on Game
Justus R. Stone
Red Bucket Publishing
Copyright Justus R. Stone 2014
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any references to real world streets, cities, etc. are used in a fictional manner.
Revelation Game. Copyright © 2013 by Justus R. Stone. All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Published by Red Bucket Publishing, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
https://redbucketpublishing.com
First Edition
ISBN 978-0-9877439-5-4
Game Start - Level 1
The angel’s blue eyes burn like an icy fire. They lock onto my own crimson ones. “Please, show some mercy.”
I laugh. I laugh so hard I almost drop my sword.
“Mercy? Where do you think you are?” I snarl. “There’s no mercy in Hell.”
My sword whistles as it cuts through the air. It passes through the angel’s neck just as easily. Before either his body or head hit the ground, they shatter into specks of light that hang in the air, twinkling for a moment, before dissipating like smoke.
“Did you get anything good?” my partner in this little excursion asks.
He stands on two muscular legs--comically small in comparison to his torso that is double human proportions. Coarse, stone-like flesh, creaks and groans with every movement.
His giant jaw grinds into what I figure passes as a smile. We’ve teamed up on some large group quests, but this was our first time with just the two of us. I admit, he’s good, but his character name makes it almost impossible to take him seriously--FuknDemon1.
I snap my fingers, bringing up my display and swipe through the menu options until I come to the tab Latest Spoils. Nothing.
“Nah. He was only a level five cherubim. I bet they just allowed him out of Heaven and he though he’d be all badass and stir some shit in Hell.” I look at my feet where he’d been just a moment ago. An hour tracking some know-nothing noob. “What a waste of time.”
“Still,” FuknDemon1 says with a punch to my arm, “that was awesome. There’s no mercy in Hell! Dude, you were all like Spaaartaaa! and crap.”
I shrug it off. No sense being a douche about it. Still, I bet it did look kind of cool. Only problem with this game being first person, you don't get to see you're character’s awesome moves.
"Do you have time to do another mission?" FuknDemon1 asks. "I've got a fourth tier Influence.”
"What's the map reference?"
“17-14-630084-4833438”
As he recites the numbers, I type them into my mapping system.
I shake my head. “Sorry, I can't."
"Too late?"
I check my clock--it's just after midnight. Which, yeah, is late for a school night. Not that anyone will care.
"No, I still have time, but it's in my no-go zone."
There are missions in Hell, but the biggest points are for manipulating mortals. Only thing is, on Earth, every player has a restricted zone where they’re not able to go. Chatter on the boards figures those areas correspond to where we live.
Revelations uses geo data from multiple sources to create realistic representations of the world’s neighborhoods. It might be creepy to mess with people in our own, so I suppose the restriction makes sense. Though seeing how realistically the game renders my own neighborhood might be kind of cool.
The cracked slant that passes for a smile crosses FuknDemon1’s face.
"I've got a patch that'll fix that,” he says.
We’re standing in the middle of the Eternal Plane, a field with calf-high grass that spans hundreds of miles. There’s been no sign of another player the entire time we chased the newbie angel. The mention of a forbidden mod still makes me drop my voice to a whisper.
"You mean the geo-hack? I thought that was just a rumor."
He shakes his head.
"No. I got it from my cousin. I did a minor manipulation on the fringe of my no-go zone the other night. It worked fine. Give me your email and I'll send you the file."
"You better not be sending me a virus."
He holds up his clawed hand.
"Scout's honor."
"Yeah, cause you're such a Boy Scout."
His mangled face, with elongated snout and red slits for eyes, manages to look hurt.
"Am too."
I do my best not to crack up--there's no mistaking the expressions of my avatar's humanoid face. Maybe I should've made him look more monstrous, like FuknDemon1's.
"Ok, fine, you're a real Boy Scout." Am I smirking? I concentrate on keeping my expression nonchalant. "Go ahead and send me the file. My email is
[email protected]."
"Cool. Give me a second."
His avatar goes slack, all light extinguishing from its eyes. A field of energy surrounds him, preventing any damage--a character during pause.
Revelations works in real time. While you can pause your character and receive no injury, the rest of the world still continues on without you. It's a pain in the ass if you're in the middle of a long campaign and need to piss real bad, but it adds to the realism.
The field fizzles out and his eyes glow again.
“Ok, I sent it. It’s just a small exec file. Drop it in the top level of the game folder and execute it. You’ll need to reboot after it installs. I’ll wait here.”
“Ok. I’ll be back in a few.”
A snap brings up my menu and I swipe it over to the Logoff option. From FuknDemon1’s perspective, the grey skinned, humanoid demon in black armor blinks out of existence.
My eyes remain closed during the logoff procedure. To be honest, it makes me feel sick--too much motion--all tunnels and flashing lights. The sound of the restraints clicking open signals I’m out.
Every time I lift the neurolinx helmet from my head, I’m surprised how light it is--this thing must contain serious tech to interface with the mind. But thank god, cause with all the hours I play, any heavier and it would kill my neck.
I hop out of the game chair and crash into the rattling office chair in front of my computer. Spots where the duct tape has peeled up poke me in uncomfortable places. Why the hell do I still need to use a mouse or a keyboard when technology exists where I can play a game with my mind? Stupid.
The active window is black except for white blocky letters that spell out Revelations. I click to quit the program.
Are you sure you want to Quit? Y/N
I click ‘Y’ and open my email program. It's a pretty sweet deal--for thirty bucks a month I get an email account, rental of the gaming equipment, and unlimited access to the game servers. In the past, I think people paid the same just to log on every month and play using their mouse and keyboard.
FuknDemon1's email has no subject and no text, just an attachment. The file downloads to my drive and gets hit with every piece of antivirus software I own. I even run it through a few free trials, just to be sure. The file shows clean in every single one.
Huh, maybe he really is a Boy Scout.
The installation is as simple as he said. As the hourglass spins, my fingers tap some random rhythm. Several songs worth of drum solos pass before a small popup box alerts me that the operation has succeeded.
I reboot Revelations.
My monitor goes black. A thrumming bass, unsettling in its urgency, comes through the speakers. Above this dark foundation, horns, bright and cheerful, play a triumphant march. White lettering floats tow
ard the screen, the letters twisting and turning. I swear they form specific shapes--most of the people on the boards disagree. What the hell do they know? I bet none of them even take the time to watch, much less appreciate, the opening. Besides, I’m not alone--a number of websites agree with me.
When the title Revelations displays prominently on the screen, it’s time. It loaded without any noticeable glitches or changes. For all I know this won’t work. Hopefully FuknDemon1 hasn’t taken off--it took longer to load than I figured.
The game chair is a mixture of moulded plastic and memory foam. The manuals say you can play lying down on a bed, but there’s also a warning your body may respond to the mental stimulus which could result in injury. The game chair has restraints to keep that from happening, and supposedly uses other bio-feedback to heighten the sense you are physically in the game. What the hell, the chair only cost an extra five bucks a month.
I’ve sat in this chair every day since Revelations released eight months ago. After all those hours, the foam conforms to my body like it was custom made. I pull on the neurolinx helmet, covering my entire head.
“Load.”
The restraints lock into place over my wrists, ankles, and midsection. I close my eyes--the initial dive is just as puke inducing as logging out.
“Descend.”
Bright strobing lights flash against my closed eyelids. When the light becomes consistent and my ears are bombarded by the noise of thousands of voices, I open my eyes.
Welcome to Hell.
The gate stands behind me. To my knowledge, no one has actually seen it open, even though we all supposedly enter through the gate. It soars into the sky, ten floors tall, all black, wrought iron, twisting