Code Jumper

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Oh, yeah, I love being reminded of how unremarkable I am,” I scoffed, my gruffness returning to me as I remembered all the messed up crap that had happened in my last fight, “where’s Messiah?”

  “I’m not sure, this house is full of sausages.”

  I laughed a little at that as I started going in the direction Messiah had, “I’ll say.”

  “Don’t be gross,” Quinn replied, barely holding back a giggle, “but you know what I mean, it’s like what happened with Tony. It must be what Messiah puts up to protect himself and those in his employ.”

  It was irritating, sure, but I was glad that the guy was halfway smart, meant that I hadn’t been sent into Re.Gen for nothing.

  “He has to stay in the house though, right?” I asked before finding and flicking on a light switch, illuminating the room I was standing in with a nice orange glow and revealing a set of stairs that appeared to be covered in sheepskin.

  “Right,” Quinn finally responded after apparently making sure, “if he were to step outside he’d end up getting broken down into code and swallowed by the ‘Glitch World’ where he would be summarily deleted.”

  “Okay, so tearing this place down to studs isn’t the best idea,” I said as I cautiously drew my gun and started toward the stairs, “yeah?”

  “Yes, that would be a very bad idea. I’m guessing Messiah managed to ground this place somehow, use it as some kind of base that only he could get in or out of.”

  “Unless you have a portal and a kickass AI, yeah?”

  “Again, yes.”

  I went to make a snooty remark about how humble she was, but got interrupted mid-thought as Messiah’s deep, somewhat comforting voice came from all around me, “Surprised you managed to find me.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll discover that I’m just full of surprises,” I replied snidely as I climbed the stairs, “you wanna tell me what this is all about?”

  “What what’s all about?”

  “This? The childhood home? Th-the family portraits of us where both of our adult faces are superimposed over children’s faces..?” I muttered confusedly as I paused to regard the strange photograph, “Are you… are you obsessed with me or something?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Messiah scoffed, “my only obsession is with… ugh, you wouldn’t believe me, you have no faith that my cause is just… Anyway, the house is an auto-generated subconscious memory, none of it is real.”

  “What’s the purpose of that?” I asked before resuming my hunt.

  “Well it might surprise you to know that your version of Re.Gen wasn’t the only version to ever exist. Before they let you live through entire lives the plan was just to implant you with fake memories and let you adult.” Messiah replied before letting out an almost disgusted huff, “And then they remembered the infantilized America and realized that there are oh so many people out there who just want to be children forever. It’s disgusting.”

  “Eh, to each their own…” I practically whispered as I reached the top of the stairs and discovered a linen closet to my left and a hallway to my right, “So you want people to stop living in Fantasy Land, is that it? Wake up the dreamers?”

  “No… Well, yes, but… ugh, did you even read my manifesto?”

  “Read it?” I asked with a disbelieving scoff, “I barely skimmed it, but I got the gist. The world’s filled with sin, you’re the savior, mummy didn’t like you and daddy beat you with a belt, how right am I?”

  “Not at all.” Messiah snapped, “Do you even know who I am?”

  “The ass formerly known as the guy who made me blow up a train? Or do you simply go by ass?”

  “I’m a soldier, used to be anyway, I worked in intelligence.” Messiah said like he’d been preparing a speech for a while, giving me plenty of time to check the empty rooms, “Like so many things, Re.Generation started as a military project. It was originally meant to be used as a training simulator and nothing else, that’s what we were told.”

  “And let me guess,” I said as I noticed a latch for a retractable stairway on the ceiling, “what you were told was bull?”

  “Damn right!” Messiah practically bellowed, “We wanted to create worlds with the program, stuff that you could have fun with while also training soldiers in the safest, most realistic environments. Instead they ended up trapping and torturing people in there.”

  “And were these people terrorists?” I asked before silently cursing at my inability to find anything that I could use to pull the latch.

  Then I remembered that I was a Code Jumper.

  Again.

  “Well… that depends on how you identify a terrorist. The point is they were destroying Re.Gen. So, a few of my colleagues and I decided that we were going to dive in, alter the code to the point where it was useless for the military, and-”

  “That’s when you scrambled your eggs, right?” I said, cutting Messiah off as I walked up the stairs behind him with my gun leveled with his back.

  “You’re a smart guy,” Messiah said without turning away from the laptop he was sitting on the ground with, “I’m sure we can figure something out where you don’t use that on me?”

  “Ah, we’re well past bargaining,” I chuckled coldly, “so come on, let’s settle this, mano-a-mano. You with all your abilities, me with my shiny little revolver, it’ll be fun.”

  “What abilities?” Messiah asked before standing up and turning to face me, “I haven’t got an-”

  I’d already pulled the trigger, catching him in the chest with one of the hefty bullets and blowing a decent hole out of his back.

  In an obvious ploy to make me let my guard down, Messiah fell to his knees with a sort of confused expression on his face, the blood from his wound having drenched most of his incredibly thick body hair.

  “I’m not falling for that.” I scoffed right before Messiah fell forward right onto his face, making absolutely no effort to catch himself, “Or that, even though it was super convincing…”

  “Um, Eddie?” Quinn whispered, “I think you may have actually killed him.”

  My eyebrows raised so high that they must’ve damn near gone on top of my head, “Come again for Big Fudge?”

  “I think he’s dead… And now I know he’s dead, congratulations.”

  “But I… But he… But…” I stammered while still waiting for him to shoot up and transform into some kind of undefeatable demon or something, “No, no that doesn’t make any sense, that doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because mini-bosses can’t be more powerful than endgame bosses!” I shouted somewhat manically, “That’s just… that’s just a rule.”

  “Okay, for one thing, Puppet Ganon,” Quinn replied, stunning me out of my shocked state, “and for another, that’s not how it works in the real world. People don’t tend to hire bodyguards weaker than them. And yes, I know I just referred to Re.Gen as ‘the real world’, but it’s as good as I’m ever going to get.”

  I hadn’t really thought about it like that, not the Quinn seeing Re.Gen as the real world thing, the bodyguard thing. I’d gone into the Glitch World expecting some massive fight, when in all actuality the real fight was what Tony had been for, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any purpose for him when it came to Messiah’s plan.

  “Hey, Eddie?” Quinn whispered with the calmness of someone who just saw an alligator and was trying to stay still, “What’s that on his laptop?”

  “Hmm?” I sighed tiredly before turning my attention to the laptop, which immediately made me start to panic, “Oh… shit biscuit.”

  “Rapture launch in… Ninety. Seconds.” a voice said through the laptop’s speakers.

  “A ticking clock!” Quinn squeaked, “Isn’t it exciting!?”

  DECEPTION AND FRIENDSHIP

  I was struggling to get over how happy Quinn seemed to be that there was a bomb about to go off, which made it all the more difficult to try and figure out a way to stop it f
rom doing so.

  Sixty seconds left on the clock and I hadn’t even picked up the laptop.

  Forty seconds and I’d only just barely started to try and figure out what the Hell the timer was going to when it hit zero.

  Twenty seconds and I’d given up on trying to fix it with my old hacking tricks.

  “How in the Hell am I supposed to stop this thing!?” I screamed at the screen as I gave up on all sense and just started mashing the trackpad.

  “By asking nicely,” Quinn said, stopping the timer seemingly with her voice, “and having a bit of fun.”

  I must’ve swallowed a lump the size of a golf ball after I realized what had just happened, “You…”

  “Mmhm,” Quinn replied proudly, “you seemed disappointed, and the mission’s over, so I figured I’d try and inject a final frenetic few seconds before you left. Sorry it wasn’t more fun, I honestly didn’t think you’d just spend the entire time freaking out at the laptop when you really ought to have been looking for the bomb.”

  My stomach dropped, “There’s a bomb?”

  “What? No! Well, maybe, but not one that I can control, and I sincerely doubt it’s going to blow up now that Messiah’s dead.”

  I was at a loss for words.

  Anger, frustration, confusion, all swirling around in my head until, to my complete surprise, a chuckle escaped me. It was small at first, coming out as little more than an irregular breath, before building into something far more raucous.

  I didn’t know why I was laughing, but I really didn’t care.

  It’d been a messed up… however long it had been, and I was just grateful that it got to end on a high note.

  “Was it really that funny?” Quinn asked hopefully, “I really did put in a lot of effort.”

  “Yeah,” I heaved out, wiping away a tear as I did so, “yeah, it really was. Thank you… for everything.”

  “Naw, it was nothing,” Quinn replied proudly, “and I rather enjoyed it all if I’m being completely honest. Remember when you freaked out when that sword arm thing ate that tree guy’s head?”

  “Heh, yeah, that was… actually that was pretty disgusting if I’m being completely honest.”

  “Eh, give it a few days, I’m sure you’ll eventually be able to find the humor in it.”

  “Yeah… maybe.”

  It was taking its sweet time, but the realization that I was coming to the end of my life in Re.Gen was dawning on me, and it was far from fun.

  Soon enough I would be back in my shitty, broken human body, complete with a missing limb and the complete inability to hack the world around me.

  I was stuck wondering where the wonder in my life would come from, the knowledge that there was no possible way my life would ever be as exciting as it had been since I’d dropped back into Re.Gen depressing me to the point where I seriously wondered if I should leave the game at all.

  “You okay?” Quinn asked, making me realize I’d been staring at Messiah’s dead body for a good, long while.

  “Me? Yeah, of course. Just saved the world.” I said enthusiastically as I possibly could.

  “Well don’t sound too proud of yourself,” Quinn jabbed, “you did good! Now you get to go do… human… stuff. Don’t you miss human stuff?”

  “Ah yes, human stuff is, by far, my most favorite activity in the real world.” I replied like a pompous tool before going gloomy again, “I just… I don’t know if I’m ready to say goodbye, you know? What am I supposed to do after this? I mean, it’s not like I even got a satisfying ending here, how am I supposed to say goodbye to Re.Gen when I can barely handle real life and all its shit?”

  The question wasn’t exactly an easy one to answer, but that didn’t change the fact that I was practically biting my fingernails off by the time Quinn finally responded, “Then don’t say goodbye.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t say goodbye.” Quinn repeated, “It sounds simple, I know, but as long as you’re willing to keep that door open in your mind, I’m sure you’ll feel better.”

  “So, what do I say then?”

  Quinn hesitated again, though that time it sounded like she’d taken a few calming breaths, “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just close them.”

  I wasn’t altogether comfortable with it, but I did as I was told, taking a deep breath as I did so, “Alright, now what?”

  “Tell me you’ll see me later.”

  “Wha-” I started then stopped, “See you later…”

  There were a few seconds of dead air before Quinn, who was choking back tears from the sound of it, whispered “See you soon.” and forced me from Re.Gen.

  I’d done it.

  I’d gone into Re.Generation, I’d stopped the Rapture device from going off, defeated Messiah, saved the base game from tyranny, and, most importantly of all, I’d learned a lot about myself and how to be a better person.

  I’d really done it.

  And I hadn’t ever felt unhappier.

  THIS IS HOW IT ENDS...

  I was groggy when I woke up, my nose was bleeding, and I wasn’t quite sure what the Hell was going on, which I’d initially blamed on the whole having to do a hard-dive followed by Quinn forcing me out, but I was wrong.

  Really wrong.

  “What… the Hell?” I asked as I looked around at the detectives running around in slow-motion, yelling about something or other, while I struggled to remember the last thirty seconds.

  Then I sat up slowly and saw that the Hawaiian had Hugo on the ground while the blond yelled at the woman as they went to help him, years of depression and lazing around apparently giving Hugo some kind of super strength as he wrestled with the Hawaiian who would’ve had a good hundred pounds on him at least.

  That’s when I realized what was going on.

  Well, okay, so maybe it was when the blond saw me, stopped in his tracks, and reached for his cuffs, but I’m sure I would’ve figured it out shortly after that anyway.

  I had two options, neither of which were particularly appetizing as one meant going to prison and the other meant breaking nearly everything in my body.

  And then I looked at Hugo again and realized that that would be every day of my life if I was in a cage.

  “Fuck it.” I laughed right as the blond got close enough to my feet, before lifting my peg leg up at him and hitting it, causing it to shoot out and drive into blondie’s chest so hard that it knocked him on his ass.

  I mean, I assume that was the end result, I didn’t sit around watching him long enough before jumping up over the couch and making a move for the woman who didn’t even see me coming before I barreled her over into the Hawaiian.

  He was going to be the biggest problem, I was ninety percent sure of that, but I wasn’t about to stand there waiting for my brain to realize just how much damage I’d already done.

  “Fr-” the struggling Hawaiian managed to get out before I used my peg to jab him hard in the space where his neck met his shoulder, causing his head to sort of spasm sideways as I pulled away.

  With both of them incapacitated, I was left with what turned out to be the actual biggest problem.

  “Shit.” I cursed under my breath as I looked down at Hugo who, for all his struggling, was still pinned by the Hawaiian.

  Normally that wouldn’t have been an issue, pull him out and run away before the detectives could figure out what the Hell had just happened, but I was worried I’d tear his arms out of their sockets if I tried anything like that.

  I’d have to wait.

  Or take the money and run.

  The guy had caused me a whole lot of grief over the years, and that had only been put into even better perspective during my time in the game.

  I started doing a pros and cons list in my head as I walked over to the bag of bearer bonds, “Helped you when you needed it most,” I said before standing on blondie’s face on my way over to the bag, “wanted to leave you to fend for yourself when he sent yo
u with an atom bomb from Hell to Re.Gen.”

  I opened the bag and was delighted to see that it did have everything the detectives had promised, at a first glance anyway, I didn’t go ahead and add all the amounts together, but as I looked at all the money I couldn’t help but wonder just how I was going to spend it.

  “Ugh…” I groaned before turning around to face Hugo who, with all the speed of an NPC from an escort mission, had just gotten into a position where he could sort of move, “Come on then.”

  The woman was also starting to get back up to her feet, but Hugo was quick to remedy that with a solid right hook that felt like it took about half-an-hour to connect.

  I started for the kitchen, bag in hand, while Hugo followed after me, stopping once more to kick the blond in the gut as I grabbed one of the edibles from the plate smiled at it.

  It was like I was in some kind of end of series finale, all the lights were sort of dim, the world was moving really slowly, and my body was starting to make some rather unsettling sounds.

  Okay, so maybe that last one isn’t one of your typical TV tropes, but it was enough to remind me of all those great deaths at the end of some of my favorite shows.

  I wasn’t ready to die, though as I moved for the door I couldn’t help but wonder if that would be a fitting end for the story of my life.

  And then Hugo grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me along, as best as he could at the speed I was traveling at anyway.

  “Come on!” he roared slowly and deeply.

  “I’m comin’, I’m comin’…” I chuckled as I dug into the chewy chocolate goodie.

  Hugo pulled open the door and started running for the car while I did a quick walk, which ended up with me beating him there with full few seconds to rest against the car and chew on what was left of the pot brownie in my mouth.

  I don’t know what it was that had slowed me down, probably some kind of automatic response to keep me from moving around so much and so quickly, and I didn’t bother resisting it, there was actually some part of me that enjoyed it.

  “Get in.” Hugo ordered after pulling the spare key out of the wheel well and unlocking the car, his voice starting to reach my ears at a clearer and more normal speed.