Anna S checks her inventory. “I’ve got… moldy bread, two rotten tomatoes, and a half-eaten hamburger. Can you cook something with that?”
“You bet I can!”
“Cool.” She tosses the food to Pepper. “Thanks.”
Pepper’s kitchen materializes around her. She puts Anna’s ingredients in a wok, but I stop the penguin before she can light the gas burner. I turn to Anna, preparing my Shellshock in case she tries to blast me. “Pepper’s meals are better than stimpacks.” I fold my arms. “We charge for that.”
Pepper blinks. “We do?”
Anna snorts and eyes Pepper. “What are you, some kind of Iron Chef?”
“A thousand gold.” I hold out my hand.
“How’s two?” Anna S slaps 2000 gold into my palm. It see it add to my gold total.
I wasn’t expecting her to pay me. Anna S is a LivingLegend, which means she needs to pay off her medical debt just as much as I do. What’s the catch? “Maybe we should charge more.”
She lights a cigarette and blows neon smoke. “Why so hostile, DDD?”
“You threatened to kill me. Gun to my head, remember?"
“Pussy.” She takes a drag. “I protected you.”
“By threatening to blow my brains out?”
“Players won’t steal a kill, it’s one of the few codes they agree upon.” Anna blows through her nose. “I put a gun to your head, you’re my kill. I claimed you. So none of them would.”
“Here you go!” Pepper arrives with a steaming meatball sub on a golden brioche bun. “Panino con Polpette. Enjoy!”
“Whoa.” Anna grips the piping-hot sandwich. “That’s fast.” She takes a bite. “…and fantastic!”
“Thank you, Anna!”
Anna S pulls her neon combat machete, cuts the sandwich, and offers me half. “You want to get in on this?”
“No.” I don’t know what game this lady is playing, but I don’t like it, and I don’t like her. “Hermit Class is immune to Hunger.”
“Well I’m not.” Anna takes another bite and smiles, savoring the taste. “You don’t get hungry and your companion is the best chef in the universe? You see the irony in that, right?”
“Aw, thank you, Anna!” Pep beams. “What’s ‘irony’?”
“Dig in.” Anna hands the other half to Pepper and the two of them eat happily. “Good to heal up and rest while we can.” Anna wipes away meat juice from her chin and gestures at the saferoom door. “No telling when they’ll come back.”
“I’m fine.” I watch my health bar climb fast toward 100%. The Hermit class makes my party heal quickly when we’re alone, and apparently, being with Anna S is the same as being alone. “Why can’t we get in the saferoom?”
“No NPCs allowed. We stay outside like good dogs.” She says through a mouthful of meatball sub. “I’m guessing this is your first quest.”
“Second.” It’s clear she has more experience than me, which stings a bit. I puff myself up. “We’re not noobs.”
“You’re a LivingLegend, I’m a LivingLegend,” Anna jerks her chin at Pepper. “What is she?”
I’m not giving this lady any answers. I do, however, want some of my own. “What hospital are you in?”
“Somewhere in Boulder, Colorado, probably.”
“Probably?”
“Mm. Have either of you guys met a LivingLegend named Hank? Or maybe Hank the Tank?”
“No. I met one named Buck Rogers. Buckly Granger.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“He’s dead.”
“Aren’t we all?” Anna smiles. “I saw two of us get killed already. On my first quest, a guy on life support got eaten by a giant snake. The other just…” She drops her head. “Just pissed off the wrong player. I’ve been alone since then. Nice to have a new friend, though.”
I frown. This is a No Participation Trophy Quest. We’re not friends, we’re competitors. “Look. There’s a million gold at the top of this mountain, lady. And I’m getting there first.”
“Why does it matter?”
I blink. How much gold is this woman hoarding? She’s starting to piss me off. “I’m going to get out of here, what do you think?”
Anna bursts out laughing—loud, messy, meatball sub spraying. “With gold? Are you serious?”
“No, I—” My brain jams. “What?”
She talks slow, like I’m a toddler. “Have you actually tried to buy anything in this game?”
I think of Bloodspurt’s Armory. The Outlaw Merchant. “Yeah… in Trader’s Point.”
“And did they let you buy anything?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Exactly. NPCs can’t buy sh§t.” She smacks her knee with each word. “Gold. Is. Worthless. To. Us.”
“But… our debts—”
She wheezes laughter, practically choking on her sub. “You really think HumanAsset is erasing medical debt with Monopoly money?”
The realization hits like a gut punch. Rage, shame, humiliation—they all boil inside me at once. Of course gold is useless. RiftBorn mints it… their supply is literally infinite. How could I have been so stupid? A hundred furious emotions tear through me and I try to hide them. I fail. “So how am I supposed to pay off my debt?”
She finishes her sandwich and picks up her still-burning neon cigarette. “HypeScore.”
“HypeScore? I don’t know what—” Wait. I’ve seen that word a few times. After the dance party, after the trebuchet escape, and way back in the Icebox, when I was penalized a thousand points. But the first time I saw it was… I check my HUD. Yes. It’s at the bottom of my Character Sheet. VSC HypeScore: ?2100. “What the f§ck is HypeScore?”
“V. S. C. Viral. Social. Commercial.” Anna talks slowly, like she’s explaining the alphabet one letter at a time. “That’s the game. Your primary objective? Ring any bells?”
I cling to my old hopes. “Are you sure it’s not gold?”
She barks a laugh. “You didn’t play the tutorial, did you? Bet you’re one of those ‘real men don’t read the manual’ types.”
She’s got me cold. “No, no, I… look, it’s been—just, y’know, jog my memory.”
Anna leans back against the saferoom wall, cigarette dangling from her fingers. “V. S. C.” She ticks them off, starting with her thumb. “Viral. Help make cool Player videos, something dumb, something flashy. Every thousand views, we get a dollar.” Index finger. “Social. Hashtags, stitches, share links, engagement, new players. Create a hundred extra game-hours? Get a hundred bucks.” Middle finger. “Commercial. Branding, likeness rights, sponsorships, merch. That’s where the real money lives. Ten percent profit share.” She folds her fingers into a fist, then exhales a cloud of smoke and wiggles her fingers as if it’s a magic trick. “Viral. Social. Commercial. That’s what HumanAsset wants, Deep Debt Dick. That’s what keeps our lights on.”
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
I click on my HypeScore line and my HUD explodes with a neon banner that I probably would have seen if I had stuck with Little Jimmy in the tutorial.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: HypeScore ?6,597,917
Current Total: ?2100
I slump against the wall. O’Cavity told me, he flat-out told me, and I didn’t listen. If it hadn’t been for the Don’t Die Dave video clip, I would be in the Placebo Protocols already. Eleven hundred measly bucks for that stupid trebuchet stunt where I nearly got killed. And it’s not even a fraction of what I owe.
But at least I know what I’m playing for.
I stop myself before I make more assumptions and screw myself over even further. “Is a Hype point worth a real dollar in the real world?”
“Good at any HumanAsset facility.” Anna chuckles. “I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to bend us over a barrel on the percentages, it’s HumanAsset after all.” She breathes smoke. “But yes, it’s real money.”
“So 6.6 million Hype and I’m out of here.”
“6.6 million?” She whistles, eyes narrowing. “That’s heavy cheddar, Triple D.”
“Colon cancer.” I shrug. “Three years. Why, how much do you owe?”
She flicks ash, casual. “I’m a bargain at 1.8 mil.”
“For what?”
“Car wreck.” She pauses, and her voice gets quiet. “Six weeks ago.” For the first time, her face loses its smirk. Whatever light is inside her just… clicks off. “I never even woke up, technically. Been in a coma since the crash.” She forces a laugh, but there’s no joy in it. “Playing RiftBorn in my sleep. Lucky me.”
I pause, not sure if I should say anything, and the only words that slip out are, “I’m sorry.”
She nods, then bares her teeth in a bitter smile. “Worst part? I didn’t even sign their stupid contract. My brother did. HumanAsset basically told him either he signs or I die, so—he signed. Saw his signature on my digital copy.” She flicks her cigarette over the cliff. “Signed my life away.”
“Can he do that?”
“Power of attorney. Courtesy of HumanAsset.”
“Of course.”
“Of course.”
We share a wry smile. We’ve both been screwed over by corporate greed. There’s a camaraderie in that, at least. I nod. “So… HypeScore.”
“I have HypeScore too!” Pepper’s kitchen folds back into whatever alternate universe it comes from as she joins us. “Isn’t it fun?”
“No, you don’t, Cabbage Patch.” I shake my head. “We have HypeScore, you’re just a… math game.”
“Oh! I thought that’s what this was. Did I get the letters wrong?” Pepper’s chalkboard appears with her Character Profile on it, and she does, in fact, have a number.
HypeScore: ?61,771
61 thousand dollars? I feel my jaw drop open. “Wait, that’s not possible…”
“Whoa!” Anna touches the chalkboard and Pepper’s HypeScore is suddenly displayed as a timetable. I see a big spike near the beginning. “This ‘Don’t Die Dave’ video got you ?4400. That’s awesome, Pepper, but your YMCAts Dance Party… which was brilliant by the way...”
“Thank you, Anna!”
“...is even bigger.” She zooms out on the timeline and I realize it doesn’t end like I thought; it’s a massive spike that goes straight up. “Your Dance Party is worth ten times the Don’t Die Dave stunt. And it’s not just the video, it’s the engagement. You created thousands of new signups. And it’s still going up.”
I stare at the graph of Pepper’s popularity score rocketing toward the moon. I’m fighting for my life in this stupid game, and I’m being outplayed by my cartoon penguin.
“Neato!” chirps Pepper.
“You’re way up there. Here, look at this.” Anna swipes the HypeScore screen and I see a new display pop up.
LivingLegend Leaderboard — ? VSC HypeScore
Rik Van Otterdik — ?91,006
Stroyk the Slayer — ?72,180
PEPPER* — ?61,771
SinnaPomme — ?36,335
Cowabunga — ?31,203
I stare at the list. “Pepper is in third place? She’s not even a person, and she’s in third f§cking place?! Where am I?”
Anna scrolls down. And down. And down. There are way too many names, all of them some patient in some hospital with an arcade token drilled into their skull. “How many death-ward vegetables did they jam in this place?”
“About four hundred of us. There’s me.” She points, and I see Anna S ?9512. She keeps scrolling, down, down, you’ve got to be kidding me, down. There I am. Right at the very bottom of the list. DDD ?2100.
The only LivingLegends below me have ??? HypeScore. Their names are all Deleted from Memory.
Buck is one of those empty slots. So is Anna’s iron lung guy and the other LivingLegend she saw die. Deleted from Memory.
According to the Leaderboard, I’m next to go down.
“Look, I can’t fix you, dude.” Anna squints at me. “It’s not like we can team up, we’re private contractors, and I need to take care of #1 so I can get back to my family. But you don’t have to be top of the leaderboard to stay alive.” She leans in. “Listen to me. I get you didn’t play the tutorial, but it’s simple. Engage with your team. Be indispensable. You’ll get a rating from them and the next team will buy you. That’s HypeScore right there. Just… do what the EmpathyEngine tells you, and you’ll make enough to keep going.”
I lean away from her. She sounds like O’Cavity. “That’s what you’re doing? Making yourself indispensable?”
“They’re just little boys.” She puts her hand on my arm. “All you have to do is take charge and tell them what to do. They’ll listen.”
I have to laugh. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.” She pulls away but I don’t back down. “Teenage boys are one step above feral hyenas, they don’t obey unless they have to.”
Her face goes hard again. “How would you know?”
“Twenty years teaching public school.”
“You’re a teacher?” She seems surprised. “What subject?”
Without warning, all the old emotions suddenly boil up inside me like a volcano. Molly. Her funeral. Me, walking like a zombie through the next two years, angry at the faculty, bitter with my students, hating everyone in the world because she was dead. Getting fired. Jumping from school to school as a substitute teacher, buying the vending machines, abandoning my life.
I hated feeling that vulnerable, that weak. Those years made cancer look like child’s play.
Molly.
I shove it all back down. I’m not sharing those times. Not with anybody. I stare at the sky and shrug. “Just a sub. I’m the guy they call when nobody wants the room.”
Now it’s her turn to laugh. “You were a substitute teacher for 20 years?”
End of discussion. I get up, looking for more answers. “Why does that keep jumping forward?”
“What?”
I point at the cloud. “The clock.”
15 days, 14 hours until RiftStorm destroys the world.
I squint at it. “Right before I got here, it was at 19 days. When I joined the Bros, it jumped to 15 days. Where did those 4 days go?”
Anna shrugs. “When you accept an invite, there’s a delay. You can only join a party at certain spots, and you have to wait until they get to one.”
“But I didn’t wait, it just happened.”
“You got the good drugs.” She gestures to the saferoom. “It’s like now. The party is gone, which means time slips a bit. Sometimes you stay conscious, sometimes they knock you out, sometimes you get that in-between fugue state.”
I remember Molly’s final days in the hospital. “Twilight sleep.”
“Right.”
I eye the clock again to discover another two hours are gone.
15 days, 12 hours until RiftStorm destroys the world.
Time for the final question. The one that scares me. “So what is the RiftStorm?”
“That.” She points at the opposite end of the world.
It smears the horizon like a storm front. Black, roiling clouds over the ocean. But within the blackness, the lightning is indigo. As I watch, the RiftStorm seems to move toward me with a malevolent will, the inexorable tide of death.
I get that sickening feeling in my gut again. “So that’s how HumanAsset is going to kill whoever’s left at the end.”
“Pessimistic much?”
I know Anna S’s type. What we used to call a coconut. Hard on the outside, soft on the inside. “Practical.”
“Call it what you want. But I’m not the one calling teenagers vicious hyenas."
I snort at her na?ve, tenderhearted view of America’s youth. “How old are you, like thirty?”
“Close.” She appraises me. “How did you know that? My voice?”
“Happy Feet.” I snort. “That’s what you called Pep.” Anna looks confused, so I explain. “Happy Feet is your penguin cartoon reference. If you were my age, you’d say Opus or maybe Chilly Willy. If you were younger, you’d say that Club Penguin show my niece watched or some other damn thing I don’t even know about. Happy Feet makes you a Millennial kid.”
Now it’s Anna’s turn to appraise me. She nods. “Pretty smart, DDD.”
“Dave.”
“Welp.” She slaps her thighs and stands. “Don’t die, Dave. I’m gonna get some meditation time, you should do the same. It’s the closest thing we get to sleep. Never know when our employers are coming back to get us killed.”
I suddenly realize I don’t want her to go. “Hey? One last question.”
“Yeah?”
Buck Granger wanted to know the answer. So do I. “What’s a Veemor Pig?”
“VVMORPG.” Anna chuckles. “Viral Virtual Massively Monetized Role-Playing Game. One hell of a place to call home.” She turns and waves over her shoulder. “Thanks for the grub, Pepper. You’re a hell of a chef.”
“Goodnight, Anna!” Pepper turns to me. “Oh, I think she’s nice, don’t you?”
I stare at the clock written in the clouds.
I’ve been playing by the wrong rules. If HumanAsset wants us to buy our way out by selling their crap, they’ve got an ugly surprise coming. They want us to dance, they want us to make them popular. But they’re using cancer patients and car crash victims to line their pockets.
I’m not playing their game. I’m going to ruin it.
If they want to make money off our backs, I’m going to give them nothing to sell.
Activate: A-Team Skill
Tactical Montage
I watch the RiftStorm on the horizon, black clouds and purple lightning over stormy seas. “Come on, Cabbage Patch. We’ve got work to do.”