by Justin Coke
“Stretch credibility,” Kid Twist said, eyes bulging. “What you’re doing is so fucking weird that nobody will ever imagine it no matter what you do.”
“It was really weird. I thought they would laugh ... it was like they were scared of us.”
“They were eager to please,” Mad Hatter said. “That’s how I would describe it.”
“I’m glad it went well,” Kid Twist said in a measured voice. “But please don’t forget there are people trying to murder us again.”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Hayes said, and sighed. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. We were going to play some Settlers of Catan,” Kid Twist said.
“Nah, I’m gamed out. Movie?”
Tick Tock gave a weak shrug at a glance from Kid Twist.
“Okay, but I pick,” Kid Twist said.
Chapter Fifty
The next day they returned, in slightly different but equally tacky outfits, and checked out an old fashioned chalkboard that listed the available games.
Spectrum Six: Warsault
Guard Dogs 3: The Dog Father
Papyrus Scrolls Online: Cannibal Hymns
Kerbal Space Program
Call of Battle 17: Modern Warsault 5
Drone Futsal
Civilization VI: Ghandi’s Law
Stella Artis 2
Mundis
X:Com: X-Treme Resource Starvation
Wing Commander 6: Kilrathi Rising
Star Control Online: Pkunked!
Adventure Land
Hunt the Wumpus
Sid Meier’s Pirates!
“I’d like to play Call of Battle 17 please,” Mad Hatter said.
“You rent a computer by the hour, you can play anything you want,” the shop owner, an older man named Jim who would have made good money playing Santa at any mall in the world, said.
“Two hours, two computers,” Mad Hatter said.
“Twenty bucks, s’il vous plait.”[187]They paid and found their spot in a series of workstations that looked like they had come from the kind of place where they viewed installing suicide netting[188] as a morale booster. It being 10:00 a.m. in the middle of the week, they were the only people back there.
“Told you it would be easy,” Mad Hatter said as he reached down to the cabinet that contained the computer. He frowned as he yanked on the incalcitrant door.
“It’s locked,” Hayes said.
“Fuck,” Mad Hatter said, and checked the cabinets next to him; they were also locked.
Mad Hatter played a few rounds of Hunt the Wumpus while he waited until Jim hit the bathroom. Then he hurriedly check the door on each work station; all locked.
He got on his phone and texted Kid Twist and Tick Tock.
MH: DOORS LOCKED; NO USB ACCESS.
KT: CHECK KEYBOARD
MH: NO DICE
TT: SHIT
MH: WHAT DO?
TT: LET ME THINK
Mad Hatter futzed around with Hunt the Wumpus, giving the Wumpus a nearly irrecoverable lead, while he worried fruitlessly about the lock.[189]MH: I could break in.
KT: A) They’d know it was you and B) they’d wonder why you did it.
MH: You have another option?
KT: TT is working on it. There’s plenty of ways to deliver malware.
MH: Just our luck to find the one person in all creation that actually cares about computer security.
TT: I know, right? FFS.
An hour later:
KT: Take a picture of the lock.
MH: I only know how to pick locks in Mundis.
KT: Just do it.
MH: Img0001.jpg
TT: Picking lock will be easiest.
Hayes, looking over Mad Hatter’s shoulder, whispered, “These locks are bullshit.”
“How would you know, Jeff Sitar?”[190]“What?”
“How would you know these locks are bullshit?”
“They just are.”
“They just are. You know how to open one?”
“No,” Hayes said, blushing. “But I’m pretty sure there are YouTube tutorials.”
Mad Hatter glared at him as he heard Jim get up; he had a squeaky office chair up front.
“Start playing,” Mad Hatter said, as he threw himself into Hunt the Wumpus.
Jim came by; perhaps a little suspicious, whether because he heard too much whispering or because he didn’t trust new, ridiculous looking people (Hayes suddenly felt very self-conscious in his wig) Hayes couldn’t tell.[191]MH: Buy the Settlers of Catan Seafarers expansion and get back here.
They played for another half hour—long enough for Hayes to realize his reaction times had gone to hell,[192] and for him to be mocked mercilessly on several occasions as he racked up a 13:156 Kill:Death ratio.[193]“I used to be good at this,” Hayes said, staring in dismay at the screen. “I think my mouse is broken.”
“You got Mundis palsy,” Mad Hatter said as he stuffed his phone in his pocket, getting ready to go.
“Mundis palsy?”
“It’s a disease common to MMO players. Hand-eye coordination is like anything else; if you had to practice to get good, when you stop practicing you get bad. Your reaction time, hand-eye coordination, it’s all gone to shit.”
“Can I get it back?”
“Maybe, but you’re going to have to get your ass kicked a lot. Like, a lot.”
“Do you have it?”
“You can’t get diagnosed if you don’t exhibit symptoms.”
“What?”
“If I don’t play other video games, I can’t suck at them, and therefore I can’t have Mundis palsy.”
“Did you make that up?”
“Mundis palsy? Yes, I did.”
“So it’s not a thing?”
“Was Lou Gehrig’s disease not a thing until Lou Gehrig got it?”
Hayes decided to disengage; nothing productive ever happened once Mad Hatter starting spouting his weird nerd koans.
Chapter Fifty-One
When they got back to the hotel, Kid Twist and Tick Tock were watching TV.[194]
Two cheap filing cabinets, as out of place in the grandeur of the hotel as the Queen of England in a White Castle.[195] A box of paperclips sat one one; a laptop opened to a YouTube video entitled “how to pick a cabinet lock (EASY)” sat on the other. Kid Twist languorously got out of the couch, ambled over, and took the Seafarer expansion out of Mad Hatter’s hand.
“Get to work,” Kid Twist said as he started to open the box.
“Uh,” Mad Hatter said.
Kid Twist waved at the filing cabinet like a waiter pointing at their table.
“Just cause you have work to do doesn’t mean I have shit to do,” Kid Twist said. “You two get to work. When you pick the lock three times you’re done.”
“Settlers of Catan is a least a three-person game!” Mad Hatter sputtered.
“I found a two-person variant on YouTube,” Kid Twist said. “We want to try it out.”
“I’m hungry,” Mad Hatter said, reaching for any excuse to avoid doing what someone told him to do.
“I’ll order something from room service for you. Burger?”
“The salmon,” Mad Hatter said.[196] “I’ll take the burger,” Hayes said,[197] resigned to his fate.
“What kind of division of labor is this?” Mad Hatter muttered to himself.
“If I show my face in that place,” Kid Twist said from the couch,[198] “TMZ will send some poor stringer there who won’t get paid until he invents an anonymous source to claim I blew someone in the bathroom or something.”[199]Mad Hatter wasn’t pissed enough to reopen the “don’t put girls in danger” rule they[200] had all agreed to, so he angrily hit play on the video. It was a short video, and the thirteen-year-old kid showed them how to do it. It was pretty easy.
“That kid is pretty annoying,” Hayes said.
“Yeah, but he knew how to do it,” Mad Hatter said as he bent a paper clip.
It wasn’t as easy as it l
ooked; it took several hours for Mad Hatter to get it open for the third time.
“Told you the lock was bullshit,” Hayes said.
“Three hours is bullshit?”
“It is with two paperclips.”
“We’re done,” Mad Hatter said. “I got three.”
“Excellent,” Kid Twist said. “Tomorrow do it three more times then go in there and plant the malware.”
“Okay, but can we play now?”
“I’m about to get the Long Road. Once I finish Emily we’ll work you in.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The next day they returned, in yet another outfit that made Hayes feel ludicrous.
“So,” Jim said as his eyebrows arched at the sight of them walking through the door for the third time in three days, “you guys just move here?”
“We’re on vacation,” Hayes said, realizing he hadn’t really thought that through.
“And you want to hang out here?”
“We work long hours in the entertainment industry. Just got off of doing the BLU tour in India,” Mad Hatter said, improvising. “Our vacation is sitting on our asses playing games and going to Disney Land.”
“Disney World,” Jim said.[201]“Yeah, Harry Potter and whatnot. So we just kinda do what we feel like doing. Which is mostly nothing. We’re unplugged for a couple of weeks.”
“Got any pictures with the band?”
“Locked our cell phones in the hotel safe. Part of our whole unplugging thing,” Hayes said, praying to Jesus that nobody texted him in that moment.
“Well, cool, how long you want?”
“Couple of hours should do us,” Mad Hatter said. They paid and went into the computer room feeling like a couple of James Bonds, they had lied so smoothly and so well.[202]They sat out computers out of John’s line of sight, and Mad Hatter went to work with two pre-bent paperclips while Hayes turned their phones off to avoid any chance of untimely buzzes, dings, or rings, and then loaded copies of Adventure on both of their computers, leaning over Mad Hatter’s hunched body.
After some furious gyrations and a few cut off curse words turning into glottal f sounds, the door popped open. Mad Hatter glanced up, looking so guilty and red-handed that if Jim had seen Mad Hatter’s face he would have thrown them out on principle, and slid his hand into his pocket and extracted the USB stick. He fumbled with putting it in; first one way, then the other, then back the first way before it finally slid in.
Jim got up to go to the bathroom (something a man with a prostate the size of a grapefruit did very often) just as the USB drive was recognized. Mad Hatter almost slammed the cabinet door closed in his hurry, only saved by Hayes jamming his hand in the door to silence the sound. Hayes channeled his pain into a furious look at Mad Hatter, then remembered he needed to feign innocence.
They both pretended to be very absorbed by the opening screen of Adventure as Jim walked past.
“It’s been ten seconds hasn’t it?” Mad Hatter whispered.
“Let him go back,” Hayes said, “we still have to lock the door.”
“I didn’t train locking it.”
“Just reverse the steps, dumbass,” Hayes hissed.
Mad Hatter glared at him then started playing the game, which Hayes took to be a tacit admission he had a point.
Jim returned to his seat, Mad Hatter removed the stick and fumbled with locking the door, and then they were done. They had spent ten minutes to plant the malware. They both looked at the clock at the same time, then each other.
“Mundis?”
Mad Hatter shook his head and tried to contain the shakes by holding on to the desk.
“It’s hard to level an alt when you just got done committing a felony,” Mad Hatter whispered. “It’s like jacking off right after you bedded Kate Moss.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
When they got back to the hotel, Kid Twist and Tick Tock were drinking champagne around the kitchen island, two glasses ready for them.
“It worked!” Tick Tock screamed, and did a victory dance that was an odd combination of the Night at the Roxbury and the robot. “I’m getting every keystroke!”
Kid Twist poured champagne in their glasses, and held his glass high.
“To Emily, to both of you, to us. We’re going to get the fucker,” Kid Twist said, as he chugged his champagne.
They all joined in and were soon champagne drunk.[203]About three bottles of Dom Perignon later they were on the balcony, staring at the fountains in the lake below.
“Jason,” Tick Tock said, in that drunken state where people dare to ask the questions they really want to ask, “why?”
“Why what?” Kid Twist said.
“Why ... why play Mundis. Why play with us? Why help us?”
Kid Twist looked hurt she’d asked.
“Because we’re his friends,” Mad Hatter said, trying to defuse the situation.
Kid Twist opened his mouth and stared at the lake, then pursed his lips. “That’s it, basically,” Kid Twist said. “I know people roll their eyes when people like me complain about their lives, but in Mundis I was just a normal person. We hung out because we enjoyed hanging out. You weren’t trying to get something from me. Waiters didn’t slide demo tapes beneath the stall door when I’m in the bathroom. Women didn’t come on to me so they could put another celebrity notch on their bedpost or in the hopes of scoring child support. You didn’t want money or reflected fame. You weren’t looking to rip me off or use me as a stepping stone.”
He took a long drink of champagne.
“You just liked me. You have no idea how much I needed to know that someone liked me without an ulterior motive,” he said and went silent.
“We still like you,” Tick Tock said.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Kid Twist said. “And you know what? I actually believe you. You are the only three people on the planet I would say that about.”
“No family?” Tick Tock asked.
Kid Twist shook his head sadly.
“Especially not my family,”[204] he said, as one would describe a piece of shrapnel that was so old the body had encased it in scar tissue and redirected all the veins and capillaries around where living flesh used to be, but ached nonetheless. Tick Tock nearly melted with sympathy. Hayes and Mad Hatter, sympathetic but flummoxed by the raw emotion, made half-hearted attempts to pat Kid Twist on the back. Tick Tock brushed them aside and hugged Kid Twist the way you hugged a sad child. After a moment he hugged her back.
The power of champagne had them back to laughing and shouting a few minutes later. They watched Manos: The Hands of Fate[205] until they all fell asleep on the couch.
Chapter Fifty-Four
The need for privacy over, they stayed away during business hours and went to Canyon’s house for D&D that evening. It was a ramshackle Florida affair, built over a hundred years ago. It had been under the care of generations of jack-leg carpenters and was long overdue for paint job. Still, it had a tropical charm. Mad Hatter found the place charming; it felt a bit like what he imagined a hobbit hole would feel like—a little dirty, a little odd, a little small, but full of gentle people who wanted nothing from life but to put in a day of wholesome labor and receive a merry meal with friends in return.
The interior of the house was nearly an antique show. Mad Hatter was fairly certain that barring the personal electronics he was probably older than anything in the house. Canyon, Andy, Travis, and a girl that looked like she could be the lead singer in a French post-punk/black metal band[206] sat at the dinner table.
“This is Kathy,” Canyon said.
Kathy waved hello and smiled.[207]They got down to business after a round of chips and dip and Coors Light.
“Dark Sun?” Mad Hatter said. “That takes me back. Dark Sun is so nineties it hurts.”
“What’s nineties about desert fantasy?” Canyon said.
“I guess that is more eighties than anything.”
“It came out in 1991, which was still the 80s,
spiritually if not numerically,” Kathy said.
“Well, we still roll secondnd edition in this house,” Canyon said, “so yeah. Bust out the pogs, I guess.”
“Second enddition? Seriously?”[208]“Yeah.”
“Where’s the collection of cassettes and VHS?” Mad Hatter said, trying to wisecrack his way out of an unexpected surge of nostalgia.
“In there,” Canyon said, pointing to a door. “We can check it out later if you want.”
Mad Hatter had not been expecting that response, so he took a drink and sat down and starting fiddling with the dice, distracted by the wave of nostalgia.
The game itself was a pretty straightforward scenario, for a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy where everybody had psionic powers.
They took a break when the pizza arrived. Hayes felt it was time to get back on mission.
“So I don’t think Jim likes me,” Hayes said.[209]“Jim doesn’t like anyone,” Canyon said, laughing.
“He likes people,” Kathy said. “He’s just gruff.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he doesn’t care about you one way or the other,” Andy said. “If that makes you feel any better.”
“It kind of does,” Hayes said.
“Let’s see. There’s Taco, who is cool.”
“Who is that?”
“You’ll know him when you see him, because he always has a Doritos Locos Taco on his person. Always. That and whatever abomination Pepsi is selling as the new Mountain Dew flavor. But he’s cool. Mostly into card games though, not sure where you guys stand on that.”
“Stand on card games?”
“At Changing Hands there’s four factions. You got the LAN bros,[210] the Warhammer geeks,[211] the RPG dweebs,[212] and the Magic freaks.[213] They all think their shit is cooler than everyone else’s shit, and there’s this weird chill between groups. You know how cliquey nerds can get.”
“So, like, Call of Battle fans?” Hayes said, the hesitation evident in his voice.[214]“Mundis, mostly, with a very, very vocal FPS clique,” Canyon said. “I just turn around and leave when the FPS guys are there. It’s just them calling each other P90 whores, which is weird because they don’t even work out.”[215]Hayes opened his mouth to correct Canyon, but popped that instinct into neutral long enough to suppress it.