Level Zero

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  “The game is...” Ekko starts, before rubbing his face and saying, “Something is seriously broken.”

  “You are sure this is not just part of the game?” Xen asks, looking at all of us, any of us, for confirmation.

  “Maybe the fact that the NPCs are attacking...” Ekko says. “I mean, I guess that could be part of the game. But they would never lock people into the game. And it all seems connected.”

  I let everything they're saying sink in for a moment, but my mouth speaks before I'm ready. “I'm surprised you decided to come here.”

  Fantom scowls at me. “Trust me, it wasn't my first choice, yo.”

  “We made our way to the rooftops,” Ekko says, interjecting into our little staring contest, “which worked for awhile. We were able to hold off the ones on foot. But then some of the flying creatures spotted us.”

  Fantom looks troubled by the memory as she mumbles, “Hordes of winged demons, like black clouds swooping down from the sky, yo.”

  “We weren't really sure what to do,” Ekko says. “We saw players getting killed left and right, and none of them were disappearing. It was... it was kind of horrible to watch.”

  “Why are they not disappearing?” Xen asks. “What is happening to the players?”

  We're all silent for a moment, pondering the question, until Cyren offers an answer. “If you don't log out, but your avatar is dead, you'd be stuck in the code. An eternal loop.”

  “What does that mean in the real world?”

  I say what we're all thinking. “It wouldn't be any different than a coma. A sleep that you couldn't wake up from.”

  “They'd be forced to unplug you just to wake you up,” Ekko adds. “And we've all seen what happens when they do a cold shutdown of the E-womb. The shock would corrupt your nanomachines. I don't think you want to risk the effect that would have on your body.”

  There's a pause as we all try to shake off the creeping terror that thought brings.

  It's Xen who finally speaks, trying to push us out of the darkness. “Omniversalism teaches us that the unknown is what we fear the most. We should not dwell on what might happen, and focus on what did happen, and more importantly: what is happening.”

  Ekko nods and says, “Agreed.”

  Xen smiles and says, “So tell us what you did next. When you were no longer safe on the rooftops, you decided to come here?”

  “We weren't sure what to do,” Ekko says, his wooden avatar blinking out of existence, then reappearing just as fast.

  Fantom's face darkens as she humbles herself enough to say, “You've got to understand, we were like, trying not to get killed by everything. Like... everything was after us, yo.”

  Ekko nods and says, “Klok was the one who checked the map, to see where we should run.”

  “That's when all the quests disappeared,” Fantom says. “Like, all of them but one. It just said 'Get to an equipment shop.'”

  Ekko flickers as he says, “It made sense. It was the only place we were going to be safe.”

  “But Klok was like, an idiot,” Fantom says. “He wouldn't listen to me. To any of us. He got the idea in his head that this was like, the game's way of logging everyone out or whatever. He didn't care what the graphics were showing. He thought if we died, we'd like, get respawned outside the DangerWar gates. Like, back in NextWorld.”

  “How do we know he is wrong?” Xen asks.

  I look over at him and scoff, saying, “You saw his avatar. Do you really want to take that risk?”

  He looks down at the floor without a reply.

  “This was the closest shop,” Cyren says. “We had to get across nearly twenty blocks full of NPCs.”

  “You made it across twenty blocks?”

  “Most of the stuff out there was from low Level zones,” Fantom says. “But like, the sheer number of them...”

  I let my mouth speak before my brain filters my words again. “Were they worth any Koins?”

  Fantom lets out a heavy sigh, and I can feel Xen's judgmental stare without looking at him.

  “If they aren't staying in their quest zones, even Level 30 players like us can't hold out forever, yo. Can you imagine what would happen if like, the high Level zones wandered into the city or whatever? I'm sure we all saw that Dragon up in the mountain zone.”

  I cringe when she drops that little tidbit of knowledge about being Level 30. They've been busy. And they've been completing higher Level quests than me. Much higher. I'm suddenly embarrassed by my own Level 20 avatar. I feel weak.

  I open windows in front of me to check the news-casts, or video-casts, or even the old school audio-casts, but nothing is connecting.

  “Like, don't even bother trying,” Fantom says. “There's nothing going in or out of the game. It's like we've been completely disconnected from NextWorld, yo.”

  “So what do we do?” Xen asks.

  “We wait,” Ekko says.

  “For what?” Xen asks, but I don't need Ekko to answer him.

  “The reboot,” I say. Then I turn to Fantom and ask, “You think that will log us out?”

  Fantom nods. “It should, yo.”

  “It won't,” Cyren says in little more than a whisper.

  “Like, don't be so pessimistic,” Fantom says. “You don't know what's going to happen.”

  “So we just wait for the reboot?” Xen asks.

  “We're safe as long as we're in here,” Ekko says.

  “Okay,” Xen says without any real conviction.

  He sits down against the far wall, trying not to look at the mangled avatar laying on the floor. I step toward Klok and toss my trenchcoat over the top of his body, concealing the disturbing image. I'm surprised that after the sheer amount of violence I've seen in NextWorld, this simple image can still shake me, but it's because I know what it means for the player in the real world. I hate to admit it, but I feel something for him. It's the first time I've ever felt sympathy for another player.

  010011

  The boredom is rotting my insides. The four blank, steel walls of the equipment shop seem to be closing in on me, and the already small room feels like it's shrinking as the game clock progresses.

  It's not so bad at first. I'm at least interested when the group trades stories of their quests. I pay close attention to what the others are saying, hoping to take note of any information that I can about higher level quests that I might have to complete in the future. As the hours drag on, we even reveal our inventories to each other, showing off our magical items and upgrades. I'm genuinely enthralled by what everyone has to say.

  Then, as the morning draws closer, we run out of game talk. There simply isn't anything else to say. The group members start talking about the real world, and my attention drifts off. At first I try to act like I care. I nod, and smile, and laugh when the group laughs, but I'm not paying attention. Fantom talks about her classes, but I don't listen to enough of what she says to even know her major. Xen talks about Omniversalism and the new love in his life, but I've heard it all before. By the time it's Ekko's turn, I'm ready to pull out my virtual hair.

  “Are you in school?” Fantom asks Ekko. “Your avatar looks so young, but you seem like, more mature than that or whatever.”

  Ekko seems hesitant, rocking his wooden head back and forth as he contemplates how to answer. I want to scream across the room at him and tell him to stop pretending what he's going to say is that important. I want to tell him how little I care about what he says. I want him to know how insignificant his life is, just like the rest of us.

  “I'm not actually this young,” he says. “Not in the real world.”

  The information is only slightly more interesting than I suspected. I'm wondering how weird this guy must be to design his avatar so young. I'm hoping he's not into anything too creepy. The rest of the group is intrigued, leaning forward to hear more.

  “I designed this avatar to look like my son. He...” Ekko pauses, sucking air into his wooden mouth to try and stop from whimperin
g. His image blinks in and out a few times before he continues to say, “...he passed away last year. After I lost him, I was really... I didn't know what to do with myself anymore. I played the same games in DotFun that he used to play and I... it made sense to make my avatar look as much like him as possible. I guess it's my way of remembering him, and... he used to play these games so much. I guess this is my way of letting him keep playing.”

  “So what's with the voice masking?” I ask, and Xen elbows me, giving me a dirty look. “What? It's weird. He makes himself sound like a little kid, but he's speaking Old Chinese.”

  Everyone is glaring at me, except Cyren.

  “So what?” Fantom says. “We all change ourselves, yo. One way or another.”

  “No,” Ekko says. “The boy is right. It's weird. And I'm sorry if anyone feels like I was lying to them. But it's easier than having to tell everyone this story when they hear my deep voice coming out of the mouth of this avatar. It's not a story I'd want to relive every time I group with new people.”

  I bite my tongue, reminding myself that it's easier not to interact at all. There was no reason to say anything, and now everyone thinks I'm a jerk for saying it.

  “That makes sense,” Fantom says. “I don't blame you, Ekko. I'm sure your son would be like, proud of what you've accomplished with his image or whatever.”

  “Is this better?” Ekko says, his own adult voice coming from his avatar's mouth.

  The whole thing is weird, no matter what voice he is using, but I keep my thoughts to myself. I stand up from the circle and pace around the room.

  “What about you, Arkade?” Ekko asks when he sees me stand up.

  I stop myself from speaking. I want to tell him that what he sees is what he gets, that this is really who I am. I don't have a quaint story about a dead son to justify my avatar's look. I stole the image from an old video-cast. I'm a gamer, pure and simple. My avatar is who I am, not that body in the real world. I try to think of the most diplomatic way to say what I want to say, but diplomacy makes me feel like my father, and I hate that.

  “There isn't much to tell. I'm just a kid.”

  Everyone waits for me to continue, but my body language makes it apparent that they're waiting for nothing.

  “Where is your tower?” Ekko asks, trying to continue the conversation with me.

  “Look... I'm sorry, okay? I just don't feel like sharing.”

  “Kade...” Xen says my name in a long, drawn out way that sounds condescending.

  “No,” Ekko says. “It's okay, son. If you don't want to talk, you don't have to. I'm not asking you to do anything.”

  I barely hear Fantom say under her breath, “You could ask him to act like a normal person, yo.”

  I'm about to lash out at her, spitting questions at her, asking her what “normal” even means, but Ekko starts talking again, cutting off my impending tirade.

  “What about you, Cyren?”

  She barely smiles, and says with a whisper, “I don't have anything to say.”

  She's shy. I can feel her anxiety from across the room. All the eyes on her feel like weights. I can see it in her shoulders, in the way she shifts her position. I can tell all this because I've felt it myself. She looks at me, and I feel a strange need to save her from the awkwardness, but I don't know how. I can barely save myself.

  “You must have a story,” Xen says, thinking he's being supportive. “Omniversalism teaches us to open our ears when someone talks, because everyone has a story.”

  Cyren keeps looking at the floor. She uses her thumb to rub a smudge off of her buckled, leather boot. The silence drags on, almost to a breaking point.

  “Guys,” Fantom says, cutting the tension. “Look at the time, yo. Reboot is in like, ten minutes.”

  “The game should have announced it,” I say. “We got a thirty minute warning yesterday.”

  “It's not going to reboot,” Cyren mumbles.

  “Stop saying that,” Fantom shouts.

  I hear more than anger in her voice. It almost sounds like fear, but her face is still covered in emotionless white paint. She's gesturing in the air with everyone else. We're all checking different windows, hoping that some kind of message has popped up while we've been waiting. Only Cyren continues to sit on the floor, unmoving. I almost admire her carelessness about what happens. I almost envy her assuredness, even if it is so pessimistic. No matter how bleak, in her mind, she knows what's going to happen. It's the not knowing that's killing the rest of us.

  The game clock ticks down, and I can feel us holding our collective breath. I close my eyes and count the last seconds in my head, waiting for anything. I'm not ready, mentally, but I'm out of time. I don't know what's going to happen, even if the reboot occurs. It's far from a foolproof plan. It could still throw us into a coma, launching us all into an unconscious limbo.

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  And time keeps moving. I open one eye and see the equipment shop, with everyone still standing around me. I open the other eye as everyone else lets out their held breath, their bodies deflating with the release. We look defeated, but no one knows what to say. We all want to express our disappointment, but no one knows how. Not sufficiently.

  Fantom spits out a single curse word, and it feels better than anything I could have expressed.

  I lean my back against the steel wall and let myself slide down, inch-by-inch, until I land with a thud on the floor. The rest of the group follows suit, collapsing in their own ways. Everyone is so overwhelmed that they no longer contain the physical or mental energy required to keep themselves standing. Only Cyren is unchanged by the news. Her emptiness remains.

  010100

  I can barely lift my hand to open a window in front of me, my energy almost completely depleted. Not only am I worn out and depressed, but my body is tired. It wouldn't be the first time I slept while I was logged in, but it never equals a good night's rest.

  I halfheartedly swipe through my character profile, quest window, and map. There's nothing new. The game still only displays the title of a single quest: “Get to an equipment shop!” but it registers the quest as incomplete, even though we're all standing inside.

  “What are we going to do?” Xen asks, but the way he says it, I'm not sure if he's asking us, or himself.

  I want to say something that will comfort him, but it isn't in me. I wait, hoping someone else will be more experienced with these kinds of things.

  “Don't worry, son. We'll survive,” Ekko says. “My sister works with emergency services in Old Mongolia... she takes care of all sorts of situations, including things like this.”

  “Things like this?” I say with a slightly skeptical laugh.

  “Sure,” Ekko says, like he doesn't realize I'm being disrespectful. “If someone doesn't log out from NextWorld for thirty-six hours, there's a series of steps they go through. They try to contact them online. If that doesn't work, they request a forced log out from the NextWorld servers. If that doesn't work, they're supposed to track their signal, and send someone to their tower room for the cold shutdown. Of course, nobody wants that to happen with the danger it poses to your nanomachines, so in the worst case scenario they have emergency E-Womb devices to supply all the necessary life-support you could need.”

  Xen's eyes light up as he says, “Really?”

  “Of course,” Ekko says. “And that's just here in Old Mongolia. We aren't exactly on the cutting edge. Don't worry about your health. I'm more worried about keeping my sanity in this little room. Boredom is going to be our biggest enemy.”

  “That is a relief,” Xen says. “I was sitting here trying to remember when my last vitapaste consumption was... and not to be gross or anything, but I can't remember when I last used the toilet.”

  Ekko gives us all this very fatherly, comforting smile, which is weird coming from his wooden, little boy avatar. His image flickers a few times.

&
nbsp; “You're going to feel hungry, son. There's no doubt about that. Thirty-six hours is a long time to go without food. But no one is going to die. You can be sure of that. Not only would the government not allow there to be any risk involved in using NextWorld, but neither would the creators of DangerWar. All we have to do is wait.”

  I have to admit, the information does make me feel better. Knowing there isn't a time limit on my existence is good news. When I look around at everyone's response, Cyren is still lost inside herself, her own thoughts consuming her expressions. But it's Fantom that I'm surprised by. I can actually see her avatar's hands shaking in front of her. Her eyes are shifting back and forth. She looks nervous, and the fact that I can see it in her normally emotionless face makes me realize how serious it is. Unsurprisingly, Xen notices too, and he's the one who reaches out to her.

  “Are you okay?” he asks in a hushed tone, meant to be shared only between her and him, but in the size of the room, we all hear.

  She glances up at him, then away just as quickly. “Yeah,” she says unconvincingly. Then when she sees that we're all looking at her, she replies to all of us, “I'm like, fine or whatever.”

  “There's no need to worry,” Ekko says, actually reaching out his hand to her.

  I catch myself wanting to laugh. If I know Fantom at all, I know she isn't going to respond to physical affection. Whatever is bothering her, lame attempts at comfort aren't going to help, especially when his hand is shifting from left to right randomly.

  She looks up at him and says, “Sorry, Ekko, but you're like, wrong, yo.”

  “What are you talking about?” Xen asks, looking worried. “Is there something we should know about?”

  Fantom looks over at him and recognizes the worry that's spreading across his face. She lets out a long, annoyed sigh and rubs her forehead.

  “Look,” she says, “it's like, nothing you have to worry about or whatever. Just... forget it, okay?”

  Xen keeps staring at her with that gentle look on his face. I'm watching them both, amazed at the strangeness of human interaction.