Code Jumper

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize that it was that difficult to explain…”

  “It’s not that it’s difficult to explain, it’s just that…”

  ‘Say it,’ I thought to myself, ‘tell her that it’s like talking to a really annoying kid.’

  “You do know that I can hear most of what you’re thinking, right?”

  ‘Crap.’

  “Crap indeed.”

  I AM NOT THAT ANNOYING

  “Go ahead, tell me.” Quinn said for the sixth time as I got into the car after killing the last of the cops, “Tell me how annoying I’m being. I know you’re thinking it now, so you may as well just tell me.”

  “You’re not being annoying, it’s just…”

  “The things I say? Because, by definition, that is what makes someone annoying.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, trying my best to sound like I didn’t agree with her, “people asking stupid things doesn’t make them stupid, does it?”

  Quinn thought on the question, as upset people tended to do when they wanted to win an argument, “Doesn’t it though? Albert Einstein wouldn’t have asked any stupid questions, would he?”

  “I don’t know, maybe? I’m sorry, but I really have no way of telling if the guy behind the theory of general relativity ever said the ending of Titanic was spoiled for him by a review.”

  “Well, that’d be because he died many years before that film came out.”

  I put the car in gear and decided to give up, she clearly wasn’t going to be rational, and the last thing I needed was to be getting picked on by a few lines of code.

  Yes, I knew she was much more than a pile of code, but at the same time I knew that she was annoying the crap out of me.

  “Get me directions to Don Callomezi.” I said with a tired sigh, “He should be hanging out at his restaurant.”

  “Calculating route.” Quinn said more robotically than necessary, “Route calculat-five hours? You’re going to spend the next five hours driving?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Why? Because it’s unnecessarily slow! Why not catch a train? Or get a plane ticket?”

  “A, I saw Horror Express when I was nine and I haven’t been on a train since,” I said, a shiver running up my spine as I remembered that first scene where the guys eye’s went red, “and B, I like driving. It helps me get my head together.”

  “You mean you spend hours going over what line’s going to make you sound the best when you meet the person at your destination?”

  “I don’t like the way you put it, but yeah. A lot of being human is vanity and trying to make sure you say just the right thing to the right person.”

  I’m not sure why, but I got the strangest feeling that Quinn was judging me. Sometimes I get those feelings, it’s kind of like I can read minds.

  Also, she kinda mumbled something about me being a loser.

  Ah, the advancement of technology, making your cyber Alfred Pennyworth hate you just like most humans do.

  LITERARY LOADING SCREEN TWO

  So, I feel like I owe you an explanation about the whole respawn thing that happens with Re.Gen.

  Basically it works like any other game, you die, you respawn, you keep playing.

  Complicatedly it works nothing like any other game.

  Simple, right? No? Fine, I guess I can give some more info, but only because I’m a nice guy.

  When you die in Re.Gen you have three options.

  Option one is the simplest, you respawn as a baby being birthed by a random player if they decide they want to experience that sort of thing. After that you go through and live a full life with options to skip ahead by X amount, which are available whenever you want them.

  Option two is slightly more complicated. You get the opportunity to fast forward back to where you were in your career or school life, but only up to where you’ve already unlocked, as in you can’t just become Chief of Police, you have to have been trained and accessed that promotion organically first.

  This was added so as to prevent stupid people from becoming the President of the United States and blowing up the world over and over again in a global Groundhog Day-esque nightmare.

  Funnily enough that’s also why players have to be voted into major political seats… Okay, I know what I’m describing sounds just like real life with reincarnation tossed into the mix, but I promise it’s much cooler.

  Option three is personally my favorite, and is offered to every player when they die. You get to choose if you want to go into a new world, one that’s a bit less ‘real’.

  What? Did you really think that Re.Gen was just some life simulator? Puh-lease, can you imagine how boring that would be? Living in the real world? In your present day?

  I mean… I’m sure your life is awesome and not at all boring. I’m positive that you don’t ever consider the possibility that you’re living the same day over and over again just so you can hope to make it to next year with the latest gigamawatsit while struggling to keep up with the ever-rising cost of living that’s being put upon you by what seems to be some evil force with no true motive.

  Honest.

  Anyway, on with the story.

  DON CALLOMEZI

  After an hour or so of complaining about how illogical it was for me to be driving all the way to the Don’s place, Quinn caved to my way of thinking and got comfortable. I mean, I assume she did, she might’ve just given up on trying to convince me to go to the airport though.

  I never did understand how people couldn’t appreciate driving and how much fun it was.

  You can be as alone or social as you want, you can haul ass or enjoy a steady cruise, Hell, you can do just about anything in a car. It’s like having a house that you move.

  I realize now that what I’ve just described is an RV, or the crappy sedan of some suburban dad who’s been given the boot, but that doesn’t make the point any less valid.

  Cars are awesome, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a cyclist, and everyone knows cyclists can’t be trusted.

  “Hey, Quinn, we’re almost there.” I said with a level of peppiness that surprised even me as I drove through the small city, “How are we for cops?”

  “Nothing on the local scanner.” Quinn replied with what sounded like genuine irritation, “Guess it’s difficult to put out an APB when you’re dead.”

  “Thanks.” I said, ignoring her bitterness and turning down the alleyway behind Callomezi’s restaurant.

  The city was pretty quiet, no doubt because we’d rounded the bend from really late to really early about an hour beforehand, but I still didn’t feel comfortable parking in the street out the front of what was a well-known mafia hangout.

  “Mind shooting Callomezi a message?” I asked as I parked in front of a dumpster at the end of the alley, “Just something casual letting him know we’re here.”

  “Shouldn’t we send him something with reverence? He is rather important in this area.”

  “Yeah, but he knows I’m a Code Jumper, which makes me important everywhere.”

  I heard how egotistical I was being, but I was getting into the headspace of someone who was significant enough to wake up the Don at stupid o’clock.

  “Done. How long does it normally take for him to respon-oh! My, he’s quick.”

  “He’s really not,” I said as I got out and started toward the restaurant’s back door, “he’s just got some halfway decent software. The kinda stuff that might make even you look ancient.”

  “How dare you!?” Quinn gasped with what sounded like genuine anger, “I am one of the best AIs on the market, and for you, a human, to pretend that anything in this… this… simulation is anything close to what I ca-”

  “Mute.”

  Voila, glorious silence.

  I know I probably should’ve let her say her piece, but from how she was behaving I’d assumed that she’d finally found the ability to have resentment which, though interesting, I really didn’t need to be dealing with right
now.

  It’s like having a kid that says ‘dada’ for the first time. For a little while you’re really impressed, but when they start screaming it over and over again every day it can start to grate on you.

  She’d only had a few seconds to vent, granted, but, in the nicest possible way, it wasn’t my job to be yelled at by a few glorified lines of code.

  “Who’s there?” a gruff voice asked through the door before I had a chance to knock.

  “Eddie,” I replied in a disinterest monotone, “Callomezi’s expecting me.”

  “Oh yeah? And how do I know you ain’t a cop? You got any ID?”

  “You must be new.” I said, trying to be as mocking as humanly possible, “Look, if you don’t open this door I’m gonna have to tear it down.”

  Perhaps I was being more hostile than necessary, but, to be fair, I had a reputation to uphold, not just for myself, but for all the hackers I worked with.

  “And ho-”

  “Is that Eddie?” another, slightly more Italian-sounding voice asked as he came up behind the first guy, “If that’s Eddie you best hope your life insurance is up-to-date.”

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” the first guy asked defensively, “I ain’t ever heard o’ no Eddie.”

  “That’s ‘cause you don’t listen you moron!” the second guy barked before the unmistakable sound of a head getting slapped came through the door, to which I couldn’t help but smile, “He’s a damn Code Jumper!”

  After that, the door couldn’t open fast enough, revealing two suited men with entirely too much product slicking back their thick hair standing in the doorway, the one in the cheap black number at least half a foot taller than me, and the other in a slightly more peacock-ish green and purple three-piece a full foot shorter.

  I have to say that the reverence that came with the job was pretty fun, meant I could stand there staring the two men down for a solid ten seconds and all they could do was squirm.

  Most were convinced that Code Jumpers were basically wizards and could alter the entire fabric of their reality, but, as I’m sure you’re aware, we had our limits, especially considering we didn’t want to get caught.

  “Oh!” the shorter guy said with what I’m pretty sure was an unconscious snap of his fingers, “Yeah, right, come in, come in. Don Callomezi’s in the bar.”

  Got to be honest, I wasn’t waiting to be invited in, I’m not a Goddamn vampire after all, but I figured it was best that I pretended that that was what I was going for and stepped through the door.

  “Sorry ‘bout Benny, he hasn’t had the benefit of a decent schooling, hence why he’s a doorman. Name’s Feather Fingers Frank, pleasure to meet you.”

  Frank extended his hand out as I watched Benny shut the door behind me, shutting me into the broom closet-sized space and trying desperately not to make eye-contact.

  “Shouldn’t you be collecting something?” I asked, leaving Frank to keep his hand hovering nervously in front of him.

  Benny looked around confusedly as if waiting for the room to come crumbling down on top of him, and then started shaking his head, “I-uh-I…”

  I let out a sigh and took my gun out of its holster and handed it to the large man, “I doubt Callomezi would be happy if I walked in there armed, would he?”

  The doorman nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again as he struggled to find the correct response before simply turning away and putting my gun in the trashcan by the door as delicately as he possibly could.

  “So, bar then?” I asked as I turned back to face Frank before seeing and finally shaking his hand with the type of cold annoyance I normally saved for Socialists and people who thought the Star Wars prequels were ‘just as good as the originals’.

  Yes, both of those people are equally wrong.

  It took Frank a minute to realize what I’d said, apparently his mind was still lingering on the whole me giving my gun over voluntarily and making his doorman look incompetent thing, but he finally nodded and smiled as best as he could, “Right this way.”

  I started following the short Italian as he pushed a door that opened up onto a kitchen, my shoulders slumped over and my eyes trailing lazily after him, but then I stopped, just shy of the doorframe.

  I’m not sure what did it, but something inside me realized how much of a prick I’d been acting like, maybe it had something to do with what Quinn had been saying over the course of the day.

  Whatever it was didn’t really matter, point is I turned around, gave Benny a smile, and said “Sorry, long night.” before following after Frank with a small but noticeable weight lifted from my heart.

  It’s easy to become jaded, or, at the very least, a bit of a dick when you’re constantly coming back to new faces and being expected to treat them like real people.

  Don’t get me wrong, I was fully aware that they were real people, and in a lot of ways they still were, but at about my fifth dive I started to get this idea in my head that because every time I left Re.Gen the population would die hundreds of times over I had no moral or social obligation to be nice.

  There were exceptions, of course, people who basically paid off the god of reincarnation and came back to the prime of their life every time they met their untimely demise as if nothing had happened.

  Don Callomezi was one of those people.

  REUNION

  “Eddie!” the Don shouted in his overly excited way from his favorite booth as I entered the red velvet and rich brown leather filled bar area.

  “I’ll leave you two to your business.” Frank said before disappearing back into the kitchen.

  I waved Frank off as politely as I could as I started the walk over to the Don’s table.

  Don Callomezi was a good man, kinda, and I always enjoyed meeting up with him, especially when I got to see him in his younger form as he was on that night.

  He was always so much happier before the middle-aged gut hit him, the white had taken over his beautiful black mane, and the years of stress from working as a high-end criminal turned him into a somewhat bitter and an almost too violent mob boss. However, even at his angriest and most bitter, he had money.

  Lots of money.

  “Good to see you again.” I finally replied as I reached the booth and sat down in the spot that I had a dozen times before, “How many lives did I miss this time?”

  “Too many.” the young man joked, snapping his ringed fingers to draw the attention of the obviously tired waiter, “Far too many. I hear you have an interesting gift for me?”

  “Then you heard wrong,” I said with a smile as I pulled out the Black Orb, “you know I don’t do gifts.”

  Callomezi rolled his eyes as he accepted a glass of red wine from the waiter and took a sip, “Semantics. What’ve you collected in that little ball of yours?”

  I rolled the precious and irreplaceable orb across the table to the Don like it was a pool ball, “Uniforms, vehicles, weapons, everything you’d need to make a great big mess in this city. All police issue, all in their base code.”

  “You know me,” Callomezi laughed before scooping the Black Orb and looking it over, “always a fan of spurring on a bit of chaos. How much is in here though? You know as well as I, if not better, that I can’t duplicate it. Each item is a one-off.”

  “Not a lot, but definitely enough to get you through the front door of some backend precinct where you’ll be able to swipe more than you’ll ever need. Not that I’m tellin’ you how to do your job or anything.”

  The Don smiled and leaned forward, “Trust me,” he said with a wink, “it’d be in everyone’s best interest if you told me how to do my job.”

  “Is that a fact?” I chuckled.

  Callomezi sat back, still smiling, and nodded, “Oh yeah, doesn’t seem to matter how many times I die of old age, I can’t ever seem to figure out how to do anything bigger than… this.”

  “Well, to be fair, this,” I replied, gesturing to the restaurant around me, “is pretty good.”

/>   “Yeah, but it’s become stale. I used to have so much ambition, now though? Heh, now I’m struggling to find the desire to get out of bed in the morning. But this?” the Don said, shaking the Black Orb in his strong hand, “This is a gold mine. You bring me this and I start brimming with ideas again. You’re a good ki-”

  “Imma stop you right there.” I said, making no attempt to hide my accusatory tone.

  Callomezi then proceeded to give me that ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ look, a look I’d seen him and a five more guys just like him give me in the past, “What? What did I do?”

  “You know damn well what you were doin’.” I laughed as I shook my finger at the Don who seemed pretty committed to his innocent shtick, “You were gonna try and get me to stick around here with you, make me some kinda consigliere or some shit.”

  He did his best to keep up the act, but Callomezi eventually caved and shrugged, “Can you blame me for trying? You’re a great soldier, and you have a habit of bringing me nothing but good news and ideas.”

  “And that’s exactly why I couldn’t stay down here with you, I’ve gotta stay up in RL and keep things interesting. Now, the Black Orb, you interested?”

  I wasn’t surprised to see that Callomezi was disappointed by me turning down his offer, I’d seen it before after all, and I really had considered sticking around in the past, but I sincerely doubted that that would end well for me.

  Players were as good as immortal with the respawns, sure, but if I stuck around I would be… I don’t even care to begin to speculate, I just know that it would definitely be a bad thing.

  “Don?”

  “Fine,” Callomezi sighed half-heartedly, “fifty.”

  “Fifty grand?” I asked with a laugh as I fought back the urge to make a Matrix déjà vu joke.

  The Don scoffed and shook his head, “Million, if and only if I get to keep the Black Orb.”