Level Zero

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  “Fantom... if there is something bothering you, you can talk to us about it. We are a group now. Omniversalism teaches us that no one can handle everything on their own.”

  I try not to take what he says personally, and my mind is already arguing against his statement, defending my own predilections toward solo play, but Fantom takes what he says to heart.

  “Sorry, I... I don't think I can just sit around here and like, wait or whatever.”

  I'm surprised by the statement. Fantom is always so logical that I can't believe she would risk going outside just because she was worried about boredom.

  “What are you talking about?” Ekko asks. “What could possibly make you go back out into... that.”

  She sucks in a lungful of air, hesitating to speak anymore, but she lets out the breath and says, “The things that you're talking about, the systems they have in place to make sure no one like, dies or whatever if they stay logged in too long... I don't think they're going to work for me.”

  Ekko smiles and says, “I know you're worried, kiddo, but you shouldn't be. All of us will be safe. The government will protect us.”

  Fantom shakes her head, and I can hear her crying. Her avatar isn't built to display tears, but her whimpers are coming through the audio.

  “Fantom?” Xen says her name like he's questioning her panic.

  She clenches her fist and groans, obviously annoyed with her own emotional breakdown. She takes another deep breath and tries to collect herself.

  “What are you worried about?” Ekko asks.

  “They aren't going to find me, yo.”

  “Of course they are,” Ekko says. “Everyone's avatar is tracked. They know exactly what tower room your body is in right now. They'll send some worker like my sister, and they'll take care of you and make sure nothing happens to you.”

  “You don't understand,” Fantom says, covering her face, almost like she's embarrassed. “They aren't going to find me, because they can't track me, yo.”

  “You're just panicking,” I say, already annoyed by the conversation.

  “Shut up!” she says, yelling at me, the sound of her whimpering cutting through the audio again.

  “Fantom, he's right,” Ekko says. “You are just scared-”

  “Which Omniversalism teaches us is perfectly normal,” Xen injects.

  “Sure,” Ekko says. “Sure it's normal. But trust me... they track everybody.”

  Fantom looks up at him with piercing eyes and says, “Everybody?”

  Ekko nods, and with a very serious tone he says, “Yes. Everybody.”

  Fantom shakes her head and asks, “Like... what about hackers?”

  010101

  I look at Ekko's wooden face, and I can tell he's trying to hide his reaction. He keeps staring at Fantom, his image flickering on and off.

  “You're a hacker?” he asks, his voice dropping away from the comforting tone he's been using.

  Fantom can't make eye contact as she says, “Like... sort of.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask with more urgency than her answer is giving.

  She glares at me for a second, then says, “It's complicated, yo. I got into hacking when I wasn't accepted into any universities. I'd been applying for like, ever, but no one would even take a glance at my application. And like, without a degree, I don't really have a lot of choices. I could become a wage slave like ninety-nine percent of the population, working every waking hour to pay for my tower room and my daily dose of vitapaste. I realized that the only other option was that I could do some research and learn some skills that would like, let me get the things I needed to survive without trading in my life or whatever.”

  “I do not understand,” Xen says, looking confusedly at Fantom. “So you learned how to hack? How did that-”

  “Hacking isn't something you just watch a tutorial about. Any record of information about hacking in NextWorld is like, classified under cyber-terrorism and like, deleted instantly, yo. You can't just learn about it. You have to like, find someone to teach you or whatever.”

  “I still do not understand,” Xen says. “How does hacking let you live in a tower room without having a job?”

  I'm embarrassed by Xen's naivete, but I keep my mouth shut, letting Fantom explain it to him herself.

  “First of all, this wasn't just about being a slacker and like, remaining unemployed or whatever. I was only doing this so I could like, get accepted in the higher levels of DotEdu and like, get a degree, yo. Then I could like, get a real job. Something that doesn't involve me crawling around inside the air ducts of my tower, or like, cleaning out sewer blockages underground. I wanted to design virtual vehicles, or avatars, or something. I wanted to use my brain, yo. But that wasn't going to happen. My parents ended their partnership when I was really young and my tower room is in the old North American territories. Do you have any idea how hard it is for North Americans to get accepted into the university program?”

  “That is just leftover, racist nonsense from the last war,” Xen says with a solemn tone, shaking his head with disappointment. “Omniversalism teaches us that all people are equal, no matter where on the planet they might be located.”

  “Yeah, well, racism still exists, yo. And I have to like, live with it. So I learned how to hack, and I'm like, making myself a brand new life or whatever. I learned how to rewrite my files, and I gave myself a new identity. I'm going to live my life the way I always wanted to. The way I was meant to, yo.” She smiles a bit. Then her face returns to the normally cold, vacant stare. “You can like, judge me all you want, but like, just so you know, I wasn't going to use my hacking skills for anything else. I could have like, transferred funds into my bank account or like, just given myself the job I wanted or whatever. But I didn't. I just evened the playing field. I was giving myself opportunities... opportunities that weren't available to me only because I was like, born in the wrong part of the real world or whatever.”

  “Does this game qualify as one those opportunities?” I ask.

  She rolls her eyes. “I haven't played one of these games for years, yo. My brother used to play them, but he'd like, get so angry with me because I was like, always better than him, no matter how long he spent practicing or whatever. And yeah, now here I am, playing again, but that's only because my partner just dumped me, and I was like, sitting around in my tower room feeling sorry for myself or whatever. An old hacker buddy sent me a message showing me how to open a backdoor into the beta test. It was just supposed to be like, a distraction or whatever. Something to like, keep my mind off of life for awhile.”

  “So not only are you hacked into NextWorld, but then you doubled up and hacked into DangerWar 2?”

  Fantom nods, but she doesn't look proud.

  “And now the authorities are going to think you live somewhere else,” Ekko says. “They have no idea your body is laying in an E-Womb somewhere in old North America.”

  “I like, rerouted the input through a thousand different towers, yo. Even if they like, try backtracking the signal, it will take them weeks, maybe months, to find me.”

  None of us say anything. We all know what her words mean. If we don't log out soon, Fantom is going to die. Ekko leans forward and wraps his wooden arms around her kimono. With Ekko touching her, his lag causes them both to flicker. Cyren looks up at me, and I shrug my shoulders. Neither of us join them. I can tell she's just as uncomfortable with the emotional expression as I am.

  “I'll help you,” Ekko says.

  Fantom looks at him and smiles, her bottom lip appearing unsteady.

  “I will help you, too,” Xen says.

  “I can't ask either of you to do that, yo.”

  “You do not have to ask.” Xen holds out his hand and Ekko grips it in a handshake. I see him select an invisible option in front of him and then I hear the announcer's voice.

  “Xen has joined another group.”

  I'm disgusted. Leave it to the gamer with something to prove to his dead son,
and the religious nut who probably wants to be a martyr, to run off and play hero. It's some heroic nonsense from a child's video-cast, and I'm not going to let their little role-playing game go any further.

  “Hold on,” I say. “How are you going to help her? What exactly are you going to do? You're acting like there's some kind of answer to our problem.”

  Xen gives me that disapproving look again, and Ekko considers my words, contemplating how to reply to my question, but it's Fantom who answers my question, and to my surprise, there is no anger in her voice. She does not snap at my insensitivity. She does not push me away. It's almost as if she understands my argument against running outside into the chaos without a plan. She can relate to my logic, if nothing else.

  “He's right, yo. I'm willing to go out there and look for whatever answer I can find... because I like, don't have any other choice. But I can't risk your lives too. I won't be the death of you, yo.”

  “Do not speak of such things,” Xen says, sounding pointlessly emotional. “We are here for you.”

  Ekko smiles and says, “We won't let you do this alone, kiddo.”

  I'm annoyed by the cliché reasoning, meaningless when applied to the reality of our situation. I have to speak up. But it's Cyren who says something, and she takes the words right out of my mouth.

  “You can't just go out there and wander around, hoping to stumble across a door with an exit sign. There's an entire game world of monsters trying to kill you. It's a hopeless battle, even if you had a destination.”

  “You can not be sure of that,” Xen says.

  “Yes she can!” I yell. “Stop acting like your good intentions will be enough to save her. All the kindness in your heart isn't going to protect you from a game world gone mad. Your Omniversalist teachings aren't going to help you.”

  Xen looks genuinely hurt. His face looks like I physically attacked him. He actually touches his chest and leans away from me.

  Ekko frowns and asks, “Do you have a better plan, son?”

  “Me?” I ask, thinking the question is ridiculous. “Of course not. That's my point. There is no plan.”

  Ekko shakes his head, the image shifting back and forth. “It's easy to tell someone they are wrong. It's easy to point out errors. What's harder is telling someone how to do it right. The really difficult part is showing someone a better idea.”

  “The better idea is to stay here,” Cyren says. “We've already established that.”

  “Thank you!” I say, feeling like maybe someone is on my side.

  Fantom shakes her head and says, “That's not the best plan for me, yo.”

  “But you're assuming they aren't going to fix this problem in the next hour. Or even the next day. You're willing to get your avatar killed and put yourself in a coma, just because you aren't patient enough.”

  Fantom grits her teeth and says, “I like, don't have the luxury of patience, yo. If I'm wrong, and they like, don't fix the problem soon, then it will be too late to try anything else. I like, refuse to put my life in someone else's hands.”

  010110

  I want to argue with Fantom. I want her to just stay where she is, but then I realize it's because I don't want to feel guilty. My concern for her is selfish. I want everyone to stay inside where it's safe, because I want to stay inside where it's safe. I feel horrible as soon as I realize this, and I go into a mode of internal justification. I try to use logic to argue against myself, but my defensiveness is failing.

  “If we had reached a higher level, this probably wouldn't be such an issue,” Ekko says.

  “And sadly, we're like, probably the highest Level players there are, yo. There's no scoreboard, so we can't be sure... but we had such a head start, I can't imagine anyone leveling faster than us or whatever.”

  I speak before I realize what I'm saying. I think I say it to shove it in her face that she isn't the best player out there. I don't realize what the information could mean.

  “I met a player who was much higher Level than you. He attacked me when I first entered the game.”

  Everyone turns to look at me, but it's Fantom who asks, “Like, he was already a higher Level than us when you first started?”

  I shrug and smugly say, “Sure. A lot higher.”

  “Like how much higher?”

  I smile. “He was Level 72 when he attacked me, so who knows what he's at now.”

  The look on Ekko's wooden face says that he doesn't believe me. Xen doesn't realize the weight of this information. Cyren looks frightened by what I'm saying, probably already acknowledging to herself what this could mean. Fantom just looks stunned.

  “You're serious, yo?”

  I nod.

  “Do you like, remember his name or whatever?”

  I shrug and say, “Sure. I made a mental note because it was such an unfair fight. I wanted to make sure to hunt him down once I was a higher Level, so I could give him a little payback.”

  “You should let that kind of thing go, Kade. Omniversalism teaches us to let the actions of others flow off our shoulders like water.”

  Fantom jumps off the floor, landing on her feet, and rushes to the holographic screen. She scrolls through the options and opens the search window.

  “What are you doing?” Ekko asks.

  Fantom keeps typing in different words, searching for something in particular. “I like, noticed something in the shopping lists before. I didn't think much of it. It was in the PvP items or whatever. Seemed sort of pointless until now, yo.”

  I step up behind her, interested again in the conversation. We're talking about the game again. I look over her shoulder and watch her scan through the nearly endless list.

  “What was it?”

  “A wrist compass, yo.”

  I glance at Ekko, and he just shrugs back at me. Xen looks just as confused.

  Cyren is the only one who stands up and joins us at the screen. “You're talking about the player-tracker.”

  Fantom smiles and nods at Cyren.

  “The what?” I ask, hoping someone is going to fill the rest of us in.

  Cyren leans behind Fantom so she can see me and says, “It's an item that lets you track the whereabouts of specific players. It's expensive. It was designed for a player who wants to seek revenge against another player.”

  Fantom smiles and says, “I'm like, surprised you haven't heard of it, Cowboy.”

  “Very funny,” I say. “So you want to use this to track down the high Level player? And then what?”

  She glances at me as she taps the “Confirm Purchase” button and says, “Like, hopefully he can tell me that, yo.”

  “I only said he's a higher Level than us. I never said he's got an idea of how to log out.”

  The compass appears on Fantom's forearm as she says, “Yeah, well, right now he's like, my best bet or whatever.” She adjusts the wristband and asks, “So like, what's his name?”

  I sigh and mumble, “Grael.”

  She selects some things on a window I can't see, then frowns and says, “This isn't going to be easy, yo.”

  I huff out a breath and say, “No doubt.”

  “No,” she says. “I mean... he's like, in a high Level zone. Like, a really high Level zone, yo.”

  “Of course,” I say with a groan.

  Xen gives me that look again and turns back toward Fantom. “Where is he at?”

  “Up in the mountain zone.”

  “With the dragon?” I say, my words breaking.

  “That's suicide,” Cyren says. “You can't go there.”

  Fantom looks at the floor and says, “I don't have a choice, yo.” Then she looks up at all of us and says, “But like, you do. I can't ask you to risk yourselves.”

  Xen smiles. “I already told you that I am coming with you.”

  “Oh man,” I say, slapping my forehead with my palm.

  Cyren gives me a worried glance. I raise my eyebrows, as if to say, “I don't know what to do.” Her head droops between her shoulders,
and she says, “I'm not going to let another player in this game be killed. If that means coming with you to protect you, then that's what I'll do. Even if I think it's completely illogical.”

  And with that, my last hope for logic is lost. The whole group is staring at me. They're waiting for my response. All of them have the same look in their eyes. It's that pathetic begging, that desperate longing for my compliance. Xen holds out his hand.

  I look around the blank room and try to imagine what I would do by myself, all alone. Outside, I can least play the game. I sigh, heavier than I have ever sighed before, because now the fear of boredom is going to be the death of me.

  “Fine,” I say, gripping Xen's hand and selecting the option to join their group. “But you're buying me some new gear.”

  010111

  “Spend every last Koin you've got,” I say as the group purchases as many explosives, special munitions, and armor upgrades as our avatars can carry. “Who knows if we'll even be near another equipment shop.”

  When I notice that Cyren isn't buying anything, she assures me that she's already maxed out. She tells me that she's a weapon-user, but when I ask her what weapon she chose, she just holds up her fist.

  “Cyren is her own weapon,” Fantom says with an evil grin.

  For some reason, I find this incredibly attractive. The feelings I have when I look at her buckled, leather outfit confuse me. Girls are too much of a distraction. I don't let myself get lost in the thoughts because I know what that does to people. I only have to look at Xen.

  I feel the need to point out to the group that Xen is our weak link, which he doesn't take enough offense to. He accepts the fact and isn't bothered that I bring it up in front of the group.

  “I am only Level 2,” he says. “I think I am close to leveling though.”

  “No worries,” Fantom says. “We'll like, keep an eye on you or whatever.”

  “He's going to die,” I say. “Or we will, trying to keep him alive.”