by Oliver Mayes
2
Character Destroying
Dinner was a quiet affair. Mother and son sat at opposite ends of the table in their modest kitchen.
Cassandra wasn’t eating. Her bowl sat in front of her untouched as she stared Damien down, arms folded. The NOOB headset rested in the center of the table between them, the very opposite of a conversation piece.
Damien jammed the last of his pasta into his mouth, being careful to suppress his gag reflex lest it draw comment, and made his play.
“Thank you for dinner.”
He stood up and carried his bowl and spoon over to the bio-wash unit, carefully placing them within before making a beeline for his room.
“Sit.”
Damien caught her eye and winced. Cassandra stared at him levelly before tilting her head slightly, motioning toward the seat Damien had just vacated. The only sound was the gentle tinkle of cutlery as the bio-wash unit turned over Damien’s eating utensils, analyzing how best to render them clean.
Damien gave in. With a long sigh, he trudged back over to his seat and fell into it heavily. Unable to return his mother’s gaze, he opted to stare at her shoulder instead. Cassandra unfolded her arms and rested a hand on the NOOB headset.
“Have you finished your assignments?”
Damien kept staring listlessly at her shoulder as if it were the most interesting shoulder in the world. Eventually the silence became too uncomfortable and he was compelled to fill it.
“Not yet, but there’s only one assignment left so I have plenty of ti—”
Cassandra slammed her other hand onto the table and Damien flinched, his poorly chosen words fading to nothingness. Cassandra quickly removed her hand from the table and rubbed it on her knee. Damien’s guilt dialed itself up another notch. She was too frail to make such dramatic gestures.
Right on cue, her hospital-issue guardian wristband started beeping. It had detected her accelerated heart rate. Her hands withdrew into her pockets with practiced ease. One of them returned holding her pills, the other a small injection capsule.
She used the capsule first, sticking it in her left forearm below the wristband. Then she turned her attention to the pill bottle, unscrewing the top and tipping three of them into her open hand before unceremoniously palming them into her mouth.
Three pills now, noted Damien unhappily. The dose was still increasing.
The two of them observed the ritual, one of three intervals each day, in total silence. They did not talk about Cassandra’s heart condition unless it was absolutely necessary. Detecting the medicine in her bloodstream, the guardian wristband fell silent as well. Only a low hiss cut the tension as the bio-washer sprayed its chosen mix of cleaning fluid over Damien’s bowl and spoon.
Guilt washed over him in waves.
Cassandra replaced the cap and left the container and injection capsule on the table’s edge before extending her hand to lightly touch the NOOB headset again.
“We had a deal, Damien. You finish your assignments first and play games afterward. Remember? You agreed. You said you understood.”
Damien initially had no response. She was right. He should have started his assignment as soon as he was done with his lectures, finished it after dinner, and then started playing. But he’d been watching lectures online since 9am. His boredom had led him to front-load his pleasure, knowing full well it would leave him little time to complete his studies.
Damien had options. He could have apologized. He could have admitted he was tired from studying for eight hours but knew what he had done was wrong. Concessions could have been made.
But he did none of those things. Some dumb animal instinct compelled him to fight against the perceived injustice of his situation. He’d been studying non-stop since that morning. He deserved a break.
Damien fixed his eyes back on his mother’s shoulder and doomed himself.
“I was going to do my assignment first, but Kevin called and begged me for help with an online presentation. I wanted to sign out and ask you for permission, but he said there was no time. I knew you’d come in and pull the headset off anyway. Thanks for that, by the way.” Damien rubbed the top of his head where a dull pain still throbbed with every heartbeat. “I’ll have a headache for the rest of the night, which is going to make completing my assignment that much more interesting.”
Cassandra simply stared at him. Damien dragged his line of sight four inches to the right and managed to meet her piercing blue eyes. They were so tired and yet so very, very angry. They saw straight through him and seemed to read his every thought.
It wasn’t just her anger that made her hard to look at; her skin was drawn tightly across her face. She was still losing weight and couldn’t put it back on. Dark bags scoured the skin under her eyes. Her black hair, once so thick and sheer, had now degraded until it was patchy and thin. Damien found himself wishing this argument would end, if for no other reason than to allow her to eat.
Still she stared at him. Damien stared back defiantly.
“So you were already playing the game when Kevin called you?”
Damien’s eyes wavered and his resolve shattered. He looked away. Before, his silence had signified resistance. Now it only signified his crushing defeat.
“That’s what I thought.”
The bio-washer punctuated the silence once more, commencing drying the cutlery with a low hum.
“Damien, please look at me.”
He reluctantly met her eyes again. To his surprise, they had softened. She was biting her lower lip, as she always did when she was forced to make a difficult decision.
“This is hard for me, Damien. You’re not an adult, but you’re not a child either. I want to treat you with respect, to show you that you’re a young man now and not just my little boy.”
Her eyes filled with tears and despite her plea for Damien to look at her, he found he no longer could. He stared down at the floor between his feet, struggling not to cry himself. He wanted to forget all of this. He wanted to go and play his game, to go and pretend everything was fine, that his mother was happy and healthy and his life was perfect. Of course he did. That’s how this whole mess had begun.
Though her eyes were wet, Cassandra did not allow a single tear to spill down her cheeks, nor did her voice crack and break as it should have. Even ravaged by illness, she was strong.
“The placement exams start just three weeks from now. If you’re going to get into a good apprenticeship without paying for it, you have to qualify for Online Tuition Bracket A before then. Then you have to pass the exams. That’s a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in. It will give you the chance for a good life, a better life than the one I can provide. I’m sorry, Damien, I really am.” She clasped the NOOB headset and gently pulled it over to her side of the table, leaving it to sit next to her prescription medicine. “But I have to do everything in my power to make sure you succeed. Tomorrow, I will send this back to Kevin—”
Damien’s lips parted, his eyes widened, his gaze shifting longingly between the headset and his mother.
“Mom, please—”
“—and I’ll tell him that you can’t help him—”
“—I’m sorry, you’re right, I made a mistake—”
“—until after the placement exams are complete.”
The words were spoken and it was done. There was nothing that could change the outcome. Damien couldn’t help himself. He knew it was hopeless, but the words tumbled out of his mouth anyway.
“The testing I’ve been doing for Mobius finishes in a week anyway. I can study after!”
“The placement exams are more important. Kevin should get help from someone whose future isn’t at stake. Don’t argue with me about this. I’ve made my decision.”
Damien stared at her, his lips working but no sound coming out. Now it was Cassandra’s turn to look at her feet. There was a rattle and a ping as the bio-washer deposited the newly cleaned implements into their places. Damien was caught be
tween emotions.
He hadn’t even known it was possible to feel shame and rage at the same time. He stood up and strode toward his room, attempting to get there before his anger took over. He was too slow. He grasped the door’s handle but thought of something hurtful to say before he could open it.
“You know how lucky I was to get accepted for that beta. It will never happen again. This is the first and last time I’ll get to use Mobius tech and you’ve taken it away from me.”
Cassandra did not look up. She was hunched over with her hands in her lap, one massaging the other. She looked so small. After a long pause she took a deep breath, most of it escaping her in a ragged sigh. With what was left, she uttered two words that came out as little more than a whisper.
“I know.”
Having said his piece, Damien wanted nothing more than to take it back. But what’s done is done. He lingered a few moments longer, failing to find the word he needed, before entering his room and leaving his mother to sit in the kitchen alone.
It took monumental effort not to slam the door, but at least he managed that much. He stood on the other side of it, fists clenched and eyes screwed shut. He knew everything she said was right. It didn’t help. Saga Online had been the one thing he could look forward to every day and now it was gone.
His anger warped into self-pity. He took two steps forward and threw himself onto his bed, burying his face in the pillow. The worst part of it was that Damien had never needed the game more than he did now. The irony was lost on him, the hubris was not. He rolled over and contemplated the ceiling.
Even if everything went well and he found a decent apprenticeship, it would be at least a few years before he started earning enough to support himself. Saga Online had been well and truly confined to his past. Fighting and dying against Toutatis would be his final act.
Damien’s body jerked upright. The live broadcast would be over by now, but he could still watch the rerun. He jumped up from his bed and placed himself in front of his desk, swiping right on the monitor to preserve his notes on early twenty-first century politics before clicking the home button.
The Mobius Enterprises front page rendered itself instantly. Saga Online’s tab was close to the top, second only to the tab listing VR hardware. Damien pressed his finger to it and Toutatis’s form filled the screen in its place. His heart skipped a beat before his brain assured him that it was a picture and he could relax. It was a still image of Toutatis just after his impact, kneeling in the crater with his sword piercing the ground.
Damien was hit by a gut-wrenching wave of déjà vu: the image had been taken from his perspective, when he’d been lying on the sand with his arm broken. There were gold letters in a jagged font directly underneath it:
TOUTATIS, WARRIOR CHAMPION OF THE HEAVENS, HAS ARRIVED. CLICK HERE TO SEE HIS FIRST APPEARANCE IN FULL.
Damien obediently clicked the link and the stream loaded. It was twenty-five minutes on a constant loop and he’d been deposited twenty-two minutes in. Without warning, Kevin’s voice blared out of the monitor and Damien’s hand darted forward to grab the volume dial, twisting it violently to cut the sound. He turned it back up gently until Kevin’s voice was audible rather than deafening.
The camera panned in on Damien sheepishly looking up at Toutatis as he politely asked for his bag. The Test Zone had saved the entire combat, allowing Kevin to retrospectively analyze it from every angle in minute detail.
“—main attack is the Whirlwind but there are various other offensive options coded into his AI, as we can see here.”
Damien’s lips parted as he watched himself fly across the arena and smash into the wall. It was a difficult feeling to describe. While most people only had the opportunity to recreate moments of trauma in their mind, he was getting it in full color, UHD graphics and surround sound. He put a hand on his chest, checking to make sure nothing was broken. As he confirmed he was still in one piece, Kevin’s voice was joined by another that Damien did not immediately recognize.
“Fine, don’t give me my pack back. You didn’t have to be a dick about it.”
Damien stared at the screen incredulously. Did he really sound like that? More importantly, is that really what he’d said? It had come naturally at the time but watching himself say it now, from the comfort of his chair, he felt like he was watching a different person. Holy crap, he was a badass. The corners of his mouth stretched across his cheeks into an uncontrollable smirk.
“Well, there are still a few minutes to go but we’ve reviewed the footage so many times I don’t think there’s anything I can add. I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank Damien for making this show possible. He put himself on the line, both in the game and in real life, so that we could enjoy this update in full. If you’re watching, Damien, thank you. This has been Kevin Bants, hosting what I think you’ll agree was a very special episode of ‘The Saga Continues’.”
Damien actually felt better. Even if he was never going to play Saga Online again, he had been immortalized on the internet. By name! He took a moment to privately bask in the glory. The stream looped around and started again from the beginning.
“Good evening, and welcome to today’s episode of ‘The Saga Continues’.”
Damien quickly paused it. He didn’t feel like reliving the experience any more than he already had. He pinched the screen between thumb and forefinger to minimize the video, intending to look at the comments below. He caught sight of the view count first. An involuntary high-pitched whine squeaked its way through his vocal cords.
Current Viewers: 58,973
Total Views: 873,422
He wasn’t just famous. He was viral. It had only been forty-five minutes since his mom pulled off his headset and the video already had more traffic than Sim Cities 2074. Damien stared at the numbers, struggling to process what he was seeing. The ‘Current Viewers’ count was oscillating between fifty-five and sixty-thousand, but the ‘Total Views’ was rising in leaps and bounds.
As Damien sat there vegetating, it broke through 900,000 views, continuing onward toward the fabled million without any sign of stopping. He shook himself and tore his eyes away from the numbers, fixing them on the comments instead. They were listed from top to bottom in order of popularity.
Ignatius: HE KICKED HIM IN THE NUTS! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? XD
BlackKnight: That was AWESOME! Toutatis totally rocks! Respect to Damien for fighting something so terrifying.
CactusLover: I want a rematch! Damien vs Toutatis round two in a month’s time. Aetherius fights the winner! Upvote if you agree!
VintageMintage: It’s a shame we didn’t get to see Aetherius fight Toutatis, but I can see why he wouldn’t want to get stuck in a room with THAT. Kudos to Damien. RIP xoxo
ArmsWavingWildlyWithWildlyWavingArms: Roll over David, there’s a new kid in town: #Damien vs Goliath
Damien’s head was swimming. This changed everything. Maybe his days of Saga Online weren’t behind him after all. He’d have to ask Kevin if he could have the headset back after his exams, but with this much exposure he couldn’t imagine him saying no.
Besides, Kevin had thanked him personally AND said he owed him a favor. It seemed like enabling Damien to play would be good news not just for him, but for everyone involved. Maybe he could even start his own channel!
He quickly upvoted the top five comments and sat back, beaming. He’d tell his mom about this development later, but for now there was only one thing he could do to make amends. He closed the Saga Online page and went back to his assignment’s source material. He still had an assignment to complete that evening.
His eyes ran over the dense lines of text, scanning them automatically without absorbing any of the information. It was no mystery why he’d decided to log in without completing his last assignment beforehand; it was duller than bio-washer water. The formation of CU was far from his favorite subject. Every time he thought he had a handle on it, the reading material shifted to a new but equally mind-n
umbing chapter in the Central Union’s history.
This particular excerpt detailed the circumstances necessitating the borderless Pan-American alliance: national security scares, leading to divisive politics, justifying an inefficient distribution of public resources, concluding in the rapid deterioration of accountability for those in positions of power, aided by woefully outdated education systems and unregulated information distribution platforms.
The latter two factors further exacerbated an unhealthy obsession with the cult of the individual, flowing into a disproportionate emphasis on beating others rather than winning collectively that itself stemmed from lazy, greedy, unimaginative problem solving techniques in the face of what, to everyone in that era, must have looked like an utterly unfathomable tangle of interlocking, self-aggrandizing, unassailable societal norms.
Or so the textbooks said.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Damien got all the way to the end of the page, which had been signed off with a quote stating: ‘Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe, CU will realign it for the benefit of mankind,’ before he realized he’d retained about 25% of what he’d read. He shook his head and returned to the start. It would be a while before he could settle down and concentrate.
So when his mother’s guardian wristband started beeping, it penetrated his consciousness instantly. His brow furrowed. She’d just taken her medicine; it was too early for another dose.
A crash came from the kitchen and the innocent beeping melded into an urgent alarm.
Damien shot up, his chair clattering onto the floor. Wrenching his door open, he emerged to find his worst nightmare unfolding in front of him. Cassandra was lying on her back halfway between the table and the bio-wash unit. Her bowl had smashed to pieces, the uneaten chicken pasta lumped in a miserable splat on the floor. She was staring at the ceiling with unblinking eyes, her chest heaving up and down as her hands frantically searched her pockets.