Level Zero

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  I step onto the curb and walk toward a woman coming out of a twenty-first century business called a “nail salon.” She spots me nearing her, and a look of worry flashes across her face. I slide my revolvers back into their holsters and hold out both hands, showing her they're empty.

  “I'm not going to hurt you,” I say, and continue toward her.

  Her eyes dart around to the other people on the street like she's waiting for someone else to react for her. Everyone is watching me, frozen in place, waiting for any sudden movement on my part. I walk up close to her, but when I get within arm's reach, she steps back into the doorway.

  “Stay back,” she says. Her voice is shaking.

  “My god,” I say, thinking out loud. “The coding skill needed to create your emotional response is seriously... I mean, it's incredible.”

  She looks confused. She keeps stepping away, backing into the nail salon. I keep following her, intrigued by her responses. I see fear. I see panic. I see her weighing her options. All of this is in her facial design. Some of the cheaper player avatars don't even have this level of detail.

  When I follow her into the shop, the women who work in the salon yell at me, but it sounds like an old language, and I can't understand it. I'm amazed again that I can I see the variations in their skin tones. Moles, wrinkles, and blemishes.

  “I'm sorry,” I say when one of the women yells louder, waving her hand in my face, still speaking in a language I don't recognize.

  I shuffle my boots back out into the street and hear a rumbling like an avalanche of rocks tumbling down a hill. I turn around and see what has to be another player walking down the middle of the street. He's dressed in baggy camouflage pants which are tucked into knee-high combat boots. His bare, tattooed arms are sticking out of an armored vest, and his mouth is covered by a gas mask from one of the earlier world wars. Bright red dreadlocks sprout from the back of his head in a ponytail. His hands are strained, and his fingers are bent in weird formations. Rocks float around him in swirling patterns, almost as if they were creating a protective barrier. The sound of the avalanche is coming from him.

  He's a magic-user.

  He doesn't seem to notice me, even though I'm standing out in the open, so I grab for my pistols and run sideways, firing as fast as I can. Every bullet I fire strikes one of the small rocks orbiting around him. I keep firing, but he keeps walking, ignoring me.

  When he passes right in front of me, his head turns, glancing at me for a moment, and then I feel like someone stabs me in the back. I'm thrown to my knees. It feels like there's something sharp lodged between my shoulder blades. I hear another rumble, and the window of the nail salon—complete with the image of rainbow-colored fingernails—shatters next to me. The NPCs on the street scream, scattering in every direction. I roll to the side as tiny rocks pelt the pavement all around me. I keep rolling, but I hear another rumble, and this time a long, sharpened rock, like a small stalagmite, pierces me in the chest. The game world turns red, and I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears. I'm dying.

  I drag myself behind the four-door sedan that I filled with bullets, which is still stalled in the center of the street. The game world around me looks like I'm trying to see through red liquid. It wobbles and waivers with the spinning feeling in my head. I see another long stalagmite shatter the side mirror on the car, right next to my head. I peek over the hood and see the man in the gas mask brazenly walking toward me, approaching the car as if he has nothing to worry about.

  I've only been in the game for five minutes and I'm already going to die.

  “Sorry, noob,” the magic user says, his voice sounding inhuman through the filter on the gas mask. “I'm only passing through the city zone, and I can't waste time with someone who doesn't even understand how to play the game.”

  And that's when he throws up one of his hands. I hear the rumble grow with intensity as a long pointed rock flies from his hand and strikes me right between the eyes. The game world goes black.

  “You have been killed by Grael: Level 72.”

  Level 72? No wonder he annihilated me, and no wonder I couldn't hit him. The extreme Level gap should make me feel better about getting slaughtered like that, but I'm frustrated. In the original DangerWar, everyone was on the same playing field. There were no Levels. I could be the best, because I was the most skilled player. It took a Level 72 three shots to kill me. Two in the torso, one in the head. I take note of this and thank myself for choosing endurance as my view fades into existence again.

  My avatar materializes outside of the game. I'm standing near the gates, right next to the door. A throng of spectators has gathered nearby and many of them are staring at me, waiting for my reaction.

  Another player flashes into view, standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder with me. He glances around, taking in his surroundings, disoriented from the respawn. As soon as he sees the crowd, he raises his hands in the air and says, “It was awesome!”

  The crowd of avatars cheer. Many of them are newscasters, and they input the new information into whatever news-cast they work for. The player next to me runs back for the door, disappearing as soon he steps through.

  A newscaster turns his video-cast toward me and asks, “Can you give us any information? Anything at all. What happened inside DangerWar 2?”

  “What happened?” I clench my fists and answer, “I died.”

  001010

  I watch NextWorld drop from my view as I pass through the DangerWar 2 doorway. Instead of dropping me from the sky, I materialize in an alleyway. A civilian NPC with grease stains covering the belly of his apron is tossing a garbage bag into a dumpster. I hear the groan of a homeless man under a piece of cardboard, right by my feet. Water drips out of a pipe, creating a puddle underneath. The sun is dropping below the horizon, giving the city a sort of orange glow.

  “Welcome back to DangerWar 2,” the announcer says.

  I feel more secure, and not so exposed, hidden between the two buildings. I lean my back against the wall and let myself think. I don't like feeling so weak, and that player—Grael—definitely made me feel weak. How did he reach Level 72 so fast? Obviously he's been playing longer than anyone else, but how is that possible?

  I touch the handles of my revolvers and grit my teeth. I need to level up. I need Koins. But how do I get them? There was no tutorial. There was no explanation. I'm assuming that I need to hunt down and kill other players, a carryover from the original game.

  Then I remember what the announcer said: “Civilian NPCs are not worth any Koins.” Which means there might be NPCs that are worth something. That's good to know.

  I gesture in the air, opening a few different windows. My inventory window only contains my revolvers and the treasure chest for my awarded Koins. The map of the game world is shaded to show me where I've been and where I've yet to explore. My avatar profile shows that I'm Level 1. It compares game statistics like how many times I've killed other players and how many times other players have killed me. I don't like seeing the “0-1” as my current rating.

  The final window is labeled: “QUESTS.” I frown. Another role-playing game idea. There was never any point to the original DangerWar besides killing. It was simple. Clean. Pure.

  I open the Quest window, and a long piece of brittle parchment unrolls in front of me. Words begin to appear on the paper as if an invisible pen is writing them down.

  “Welcome to the game world of DangerWar 2. As one of our pre-chosen beta testers, we encourage you to find an equipment shop. There you will be given your first opportunity to spend any Koins you may have accumulated and learn more about this brand new game world.”

  As soon as the last word is written, the map window opens, and a flashing light appears over the top of a building about fifteen blocks from where I'm standing. I swipe all the windows shut and rest my hands on my revolvers. I feel better. I know what I'm supposed to do. I have a purpose again.

  I consider stepping back out into the streets, but I can sti
ll subconsciously feel the impact of the sharpened rock between my eyes. When I look up, I see a fire escape bolted to the side of the building. I decide that being up high is probably a much better vantage point, so I leap up and climb the ladder that's hanging from the bottom of the structure.

  I rush up the stairs, past the windows with the glass missing and plywood nailed to the outside. When I reach the top, I'm able to see a few blocks in each direction. Taller buildings stop me from seeing any farther than that. I open the map of the city streets and re-size it so that it's floating in the lower right corner of my vision. I rush toward the next building and leap when I get to the edge. My avatar can jump an unrealistic distance, just like in the original game, and I clear the alleyway easily. I stay on the rooftops for almost three blocks, leaping over the gaps between buildings and climbing fire escapes when I need to. The designers have placed noticeable handholds for climbing, giving me a direct line of travel.

  As I jump across another alleyway, toward a five-story apartment complex, I hear gunfire coming from inside. I grab onto the metal walkway of the fire escape, and swing my feet up. When I climb onto the platform, the window next to me breaks open, and a spray of bullets zip past me. I slam up against the brick wall, yanking out my guns and listening for my attacker, but all I hear is more gunfire spewing from a fully-automatic rifle.

  Just as I'm about to peek around the corner, I hear boots slapping against tile. A figure leaps from the window, dives through the air, and barely grabs onto the edge of the other rooftop. Her feet scramble against the wall, trying to lift herself up. I raise my guns, hoping for an easy kill, but just as I get the avatar in my sights, I hear a burst of air from the window next to me. Out of the corner of my eye I see a rocket fire from within the building and go whistling across the alleyway, striking the player clinging to the edge of the building. The explosion is so close that I crouch down and cover my head, the sound deafening my ears for a few seconds. When I open my eyes, the entire wall of the building is crumbling, and the avatar has been disintegrated.

  Knowing that rocket launchers are notoriously slow to reload, I waste no time twirling around to peer inside the window. I see a robotic-looking avatar pushing a rocket down into a long, shoulder-mounted launcher. He's so focused on his actions that he doesn't notice me raise my pistols and pull the triggers. The bullets strike him in the chest, and he's propelled down the hallway. I'm pleased with my choice of weapons.

  The robot avatar drops his rocket launcher, and as his body slams into the far wall, I keep the barrels trained on him. When I see him move, I unleash a few more rounds, these bullets pounding into his metal head. His avatar disintegrates into a spray of pixels.

  “You have killed Robomojo: Level 2. You have earned one-hundred Koins.”

  I step into the hallway, which was destroyed by gunfire before I even arrived, and I immediately feel less exposed. I walk toward the player's dropped weapon, but before I can pick it up to examine it, it disappears in the same pixelated spray as his avatar. I'm disappointed. In the old version of DangerWar it was always a good idea to grab whatever dropped gear I could find. I could try to sell it, and if that didn't work, any implements of death that I could scavenge off my fallen foes might come in handy later.

  I open the cylinders on both of my pistols to reload them, but I find that they are still full of bullets. No reloading required? I'm suddenly even more happy with my choice of weapons.

  “Feeding time reminder,” a lovely woman's voice says into my ear.

  I've felt my stomach growling since I left DotEdu, but it was easily ignored. I open my basic NextWorld controls and disable the reminder. There's no way I'm stopping now. Not when I've barely scratched the surface of the game.

  I check my map. The equipment shop is only two blocks away. Going back outside is dangerous, but I need to provide myself with as many opportunities to kill other players as possible. This, of course, means just as many opportunities for these other players to kill me, but that's how you play the game.

  As I'm running down the stairs of the apartment building, I realize I'm not using my brain. I'm too caught up in the excitement. I'm making the mistakes of a brand new player. I should know better. The sound of combat always draws other players. I should have been moving away from the area or placing myself in an advantageous position as soon as the fighting stopped.

  When I reach the entryway of the apartment building, the front doors burst open, and I see hands toss two grenades into the air. Luckily my gamer-brain kicks in. I leap over the railing without thinking, dropping behind a vending machine on the side of the staircase as the grenades bounce across the floor. The grenades explode a second later, but the metal machine takes the brunt of the blast.

  My ears are ringing again. As the whine inside my head fades, I hear muffled shouting. The yelling isn't angry. It sounds like someone yelling out directions. Two players are working together. I didn't know team play was possible. I need to find Xen. Or maybe that isn't a good idea. Maybe I should find someone more experienced with DangerWar.

  I put the idea aside for now, and keep myself hidden behind the vending machine for a little while longer. When I see feet making their way up the stairs next to me, I point both pistols and fire them straight through the wooden steps. The wood is weak, and it only takes a few shots for the bullets to blast their way through.

  One of the players (his avatar looks like a half-man/half-bulldog wearing a basketball jersey) is knocked backwards, tumbling back down the steps. The other player (a half-man/half-rottweiler) screams as he blasts his shotgun into the steps. His shotgun only misses me by a few feet.

  I keep squeezing the triggers of my own guns, waving the barrels toward him. The line of fire drags across the room, tearing apart the wallpaper and paintings on the far wall. When the bullets finally strike the rottweiler-man, they cut into his shoulder, and he jerks the shotgun upward, instinctively trying to block the attack. My line of fire knocks the shotgun from his hands, and I'm shocked again with the power of my guns.

  The bulldog-man that I initially struck is climbing to his feet at the bottom of the stairs. I see him open his inventory with a gesture, and within half a second he's holding a heavy machine gun in both hands. A chain of bullets streams out of the side of the weapon, flowing all the way to the floor. I try to spin quick enough, but I already see the bulldog-man smiling.

  I run to my left before he fires. The gun pours out rounds like a hose of death. It tears apart the metal vending machine, and the stream of bullets chases me across the room. I keep running, but I can hear the destruction right behind every one of my steps. I dive through an open door on the other side of the entryway. Behind me, the door splinters under the impact of hundreds of bullets tearing it apart.

  The player finally lets up on the trigger, and I hear the last of the empty shell casings falling to the floor. He kicks the casings to the side as he walks toward the doorway. I crawl behind the desk in the room and hide underneath. I can hear the two dog-men yelling at each other.

  “Deka! You still with me?”

  “He shot the gun right out of my hands!” the other one calls out, his voice sounding whiny, like a little boy whose voice hasn't dropped. “His stupid pistols shouldn't be that powerful. How is that fair? It's not fair, at all. This game is stupid.”

  “Don't sweat it. It was a lucky shot. We're going to kill this guy, and we're going to use the Koins to beef up our guns. Simple as that.”

  There's a pause, and the other player whimpers out, “Yeah. Okay.”

  I peek under the desk and see two pairs of sneakers step into the doorway. A fresh chain of bullets drops to the floor, and I hear the player pull back the lever on the gun, loading the first round of the new chain into the chamber.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  The high-pitched laugh of the bulldog-man is as annoying as when he speaks.

  I cringe when I think about the rottweiler-man's giant gun tearing throug
h the wooden desk like it's a stack of toothpicks. I could try to pop up and shoot them both, but the only way I'd win that draw is if I got two head shots, and even then there's no guarantee they aren't endurance enhanced too. I'm angry at myself for getting into a situation where I'm going to die again so quickly. I want to close my eyes and wait for the respawn, but I refuse to go down like that. I grip the pistols tight and tense my legs, ready to pop out.

  Before I can move, I hear an explosion and the sound of shocked screaming. I peek under the desk and see the two avatars fall to the floor, covered in green flames. They burn for a moment, then dissipate into pixels. Seconds later I see skinny legs step through the doorway, wearing the orange wrappings of a kung fu monk.

  001011

  “Xen?” I whisper to myself as my head pops up from underneath the desk.

  He stands in the doorway with both hands holding balls of green fire. His arm reels back, ready to hurl the fire at me, but when his eyes focus in on me, a smile reveals his white teeth.

  “Kade! What are you-”

  I raise one pistol, ready to blast him while he's disoriented, but I see him lowering his flaming hands. He has no intention of attacking me. It's an easy kill. I squeeze the trigger. The hammer inches backward.

  I'm a solo player. I hate grouping. I don't want to group up with anyone, least of all someone who doesn't know how to play the game. But do any of us know how to play this game? I may have a slight advantage, but I've almost been killed twice, and I only managed to kill one player. Maybe solo play isn't possible. If anything, Xen will provide something else for the other players to aim at instead of me. I lower my gun and step up to him.

  “Thanks for the assist,” I say and hold out my hand.

  He shakes it, and as soon as our palms touch, both a YES and a NO button appear in between us.

  The announcer's voice asks, “Would you like to form a group?”