The NextWorld 02: Spawn Point (20 page)

I look at the timer. Less than fourteen hours left. As every second drops out, the impending doom in my chest grows. Cyren is getting farther and farther away.

“Once he hacks this doorway for us,” Raev asks, “can't we steal it from him?”

“Raev!” Xen whisper-shouts, appalled that she could consider something like that.

“What?” she says, throwing up her hands. “We're sitting in a club for hackers, talking about how we're going to pay a cyberterrorist to help us steal a game world from a secret DOTgov domain. It's not like anything we're doing here is exactly legal.”

“We can't steal from Worlok,” Fantom says. “It's killin' me to admit it, but he's the best hacker I know. He might be the best hacker, period. I ain't got no hope of crackin' his encryptions. Even if I could, eventually he'd find us. And Worlok ain't exactly the forgivin' type.”

We all sit in silence, wracking our brains, trying to come up with a solution. Music pumps in the back ground. Murmurs and whispers of criminal activities swarm around the club. Seconds tick away.

“I'll get the credits,” I say, pushing myself away from the table and standing up.

“How?” Raev asks. “Where?”

I flip up the collar on my leather trench coat and say, “Koins.”

“Koins?”

“They sell for credits in the DOTcom auctions.”

“That account ain't got any Koins,” Fantom says, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. “And we don't have time for me to try cleaning your old account enough for you to access your inventory.”

“I can get Koins.”

“How are you gonna do that, yo?”

“He's going to play games,” Xen says to them without taking his eyes off of me. “Right? You're going to log-in to DOTfun, and you're going to play games.”

“Yeah, Xen. I'm going to play games,” I say as I straighten my cowboy hat, peering out from under the brim. “And then I'm going to save Cyren.”

We skim across the edge of DOTorg on Fantom's flying carpet. The domain is full of protesters of every sort. Some are asking for better wages, some are asking for better tasting vitapaste, some are asking for time restrictions on DOTfun. They remain in their designated sites inside the domain, yelling as loudly as they can, yet they are heard by no one.

As we fly over a group of mothers with picket signs trying to raise the age restrictions of mind-altering downloads, Fantom asks, “How are you plannin' on makin' 250,000 credits? We ain't got the time to-”.

“I'm going to shoot people.”

“I think you might need a more sophisticated plan than that,” Raev says through a chuckle.

“I'm going to shoot a
lot
of people.”

“I'll be helpin' you make those credits,” Fantom says as we cross over the information superhighway. “And I don't want none of this 'I can do it on my own' nonsense.”

“I appreciate that.”

Everyone pauses for a second, confused by my unusually good nature, but I'm already planning battle strategies.

“We're helping too,” Xen says.

“I thought you weren't dealing well with violence? I don't want you to freak out in the middle of a gunfight.”

Xen glances at the floor, nervously sliding another Dizzy Fizz into his mouth. “I don't have to play the same games as you to win Koins. I've been getting good at flying planes in this simulator. It's actually kind of neat. You have to-”

“You sure you can fly with all those Dizzy Fizz apps in your system?”

He lets out a laugh. “I might need a few more before I'm stupid enough to climb in to a cockpit.”

I focus on the horizon instead of his words, waiting for the DOTfun domain to appear. “Do whatever you need to do. I'm playing solo.”

Xen exchanges a hurt look with Raev, who offers him a look of understanding or sympathy or something. I don't know.

“I mean, you have to understand where I'm coming from,” I say without knowing what's upsetting them. “We have a limited amount of time. I'm good at solo play. I know that. But the group stuff? It takes time. It takes practice. We don't have that luxury.”

They keep looking out of the corner of their eyes at each other like they're afraid to tell me what they're all thinking.

I change the subject. “Has Raev played games in DOTfun before?”

“Sure,” she says. “Mostly role-playing games. I was always the healer in the group, which means I was totally underappreciated, but whatever.”

She's saying something, trying to make some kind of point, but I don't have the time to decipher it.

“Don't worry,” Raev continues, “I can farm materials that people use for their crafting skills in those games and sell them for Koins.”

“Even if we're not playing the same games,” Xen says, “we're still a group.”

“Truth,” is all Fantom says as she holds up one hand balled in a fist.

I look at all of them. My friends. The people who mean more to me than my own family. Internally, I acknowledge everything they're doing for me. Every choice they're making. Every risk they're taking. Every sacrifice they're... sacrificing. But I can't think of a way to sum it all up. What do people say in situations like this? What's the proper way to say thank you? Do I give a big, heart-wrenching, awe-inspiring speech about how much they mean to me? Do I individually acknowledge how much each step they took with me helped me reach my goal? I don't know.

All I can come up with is, “Cool.”

Everyone acts like they're satisfied with my response, so I choose to move forward, unable to justify the time needed to analyze the social interaction.

When the flying carpet crests the horizon of DOTorg, I can see the first graphical representations of DOTfun. Not much has changed besides a few minor improvements to the polygon levels and some random new NPCs. There's a nostalgic excitement that beats in my chest when the constant display of fireworks explode over the entrance and the wacky assortment of NPCs greet us as we settle into the queue waiting to enter. There's something about the arrangement of everything. Even the smell of stale blood and fresh gunpowder that surround the combat games creates this potpourri that brings me back to a hundred afternoons spent here after DOTedu.

Xen turns to me as we enter the domain and asks, “What game are you-”

“DangerWar,” I answer before he finishes the question.

“You sure, yo?” Fantom asks.

I nod silently.

“There's been a lot of new games released in the last couple years. We could be playin' somethin' more popular.”

“I don't have time to learn a new rule set or gun type accuracy or any of the other factors that could alter my play style. I need to stick with what I know in order to maximize my Koin collecting.”

Fantom banks the carpet to the left and we fly over one of the more popular race tracks, the same one being bet on in Club L33T. We drop Xen and Raev off at their respective game worlds, then dive toward the gates to DangerWar. They look bigger than before, but I'm sure they haven't changed. There's still the giant title bolted on to the forty-foot high arches, and there's still the blank wall that's missing the wooden door leading to DangerWar 2, and there's still the group of players mingling with each other outside, just not as many. They're all waiting to meet other players or bragging about their latest kill or just rethinking their strategies before they head back in to the game.

A few people take notice of us landing, and a few of them take a second glance when they see my avatar. Arkade was far from the only cowboy in NextWorld, so as soon as they look at the social screen connected to the ghost account, they go back to ignoring me.

“Got any tips, yo?” Fantom asks as we make our way through the crowd. “I never played the first one.”

I shrug my shoulders and say, “Kill them before they kill you.”

Fantom rolls her eyes. “Do you want to succeed or not?”

“Of course I do. I'm just-”

“You're actin' arrogant, that's what you're doin'. It's time to grow up, Cowboy. How about you offer me a real answer?”

I open my mouth to argue, then suck in a breath and say, “Okay. You're right. I'm sorry.” I stop and think. “We don't have time to go over the map layouts... that's probably the biggest advantage I have. I know where the weapon drops are. I know where the secret passages are. I know where the traps are. I've played this game a thousand times.”

“Wow,” Fantom says. “I'm so impressed, yo.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I'm not... I mean, I'm trying to say that you're going to have to find weapons on the people you kill. This isn't like the sequel. You start with a pistol and you have to find better stuff, or buy better stuff with Koins... which we aren't going to do because we're going to save every Koin we get.”

“You can get different weapons? Why did they change that in the sequel? That's way more fun, yo.”

I shrug my shoulders and say, “Sometimes sequels aren't as good as the original.”

“So how do we get Koins?”

“By killing them before they kill you.”

Fantom lets out a long, annoyed sigh.

“I'm serious! Your kill to death ratio, how many kills you score compared to how many times you die, determines the payout at the end of the match.”

Fantom glances down at the timer in front of her and says, “We have just over thirteen hours. Takin' into account havin' to contact Worlok, not to mention goin' to the Trash Bin and cuttin' the NPCs out of the game world... I'm thinkin' we got a maximum of ten hours, yo.”

“Fine. Ten hours.” I turn toward the gate that is so familiar to me and say, “Now let's go shoot something.”

As soon as the game appears around me, I smile. I recognize the map right away. The “Haunted Mansion.” It's the last map that I played in, so it's a fitting way to return.

I spawn in the graveyard, standing next to a sarcophagus. I inhale the familiar scent of dead leaves and look up at the moon peeking out from behind some wispy clouds. I was expecting the overwhelming nostalgia of the game, but what I wasn't expecting is how bad everything looks. The graphics appear jagged and plain compared to DangerWar 2, which is weird because I used to think they looked amazing. Everything looks like a game, like a graphical representation of reality. Even the cold chill in the air doesn't feel like real cold air. But that's okay. It helps me stay focused. It helps me treat this like the task that it is, not some fun escape or outlet for my hostility.

I need Koins. That's it.

I spin around to the front of the sarcophagus and shoot at the chain that's locked across the door. A few bullets chip away at it until it breaks free. I give the stone door a shove and step inside. Caskets line the wall. I know that inside each one is a zombie NPC waiting to grab me, but the third one from the left is different. I slide the top of the casket to the side and find a large machete laying inside. As soon as I pick it up, a sheath appears on my belt and I slide the blade into it.

When I step back out from the sarcophagus, bullets whiz past my head. One strikes me in the arm before I'm able to jump behind a large tombstone. At first I think the gunfire is semi-automatic, but from the sound of the shots, I realize that it's a bolt-action rifle, which makes me nervous. The player has to be experienced if they're firing so quickly.

I check my arm. It's bleeding, but it won't kill me. I poke my head out from behind the tombstone and peer through the thick fog, searching for the muzzle flare when the player fires again. It flashes from the other side of the graveyard, near the cellar door at the base of the mansion. I duck back behind the tombstone, watching stone fragments fly into the air as the attacker continues to fire.

I smile and wait.

Soon enough, the gunfire stops. They ran out of ammunition. I know the person firing at me is dropping the magazine from the rifle and pulling another one from their inventory, and that's just the opportunity I was waiting for.

I spin out from behind the tombstone and run across the graveyard, directly at the other player. I pound my feet into the soft soil underneath me, trying to close the gap between us. My pistol is good from about twenty yards. Any further than that and the accuracy degrades as well as the damage.

The attacker is covered in leaves and twigs, with pointed ears like a wood nymph. I think she meant the scantily clad look of her avatar to distract the male players of the game. Of course there's also the chance that she
is
a male player in real life.

She's struggling to get the fresh magazine into the rifle, panicking when she sees me charging her. I wait until I can see the whites of her eyes before I pull the trigger. Her head rocks back. I catch the rifle flying from her hands as her body slumps against the ground and dissipates into a puddle of pixels. The name “Bunnee” appears in front of me and a red mark slashes across it.

Without ammunition, the rifle is worthless to me in combat, so I slip it into my inventory. I'll trade it for Koins later.

I don't waste time. I throw open the cellar doors, slash through the thick cobwebs with my machete, and descend into the underground portion of the map. Torches flicker against the stone walls. I hear the clang of metal in the distance, then a large boom shakes the ceiling. Dust and rock fall around me.

When I turn a corner, there's a groundskeeper walking toward me with a shovel. He's an NPC. I know that if I kill him, he's got a key in his pocket that gives me access to a secret passageway through the hedge maze outside. I raise my gun. He stares at me, blankly, waiting for the kill. My trigger finger starts to squeeze, but I can't do it.

He's not Cyren. I know that. He'll never be anything like her. His code is primitive compared to the NPCs in DangerWar 2. He'll never think for himself. He'll never learn anything other than what his programming tells him. He'll never be self-aware. As soon as the deathmatch is over, he'll disappear. But I still can't kill him. He's too close, too much like the NPCs I've sworn to protect. I run past him and turn toward the wine cellar, leaving the thoughtless avatar behind me.

I flinch when a caveman comes running down the hall. He lifts a laser gun at me and fires, but I'm already leaping on to the floor. The lasers fly over the top of me as I land on my belly and fire at him. The bullet strikes his kneecap and he tumbles on to the floor before he gets another shot off. As soon as he lifts his head, I fire again, this time striking him right between the eyes. He explodes into pixels. I lift myself off the floor and run for the laser gun. As soon as I pick it up, another avatar comes around the corner and I realize what the caveman was running from.