Cure for the Common Universe

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  “I didn’t say you were a player who wins,” she said.

  “Okay, okay, heh-heh,” Fezzik said. “This isn’t about accusing. This is about opening up and understanding ourselves. Go ahead, Miles.”

  I was so ready to be done with this shit. “ ‘Gamer’ is an embarrassing term,” I said. “It makes people think of sweaty, chubby, nerdy kids who sit in basements. Don’t look at me like that, Meeki. That’s not who I’ll be to Gravity.”

  “That’s fair,” Fezzik said. “But you might be kidding yourself if you believe you’re going to leave that lifestyle behind forever. What happens if this date with Gravity isn’t everything you want it to be?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “What if you don’t like her? What if she doesn’t like you?”

  Why couldn’t he just let me win and enjoy it?

  “We got along really well,” I said.

  “Yeah, but you’ve only seen her one time,” he said. “And under pretty romantic conditions, it sounds like—you rescuing her from someone who sprayed her with a hose.”

  I shifted in my seat. Suddenly I didn’t like Fezzik anymore. When had he suddenly become like Casey and my dad?

  “That’s the honeymoon stage,” Fezzik continued. “That doesn’t always last. In fact, it never lasts. What happens when the hard part comes along? The part that works like real life and nothing like a video game?”

  I regretted bringing up Gravity in our first meeting. If he wasn’t going to help me get out of V-hab and was just going to use her against me like this, what was the point?

  Fezzik addressed the rest of the group. “If you think about it, video games only ever address the early parts of relationships, right? Rescuing the princess from the castle and whatnot.”

  What did he know about it? He’d been eating pizzas in a cave.

  “This is why I never date princesses,” Meeki said.

  “Meeki,” Fezzik said, “at the risk of sounding like I’m prying, may I ask what your romantic life is like?”

  “You may,” Meeki said.

  “Great.”

  “And I will say it’s none of your business.”

  “Okay. Heh-heh.”

  Meeki’s shoulders sank a little. “Most people don’t have to be embarrassed about who they date.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Fezzik asked.

  “Some people are . . . just more privileged when it comes to their love life.”

  For the second time I agreed with her. That kid from my high school with the Mustang was with a different girl every time I saw him.

  “So true,” I said.

  Meeki glared at me.

  “What?” I said. “I’m agreeing with you.”

  “Guys,” Fezzik said warningly, then waited for us to break eye contact. “No matter what difficulties you have in the dating world, everyone in this circle has made the same mistake. We’ve poured our attention into video games when it wasn’t appreciated elsewhere. But I think we’re doing ourselves a disservice by giving all of our love to something that can’t reciprocate.”

  I wasn’t doing that anymore. And this was boring. After my performance over the last three days, Fezzik should have excused me to go gargle ice cream in the Feed.

  He didn’t do that.

  “Real relationships are tough,” he continued. “Way tougher than you ever think they’re going to be. They require a lot of work from each person. I know I couldn’t give the kind of care and commitment needed in a relationship if I were still logging sixty hours a week on games.”

  I did my best not to laugh. Does care and commitment include almost ripping the Silver Lady’s arm off?

  Aurora raised her hand but then struggled to speak. “I realized . . . that I don’t have a relationship with Max that i-isn’t on computers. And that makes me really sad.”

  Fezzik nodded. “It sounds like you were willing to make the effort in the real world. You never shied away from the challenges of the relationship. I can’t even imagine how frustrating that was for you.”

  Aurora gave a slight nod and picked at the scabs on her fingers.

  “It sounds like instead of holding him up to your standards,” Fezzik said, “you reduced yourself to his.”

  “Yeah . . .” Aurora sucked through her teeth, and then put her finger in her mouth.

  “So,” Fezzik said. “What do you think needs to happen?”

  “I think . . .” She took her finger out of her mouth and looked at it. “I think he needs to come here.”

  “Do you think his parents will ever send him?” Fezzik asked.

  Aurora shook her head. She squeezed her fingertip. A little orb of blood swelled by her fingernail.

  “So what does that mean for you?” Fezzik asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well,” Fezzik said, “you let us know when you find out. You’ve gained a lot of wisdom since you first walked through that door. I think you’re going to leave here a new person.” He gave his hearth-fire smile. “And speaking of leaving . . .”

  Fezzik turned to me again. Ugh. Why did the Emperor have to be so relentless in real life? I pressed my scuffed-up shoulder, hoping the sting would distract me from his emotional pickaxe.

  “Miles, what if you’re no good at that next part of the relationship? The part where things get tough? Like they did for Aurora. For everyone.”

  I thought the last few days had made it pretty obvious that I was ready to do whatever it took to be with Gravity. I didn’t need to prove it to Fezzik. So I didn’t answer.

  “Video games tend to end once the hero gets the girl,” he said. “What if things are too hard with Gravity and you want to return to Arcadia?”

  “I won’t”—I thought of my computer desk, stripped of its electronics—“play games except on special occasions.”

  “Uh-huh, right,” Meeki mumbled.

  “Okay,” I said. “I realize how that sounds. Like I’m addicted. But I’ll only play a little on the side. Never as much as I used to. There was just nothing in real life worth returning to. Now there is. . . . And Gravity really liked me, by the way.”

  Fezzik took a deep breath and softened. “It probably feels like I’m attacking you, Miles. I’m not trying to. Really. I want to see you succeed. I also want to make sure you’re equipped to handle things if it doesn’t work out the way you’ve planned it.”

  I could feel the circle of stares on me. I could feel details of the car wash creeping back in. Details I did not want to think about right then. The fact that Gravity hadn’t looked at me much while washing her Schwinn. The fact that she hadn’t given me her phone number.

  But then I remembered her laugh.

  And I remembered I still needed to be earning points.

  Fezzik wanted me to open up? I knew just how to do that.

  I leaned on my knees and stared at the floor. “I’ve seen real addiction. My mom had—or, I guess, has a major problem with, um, drugs. She abandoned me when I was little. So it’s never been easy for me to . . . be a part of real life.”

  I glanced at Fezzik to see how he was taking this.

  “Your problems are all about girls and your mom,” Meeki said. “Maybe for you ‘V-hab’ means vagina habitation.”

  Soup covered his ears.

  “Let him finish, Meeki,” Fezzik said.

  I glanced at Aurora, then rubbed my face and tried to look as devastated as I had felt in the past. “If I could just date someone, maybe I’d get that confidence back. Then maybe I wouldn’t want to play so many games.” I took a deep breath. “My mom left me, but maybe Gravity won’t. Y’know?”

  Fezzik nodded. “That’s some good opening up. You’ve been earning so many points this week, you might find out if that’s true tomorrow.”

  He didn’t reach for my scroll. God dammit. I just needed points.

  Soup touched my leg. “But you’re gonna miss sand castles! We could pretend like we’re in Gerudo Desert! Or I can wea
r your awesome Home Depot hat and pretend like I’m Ash!”

  “Nope,” I said. “We can’t. I will not be here. I will be gone.”

  “That’s if we win tomorrow,” Meeki said.

  I stared her down. “You’re not going to sabotage the paintball tournament like you did with the fan just to spite me, are you?”

  She smiled and shrugged.

  “Guys . . . ,” Fezzik said.

  Zxzord snorted loudly, making us all jump.

  Fezzik spent the rest of therapy telling us about anti-escapist games, like Chore Wars, which help gamers transition back into the real world.

  I watched his lips moving, but I couldn’t stop thinking about winning the next day.

  I didn’t want to think about anything else.

  • • •

  After we returned from the Feed, Fezzik approached me with a stack of cross-stitches, flipping through them like they were some form of currency. From what I could see, every one had a reference to Gravity, except the one on top that said Miles ’n’ Soup.

  Dammit. I should have monitored his work.

  “These have been showing up on my bed,” Fezzik said.

  “Yep,” I said, trying to calm my pulse. I had to have those points to make it out the next day.

  “They’re yours?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I said.

  He winced a little. “I haven’t seen you cross-stitching.”

  “I have!” Soup said from his bunk. “I’ve seen him. He does it every night after lights-out!”

  Fezzik and I gave Soup two very different expressions.

  Fezzik sighed. “I see what’s happening here.” He turned to me. “Do you feel comfortable with this?”

  I stared at the face of the friendly giant. If anyone understood rejection and the desperation to go on a date, it would be him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  He counted the cross-stitches. “This adds up to . . . Wow. Fifteen thousand points.”

  That I absolutely had to have. I unzipped my adventure pouch and held out my scroll. He didn’t take it.

  “I need to think about this,” Fezzik said.

  Shit.

  “Um, okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  You’re welcome, Soup mouthed behind him.

  Low Health

  Psst.”

  I was in the Fairy Fountain, trying to recover from a throbbing head and burning shoulder when someone started psst-ing at me.

  “Psst.”

  My skin tingled with painkillers. I pretended to sleep.

  “Psst! Miles!”

  I would have strangled Soup if I had thought I could convince one of my other guildmates to cross-stitch for me.

  “Psssssssst!”

  “I’m about to get pretty psst myself, Soup,” I said, eyes still closed.

  “You’re funny,” he said.

  I opened my eyes and squinted at the bright white walls of the sick bay. Zxzord was in the bed next to me, fast asleep. I wanted whatever he was having.

  “I brought you a doughnut from the Feed,” Soup said. “You can eat it without losing points, ’cause I’m the one who got it.”

  “Thanks.” I took the doughnut and sank back into my pillow. “You’re excused.”

  Soup folded his arms and planted himself in the chair next to my bed. “Wherever you go, I go. That’s how sidekicks do.”

  What good was having Soup around if Fezzik wouldn’t even accept his cross-stitches as mine? Although, I supposed he had helped me win the kart race. . . . I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply, and ate the doughnut.

  Soup rhythmically kicked the side of my bed. “Miles? What do you miss the most? About back home?”

  “Gravity.”

  “But you barely even know her.”

  “We made a connection. You weren’t there, Soup. No one was.”

  Soup sighed and kept kicking. “I miss my pajamas. My mom made me a Tanooki suit from Super Mario Bros. with ears and a raccoon tail.”

  If he’d had a tail right then, I’d have dragged him back to the Nest by it.

  The kicking stopped. Soup was quiet. I opened my eyes. His eyes were wide, and he had both hands over his mouth.

  “What?” I said.

  “Sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “About talking about my mom.”

  “It’s . . . fine,” I said. “I realize other people have moms. It’s fine.”

  Soup looked disappointed in himself. He stopped kicking the bed and just watched his feet swing back and forth beneath his chair. “Do you miss video games?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “But then how come you played them so much? Are you going to stop playing video games forever after you go on your date with Gravity?”

  I swallowed the last of the doughnut. “I’ll slowly acclimate her to them. I’ll play my 3DS in the bathroom at first. Then, when she and I have kids, I’ll buy them a console and play it with them. And I’ll be like, see? It’s for our kids.”

  “That sounds sad,” Soup said.

  An owl hooted through the speaker.

  “Being in a video game rehab is sad,” I said, brushing crumbs from my chest.

  “Nuh-uh!” Soup said. “I don’t get why you talk about this place like it’s a jail. I am so much happier here than I am anywhere else. There are friends everywhere.”

  “I’m going to be late for star class,” I said, sitting up.

  Soup moped. “I wish I could go to star class.”

  My head was swimming too much to stand.

  “Do you need to use me as a crutch?” Soup asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He helped me to my feet. I leaned on his shoulder, and we walked down the dark green hallway.

  “You really haven’t had any fun since you got here?” he asked.

  I thought of throwing the ball at Scarecrow’s “hit-me-here” red face. I thought of “magically” making a ball levitate. I thought of my man boobs vibrating while I creamed the others in kart racing.

  “I do feel like more of a hero, I guess,” I said. “And not in an Arcadia way.”

  “I know you’re happy here,” Soup said, and poked my cheek. “You get the dopiest smile every time you win. It’s really cu— Whoa.” He stopped walking. “What’s that?”

  There, in the corner of the hallway, was the vent I’d seen on my first night here. But the Dust Fairy was nowhere in sight. The grate was open, just a crack, revealing the green lights, winking one at a time, like they wanted us to follow them into the wall.

  I made sure the coast was clear and then slid the grate out of the way while Soup whistled a hollow imitation of the secret music from The Legend of Zelda. “Shh,” I said. “You’re ruining my childhood.”

  We stared into an impossible space between the walls—almost as if an old hallway had been walled off. A dark passage led to the northeast corner of the building, where more lights pulsed like tiny stars.

  “Side quest,” Soup whispered.

  The word tickled the back of my neck. This was some serious Stanley Parable shit.

  Soup squealed and clapped his hands together. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  “You go first,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Soup slid through the grate, his eyes adventure wide. He giggled. “Spooky.”

  I looked past his silhouette and saw more lights. What the hell was in there?

  “You coming?” he whispered from the darkness.

  Doing in real life what you do in video games can get you into serious trouble. And I don’t just mean shooting prostitutes when not playing Grand Theft Auto. I was so close to beating V-hab. I needed to keep my nose down, do my classes, and not lose any points for the next twenty hours.

  “Go see what’s around that corner,” I told him. “Then report back to me.”

  He kept walking, giggling and rubbing his hands together. Once he disappeared around the corner, I quietl
y replaced the grate, tightened the screws with my thumbnail to keep him out of my hair for the night, and then jogged to the western passage.

  Nearly every ounce of me wanted to go on that side quest. I’d been competing for points all week, but nothing had felt nearly so video gamey as watching Soup slide in between the walls. I had to shut off the video game part of my brain and stay focused. I had to earn points in stupid star class.

  For Gravity.

  A faint “Miles?” echoed down the hallway as I opened the yellow door and ascended the stairs to the roof.

  • • •

  Something was different.

  No eyes were fixed to telescopes. No necks craned toward the stars. The players of star class were gathered around Fezzik and the Silver Lady near the edge of the roof. She had one hand over her mouth. He was down on one knee.

  “I’ve known I wanted to do this since the moment I heard you talk about pulsars,” Fezzik said, then laughed too loud, and then wiped his forehead. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small cream-colored box.

  The class stood, quieter and more reverent than they ever had for the universe.

  “I’ve been trying to leave the old me behind,” Fezzik said, short of breath. “And. Well. You make me feel like a new man. Heh. And so yeah, then I thought, uh, heh, this is where we met. Here. At Video Horizons. Among these kids . . . So. Heh. Why not?”

  My heart started to pound as his huge hands fumbled with the tiny box.

  Oh God, was this how I looked when I asked out Gravity?

  Fezzik managed to get the box open. The diamond was too small to sparkle in the starlight.

  “Sue,” he said, “would you do me the honor of—”

  “Dominic,” the Silver Lady interrupted softly. She laid her small hand on his giant shoulder.

  All the players held their breath. I felt a physical pain in my chest.

  “Can we talk about this in private?” she said.

  Fezzik froze. He swallowed loudly and wiped his forehead again. Then he turned and saw us, all of us, the whole class, staring at him, down on one knee. He made a Wookiee sound and awkwardly pushed himself up.

  “Please go back to your bunks,” the Silver Lady told us. “I’ll see you all tomorrow night.”

  Their difference in size was painfully apparent as Fezzik followed the Silver Lady down the stairs. A part of me wanted to ask her for experience points before they left . . . but it probably wasn’t the best time. I also wanted to ask him, Do you think the Silver Lady could ever love a former gamer? It probably wasn’t the best time for that, either.