by Mia Archer
“So?”
“So think about it! You’re not just going up against the best this country has to offer. You’ve beat all of them before. You’re going up against the best the world has to offer! You’ll be able to say you’re the best player in the whole world!”
“But I already am the best player in the whole world…”
“You sure about that?” Trevor asked. “We’ve never been to one of the international events before. Figures ARealms started footing the bill for international travel right when their big event is in our backyard. You don’t know that there isn’t someone lurking out there from another country who isn’t better than you.
I knew when I was being manipulated. As I looked at the smiles on both their faces I knew they were trying to pull a fast one on me. They were trying to get me to give in by appealing to my ego and vanity, and much to my annoyance it was working.
“You two are fucking devious. I want you to know that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Danielle said.
“You’re trying to make this thing seem like it’ll actually be a challenge.”
“But it will be a challenge!” Danielle said. “Plus we’ll get to see all our friends…”
“You mean you’ll get to see that queen’s guard you shacked up with in the back room of the castle the last time we were at one of these events?”
Danielle’s face went pale. “You knew about that?”
Trevor barked out a laugh. “Dani dear, everyone knew about that! Those walls aren’t exactly soundproof, you know.”
Danielle’s face went from pale to bright red as she realized belatedly just how public her love life had become. Whoops. Not that I could blame her. We all hooked up at those things.
“I still don’t want to go.”
Both of them looked stunned. I almost wanted to smile. It was obvious the two of them had been expecting something like this so they’d worked up that routine between the two of them. Seeing the looks on their faces when they realized I was onto their bullshit and I wasn’t falling for it was classic.
“But we have to go!” Danielle whined. “I don’t care if you heard. I need another go with Ivan!”
“Ivan?” Trevor laughed again. “The guy’s name is Ivan? Seriously?”
“Shut up Trevor,” Danielle said. “You’re just mad that no guys ever hit on you.”
“Oh I don’t know about that. Let’s just say that a certain someone stole my heart when I was out negotiating with the thieves’ camp last year…”
“You slut! I had no idea he was gay!”
“Well Nathan isn’t, but his second in command Dave sure as hell is! It was a lot of fun playing the thief king and the captive royal messenger,” he said.
I rubbed my fingers against my temples. Once again I could see what they were doing, and it looked like we’d come full circle back to their initial attempt to entice me. If they weren’t going to lure me out there with the promise of fighting off some of the best players from around the world then they were going to try and remind me of the promise of knocking boots with some of the numerous attractive, and usually kinky and into role-playing, individuals who populated these events.
“Guys, the two of you really aren’t helping your case here.”
Both turned and looked at me with that same annoyed expression again. Both blinked in unison. Again it almost would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so damn irritating.
“It isn’t?”
“You’re just reminding me of all the creepers who come up and start hitting on me,” I said.
“So?” Danielle countered. “There might be lots of guys who creep on you, but eventually they figure out they’re barking up the wrong tree and you always find some pretty little thing to cuddle up with at night.”
I sighed. “You two aren’t going to give up on this until I give in, are you?”
Danielle leaned forward over the table, stabbing a ketchup covered fry in my direction and nearly causing some of that ketchup to go flying onto my shirt.
“Look at it this way, Erin. You know deep down you’re not going to give this up. The challenge, the groupies, all of that’s nice but it isn’t why you go to these things.”
“It isn’t?”
“Nope, it isn’t,” Trevor said. “You know it. We know it. You’re going to be in that car when it’s time to go out to the big event.”
“And why is that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Because you’re not going to give this up. It’s the one time of year when a poor grad student becomes a star overnight complete with huge corporations paying you to show up and groupies throwing themselves at you. You’re addicted to that small slice of the good life, and you’re not going to give it up just because you’re bored with the game.”
I flipped Danielle the bird. She smiled and returned the gesture. At the end of the day my friends knew me far too well. They knew just how to manipulate me.
“I hate you. Now how early are we leaving?”
4: To the Gathering
“This weekend is going to be so fucking awesome!” Colin said.
“You’re damn right it is!”
My phone started buzzing. I looked down, half expecting a call, but it was just another warning. Colin glanced over and then into his rear view mirror when he realized what my phone was telling me. An area-of-effect ward that was attached to my character was going off which meant there was a potential hostile coming up on us in the game, and coming up on us fast.
I flipped open the map portion of the game app. Out here on the open road it worked perfectly in a way that it just didn’t in enclosed buildings. Sure enough there was a red dot moving closer and closer. When I moved from the gameworld map overlay, a fantasyscape that bore absolutely no resemblance to the cornfields whizzing past outside, to the real world map it became even more obvious that this potential threat was coming up behind us rapidly and following the line of the Interstate.
“Hostile?” Colin asked.
“No way to know. I’m going to cloak us again.”
Colin sighed, but didn’t protest. Sure there were stories online about epic battles taking place on the highways. There were also concerned articles from reporters who didn’t know anything about the game interviewing cops who didn’t know anything about video games at all. Talking about accidents that had been caused by people playing Alternate Realms instead of paying attention to the road.
I didn’t see how playing Alternate Realms was any different than texting, but better to not get involved in one of those situations in the first place. I switched over to my spell screen and put up a cloaking spell that would keep us hidden from all but the highest level mages.
“Y’know we could just deactivate our characters until we get off the road,” Colin said.
“What would be the fun in that?” I asked. “If we do that then we don’t have people driving up on us thinking they’re getting easy pickings then seeing our characters disappear. Besides, this is the kind of fun we never get to enjoy back home. It’s a highway teeming with Alternate Realms players! How fun is that?”
“It’s the kind of fun that could get our characters killed before we even make it to the Gathering. You know what happens then.”
“Yeah, we have to wait until tomorrow to play unless someone can resurrect us. I don’t see what the big deal is there. The campground at the Gathering is a neutral zone where there’s no player versus player action, and we don’t go into the playing area until tomorrow morning anyways.”
“I guess you have a point. Besides, with that invisibility spell they might just think we chickened out and logged out,” Colin said.
“Not a chance. Our icons would show blue for a minute if we did that. This way we just disappear. This way they know there’s a shark swimming somewhere out there and they need to be careful.”
“You’re having too much fun with this,” Colin said.
“You know it!”
I w
as having too much fun with this. Normally I’d run into a few people playing Alternate Realms outside the office. Maybe I’d frag a kid who thought he was hot shit in a mall food court or take out somebody at a traffic light. Driving out to the annual gathering, though, was something else entirely. The highway was lousy with people cruising towards the big event, and most of them kept their characters flagged on the road. It meant that I was quite literally riding shotgun making sure nobody took out our characters on our way to the Gathering, and it really had the adrenaline pumping even though it was just a video game.
“Whoa, this asshole is coming up on us fast,” Colin said.
“I know. It’s like they don’t even know I can see them,” I said. I was still looking at the screen and if anything it seemed like that red dot coming towards us had picked up speed since I went invisible.
“What are you talking about?” Colin asked.
I pointed to my screen. “Those people who were coming up behind us with their characters flagged? They picked up speed when I went invisible.”
“Yeah? I think they’re coming up behind us right now, and they’re not exactly obeying the rules of the road.”
“Huh. Maybe we should teach them a lesson?”
“No way Anna,” Colin said. “I don’t want to be a victim of Realms rage.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t seriously believe that bullshit, do you?”
“What about that guy out in Nevada?”
“You mean the guy who slept with his best friend’s sister, got the crap kicked out of him for it, and then the parents blamed it on Alternate Realms after the fact?”
“Oh. I didn’t hear the whole story.”
“You never do. Now are you ready to teach these assholes a lesson?”
Our conversation was interrupted by a frantic beeping from my phone. I looked down in time to see the game switch from the map view to the local grid. Basically a zoomed in map without all the detail that showed enemies and their spells coming at you. A fireball was streaking towards a car two cars back. Then the car jerked forward in the passing lane and another fireball streaked out towards the car right behind us.
“Huh. Looks like they’re hitting every car in the right lane,” I said. “And risking causing an accident in the process, I might add.”
“Makes sense. They can’t see us so they’re just attacking anything that moves because they know we’re out here somewhere.”
“Should I be worried? Do I need to log out?”
“Patience, Colin. Everyone who’s come by us on the road has been a scrub. I don’t see why these guys would be any different.”
I looked at the fireball they were firing off. Either they were trying to disguise how powerful they really were, entirely possible, or they weren’t all that high a level in the first place. I grinned.
“I don’t like that grin, Anna,” Colin said. “What are you up to?”
“Those assholes should know that a minnow doesn’t go poking every fish in the ocean when one of them might turn out to be a great white.”
I dug in my pack. Pulled out my trusty set of plastic Alternate Realms glasses. I plugged them into the audio jack on my phone and immediately little LEDs that looked for all the world like the display on one of those lame LED handhelds my brother still had lying around the bottom of his toy box when we were kids.
“Um, Anna? Isn’t that going to give us away?”
“Probably, but it doesn’t matter. They can’t touch us.”
The car pulled up next to ours. A guy in the passenger seat who looked like he was entirely too young to be going to the Gathering looked over and blinked when he saw me sitting there with my glasses on. They were distinctive enough, looking like slightly oversized safety goggles that glowed slightly from the LED overlay. I leaned past Colin and waved at them with a huge grin on my face that I hoped was sufficiently predatory, but from the way the guy flipped us off and started tapping on his phone he didn’t get the message.
Another fireball leapt out from their car towards ours. Though of course in the real world there was no indication that anything was going on. Well, aside from their car staying next to ours instead of passing. In the virtual world of Alternate Realms, though, everything happened fast. The display on my glasses told me a fireball was incoming and lines tracked as it came for me and went harmlessly right through. Down on my phone’s screen it showed the fireball moving from one side of the grid, through us, and to the other side.
I tapped a quick message into the local grid chat. Usually characters just spoke face to face, but the developers had helpfully put this feature in for the rare occasion, like driving, when face to face contact wasn’t possible.
“My turn! ;)”
I took a moment to decide what spell would work the best. There were so many to choose from. Ultimately I decided a nice jumping lightning spell would do the trick. There were three in the car, all of them flagged, and since they’d entered combat they couldn’t log out even if they could see their doom staring them down. I tapped the spell button on my phone and lightning shot out to their car, instantly killing all three of their characters.
The reaction was immediate. They started screaming and the guy slammed on his brakes, very nearly causing an accident with a massive pickup truck behind him that had been riding his ass because he was staying even with us instead of passing. They recovered without an accident, but I found my adrenaline pumping for a very different reason for a moment.
Okay, so maybe some of those stories about Alternate Realms causing accidents were true. Still, it would be that asshole’s fault for slamming on the brakes over a video game of all things.
“You nearly caused an accident,” Colin said.
“Correction. The prick in that car nearly caused an accident. I’m just playing a game in the passenger seat of a car being all responsible.”
“You’re cold, Anna.”
My stomach grumbled just as he said that. “Yeah, I might be cold, but I could do with a hot meal right about now.”
The car filled with now-deceased players drove past us again flipping us off. I looked up for a moment to return the gesture then looked back down. I couldn’t really make out much in the way of detail in their car, but I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t be able to recognize me when we got to the Gathering. No, if I was showing up at this thing then I didn’t want people to know how high level my character was. All the more fun when I did a big reveal.
“Making friends,” Colin said, his voice level.
“Hey, they deserved it. Now how about that food?”
Luckily there was a huge combination truck stop and diner at the next exit. The kind that can be found dotting the landscape on interstates all over the country. Trucks pulled in and out on one side while cars parked on the other side.
“A truck stop diner?” Colin asked, disdain dripping off his voice.
“What’s wrong with that? It’s good old fashioned Americana you’re eating!”
“How about we just get a soda and some chips and wait for a fast food joint down the road?”
I sighed and my stomach grumbled again. I could really go for some real food, but chips and a soda would do the trick and tide me over until we could find something more substantial.
“I’m not going to convince you to eat there?”
“And get a side of botulism or salmonella with my burger and fries? No thank you,” Colin said.
I sighed. Colin really could be fussy sometimes, and when he got like this there was no convincing him.
“You’re really going to be in for a shock when we’re roughing it at the Gathering,” I said. “Unless you think cooking around a campfire is as healthy as a restaurant that has health inspectors coming through on the regular.”
“I’ll take my chances until we get to the Gathering, thank you very much,” Colin said.
The rest area was pretty big. It was one of those massive deals that had showers and a whole section dedicated to the so
rt of things truckers would need on the road. Movies, radio equipment, mud flaps featuring scantily clad women. I gave that section a miss and headed for the chips. I was looking over a large selection of salty fattening deliciousness when I felt a buzz in my pocket.
I pulled my phone out, glanced down, and was immediately on guard. It was flashing red. Someone in this truck stop was logged in, and it definitely wasn’t Colin because I’d specifically flagged him as a friendly when I set up the ward. We might go at each other in the office, but for this trip we were the staunchest of allies.
The chips were forgotten. I pulled up a detect spell and the phone brought up a grid pointing off towards the diner. Okay, maybe it was a good thing we didn’t go in there after all. We might have been walking right into a trap. I watched the local map grid for a moment, but whoever was in there was staying still. They didn’t know someone was out here hunting them.
I grinned. Nice to know the precautions I’d taken were actually working.
I peered into the diner and my breath caught. I figured I’d find some players sitting in there enjoying a late lunch, but I hadn’t expected to see the queen herself sitting in there laughing with her friends. Holy shit!
And she was even more gorgeous in person than in those pictures. No, it was obvious watching her chatting with her friends that she had an easy grace about her that complimented her beauty. I felt weak in the knees as I stared, and then I caught myself. Staring was never a good thing, and it was a recipe for a quick death in Alternate Realms if they realized I was scoping them out. I leaned against the wall and struggled to catch my breath, and as I brought my breathing under control I realized I could hear their conversation.
“So how many confirmed kills is that?” a male voice asked.
“At least a dozen,” a second voice, female, said. I wondered if that was her majesty.
“Well they don’t really have a chance when her majesty is out throwing around the spells, do they?” a third female voice said. That meant the second one belonged to the queen. To Erin.
