In Beta

by Prescott Harvey

  The monster’s body shuddered. Viscous purple liquid dripped down its round head. From somewhere deep inside, a muffled voice was cursing.

  “Hal!” Jay yelled. The surrounding Johns quieted, watching.

  A hand burst out of the monster’s slimy skin. The thousands of Johns stared at the human figure struggling to get out. Hal emerged, naked and completely covered in violet slime, like a forty-year-old baby.

  Jay could hear him muttering and cursing. Hal turned back to the monster’s carcass, searching for something. Next to Jay, a John gave a muffled snort, trying to suppress his laughter. Jay spun round and held up a warning finger.

  “Do not!”

  He turned back to Hal. Hal straightened, seeming to find what he was looking for. A bloody fanny pack dangled from his hand. A John nearby giggled, and Jay shook his head. They had to hold Hal’s attention.

  “Hal!”

  Hal turned and adjusted his glasses, squinting. He seemed not to be aware of his nudity.

  “You got us again, Hal. You destroyed Bickleton. Good game.”

  Even from a distance, Jay could see Hal’s mustache bristle indignantly.

  Hal stamped a small foot. “You cheated!”

  The sight of this slight man—stomping his feet, naked body shiny with dripping blood and bits of entrail—was too much. The sea of Johns gave way to laughter. The noise thundered, cacophonous, filling the night sky. Jay turned to them.

  “Don’t laugh!”

  They ignored him, pointing at Hal, doubling over. They began to pick up rocks and toss them at Hal, who raised an arm to shield himself.

  “Do you know who you’re laughing at?!” Hal shrieked.

  His face reddened. He reached into his fanny pack and pulled out his remote.

  “No no no!”

  But it was too late. Hal disappeared. The Johns chuckled stupidly, staring vaguely at their surroundings, trying to discern where he’d gone. Jay rushed back up the ramp, into Tutorial, and found everyone huddled around the computer.

  “Stevie?”

  “I cut his access!”

  Stevie’s fingers clacked against the keyboard. Jay ran over and looked at the screen. Bickleton was in shambles. Buildings were leveled. Fires raged everywhere. On top of the screen, a small window flashed up: halmaster requests access.

  Stevie clicked deny. The window changed to: access denied.

  “Did we seriously just kick him out of his own game?” Jay threw his head back and laughed.

  Stevie looked up, a big grin on her face. “He can’t get back in without our permission. And he can’t reverse it, either.” She studied the screen. “Not while I’m here watching, anyway.”

  Jay fell into a desk, exhausted. Jeremy clamped a hand on his shoulder, and Liz squeezed his arm.

  Kathy Banksman sat in a beanbag chair, bewildered. “I assume this is all good news?”

  “It’s the best news of the last two weeks,” Jay confirmed.

  Outside Tutorial there was a loud thump. The group froze. The noise was followed by another loud thump, then a third. Through the holes in the wall, they saw a dark shape moving up the Tutorial ramp. The door handle turned; the door pushed open.

  Colin stood in the entryway, shoulders slumped, black hair straggling over a bloody gash on his cheek. Green fluid leaked over the front of his power suit, which was battered and bashed. Smoke poured from its sides.

  “Colin!”

  Jay leapt up and ran to his friend, wrapping his arms around the thick layer of metal that covered Colin’s waist. He heard a mechanical whirr then felt the light touch of Colin’s mechanical arms as they embraced him. Liz and Jeremy broke into applause. Stevie beamed, and Colin blushed, nodding wearily at Liz. “What are you still doing here?”

  “That’s a good question,” Jay replied. “Stevie?”

  Stevie pointed at the screen. “Found her!”

  Onscreen, next to the map of Bickleton, there was a second window that was full of code. Jay squinted. “You really see her in there?”

  Stevie’s finger tapped the glass. “I think that’s her.”

  Jay took Liz’s hands.

  “It’s all up to you now. Hal is somewhere in his house. Probably kicking his computer, trying to get back into The Build. When we disconnect you, you should be back in your body. All you have to do is take off your helmet and get out of his house. Do not engage him directly. Go to the police.”

  “Are you kidding?” She laughed scornfully. “The moment I’m out, I’m gonna kick his ass.”

  “Do not,” Jay scolded. “Don’t give him a second chance. Get out, get safe. Once Hal’s arrested and out of his house, call whichever university is closest, and ask for their computer science lab. Tell them about Hal’s computer. Maybe they can preserve our little world.”

  Liz nodded. “Thank you. I know it must have been hard, not taking Hal up on his offer.”

  “This was so much better.” Jay paused, fighting the urge to grab her hand. Now that she was really leaving, the longing welled up inside him. “And, uh . . . maybe let us know how you fare? If you’re not too busy with your life, that is.”

  She smiled. “You know, if I had to do it all over again, I would definitely—”

  Liz disappeared. There were no wisps of blue light, no flash. Nothing. Just an empty space where, a moment ago, she had been.

  “Hey!” Jay spun back to Stevie. “Bring her back, she was saying something?!”

  “I didn’t do that.” Stevie stared at the screen, tentatively clicking. “I–I don’t know what happened. I don’t see any—” Her voice faltered. “Oh no.”

  Everyone pushed in around her shoulders. Whatever Stevie saw in the box of code, it turned her face white.

  “She’s gone. He must’ve . . . pulled the plug. From his end.”

  For a moment, nobody spoke. Jay broke the silence.

  “Well, is she okay?”

  “I–I don’t know. There’s no way to know.”

  “What’s he doing with her?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Is he trying to get back in?”

  Stevie slowly shook her head. “No. He’s not trying to access the game, he must be—hold on a sec.”

  She squinted at the screen. The lines of code started scrolling rapidly.

  “What? What’s happening?!” Jay exclaimed.

  Stevie didn’t respond. She clicked back to the map, and her mouse hovered over a slice of forest. The trees swayed in their endless loop, seemingly untouched by the string of recent disasters. Everyone leaned in, watching. The screen looked normal. Except—

  A small gray square appeared in the center of the screen.

  “Is–is something wrong with the monitor?” Jay asked.

  Colin leaned in closer. “Looks like . . . nothing.”

  The gray square leapt outward, enveloping the surrounding patches. All the nearby trees disappeared. A sob leapt from Stevie’s mouth, and she bit her knuckle. Jeremy placed a hand on the top of the monitor.

  “Is he making more changes?”

  Jay’s blood ran cold as he realized what was happening.

  “No. No changes. He’s wiping his hard drive.”

  Abandonware

  They stared at the screen. No one spoke. Seconds ticked by, and the gray patch of nothing blinked bigger.

  “What?” Jeremy whispered.

  “Hal’s deleting Bickleton.”

  “Deleting—?”

  “Oh God.”

  Colin fell onto his desk, rubbing his massive hands over his eyes. He turned to Stevie.

  “And Liz, is she . . . ?”

  Stevie’s face was pale and grim.

  Jay spun around and kicked his desk. “Goddamnit!”

  “Stevie, how much has already been deleted? How long
will the deletion take?”

  Stevie stared at the screen. “One percent. It depends on the size of his hard drive.”

  “Jay—” Colin started.

  “Shh.” Jay paced back and forth, thinking. This couldn’t be the end. There had to be another way.

  “Stevie, is there anything else out there? Any other devices besides Hal’s computer? A printer maybe?”

  Stevie leaned in, typing furiously.

  “Let’s see . . .”

  Jay went to the window, desperate, using all his self-control to give Stevie space. Outside, the grass sparkled with dew. The Johns had started dispersing. He could see groups of them wandering out of the C-Court parking lot, down Simmons Road. From the branches near the window there came an angry squawk. Jay saw a wren on a pine bough, peering resentfully through the window. There were no other sounds: no engines, no moos, no rooster crows. Just the clack of Stevie’s fingers on her keyboard. Jay’s mom came up alongside him and put an arm around his shoulders.

  Jay’s eyes searched the horizon, past the indent where the baseball field lay. Then, across the road, he saw it. Spreading between two farmhouses was a dull, dead path of gray. He stared, trying to make sense of it; in a flash, two farmhouses disappeared. The trees and walls just flaked away, disintegrating, scattering into nothing. Now, where the hill had been, there was only a gray swath of nothing. A patch of deletion. Jay stifled a cry and grabbed his mom’s forearm, positioning her so that she wouldn’t see.

  “Jay . . .” When Stevie’s tenuous voice came again, it was a whisper. “Come and look at this.”

  She was pointing to the code.

  “What? That means nothing to me. Is it outside Hal’s computer?”

  She stammered. “I–I don’t know. There’re a few IP addresses connected to Hal’s computer.” She pointed. “These two, I think, we could potentially connect to.”

  “What are they?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Could we all get onto those devices?”

  “Here’s what I think we could do. I see you and Colin in the code.” She pointed at the screen. “You’re right there, as objects. We all are. I’ve got this IDE up. I think I can connect your inputs and outputs to the inputs and outputs of the devices on the network. In theory, you’ll see whatever the devices see, and be able to control them. Whatever they are.”

  “So it’s a way into Hal’s world. What’s the risk?”

  Stevie’s face went white. “I mean, I’m literally changing your code. I’m decoupling your mind from your body. The risk is that you could crash and cease to exist. I have no idea what’s gonna happen.”

  Jay turned to Colin. “What do you say? One last game with the fate of the world at stake?”

  Jeremy folded his arms. “Where are you going again?”

  “We’re finally breaking outta Bickleton.”

  Colin looked at Stevie, sitting at her computer. His face turned a deep crimson, and he stuttered:

  “S-Stevie . . . back at prom . . . I never got a chance to . . . but I really—”

  Stevie leapt up and grabbed Colin’s face, pulling him down to kiss him. Colin’s eyes went wide, his face turning purple. Stevie stepped back, her face alight with her biggest smile ever.

  “You’d better come back, okay?”

  Colin nodded.

  “Well, that’s kind of up to you, right? Take good care of our code,” Jay said, smiling at his friends.

  The room held its breath as Stevie moused over to the Compile button. She pressed the Enter key, and Jay’s and Colin’s bodies crumpled to the floor.

  Maximum Underdrive

  Jay came to without any frame of reference. He couldn’t tell where he was, and for a few moments, he didn’t even know who he was. Then his memories came flooding back, and with them, a wave of claustrophobia. He couldn’t see or move.

  He tried flailing his arms, but then realized he had no limbs. He tried to scream, but he had no mouth. He lay still, in darkness, his panic growing. And then, gradually, he noticed a shimmering light on the periphery of his mind.

  It was hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, but a totally new sensation, as if he suddenly found eyes in the back of his head that he’d never used before. He could feel, rather than see, the lightness. His mind stretched randomly, until suddenly, everything was blinding, and he could see again.

  The first thing he noticed was that everything was in blocks of heavy black and white pixels. He guessed he must be lying on a table, because he could see a little ledge stretch before him, then drop off sharply. His perspective was tilted slightly, which told him he was lying on his side. He could hear a voice.

  He tried speaking, and found that he could, sort of. Not as he normally would, where he heard his voice in his ears. But his thoughts thundered loudly in his mind.

  “Hello?”

  A few moments passed, and then he heard Colin answer. “Jay?”

  Again, the voice came not through his ears, but directly in his mind.

  “Where are you?”

  “On the floor. You?”

  “On a table. Can you move?”

  Several more seconds passed.

  “Not very well.”

  Jay tried to move and found he couldn’t. Remembering the experiment with his eyes, he searched his mind for an arm, an unused limb, something he might use. Suddenly, he felt a click and his view tilted sideways. His body jolted up into the air and then clattered back onto the table. Above his eyes, he saw rotary blades gently coming to a rest.

  “I’m . . . some kind of helicopter.”

  In his new, shifted perspective, he could see farther down the desk, and realized he was looking at a very large box. Its sides were transparent, and inside he saw several glowing circuits under a ring of lights that flashed around the interior. It was a computer, bigger and more beautiful than any computer he’d ever seen. He lay quiet a moment, soaking it all in.

  “Colin . . . do you see this computer?”

  “No. Is it a Pentium?”

  The computer had not one, but three monitors—tall as buildings, to Jay—that curved into 180-degree panoramas.

  “I dunno. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, though.”

  Jay was so entranced by them that it took him a moment to notice Hal.

  Hal wore a ragged wifebeater and boxers. His face, lost in fat rolls, was even older than it was in the game. His glasses were scratched and smudged, and his sandy blond hair was almost completely gone. He stood on short legs, leaning precariously on an elbow. His large gut swayed as his right hand clacked over the keyboard. He grunted a long “hrmmm,” and Jay saw his brow furrow.

  “I have eyes on Hal.”

  Hal turned and disappeared, his footsteps plodding over the carpeted floors.

  “He’s leaving. Colin, can you get to the computer?”

  “I think I’m stuck behind a chair.”

  Jay willed himself back into the air. He hovered for a moment, dodged left, then flew to the edge of the table and peered over. The carpeted floor was covered in stains. The light from the computer monitor fell across a futon bed. Against the far wall was a bookshelf filled with small robotic toys.

  Jay saw something at the bottom of the desk and dropped down to get a better look. He found himself hovering in front of a mechanical monkey. The little robot toy looked about the size of a remote-control car, and was jerking forward on a combination of knuckles and rear legs.

  “Colin? Is that you?”

  The toy’s head swiveled up.

  “If the police helicopter is you, then yeah.”

  “You’re some kind of robo-monkey.”

  “I think we’re toys.”

  “Can you get up onto Hal’s computer?”

  Colin’s head swiveled farther up. The desk towered over h
im like a skyscraper. He reared up on his hind legs, raised his hands, and leapt into the air, doing a perfect 360-degree backflip that just missed the chair. Colin landed on the carpet with a dull thud, and Jay spun around, carefully eyeing the doorway. No sign of Hal.

  “Nice, almost had it. Here, let’s see if . . .”

  On the periphery of Jay’s vision, he saw three glowing words appear: “Halt,” “Follow Me,” and “You’re Under Arrest.” He picked the first one.

  “Halt!” his voice was robotic, garbled. There was the faint sound of footsteps, and Jay switched off his propeller and dropped to the ground. A shadow fell over him, and then he was sailing back upward. He found himself staring into Hal’s pockmarked face, watching his nose hairs quiver in his pulsing nostrils.

  “Hrmm.”

  He placed Jay back on the table, where he’d been before. Then he plunked down a bowl that blocked his view. Jay could barely see Hal’s round outline behind the bowl, and he watched as Hal stared at the computer, taking a bite, then scraping the sides of his bowl with his spoon.

  Jay lay motionless, not daring to move. Colin spoke.

  “What happens if we just pull the plug? Shut the computer off?”

  “It’d shut down The Build. We’d all disappear. We have to find Liz and wake her up.”

  “How?”

  “He’s gotta have her connected somewhere. There’s gotta be a Cat7, or another think wire, running down the floor.”

  “I see it.”

  “It’s down there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Get Hal’s attention. I’m going after Liz.”

  “How’m I supposed to do that?”

  “Just do it!”

  Jay heard a whirring noise on the floor, then a small plastic thunk. Hal looked down. Jay flew up into the air, spun around, and launched away. He heard Hal behind him.

  “Hey!”

  Then he was out of the room, into the hall. Cardboard boxes were everywhere. It was lost—like Ultima Underworld. From somewhere nearby, he heard the sound of a TV blaring Saved by the Bell. Something was off—it sounded sped up and heavily digitized. It was impossible to tell whether the problem was with the playback or his own audio input. He felt completely disoriented, unsure of where to turn. And then he remembered: this was his house in the real world. His same floor plan. He recognized the half-dome lighting fixture in the ceiling.