Soda Pop Soldier Page 8

  I unpin the Samurai from the wall and walk forward. Creepy instantly stops pacing. The whip hangs limply from one studded-gloved hand.

  I send him a message in text.

  “HOLD, friend, let’s talk.”

  I open up a chat channel and send him an invite. My quickly evolving plan, in short, is to do a little role-playing. If Creepy likes to play with his food, and if I can maneuver him into a position near enough the edge of the chasm, I might be able to push him over said edge, or even get myself onto the bridge and away from him. I might be able to evade him if I catch him off guard or lure him into a sense of complacency or even, perhaps, do something more lethal. The bullwhip is a weapon I could probably use with one hand. The Samurai were masters of every weapon, and if I am going to make my thousand bucks pay off, then I need to think like a Samurai and get a weapon.

  Will Creepy go for it, and if he does, what does he want? Role playing involves me looking into his room, his world, wherever in the world that is, and him, even more frightening, looking into my world, my apartment.

  I take a quick sip of scotch, consider lighting a cigarette, and wonder again where Sancerré is right now.

  Shortly my worst fears are confirmed. A visual channel opens in the top left-hand side of my screen. Creepy in real life looks exactly like Creepy in the cave. He’s cosplaying himself in the game. From behind the black mask I see two beady eyes alight with feverish intensity.

  “Guten abend, mein freund.”

  Crud, a German.

  “I don’t . . . sprechen . . . English?”

  For a moment Creepy’s face seems to twist with frustration. Then, “Ja, my English is nicht sehr gut. But I make it for you.” Red lips painted with lipstick smile awkwardly back at me. For a brief moment he seems nice, harmless, like a kid I knew in school who just wanted to make friends but didn’t know how. I feel sorry for him and instantly I degrade Creepy’s threat level. Maybe he’s just playing for kicks, looking for a good time and, more important, a friend. I can use that against him. Maybe I can even get him to leave me alone, or help me.

  “You vant to make vis der role playing or maybe you vant to vatch me do stuff?”

  This is too easy . . .

  . . . and I know it’s too easy.

  And nothing is ever too easy.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I like to watch.” I feel a million tons of sludge oozing through my veins.

  “Ja, really?” says Creepy flatly. Watch out, I hear my mind scream.

  “Okay, I’m gonna lock my door so no one comes in, vait a second.” He gets up from his keyboard as I wonder two things.

  One, who is “no one”?

  And two, wouldn’t you lock your door before dressing up like a weirdo sadomasochist pervert to play an illegal Black game?

  He gets up from his computer, turns his back, and goes to the far end of the room, receding into the fish-eye lens of the visual chat.

  It’s now or never. I run for the bridge. The head start I get on him now that he’s away from his keyboard might give me just the edge I need to at least get onto the stone bridge. Maybe the bridge narrows enough that I can make him fall if he chases me or at least slow him down.

  But from the moment I slew my POV toward the bridge to begin my dash, I know it’s doomed. Ten steps out and, crack, the whip’s sonic slash echoes over ambient. A POV-spinning second later and I’m facedown on the digitally rendered grit and gravel of the ledge. I slew my POV around and see Creepy pulling hard to haul me in. On-screen, the visual link’s still active, and I see Creepy smiling, drooling, chuckling softly to himself as the glimmer of a crimson SoftEye burns malevolently inside the cheap shiny leather of the mask. He’s got some kind of motion-recognition software running. He’s pulling hard at an invisible whip, dictating the movements of his on-screen character.

  He’d kept an eye on me the entire time.

  No deception. No gain.

  I send my cursor scrambling through the Samurai’s submenus looking for anything to use. Serene Focus still refuses to activate, but it’s crawling toward a full charge. Under a menu called Posture I find all kinds of things. Sitting, Standing, Relaxed, Entertaining, and even something called Breakdancing. But it’s the combat postures listed there that intrigue me the most. Creepy’s almost passing out from glee on visual, so I cut the link. Focusing on the Posture menu, I find a variety of weapon and martial arts stances for different combat situations. Some are online, but all the powerful attacks seem to require both hands. Some even require the Samurai’s lost sword, Deathefeather, specifically. I quickly scroll through the martial arts, searching for anything to use in the next ten seconds. I find Hopkido, even something called Hwa Rang Do, but it’s Judo that attracts me the most.

  Creepy drags me upright. His avatar’s grinning, sweating face thrusts itself into my monitor like a fiend. I can only imagine what’s going on in Berlin, or wherever Creepy resides. This is probably like the Super Bowl for him. Creepy wraps his bullwhip around my neck and my screen suddenly hazes over in a red mist as a thudding heartbeat begins to pump slower and slower through my speakers.

  He’s strangling me.

  My health meter drops quickly to 40 percent. I switch combat postures to Judo, even though Creepy’s got me by the neck. Now his avatar begins to fumble at my clothes.

  Man, the developer didn’t slack on any of the options.

  At 35 percent I execute a Judo attack. If I just thump him hand-to-hand style, I don’t know how much good it’ll do. I suspect not much. But sometimes good games build in finishing moves and cut-scene attacks.

  I’m rewarded with both as once again the game dazzles me. The Samurai slams his head forward into Creepy’s leather-clad face in front of my POV. Then the screen switches to a circling overhead view as the Samurai, now holding Creepy by the skin of his chest, falls backward in slow motion. The attack off-balances Creepy and he’s flying through the air toward the lip of the chasm. He’s still holding the bullwhip, and it trails away after him as he disappears over the edge.

  My Vitality bar is now at 28 percent. The red mist has cleared. I move to the edge of the chasm peering into the darkness below and the lash of the whip comes flying out of the darkness and hits me again, deducting another 2 percent from my health. The labored breathing of the Samurai erupts on ambient. I’m down to precious little health, and being that this game is sadistic, chances are I’ll pass out before zero. That way all the deviants get the thrill of knowing that, though their simulated victims are unconscious, they’re still alive and watching from the other side of the screen at whatever comes next.

  But I’m not done.

  I’m still in the game, and my thousand bucks isn’t gone, yet.

  Below, I see Creepy. He hasn’t fallen down into the blackness of the pit. He’s on a rocky outcrop just below the ledge, winding up for another attack, his whip dancing out behind him in the pale green light from above. I target him, press Spacebar, and jump while moving forward, executing a flying kick. Once I’m airborne I realize the potential for catastrophic error. If I miss, or if Creepy moves, it’s off into the dark pit beyond and below. With 26 percent Vitality left, I probably won’t survive any kind of fall.

  Slipping in the bathtub would probably kill this Samurai right about now.

  Also, I’m jumping down almost twenty feet; even if I hit Creepy, I’ll probably kill myself from residual damage. But who cares. I hate Creepy, I hate the world’s greatest fashion photographer, and I hate WonderSoft. I focus my rage squarely onto Creepy’s leather vest and plan on driving my foot right through his chest cavity.

  Serene Focus comes online.

  At the last second I quickly right-click it and a cut-scene of raindrops falling into a quiet garden superimposes itself over my fall into Creepy. I’m moving slowly. Syrupy. I hear the strings of an ancient era recall sorrows past.

  All that Serene Focus jazz.

  Time slows even further, and I plant my foot lightly into Creepy’s chest, bac
king him just to the edge of the outcrop as his whip falls from his hand. I bounce off him, taking less than 1 percent of damage, and backflip onto the rocky outcrop in slow motion. For a single moment, maybe fifteen frames in the camera of life, I face Creepy on the outcrop, across the world.

  Then I attack.

  One click.

  A quick roundhouse hot key spins my POV in a great circle as the Samurai grunts in satisfaction at the well-honed spinning kick connecting with Creepy’s jaw. Crunch. It shatters as Creepy launches outward, backward, and then downward into the empty black void beyond us. I watch him go and he doesn’t seem to stop until he disappears into the darkness way down there.

  Wherever “there” is.

  No one could have survived a fall like that in real life. I remind myself this isn’t real life. It’s a game. I pick up the fallen whip from the black dust of the outcrop.

  Now, I have a weapon.

  I turn to face the rock wall. I’ll climb back up onto the ledge above, I’m thinking.

  My screen begins to shake and the rock wall in front of my perspective begins to race past my eyes.

  I’m falling!

  I pan down and see the entire outcrop is sliding into the abyss after Creepy. Great!

  The floor begins to tilt, threatening to dump me right into the avalanche, but I balance on the sliding rock with light taps on my direction keys. I spare a glance upward and already the green glow from above is a distant blob, and soon after that it’s just a small pinpoint of sickly light. Then it’s gone. The rock wall rushes by me in gray and sudden red hues as if passing indeterminate fires. The stone face of some fanged demon leers up at me as I fall toward it. I pass it and consider trying to get onto its jutting head, but it’s gone too quickly and the rumbling rock carries me farther down into the dark.

  At that moment the screen goes black and the game dies.

  Chapter 9

  An hour later I’m standing in the dark, watching the storm roll in underneath Upper New York. Everything is darkness; outside on the streets below, no one. It feels like the night after the world ends. I’m nursing a scotch, confused and wondering what to do with myself. The Black went down for a reason. The only one I can think of is that the feds got close to someone important and the Black runners freaked out and went dark. Like the city.

  And I’m out a thousand bucks?

  If so, things can’t be worse than they already are. It doesn’t matter if I have half the rent. The landlord wants it all. If I don’t have all, out I go.

  My Petey’s doomsday ringtone goes off.

  Important message.

  The Black will be back up in six minutes.

  That should make me happy. But it doesn’t. All it means is that my thousand isn’t totally gone, yet. Maybe the game’s been bugged now. Maybe whoever shut it down, the developer, the programmer, the Black runners themselves, got caught and they’re flipping the red queen on their subscribers.

  Us. Me.

  Maybe.

  What other choice do I have?

  No message from Sancerré.

  I finish my drink, make another, and sit back down at my desk. The Black goes live and the word Begin flashes across my screen. I can see my HUD. My hot keys, minimap, and Vitality and Stamina meters are all there. But the screen is completely dark.

  I touch the movement direction keys. Side to side. I hear the shuffle of the Samurai’s wooden sandals stepping and then echoing off something unseen and nearby, fading off into the distance.

  My eyes accustom to the darkness of the screen and I realize nothing’s wrong. At least not with my computer or the game itself. It’s just really dark wherever I am in-game. I can’t even make out shapes or outlines. It’s pitch-black.

  A complete absence of light.

  Deep under the earth. Where the light don’t go.

  The bottom of the pit. The end of the fall.

  Great.

  In other words, I’m lost in the dark.

  The words Oubliette of Torment appear across my screen in crimson gothic spike script.

  What the hell is an Oubliette? I tell my Petey to look up the meaning of the word. It tells me it’s a synonym for dungeon. From the French, meaning literally, “a forgotten place.”

  So I’m in the forgotten place of torment.

  I pan upward. The darkness seems even deeper there.

  So how did I survive the fall into the pit? Or did the game just place me in this zone at random? Or does the pit somehow lead to the Oubliette of Torment?

  Over ambient in-game sound, a guitar plucks sardonically at discordant strings. Or at least that’s what it feels like to me. I make sure the whip is equipped and start out into the thick darkness. A small musical loop begins cycling across the soundtrack. It’s the music of flutes swirling downward on a sigh more than anything else. It begins to accompany the sarcastic guitar.

  In time, my Samurai bumps into what I think is a wall. I turn right, trying to use the wall as a guide. The wall turns to the right, and I feel like I’m heading into a darkness even deeper than the one I’ve been in. Ahead, far off in the distance, I see some kind of light. Or a lessening of the dark.

  The soundtrack seems to come and go. At times I’m concentrating so hard on finding my way through a maze made of darkness that I barely even notice when the music stops. Then, when I’m least expecting it, the guitar plucks an impulsive string with an odd twang, jolting me upright.

  Am I getting lost? Have I made a bad choice and this is the game’s way of telling me so?

  And maybe I should lay off the scotch.

  I arrive in the less dark area, and it takes me a vertigo-filled moment to figure out what’s going on. The light reveals itself to be an odd-shaped square. Sides slant off in one direction; I know it’s a shape of some sort, I just don’t know which one. The square of light is bone white and crosshatched, as though there are bars somewhere high above, between the light source and the floor it’s shining down on. I look up. I can see only an indeterminate spotlight and shadowy bars between it and my Samurai. I move forward into the lighted area and realize there are other squares at random intervals, leading off in another direction. There are solid walls of darkness between me and those islands of crosshatched black and white.

  Could the light source be the moon, and in between it and me are high grates or grilles, open toward the game’s version of night? The desert? The tower? The crosshatched squareish islands of light form a rambling hall leading off in a direction my in-game minimap refuses to identify. All the cardinal points on the minimap are noted with a question mark.

  I’m either lost, or I’ve gone into a zone where east and west, south and north, don’t have any meaning.

  That can’t be good.

  A thought occurs to me as I try to reason out what’s happening. What’s happened. I don’t like this. I don’t like this for a lot of reasons. The main reason revolves around my thousand bucks. Maybe I’ve wasted my money, died in that fall into the pit, and now the game is wasting my time by sending me to its version of the afterlife.

  Am I in the game’s hell?

  Can I escape?

  Maybe there’s no escape.

  My fingers are paralyzed, hovering like claws over the keyboard and mouse. I feel like taking a drink from the nearby scotch, but I don’t.

  This is not supposed to happen. They can’t rip me off like this.

  Why can’t they? It’s an open source Black game. To myself I think, What’d ya expect? A shooter channeling you down narrow lanes full of explosions and action just like some ride at DisneyIsland or the latest game of MegaWarrior? The whole game on rails to keep you in the story and completing the game, so some big developer can give you a good time for your dough, at cost?

  This, that ain’t.

  This is an open source illegal online game, akin to gambling. Mom used to say, “The house always wins.”

  Well, Mom might have been right. Again.

  I follow the crooked path
of bar-covered light and in time I see them. Beautiful women. They’re barely clothed in a variety of costumes ranging from slave girl to merchant princess to slutty elf, and they’re all chained on either side of the hall. Crosshatched light swims along their undulating bodies as they raise their shackled hands in supplication.

  Obviously I’m distracted. The bodies are rendered perfectly. Each of them is, like I said, beautiful. Different. No two the same. They reach for me from the dark as I pass, and I know this has got to be some sort of trap.

  Succubi?

  But they’re chained.

  A raven-haired statuesque Amazonian in flimsy silk whispers “Please . . .” at me as I pass. Then I hear another voice. A man. Middle Eastern. “She’s real and waiting, my friend. Just slay her and you can watch us beat her live via the feed.”

  “What?” I say into my mic.

  “You heard me, my friend. Pick one. Chop off her head and you’ll be invited into her real world. You’ll see what she’s doing. And what’s being done to her. I promise you, it will all be very thrilling . . . and humiliating for her.”

  I stare at all the girls, computer-rendered models of real-life models. A programmer’s promise of what they look like in the real world. What I’m seeing now is what I’ll see when I join her feed. Each of them was that prettiest girl in school we all wanted to know. Guys like me had crushes on girls like these. Just crushes because guys like me would never say or do anything about a girl like that. They were epic; we were just . . . us.

  Somehow their beauty took them away from high school and all the towns and cities they came from. Took them to the ends of the earth. And then some. Some girls became actresses. Ultramodels. Trophies of the rich. And some . . .

  . . . end up in online brothels on the other side of the world. In the Middle East where their owners can get away with this stuff because women are still just a possession there. Always have been. Probably always will be.

  If you have the dough, you can have them. But that’s not my style.

  I continue on, leaving the moaning beauties behind me, their bodies burned into the folds of my mind forever.