Lost in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  “I’m sure they would. But they don’t react to my experiments the way you do. They overanalyze them to the point that they lose all their fun. You’re still naive enough about the technical aspects of the game to be amazed by them. It’s that glimpse through the eyes of the players in the Dream State that I’m really looking for.”

  The passion in Windsor’s words moved me.

  “You also remind me of someone,” Windsor said.

  I was about to ask who when a memory returned to me of Malcolm’s words just before Windsor locked him in his Debug Room:

  “Because you know what it feels like to be turned on by a friend when you know yourself to be doing the right thing. My resolve was never that weak . . . and neither is yours. I can respect that.”

  Malcolm said that we were somewhat alike . . . does Windsor see that as well?

  The elevator opened and we moved through the corridor to Windsor’s GC. He put in his passcode, and the door slid up into the ceiling.

  “I’ve been keeping all this to myself for too long. Even now I feel like I’m bursting at the seams. I swear this will change everything in the Dream State.”

  “That’s a big claim.”

  “You’ll see.” He walked over with two already prepared vials of DSD diluted in lemon water and passed one to me. Before I took it, he held up his. I raised mine, and we clinked them as though we were celebrating something or embarking on some business deal together. “To the illusion of free will.”

  I frowned at his toast and drank the DSD. Windsor gestured to one of the two reclining chairs and I sat down in the one on the right. My eyelids drooped as the DSD began to take effect, and the recliner lowered me back into the dark, curtained space in the circular walls. I made a mental note to wait a while before returning to the game with Chloe after I was done. It was harder to overdose on DSD than it once was, but I realized I should probably measure how much was already in my system before ingesting more.

  Unlike going into the Dream State, Windsor had programmed his Debug Room so that one arrived in it as soon as they went under. Without a login menu, and with the only access being through these Dream Engines that weren’t even connected to the internet, there was less of a way for people to hack their way inside.

  The black tiles with glowing edges beneath my boots reminded me of Malcolm’s Debug Room. The Dream Engine somehow still had my game information, as I still looked like my in-game avatar and possessed all its equipment and abilities. The same looked to be true for Windsor, as he appeared in his own in-game Tamer avatar with its gunstaff and canine companion. The new Niche had been popular. Having a Dream Pet must have been a very appealing aspect for some.

  “Setting 18-A.” Windsor clicked his fingers and suddenly the Debug Room began to change.

  The tiles rolled beneath us as walls rose up to surround us. Artificial sunlight shone down on the open roof of a massive, circular coliseum, complete with trapdoors, a pit, and a high stand with cheering spectators. We stood in the center of the pit. Windsor gestured to the crowd but then frowned and circled his finger.

  “Dial down the volume a bit. I want to be able to hear myself talking.”

  The screaming of the crowd became a low hiss in our ears, and I nodded, impressed with the amount of control he had over even the crowd of NPCs. Windsor caught my expression and shook his head.

  “Oh no, this isn’t what I wanted to show you.” He flicked his hand at the setting, as though trying to wave it away. “This is all old stuff you can still find in the game. I thought I would just set the scene a little.”

  “Okay . . . So, what did you want to show me?”

  “You see! That’s why I needed two Dream Engines, so I can show people things like”—Windsor raised a finger—“this.”

  Suddenly, a transparent image of Windsor appeared, jumping from his body to stand next to him. It looked like a blue projection, but without any noticeable source of light. Then a second and a third blue Windsor appeared on either side of him, then a fourth appeared in front of him. This last one walked forward as the two other images flicked out and then Windsor himself began to walk behind the third, following the transparent image of himself.

  A question sprang out of my mouth. “So, this is another Illusion spell? I heard Illusion only had two levels, so is this the third . . . a doppelganger illusion?”

  The blue projection of Windsor shook his head and began to talk. The illusion was talking. It didn’t make sense.

  “In order to show you what this is, I need to give two demonstrations . . .”

  Just under a second after the illusion started talking, the real Windsor began saying the exact same thing, like a sentence being interrupted by its echo. Windsor waved his hand again and the transparent doppelganger vanished so he wouldn’t interrupt him. He then raised his finger and tapped the air in front of him several times.

  “And what’s the second demonstration?”

  “For that, I’ll need you to try and hit me.”

  My brow knitted in confusion. “Excuse me?”

  “You have all the abilities and weapons you would have if you were in the Dream State. Use anything you want. Anything. Do all you can to try and hit me. Seriously, go all out.”

  I raised my palms. “I don’t get it.”

  “Just try. You’ll understand soon. Let me just say this: no matter what you do, you won’t be able to hit me.”

  Sounds like Malcolm. No one could hit him unless they trapped him. Did Windsor find out how he did that?

  I smirked. “Alright then.”

  My Sapphire Edge flashed into my hand. I didn’t have a mana bar in his room, so I didn’t hesitate to let loose. I raised a hand above me and made a fist, the gesture needed to cast the Iceberg spell. As the sound of ringing bells filled the air, I slashed two Shockwaves on either side of Windsor. Just as the arcs of blue light were about to reach him and my massive Iceberg was about to fall directly on top of him, Windsor smiled and simply walked forward.

  His stride was fast enough that he only just escaped the impact of the massive boulder of ice. However, as soon as I saw him advance, I charged forward, fist raised for a Fire Weave. By the way he had evaded my last attack, I knew he would either dodge left or right, so I flipped a coin. Just as my flame was about hit him, I launched an Earth Punch up from the ground to the right of him and then the left. He jumped. Like all avatars, his jump launched him six feet into the air, and he landed on top of the large rock fist before jumping off it.

  “So, you’re trying to say you can dodge all my magic?” I shook my head in amusement. “But what about when the magic is random?”

  I raised one finger into the air. The sky darkened, and lightning from my Perfect Storm spell struck down. Windsor looked up and stepped to the side just as a bolt of lightning smote the pit where he had been standing.

  Lightning too? This can’t be just luck. Can he see my commands?

  While he was distracted with the lightning, I cast a Speed Amp spell on myself and dashed forward. I began striking at him with speeds that would’ve been impossible in real life, but my Sapphire Edge cut nothing but air. Every blow, every stab and cut—somehow, moving at regular human speed, he evaded each one. He stepped back, so I cast an Ice Wall behind him, making it impossible for him to retreat farther. However, without even knowing where I was casting it, he stepped backward around it and continued retreating.

  Fine, let’s see how he does against a widespread spell like Wildfire!

  “Cooked mouse coming— Huh?”

  For the first time during this demonstration, Windsor was running toward me. I flicked my arm out for the Wildfire spell, but as soon as I made the gesture, he was already behind me. Fire exploded out from me, all of it burning in the wrong direction of its intended target. I swung blindly out at him with the Color Blade, but Windsor was crouching, close enough now that I could see the massive grin on his face.

  “See, you can’
t hit me,” he said.

  I stepped back, panting. “I get it. You’re doing what Malcolm did to us in his Debug Room. The question is how?”

  He rose and lifted his finger again. “That’s one of the things I’ve been trying to figure out for the last month. At first, I thought he was just breaking the game mechanics, but then I realized that Malcolm never worked on the system itself. He worked with the brain, with the neural network and its interface with the game.”

  I nodded. “Okay, so it has something to do with the brain, not the game.”

  Windsor waved his fingers. “That’s right. We even talked about it when I was designing it. He told me that the Dream Engine reacted to the MMRI as soon as the information was available.”

  “MMRI?”

  “Micro-MRI: the helmet’s brain scanner.” He started pacing in circles. “The problem was that if the player’s avatar reacted as soon as the information was available from the subconscious, it would act before the player’s conscious mind knew what they were going to do. This caused nausea and broke the immersion of the players. You see, our brains make up our minds long before we’re aware of it.”

  “Hence you toasting to the illusion of free will.”

  “That’s right!” He flashed me a grin. “So, to make the actions and thoughts line up in the game, we had to slow it down by just under a second.”

  It hit me all at once, and I felt my jaw go slack.

  “So, by applying this reaction speed to a doppelganger illusion, you can see what a person is going to do before they do it!” I shook my head and laughed. “That’s why you were playing around before you told me to attack you; you were making it so only you could see the transparent clones that showed what I was planning on doing.”

  “And that’s why your party could never hit Malcolm. He could see your actions before you made them. That’s why only the two of us working together could trap him and then hit him with something that he wouldn’t bother blocking. He didn’t know what the tag did, so he had no reason to block or dodge it . . . but with this, he could have if he wanted to.” Windsor frowned in reflection. “His ignorance was the only reason we managed to win.”

  The only blow that had hit him was Frank’s cannonball, and that had flown at him from behind, which still did little against him. “We were that close, huh?”

  Windsor nodded. “Yup, that close. But because of him, I have figured out how to introduce a time travel battle mechanic. It might just be a few milliseconds, but as I have just shown you, it can make a big difference.”

  “Yeah!” I raised a hand in annoyance. “Too much of a difference. It’ll make anyone who uses it far too OP.”

  Windsor grinned. “I’ve never heard you complain about having an advantage in the game before.”

  “That’s because . . .” I paused as what he had said finally dawned on me. “Wait, are you saying you’re going to give me this ability?”

  His grin widened even further. “All the better to help you track down Malcolm and the Screamers, right?”

  He raised his hand above his shoulder excitedly, begging for a high-five like a dog begging for a bone. Still speechless, I obliged. I’d never seen a middle-aged man act so much like a teenager. However, my mind was still racing as I caught Windsor raising his brow at me.

  “So, want to try it?” Windsor grinned. “I can have this linked up to your account by tomorrow. Of course, it will just be an experimental trial run.”

  I laughed and nodded. “Do you even have to ask?”

  Chapter 3: The First Clue

  Chloe was out of bed and looking like herself again by the time I returned, and again she seemed determined to show me what she had found. I took the DSD, laid down on the couch opposite her, put on the Dream Engine, and entered the Dream State menu.

  “Alright, what area do we start off in?”

  “Heaven Gateways,” Chloe said.

  In my blue vision, I focused on the option for Heaven. With a rush of manipulated pixels and the feeling of being sucked through a tube, we appeared on the interconnected bridges of Heaven’s Landing Strip. The landing strip was a wide and treacherous series of bridges with gaps and holes that one could fall through if not careful. Its many bridges hung like a spider web caught in the wind at the very edge of the airborne city, creaking as it leaned out over the drop.

  The point of this area was simple. Each bridge led off to one of Heaven’s many dungeons. The simpler dungeons had Gateways closer in. Even now I could see the glowing circles surrounding me, color-coded for the dungeons they would lead to. The harder the dungeon, the harder the Gateway was to get to, so not just any noob could enter them willy-nilly.

  The place was absolutely packed; some of the avatars waiting on the bridges were being knocked off its edge. Some even had pets with them, a variety of small creatures from birds to cats that went with the new Niche known as the Tamer. It made sense that they would be used, as this was the Dream State’s newest expansion setting, and it was no wonder so many players wanted to try out the new dungeons after its grand re-opening. After all, no one had found Malcolm’s Ghost in any of the other dungeons, so rumor naturally had it that he was somewhere in Heaven.

  A ghost in Heaven. Makes sense, really.

  Chloe appeared and automatically rushed toward one of the longest bridges. I knew exactly where we were going now.

  I followed after her, the boards groaning underfoot. “So, the Engine Room then?”

  I didn’t have very fond memories of that dungeon. I had only entered it once, when I had been tracking down Chloe’s brother, Lucas, during the Screamers’ invasion of Heaven. I had barely made it to the second area before the piercing scream had taken me out of the game. As a result, I had lost my Captain’s Coat and Siena’s rare Color Blade, the Ruby Edge.

  “I’ve spent the last week going over each dungeon that Lucas was seen in to find out if he left any messages there,” Chloe said. “I searched them all head to toe to see if there was any text or code that would hint at where he’s being kept.”

  I nodded, suddenly realizing why she looked so tired. “So you were up all night searching the Engine Room?” I couldn’t help but grin. “Surviving in there by yourself must have been tricky.”

  “I had a few players from the other side of the globe helping me out. After all, you need a pretty big party to fight the Ifrit boss, and even then, you usually win mostly out of sheer luck.”

  “You managed to beat it?”

  She scoffed. “No, but that wasn’t why I was here, remember? Are you even listening to me?”

  I raised my hands. “Yeah, I was just asking.”

  The terse demeanor she had possessed when I had first met her seemed to be returning, and I couldn’t help but think her brother had been its original cause. After all, it had been barely a year after that incident that I had met her and she seemed to loosen up with every day that I had spent with her.

  I guess I was a distraction from him . . . for a time.

  “I did, however, find something that could be a message from him.”

  I nodded. “What did it say?”

  She shook her head again. “I can’t make heads or tails of it, really. Just let me show you.”

  A board broke under my feet and I jumped to the next plank. Chloe smirked at me as she skipped over the gaps one foot at a time like she was playing hopscotch. I shook my head, knowing I was going to lag behind if I didn’t do something.

  I used my Key Trigger, a small shortcut menu at the corner of my vision, to summon my Bird’s Eye. A glowing circular platform appeared and I jumped on, nearly losing my balance on the bridge as I did so. I leaned forward onto the platform, causing it to hover over the broken bridge to catch up with her.

  “Hey, that’s cheating!” Chloe bellowed.

  “Playing around isn’t why we’re here, remember?” I returned, giving her a taste of her own medicine.

  She scowled. “You’re n
o fun.”

  Being a Range Niche, the lightest and quickest of the Niches, Chloe simply leaped into a flip and landed next to me on my Bird’s Eye, giving me an unimpressed look. I flew us to where the bridge ended, leading out into thin air. At its end, a rope was tied to the final plank, which hung down over the drop. Here, players would have to swing down and into the circular portal, which radiated a deep red glow beneath the bridge.

  I flew down before the Gateway and took a big breath in. “Okay, let’s—”

  Chloe didn’t wait for me to finish my deliberation. She leaped from the platform and vanished with a swirl of mist into the red circle. I shook my head and followed suit, taking a two-step run up to counter the weight of my Boiled Leather cloak. One second I was falling toward the sea miles below, and the next I was hitting the steel grated floor and regretting not doing an Onjira dungeon before coming here.

  The heat inside was immense and clung to my skin. Steam burst from pipes all around. Chloe ran through a billowing cloud of it, and I chased after her. As I emerged, I saw her blasting away at the Steam Specters with her specialty wind bullets. The Specters looked like the Workers, which were also monsters here. That was one thing I noticed about Heaven in comparison to the other eras in the Dream State, the monsters always appeared to be some corrupt humanoid, devil, angel, or ghost. Even so, with their tool belts and workmen’s helmets, the ghosts were unsettlingly lifelike.

  I equipped my Sapphire Edge, and its blue glow lit the dark corridor. However, before I could assist her with a few Shockwaves, Chloe had already cleared the room. She even went so far as to blast one ghost that came out of the wall as soon as it appeared. She strolled casually on to the next area.

  “Holy cow, you’re not kidding!” I exclaimed as I caught up with her. “You must have done this dungeon enough times to know it like the back of your hand.”

  “Not all of these monsters work on RNG, so they can be easily predicted. For instance, before we reach the end of this next corridor, two or three Workers are going to appear holding massive wrenches.”