by Arthur Stone
Neither did Rock, though, since he had no idea where he could even find a faucet in this damn building. All of the doors looked identical. He noticed nothing that looked like a shower room or bathroom anywhere.
He cruised down the stairs, breezing right past the first floor and into a dark, gloomy basement. Thank God, he realized his mistake and backtracked, following the other students and stepping out into the light.
The light hammered his eyes. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun was almost straight above, frying everything under it without mercy, dispersing the last remnants of the mist that was somehow still hanging on despite the time being well past noon. Rock had thick lined winter jeans, a warm jacket, and a wool beanie on, as did pretty much everyone else. The weather was clearly strange for the season. The trees and bushes were just starting to bud, and a sizable pile of dirty snow sat near the building. A state of early spring ruled the courtyard, but the sky was straight out of summer.
Rock wasn’t the only one to notice the dissonance. The students leaving the building were all double-taking in the sky and discussing the weather, pulling their hats off and unbuttoning their jackets and coats.
“Hey, can you tell me where building two is?” Rock asked one of the smartest-looking of them.
The man pointed down the street. “Straight that way. First building after the tower.”
“The tower?”
“You not from around here?”
“Doesn’t matter. What tower?”
“You’ll know it when you see it. Just keep going straight down the road. By the way, how about this weather? Super early summer! But I don’t know what that sour odor is about. You smell it?”
Rock had no particular desire to chat about the weather with anyone, much less this four-eyed pimple machine in scrappy pants. He hurried off towards the “tower,” his mind whirling. Should he even bother seeing the doctor? He had no idea how to even begin that conversation. What to say and what not to say.
He had no idea about anything. Shit, I still don’t even know my name. Mosey wouldn’t tell me. Something told him he’d never have gotten an answer from Mosey. Not even if he had resorted to violence, which Mosey was certainly asking for.
Rock kept a keen eye out, always looking around, sometimes squinting at other pedestrians reflexively. Mostly pretty girls.
Well hey, at least there’s one thing I know about myself now.
Even though Rock was unfamiliar with this town, he could not help noticing something was wrong. The power was out everywhere. Traffic lights had stopped working, and the roads were jammed, with at least two accidents and one fight breaking out between drivers along the way. The onlookers were just pulling them apart when he arrived, and a couple of cops were rushing towards the scene, one of them mumbling over a small radio.
So their radios were working, but cell phones were not. Everyone had noticed by now, though many were still ambling around with phones raised high, trying to pick up something. Some of these kids were hopeless without their phones, panicking like the evangelical rapture had come and they had been left behind. I guess losing phone service is equally tragic to your typical modern mobile addict.
He saw pillars of smoke rising in three distinct places, unquestionably caused by raging fires. Maybe there had been some kind of accident at some point in the power grid—meaning that the whole city, including the hospital, might be without power. Would the doctor even see him? They would take emergency trauma patients, sure, but Rock wasn’t in that category, was he?
Maybe I should just smash my head with a brick or something.
But the hospital should have a backup generator. Otherwise anyone needing urgent care would die during a power outage, and he doubted that would go unaddressed for long.
A dog trotted up to him. An unknown breed, small and scraggly, dragging its leash behind. It was clearly upset, rushing headlong down the road and almost getting hit by a couple of cars. Rock got a glimpse at the animal and saw the same green information panel he had previously observed for humans.
Object: dog. Size: non-threatening. ID 354-423-127-732-811.
Scant info. The girls he had inspected had much more text about them, though most of it had been identical to Mosey’s writeup.
How much further was it to this alleged building? Everyone he asked along the way seemed like they were in a stupor. Only when he mentioned the tower did they point further down the road. Rock had already been walking for a good hour now. If he had known how far it would be, he would’ve asked how to hitch a bus ride or something. Not that he was tired, but his knee was starting to act up, and it was getting worse with each step. Another hour of this, and Rock would be howling.
The pandemonium ahead of him was caused by another accident. A stupid accident. The car had come careening down a side street and T-boned another car on the main avenue. Both doors on the passenger side of the struck car were crumpled and lying on the curb. It was a serious crash, but nobody had been severely hurt.
Still, the driver’s face was bloody. He was holding a haphazardly crumpled handkerchief to slow the blood flowing from his forehead and yelling at the man who had caused the accident, screaming such curses that even the most well-intentioned onlookers were keeping their distance. But they slowed their hurried pace, even across the street, so as not to miss a choice profanity from this virtuoso of vulgarity. This was the first time Rock had encountered a man with such mastery of language. All the other humans more or less resembled each other in their mannerisms, like mechanical dolls coming off of a single conveyer belt.
Rock was unable to keep himself from “inspecting” the cursing driver.
Object: immune. Humanity: zero. Unidentified. Presumably unarmed. No Continental skills detected.
What the hell did any of that mean? It was about as long as Mosey’s text but completely different. And where’d that fifteen-digit string everybody else had go? All the girls had one. Even the dog had one. Besides, why was this box white with black text, instead of green? What was this “Humanity” rating? And how could his “Humanity” be zero?
He had nothing but more questions.
Rock stopped here with the others, hoping the cops would show up. He wanted to “inspect” them to see whether their description was like the other people’s. Specifically, whether they were armed.
But it was not to be. He wasn’t trying to be in the front—just standing off to the side glancing around, looking for the cops. From there, he could see the truck. There was a tiny bright flame and the crash of glass breaking, and the vehicle began rolling downhill, towards him. The driver seemed to have thrown something behind him before slamming the door closed, but Rock couldn’t be sure as it was just in his peripheral vision.
He remembered passing the vehicle a minute ago and seeing some guy in a bright orange jumpsuit crouching near the cab, shoving a dirty rag into an equally dirty bottle and looking like a psycho who had just scored a huge suitcase full of TNT.
Rock had also noticed that the truck was carrying canisters of gas.
He pieced it together quickly and turned to hurry away, pushing through the crowd of clueless onlookers, ruthlessly jabbing them aside with his elbows, knocking them off their feet, unceremoniously walking over their indignant, screaming bodies. The driver wasn’t the only one cursing now. Rock took one vulgarity after another, the whole lexicon of banned and impolite words hurled at him.
He didn’t care. Not right now.
There was no way to break away and run off. The long buildings kept him in the street, and they had no doors on this side. Even the windows were too high up. He had to break through the crowd before that burning pile of explosive crashed into it.
But he didn’t have enough time. The world was engulfed in flame and agony. He screamed, his voice not his own, as his sight and hearing evaporated.
Then, all of the bad feelings vanished with them, and the familiar gloom of total black surrounded him yet again.
Atte
ntion: you are dead. You have lost one Strength point. Attention: dying causes you to lose 5 to 50% of all base stat progress points, with a minimum reduction of 1. When you lose stat levels, you risk losing your main level progress and any associated achievements. Time to respawn: 101 seconds.
Rock knew what was coming next. Most of it, anyway. And he knew what would happen after he read the text.
He was getting used to it.
I bet nobody has ever hated their college dorm room as much as I do, he thought.
Chapter 3
Life Three: Experience is Key
Welcome, Novice. You are joining the Continent. Revive location: Cluster 252-88-26. Region: West Coast. Current revives remaining: 97 lives (initial value minus 2).
Active quests: Survive, Search, Learn Secret, Help, Ask Correct Question. Current status: Game Start. The cluster will reboot in 98 seconds.
Hint: many potential infecteds experience varying degrees of psychological problems. This may incite them to dangerous actions such as causing traffic accidents, committing acts of vandalism or violence without cause, killing or injuring others, and even committing acts of terrorism with massive numbers of casualties. Be wary of sick-looking people marked as potential infecteds. Avoid large groups of potential infecteds and immunes.
Note: You lost your second life without advancing any of your base stats. Try to avoid dying again, and do your best to prevent your number of remaining revives from reaching zero. To help you out, you have been given 20 Luck progress points, raising your base Luck to 2. Considering your bad luck so far, you could use it. Enjoy your game.
Rock leaped onto the cold floor and looked around at what he had already seen in two incarnations before. He snapped.
“Whoever the smartass is behind all of this, you better hope I never catch up to you. Hey, Gray, or Mosey, or whatever the hell your name is, dumbass, don’t pretend you’re sleeping. I know you’re up! Come on, ask the Googles something for me. Type in ‘I’m stuck in a virtual reality world. Help! I don’t know what’s going on!’ And quick, before the Internet dies. Hello? Hurry it up!”
Rock’s memory might have been faulty, but everything else worked fine, especially his observational skills. Last time he was here, he had noticed the router’s lights blinking green, but they had gone out a few moments later. Rock didn’t understand the first thing about what was going wrong with the power, but his intuition told him he only had a short window between the moment he woke and the power and cellular service going out again.
Whatever his name, this new Mosey was just as slow as the last. This time, what emerged from the blankets had red hair—just as disheveled as the brunette and blond hair of the last two roommates had been. Otherwise, he pretty much looked the same. Even his voice was similar.
“The hell’s with you?”
“You can ask questions later. The Wi-Fi’s about to die, and it’s not coming back. This is a matter of life and death. Get a move on!” Rock realized that brute force was unlikely to push the young man to move fast. He looked at the guy’s information box, perplexed. It didn’t say anything about his name or nickname. I guess it only displays when he identifies himself. Or when I learn it some other way.
Rock was about to find out. He hoped.
“Look, quit staring at me. Enter this, word for word: ‘I think I’m stuck in a virtual reality world. And everyone blames me for everything. I don’t know what’s going on!’ It really is a matter of life and death, I’m serious,” said Rock, urging the student on and hastily rummaging through his own pockets.
At least there was evidence he hadn’t dropped in from the moon or something. His identification was here, plus an advertisement, a library card, and an outpatient receipt from some venereology clinic. Hmm. The receipt looked bad enough that he wouldn’t be surprised to find a VIP pass for a cheap back alley brothel along with it.
It didn’t matter. He would accept a scrap of toilet paper from a brothel if it had some real information about him scribbled on it. His name, at least. He felt that if he learned his name, the rest would come to him. Or at least the significant bits. Anything that would save him from getting crushed by a monster or blown up by a gas truck again.
Rock doubted those deaths were accidental. Just like he doubted he would get anything useful out of his third roommate, as none of his predecessors had been any help. This place was not built for an extended stay. Attempting a prolonged investigation was pointless.
Maybe I’m just going mad. And even trying to extract some order from my madness. No, these hallucinations were too convincing. This place seemed real, felt real, even though it ran on its own strange system.
He would figure this out. What choice did he have? He wasn’t going to let himself die so meaninglessly this time. Two deaths were more than enough. He may have no idea where he was or even what his name was, but he did know that he did not prefer dying in unbearable pain, screams barely escaping as fire devoured his lungs. No, he did not prefer that at all.
“Listen, Russ, there’s no connection. No Wi-Fi, no nothing.”
“Yeah, it’s gone,” interrupted Rock, grimacing. “No tablet or phone in the whole city has cellular, either.”
“How do you know that?” The dolt was slowly gaining an appreciation for the depth of Rock’s foresight. “What else do you know?”
“That you should get out of town. So—how can I get Internet access when the whole town’s power is out?”
“Even with the power out, some servers should run on their own juice. But phone service isn’t that easy to shut down. And what do you mean, the whole town?”
“Because it’s out in the whole town.”
“You’re acting bizarre, Russ. What’s wrong with you?”
“Bizarre? Oh come on. Isn’t this what always happens in this town?”
“Hit me with another prediction, Russ.”
“Look, I’m a prophet, and I don’t even charge, so listen while you can. Right about now, all kinds of accidents are going to happen all over town, both at intersections and far from them. The drivers will start screaming and cursing at each other, things will start catching fire, and psychos will start blowing up gas trucks.”
At that moment, an explosion shook the windows. Rock’s redheaded roommate stared at Rock with an expression like he was a prophet straight out of heaven, adjusting the radiant halo over his head and preaching the truth to the lowly commoners. “Russ, how the hell did you...”
“Your boy Russ died of syphilis. My name is Rock. For now, anyway. Anything else to add about the Internet now?”
“Just wait a bit. It’s an outage or something.” He had been babbling seconds before, but now he was suddenly confident again. As if his mind had rebooted. What if he was one of those “sick-looking” types the message had warned him about? He was marked as a “potential infected,” and those were the types who became the psychos, right?
Rock had already planned to get out of this urban trap, and now he wanted to escape as soon as possible. All of the people he had encountered so far, with one exception, had been “potential infecteds.” This room was the one place he did not want to be caught in a tough situation in. That first death was still too fresh in his memory.
“Do we have any clothing here that’s a little lighter?” asked Rock, then stopped short in surprise when he faced the chair.
“Lighter than that?” asked his roommate, as Rock thought the very same thing.
No thick jeans, no warm jacket, no sweater, and no wool beanie. Instead he had colorful knee-length shorts, an equally carefree shirt—short-sleeved, of course—and sunglasses. The available footwear matched the beach theme. Black sandals, sitting by the door.
“Why do you care about the clothes, Russ?” The student still wouldn’t drop the idiotic questions, and they were getting irritating.
“Don’t worry about it. You guys have summer in the middle of winter or something?”
“‘You guys’? No, it’s just now the en
d of May.”
“But you’re dressing like you live in Africa.”
“Well, yeah, it’s been pretty hot for three days now. El Niño or something. The girls are all walking around practically naked. I love this weather. You ok, Russ? You seem like you’re in shock or something. Feeling alright?”
Rock struggled to answer as he hurriedly buttoned up his shirt. “Shock... I... No, it’s just that... look, I have no idea who you are, but I have to get out of here before evening hits.”
“Why?”
“Because. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but you sure won’t like it.”
“Russ, you’re delu—”
“Stay away from crowds of people if you want to stay alive,” he added as a farewell.
This time, Rock knew which way the stairs were. He tried to remember every nonsensical clue these unknown puppet masters of his had given him at the start of each life. A word came to him from the depths of his memory. He whispered. “Menu.”
Colored rectangles of various sizes popped into his view, drowning out his vision and forcing him to stop moving. Rock glanced around them. He understood little other than the fact that their creator clearly had no instinct for user-friendly design. Or user-friendly environments, for that matter. The rectangles frequently overlapped and hid each other, arranged carelessly like a toy computer screen or one of those intolerable Flash interfaces from “hacking” movies.
He repeated the word. “Menu.” It worked. Everything disappeared. The hints had told him how to access that menu, but not how to understand it. Rock would have to spend time figuring it out, but not now. He was not about to stay one unnecessary minute in this dorm.