I was overwhelmed.
Things like this didn’t happen to people like me.
‘What are you talking about? All I did was run,’ I said.
‘Modest too, you truly are spectacular,’ the man replied.
‘Really, none of this is necessary,’ I started to sit up, to try and get myself out of the bed. This immediately pulled the needle from my arm. I had become used to running out of hospitals. The year I lived on my own, I had gone to several different emergency rooms and every time had to run before they called the state and put me into a foster. I didn’t want to live with another family. There would never be anyone else for me.
‘Really now, come on, my name is...’
‘I don’t care what your name is, get me the hell out of here,’ I said interrupting him.
He started to laugh. ‘My name is Wesley, you can call me Wez, I’m your agent,’ he reached out his hand for me to shake.
‘I don’t exactly understand what is going on but I have somewhere I need to be,’ I exclaimed.
‘Right, your meeting with the lady, we’ll take care of that,’ he said. Another figure walked in, this time an older man with a long, black beard who looked like he would be more at home in the woods than the city. He was wearing a black suit and a matching chauffeur’s cap on top of his head. He smelled like cedar and a barrel of beard oil.
‘This is Reynolds, you can call him Rey, he will be your driver.’
‘Driver?’
‘As you can see Breq, we have everything under control,’ Wez finished, still smiling. Somehow, I felt like nothing was under control, or at least that I had no control over anything.
A few minutes later, the doctor came in and released me to Reynolds who gave me back my clothes and drove me back towards the facility and home.
‘My home is that way,’ I said, pointing towards the housing area I had been staying in while employed. It was only since Damien had managed to get me a job at Keen Industries that I had been able to emancipate myself. For the first year I was their ward and I was still staying at one of their emergency shelters, which had become a slum for players like me.
‘We’ve already taken the liberty of moving your belongings to your new room,’ he said straight-faced. Somehow I didn’t remember asking to have everything I owned uprooted and moved.
Overall, Reynolds was far nicer than Wesley and apologized for the agent’s behaviour. My battle with the guardian had helped put Keen Industries back on the map. Mostly, the company was in the market of selling and trading in-game assets, recently, however, they had made some deals with a number of media companies to showcase the unique players under their control. My battle with the guardian was broadcast all across the net. During the six hours I had been waiting for the boss I had gone viral. Top that off with our group glassing the planet Orithyia, all eyes were on us.
My new room looked like a penthouse suite. It was entirely open, with a queen-sized bed, kitchen, sitting area, and gym equipment. The walls were covered in abstract artwork that looked like they may have been game related but it was too hard too tell. My first impression was that there was no way I could afford this with what little the company was paying me. It was the real world equivalent to the room I had been held prisoner while onboard the Crimson King destroyer.
‘I can’t accept this,’ I said.
Reynolds looked at me, ‘Sir, there is no issue, everything is bought and paid for.’
‘How is that possible?’
‘Thank the lady when you see her, she insisted that you have this.’
Lady Gray was investing a lot of money in me. Now I was more nervous than ever about meeting her.
Mid-Afternoon
I had a closet full of graphic tees, shorts, jeans, cargo pants, and one all-black suit. I grabbed a set of black cargo pants and a white T-shirt with the red silhouette of a soldier artistically drawn across it, like a samurai pointing his rifle upward into the air. There was a seven-string guitar hanging in the room, nearby it, a turntable and a record collection. Everything I had loved since I was a child. A few of the records looked familiar. I recognized them as being from my father’s collection. Real artefacts that I thought were lost when I refused to return to the empty home. All of it had been claimed and bought by the company. Along the wall were several swords. Different types from different eras. There were several kendo sticks and an area open enough to practice my swordsmanship in. The ceilings in the penthouse were tall as well, about twenty feet high. I could see the steel beams and brick alongside one of the walls. The bathroom was just as nice as the rest of the rooms, with a full bath, shower, and a toilet that automatically flushed. Even the cabinets were stocked with deodorants, vitamins, towels, toilet paper, shampoo, and conditioner. Everything I could need or want had been here waiting for me. The fridge was stocked with fruits and veggies as well as water and coffee. Lady Gray wasn’t lying. I felt famous.
When I stepped outside my new home into the long hallway I could see there were four more doors to rooms I assumed were around the same size as my own. At the end of the hallway there was an elevator and beside it Reynolds stood waiting.
‘Glad to see you found your way alright, hope you managed to get some rest,’ he said. The old man was smiling, his hand running down across his beard. I had managed to grab a few hours here and there but I was running on fumes. The only things keeping me going at this point were adrenaline and caffeine.
‘Shouldn’t I have to sign a contract or something?’ I asked, still not able to believe any of this was happening.
‘The day you joined you signed up for the possibility of this,’ Reynolds replied. I forgot that for a moment. I was still indentured to the company. If they found out about the artefacts I had sold to Gorge, I would lose everything. I felt scared again, that fear of losing it all. Not that I wanted all of this, but how could I turn this away? Damien, Cass, Brand, the others and I had always dreamt of living like this, the only difference was that we wanted to do it on our own terms.
I felt fake.
Reynolds drove me to the donut shop. It was a small place just a few blocks away from the penthouse. I probably could have just walked but he insisted and continued to wait outside as went in. The entire shop was empty with the exception of one cashier and a young girl sitting drinking tea in the back of the room.
I walked towards the cashier and she pointed towards the girl.
‘I’m here to meet someone, you don’t happen to know Lady Gray do you?’ I asked. She continued to point so I walked over to the young girl and looked down at her.
‘Here,’ her eyes sparkled with amusement.
It was impossible. Lady Gray’s avatar was mid-twenties, short dark hair, scars, scary brown eyes and TALL. This woman sitting in front of me couldn’t have been any older than thirteen (not even old enough to play Bane) and had long blonde hair with big blue eyes AND she was short. The two couldn’t have been more opposite.
‘Sit,’ she demanded, motioning with her finger the same way she had in game.
‘It is you,’ I said trying to hide the shock and terror in my voice.
She smiled that same mischievous smile.
‘Lady Gray at your service but you can call me Alexis,’ she smiled again. I couldn’t help but cower at that smile as my muscles tensed. I felt fatigued again; still, I hadn’t had anything to eat.
‘Have a donut,’ she pointed towards a tray of different types.
‘Thank you, Al…ex…is’ I stuttered, while grabbing one of the chocolate-covered donuts from the tray. Probably not the best thing to eat under the circumstances but at least it was something. I had a fridge of healthy food at my new home and had no idea the next time I’d be able to indulge in something sweet and unhealthy. Slowly, I took a large, satisfying bite.
‘I love sweets; nothing beats the kind with sprinkles,’ she said.
I finished chewing and swallowed. ‘You know the sprinkles are actually, like, really bad for you.’ I put the
shock and awe behind me and put on my serious face. When I did Alexis giggled slightly. ‘Why did you want to meet in the real world?’ I said, with real concern.
‘Because everything you do in game is now going to be live. This is the only privacy we can get.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For the past two years you’ve been nothing special, just a weak level thirty who occasionally sold guns on the black market,’ her words caught me off-guard, ‘yeah, Keen Industries know about that; before now it didn’t really matter, they didn’t care what you did so long as you met certain quotas,’ she finished taking another bite. She had frosting on the side of her lip.
‘Isn’t that a breach of contract?’ I asked, wondering how much trouble I was in.
‘Like I said, they don’t care,’ she said chewing a full mouthful.
‘Okay, so I’m still lost. You said I’m famous now and I now have a new place to live, new clothes, and a state-of-the-art VR system.’
‘No one has ever taken on a guardian and survived, no one has ever had a bounty placed on them by the Chels and no one has ever been given a quest to venture into the Cold Zone,’ she paused taking a sip of tea, looking at me over the rim as is appraising me. ‘If we don’t protect you no one will.’
‘Why protect me?’
‘Apart from the Chels and the Crimson Kings? There’s also a potential threat from the man with the skull mask recorded in the data cube.’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘It wasn’t the only copy Kira had.’
‘You know Kira!’ I exclaimed.
‘I helped put together the team that went into the Cold Zone. Damien came to me with the request and I gave them the go ahead. They were all level fifty and had every right to explore the galaxy as much as a level ninety,’ she paused, ‘I was afraid; I was afraid of going with them, afraid of venturing myself,’ her eyes were beginning to water, ‘I sent them to their death.’
I wanted to comfort her. There was no way anyone could have foreseen what would happen. That somehow all four of the soldiers that went into the Cold Zone would be killed by whatever the skull-faced man was or that there was some kind of weapon that could kill players.
‘It wasn’t your fault, it was the game.’
‘I had no idea there was a weapon; a weapon that could cause real damage.’
‘Of course not, no one could know that, we’re still not sure what really happened, IF there is such a weapon, we have to make it public, we have to warn players,’ I said.
‘We can’t, the only way to prove it’s real is to show it to the world, but even the footage we have looks like it could have been altered. In order to prove it’s real someone would have to be killed live,’ she was no longer eating.
‘Is that what you are asking me to do?’
‘No, I WANT you to complete your quest, I WANT you to kill the skull-masked man and collect the echoes left behind, recover the weapon if you can too, so we can lock it away.’
For a moment I had been afraid she had called me out here to ask me to die but I was wrong, wrong about everything to do with her. The boss wasn’t terrifying. She was probably more caring than anyone - besides my own team - I had met in a long time. She wanted the truth just as much as I did.
‘What do you know about the Cold Zone?’ I asked.
‘Level seventy-seven, nearly impossible to access unless you are level fifty or higher and even after that it’s nearly impossible to find since there is no direct pathway,’ she paused, ‘there is also at least one habitable world, code named Nero.’
‘Why were you afraid of going yourself?’
‘I’m a prodigy and have been playing and beating games since I was four years old but if I lose my character and have to start over I lose everything.’
In that way Alexis was just like me. The game was life.
‘Even if you lost your character, we’d all help you get back to being boss of Corpse Divers again,’ I argued.
‘Thanks, but I doubt Keen Industries will be so patient. And you haven’t experienced Prestige mode. Everything is harder after level fifty and if you had built an empire like I have you would understand that it would take me years to reacquire half of what I own.’ I had heard about that Prestige mode and could see that high level players were a lot more cautious than those around my level. Even Damien, with the exception of his mission into the Cold Zone, had acted differently after levelling up past forty-nine.
‘Quadrants are locked between levels one to ten; ten to thirty; thirty to fifty and fifty plus. Yes, there are some loopholes around the quadrants but once you reach level fifty you are playing an entirely different game, the universe becomes a battlefield and if you don’t surround yourself with power you will lose everything.’ And now I knew why Alexis had become the boss Lady Gray and why she had destroyed the Crimson Kings in such a spectacle. I’m sure she was wrong about most things but she was right about several. Most players in Bane were casual or worked for a company like I did and sat somewhere between one and forty. Players over fifty were guild masters, leaders, titans, and, like Lady Gray, legends.
Alexis looked like she was going to cry.
I felt angry. She was so powerful…she could just take her army and invade the Cold Zone. Everyone like me would follow her in a heartbeat. No. It wouldn’t work. The Cold Zone was like the Bermuda Triangle…if an army tried to invade the game would just come up with a way to wipe them out and if it was proven there was a weapon that could kill in real life…everyone invested would be in a frenzy.
‘Why do you want this? Why care?’ I wondered aloud.
‘Damien was the only person that stood up to me in the game, he, and now you, are the only two people in the world that know my secret, that know who I really am,’ she answered.
Alexis had taken a bite of her donut again and began to talk with her mouth half full; after realizing she was doing this she stopped and smiled. ‘I was at level forty-nine, teamed with three random players in a raid. Three of them were using Ki rifles and let me tell you. I loved them. No one died. We were up against an Aberrant Vrax and no one died. We broke its attacks one after another and finally, when it was limping away in retreat, we all transformed. Swinging from ledges like we were superheroes, we arrived at the top of a mountain pass with time to spare before the Vrax even arrived back to its lair. We were out of our minds. We placed a trap in its path, ran back a bit, waited until it jumped towards us and listened as the sound of four bombs went off. Each hit their mark. It was glorious. The Vrax fell. But in our triumph we failed to notice the mountain crumbling around us. Damien jumped forward and saved my life. The two other players weren’t so lucky. Plus ten trapping, plus twenty breaking parts of a Vrax, plus fifty for killing a monster. I levelled up and I knew without people like Damien watching my back I could lose everything. When I established the Corpse Divers, Damien was one of the first I invited to my guild.’
Listening to Alexis, I knew in that moment that I wasn’t the only one that had lost my best friend.
Evening
Alexis promised to give my team and I everything we needed to accomplish our mission and gave me several tips on how I could level my character up quickly without grinding. When I left, I hugged her and she reminded me that she wouldn’t be so nice in-game and that I better not forgot she was still the boss and that she wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I made her look bad. I told Rey I wanted to walk home alone. Lying, I told him that I had eaten too many donuts and could use the exercise. He agreed to this, but before he drove off he reminded me that I was a considerable asset to the company and that if I tried to run away they would send a team after me. At the moment I was worth millions.
On the way home I stopped at a small diner and went inside. I ordered some greasy food and condiments and chowed down for half an hour, eating as much of the junk as I could. I figured that after tonight it would be my last unhealthy treat for awhile. As I sat there alone, I thought about Dami
en’s funeral. I thought about the two of us coming here and grabbing a bite to eat after beating our first raid. How after I hit level 10 he bought me a burger made of real meat and nothing artificial. He was always proud when I came and told him of my accomplishments. He was the older brother I never had.
Damien had a lot of friends and yet he had spent so much time with just Cass and me. On first discovering that he knew the boss, I had felt like he had been living a double life, but that wasn’t the case at all. He was just kind. He was patient. He never gave in to his fears. Damien lived his life the way he wanted, pushing himself to exceed, to excel at everything no matter what it was. From the moment he had kicked my ass on the street he had made me one of his missions. And that is what got him killed. Survival always has a price.
6.
Class
Awhile back…
Damien had become my friend for a few weeks and had been talking non-stop about me joining him as a Corpse Diver in Bane. He was excited to have found me, admiring my talent for survival and how I had managed to hold my own for so long since my parents passed. I had just emancipated, leaving my school with high marks and even recommendations from teachers who had been sad to see me break away. It was the usual course but it was the path I was forging for myself. I could only run from the past so long. Damien showed up right when I wasn’t sure what to do.
I don’t know why I let him in. I had met dozens of people while acting on my own. Many tried to recruit me for this or that but I always said ‘No’. Damien just seemed different. He had an energy that drew me to him like a magnet. He bought me a meal at The Sparrow, one of his favourite diners, and spoke about being a Corpse Diver with a passion I had never seen before.
‘Of course I know about the game, my father was working with Keen Industries on developing software for the pods,’ I said, not quite sure if I was trying to get Damien to shut up or not. My father did more than that though. He began working there as an engineer shortly before I was born, while Bane was barely in alpha. He moved up, creating non-player-characters and developing software.
Star Divers- Dungeons of Bane Page 6