PWNED: A Gamers Novel

by Matt Vancil

  Astrid jerked and let out a choked cry. The screen was littered with corpses. Reid could finally make out the dungeon’s gray sand beneath glowing letters: You have died.

  Astrid slowly spun her chair to face Reid. Her face was expressionless. “This? Is the one thing that keeps me going.”

  Reid held out the scissors at arm’s length. “Pwned.” He mic-dropped them, stumbled into the bedroom, and passed out.

  The alarm jackhammered through Reid’s ears and started drilling into his brain.

  Reid cracked his eyes open and immediately regretted it. He was never going to drink anything again, he decided, including water.

  “Astrid!” he croaked. She must not have heard him. The alarm kept screaming. She had to have heard that at least.

  He noticed he was still wearing his suit. He must have forgotten to change. He’d do that later, after a handful of asprin and a week of sleep. He ripped the alarm clock out of the wall.

  In blessed silence, Reid laid on his side on the sweet, cold bed, and slowly panted the rest of his way awake.

  “Astrid,” he said again. He tried to swallow, but someone had glued his throat shut. “I could really use some water.” It wasn’t going to be a good day. He was already breaking his no-drinking pledge.

  Astrid still hadn’t replied. She must be really mad at him. At least she was wearing the headphones so he didn’t have to listen to the damn game.

  He noticed her side of the bed was still made. She’d never come to bed. But the drawers of her dresser seem to have been pulled out.

  Reid scanned the room. Her backpack was missing from the top of her dresser. In the closet, the hangers hung bare. Reid hoped for a moment that maybe they had been robbed, but once he got to the living room, the evidence was unavoidable:

  Astrid’s computer was gone, and so was she.

  Lodge just stared at him, one hand cupped over the receiver of his desk phone. “And you just came to work today?”

  Reid quivered. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “I’ll have to call you back,” Lodge said into the phone.

  Reid let Lodge steer him to the tiny office break room and pour him a cup of office coffee. “You’ve checked with her friends?”

  Reid’s blazer was draped around his shoulders like a blanket on a shipwreck survivor. “They’re not speaking to me.”

  “Parents?”

  “She doesn’t tell them anything. My God. She left me. She actually left me over that.”

  “Wow. Well, you know, I—” started Lodge, and then caught himself. Reid prompted him to continue. “You know what? I’m gonna say it. Good. Finally. Rip off the band-aid. I mean, I figured it’d be you getting fed up and leaving her, but hey, the effect’s the same, right? This has needed to happen for a while now. Good for you, I mean it. And good riddance.”

  “Lodge—”

  Lodge held up a hand. “Don’t. No. Not this time. Consider this a retroactive intervention.”

  “Lodge—”

  “No! Dude, this is what you need. This is good, Reid.”

  “I asked her to marry me.”

  Lodge winced, grunted. Stared at the floor. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry, man. Scratch what I said. I’m invoking Man Code, and shall forever hold my peace.”

  Reid regarded him evenly. “Forever?”

  “At least until you come to your senses and I can deliver an appropriate I told you so.”

  “I can fix this,” said Reid. “It’s my fault. I overreacted.”

  “I’m sorry, you overreacted? I heard that correctly?”

  “I can fix this,” Reid repeated. “If I could just talk to her, explain. I know I could make this all right.”

  “It doesn’t exactly sound like she wants to be talked to.”

  “You’re supposed to be helping me.”

  “Okay, fine. Do you have any idea, any notion where she might have gone?”

  Reid crushed the styrofoam cup and threw it towards the garbage, missing by a yard. “All I know is that wherever she is, she’s still playing that damn game.”

  “Not much to go on,” said Lodge.

  Reid didn’t hear him. “That’s it.” Why didn’t he think of it sooner? He grinned triumphantly at Lodge. “She’s still playing the game.”

  Wizards and warriors battled across the cover of Fartherall Online. Over 10 Million Players Wolrldwide! it boasted. 1,200 Hours of Content!

  Reid did some quick mental math. If he put in eight hours a day and talked to a hundred players an hour, it would only take him thirty-four years to find Astrid. Lose Yourself in Adventure!

  He fought down a surge of panic. She had to be in the game. Someone in there had to know her.

  He set his laptop on Astrid’s desk. While the game installed, he opened the two-liter he’d picked up at the store and dug through his cabinets until he found a bag of not-quite-stale tortilla chips. The computer chimed when the installation finished. Reid double-clicked the Fartherall Online icon.

  A robot cowboy appeared on screen. It tipped its mechanical Stetson with an emotionless “Boy, Howdy,” and reclined against the logo for Boy Howdy Games.

  That graphic dissolved into a massive gate flanked by torches, Fartherall Online inlaid in gold and jewels across the wrought iron.

  With a click of the mouse, the gates swung wide onto a character creation screen. Reid clicked the first two options he saw: “human” and “rogue.” With a triumphant clash of cymbals, Reid’s human rogue appeared on screen, all dashing and rakish.

  The game prompted him for a name.

  Reid drummed his fingers. He couldn’t use his real name, obviously. She’d see him coming, and if she were still mad—which she was sure to be—he’d never get within hollering distance.

  Maybe something to remind her of home? He looked around the living room for inspiration: the patch of white on the wall where her monitor had kept the sun from bleaching the paint, the unused concert tickets on the floor. “Boo-Bear,” she had said, not 24 hours ago, “I don’t get why you’re so good to me.”

  Reid spun in his chair. “You want a name? Meet Boo-Bear.” He typed it in, hit enter.

  A message popped up on the screen: That name is taken.

  Reid blinked. Someone else was running around the game with the pet name Astrid had given him. With a snarl, he tried Boobare.

  That name is taken.

  Bewbear.

  That name is taken.

  Boob-air.

  That name is taken.

  “Oh, come on.” He didn’t have time for this. He chucked caution out the window and typed in “Reid.”

  That name is taken.

  “Of course it is.”

  He tried Brokenheart. That name is taken. Brokenlove. That name is taken. Brokenliver. That name is taken.

  “You’re shitting me.” What alcoholic gamer had already taken that name? He glared at the box. Over 10 Million Players! it reminded him.

  Cheese Man. That name is taken. CheeZeus. That name is taken. Lord of Citrus. That name is taken. Flapjack Wendy. That name is taken. 3.14159. That name is taken.

  He tried That Name Is Taken. That name was taken.

  “This game sucks.” He typed it in. “This. Game. Sucks.” That name is taken.

  Reid roared and slumped. He’d drunk half of the two-liter already, and he wasn’t even through the front door. He’d be the first player in history to lose at a game without even logging in. He could almost see Astrid watching over his shoulder, shaking her head in disbelief. “Jesus, Boo-Bear, you’re embarrassing me. You’re such a friggin’—”

  “Noob.” Reid tried it. It wasn’t taken.

  A portrait of Noob, stalwart human rogue, appeared on screen.

  Reid perked up. “Well, all right then.”

  A prompt appeared: Begin Adventure? He hit Yes.

  The character creation screen gave way to a bird’s eye view of an architecturally impossible fortress of steel and glass. Heroic music swelled and san
k into a melancholy lament sung in some forgotten language by an invisible choir.

  “The Age of Men is nearing its end,” intoned a morose narrator. “After years of war against the savage Nations of Chaos, only a single human state endures: the proud kingdom of Marrowstone.

  “The—”

  Reid clicked Skip.

  3

  Making Enemies

  TIP: Joining a group increases your chance of survival!

  Noob faded into existence in a field of flowers, with “Noob” hovering alongside “Level 1” above his head. Great, thought Reid. Way to advertise your mediocrity. He looked around Noob’s new digital world.

  Noob was standing in front of some redbrick monastery. On the grass beside the building’s chapel, a crowd of characters were jumping and dancing in their underwear. Some he recognized as elves and dwarves of standard fantasy fare, although the blue-skinned people and the tree folk were new. Each had a name and level floating above their head, but there were so many bodies knotted together that it was hard to get a read on any one.

  Rings of stones with runes carved into them lay scattered, seemingly at random. Higher-level characters in cartoonishly excessive armor were squaring off in each ring, smashing each other with oversized weapons and blasts of magic.

  “Hi,” typed Reid to no one in particular. No one in particular said anything. “Is Astrid here?”

  Fireballs burst against armor. Bloody swords rose and fell. Naked elves cha-cha’d. It was like he wasn’t even there.

  “Does anyone know Astrid Wheeler?” Nobody replied.

  A pair of guards was patrolling the monastery’s interior. Maybe they’d know where to start looking. Noob headed in that direction—

  “CHUCK NORRIIIIIIIIISS!”

  —and a dwarf in a neon cowboy hat bowled him over. The dwarf ran up to the naked partiers, whipped a keg out of nowhere, and exploded in a cloud of beer foam and beard trimmings. The partiers cheered.

  Noob scooped himself out of the sudsy blast zone and fled into the chapel. He found the guards stiffly walking their rounds. They weren’t trying to kill each other, and both were fully clothed, so Reid figured the computer must be controlling them.

  He followed the guards into the chapel’s sanctuary. Before the altar stood a knight with a glowing scroll floating above his head.

  Noob marched up to him. “Hey, there. Hi.”

  The knight ignored him.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  No response. He didn’t even move.

  “I was wondering if you could help me.”

  The knight remained steadfast in not talking.

  Noob waved a hand in front of his face. “Hello? Bueller?” Nothing. He looked around. “Did this guy stroke out or something?”

  A wizard in garishly sequined robes stopped to laugh and point. The name above his head proclaimed him to be Fyreballz, Level 1oo “Noobtard! Dumbass here thinks he can talk to a bot!” He laughed. Frills and feathers heaved. “OMG lolz, fucknut!”

  Reid wasn’t about to take crap from a man dressed as a Mardi Gras float. “Yes, ha ha. Let’s mock the new guy. Imposing dress you’ve got there, Sir Prance-a-lot. Does Tinkerbell know you stole her curtains?”

  Fyreballz stopped laughing. “This, dumbsuck,” he said, indicating his cascading ruffles, “is the raiment of the Arch-Lich Necorpsur! The rarest boss drop in the Moonhollow! It is not a dress!”

  “Neat. Does it come in men’s?”

  Trumpets blared. A ring of the rune stones fell into place around them. “Fyreballz has challenged you to a duel!” boomed a voice from the heavens.

  Reid blinked. “What?”

  Fyreballz held out his palms, crackling with eldritch fire. “We duel, bitch! Choke on my hetero man-fire!”

  Noob ducked out of the circle of stones and behind the knight. “I’d like to request sanctuary. Can I do that? If that’s okay, say nothing.”

  He hadn’t noticed the blue-skinned woman in the corner until she spoke. “Aw, that’s so dumb it’s almost cute.” She stepped between Noob and Fyreballz, turned to the wizard. “Scram, squishy. The green’s with me.”

  Fyreballz glared at the newcomer. “This don’t concern you.”

  “Does now.”

  “I’m just finishing what he started!”

  “Oh, I see,” she said. “He started it. A Level 1 challenged a geared-out 100. In a Level 1 starting zone.” She turned to Noob. “You didn’t, did you? You’re not that dumb, right?”

  “I might have commented on his dress.”

  “It’s a raiment!” Rage-fire erupted from Fyreballz’s shoulders. “He offended my honor! I demand recompense!”

  She unslung her bow and stepped into the circle of stones. “Dude? It’s a dress.”

  From behind the knight, Reid could see her name: Yanker, Level 100. Beneath that, he could make out another name, this one bracketed in chevrons: .

  Fyreballz was apparently sizing up the blue archer, too. “Whatevs.” The flames around his hands vanished in puffs of smoke. “I shall wreak my vengeance another time, Noob. And never forget—you’re all gay!” He made a rude gesture and ran backwards out of the sanctuary, his robe bouncing jauntily.

  “Gay!” he reiterated from the narthex. “All of you! All gay! Gaytards!”

  “You can come out now,” Yanker told Noob. “And by the way? Stepping out of the circle doesn’t cancel the duel. Major rookie mistake.”

  Noob emerged from behind the knight. “Thanks. Dunno what that guy’s problem was.”

  “Gay!” Fyreballz hooted from the distance.

  “NP. Can’t stand that crap.” She kicked a runestone out of place, and the rest of the ring disappeared. “Stupid griefers get bored and have to ruin the game for everyone else.”

  Noob took his first good look at her. She was pretty as far as bald Smurf-skinned women went: slightly taller than Noob, with a swimmer’s build and golden eyes. Her lime and lavender armor resembled a scaly speed skater’s uniform. On her tabard was a mounted knight, middle finger heroically extended.

  “Your armor is cool.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Had to kill the Aurora Dragon like sixty times to collect all the bits.”

  Noob nodded, not understanding.

  Yanker threw her arm around the unresponsive knight. “So, guy here who won’t talk to you? Right-click him.”

  Reid did. The scroll above his head vanished as the knight pounded a mailed fist into his palm. “These blasted orcs!” he said. “Every year they grow bolder!”

  Noob blinked. “I’m… sorry to hear that. But I guess that happens. Anyway, I was hoping you could help me—”

  “The Skullspear tribe has taken up residence in the mines outside Marrowstone! From there, they raid our villages and kill our people!”

  “That can’t play well in the papers.”

  “This will not be tolerated! The time to strike is now!”

  Noob looked at Yanker. “Is it?” She shrugged.

  “They shall bathe in the blood of our vengeance! Go forth, rogue! Slay ten Skullspear orcs and bring me the head of the orc chief Dromor.”

  “Uh…” Noob did a quick scan of the room. “You’ve got like a dozen Level 105 knights in here not doing anything. Why don’t you send them?”

  “Return in triumph, and you may choose your reward!” The knight held out his hands. Above his palms appeared a pair of copper pieces and a bowl of fruit.

  “Sweet,” said Noob. “I was just thinking how what would really get me through this black pit of despair is some pineapple.”

  “I’ll bet it’s a gay pineapple!” yelled Fyreballz from off-screen. “Gay, like you!”

  The rewards had disappeared, and the knight had gone inert again. Reid zoomed in on the knight’s face. “Hello? Angry knight guy? Was that it?”

  “First time in, I take it?” asked Yanker. Noob nodded. “Try clicking again.”

  The quest giver roused. “Well, Noob? Have you brou
ght me the head of Dromor?”

  “Yeah, I ran right out and got it without breaking eye contact.”

  “That’s all they’re programmed for,” said Yanker. “They can’t give complex answers.”

  Noob turned to her. “Could you help me, then? I’m looking for someone.”

  “Yeah, kinda gathered. What’s the name?”

  “Astrid. Astrid Wheeler.”

  “Yeah… no. What’s her toon’s name?” Noob stared at her. “Really? Her character, kid. What’s her character’s name?”

  Reid blanched. “I…” All the glimpses he’d caught of her playing, all the times she’d made him look over her shoulder while she did something cool, and he never thought to look for the name above her head. “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll bet it’s a gay name!”

  Yanker drew and fired a bomb-tipped arrow into the ceiling of the narthex. The resulting explosion flung guards and bits of guards in all directions and buried the hallway in rubble. The surviving guards continued along their courses, unmoved by or oblivious to the fate of their comrades.

  A guard arm landed at Noob’s feet. “The guards…”

  “Will respawn in a few.” Yanker re-slung her bow over her shoulder. “As, unfortunately, will Fyreballz. Anyhoo, the person you’re looking for? If you don’t know her name—”

  “I do!”

  “Her handle, I’d say you’re pretty well screwed.”

  “But she plays all the time!” The bodies of the guards had begun to fade. “I mean, someone here has to know her! Right?”

  “Dude, she might not even be on this server.”

  Reid felt a distant sinking sensation. “Are there many servers?”

  “Last I checked? About three hundred.” Reid’s stomach dropped through the floor.

  The rubble blocking the entrance to the sanctuary had faded away. Yanker saluted him with a “Cheers, lover,” and bounded out past the newly resurrected guards.

  Noob darted out of the monastery. Through the chaos of dueling 100s and naked dancers, he spotted Yanker heading toward a primeval forest bordering the monastery grounds. “Hold up!” He ran after her. “Wait, please!”

  Yanker stopped, turned. “Really? What?”

  “Look, please—help me.”