Level Zero

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  “A brand new type of game, bringing with it everything players love about the original, and blending it with the most popular genres in DotFun to create a single manifestation of fantasy violence like no other. You will be among the first to witness the next step forward in both graphical realism and NPC intelligence. Welcome to the future of gaming. Welcome to DangerWar 2.”

  An avatar behind me yells from the turret of his tank. I shake my head and realize I've stopped driving forward. I'm stalling an entire lane of traffic. A warning flashes on my screen that I'm about to be respawned in a neutral zone if I don't keep moving, so I crank back on the throttle and roll my wheel through the gate.

  I'm driving through DotFun, but I'm unaware of my surroundings. The message I received is still lying open, the logo for DangerWar 2 still floating in front of my eyes. I can't look away. I'm afraid that if I do, the logo will disappear, and I'll realize that it was never real to begin with.

  How could I have not known this game was in development? How did the news-casts not know about this? Information like this gets leaked years in advance. There's no way that it could have reached beta form without someone involved talking to the press. There were always rumors. I guess this time they just happened to be true. Everyone knew that it would happen eventually. You don't make a game as lucrative as DangerWar without trying to follow it up.

  And now I get to test the beta version. I get to be one of the chosen few who sees the game first and makes sure it's perfect in every way, completely bug free, before it's released to the masses. My play time and my opinion will shape their game.

  I'm so happy that I almost want to cry.

  000111

  My news-cast alerts pop up in multiple windows. Large screens placed around DotFun for advertising change to show the breaking news. I'm not the only one who received an invite, and others have beat me to posting the information. Everyone is learning about the game at the same time.

  I pull my wheel over to the side of the road and watch the reaction of the population. Amazement and excitement is followed by the snarky commentary of avatars desperately trying to be cool by scoffing at the idea that a sequel could be anything but a pale impersonation of what made the original so unique. Then the second wave of avatars trying to be extra snarky by mocking the first comments. It rolls into a flame war of nonsense until the general population is already forgetting about the news and continuing toward their destination. The hype dies within the span of a few minutes, yet I'm still sitting in the reclined seat of my wheel, staring at the floating logo in front of me.

  My twitching hand finally selects the logo. The letters explode and a text window opens up with pages of paragraphs to scroll through. I start to read, but soon recognize the bulk of the message as an end-user license agreement. I scroll through the lawyer jargon until I find the question: “Do you agree?” I select the button marked: “YES.” It takes a moment, but finally the EULA shatters, and a skeleton's head appears in front of me.

  “Thank you for joining the private beta test of DangerWar 2. We thank you for your participation. Please make your way to the original DangerWar gate, and use one of these keys to gain entry.”

  The skeleton's mouth opens, and two stone keys roll out like a tongue. I grab the keys, and with a yank they pop free from his mouth and twirl out from my hand, landing in my inventory.

  “Two keys?” I say out loud, but I don't expect a response from the automated NPC.

  To my surprise the skeleton head says, “You have been awarded a second key for a guest. Your user account was specifically chosen because of your scoreboard ranking and the amount of time logged into DangerWar, but we welcome you to bring any player with you, no matter his or her degree of experience.”

  I smile. Here Xen thought he was going to be playing the same old game that I always play, and I get to hand him the most coveted key in all of DotFun. A part of me wants to rub it in his face that my end of our little social bargain outweighs his a thousand-to-one.

  “Remember,” the skeleton says, “all recording capabilities—video and audio—will be disabled upon entering the game. All posts made by your avatar will also be logged until the game's release to ensure your confidentiality about the game. Thank you for your cooperation, and have fun!”

  The skeleton then cackles maniacally and shrinks until it disappears, which closes the program. I pull my wheel back out into the stream of traffic and head directly for the DangerWar gate.

  When I get there, a larger crowd than normal is hanging outside. I place my wheel in my inventory and make my way through the mob. A few avatars are standing on boxes, waving their spare keys in the air, encouraging the mass of avatars to bid on them, auction style. The other avatars—the ones who weren't lucky enough to be gifted the keys—are waving different items for trade or holding up windows displaying their digital bank accounts. Some of the things being offered are shockingly expensive, worth way more than I expected people to part with just to be included in the beta test. NextWorld vehicles, real world E-Womb enhancements, even high-speed teleportation.

  For a moment I consider keeping my second key and auctioning it off. I would accept any of those offers. A cushioned E-Womb that bathes me, feeds me, and alleviates the need for a separate toilet? I would never need to leave NextWorld. The real world would be left far behind. It's too much to fathom. I open my inventory and grab the keys, ready to hold them above my head, as a tiny hand comes to rest on my shoulder.

  “I could barely find you,” Xen says from behind me. “I had to use the search function. This place is crazy.”

  “Yeah,” I say sheepishly, and I fold the keys into the palm of my hand, still unsure of what I'm going to do.

  “I am actually very excited!” Xen says with a big smile. “I know I give you a lot of grief for playing this game all the time, but Omniversalism teaches us to experience all that NextWorld has to offer, and it also teaches us to share those experiences with people we care about... so this is a very religious moment for me.”

  My eyes shift around at the rabid avatars, clamoring for the keys. My heart feels like it's rotting from the inside.

  “So how much do I need to spend to open a player account?”

  “Well, uh...” I push the words out, saying, “I have a surprise for you.”

  His eyes light up innocently. I hold up the keys, and he looks at them with confusion. I walk him toward the gate as I explain what's happening with the crowd. I tell him about the message and why I was chosen, and I even manage to not-so-subtly mention how much the keys are worth. His reply is an attempt to hug me, but his avatar is blocked.

  “Sorry,” I say. “But if they let people touch each other out here, these avatars would be slaughtering each other trying to get at the keys.”

  “Of course,” he says. “So once we are inside the gate, what do I do? How does this work?”

  “I don't know,” I say, my voice squeaking a little with excitement. “That's the best part. This is a whole new game for me. It could be-” I stop to take a breath. “It could be anything.”

  When we reach the entrance, there is the normal gateway to enter the game, with its giant arches nearly forty feet in the air, but then next to the monumental gate is a small wooden door built into the wall. It was never there before. I feel my heart skip when I see it. I'm giddy with excitement, and I jog toward it. The metal sign hanging from a single nail in the door has the number “2” etched onto it. I smile at Xen, then take another deep breath and slide my key through the small hole at the bottom of the doorknob.

  I glance back at Xen, trying to wait for him, but he motions toward the door and says, “Just go.”

  I giggle and throw open the door, seeing only a strange black light beaming from inside. I step through, and I hear the door slam shut behind me, leaving my avatar floating in the black of nothingness. I feel no ground beneath me, and I can see nothing but my own body. A familiar voice—that of the announcer from the original game—booms from
the emptiness around me.

  “Now loading DangerWar 2.”

  001000

  The designers must not have the loading program completed because I can see the raw source code displayed in the blackness. Line after line of operations are typed out, with each letter nearly as big as me. It types faster and faster until the words are almost falling out of the sky. It hits a line that says, “Load:player//run” and the screen flashes white, blinding me for a second.

  When my pupils focus, I'm standing in a room made entirely of glass, with a large glowing sign suspended in air that reads: START. I look below me, through the glass floor, and I realize that the room is floating thousands of feet above a large city. As I study the architecture, I recognize the designs of the buildings from early twenty-first century video-casts. The skyscrapers are moderately sized, and look like Old North America. A jet fighter screams past my glass room, diving toward the buildings and rushing through the canyons created by the urban structures. A second jet chases after it. An ocean borders the eastern side of the city, full of ships with large billowing sails like something out of a pirate-themed game. A desert stretches out from the southern side of the city, and I can barely make out a single pyramid in the center of the otherwise empty dunes. A thick jungle grows right up to the western edge of the city, and I can see a few ruins poking above the tall foliage. Snow-capped mountains wrap around the northern side of the city. A medieval looking tower sits atop one of the tallest peaks, and I see a large, red, Japanese dragon flying in circles around it. I'm confused by the mixture of genres, but I'm more amazed by the size and scope of the game's map. I wonder how far it stretches out. Is there something on the other side of the ocean? Or is there anything on the other side of those mountains?

  I look down at myself and notice something odd about my clothes. I switch to a third-person point of view and examine my avatar. I'm still the muscular male figure with the five o'clock shadow that I chose for the original DangerWar, and I'm still dressed in my cowboy hat and dusty western clothing, but none of my extra gear exists.

  The trench coat I designed and the leather chaps covering my legs didn't actually offer my character any protection—DangerWar was a “one shot, one kill” type of game—but all that bulk looked cool, and I sort of miss it. I consider spending the time to design a new avatar, but I'm too excited to start the game. I press the glowing start button in front of me.

  “Choose your character class!” the announcer's voice says, vibrating the glass so much I'm afraid it might crack.

  Two identical figures rise out of the floor. One has the word “Weapon User” printed on its chest. The other has the word “Magic User” printed on its chest.

  This is nothing like the first DangerWar. There were no character classes and certainly no magic. Everyone's avatar held the same attributes. Gameplay was only based on the player's skill and what weapons you chose to wield. Of course it was also confined to small areas like haunted mansions, so I'm guessing everything I know about this game needs to be reevaluated.

  I hesitate, but eventually I choose what I'm comfortable with. I touch the figure with “Weapon User” printed on its chest. Both figures explode into tiny shrapnel, none of which hits me, but all of which strikes the walls made of glass. Tiny spiderweb cracks spread out from the points of impact.

  The announcer's voice booms inside the room again. “Choose your weapon!”

  A ring of different implements of death hover in the air, spinning in a circle around me. I see swords, throwing knives, pistols, shotguns, bows, rocket launchers, axes, assault rifles, heavy machine guns, and some strange alien looking guns that look like nothing I've ever seen before.

  I've dabbled with enough of the fantasy role-playing game worlds in DotFun to understand the importance of my choice. Not only will this be the weapon I start with, but depending on the rules, it may be the only weapon my avatar is able to wield.

  The decision is hard. The biggest gun I see is the obvious choice, but I have no idea how ammunition is handled in this version of the game. If it's hard to come by, then the people wielding melee weapons might have a distinct advantage. I've been using a shotgun styled after the old-west for the past year in the original DangerWar, but the maps are usually made up of tighter, enclosed spaces. There's only a few maps that have wide open areas. Yet when I look below me, I can see for miles, and I think a sniper rifle sure would come in handy. Then I remember that I'm supposed to be testing this game. In fact, I'm supposed to be trying to break this game.

  I take a deep breath and grab the pair of revolvers hovering next to each other. They fit my style, and it's what I originally chose as a starter weapon in DangerWar before upgrading to the shotgun. They can be a pain to reload, but they make up for it in damage, and the fact that I can fire two at a time is even better. They feel good in my hands, like an old pair of gloves.

  When I pull the guns from the ring of choices, the rest of the weapons explode, shattering the glass even further. The cracks spread out so much that it makes the walls nearly opaque. I take a step back and hear the glass floor crack under my weight.

  “Now you must make your final choice.”

  I'm still holding the guns, examining them from every angle, but the booming voice draws my attention. Three words appear in front of me, glowing different colors.

  Strength – Dexterity - Endurance

  “Which of these is your most important trait?”

  This is yet another option taken from the role-playing games of NextWorld. None of these choices are easy. None of them are bad options, but strength feels like it would be a waste. If I had chosen a sword or an ax, maybe it would affect my damage output. I consider dexterity, thinking it may help me fire faster, since other players will have automatic weapons. The contemplation drags on, and I'm getting antsy. I want to start playing, so I reach out and grab endurance. I'm hoping it will allow me to take more damage than other players. The word glows brighter and melds with my hand, filling my avatar with the same bright light. It fades a moment later, and the other two words explode. This time the explosion impacts the glass with such velocity that the entire room shatters into the open air.

  I'm falling from thousands of feet above the city. The rooftops are rushing toward me, faster and faster as I reach terminal velocity. The air is whistling in my ears, the pressure is making my eyes water, and my breath is pushed from my lungs. I can't catch the scream that wants to escape as I fall. My body tumbles in random directions, and I wonder what I'm supposed to be doing. This would be an obvious error in the coding if I'm released into the game world from such an extreme height that my avatar dies when it hits the ground.

  As I rush past the tallest skyscraper's peak, the building gives me context for how fast I'm falling. The windows are whipping past me so fast that they blur into a stream of glass. I roll around until I'm facing straight down. I watch the pavement get closer and closer. I see people walking around, some of them stopping to look up. They point at me. They point at the falling man. I close my eyes because even though I know I'm not really falling toward the ground, and I'm not really going to hit the pavement, my brain is playing tricks on me. My mind wants to believe all of this. I squeeze my eyelids together, counting the seconds until impact and waiting for the inevitable respawn, hopefully somewhere closer to the ground this time.

  Then the wind whistling in my ears becomes quieter. I feel the air that is blowing against my face become weaker. My eyes blink open, and I see the street coming near me slowly. I float to the ground, and my feet touch down softly. As soon as I come to a stop, the announcer's voice booms through the city streets.

  “Arkade has entered the game.”

  001001

  I'm expecting to be attacked by the crowd of people around me, but they look unarmed. They take note of me, then carry on with their business as if they have more important things to worry about than the man who fell from the sky. I'm wondering why none of them are attacking and why everyone's a
vatar is so dull. They're all wearing plain clothes, with fashion that matches the same era as the buildings.

  I reach up and realize that during the entire fall my cowboy hat never fell off my head. I smile.

  A horn honks behind me and I spin, yanking my revolvers out of the low-slung holsters hanging from my belt. I point the barrels in the direction of the noise, and I see a female avatar behind the wheel of a car. I think that it's pretty cool they allow vehicles—which weren't a part of the original DangerWar—but I'm confused why the player honked her horn and stopped, instead of just running me down. I don't wait to find out. I pull both triggers and fill the windshield with holes. The woman behind the wheel seizures, her body flopping in the seat as each bullet sinks into her chest. It only takes a second for her avatar to explode into useless pixels.

  The other people on the sidewalk cower in fear behind mailboxes and parked cars. I point my guns, ready to fire before one of them pulls a weapon from their inventory and catches me off guard. I don't understand why these players aren't attacking.

  “Civilian NPCs are not worth any Koins,” the announcer's voice says in my ear.

  It takes me a second to register the warning.

  “These avatars are NPCs?”

  The announcer doesn't answer, but I'm shocked at the possibility. The way they move, the graphics of their facial expressions, and their reactions to my actions all seem too real to be artificial.