Dead Man Gaming

by A. J. Markam

  But I still felt like I was about to crap my pants.

  Then his eyes crawled around the surrounding areas, as though he was looking for someone.

  I tried to calm down.

  He had obviously just gotten lucky by staring at the spot where I was.

  Or maybe he had some sort of gangster’s sixth sense that transferred into the videogame.

  He took out a quill, dipped it in an ink pot, pulled out a piece of fresh parchment, and started scribbling something down. It was kind of funny seeing his hand, as big as a catcher’s mitt, holding this little tiny feather quill. Like a normal person writing with a needle dipped in ink.

  Or it would have been funny if I weren’t still getting over my terror at being ‘seen.’

  I couldn’t tell what he was writing, but I figured it might be important, so I kept edging closer.

  He gestured silently to the closest orc beside him and pointed at the paper before he wrapped it up and gave it to the guy.

  Damn it, I would have liked to have seen what was on that paper.

  The orc nodded, then barked out in Russian, “Everybody, come on – we have work to do.”

  Then the orc and the others left the booth. Oktar was the only one remaining.

  He rolled up the first piece of paper he’d been studying, stood up with a grunt, and walked into the back of the shop. Then he sat down on a crate, placed the piece of paper beside him on a table, and proceeded to take a wooden bowl of walnuts and start cracking them one by one.

  Between his teeth.

  It was amazing. He would take a walnut, place it between his oversized molars, then bite down. CRACK!

  He would then fish the cracked shell out of his cheek, flick away the pieces, pull out the tender meat from inside, and toss it in his mouth and chew thoughtfully as he stared at the paper.

  This is it, I thought. He’s looking at something important, I just know it.

  I moved inside the stall, careful to be silent and not bump into anything.

  I was within a few feet of him when suddenly the sunlight from behind me got blocked off.

  I turned around and felt my stomach plunge into my guts.

  Every single orc that had left just a moment before was back – but they were standing in two staggered rows, one row behind the other, shoulder to shoulder – so that there was no way I could sneak past them out of the stall.

  I was surrounded on all sides by stone walls, stone floors, and stone ceiling – with eight gigantic bastards at one end, and a psychopathic Russian gangster at the other.

  Then the eight orcs started to move one by one inside the stall.

  Shit – what was going on?!

  I was thinking about where I might hide – under one of the tables with the knickknacks, maybe – when I heard Oktar’s deep voice speak in heavily accented English.

  “Come out of Stealth, little man. Or it will not go well for you, I promise you that.”

  Oh shit…

  This had all been a trap.

  That piece of paper he’d handed off?

  Probably directions for his men to leave, then box me in.

  And Oktar going inside the stall?

  He’d been the bait.

  How the HELL does he know I’m here?!

  As the eight orcs slowly got closer to me, I realized that I was screwed. They were blockading me in. There was no way that I could escape past them.

  I could try hiding behind one of the tables – but Oktar obviously knew I was in here. If the orcs started sweeping their giant battle axes around, as soon as one bumped into me, I would come out of Stealth.

  I was outmatched, outnumbered, and outsmarted.

  There’s one thing you learn in prison: when somebody has you by the balls, you don’t try to one-up them – unless you want to lose your testicles.

  I came out of Stealth.

  Oktar looked up at me with lazy disinterest. He cracked another walnut with his molars, slowly picked the shell apart, and flicked the pieces on the floor.

  Suddenly a gigantic hand came from behind, grabbed my shoulder, and forced me to my knees.

  Then the razor-sharp edge of an ax pressed right up against the side of my neck.

  Shit.

  I had screwed the whole FBI thing up beyond comprehension.

  This was bad… this was really, really bad.

  “Why are you here, little man?” Oktar asked.

  My mind raced.

  I had made a stupid blunder, thinking I could outwit a bunch of high-level Russian gangsters.

  If this were prison, I would be about to get raped or killed. Maybe both, and not necessarily in that order.

  In a case like this, the best thing to do was just go balls to the wall.

  After all, really – what did I have to lose?

  “I want a job,” I said.

  That took the orcs slightly by surprise.

  The ones behind me started laughing.

  Oktar smirked, then asked his men in Russian, “Can you believe this idiot?”

  I didn’t let on that I understood what he was saying, though.

  He spoke to me in English. “Do you see a yellow – ”

  Here he gestured over his head, like he was talking about an exclamation point or a question mark.

  “ – over my head?”

  “No.”

  “That is because I do not give out quests. You have come to wrong place for that.”

  My heart lifted.

  I could possibly get out of this.

  If they thought I was just an idiot that didn’t know any better, they might write me off and let me walk away.

  The only problem was, I was going to have to see them again at some point – and when that happened, I didn’t want them asking me, Why didn’t you tell us who you were the first time? It would be too suspicious.

  So I put all my chips on the table and went all in.

  “I’m not talking about that kind of job,” I said.

  The orcs behind me stopped chuckling.

  A cold, steely glint returned to Oktar’s eyes. “What kind of a job do you speak of, then?”

  “One where I get paid in the real world,” I said.

  The giant orc cracked another nut between his molars, then slowly picked apart the shell as he stared at me. “You know who I am?”

  I didn’t think it was a wise move to put all my cards on the table.

  “I know what you are.”

  Oktar laughed once – not a friendly laugh, either. “Yes – an orc. There are many orcs around here.”

  “Not with those tattoos, there aren’t.”

  I felt the edge of the ax bite just a tiny bit harder into my neck.

  I winced, waiting for it to slash through my throat –

  But Oktar held up one hand casually, and the ax backed off.

  “What do you know of my tattoos?”

  “I just finished up a six-year haul in prison,” I said. “It was my second strike, and California’s a three-strike state. I was afraid of getting caught the third time and spending the rest of my life in jail.”

  So far, that was the truth. I just hope it sounded convincing enough to carry the rest of the lies I was about to tell.

  “But I gotta eat. I was told by a friend in prison that there was a videogame where I could keep working, that the cops couldn’t catch me in here. He told me to look for the Russian mob in Sillomar and ask them for a job.”

  Oktar picked apart a shell and popped the nut in his mouth. “What is the name of this friend?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to say.”

  Oktar gave an almost imperceptible nod, and the ax blade moved away from my neck.

  Wow, does he respect me for not giving up my source?

  It seemed too good to be true.

  Turned out, it was.

  The ax came slamming back – but with the flat side of the blade, so that it caught me upside the head like a frying pan.

  WHAM! />
  I fell sideways to the floor, completely stunned.

  Then a giant metal boot settled on my head and kept me pressed against the ground.

  “I asked you a question, little man,” Oktar said as he flicked pieces of shell on the stone floor in front of me.

  “I… I can’t tell you,” I said.

  The pressure of the boot increased on my head. When I say ‘increased,’ it felt like my skull was in a vise and my eyeballs were about to pop out.

  “I did not give you option. What is his name?”

  For a brief second I thought, I could give them Rod’s name.

  It would serve the bastard right if Russian mobsters showed up on his front door.

  But in the end, I couldn’t take the risk. They might question him before they whacked him and find out who I really was. Where my family lived.

  So I gave them a fake name instead.

  Actually, it was a real name, but the guy was a convicted child rapist back in the prison where I’d served time. If he got iced by the Russian mob, I didn’t think anybody would shed any tears for him.

  “Andy Thissel.”

  The pressure on the boot eased up.

  “And what is your name?”

  I wasn’t about to tell them my real last name.

  “Jimmy Watkins,” I said, using the last name of a guy I knew from prison.

  “Why did you not ask for job in prison, Jimmy Watkins?”

  “Because if they kill you in prison, you don’t come back to life.”

  Oktar chuckled. “True. But sometimes in game, we do not let you die.”

  Uh-oh.

  That didn’t sound good.

  “Could you get your guy to take his boot off my head?” I asked.

  “No.”

  Great.

  “Why were you in prison, Jimmy Watkins?”

  “Safecracking.”

  “What makes you think I need safecracker? Or that I need anything you have to offer?”

  “Like I said, I want to keep working, but I didn’t want to risk getting caught and going back to prison.”

  “Perhaps you should not have gotten caught in first place.”

  The other orcs laughed.

  Oktar cracked another nut. “If you get caught, you are bad thief. I have no use for bad thieves. Especially,” he sneered, “a Level 14.”

  Shit – I TOLD you I needed to level up first, Arkova…

  The orc flicked another couple of pieces of shell on the ground right in front of my face. “I see you earlier in market, looking at me. Talking to woman – a blood elf. Who is she?”

  I’d been right – he’d caught me scoping them out.

  “My ex-girlfriend,” I lied.

  “And what did you say to her?”

  “She knew I was going to ask you for a job. She told me not to.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” I asked.

  I took the following silence as permission.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “You smell of alcohol.”

  Shit – the four shots.

  DAMN it.

  But wait…

  “No – you saw me earlier, when I was in Stealth. I was far enough away, there was no way you could have smelled the alcohol – so how did you see me?”

  The boot suddenly clamped down harder on my head.

  “Enough questions,” Oktar said. “Now I ask you question. Do you know what is going to happen now, Jimmy Watkins?”

  I forced myself to joke. “You’re going to hire me?”

  “No. But you made right decision.”

  “To come talk to you?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, that was stupid decision.”

  “To come out of Stealth?”

  “That was good decision also. But good decision was not to talk to people in prison. You are right; they would have killed you.”

  “…oh.”

  “But here, is different. You are going to forget this conversation. You are going to forget you ever saw me. And if I catch you anywhere near this market again, you will regret it. If I ever hear you have spoken of me to anyone, then not only you, but everyone you love back in real world will regret it. Do you understand?”

  “…yes.”

  “Then goodbye, Jimmy Watkins, if that is actually your name. This was all bad dream. Remember that.”

  “Okay.”

  Oktar cracked another nut between his teeth. “One more thing. When you resurrect… do in graveyard. Do not come back to your body.”

  “…huh?”

  Suddenly the boot was gone. A split second later I felt the blade of the ax slam through my neck, and heard the razor-sharp edge CLANG against the stone.

  36

  One guess where I wound up.

  The cemetery was somewhere inside the city. There were massive marble vaults for rich families and tombstones for everybody else. There were a few really beautiful grave markers here and there – sculptures of different things, like warriors in armor, elves with bows, and little angelic creatures (if angels had pointed ears and four arms).

  But like every time I died, everything was in black-and-white with a silvery sheen on it – so it looked sinister, though beautiful. And the hushed whispers were all around me.

  I was furious with myself. Furious and sad and ashamed. I’d just screwed up my only chance to get in with the orcs. I was screwed. There was no way I could infiltrate them now. They knew who I was, they thought I was a screw-up, and they’d totally disrespected me.

  And it had been all my fault.

  If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

  I looked over and there was my old friend the Grim Reaper. It first I didn’t know what the orc meant by ‘Don’t resurrect here’ – but then I recalled what the Reaper had said the first time I ever died, back in the graveyard in Othril.

  You may resurrect here, or you may go and find your body. If you choose to be raised here, you will suffer Resurrection Sickness for a brief time. If you find your body within six minutes, there will be no penalty except to the durability of your goods.

  “How do I resurrect here?” I asked the Reaper.

  “Just agree,” he said in his unearthly voice, “and I will let your body return here. But you will pay the price with ten minutes of Resurrection Sickness.”

  I thought about it. And the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

  Those assholes – they could have just let me just walk away!

  Part of me was saying, Dude, this is the Russian mob we’re talking about. You got off easy.

  But the part of me that was frustrated by being kept on a leash by the FBI? That part rebelled at this latest humiliation.

  No matter what I did, I was always under somebody else’s thumb. The FBI, the Russians – just like it was back in prison. Except I was supposed to be out of prison.

  You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go back over there, get my body, and –

  No, that was a bad idea. As soon as I got back in my body, they would just slaughter me again.

  Besides, Oktar would see me in Stealth.

  Except, I reminded myself, Stealth is different from being dead.

  What are they going to do to me, kill me again while I’m already dead?

  That’s when I realized something: unlike Stealth, I could be dead and look around without fear of being caught.

  Now is the perfect time to spy on them!

  “I’ll be back,” I told the Grim Reaper.

  “You have five minutes and 37 seconds to find your body. If you do not find it within the allotted time, you will be forcibly resurrected here in the graveyard – and you will suffer ten minutes of Resurrection Sickness.”

  A little counter appeared in my upper right-hand vision.

  “Got it. Thanks!” I said, then ran as fast as I could out of the graveyard.

  I followed the map, which had a little marker for where my body was.
It was a good thing I had the map – without it, I would have had absolutely no idea where the graveyard was in relation to the rest of the city.

  I ran as fast as I could and found the market within 60 seconds.

  Four and a half minutes to go.

  I ran through the crowd and over to the rug shop. The orcs were still standing around, talking – although I couldn’t tell what they were saying. I’d never been able to hear any sounds when I was dead other than the whispers.

  I walked inside the shop carefully. I was scared as hell – that maybe I was wrong, that maybe they could tell if my spirit was there, that maybe they could do something to me that was worse than death –

  But I was also angry. Besides being assholes, these guys were human traffickers, sex slavers, pimps, and murderers.

  I’d already committed to the FBI that I would bring them down, so I might as well start now.

  I walked through the group and waved my hands in front of the orcs’ faces.

  No reaction.

  As I got closer to Oktar, I became even more scared. I wondered if he would look up at me like he had before, sensing my ghost in the air –

  But again, what was he going to do to my ghost?

  I stood right in front of him and tried not to look at my body over in the corner. My head was lying a few feet away from my shoulders. There wasn’t any blood – I guess Revenants don’t bleed. But it was still messed up to see your own body with your head detached from your neck.

  I just did my best to ignore it.

  I stood right in front of Oktar. This time he did nothing but continue to crack his walnuts and talk to his subordinates.

  I flipped him off right in front of his face. No reaction.

  Assholes. You idiots are going to jail forever if I have anything to say about it.

  I looked over at the paper on the table, the one Oktar had been staring at before. It was a map of some sort of building, though I couldn’t tell what. There were some notes scribbled on it in Russian – words like 2 guards and armored car, along with a number: 5,000,000.

  I tried to memorize the map as best I could, then looked at my timer.

  Three minutes to resurrect.

  I stood there, hoping they would do something important I could report back to the FBI, but it all seemed pointless. I couldn’t hear them, I couldn’t read lips (especially in Russian), and there weren’t any super-secret items lying around. So I go glumly headed out of the shop back towards the graveyard.