The Leveller

by Julia Durango

  DEDICATION

  For Ryan Durango & Jack Stevenson,

  the original Chang & Moose, who inspired this story

  and let me steal their game names.

  (Love you, hijos.)

  EPIGRAPH

  Reality is a sliding door.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ONE

  TYPICAL COOP, I THINK, CLOSING MY EYES AND SINKING INTO THE MEEP.

  This’ll be the sixth time in six months that Mrs. Cuparino has hired me to drag her sorry son home. Fortunately (or unfortunately, I guess, depending on how you look at it), Dean “Coop” Cuparino, like most of the guys at my high school, is an easy egg to crack. His MEEP world hardly varies from the standard-issue sports-hero template. Today it’s football again, Coop’s favorite.

  My ear trans begins the frequency code and a few seconds later I wake up in the Landing, the MEEP entry zone. A three-story virtual mall of glass and gold, the Landing sparkles like a shopaholic heaven, enticing faithful spenders into the fold. Filled with dozens of flashy boutiques, stores, and salons, here you can purchase character enhancements for your avatar, as well as costumes, weapons, tools . . . anything you might want or need for the world you’ve created.

  I usually skip the shopping spree. First of all, it costs real money, and I need every penny I earn to go to my college savings, not pretend makeovers. And second, I like my avatar to look like me, no enhancements; it’s one of my personal rules, and I pride myself on it.

  To be fair, most people I know design their avatars to look like themselves, at least in basic attributes: hair, skin, eye color. I suppose we all have big enough egos to think we look pretty decent the way we are—just a few minor adjustments away from fabulous. That’s where the MEEP enhancements come in. The guys make themselves taller and chiseled, pimple-free with washboard abs. The girls give themselves gorgeous hair, silky skin, white teeth, and Barbie-doll bodies.

  I understand the temptation, I really do. But here’s what happens. You get used to looking like a million bucks in the MEEP, and then . . . BAM! Game over. You’re backslapped to reality and wake up with your same old blemishes, bedhead, and ratty sweatpants. All of a sudden you can’t stand yourself. You’ve seen what your perfect self looks like in the MEEP, so when you look in the mirror now, all you see are your flaws.

  You’re just a sad, sorry replica of your pretend self.

  My mom calls it the Michael Jackson Effect—never being happy in your own skin. She warned me about it early on, urging me not to change anything but my costume in the MEEP. Not that I fall for that kind of virtual dream fulfillment anyway. My personal MEEP games involve questing and battle in my own custom-created worlds, not the lame “luvme” templates, like the one I’m in now.

  I don’t know how these feel-good templates even qualify as games, really, but at least they provide me with steady income. It’s the luvme gamers like Coop who spend a good chunk of their allowances on timer hacks, so they can stay in the MEEP beyond the preset four-hour maximum. I suppose it’s hard to break yourself away from all that luvin’. . . .

  In any case, I’ve decided I have to break my own rule about enhancements today. But only because it’s a necessity, the price of doing repeat business. Like I said, I’ve already dragged Coop’s butt out of the MEEP five times before. If he sees me coming, he’ll run the other way—and fast. I need a disguise, one that Coop will run toward.

  I quickly start shopping. Time is money. A few minutes later my hair is big and blond, my teeth are white enough to blind a sharpshooter at ten paces, and my boobs are large enough to lift me off the ground and fly me to Oz. Last, I buy a dress roughly the size of a washcloth and matching stilettos that should be classified as lethal weapons.

  Oh yeah. Coop is a goner.

  I take two steps before I realize I’m wasting valuable time teetering around in these ridiculous anti-walking devices. I slip the heels off and double-time it out of the Landing and through the football stadium toward the players’ clubhouse.

  The stadium is empty. It doesn’t take a PhD to guess what’s happened here. The football game is over, probably lasted no more than fifteen minutes. The star quarterback (Coop, naturally) made a string of miraculous plays, handily winning MVP honors, and is now most certainly enjoying the post-game luvme celebration. (“Ladies, come rub against me and smell the swagger!”)

  I hear the party before I’m halfway across the field. The music is pumping loud and bass-heavy, interspersed with the high-pitched giggles of programmed Meeple.

  As I reach the clubhouse door, I put my heels back on and tug the hem of my dress, which has inched its way up to my hips. “Time for the grab and go, Nixy,” I tell myself, plastering a vacuous smile on my face. I step inside and immediately let out a huge bark of a laugh, nearly blowing my cover.

  The usual bikini-clad babes are all over the place, in and out of the twelve-person hot tub in the middle of the room. But it’s not the Meeple making me laugh—Coop always populates his MEEP worlds with big-bosomed, underdressed women—it’s Coop himself who’s cracking me up. The boy’s really outdone himself this time. Not only has he given himself the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he’s squeezed it all into a bright yellow Speedo. Hell, it looks like he’s attached a bag of lemons to his pelvis.

  Oh, this is going to be good.

  I swing my bouncy blond hair and strut my bodacious body over to him. His eyes light up when he sees me and I try not to smirk. For a second I almost feel sorry for the heap of humiliation I’m about to serve him . . . but then I remember what a tremendous jerk he is at school and the flash of guilt dissipates immediately.

  “Hey there,” I say stupidly, smiling. Coop smiles back and we dazzle each other with our perfect mouthfuls of bleached teeth. (In real life, Coop has an overbite and my bottom teeth are slightly crooked, due to not wearing my retainer on a regular basis.)

  “New to the party, babe?” he asks, putting an arm over my shoulder.

  I nod enthusiastically and bat my long lashes. “I can’t believe I’m here with the MVP!” I squeal. “I’m the luckiest girl ever! You’re so amazing!”

  He grins smugly and looks down my dress. “Just doing my job, babe, keeping the fans happy.”

  I lick my lips at him seductively. “And now it’s my turn to make you happy,” I purr, pulling him closer.

  “Oh yeah?” says Coop, nearly drooling into my cleavage.

  “Oh yeah,” I whisper. “But first,” I add, raising my voice and enunciating clearly into the MEEPosphere, “I want to see the real you.”

  Coop’s face freezes. He knows that MEEP cheat all too well. It’s one of my favorites.

  “Damn it, Bauer,” he growls, pulling away from me as his enhancements disappear.

&nb
sp; Now he’s just an awkward, normal-size teenage boy: five inches shorter, five inches less around the pecs, and a saggy yellow swimsuit.

  I consider getting rid of my own ridiculous enhancements now, but I admit, I enjoy towering over him in my heels. I glance at his Speedo and titter behind a manicured hand.

  Coop’s face turns red. “You stinking, money-grubbing traitor!” he shouts at me, stalking toward the Landing. He doesn’t even try to stall; he knows his game is up. He tried fighting me the first few times, but without going into details . . . let’s just say it always ended badly for him.

  “A job’s a job, Coop, and levelling pays way better than your burger-flipping gig,” I say, “which you’re late for, by the way. Better hustle home and get your hairnet on before Mama Coop goes full-psycho on you.”

  Coop swears under his breath. “One day I’m going full-psycho on you, you dirty MEEP rat.”

  I shrug and follow him back to the Landing. It certainly isn’t the first time I’ve been sworn at by a disgruntled gamer. Since I started levelling six months ago, I’ve been called every name in the book. But hey, I’m good at it, and it beats bagging groceries or washing cars. I charge a flat rate: one hundred bucks a pop. Not bad for an hour or less of work. My business motto is “Nixy Bauer, Home in an Hour.” If I don’t deliver the goods to parents—meaning, drag their wayward sons and daughters back from the MEEP within the hour—they don’t have to pay me. That’s why they hire me. I’m fast and I never fail to deliver.

  I have my tricks, of course. Both my parents work for the MEEP, or MeaParadisus Inc., as it’s officially known, so I’ve grown up with the game, or at least for the three years it was in development before its world release last year. My dad is a concept artist and my mom writes Meeple script. If you think that sounds glamorous, think again. They’re basically lowly peons and poorly paid at that, but they do get full access to the MEEP codes and cheats, which are key to levelling. In fact, my mom even writes a lot of the cheats, the little bits of dialogue that cue certain responses. Like “I want to see the real you,” the one I just used on Coop; spoken clearly, those words will immediately turn off primary avatar enhancements. Usually that’s all I need to say to ruin a game for someone and force him back home.

  Of course, MeaParadisus offers a premium security package, which guarantees twenty-four-hour “Safe Return” by licensed officials, or MEEP-O Men, as we gamers call them. The problem is, by the time you pay for the pricey MEEP ear piercing and matching frequency device, who’s got an extra grand left over for the security package? Besides, no one ever thinks they’ll need bailing out, especially teens, and most parents are clueless.

  You can’t blame them, though—the parents, I mean. In the past, their kids were at least conscious while playing video games, even if they did seem stoned or zombie-like. An irritated mother, for instance, could always get in your face and initiate “crazy-lady meltdown” mode with rather prompt results. (My own mom could teach a master class in it, she’s so good.) But once a player’s in the MEEP, their body just lies around like a limp rag for up to four hours at a time. You can poke it with a stick and it’s still not going to move.

  At that point, if you really need your kid back in the real world, you have one of three choices:

  1.Suck it up, buy the security package, and call the MEEP-O Men, who will shut down the game externally.

  2.Wait it out until your kid gets bored in the MEEP. (Yeah, good luck with that.) Or,

  3.Call me and have your kid home within the hour for an easy hundred bucks.

  Most parents call me. Then they take the hundred bucks out of their kid’s allowance or after-school job, so it’s no skin off their nose. Parents love me. The kids? Not so much. Whatever. I’m not in this business to make friends.

  I’ve got two pals, Jackson Mooser and Evan Chan-Gonzalez—user names Chocolate Moose and Changatang—who make sure I don’t get messed with at school in exchange for the occasional MEEP cheat. I’ve also promised never to level them, although they don’t use timer hacks very much to begin with. After four hours, the MEEP scripts start to repeat themselves, which gets totally annoying, unless, like Coop, all you want to hear is “Oh, Coop, you’re my hero!” over and over and over again. No thank you.

  I also refuse to level adults. Way too creepy. I can handle parents who want their kids back, but marital disputes? No way. Those things get ugly fast. Usually it’s some poor lady with crying kids attached to her legs like barnacles, whose husband is off feeding his ego in a luvme game. Gross. I saw it a couple of times early on, and quickly made a new rule for myself: I only level players ages thirteen to eighteen, and I only work for parents.

  Kids under thirteen aren’t allowed to play inside the MEEP anyway. They can buy the external package and build their own world if they want, and many do, but for various reasons, including federal regulations in the US, they’re not allowed to have the frequency piercing until their thirteenth birthday. And even then, their parents have to sign a yard-long, small-print waiver that most people never read. Certainly, Mrs. Cuparino didn’t read it or she might have thought twice before letting her son have instant access to his own virtual Pleasure Island.

  Coop beats me back to the Landing. By the time I wake up in my collapsible lawn chair (I insist on providing my own napping equipment), his mom is already laying into him. Coop glares at me as I fold up my chair and take the pile of twenties Mrs. Cuparino has left on the dresser for me. Like I said, we’ve been through this before. She knows I’m as good as my word.

  I take out my phone and glance at the time. Took me less than fifteen minutes to level Coop this time.

  Maybe I should raise my rates.

  TWO

  I RIDE MY OLD SCHWINN HOME WITH THE FOLD-UP LAWN CHAIR strapped to my back and my hoodie tied tightly under my chin. It’s mid-November and colder than penguin butt here in central Illinois. I look like a bike-riding Sherpa, but I don’t care. I got my driver’s license over the summer, but there’s no way I’m going to spend money on car insurance, gas, and some old beater in this podunk town. I can get anywhere in twenty minutes or less on my bike, and it’s free.

  I leave the Cuparinos’ north-side subdivision of newer upscale homes, take the side streets to avoid downtown, and finally arrive in my west-side neighborhood of older downscale homes. The houses here are all in ongoing repair, disrepair, or beyond repair. It’s the kind of hood where people walk their dogs in their pajamas, nod at you, then flip their cigarette butts in your driveway while their dogs crap on your lawn. My west-side friends and I call it “the ghetto,” which makes my Chicago-born mom shake her head. Then again, lots of things make my mom shake her head; she’s like a human bobblehead.

  I pull my bike into our driveway and lock it to the hitching post. Yes, our home is so old it still has a place to park your horse. Dad nicknamed the house “Baby Jane,” after that Bette Davis movie about an aging movie star who goes batty. Our house has had a similar life story. You can tell it was once elegant and grand, the nicest home on the block with its stately Italianate features. Only now the paint has peeled, the porch sags, and the landscaping looks like the victim of a chain-saw massacre.

  I enter Baby Jane and stop to give our bulldog, Hodee, a belly rub. Hodee’s real name is Don Quixote, which was my mother’s bad idea; fortunately, no one calls him that, not even Mom. Hodee’s much too tubby and ridiculous-looking to pull off some highbrow literary name, and besides, Hodee likes to keep it real. He lets out a fart while I rub him, then rolls back over and continues to nap.

  I follow my nose to a more pleasant aroma in the kitchen, where I smell freshly brewed coffee. Moose and Chang are already there, drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream and chatting up my mom.

  “You spoil them, Jill,” I say to Mom as I pour myself a big mug of coffee.

  “Hello to you, too, Phoenix,” my mom answers from the sink, where sh
e’s peeling fruit. I know what’s coming next: a huge tray of apples and oranges and kiwi, each little bite-size piece stuck through with a colorful toothpick. Every time the guys come over, she insists on serving them a fruit tray, as if they’re four-year-olds with scurvy.

  Moose wrinkles his nose as I sit next to him with my mug. “Don’t be breathing your nasty coffee breath on me, Nix.”

  I make a face at him and turn to Chang. “Sorry I’m late. I had a job.”

  “Cuparino?” he asks.

  I shrug in response. I like to keep my business confidential. As much as I would love spilling the beans about Coop’s Speedo, I never gossip about my marks.

  Moose and Chang both smile at my mom as she sets down the preschool fruit tray. Moose pops an orange slice in his mouth, waits for my mom to go back to the sink, then leans in and lowers his voice. “No need to be all zippy-lipped, like you work for the flipping Witness Protection Program. We know it was Coop, we sold him the timer hack this morning.”

  Chang nods, selecting an apple slice. “You ought to be giving us a kickback,” he says in between bites.

  I glance at my mom, but she’s got her head in the fridge now, no doubt hoping that dinner will appear if she looks hard enough. “Jeez, you guys, someday you’re going to get busted by the wrong parents,” I whisper. “Coop’s dad is chief of police, you know.”

  “Relax already, would you? It’s not like we’re dealing drugs. You think Papa Coop’s gonna bust our chops over some video game code?” Moose asks, reaching for another toothpicked orange. “Local PD’s got bigger fish to fry than us, Nix.”

  “Whatever. I just don’t want people thinking we’re a racket. You do your business, I’ll do mine. No discussion, no kickbacks, no nothing. Got it?”

  “Fy fæn, Nixy, hold the salt, we get it,” Chang says. Fy fæn is a really bad word in Norwegian that Chang’s cousin taught us one summer after his study-abroad program in Oslo. The three of us have used it for years now, since it tends to get us in much less trouble than the English F-word. Our homeroom teacher in sixth grade actually asked us once if “feefon” was the latest slang word for cool or groovy. (We told her it was.) Chang’s cousin also taught us the word rasshøl, which we use all the time, though not so much around parents and teachers since its meaning is a bit . . . clearer.