by Parker Tiden
In the first round, I was blown up by a grenade. In the second round, I was killed by sniper fire. In the third round, I was shot-gunned after no more than 30 seconds. So on and so forth. There was the eye-hand coordination thing that needed serious honing. I needed to be able to move and turn and aim, all in some magical symbiosis of the left and right hand, and of the left and right brain, all the while, maintaining a constant 360-degree awareness of my surroundings.
Finally, after at least a dozen tries, I got in my first kill. It was more luck than anything else. I rounded a cluster of dying trees, and there in front of me stood a warrior in red armor with his freaking back turned. He was a sitting duck. I aimed the AK47 right at his back, clenched my teeth, and set off a hail of bullets towards him. Enough of the flying chunks of burning metal hit him to drop him. A rush of giddy pride pulsed through me, blurring my focus for long enough to get me killed again. But no matter—I had done it. It was downhill from here.
"Not bad," I heard from behind me. "Not bad at all." Dead Brazilians littered the landscape before me. I had lost track of time again. I ripped off my headgear and shot out of the chair. Nick looked impressed for real.
"Gotta go," I said, avoiding eye contact, embarrassed again at my loss of control, a state compounded by the wet stains under my armpits. My armpits hadn't crossed my mind for weeks, is there a jungle there now?
"See you back soon?" Nick said mockingly.
"I don't know," I said, almost to myself as I made for the door. "I don't know."
I hadn't dared to hope, but my dad was in my dreams again that night. The wind in his hair, serenity on his face, under that same tree on the top of a hill, framed by the mountains and moons of Alphacore. I shouted, I waved, I jumped, I tried to run to him. I could never get closer.
The next day, after having taken a long shower and decimating the jungle under my arms, I sat in my window all afternoon, waiting for Nick to get home. At 6 pm, he still hadn't shown up. At 7 pm, his parents were home, but his room was dark. 8 pm… nothing. 8.30… nothing. 9.15… still nothing. Who the hell does this guy think he is, leaving me hanging like this? Some warning would have been nice.
Nick never got home that night, which meant that my sleep was different shades of black—dreamless. I had to repeatedly force my way back into consciousness, out of sleep, for fear of being trapped in the void. I awoke exhausted.
The next afternoon, Nick finally appeared in his window.
"Where the hell have you been?" I yelled as he pulled his window open.
"Hello to you, too," he said.
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Your assumption that I have nothing better to do than to game, or help you game for that matter, is, frankly, a bit insulting."
"What did you do then? Tell me."
"What are you, my parole officer? I was at Jamaal's house."
"Doing what?"
"You know, hanging out," Nick said feebly while looking down for an instant.
"I knew it!"
"Knew what?"
"You were in Alphacore!"
Nick sighed. "Fine, we dabbled a bit in Alphacore. When you're done with your psychotic ranting, pop on over to get your fix."
I had started to play almost every day. Nick was mostly hands-off, literally and figuratively, but did prove useful when it came to imparting some of the subtler aspects of the game like crouching and multi-stepped jumping. But most of the progress was my doing. I noticed a growing fluidity in my gaming, coupled with improved spatial awareness and honed multi-tasking abilities. Soon, the Brazilians were no longer a match and I joined a good ol' American server.
The pattern was sustained. The nights I gamed, I saw Dad in my Alphacore dreams. The nights I didn't, I had to battle the void.
One evening, I was tapped on the shoulder again. "My mom was wondering," Nick said, fidgeting hesitantly, "if you'd like to join us for dinner."
I pulled off my headgear, "Me?"
"Yes, you. Who would have thought, right?"
"When?"
"Like, right now."
Why would they want to share their dinner with a street urchin? I hadn't been in a social setting for weeks, could I still use a knife and fork?
"I don't think so. I'll just stay up here. You go ahead."
"What if I said that I want you to join us?"
What is the worst that could happen? That they want to talk about me and my situation—that would come to no good. I might even do something impolite. The last thing I needed was their pity.
Before I knew what was happening, I heard myself saying, "Fine." I stood up from the gaming chair and held up my hands. "I just need to wash these." Nick pointed to one of the upstairs bathrooms.
In the harsh light of the bathroom mirror, I stared at myself… my pathetic little self. The darkness under my eyes was in stark contrast to the whiteness of my sun-starved skin, all framed by the stubble of my scalp. I looked like a child vampire.
I grabbed the sink as I felt my chest tighten, as if the sink could save me from a panic attack. Would I have to smile? Smiling was so foreign to me now. I splashed some cold water on my face and gave it a couple of good slaps. I tried a smile, it was there on my face, but you could tell it was fake from a mile away. It would have to do; it was all I could muster.
I realized that I didn't know Nick at all when we sat there at the dinner table. Nick's father took hold of my left hand, and his older sister, Abby, took my right hand in hers. Nick's dad's features were not as sharp as my dad's, but his hands felt eerily familiar. Abby had Nick's smile. The fact that they were probably hand-holding religious wackos suddenly didn't scare me much.
"May we be grateful for the food before us," Nick's father began, "and may we be grateful for the gentle roof over our heads." He paused. "Above all, we are grateful to have Lily at our table, in our home." I could feel Nick's father squeeze my left hand gently and Abby squeeze my right. "May we be present in this moment and think of those less fortunate than us—for the suffering is indeed boundless." My hands burned and my world tilted slightly on its axle.
I was an observer that night, allowed to sit on the bench and follow the wax and wane of conversation, the laughter, the honesty of it all. Every now and again, I caught Nick throwing a glance my way. Try as I may, I think I failed to prevent an errant smile from appearing on my face. I might even have laughed that night.
Speed Freak
It was well into October. I’d been playing Alphacore nearly every day. I had ventured as far as Nick's house, with Nick as my own personal Miyagi, guiding me through the nerd-infested jungle of online gaming geek-o-rama. By now, it wasn’t only the dreams of my dad that drove me, it was something else. Then, one afternoon, my doorbell rang. I wasn't in the habit of answering the front door anymore, but whoever was outside was making it clear that they weren't planning on going anywhere any time soon, and besides, it wasn't like they were interrupting anything.
I had grown weirdly accustomed to Nick and the smile that fit his face so well, but I had never invited him to my house, let alone my room. "Got something for you," Nick said with barely concealed excitement when I opened the door, motioning towards the big fat box in front of him. Sensing my hesitation, he continued, "But it's pretty heavy. I'll need to carry it up."
I didn't like this development at all. Letting someone in too close seemed fraught with risk, but I was somewhat intrigued. "Fine," I relented, pointing him upstairs.
"Wow, you really got a moon thing going," he commented as he took in my room. "You're not a werewolf or something, you know… like what's her face?"
"Leah Clearwater, funny."
The snow globe I had used to assault Nick wasn't the only moon-themed item in my room. I had moon wallpaper, a moon bedspread, moon slippers, and so on and so forth. A stranger could be forgiven for thinking I was a lunatic, or, at the very least, extremely childish.
"Open it," he said, pointing at the box he had set down on the lunar carpe
t on the floor in the middle of my room. I pulled open the top flaps and peered down into, plastic, metal, and wire.
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's for you. A new world."
Nick spent the next half an hour unboxing his creation and setting it up on my desk. Although not a full-blown computer geek yet, I could still tell that it was something special. He plugged it into the mains.
"You do the honors," he said, pointing to the computer frame on my desk and pulling out my chair. "Here, sit."
"Whatever," I said. I sat down and pressed what looked like a power button. The computer let out a low confident hum and came to life with florescent light escaping from behind its Plexiglas siding, where blue incandescent liquid circulated in transparent tubing, like some cybernetic alien.
"It's beautiful," I said honestly, "but why... I don't understand."
"It's yours. I built it for you."
"I can't accept it... it's too much... it must have cost..." My emotions surprised me as my vision blurred, slightly.
"You have no choice. I mean, you've made some improvements, but now that you're going to join JRN, you're gonna need to practice day and night."
"J-R what?"
"My team in Alphacore, Just Regular Noobs. We just lost one of our own to computer overdose and we need a new member, like yesterday."
"Yeah, right."
"You bet. We are going to this big tournament in a few weeks, and I’ve told the others that you might just be the key to our success."
"But—”
"Now that I've built you this water-cooled speed freak of a computer, the only one to blame if we fail to reach the final round is you. Besides, I can't have you hanging out in my room all the time, my parents probably think you're my girlfriend."
"We can't have that, can we," I said, turning my face away from him. I'd been having dinner at Nick's place for almost a week now. They didn't even ask anymore. My place between Nick's dad and Abby was set. Every evening, I held their hands. After that first dinner, Nick had explained to me that it wasn't a religious thing, more just about practicing gratitude. He said his parents were card-carrying humanists. I wasn't quite sure what a humanist was.
"Anyhow... now that you have your own rig, it's time to build your own character," Nick said as he pulled up an extra chair to mine. "And you're gonna have to find a better chair, you need elbow support," Nick explained.
"Can't I just use SoomoBrother? I've gotten used to him."
"Nope. Living and dying with your own character will give you a sense of accomplishment at a whole other level. It's like you never really love anybody else's kid as much as you love your own, no matter how cute that other kid is. Your kid is just special. Its slobber is special. Its fecal matter is special." And almost to himself, he said, "Explains why my parents would ever think you could be my girlfriend…”
I must've played at least 80 hours of Alphacore in total. I never felt, or at least not since he died, as alive as I did when battling it out in the other world. "Sure, I'm ready."
"Just a sec," Nick said suddenly, then disappeared downstairs. He came back half a minute later with a blanket-covered rectangle and placed it on my desk. "It's one of my old ones, so you'll have to upgrade at some point," he said, pulling off the blanket to reveal a monitor. "But it will do for now."
He plugged the monitor into the rig, and the Alphacore logo was already alive and well on the screen. "I found a used copy on Ebay," he explained, "and it's loaded with a six-month subscription to Alphacore's dedicated network."
He placed a headset over my ears and lowered the see-through visor over my eyes.
One of the things that sets Alphacore apart from its competitors is, at least according to Nick, that characters are almost endlessly customizable, within certain set parameters, of course. It's apparently even possible to import your own artwork. It took us a while, I wasn't the best decision-maker, but after an hour, we had finished building her.
"So, for the final, and most important touch," Nick said triumphantly, "you're going to have to name your baby."
For a brief moment, I considered choosing a male character. I had, after all, been playing male for the past weeks and it felt shamefully empowering. But when I thought of the dearth of women in the gaming world, and the chauvinistic portrayal of female characters when they do appear, it would have been a betrayal of my gender. "I think I'll call her Luna," I said as I contemplated my creation.
Luna had long ponytails, a t-shirt, ripped jeans, and bright red sneakers. On her head, she wore an old-school leather football helmet, and most importantly, she carried some very big guns. Her eyes were bigger than mine, but she had some of my freckles. She was a version of me, and it was time to take her on a test run.
My love for Luna was instantaneous. I suddenly understood what Nick was talking about, what it means to play your own character. So, I started out slow, instinctively wanting to keep her out of harm’s way, I kept her out of the battle zones—for now. I continued my ongoing exploration of Alphacore. The forests, lakes, prairies. I knew that Luna was governed by the same laws of physics that the Alphacore programmers had developed for all the millions of characters roaming this virtual world, but somehow, when I put her through the ropes, asked her to run, jump, crouch, climb, and swim, she seemed faster and better than SoomoBrother.
My bladder brought me back to real life. I flipped up my visor, took off the headset, and turned around. Nick had gone. It was almost 1 am. Nick must have snuck out, who knows how long ago. Alphacore had such a voracious appetite for time, like congressmen for campaign contributions, it was frightening. I walked over to the window, the only blueish light there was came from the moon. Nick's room was dark.
That night, I was in Alphacore again, but my dream was more intense and the colors more vivid than ever. My dad was under his tree. He had that same subtle contemplative expression on his face and that same wind in his hair. I still couldn't get to him, but this time, when I shouted to him, I could swear that I saw him move his head slightly in my direction, as if he thought he heard something but wasn't entirely sure.
Nick's gift would let me visit my dad every night. Nick could never fathom his generosity. It overwhelmed me. How could I ever repay him?
The Noobs
In the last week of October, I was officially inducted into Just Regular Noobs at my first ever LAN-party in Nick's basement. When Nick told Jamaal and George that he had a candidate for the open spot on the team, they were skeptical. They were probably looking for a seasoned player that could get them to the final round, so they essentially demanded a try-out.
"It's no big deal," Nick said, trying to calm me down as he broke the news. "Just show them what you got."
"You guys should be happy anybody wants to join your lame outfit."
Nick smiled, "Chill, Lil, they're just nerds being nerds. To them, Alphacore is dead serious."
"Chill, Lil, yourself."
"You're definitively ready to join JRN. I mean, just look at how upset you get when your skill is being questioned."
So, we met for a try-out, pitting me and Nick against Jamaal and George in a series of battles.
"Mom, I'm going to a college frat keg party. Don't expect me home before dawn," I said on my way out the door with my dad's office chair, having already made several trips with my computer gear. "I'll just grab a handful of oxy from your jar here on the counter, oh and I'm out of condoms, but I'm sure the frat house has plenty lying around."
I could have said whatever, she probably wasn't even listening. I didn't see much of her. She was cooped up in her room most of the time, rarely even getting out of her bathrobe. She was a pathetic sight to behold. I rolled my gaming chair out the door.
In Nick’s basement, I had just made the final adjustments to my rig and booted up Speed Freak, when George and Jamaal came down the stairs. One of them saw me first and stopped dead in his tracks, the other crashed right into him, and they both nearly tumbled down the stai
rs with half their gear. Only by awkwardly clutching the banister, and each other, did they avoid certain death on Nick's tiled basement floor.
They tried to gather themselves and managed to put down their gear on their assigned desks. "RBN is finally entering the 21st century with a female member," Nick grinned. "This is his is Georgios Ballas, aka George, aka Girth," Nick said. "What you would call a hard-core gamer, perhaps the best with a Heckler and Koch A5, and he also comes in handy as a meat shield. He's even a pretty good hacker."
"Hi," I said, stretching out my hand towards George. He looked like a caricature of a gamer with his pasty complexion, pubertal face fuzz, and considerable heft from too much soda and stasis, which would explain his handle.
"We've been in the same class since 7th grade, Lily," George countered.
"Oh, God... I'm sorry... of course... George!" I couldn't stop myself from blushing.
"George has, in fact, had a crush on you since said 7th grade," Nick added.
"Who hasn't? I'm Jamaal," Jamaal said, stretching out his hand. "We've only been in the same grade for a year or so. So, perfectly understandable that you wouldn't know who I am." Jamaal had a buzz cut and sharp features.
"Jamaal, aka Jarno, is a kick-ass sniper. He has stacks of head-shot records," Nick explained, clearly amused by the whole situation. My blushing continued unabated. "Let's get this show on the road. Why don't you two get your rigs set up? Lil and I will go get some forage." He took my arm and guided me towards the stairs.
