The son-of-a-bitch walked like he owned this cave.
“You must be Mitch!” Dak exclaimed, smacking him on the shoulder, hard. “Spitfire Mitch ... what an honor—seriously. I’m Dak, the team’s told me so much—”
“Stop gushing, you sound like a girl,” Dozer cut him off. “Getting hard to breathe in here with all this hot air blowing around.” She gestured towards the tunnel with a flick of her head, a subtle gesture for everyone else to follow. “And somebody better start explaining how we get home.”
The group made their way to the mouth of the tunnel, greeted outside by a fresh digital rain storm, washing the normally bright landscape pastels over with a thick layer of gray. As they shuffled their little legs towards the town, Mitch walked the group through their current situation. The rogue AI, their missing teammates, he and Fuse’s fun little DeadBlood adventure, everything he could think of, even down to the small band of digital rabbits, still obediently hopping behind them.
“So these code packages, they’ll take us to find the rest of the team?” Dak asked as they found shelter under a nearby barn’s roof. “How do they work? Any side effects? Before using any new item, it’s critical that we understand any safety concerns. That’s New West Point protocol, day one stuff, of course.”
Of course.
“They’re the only thing that’s going to get us out of here,” Mitch said. “Take us to the next world, whatever and wherever that is. Hopefully we’ll find both remaining team members there. Then we head home.”
“Wait, let me get this straight,” Dozer said. “We have to keep going after we get out of this hellhole? I thought you were here to take us home, not to bring us along on your godforsaken adventure.”
“This isn’t my adventure,” Mitch said, feeling his pulse edging up. “I didn’t make the rules, and I didn’t design the code packages. You want to scream at someone, scream at Mac. If we want to bring the other members of Nefarious home, we’ll have to find them first.”
Dozer cursed, her avatar’s face turning a bright red as she stomped back out into the downpour. She searched for the closest object to vent her anger on, settling on a nearby sheep unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She sprinted at the animal as it stared back with wide, innocent eyes. She swung her leg, punting the poor thing up and over a set of trees, clear over the barn, finally landing in a small lake with an awkward digital splash. Mitch was actually impressed with the distance.
“Dozer, c’mon,” Dak said. “We talked about this, let’s not kick the sheep. Mitch is right—we want to get out of here, we need to stick together. Plus, this isn’t so bad, right? You and I have had time to explore together, to get to know each other a little better, and now we’ve got Fuse and our new friend Mitch here. Don’t think of it as a problem: think of it as an opportunity.”
Where did they find this asshole, a motivational speaker clearance sale?
“No,” Dozer yelled. “Screw you. Screw all of you, I’m not taking orders from him.”
“Let’s all calm down,” Fuse said. “It makes perfect sense that Mac would send Mitch here. He’s our best chance to get home in one piece. Let’s all take it easy on him.”
“Easy?” Dozer said. “Easy? You want to talk about easy? Easy is leaving when things gets tough. That’s what he did, isn’t it? Isn’t that right, Spitfire? He’s the last person in any world I wanted to see today. I’m not taking orders from him, even if it means I spend the rest of my virtual life in this multicolored hellscape. He’s not Nefarious anymore. He left Nefarious behind. End of story.”
Mitch backed away, taking a deep breath, trying to calm the heat already prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. He never imagined it’d be easy to see his old team again, but now he was getting both barrels worth of reality. And he wasn’t even halfway home yet.
The crowd fell to a long, awkward silence as the rain broke, giving way to warm beams of sunlight. Fuse’s rabbits bounced through the center of the huddle without a care in the world. Dozer growled, taking a quick step towards one of them as Fuse cut in front of her.
“The rabbits are off limits,” Fuse said. “What’s your problem today, anyway?”
“My problem?” Dozer yelled, tilting her head to keep one eye on the closest rabbit. “I’ll tell you my problem. This world—it’s driving me insane. How is it not driving you insane? Any of you?” She pulled Fuse in close, her scream fading to a desperate whisper. “I just need a gun. Just one. I’d take anything ... bolt action ... a musket ... just something that I can use to kill something. I need something to die. And I need to kill it.” She pushed him back away. “But no. No, no, no ... there’s nothing here, Fuse. Nothing. What kind of nutcase makes a video game where you don’t get to kill anything?”
“Funny you should mention that,” Fuse said. “If you read the manual, the rabbits might actually be of interest to you. You see—”
“The manual?” Dozer laughed, half in desperation, half in disbelief. “Hey, everyone, Poindexter here wants me to read the manual.” She grabbed him by the neck again, whispering into his ear. “I don’t think you’re really hearing me, Fuse. I. Need. To. Kill. Something. Right. Now.”
“I understand your frustration, Dozer,” Dak said, making gentle downward gestures with his stick arms, a calming tactic he must have picked up during some online cheeseball leadership academy. “I think we all do, isn’t that right, fellas? Again, let’s focus on what we can learn here. There will be plenty of killing when we get back to Skirmish.”
“You’re not getting it, none of you get it,” Dozer mumbled. “ ‘Um, hey Dozer, how’d you like to spend, like, a week in a VR game where everything is positive and shiny and happy and there’s no destruction?’ ‘Oh, great, yeah, that sounds super because that’s exactly why I decided to become a pro gamer, to create and learn and grow with a sense of child-like wonder and boundless possibilities.’ What a crock of shit. What do you even do with all this stuff once it’s been built? Fences? Walls? It just sits there, and then, what? I’m just supposed to go start over, build something else? How does this even count as a video game?”
“It’s called a sandbox game,” Mitch said from outside the circle. All heads turned in his direction.
“It speaks,” Dozer stared down Mitch. “I forgot you were even here, Benedict Arsehole. Can you say that again, a little louder for the kids in the back?”
“Sandbox game,” Mitch repeated. “I researched them when I was writing the book. No battling, no quests, no missions. Just free-form building. Encourages creativity, that sort of thing.”
“Encourages creativity?” Dozer mocked. “Why am I not surprised that you can actually say those words with a straight face? Tell me, Mitch, when you left our team for dead, did they cut your balls off as some kind of second-place trophy?” She trotted a few steps over and punted another sheep, this one flying head over tail, past a group of nearby villagers, smacking into the mountainside. The villagers all watched the sheep’s trajectory and turned back to face the group with no opinion whatsoever.
“Stop with the animals,” Fuse pleaded. “Trust me, you have to read the manual.”
“You’re still thinking like we’re back in Skirmish,” Dozer said, turning back to the rest of the group, dejected. “You don’t understand the biggest problem with this world: none of this matters. It’s just code ... the animals, they’re just code. Bits of rogue code in a rogue world that I hope to God I never have to see again. It doesn’t matter what I do, or what you do, or any of it. Not the sheep, not the people, and not the goddamned rabbits.”
Fuse typed away at his menu screen, highlighting his band of bunnies. After a few more commands, he selected the closest villager, standing motionless in a vertical coma, and hit ENTER. The bunnies stood up at attention, turned, and trotted towards the man.
“What’s this?” Dozer asked, watching the rabbits make a beeline straight at the unsuspecting villager. “Some kind of puppet show?”
> The rabbits pounced, jumping four feet into the air and aiming downward at the villager with a crazy-aggressive attack vector. They each latched on to a different side of the villager’s neck as he emitted a piercing scream. Blocks of pixelated blood flowed down over him, pouring onto the lush, green grass and turning it into a dark maroon. Within seconds, the villager was a heap on the ground, a forgotten, bloody mess left in a wake of fluffy destruction. The rabbits, finished with their work and now covered in blood and bits of bone, turned and hopped back through the grass to Fuse without a care in the world.
“Aw, Fuse,” Dozer sighed, putting her chunky arm around her teammate and pulling him in for a hug. “You always know how to cheer a girl up. I take it back. The rabbits can stay.”
“That’s my team,” Dak said, beaming that white smile, and giving out stubby fist bumps to each member.
Mitch didn’t know what was worse—seeing the old team throw insults at each other or actually get along. But one thing was for sure: it was time to get moving. “Time’s wasting,” Mitch called out. “We need to level up to get out of here. It might not be easy, but we can do this if we all stick together. Fuse and I got through DeadBlood; we can all get through this. Just follow my lead, and we’ll be back home, safe and sound at Karma Headquarters before you know it.”
“Excited to hear the plan, there, boss man,” Dak said in a loaded tone. “Just one question: this game is all just free-form building and exploration, no enemies or skills, right? Which means no experience points?”
“Sure,” Mitch said. “Seems to be the case.”
“So, hate to be the one to break it to you, compadre,” Dak continued. “But I think you’re missing a big piece of the ol’ puzzle here. There’s a big question here, you get where I’m going?”
It took a few moments for Mitch to find the question, but he got there soon enough. The question that Dak had left hanging in the balance, the question still fresh from his New West Point-certified perfect white teeth. The question that rat bastard already knew the answer to.
“Oh my God, Dak’s right,” Dozer said, her face growing to a new shade of anger. She pulled Mitch in, shoving him back out against the closest tree, and continued the rest of the conversation right up in his blocky face. “Riddle me this, asshole: how do you expect us to level up in a game with no levels?”
Mitch’s heart stopped, watching Dak enjoy the moment, squirming for a response. Mitch didn’t know what was worse—that he hadn’t thought of the question before Dak, or that he had no idea what the answer was.
TWENTY
Problems Get Solved
THEY SAY that when a man is up against a brick wall, that’s when you learn what he’s really made of. Maybe he’s made of iron or glass or it turns out he’s just a big old pile of shit—but something’s going to show itself. The big question was: which one would it be today?
How the hell do we level up? As the question sunk in, Mitch fought the panic trying to crawl its way through his brain. Not knowing the answer was bad enough, he didn’t need all eyes on him while he was trying to piece together a solution. Especially the ones that weren’t exactly members of his fan club.
“So,” Dozer stammered, pacing with heavy steps. “Any of you honor students want to smart your way out of this one?”
“We’ll find something,” Dak reassured her, looking up to the top of the cliff while maintaining his confident glow, stubby arms planted firmly on his hips. “I know we’ll find our path.”
“I’m not seeing a solution,” Fuse said, pacing the bright green grass, in full-on calculation mode. “Nothing we can build, no place we can travel to. I haven’t seen anything in this world that might trigger any sort of activation mechanism on the code package, as I understand its functionality.”
“Blah blah blah, big words, big words,” Dozer said, mocking Fuse with a robot walk through the middle of the group. “News flash, genius—saying stuff we already know isn’t going to get us out of here.”
“Now, team,” Dak said, hands extending with his trademark calming motion. “Let’s all stay focused on the goal here.” He positioned himself in Dozer’s eye line. “Remember, Doze—before, your default state was anger. And anger gets us where?”
Avoiding eye contact, Dozer replied with a rehearsed tone. “Nowhere. Anger gets us nowhere.”
“That’s right,” Dak agreed, with a clap of his hands. “Anger gets us absolutely nowhere. So now, what are we going to concentrate on?”
Fuse and Dozer both looked down to the ground and replied with a muffled response. “Achievement.”
“I can’t hear you,” Dak said, putting his stub up to his ear.
“Achievement,” the two repeated, with a pinch more vigor this time around.
Mitch stared on with a glazed look of confusion. When did Nefarious become a walking talking self-help book?
“Very good, very good, achievement,” Dak said. “We’re on a mission, so let’s focus on our mission. That’s how good teams become great. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that we are a great team. Now, we have a problem in front of us. But what happens to problems? Fuse?”
“Problems get solved,” Fuse mumbled.
“Yes, exactly,” Dak said with pride. “So let’s work the problem. We work the problem, we solve the problem.”
Mitch didn’t know what the hell was going on with the confidence-building exercise he was witnessing, but he knew it was about time to get moving. And as much as he hated Dak, he knew he was right—they weren’t going anywhere if they didn’t concentrate on the problem. He racked his brain, trying to think of any game mechanic that could trigger the code package. Sandbox games were designed as creative spaces to allow the user to build anything they wanted, not to grow stronger. But most had some sort of character development in them—a way to unlock a new section of the map, or build new items—otherwise users would grow bored of the same old thing, day after day, and move on. When users move on, games die, so there had to be some form of progression to up the stakes. The trick was finding which trigger the AI had built into this world.
You can find the answer, Mitch. They’re trusting you to find the answer. They’re—
“I know the answer,” Dak announced, turning to face the group, his teeth shining like a white beacon of hope.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
“What’s the plan, boss?” Fuse asked. The final word stung Mitch a bit more than he wanted to admit.
“We stay the course,” Dak said, backed up by a truckload of confidence.
“Stay the course?” Mitch asked.
“What does that mean?” Fuse said.
“Before we were lucky enough to run into you two,” Dak said, pointing over to Mitch and Fuse, “we were digging through this cliff. It was the only unknown we saw in the immediate area with potential. We searched every house, lake, stream, and valley within a few digital miles, but this cliff—there was something about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it … I just had this feeling.”
Oh wonderful. He’s got a feeling.
“But now I see it, “ Dak continued. “Maybe it was my subconscious, pointing me to the answer all along. Look up there, the sky, above the top ledge.” He pointed up with his little block arm, at a light halo of purple, breaking across the sky above the far mountain. The sky was a solid block of the brightest blue you could imagine, dotted with clouds here and there, but he was right—a haze of purple hung only over the cliff. “There has to be something on the other side. A different level, a final boss, whatever. There’s got to be a reason for the color change.”
“What kind of stupid game would put a cliff between the players and the challenge they need to complete?” Mitch asked, staring up at the purple, more than a little pissed that he hadn’t noticed it himself.
“Yeah, and besides, we didn’t find anything the first time we tried digging through,” Dozer said. “We just kept digging and digging. There wasn’t anything there.”
; “There’s four of us now,” Dak said. “We can make better time with double the arms. There has to be something there. I just know there is.”
“Dak’s reasoning is actually quite sound,” Fuse said, his massive blocky form floating to the center of the group. “The AI is creating hundreds, maybe thousands of worlds throughout the Karma Systems servers. It’s iterating—changing up elements with algorithmic precision. Testing to see what works and what doesn’t work. We may have landed in a world that wouldn’t pass a user test, but it doesn’t mean the world would never be created in the first place.”
“We’re trapped in an experiment?” Mitch asked. “A goddamned test tube?”
“Precisely,” Fuse said, nodding to himself as he mentally checked his logic.
“I don’t care, I’m done with digging,” Dozer said, her head hung low. “And I don’t want to go back in the tunnel. It’s dark and dirty and there’s nothing behind each rock but another rock. I’m not sure my hands can take any more.”
“You can always blow stuff up, you know,” Fuse said.
Dozer looked up. “Do what?”
“There’s an explosive block in the base level inventory,” Fuse said, toggling his option screen open. “It’s right here on the second tab. You can build as many as you want.”
“The second tab?” Dozer asked.
“You really need to start reading the manual,” Fuse said.
“Shut up with your manual,” Dozer scoffed, bringing up her options menu. “Only losers read the manual.” She turned and smacked Dak in the shoulder, whispering. “Why didn’t you tell me about the second tab?”
The impact sent Dak floating a few feet away as he laughed off the comment. “I like this idea … good job, Fuse. This is what great teamwork is supposed to look like. What do you think, Mitch, you with us here?”
Mitch hated to admit it, but Dak’s idea was their best option. He swallowed his pride down like a bitter swig of medicine and shrugged. “I guess we’ve got nothing else to do.”
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