Slum Online (12 page)

CHAPTER 7

I PRESSED THE
BUTTON. Tetsuo came to Versus Town again, unreal turquoise blue sky, unchanging butter roll clouds, grainy-textured backgrounds and all.

White headband trailing in a digital wind, Tetsuo ran down the right side of Main Street. It was 8:45
PM
, more than two hours earlier than he usually arrived. The city still slept.

Versus Town Networks, Inc., was open for business twentyfour hours a day. Players could log in whenever they wanted and stay online for as long as they liked. If you had Internet access and a game console, you could play the game from anywhere in the world. Day and night had no meaning here; the same blue sky was waiting whenever you logged in.

Time in Versus Town trailed RL by half a day. From six o’clock in the morning until noon, the place was a ghost town. The back alleys, Main Street, the arena…all were empty. In the afternoon, kids would start popping up one by one as they came home from school. People who worked during the week showed up between nine
PM
and midnight.

Up until midnight, the servers were usually running at maximum capacity, so lag was common as they struggled to keep up with all the information that needed to be processed. Fighting the congestion was more trouble than it was worth. For whatever reason, the people who played at this time of day were, by and large, not very good. The best players waited until the mere mortals had gone to sleep before logging in. The city’s true potential was only realized after midnight. When the witching hour had come and gone, the number of players dropped off, but there were always a few diehards who stayed online until morning. On a normal day, Tetsuo wouldn’t be caught dead showing up before eleven
PM
.

Tetsuo turned off Main Street into an alleyway. He rounded a corner and sprang over a metal drum liberally decorated with rust spot textures. He weaved his way through the narrow gaps separating the houses. His destination: the JTS Saloon.

The saloon was just as he’d left it. The old sign hung at the same crooked angle. The beam that caught his sweep kick stood just as it had. The walls were textured with the same weather-beaten planks. Still just a horse whinny sound FX away from a spaghetti Western.

Tetsuo walked slowly around the exterior of the saloon. The ground in Sanchōme was uneven and bumpy. When Tetsuo stepped into a depression, his body sank. When he moved over a small mound, he stood a little taller.

As Tetsuo walked, I replayed the fight against Ricky in my head.
Back dash from the column my kick had struck. Back
and to the right, then another back dash. A slight move forward
by Ricky as he attacked, then a crouching back dash
. I moved Tetsuo just as I’d moved him in the fight. When I was done, I noticed a small hollow in the ground directly in front of where he stood—the exact spot of ground Ricky had held during the fight.

A light, tan-colored texture sprinkled with gravel covered the ground. The shadow of the column in front of the saloon fell just at Tetsuo’s feet. The gravel-strewn ground dovetailed perfectly with the Old World feel of Sanchōme. The hollow was deep, but unless you were watching for it, you’d never have noticed Tetsuo’s height drop as he stepped into it. No wonder his knee-jab had missed.

As a general rule, characters that held the high ground were at an advantage. Characters who found themselves in midair over a depression or low area took longer to hit the ground, which meant they were vulnerable to that many more attacks while airborne. And of course the opposite was true of characters hit over high ground: they landed sooner, exposing them to fewer attacks in the air. Midair combos dealt massive damage and could easily decide a fight, so holding the high ground was key.

But the high ground came at a price. Since your arm needed to be able to reach behind your opponent to throw him, you had to get much closer to throw. The character who held the high ground also had a more difficult time landing normal hits on his opponent. A low sweep kick could miss because of the downward angle, and it wasn’t uncommon for attacks from a higher elevation to sail right over a crouching opponent’s head. Essentially, this was what had happened in Tetsuo’s fight against Ricky. The best way to handle the situation was to jump over your opponent and use moves that struck down from above, but you had to know what you were up against first.

Ricky had deliberately lured Tetsuo to this spot.

A sigh of understanding worked its way out of my lungs. Tetsuo had never stood a chance. I had always thought the people who spent their time in Sanchōme were subpar players who used it as a glorified chat room. Clearly, I had some rethinking to do.

Tetsuo pushed open the doors of the saloon.

The walls were dressed in the same dim textures they had worn when I was last here. A man in a black tuxedo crouched in a seat at the bar. The heavyweight bartender from my previous visit was nowhere to be seen, and there was no one else in the saloon. Tetsuo and the man in the tuxedo were alone.

Tiny russet butterflies decorated his tie. He wore black leather shoes. A pair of purple cufflinks completed his outfit. I took him to be a lightweight jujutsuka.

One of us had to break the ice, so I pulled out my keyboard.

> Hi.

> Good day, Tetsuo.

> How do you know my name?

> We met at the wall dividing Itchōme and Sanchōme.

His facial texture looked familiar. This must have been the jujutsuka practicing E-rank jumps by the wall.

> Weren’t you wearing a ninja outfit last time?

> I was scouting. Shinobi attire would be out of place in an establishment such as this.

He nodded his head knowingly, but his expression never changed. He seemed more a caricature of a ninja than anything, but I thought better of pointing that out. He continued.

> Alas, you are too early. Ricky never comes before eleven.

> I’m not here for a rematch.

> Is that so?

Tetsuo stood only three and a half steps from the ninja-cum-secret agent. Just out of dash-throw range. Dropping him into a battle stance, I shifted Tetsuo to the side, minimizing his exposed profile.

> Who told you my name? And how did you know I fought Ricky? I never told anyone in the saloon who I was.

> I made inquiries.

> With who?

> There is a certain individual who wears a button-down school uniform and high wooden clogs. I thought he might know who you were, so I went to the arena to ask. People seem to consider you a dark horse in the upcoming tournament, Tetsuo.

> Why go to all that trouble?

> I am ninja.

> That’s not a reason.

> You may not consider it a reason, but alas, it is the only one I have to offer. In this city, I am ninja. I collect meaningless information the way you engage in meaningless fights. A hobby of mine, nothing more.

> I never said it was meaningless.

> One man’s meaning is another man’s static.

> True enough.

I wanted to be the best player in the city. Hell, most people who played this game did. But this jujutsuka was different, and he knew it. While other characters were practicing their combos, he was searching for secret paths and paying visits to empty saloons.

The jujutsuka stood.

> Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. I am Hashimoto, a collector of information.

Hashimoto bent at the waist in a graceful bow.

Leaping lightly over the counter, he took two beer bottles from the shelf behind the bar. He sent one bottle sliding across the bar toward Tetsuo.

> Won’t we get in trouble?

> For what?

> I don’t know, moving around his drinks. The heavyweight bartender won’t get mad?

> Ben is not the bartender.

> He’s not?

> This establishment belongs to no one. Ben only plays the role of bartender, as I am doing now. Role-playing, as it were.

The player controlling Hashimoto, a make-believe character who lived in a make-believe world, was suggesting that his character’s goals and desires were somehow separate from his own. Somewhere in RL, someone was role-playing Hashimoto, a character who himself played the role of a ninja in Sanchōme. It was like opening a Russian matryoshka doll to find another doll nested inside. The only place you could do something like that was online.

Hashimoto tilted his head back and raised the beer to his mouth. Of course no liquid came spilling out of the polygonal bottle, and the texture on Hashimoto’s face never changed. But I still found myself growing thirsty.

The JTS Saloon provided a refuge for characters who didn’t fit in anywhere else in the game, characters who spent their time leaping over paper-thin walls and passing around polygonal glasses of beer.

> This place seems like a pretty well-kept secret. Why tell me how to get here?

> I was preoccupied with more…pressing concerns.

> Like what?

> My whisperers told me Jack might make an appearance. I was standing watch with my eagle eye.

The drunken fist in the skin-tight purple suit had said no one knew more about Jack than Hashimoto. Well, I had found him, and he had sent me on a wild goose chase to the JTS Saloon to learn more about Jack at the very moment he expected Jack to make an entrance.

> You lied to me.

> I misled you. There’s a difference.

> You didn’t think I had a chance against Jack, so you chased me off, is that it?

There was a long pause before he answered. When he finally did, a bubble filled almost to overflowing appeared over his head.

> Not at all. You appeared to be a skilled warrior. Had you fought Jack, his health would have been diminished. You might even have slain him. But my objective is to discover Jack’s true identity. Had you defeated him, it would have complicated things considerably.

> If he really wants to log out, all he has to do is pull out his LAN cable.

> Jack would never employ such measures. He has similar predilections to my own. When Jack defeats a foe, he always logs out using the proper mechanism. I have no doubt of this. It may be that, like me, he changes his textures each time he logs in.

When your health dropped to zero anywhere outside the arena, you were forced to log out. Since player information was kept private, once someone logged out, there was no way to find out who they were. Which is exactly why a roaming mystery ganker could exist in the first place. Unless a sysadmin performed an investigation, the ganker’s identity would remain a mystery forever. But if there was a character role-playing Ganker Jack, as Hashimoto was suggesting, it would be possible to nail down the identity of the ordinary Versus Town citizen who was assuming Jack’s identity at the character management system in Itchōme.

Hashimoto wanted to witness the moment Jack made the transformation back to average citizen for himself.

> Why tell me all this?

> You show great promise. I have heard there is no one in the arena who can defeat you. In time, Jack will surely seek you out.

> So I’m the sacrificial pig?

> I see no reason for you to disparage yourself so.

> I’d think someone like Ricky would be a better bet.

> I think not. Ricky finds fault with everyone who walks through those doors. He can make an excuse to fight anyone. Only three people who frequent the saloon have beaten him.

> Who?

> Keith, 963, and Masumi.

> He beat Pak?

> Pak does not street fight. He declined Ricky’s challenge.

That didn’t change the fact that Ricky was damn good. Two of the three names Hashimoto listed were in the top four. He’d beaten just about everyone else.

> It is my opinion that you are slightly better than Ricky.

> But he beat me.

> Ricky held the terrain advantage. He was able to land a counterattack because of the hollow at the foot of the column. You are not the first to fall for this ploy. Sanchōme poses many challenges for the hardcore.