Violence. Speed. Momentum.

by Dr DisRespect

  “Cool,” I said. I was lying—it sucked.

  “Dot begat Pong Pong begat Pole Position Pole Position begat Donkey Kong. Or maybe it was Donkey Kong that begat Pole—”

  “I GET IT,” I said.

  “The second revolution came in 1988, with the premiere of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s seminal martial arts and motion picture event, Bloodsport. Finally, after all those centuries, we had a backronym that fit KEFVGAAIR: Kumite Except for Video Games and Also It’s Real. As I’m sure you know, because you’re a grown man and you have the internet, the Kumite in Bloodsport was complete and total bullshit.”

  “Look,” I said, “I know what it says on Wikipedia, but I still don’t believe the Kumite is fake. I mean, Frank Dux, Chong Li, Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds—they’re all personal friends of mine, or totally could be!”

  The hunchback stood up as straight and tall as he could. That was still pretty crooked. Seriously, he was maybe four foot eleven, unless you count the extra four inches from his hump.

  “All of this history has led to this moment,” he said. “Here. Now. With you, Doc.

  “All those centuries of gaming champions—of warriors!—formed the powerful international criminal organization that is the Brotherhood. And now the Brotherhood is inviting you, the Two-Time, to compete at the highest level of gaming the world has to offer. To travel to Hong Kong to face off against the greatest, most elite competitors on the Earth, playing the newest, greatest innovation in video games: Halo.

  “The winner gets a large chest full of ancient riches, gems, and gold doubloons that will instantly make him one of the wealthiest men alive. But more important than that, he will receive eternal honor, everlasting glory, and lifetime membership in the Brotherhood.”

  “And the losers?” I asked.

  “They will all be killed,” he said. “You must decide now, Doc.”

  “So let me get this straight,” I said, scratching my perfectly square chin. “You want me to drop everything, leave behind my entire life, and go with you to Hong Kong on a moment’s notice? You haven’t even told me your name yet!”

  “It’s Carl.”

  I laughed long and hard. It was an evil, diabolical laugh. The laugh of a champion who has finally encountered a challenge worthy of his skill. It felt good.

  “Well then, Carl,” I said, “sign me the fuck up.”

  * * *

  So yeah, I went with the guy. Twenty hours later, I was in the Brotherhood’s AH-64 Apache attack chopper, staring out the window at the Hong Kong skyline.

  “Down there,” Carl the Hunchback said, pointing. “That is the location of KEFVGAAIR.”

  It was the middle of the night, but luckily I was wearing my advanced prototype Sony XL-9000 scopes with 3D night vision, so I could make out the entire complex in perfect detail.

  “It just looks like some random-ass abandoned warehouse.”

  “Exactly!” he said. “Just as I promised—a top secret, maximum-security facility that lies at the heart of the Brotherhood’s vast criminal enterprise, entirely invisible to the outside world!”

  “Wait, that was serious?” I said. “I thought you were kidding! Why wouldn’t I want the whole world to watch when I kick everyone’s ass and look great doing it?”

  “Well, um—”

  “I figured you meant ‘top secret maximum-security facility’ in a cool way. Like—and this is just off the top of my head, I haven’t even given this much thought—giant black steel walls and blood-red towers with mysterious sweeping klieg lights and maybe like an iron drawbridge with a giant eagle skull or something.

  “And then around the perimeter you’d have armored ninjas and tanks and Robocop ED-209s patrolling everywhere, and then like a moat that’s filled with acid and mutant crocodiles and genetically engineered super-piranhas where if they bite you, you don’t just die, you also get all these little baby super-piranhas growing in your spleen, and when they hatch you start screaming in total agony as these killer fish with vicious teeth are just eating their way out of your spleen.

  “And then near the moat and the drawbridge you’ve got these big poisonous iron stakes and at the ends of the stakes are a bunch of ragged, bloody, gory decapitated heads, and a huge flashing neon sign that says ‘WARNING! ALL WHO ATTEMPT TO ENTER THE TOP SECRET KEFVGAAIR WILL DIE. Media, please see Will Call for your official commemorative press passes.’ You know, something awesome like that.”

  Carl the Hunchback looked at me for a minute.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Listen, Carl the Hunchback—do you mind if I call you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sweet. So, Carl the Hunchback, once I win this thing—and I will win this thing—I’m gonna be making a lot of changes around here. I don’t know what those changes will be, and I don’t even know why I’ll make them. Honestly, I don’t know much about this place at all right now, because we haven’t even landed yet. But I can tell you one thing. One of those changes will involve klieg lights and moats and genetically engineered super-piranhas and bloody, gory decapitated heads. And if you play your cards right, Carl the Hunchback, you can be on the right side of those changes, you know what I mean? But that’s a very big ‘if.’ ”

  Moments later, we’d landed on the roof of that lame industrial warehouse, and Carl the Hunchback was leading me through a maze of equally lame hallways. No retina scans, no electronic keypads, not even a fucking Brinks security guard. I don’t even think the drywall was finished.

  We went through one twist and turn after another. It felt like we had been walking for hours—and like they could’ve at least sent a golf cart to pick me up?—when finally we came to a big set of double doors.

  And what was on the other side of those doors—that was pretty fucking cool.

  I mean, not as cool as super-piranhas and impaled heads. But still, pretty fucking cool.

  Spread out below me was a massive arena, twice the size of a football stadium, like Jerry Jones would see the size of this place and shit himself.

  It was teeming with tens of thousands of spectators, packed as tight as they could get, shoulder to shoulder, practically on top of each other—definitely a pre-COVID situationII—all of them standing, screaming, pumping their fists, waving around money to place their bets, and straight-up crackling with ENERGY and FIRE and POWER and THUNDER and SMOKE and ENERGY.

  We’re talking brown people, ochre people, taupe people, black people, white people, people from every country on the planet, sweating through their clothes and speaking every language you could imagine in a booming, echoing roar.

  YAYAYAYA!

  And I could see why they weren’t worried about security outside—each one of these spectators inside was armed to the teeth. Switchblades, throwing stars, nunchaku, lasers, swords, scythes—seriously, who brings a scythe?—and every kind of gun. Depending on your POV, it was either the safest place in the world or the scariest.

  And the Doctor doesn’t do fear.

  Carl the Hunchback led me down the longest, narrowest staircase I’d ever seen in my life. On each side of us, the hoodlums and riffraff screamed curses and threats.

  “You’ll never leave here alive, Two-Time!”

  “We’ll put your head on a pike!”

  “What kind of conditioner do you use? Your mullet is vivacious!”

  I laughed. This was my kind of crowd.

  We reached the central arena, a giant bloodstained platform surrounded by a chain-link fence and rusty barbed wire. Inside was the latest in gaming technology—plasmas even bigger than mine, Xboxes even more advanced than mine, the next, unreleased generation of Halo—how the fuck did they get that??—even more experimentally prototyped than mine.

  Packed in the center of it all were the other competitors, must’ve been twenty or thirty of them from all over the world wearing their various indigenous garbs: lederhosen, babushkas, keffiyehs, sandals with socks. Who even knows what country that last dude was from—probably Kiribati or
something.

  And way up above us all, a towering, massive, five-hundred-foot HD pixel display so the entire arena could watch the action.

  The lights dimmed and the crowd grew quieter—meaning they sounded like a slightly less deafening tsunami. Then I spotted this balcony high above the central stage, hidden mostly in shadows, except for the outline of a golden throne in the middle.

  On that throne there was this figure, almost entirely invisible in the dark except for his two hands. Except instead of two hands he had one normal left hand, and his right hand was—get this—nothing but an Xbox controller at the end of a stumpy amputated wrist.

  I know, right? Fucking crazy!

  “That,” Carl the Hunchback whispered, “is the mysterious leader of the Brotherhood, Lord Hannn.”

  “So, like, the same as the dude from Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon?”

  “No. This Hannn spells his name with three Ns. Very different!”

  “Yeah, okay—hey, can we talk about that thing at the end of his right arm? Is that, like, an Xbox controller?”

  “Yes, Lord Hannn takes gaming incredibly seriously. So he cut off his right hand and permanently replaced it with an Xbox controller.”

  “So… there’s some kind of bionic circuitry that runs from the controller through his arm and into his brain or something so he can just think the inputs?”

  “No, he still has to push all the buttons and everything. He pretty much just cut off his hand and added an Xbox controller.”

  “But, like, now he has to push all the buttons with just one hand?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Is he at least, you know, left-handed?”

  “No, he is right-handed. Why?”

  “Bro, no one even LIKES the original Xbox controller! It’s clunky and awkward with HORRIBLE game play! And now your supreme leader cuts off his good hand just so he can attach it to his bloody stump and awkwardly play Xbox with his off hand for the rest of his life? What if he wants to play on a PlayStation sometime? Or a GameCube? Or even an OG Atari 2600? Hell, what if he wants to write a simple letter with a pen and paper and decent handwriting! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!”

  “I’m not following. But quiet! He’s going to speak!”

  A big, booming voice echoed throughout the arena as the hands—or the one hand and the one Xbox controller—rose into the air.

  “I wish to welcome you all—esteemed members of the Brotherhood, honored guests, cutthroat violent gangsters, and of course our handpicked elite gaming champions from across the globe—to this, the one thousand two hundred seventieth annual KEFVGAAIR!”

  The crowd started chanting immediately.

  “KEFVGAAIR! KEFVGAAIR! KEFVGAAIR!”

  TBH, it sounded a lot like the Kumite chant in Bloodsport, except with a different word that was more awkward to pronounce.

  “Every year for centuries,” Hannn boomed, “the Brotherhood has gathered here, in this nondescript, absolutely top secret, and totally secure warehouse, to choose the world’s greatest living gamer! The level of competition here is unparalleled, the violence is unmatched. The skill and dominance that this tournament has witnessed over the millennia—nothing can compare!”

  “KEFVGAAIR! KEFVGAAIR! KEFVGAAIR!”

  “And yet I, Lord Hannn, truly believe that the competition with us here today is the greatest we’ve ever had before. And I do not just say that every single year. Unless I really mean it. Which I always do.”

  “KEFVGAAIR! KEFVGAAIR! KEFVGAAIR!”

  “Now I shall introduce the very best of this year’s warriors, taking special care to sincerely respect and appreciate the cultural heritage of each of our international friends.

  “With us from Sydney, the top gamer from the Land Down Under, Kangaroo Jack!” This big-ass spotlight shined onto this dude with sunburned skin, a leather hat, and a crocodile-teeth necklace, who, to the surprise of no one, looked exactly like Crocodile Dundee.

  “KANG-A-ROO! KANG-A-ROO! KANG-A-ROO!”

  Kangaroo Jack looked royally pissed. “Hey!” he shouted. “No one calls me ‘Kangaroo Jack,’ all right?? My name is Jack Hortly. None of this shit I’m wearing even belongs to me, they just fucking made me wear it. I’ve never killed a crocodile, I’ve never put a ‘shrimp on the barbie,’ and I don’t say things like ‘G’day, mate!’ or ‘That’s not a knife, that’s a knife!’ I’m just a normal dude from Australia who loves playing video games.”

  The crowd went silent for a second.

  “KANG-A-ROO! KANG-A-ROO! KANG-A-ROO!”

  The spotlight shifted to the dude in the babushka. He was pale, massive, looked a ton like Drago from Rocky IV, and was dressed in a red boxing robe emblazoned with a hammer and sickle.

  “With us from the heart of Siberia,” Hannn announced, “winner of the 1999 Mother Russia Gaming Championship, Killer Commie Ivan!”

  “KIL-LER COM-MIE! KIL-LER COM-MIE!”

  “Hi, guys,” Ivan said, raising his hand shyly. “Big fan of free markets actually.”

  “KIL-LER COM-MIE! KIL-LER COM-MIE!”

  Hannn raised his controller-hand and pointed at the next competitor.

  “And from Beijing, Mr. Miyagi Min-Zhong!”

  “MI-YA-GI! MI-YA-GI! MI-YA-GI!”

  A dude in a ninja outfit holding a folding fan, a carp streamer, and a paper umbrella stomped on the ground in fury.

  “Seriously, people?? I’m from Beijing! Mr. Miyagi is Okinawan! This is the stupidest—”

  “MI-YA-GI! MI-YA-GI! MI-YA-GI!”

  After that came Pretty Boy Batista from Rio de Janeiro, who was actually horrible at soccer and the only ugly Brazilian I’ve ever seen, then Pepe le Phil from Paris, who hated berets and had never been rude in his life, and Just Plain Usman from Nigeria. They wisely didn’t stereotype him or give him a nickname at all, but sadly he was the one in sandals and socks.

  He kinda nodded at me. Hmm. Maybe he was a secret double agent making contact so we could hatch a diabolical scheme together later. Or maybe being nice is just a Nigerian cultural thing.

  “And that,” Hannn said, “concludes my introduction of the best of this year’s gamers. The others are very good, of course, but not…”

  I didn’t even hear the rest of his pathetic words. Fire flashed in my crazed eyes—RAGE—venom pumped through my veins—MORE RAGE—violence crashed through every atom of my chiseled six-foot-eight frame—MORE MORE MORE RAGE!

  “WHAT DID HE SAY ABOUT THE TWO-TIME?”

  Carl the Hunchback tried to grab me—

  “No, Doc! Don’t!”

  —but I pushed past him to the center of the arena, where I stood tall and proud and athletic, glaring up directly into Hannn’s eyes. Or, you know, at least where I thought his eyes probably were, because he was still hidden in the shadows like a coward.

  “LISTEN UP, HANNN!”

  “What?” he roared. “Who dares interrupt the lord of the Brotherhood?”

  “I not only dare,” I snarled, “I double-dog dare! I don’t know who you think you are, why you thought it was smart to cut off your good hand, or even where exactly your pupils are right now because it’s pretty dark back there, but there’s one thing I do know—and that’s who I am.

  “I am the greatest, most dominant gamer in the history of the universe. I am the undisputed Back-to-Back 1993–94 Blockbuster Video Game Champion. I am the eagle that soars to the peak of Mount Olympus and the tiger that tears out the throat of his enemies. I am the butt-naked Vaseline-covered missile that shoots down the waterslide and the guy who does the robot at senior prom and makes it look cool.

  “And I damn well ain’t one of the others who are just ‘very good.’

  “The name-ame-ame is Doctor-octor-octor Disrespect-ect-ect-ect.”

  The entire chaotic arena went silent—and I mean silent.

  “Did—did you just add your own reverb effect with your mouth?” Hannn asked.

  I grinned, my mighty mane of hair blowing dramatically in a mysterious wind. �
�You’re goddamn right I did.”

  Oh man. That is such a perfect line to end part 1.

  Seriously—chills right now. But yeah, now you’re gonna have to wait for part 2 to see how it all ends. Suck it up, punks.

  I. I think he actually spoke English in this dimension, but I was so busy being rich I never really listened to what he said.

  II. Like I said, hopefully this ain’t your dimension. But yeah—you’re probably fucked.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE ATHLETICISM—WOW!

  Everyone knows I’m the most dominant, most transcendent gamer in the history of the universe. Everyone knows that my silky yet invincible mullet is a thousand subtle shades of stunning black-on-black-on-black. Everyone knows that Slick Daddy is not just the Ethiopian Poisonous Caterpillar but is also my best friend—and your worst nightmare.

  But what everyone doesn’t know is that I’m six foot eight, with a powerful, dynamic, muscular, athletic god-body, and I have a thirty-seven-inch vertical leap.

  All right, you got me—everyone does know that. And they know it because I say it pretty much all the time.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking.

  You’re thinking, “Doc, you’re the greatest gamer ever, but still—you’re a gamer. You play video games for a living. Why do you care how tall you are? Why does it matter how high you jump? Why is it important that you’re a perfect specimen of quasi-bionic, possibly superhuman athleticism?”

  First off, it matters because it’s true—I really truly am all those things.

  I mean, maybe you want to live in some shitty dystopia of absolute relativism where objective facts like height and one-rep-max squat and vertical leap don’t really matter. But not me, man.

  Second, it’s the experience.

  I know in your simple, narrow mind gaming is a thing I do. Just some activity where I lean back in my advanced prototype Herman Miller KX-5000 office chair, stare at my experimental 7K seventy-inch Sony plasma-screen, and push buttons all day.

  And yeah, that’s pretty much what it is.

  But no, I was fucking with you—that’s not at all what it is.