I don’t know, call it… what’s that one where you treat things like a person?”

  “Personification?” Brendo chuckled as he and the others caught up, “Person’s right in there.”

  “I’m not a dictionary,” I replied somewhat cattily before taking my place at the front of our group and leading us the rest of the way to the elevator, “my point is that it’s just easier for me to say ‘he’ than it considering he’s always such a truth.”

  “S’pose that makes sense,” Miles said with a nod, “he’s seemed a bit specific in here though, and he hasn’t really lied yet.”

  “Except for the fact that he thought we came in here without any ammo,” I clarified matter-of-factly as I pressed the button to call the elevator, “he isn’t watching us or anything.”

  That statement earned me more than a few confused expressions, which was probably justified, but still, it was a bit rude.

  “Oh, like none of you haven’t thought about it,” I said pointedly, “shit, I feel like that throughout my regular day-to-day stuff.”

  “What you’re describing in the real world is latent religious feelings,” Julian interjected right before Paul could agree with me, “in here it’s different. It’s like he knows you, right? Says the stuff that he knows will get to you?”

  I didn’t like the way Julian was speaking, the tone of his voice almost a bit too knowing, but I successfully pretended it didn’t faze me, “I’m pretty sure no one likes getting told they’re going to die right as they encounter anything remotely dangerous, or being called an idiot for that matter.”

  I’m sure Julian would’ve continued to make me question my sanity if the elevator hadn’t arrived, and even then he looked like he was still trying to gear up to say something big that he couldn’t quite get out.

  Not that it mattered though as I, along with the others, quickly became obsessed with making absolutely sure there was no way that the elevator could have some kind of trap or spring-loaded dino shooter.

  Yes, technically a spring-loaded dino shooter would be classified as a trap, we were very specifically looking for a spring-loaded dino shooter.

  I’m going to go ahead and stop saying spring-loaded dino shooter now.

  …

  Spring-loaded dino shooter.

  Chapter Eight

  One thoroughly boring and spring-loaded dino shooter-less elevator ride later and we found ourselves on the next, entirely too purple floor.

  “Looks like the narrator was obviously telling the truth…” Brendo trailed off as we stepped out of the elevator and looked at the various consoles, hefty-looking crates, and pressure plates around the room.

  “Just keep an eye out for movement,” I warned after doing another quick scan with my DMR, “last thing we need is to be doin’ some puzzle shit and end up with a trike’s horn up our arses.”

  “Is this one horn or several?” Pete asked as we tentatively moved across the floor.

  “What?”

  “Like, are we all getting anally shish-kabobed on the one horn or are we getting attacked by multiple trikes with multiple horns?”

  That was enough to earn Pete a little laugh from Miles and, as much as I hate to admit it, me, spurring me to gesture for the guys to lower their weapons.

  “Alright, spread out,” I said as I relaxed, “if you see something, say something.”

  “You got it, boss.” Pete replied before gesturing for Miles to follow him as he went over to one of the consoles in the furthest corner of the room.

  “Weird, huh?” Paul whispered as the others fanned out while he and Chad stayed behind with me.

  “What’s that?” I asked before leading us over to the console in the right corner closest to the elevator we’d come out of.

  “All… this,” Paul replied after waving his hand at the room, “it’s got a real… I don’t know, finale vibe.”

  I didn’t want to say I agreed with him, but I really did.

  Thing is, there wasn’t really a reason to feel that way. As far as everyone else was concerned we were just having another run of the mill gaming experience, but while looking around I really did feel like we were on the second last episode of some crappy TV show.

  Truth be told though, I was kind of glad that I wasn’t alone in my way of thinking for the sole reason that it made me feel a little bit more sane.

  “What about you, Chad?” I asked after discovering the blue-lighted console I was at did little more than flicker and hum, “You feel like this is the end?”

  Chad shrugged in response after a few seconds then smiled, “Maybe a little. Can’t really see what we’d do after this, you know? Not in a ‘how can we top this’ way either.”

  “More like a ‘there’s nothing after this’ way, yeah?” I finished for him, “Yeah, I know what you mean. You reckon the others feel it though?”

  “I think Miles and Pete are feelin’ it a bit,” Paul replied after jutting his jaw towards them as they did something with the console in the corner opposite ours, “I know you guys probably can’t hear it, but it sounds to me like they’re making up.”

  “And that makes you think they’re looking at this as the end because..?” I trailed off with an amused grin.

  “Well, why else would they suddenly start being nice to each other?” Paul scoffed, “Besides, I’ve heard them say a few things here and there about how they’re gonna ‘sort things out’ when we’re done with the Spire.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you heard?” Chad asked with a little grin, “Could it have been some thinly veiled threat or something?”

  Paul went to respond with something witty, but I stopped with a somewhat stern “Alright, you two keep looking around here, I’m gonna go check on the others.”

  Neither of them seemed particularly happy with the fact that I’d stopped their fun bit of banter, but they quickly accepted my order and left me so I could go over to Pete and Miles.

  I’m not sure why I wanted to talk to them about what Paul had said, it seemed pretty personal after all, but there was some part of me that felt like it was important to get an update from them, and not even for any kind of emotional reason.

  I don’t exactly know how to explain it, but it was like I was collecting information for a survey or a database. Actually, it was more like I was getting info from Beta testers, like I was filling out a sort of ‘How could we have improved your experience?’ form for them.

  “Hey, guys,” I said once I was within a few feet of Pete and Miles, ignoring the fact that Brendo kept running back and forth across the room for some reason “heard you guys are lookin’ at patchin’ things up.”

  “Eavesdrop much?” Pete light-heartedly scoffed.

  “Yeah,” Miles replied with a roll of his eyes that was clearly directed at Pete, “all this has made us… I don’t know, I guess we appreciate each other more, you know?”

  “Makes sense to me,” I said with a nod, “and I’m glad, truly. I hope it bri
ngs something good to the team.”

  Miles sucked through his teeth in response to that, and then turned to look at Pete as if to say ‘You wanna take this one?’

  “That’s the thing,” Pete said solemnly after a few seconds, “we’ve kinda hit the point where we wanna take a break. This has been great and all, but it’s startin’ to get a bit much, like it’s taking up too much space in our heads. It’s like we need to defrag, reboot, get a fresh start.”

  I went to plead with them to stay, but only managed to let out a slightly dejected sigh, “I wish I could say I didn’t get what you guys meant.”

  “Didn’t?” Miles asked confusedly.

  “Yeah, because otherwise I’d be tryin’ a whole lot harder to keep you around.”

  Pete and Miles shared a look over that, one mixed of confusion and relief, before Pete turned back to me and said “So… you’re not mad?” with all the innocence of a primary schooler.

  “Not even at all,” I replied with a tired shake of my head, “truth be told, I’ve been having a bit of a rough time too.”

  “Seriously?” Miles huffed amusedly, “Well, that’s a load off my shoulders.”

  Pete didn’t seem quite as relieved to hear the news that I wasn’t pissed about them wanting to turn it in, but I didn’t really feel like pursuing the many reasons why that would be.

  Luckily, Brendo had an out for me.

  “Hey!” he called over with a laugh from the other side of the room, “I’ve figured it out!”

  “Figured what out?” I asked, briefly forgetting that we were meant to be solving puzzles and not working through emotional crap.

  “What we’re supposed to do,” Brendo answered proudly as we all walked over to him and his console, “as far as I can see it’s some kind of… Okay, I thought I’d be able to say something smart about math or some shit, but basically you activate one of the coloured consoles and the corresponding pressure pad lights up. From there you’ve gotta get a crate onto the pad before it goes out.”

  “Seems simple enough,” Chad said, “why haven’t you done yours yet?”

  “Can’t move fast enough,” Brendo replied, “I’ve been trying, but the pressure pad for this one is on the other side of the room.”

  There was a part of me that didn’t really want to solve the puzzle, to just keep on going with what we were doing, but another, louder part of me clearly wanted to murder that first part for even suggesting we leave a puzzle unfinished.

  “Yo, Julian,” I shouted over at the most useless guy in our party, “mind movin’ a crate over to that… red one? Yeah, the red one.”

  It took Julian a second to realise I was talking to him, but then he nodded and ran over to one of the crates and started pushing it towards the pad I was pointing at, which was in front of the console in the left corner beside the elevator.

  “Go ahead and light it up, Brendo.” I barely managed to get out before Brendo had eagerly pressed the console’s screen.

  Yeah, I’m pretty sure he’d already pressed it before I’d said anything, but I didn’t mind.

  Much.

  Anyway, Julian managed to get the crate onto the pad on time, which caused a white pressure panel to pop up near the centre of the room.

  “Well…” I trailed off with a grin, “that’s interesting. Four crates, five panels… Alright, let’s get these other console ones done, then we’ll figure out what to do with the white ones.”

  Sadly, it didn’t take very long for us to get the rest of the white pads to pop up, of which there were four, forming a square around a four-by-four metre space in the middle of the room.

  “That was easy,” Chad said as we walked over and admired our handiwork, “a little too ea-”

  “I will knock you out again,” Pete warned sternly, “but this time I’m just gonna throw you down an elevator shaft.”

  There was clearly some part of Chad that wanted to test that theory, but Miles stepping onto one of the panels stopped him before he could start.

  Suddenly Miles was in a cage of what looked like lasers as the pad below his feet began to glow with a burning white light.

  Gotcha!

  The text didn’t have to pop up for us to know that he was trapped, although none of us were particularly fazed by the bizarre turn of events, least of all Miles who, if anything, seemed mildly disappointed.

  “Alright,” our trapped compatriot said with a sigh, “I’m guessin’ this is the part where three more of you step onto the panels, eh?”

  I thought there’d be some kind of discussion about who we’d need on the next floor, but before anyone could say anything, Pete went ahead and stepped onto the panel closest to him where he was trapped like Miles.

  That’s two!

  “What the Hell!?” I shouted as I looked between the two of them, “Sorry in advanced guys, but we could’ve really used you, Pete, you’re our best fighter.”

  “Eh,” Pete replied with a dismissive shrug, “I’m sure y’all will be able to handle it.”

  And with that, Brendo stepped onto one of the panels.

  One to go!

  “Fuckin’ lemmings, the lot o’ you!” I snapped, successfully hiding the fact that Brendo trapping himself was far less impactful than Pete’s inconsiderate self-jailing.

  “Are you seriously gonna sit there and tell me that, out of the five of us that were left, I wasn’t your next choice?” Brendo asked with a somewhat sad half-smile.

  “No,” I said before nodding towards Julian, “he was my next choice.”

  “Thanks.” Julian replied sarcastically then returned to his passive observing state.

  “I wasn’t really a part of the main group,” Brendo continued after a few seconds had gone by in silence, “and I don’t think I ever could’ve been. I came in too late, you know? I didn’t pair off like the rest. Pete had Miles, even though they hated each other, Paul and Chad had each other, and you had… well, you had all of us.”

  “You were just as much a part of it as the rest of us,” I said as genuinely as I could without realising I was referring to him in the past tense, “you’re still our mate.”

  “Yeah,” Chad agreed with smile, “you’ve been there for a load of the big stuff, just like Pete and Miles.”

  “Oh, enough of this poignant bullshit,” Julian blurted out with a weird, slightly erratic amount of emotion in his voice before stepping onto the fourth and final pad, “there, we happy?”

  There we go, ready for lift off.

  And just like that, the square of empty space started glowing with a circular beam of purple light that went right up to and into the ceiling.

  I wish I could say that there was some part of me that wanted to stick around and keep chatting away with the lads about times past, but the truth was that the light was beckoning me and I really didn’t want to say no.

  “See you in a bit, yeah?” Pete said as Chad, Paul, and I walked into the light.

  “Sure thing,” I replied, not really believing it, before shooting him a wink, “unless there’s something fun up there.”

  Up we go.

  Nothing else was said as the section of ground beneath our feet started to lift into the air, we said all we needed to with a few significant looks as we rose up to the next floor.

  This is it. End of the line…

  Chapter Nine

  “What the fuck is this shit?”

  Yeah, that’s all I could really get out as we reached the next floor which was completely barren aside from the large, blue, floating orb near the centre of the ceiling.

  “Good to see you made it in one piece, Zoey,” the orb said with a soft voice and a series of dull flashes, “I was starting to think that you wouldn’t make it.”

  We all stood there for a while after that, staring up at the orb in stunned silence as it slowly spun and thrummed with a steady, electronic sort of life.

  “Hey, Zo?” Chad finally managed to stammer out, “Why… why does big mumma Guilty Spark up there
know your name?”

  “Do I look like I know?” I replied after a few forced blinks.

  “Don’t get shitty with me, man, it’s a fair assumption that you’d know it seeing as it knew you.”

  “Well I don’t, so jus-”

  “Calm down,” the orb interjected coolly, suddenly relaxing me to the point where my arms felt kind of floppy and heavy but at the same time weightless, “Zoey does not know me. Well, not in the traditional sense. I’m something of a… I suppose you could call it a caretaker.”

  “A caretaker of what?” Paul asked.

  “Whom,” the orb replied, “and I refer to Zoey.”

  “What?” I scoffed, my brain just accepting that I was talking to the orb for some reason, “Why are you taking care of me? I’m fine.”

  “No,” the orb said, taking on a more solemn tone, “you’re not fine.”

  “And what in the bloody fuck is that supposed to mean?” I snapped, the calm thing that the orb had used on me apparently having worn off.

  “You are…” the orb trailed off, “are you sure you want to know?”

  “Why wouldn’t I want to know?”

  “Because once you learn the truth about your world, you won’t be able to unlearn it.”

  I hesitated there for a second, but I quickly regained my conversational stamina and nodded, “Go ahead, hit me with your best shot.”

  The orb let out a sigh at that, despite not having any lungs, “As you wish. Zoey, you are fragmented.”

  “Fragmented?” I chuckled nervously.

  “Yes, fragmented,” the orb replied, “you see, you are presently within a game.”

  I shared a confused look with Paul and Chad after that, then looked back at the orb and huffed in amusement, “Yeah, that’s kinda what happens when you game.”

  “No, you’re not understanding me. You’re in a game.”

  “What?” I let out in utter disbelief, “How could I be in a game? I’m sitting at a computer right now. W makes me walk forward, S backwards… Is this some kind of psych experiment thing.”

  “No, this is not some ‘psych experiment thing’. Zoey, consider the computer you’re sitting at, really think about it.”