by Vic Connor
Niko took a deep breath, preparing to accept the lethal pain.
When Georg raised his gun at him, Niko yelled in Russian, “Padaiteh na zemlyu!” The peasants threw themselves into the mud. The Germans remained standing, slightly dazed.
Niko aimed his pistol at Georg and squeezed the trigger. He missed. He saw that the Nazis were getting over their initial shock, training their guns on him.
He fired again. This time, he hit Georg in his chest.
But the other Nazi was already shooting. As bullets began to slug into his shoulders and chest, blinding him with unbearable pain, Niko managed to jerk his gun toward the shooter and fire. The man flopped backward, releasing a long burst of rounds into the gray sky.
Niko didn’t care if he was dying. The peasants were safe—and nothing else mattered. It felt right, y’know. He smiled.
A broad screen unrolled before his weakening eyes:
“Moral preference accepted.
Pain threshold accepted.”
Niko collapsed into the mud.
“Well done, Nikolai,” the UI voice said. No—this was Clark’s voice, tired and breathy.
Niko stared into the blackness, fighting the pain-induced nausea. “You reloaded me four times,” he whispered.
Clark chuckled. “I did nothing. Your mind has merged with Territoria and reloaded you, Niko, just as I expected it would. It was your mind going through the possible…scenarios and selecting the only one your heart would accept. You controlled our little…game.” The old man paused. “Who taught you, ah…self-sacrifice?”
“Mama,” Niko responded in Russian, before he could stop himself. He winced. “No one.”
“Do you remember her?”
Niko shook his head feebly. The slight movement almost made him hurl. “No.”
“Okay. Off you go.”
10
Boys and Girls
QUEST COMPLETE: CARRY OUT MIND MERGE MODULE. ENROLL IN RAVENSCROFT TRAINING FACILITY
500 EXPERIENCE GAINED
PASSIVE EFFECT: 500*1.5 = 750 XP
750/2000 XP
You have unlocked 2 new quests!
Niko fell out of bed onto a hardwood floor. Springy. Not too smooth. He gasped, eyes darting around, searching with panic for pools of blood and crumpled bodies.
But it was just a bedroom, fastidiously clean, with another twin bed crisply made across from his own. The sheets were white with a blue stripe down the center, the same blue Niko had seen in the Territoria office. The bed floated above the floor, anchored to the wall by an arched headboard. A purple rug, fuzzy—y’know, like an animal fur—was laid out underneath it.
The floors were, indeed, hardwood, but like no wood Niko had ever seen before. It was white; not maple white or birch white, but snow white, almost translucent, like pale skin. Yet, he could see the knots and bumps, and feel them with his palms.
It’s fake, he reminded himself. I’m in a simulation. But the stone walls, the vaulted ceiling, the tall, slender windows all looked so real. He could smell the musty odor of the stone, feel the cooled air on his skin, hear the slap of his hands in the wood, the creak of it as he stood up.
He touched his chest. The cross was still there; he was still in the outfit he’d chosen for himself. There was a closet, or rather, two closets on the opposite side of the room, signified by sliding doors and floating text that read Hassan Sohbi on one, and Nikolai Somov in the other. Curious, he walked over and opened his designated closet.
Instead of clothes on a hanger, a menu came up, more text always floating in front of Niko’s eyes no matter where he looked. It was a short list of familiar selections.
Closet
Ability Details
Quests*
Hunt-log
Settings
Curious, Niko selected “Ability Details.” The dark of the closet expanded, and a vast UI filled his vision. It was another mirror, showing him in his selected jacket and jeans, surrounded by hollow slots, words, and numbers.
NIKOLAI SOMOV
LEVEL 1 MYTHIC_000
HP: 100/100
XP: 750/1000
ABILITIES:
Ability 1: ABIL_EditValue—[no description]
Ability 2: Unlocks at Level 2
Ability 3: Unlocks at Level 4
Ultimate: Unlocks at Level 6
PASSIVE: ExpGain= “x*1.5”
He tapped through some of the empty slots for gear, his starter clothes with their grey text and level one armor. His cross, though, was highlighted in a familiar reddish-orange.
NeckSlot_AvatarItemId=”000000000”
Neck Slot
DURATION: Permanent
EFFECTS: Respawn
Niko shut the closet—the menu—and turned back to the room. To his right was an open door leading out to a hallway. Across from him, near his floating bed, were the floor-to-ceiling windows, so narrow he had to approach to get a view outside. He was up high, Niko could tell that, and in the valley below was a swath of white texture like fur or feathers. Was it snow? Niko walked closer to the window, trying to get a better look.
“Oh!” a voice said behind him.
Niko spun, wide-eyed and ready to bolt or fight, staring at the doorway where the voice had come from.
A boy stood there, frozen between the room and the hall. He gawked at Niko with round eyes. Then, in a burst, he laughed, a nervous titter. It must have surprised even him, because he gave Niko a sheepish shrug, making his chins multiply. He had a tiny, white grin, shy, all front teeth. He was handsome in a boyish sort of way, with a round face and bright eyes. “You must be Nikolai,” he said.
“Why does… I mean, how do you know my name?”
The boy smoothed a hand over his perfectly-coiffed, short-cropped hair. “Well, haha, that is, I hope that’s who you are, otherwise you’re in my room, and besides, I don’t recognize you, and well, I know pretty much everyone at Ravenscroft by now, so that would be…” in lieu of ending his sentence, the boy twirled his wrist, a gesture for Niko to extrapolate.
“You’re Hassan?” Niko pointed to the closet.
“Yes! Well, most, haha, most people don’t call me that, but you’re correct! I’m your new roommate!” Hassan said every sentence overenthusiastically, as if he wasn’t excited about every little thing, someone might brain him.
“...O-okay,” Niko said.
Hassan laughed through his tiny smile again, plucking at the hem of his starched, grey slacks. Niko always thought of fat kids as sloppy, all overlarge faded shirts and khaki shorts, but Hassan was crisply put together. His checked shirt looked pristine up to the top button, his navy jacket rolled up to the elbows to show its buttery lining. His chestnut belt matched his chestnut dress shoes. He wore a wide-faced watch, and smelled just barely of cologne. He looked like his mom dressed him, if his mom were a fashion designer.
“Well anyway, uh, I just came to grab my, uhm…” Rather than finishing his sentence, Hassan pointed at his nightstand, then shuffled past Niko into the room. He picked up what could only be described as a tome; a bound book, fat as an encyclopedia, ornately decorated and as fresh and new as Hassan’s canary-yellow pocket-square.
“All right! Ready for orientation?” Hassan spun on his fashionable shoes, holding the book out in front of him and giving Niko another shy smile.
“Uh. Sure.”
Hassan tittered nervously, then shuffled past Niko again out into the hallway. “I’ll walk you over to the quad. You’re a transfer, correct? I imagine you’re not familiar with the campus.”
Niko followed him. Hassan spoke at length about Ravenscroft along the way, almost none of which Niko retained, too busy looking around the long hall. It was in equal parts reminiscent and very different from the penitentiary’s hallways. The walls were made of bright cobblestones. Projections, like floating screens, bobbed an inch out from the walls, showing club meetings, training schedules, and events. Hassan pointed out one that invited students to watch something called, “The
Phaeton League.” “My friend is a big Stingers fan,” he said, as though Niko should know what this meant.
The floor—a herringbone pattern of dark, metal panels—clanged with Hassan’s crisp footfalls. Along the way, Niko caught a quizzical look from a boy in large, round glasses, his chin tucked into a brown, cowl-necked cloak that went down to his ankles. They passed each other. Feeling eyes on him, Niko looked back over his shoulder at the boy. He was still watching Niko, his head turned completely around to look behind him as he continued down the hall. Niko started, spinning back to face straight ahead.
Hassan lead Niko to a tight, spiral staircase, its steps floating in a way similar to his bed. The stairwell must have been deep in the center of the dormitories because there were no windows, only sconces lit with electric-blue bulbs of light. Passing them over and over, while walking downward in a spiral, made Niko dizzy. It’s just a game, he reminded his stomach.
Hassan kept on talking, apparently oblivious to Niko’s discomfort. Despite his nervous tendencies, Hassan had a soft, pleasant timber to his voice. He rolled his Rs, and his accent was thin; he must have immigrated very young. Either that, or there was a voice customization option Niko had missed in avatar creation. Not that he minded his own voice, breathy and low, but he would have liked to lose his unsure way of speaking if he could. That thought made him wonder.
“How come you’re, that is, why did you make your avatar fat?” Niko asked.
“My what?” Hassan looked up at Niko through the stair’s slats. Niko gestured to his body.
Hassan stopped then, turning a little more, eyes as wide as his watch-face. Then, he laughed without emotion, his smile too small to really be a smile. “I…uhm, I k-keep pretty active, haha, with training for the Hunt and all, and I eat the same cafeteria food as everyone else, but I…” Hassan gestured weakly, wet his lips, and stared down at his stylish shoes.
Niko’s face lit up with embarrassment. What he’d thought was an innocent logistical question turned out to be far more cruel than intended. Had he not selected this body type when he made his character? Could you gain weight in the game? Or, like Niko, had Hassan felt uncomfortable changing himself in any drastic way? Niko glowered and shoved his hands in the pockets of his digital jeans. “Never mind.”
Hassan stopped telling him about the school after that, descending the rest of the stairs in an uncomfortable silence. At the final landing, there was an exit that opened to another part of the building, blasting cool air into the stairwell. On the opposite side, obscured by the stairsteps, loomed a padlocked door. A floating, holographic label read “Boiler Room.” Taking a few moments to examine the question and deciding it couldn’t possibly be taboo, Niko asked, “Why does a… I mean, this is, like, a game building, so why does it need a boiler room?”
“A game building?” Hassan peered over his shoulder as he led Niko out into the main floor. The walkway had vaulted ceilings and was open on one side, held up by pillars, giving it the feeling of an arcade or cloister. “Haha, well, actually, this is the dormitory,” Hassan went on. “I don’t think we have a game building, unless you mean the gymnasium or training areas?”
With a shiver, Niko pulled his coat around him. “No, that’s not what I, that is, can’t the developers just change the temperature of the building in…the code, or something?”
“Developers?” Hassan paused. “The…building developers?”
“No, man, the game developers.”
“Game developers?” Hassan paused with a nervous titter. “You mean the Hunt officiators?”
Niko, forgetting his earlier infraction, snarled at Hassan. “No. I mean, the game.” Niko waved his arm around the building. “Territoria.”
Hassan frowned. “What’s Territoria?”
Niko stood agape for a moment. At first, he was indignant; then, a more sinister concept crept in. “Hey, Hassan… How long have you been in the… I mean, how long have you gone to this school?”
Hassan looked relieved to be asked a question he could apparently make sense of. “I’m a junior, same as you. I, haha, wasn’t a transfer, of course, so this is my third year!”
“And before that?”
“Primary school in my home town, Shimmerbrook.”
“Shimmerbrook is the name of the town where you grew up.”
“Since I was ten, yes,” Hassan said, with no trace of irony. “It’s on the northern tip of the Celestial Peninsula, outside Nevermar. Have you heard of it?”
“Ugh… No.”
“Oh.” Hassan laughed another false, nervous laugh, then walked on. Niko shoved his hands in his pockets and followed, thinking. Did this kid not know he was in a game? No, that made no sense. Niko had logged on and remembered everything. Hassan must just be very dedicated to whatever history he’d invented for his character.
They took a sharp turn onto the quad. The campus green could hardly be called that, since the grass was paler than a robin’s egg and rimed with crystals of azure frost. It crunched under Niko’s feet. There were maybe a dozen students here, close to his own age, though some of them were too fantastical to tell. One was a massive kid in a grey sweater, stone-looking wings folded behind his back. He glared into the middle distance and spit. Another boy’s body ended at the jagged hem of his hooded cloak, floating a few inches above the ground and exuding a sickly, yellow mist. He held a scythe, and stood about three feet tall. There was a girl with features so sleek they looked almost alien, her skin a rich, charcoal-brown and her almond eyes green past the sclera. She was reading a book under a tree, curled up in her long scorpion’s tail.
Niko gawked as he followed Hassan across the quad toward a pair of ornate double doors, painted Territoria blue. Players bustled in and out. All Niko could see of the world beyond the doors was morning sunlight. He smelled it though, as they got closer, only because he knew the scent intimately. Pine, sap, needles and cool earth, the aroma rushing over to him like an old friend. Niko breathed deep, squared his shoulders, and followed Hassan as he pushed through the doors.
The world opened. Like curtains in a play, the doors spread apart and took Niko somewhere else in an instant. A great valley stretched out beneath them, covered in pale grass, gunmetal stone and endless swaths of pine trees, all as pale white as a ghost. In the distance, peaks tipped in blue created a sawtoothed skyline. Clouds, the same shade of blue, streaked a grayish-purple sky. And there, cresting the mountains like a red tsunami, hung a massive, oblong planet, chasing the sun.
Down in the valley, four walls gated off one central patch of the forest, punctuated by fortified stone buildings at each corner. The center was meticulously cleared of trees, leaving an oval shape with a long, crystalline lake in the center, reflecting the pale sky. A moment later, Niko recognized the shape—it was the Territoria “O,” the lake representing the two intersecting ovals. Niko searched for something, anything, that could be a potential escape route, but it was just mountains and forest for as far as the eye could see. The game world couldn’t go on forever…could it?
Down on that cleared field, something flashed like the glimmer of a star. Niko squinted and thought he noticed some figures down there. Were those little black dots people? And was that a spout of flame he just saw? Niko took a step forward, trying to make the figures out. Stones crumbled underfoot. A hand grasped the back of his jacket, tugging him away from the edge.
“Be careful!” Hassan said with his trademark nervous excitement.
Niko stared at him blankly, head too full of Territoria’s fantastic landscape to come up with an answer. He looked down, and saw he’d nearly tumbled off the edge of the escarpment. His stomach turned, and he looked away from the long, long drop.
Hassan cleared his throat with a series of tiny coughs. “The seniors get to use the actual Hunting Grounds for their practice sessions. They, haha, have to share of course, but it’s better than training in the clocktower like we do!” He tittered again.
Niko opened his mouth to ask what the
Hunting Ground was, but a woman’s purring voice interrupted him. “Hey, Hunk.”
Behind them, a voluptuous woman with petal-pale skin and long lashes sauntered up, slipping her arm around Hassan’s shoulder, hugging him from behind. She pouted her already pouty lips, and Hassan laughed the way he’d laughed when Niko asked him about his avatar, looking at anything except this new girl. “H-hey, Erica.”
“Looking good today,” Erica said, resting her small, heart-shaped face on his shoulder. “But so…stuffy.” She fingered the top button of Hassan’s shirt with short, pointed nails and pinched it open. “There,” she whispered in his ear. “Isn’t it better this way?”
Hassan tried to lean away.
Erica turned her sharp gaze on Niko and looked him up and down, slow and unabashed. “Who’s your new friend?”
“N-Nikolai…” Hassan began. “S-S-Somov…”
“Sorry?” Erica purred, “I didn’t catch that, Hunk.” She tilted her head, aimed her ear Hassan’s way, her bleach-red hair brushing his cheek.
“Niko Somov,” Niko said, taking a step forward. He couldn’t tell if he felt protective or jealous, only that he wanted to take Erica’s attention. She unfurled from Hassan like a snake unconstricting, then moved just close enough to Niko that he wanted her closer.
“Hello, Niko Somov. Erica Liu. Wanna shake hands?” She floated her hand in the small, warm space between them, nails painted a dark, sharp purple. Niko took it, unable to break eye contact with her. Her fingers slid into his hand like a lover’s, and shook it once, gently.
Then, Erica’s hand was gone, tucked in the back pocket of her white jeans. “Tall, dark, and handsome, huh?”
“Do you…” Niko faltered, silently cursing his scattered speech. “I mean, is that how you like them?”