The NextWorld 02: Spawn Point (21 page)

I hear a chainsaw sputtering before I see Fantom step into the torchlight. She smiles when she sees me and launches at me, screaming like a maniac and lifting the weapon above her head. I suppose it's meant to intimidate me, or make me hesitate so she can close the gap between us, but I lift the laser gun and fire. The red beam burns right through her chest and pixels spill across the floor.

For a second, I'm pleased with myself. I always wondered if I could win in a fight against Fantom, but then I realize that she may have handed me her death for the Koins, choosing the loud melee weapon just to go out in a blaze of glory.

I put the chainsaw in my inventory and look down at the side of the laser gun. There's a nice amount of battery power left in the high-damage weapon, so I put my starter pistol in my inventory and continue through the lower levels of the mansion.

I find an avatar with a jack o' lantern head. He's dual-wielding pistols, but he's got his back to me so he doesn't even know who kills him. I find a grizzly bear beating a knight with nunchaku on the stairs leading to the ground floor. My laser burns through both of them in one shot. In the dining room there's a pirate with a shark's head that gives me a bit of trouble because he's launching buzzsaws out of a mechanical cannon. I manage to burn off his arm with a lucky shot and he's forced to drop his weapon. After that it's an easy kill.

I'm hyper-focused. Cyren's escape drives me, fueling my violent rampage through the map. One-by-one they fall and soon enough the game is announcing the name of my ghost account as the winner. I know I won't be earning any glory as long as I'm using this account, but I'm not here to coddle my pride. I'm here for the kills. I'm here for the Koins. I'm here for Cyren.

The master bedroom where I killed the final player falls away and I'm left floating in the mists of the game menu. Screens appear all around me with the statistics from the game. Koins pour out of the sky, falling into the treasure chest inside my inventory, but I don't wait to count them. I select the next map.

I'm ignoring the growling in my stomach and the insistence of my bladder. They're telling me to log-out and take care of my real world needs, but there's no time for that. I need to take advantage of every second I have and grab as many Koins as I can.

I need to shoot. I need to kill. I need to win.

Each map bleeds into the next. I'm killing players on the surface of the moon. I'm killing players in the muddy trenches of an ancient battlefield. I'm killing players in a shopping mall. I'm killing players in desert wasteland. Each death makes way for the next. Familiar faces appear over and over as the same players continue their attempts to beat me. But they never do.

At first I think I'm getting lucky, but then I realize the difference between them and me. They're still having fun. They're still playing a game. This isn't fun for me anymore. I'm not taking my time. I'm not admiring the graphics. I'm working a game world to meet an end. I'm making constant calculations of distance and movement and speed in order to win as fast as I can, kill as many players as I can, and collect as many Koins as I can. Which player do I kill first? Do I pick off the weak ones and let the better players clear the map for me, or do I try to increase my kill to death ratio by taking out the strong players first, leaving the weak ones for me to rack up kills with? Do I use that box of grenades I found or do I trade it for credits? Do I use stealth tactics or shock-and-awe bravado? There are a million questions that I must answer instantaneously, without second-guessing myself.

No matter how drawn in to the game I am, I'm always hyper-aware of Cyren's absence. I'm incomplete without her. I'm lopsided, drifting away from my own center. I need her to tell me it's going to be okay. I need her to calm my mind, my racing thoughts. I need her smile, her embrace, those simple words of hers that always make everything so clear, so vivid. I miss her fighting by my side, but those thoughts bring me right back into the action, because I know I'm doing it all for her.

I can't save the same Cyren that I knew, that exact consciousness, but I can still save the possibility of her, the potential of her. Maybe she'll grow into someone greater. That thought gives me comfort.

The timer counts down faster and faster as my treasure chest fills with Koins. I never waste the briefest of moments to check the number. It doesn't matter. I keep doing the best that I can, and when it's all over, I have to hope it's enough.

When the timer reaches the mark telling me that I've been playing for ten straight hours, I finish the map I'm on. I hack off the Rhinoceros head of an avatar with a battleaxe on the bridge of a starship and the game ends. The map falls away and I log-out from the menu. I appear outside the DangerWar gates and see the group waiting for me.

Xen rushes over with a large smile, his body wobbling with every hurried step. He swipes his menu toward me, sharing the Koins that the rest of the group made.

“Did we do it? Did we make enough? What am I saying? Of course we did. Right?”

“Give him a chance to breathe,” Raev says as she catches up to Xen. Then she turns to me and asks, “But seriously... did we make enough?”

“I don't know,” I say after I check my inventory and see the grand total. “And I won't know until we put it in an auction and see what people are willing to pay.”

“We don't have time for chattin', yo,” Fantom says as she summons her flying carpet. “Let's go.”

Raev helps Xen on to the back of the rug. With his wobbly stance, he's barely able to stand up straight. We take off into the skies over DOTfun and bank toward the super-highway that leads toward DOTcom.

I must not be hiding my anxiety well, because it doesn't take long for Fantom to lean over and say, “I'm sure it will be enough. There's always people willin' to part with credits to get a head start in new games.”

“I know. I just hope they sell quickly.”

Fantom slaps the carpet and says, “If it weren't for Worlok bein' so greedy, we wouldn't be in this mess. He was never like this before. Credits were the last thing he was thinkin' about. He used to be...”

I'm not sure if she doesn't finish her sentence because she can't think of the right word to describe what he used to be, or if she gets lost in the memory of what he used to be. Her eyes drift off toward the horizon.

I try to picture Fantom in a partnership, but I can't. It's hard to picture the cold, head-strong woman cuddling up next to someone. I have to imagine she often butted heads with the egotistical hacker she called a partner. Perhaps they were too similar, unable to balance each other out. Too much fire and not enough water. Both of them ones and neither of them zeros.

As we cross over the last of the thousand-lanes connecting NextWorld, I can see DOTcom in the distance. The carpet speeds up to its maximum bandwidth and we dive toward the city of flashing advertisements.

Where the companies of DOTbiz might save credits on design and detail, looking exactly the same no matter what street you drive down, DOTcom is where they spend those credits showing off. The domain is a mess of animations and avatars, screens and pop-up video-casts. There is no logical rhyme or reason to the shapes or buildings other than to draw attention.

Our carpet slows to a crawl as Fantom's ad-blockers run in overtime, trying to keep our view as clear as possible. I lose track of our location, lost in the maze of offers, coupons, and sales. This is an intentional effect, designed to keep you occupied in the domain for as long as you have credits to spend. Luckily, Fantom's directional software leads us through the most expensive, outer banners, and directly into the auction houses.

“We need to choose wisely,” I say, glancing around at hundreds of different spheres, boxes, towers, and landscapes, all offering their services to anyone looking to get rid of some inventory.

“Yeah,” Fantom says. “They're all goin' to take their cut. It's gonna take time to compare them all and figure out which one takes the least while still having enough members to give us a good price.”

Xen pokes his head between us and flashes a goofy smile. “I believe I can help with that.”

“How?” I ask with an annoyed skepticism.

He points at the largest auction house, TraderZone, a glowing obelisk that towers over the entire area. The hottest items cover the outer walls of the structure and most of the traffic in the domain focuses on that particular entrance. It's the most well-known and the most well-used site. It's the easiest, most user-friendly auction house, offering to take care of every function of the transaction. It's where every mom and dad and grandparent who doesn't know the ins and outs of NextWorld go to sell their junk. It's where every business trades out their overstocked virtual warehouses. It's also the most expensive auction house, taking forty percent of any profit in exchange for the ease-of-use.

“Are you crazy? We're
not
using TraderZone. After they take their cut, I'd be lucky to clear 150,000 credits,” I say, looking away from him as if his suggestion isn't worth any more discussion.

Xen sets his hand on my shoulder to gain my attention again and looks at me through his drooping eyes. “Kade, at some point you're going to have to trust me.”

I glance at Fantom, but she offers me a shrug, waiting for my reply. I look back into Xen's eyes, his smile glowing with a warmth that's both innocent and powerful. His inebriated mind doesn't make me feel safe. I don't trust this new Xen. I don't trust the fog that hangs over his mind. But I look at Raev and she offers me a confident nod. I'm surprised when I realize that it's her I trust.

When this is all over, I'll have the time to help Xen. I'll help him come back from wherever he is. But for now, she's the one keeping him in line, keeping him upright, until we can find a way to help him. Until we can find a way to heal his mind.

I take a deep breath and nod at Fantom. She sighs with reluctance and turns the carpet toward the entrance at the bottom of the giant obelisk, allowing the flow of traffic to swallow our carpet.

As we pass through the doorway into the brightly-lit interior, Fantom squints her eyes and says, “Let's make some credits, yo.”

The auction house is disgustingly huge. Even with the immense amount of traffic flowing in and out of the site, there's no need for the size other than to appear grandiose. I grimace at the garishness of every sign, confused by the font choices and color schemes, as well as the glaringly obvious operational flaws. It's as if they fired someone who used a minimalist approach and hired a different designer to splash his showy, ostentatious choices right on top. I rub my eyes and decide that instead of nit-picking every error and determining how I'd fix it, I'll place my judgments aside and focus on the task at hand.

I notice Fantom giving me a nervous look as we creep through the main floor. We're berated by NPC auctioneers trying to sell the wares of their customers by yelling at us from floating booths that circle the site.

I turn around and glare at a smiling Xen. “So? Now what?”

Xen opens up a screen in front of him and selects a choice without saying a word. I glance at Raev, who appears to be as calm and collected as Xen, peering around the site as if she were sight-seeing or window-shopping. Their tranquility grates on my own anxiety, causing it to boil over.

“What's the plan, Xen?” I yell over the loud announcements of an NPC right next to our floating carpet who's offering me a great deal on a virtual apartment.

Xen holds up a finger and winks at me. It drives me crazy. We're running out of time. He should be freaking out.
Everyone
should be freaking out.

My head jerks forward when we come to a sudden stop. A floating platform descends from above, slowing in front of the carpet. Standing atop the platform is an NPC auctioneer with a three-piece suit and a mustache that curls up on either side.

“Hello and welcome to TraderZone, where
your
trash is
someone's
treasure! How may I assist you today?”

I'm about to open my mouth when Xen leans past me and flashes a card that he pulls from his inventory. The NPC leans forward and studies the text.

“I see that you qualify for our non-profit-religion exemption program. I'm pleased to accept your use of our services today, free of charge.”

Fantom and I glance at each other, then turn and look at Xen with disbelief.

He holds up his hands and smiles. “What?”

“I thought you said there were strict rules to stop any kind of corruption in the church.”

He pops a pill between his lips, his eyelids hang low over his eyes, and he mumbles, “We're not in church.”

I glance at Raev who takes a deep breath in through her nose and says, “Metaversalism teaches us that to deny a gift, is to deny love.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I don't know if I'd call subverting a loophole in a government program a 'gift.'”

Fantom smirks and says, “Maybe they've been hangin' out with me a little too much, yo.”

Xen scratches his chin and without losing his smile he says, “I'll have to meditate upon this course of action and determine whether this was an accurate translation of the lesson...”

“Later, my love,” Raev says as she pats him on the back. “There's always time for that later.”

“Yes, of course,” he says with a wink, “later.”

I turn back to the NPC and offer our Koins to him. He places them in a temporary storage and yells out like a battle cry, “Profit!” as his floating platform spins into the air.

“And now we wait,” Fantom says.

She pulls the carpet to the right and parks it near a concession stand selling digital food and drinks. My stomach growls in the real world when I smell the fried foods. I instinctively rub my belly and Fantom notices.

“You should log-out. Eat.”

I shake my head and look away. “I can eat after we finish this.”

Raev places her hand on my back and says, “A bit of vitapaste may give you the strength you need.”

“It does a body good,” Xen says as he tosses three pills into his mouth at once.