Lost in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  I stared ahead, and sure enough, as we made to walk down the next corridor, two lumbering mechanics appeared to block our entrance.

  “What’s the best way to beat these guys?” I asked. I hadn’t run into them my first time here.

  “Physical combat.”

  I grinned and walked forward, raising my Color Blade. “Now we’re talking.”

  As Chloe blew back one with a shot, I engaged the second. To put it bluntly—or sharply in this case—Color Blades were the most overpowered weapons in the game, at least to my knowledge. They were powerful, sharp enough to cut through anything, and impervious to damage, which spared their wielders having to go to a forge to repair them.

  So I was surprised that the wrench wasn’t simply cut in half when I struck it, as most weapons would have been. This was said to be one of the most difficult dungeons in the Dream State, but I thought that was only because it had the most powerful boss. Dungeons were usually balanced out depending on their strength, and the Ifrit was top tier. It seemed the Engine Room was an exception to this rule.

  I forced down the large wrench and then cut off the engineer’s head, ducking just as another wrench was swung at me. I turned to see a third Worker had lumbered out of the shadows of the corner. I ground my teeth in embarrassment that I had missed him. Chloe had told me that it could be three of them. Agitated, I clenched my hand into a fist and moved it in a circular motion while thinking of ice.

  My Ice Coffin spell worked immediately, trapping the man. I recovered and began hacking away at the block like I was carving some off to cool my drink. As I finished him off with a Fire Weave, I turned back to see Chloe sprint up and jump, landing with her knees on the first Worker’s shoulders. She fired two shots from her revolvers into his forehead before landing and reloading. The Worker fell to the grating and vanished.

  “All done?” she asked.

  I nodded, and she moved on. Again, I followed on her tail, and we came out into an open area where a massive rotating gear worked like an escalator to get us down to the second level.

  “How many floors does this place go down?” I asked, wiping the sweat that continued to bead on my brow.

  “Nine, each one harder than the last.”

  “Whoa!” My shout echoed off the walls.

  “I think it’s supposed to represent the nine circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno.” She looked around and raised an eyebrow. “But that’s just a theory. The first floor is supposed to represent Limbo and there are ghosts here, but . . .”

  I stuck out my bottom lip. “The Christians were pretty harsh on non-believers back in the day. For all we know, this could’ve been what they considered lenient.”

  “Anyway, we only have to go to the second floor. It was where you confronted him after you chased him down.”

  I looked around and pointed a thumb over my shoulder. “Pretty sure it was just around the corner here.”

  She nodded and we moved off again to the area where I had managed to corner Lucas.

  Chloe moved to the wall. “I found this when I made a more thorough scan on my way back up. That’s another annoying thing about this dungeon; there’s no Gateway at the bottom, so you have to fight your way back up.”

  She pointed to the bottom of the wall, but I didn’t see anything there. I frowned at her, and she gestured again.

  “You have all the admin privileges, right?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  I didn’t know what tools she was using to do it, but she crouched and somehow began stripping back some of the visual layers of the wall. I didn’t know if I could see it because I was Hero rank, or if I could do this myself, but as the layers of the metal wall continued to be swiped away, I noticed something begin to appear.

  It was a single short sentence written over a collection of glowing numbers. It read:

  “What does that mean?”

  Chloe shook her head. “I can only guess, but look at the way it’s done. There’s a number for each layer.” It seemed like a jumbled mess to me, and if there was a meaning to be found, I wasn’t the one to find it.

  “I’m no good at coding, either. We’ll have to run this past Dice.”

  She sighed and rose again. “You’re right. Son of a . . . I should have set up a recording before coming back in here. Would’ve been way easier than trying to remember it.”

  A sudden idea came to me as I remembered what Windsor had told me during a meeting we’d had a few days ago. “There might be something I can do to help, then.”

  I gestured for her to move aside and looked at the area.

  She shifted over. “What are you doing?”

  “Using some new software Windsor told me about. You know how in order to record gameplay in the Dream State it had to be stored on the Dream Engine and be set up beforehand?”

  It was a rhetorical question. Everyone knew how competitive players or streamers could use their engine to transfer first-person video recordings onto the Internet. Chloe rolled her wrists as a signal for me to continue.

  “Well, ever since the Dream Engine was invented, people have been insisting that Wona create some software that could record their dreams so they could watch them at a later date. I have a prototype of it, and it allows me to record anything at any time with a word.”

  Chloe smiled. “Seriously? Well, that would save me from having to remember the code.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Then, trying to remain as still as possible, I said, “Record.”

  In my vision, the area I had been focusing on rose up over itself, shrinking into a smaller copy. It was rather disorientating. I selected to save it, and it vanished from my vision. Being that all the latest versions of the Dream Engines could live stream directly to the Internet, there was a near infinite memory capacity for video, but to prevent it from being hacked into, I saved the photo to the helmet’s memory card, which I could give to Chloe when we got out.

  “Alright, done.” I stood up and faced her.

  Chloe swayed up to my side and whispered, “My hero.”

  I shook my head in amusement at the gentle sarcasm in her voice. “Okay . . . let’s get out of here so we can show it to Dice.”

  Before I could go to leave, she pulled me to one corner of the room. There, she found an alcove that was surrounded by thick pipes. I had gotten used to the heat, but as she drew closer to me, I felt my face go red anew. Her skin had a slick sheen from the humidity, and as she looked up at me, I couldn’t help but stare at her avatar’s lips.

  “You know . . . we can always do this when we get out again.”

  “I know.” She smiled and looked abashed. “But there’s something about making out in a dream that makes it more intense.”

  She kissed me, and I could taste the sweat on her lips. She was warm and petite. It felt like we were making out in a sauna, and there was something about it that made my head swim. Without warning, she suddenly pulled out one of her revolvers, aimed it over my shoulder, and fired. I winced at the sound right next to my ear. I thought I might go deaf from the high-pitched ringing in my head.

  “Ow! What was that?!”

  She smiled guiltily and then laughed. “Sorry, a ghost appeared behind you and I didn’t want it to interrupt us.”

  She pulled me in again, and suddenly the pain in my ear no longer mattered.

  Chapter 4: The Coliseum

  Although I had agreed to keep Windsor’s new discovery a secret, it wasn’t going to stop me from testing it out in the highest PvP dungeon. There was an event simply called “Battle Royal” where the top-ranked fighters went to find out who was the best, and anyone who stayed alive could fight the champion in an arranged match.

  It was located in Northern Galrinth, where the aesthetics were more Romanesque. Although it had been around for as long as I had been playing the game, and I was well aware of it, I’d had no reason to take part until now.

  Before I re-entered the
Dream State, I realized I should make sure my winnings weren’t recorded in the Wanted Ranks. As Windsor had said, if people knew I had this new ability, they wouldn’t leave me alone.

  Surely Data would be able to hack the Wanted Board so it doesn’t show up.

  The next day I made my way to the Overseer’s GC, a room for the team of seven that Data ran personally. I’d always thought Data had leadership capabilities and that it was only a matter of time before he was given his own team. He had been so busy training them that I hadn’t seen him lately. However, considering a month had passed, I could only assume that he managed to pass enough of his knowledge over to them so that they could take over. After all, Wona only hired the best.

  I knocked on his GC door. “Data, I need your help!”

  There was the sound of shoes on the metal floor, and with a beep, the door slid up into the ceiling. Standing in front of me was a young man with a red Mohawk and more piercings on his face than looked comfortable to me.

  “Yo.”

  I raised a hand. “I need to talk to Data.”

  The punk rolled his eyes. “Alright, give me a sec.”

  He walked over and pressed the red button on the wall control panel. “Ah, Data, some dude’s here to see you. Uh . . .”

  He gestured to me, and I quickly said, “Noah.”

  “NotThatNoah?” His brow rose, and he looked around excitedly. “Hey, it’s the kid who survived for a month straight!”

  “I know who it is, Shawn!” Data’s voice replied. “Hang on.”

  “What’s he doing in there?” I asked.

  Shawn let me in, and I saw three other members of Data’s team on their own recliners, faces hidden behind their curtained cubbies. I had seen a lot of people walking all over the facility and wondered if I would have recognized any of them.

  “Experimenting,” Shawn said. “Windsor told us to try and find out what’s allowing the Screamers to log us off. That way we might be able to augment the Dream Engines to stop it. We have a few leads, but nothing concrete.”

  “That would be useful.”

  “So, Noah. Are you planning on taking your Moola prize for your Primatier Survival Record?” Shawn raised his eyebrow at me. “After spending nearly two weeks in the game nonstop, the compiled time added up to three straight days in a Primatier dungeon. No one’s broken it since, meaning you would probably get the prize money for all the competitions since then.”

  I shook my head. “Honestly, I never thought about it. But if that nest egg keeps growing so long as I don’t claim it, why would I?”

  Shawn tapped his temple. “Smart. That’s why you lasted so long.”

  Is this guy a fan or something?

  “In fact, my Survival Record is the reason I’m here. I’m trying to make sure that it doesn’t show up for the Coliseum dungeon’s Wanted Board.”

  Shawn screwed up his pierced face. “Why would you not want to have your Survival Time recorded?”

  “That’s what I was about to ask.” There was a buzzing sound, and Data’s recliner lifted him into a sitting position, his Dream Engine retracting into the cubby.

  “Because I’m about to kick some serious butt in the pits, and I don’t want anyone to know it’s me.” I waved my hand in front of my face. “And don’t ask me why. Believe me, I want to, but I seriously can’t tell you more than that.”

  “Secretive.” Shawn nodded. “Cool.”

  Data shook his head and smiled. “I mean, I could do it. But I don’t think that would stop people from recognizing you. You should maybe change your avatar up a bit, at least its appearance. Unless you use your Sapphire Edge, I doubt people could recognize you just from the spells and abilities you use.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that too.” I had to admit, it was a good idea, and obvious enough that I should have thought about it myself.

  Maybe I’m rushing this a bit.

  “How long will it take you to wipe my name from the Wanted Boards?”

  Data shrugged. “Tsh, if I did it right now . . . maybe five or ten minutes.”

  I knew the ‘if’ caveat was him playing with me, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I simply said, “I appreciate it,” and walked from the GC.

  “Noah!” Data ran out after me.

  I turned and raised an eyebrow at him. “Hmm?”

  “You’ll fill me in later, though, right?” he asked, clearly curious about my intentions.

  “Convince Windsor, and I might consider it.”

  I strode down the hall back to my own GC. As the door slid open, I saw that Chloe and Dice—our Japanese programmer—were both inside. I walked in on them having a heated discussion and stopped.

  Dice rubbed his forehead. “I don’t have to do anything you tell—”

  They both turned to look at me as the door slid shut behind me. I felt suddenly trapped.

  “Noah, you’re the team leader. Tell him to decode the photo on this memory card for me.”

  I almost laughed, recognizing the situation for what it was. After Dice had taught her to use the Drawing Board software, Chloe had gotten used to receiving his help. Now that he was helping her on command, she had gotten demanding. Chloe was desperate to find her brother, but without context, Dice had no reason to help her.

  I sighed, feeling like a parent who needed to console my children. I gave Chloe a cheeky smile. “Chloe, are you demanding something of Dice again?”

  “Spot on,” Dice said, nodding.

  Chloe shook her head. “It’s your job!”

  “It’s not my job to do everything you tell me!” he snapped back.

  “That’s true.” I watched with amusement as Chloe’s face became red with anger that I wasn’t taking her side. “However . . . it is your job to do what I tell you.”

  “Only if it’s something to do with a task Windsor has given us,” he corrected.

  Chloe waved to the picture I had made of the code, which she had clearly printed out after I’d sent it to her from my cloud. “And that’s exactly what this is!”

  “You didn’t say that when you spoke to me!” Dice yelled. “You just came in, asked me to look at a code, and then got angry when I said I was busy!”

  “Why else would I ask you to help—?”

  “Kids, kids, settle down,” I said, failing to hide my amusement. “I can see what happened here, and you’re both right. Chloe’s right in that this is something to do with the task Windsor gave us; Dice is right in that you should have made that clear from the get-go. Now, let me explain, because I can see it’s a little heated in here.”

  They both glared at me, displeased with my tone, but I was their supervisor, so they had to listen to me. Chloe fell back onto her recliner and crossed her arms, seeming unhappy that I wasn’t only taking her side, as a good boyfriend should.

  There it is again, that attitude that comes with anything to do with her brother.

  “Okay, this code Chloe just showed you might lead us to one of the Screamers, and as you know, Windsor has told us to find these guys.”

  Dice nodded. “If she had just said that—”

  “Ah-ah-ah,” I tutted. “Water under the bridge. Now, will you decode this for her? See if it means anything either inside or outside the game, okay?”

  Still scowling, Dice nodded.

  “Good. Now, Chloe, I want you to come with me to Galrinth. I have something really cool I want to show you.”

  As soon as I said this, I knew I had given away more of the secret than I should have. At the same time, I was aware that I would have spilled the beans to her eventually. As Windsor had said about spinning the tragedy of the beta testers in Wona’s favor, and as Chloe had just demonstrated with Dice, it was the delivery that mattered most.

  Chloe gave me a frown. “Okay . . .”

  I grinned. “But first, let’s grab some lunch.”

  ***

  After lunch, Chloe and I returned to the GC. Roughly an hour had pas
sed, and after getting some food in my stomach, I felt a lot better. I would have asked Vega to come with us to the Coliseum, but he was taking some time off the game, and I hadn’t seen him for a few days. Unlike me, he was on a casual contract, although I knew someone like him didn’t need the money.

  Then again, neither do I.

  We were in the elevator heading down when I finally brought up what I had wanted to ask Chloe. “So . . . after we’ve found your brother, would you want to go away somewhere with me?”

  “Go away?” Chloe looked down. “Like on vacation?”

  “Yeah, I don’t really have anywhere I want to go, but I figured going to another country for a vacation would be fun.” I lifted my brow suggestively. “Is there anywhere you would want to go?”

  “Maybe Scandinavia?”

  I grinned, feeling my heartbeat speed up in anticipation. “So, do you want to go to Scandinavia with me?”

  “After we find Lucas?” She nodded and then met my eyes. “Sure. I’ll go with you.”

  My anxiety exploded into joy in my chest. “Cool. Scandinavia, then.”

  The elevator door opened, and we returned to our GC to find Dice leaning over a laptop resting on a table he had pulled out from the circular wall. He looked hard at work, and I decided not to interrupt him. Besides, I was beginning to feel a little like Windsor, eager to show off my new ability.

  Chloe and I sat down on our chairs, took our drinks, and delved into the Dream State. The medieval setting of Galrinth surrounded us, and I looked around the city square. The place always made me feel nostalgic, but not entirely in a good way. After all, this had been the first area I had arrived in after hearing about the crash that had left me stuck in here. That said, because I had spent so much time here, I knew the city like the back of my hand.

  After the opening of Heaven, Galrinth was looking a lot less busy than it had when I first arrived, though I doubted it was the same for the Coliseum.

  “You know where the Coliseum is, right?” I asked.

  “Of course.”