op pls nerf: Part One

American Oneironautics

For every fallen dream, there's a hard knock on the door.

Chapter ONE

There Ain't a Father Here

Sorry to be a bother, but where the fuck are my cigarettes?
They were on the rider excplicitly
Where the fuck are my cigarettes?!

The argument: The doped-man machine is gonna be dope, man. But before you head in, better make sure you didn't forget anything important…

Franky Fisher, down from reading up on the Luddites, ran into the woods and got lost.

To Belton, who came downstairs just as this story broke, this meant very little. To his brother, a couch-stain kid, glued to the tube when not glued to his games, it seemed to mean a lot.

–You see this? the little lad asked.

Belton passed through the family room, heading to the fridge to look, with drooping eyes, for something better on his buds than water.

–Do we have any orange juice? Belton called from the kitchen.

–They saying Franky Fisher ran into the woods, Shane called back.

–Who cares? Do we have any orange juice?

–I think you drank it all.

–When did I…?

He vaguely remembered coming down for midnight juice while he pumped himself up for academic reading. But then he got drunk and browsed Vine comp vids till he fell asleep. Must've used the OJ to cut whatever swill he sucked down. Looking into the kitchen trash and finding a crumbled OJ carton and a sucked-clean bottle of bottom-shelf bourbon confirmed this. Eugh, cutting bourbon with orange juice? Belton, what are you doing?

–I have important business to attend to, announced Belton. I need something nutritious to drink. He wondered if he had the energy to drive to the nearby petrol pseudo-place and buy soda.

His brother, as he watched the television-news, gorged on the breakfast spread before him. Sugar-cereal, sloppy and soggy, drowning in whole milk; syrup-drenched unfrozen french toast; apple slices slathered with peanut butter; chewy, microwaved bacon; instant coffee with cow-absent creamer… stacked to the point of toppling on a TV-dinner tray… surely Shane wasn't so syrup soaked?

Belton took a Pop-Tart from the pantry. He opened the fridge again and stared inside for several minutes before resigning himself to apple juice, his third least favorite juice. He went to the family room to sit. The news people, pasty faced and beaming, continued consuming Franky.

–Why'd he run into the woods? asked Belton, struggling to remember who Franky Fisher was.

–His girlfriend dumped him. That's probably why. Course, she says she don't know why he ran. Maybe he's just crazy?

–And now he's lost?

–I guess. If the news don't know where he at, nobody does.

–What a stupid story, said Belton.

The news people moved on to talk bout mid-east glass(Ed) cracked peace. Shane, bored of the war, turned to Belton with eyes wide and full of **********.

–How's your reading coming?

–Oh, you know, it's coming.

It wasn't.

Belton bought, a few weeks previously, thirty books on the Franco-Prussian War (the entirety of respectable scholarship on the conflict, he imagined) and assorted fiction from and about the period. This spree arose from a sudden and inexplicable urge to understand the war; not war, this war; the conflict's causes, actions, results. He read half of La Debacle before he lost his copy and, morally unable to start another book till he'd finished his last (and being above PDFs), his research ground to a Frenchly halt.

Belton brushed Pop-Tart crumbs from his shirt. He sipped his juice. His brother watched a video on his phone. The television's talking heads droned. Drones, droning, buzzing overhead. Dumb drones and smart drones, droning and groaning.

How loud. Belton wished he could have just a second's silence, a moment without his brother slurping cereal, blasting the TV, yelling into his computer, or bumping to shitty, top-ten tunes from his phone's grainy speakers.

Did silence still exist? Maybe it never had, save for in the pre-Bang nothing. But that was hardly the past, right? Belton's real problem remained thus: while a horizontal lounger prolly never had peace, at least he had the yore-age's honester yelling. Up until the raucous rock, with all its scream-fueled ahead-steamin, the noise was at least honest. All Belton got was a dull electric buzz interspersed with distorted, digital, dog-whistley whines.

Is this why Franky ran woodward? Belton felt a camaraderie with the sad, lost lad. It hardly mattered that he couldn't remember who Franky was, it hardly mattered that normally he wouldn't care. It hardly mattered that Franky wore the face of a fast-burning, single-minded competition kid; the polar opposite of bummy-brained Belton.

Franky: the too-cool kid, the barely bad boy, the burn it all down don't bother starting over o wait nvm, all talk, non-threatening, easily absorbed radical that captivates the socially conscious for a few years before fading away forever. Franky was supposed to fight fierce in whatever arena, encourage some good-enough cause, then fuck off. But Franky went from bleh-bad to bad-bad. From DUIving, dankrupting his local dealer, and trashing hotel rooms to preaching antinatalism and waxing on about whacking oneself. Like a LatAm nation that goes from roving, paramilitary death squads to nationalized fruit. You know, from boys will be boys to real trouble, deserving of a JDAM dump.

Franky lost confidence that the world contained happiness and not just however many millions miserable in their own minds. Impotent and raw, he sucked down too much burnt-black air, grew altogether too tired, came to feel little save his own senselessness.

Then, in characteristically depressed dude fashion, he ran into the woods and got lost.

Somewhere far off, Franky's ex-girlfriend, Rachel Hope (too reasonable for anyone's good) frowned while she sat at her desk. She'd been interviewed all morning, and now wished she'd told the press what she really thought.

–Don't blame me if that dumbass freezes to death, some people are just predisposed to this sort of thing.

Got a cheap dress on
With a wrinkled sleeve
My hat and glove
My money please
Or we might just go
With a burnt black air
I’d rather be home
My president’s there…

Belton's username, when he was a kid playing screen-MMOs on his first rig, was cooldude13. Genuine and innocent, the name came from his misguided belief that he was, in fact, a cool dude. But cooldude got boring, so he replaced it with big_dick_belton. Big_dick_belton didn't last long, cause it's horrible, and Belton felt odd with his name in his name. He switched to Lunardude on account of his life-long love of the Moon, the only nighttime celestial body his town's light pollution hadn't snuffed out. But in a badass, half-dive, Hundred Years' War sim, he found the name taken, so he switched to Lunarkid, the IGN he's had ever since.

It’s one of those busy petrol pseudo-places, a copy of some forgotten original, the product of a deranged whatever-we-worship with its fingers stuck on ctrl+v.

Belton sat in his room, before his PC. Stacks of unread books rose up around him. Zola was still MIA, maybe stack-strewn, maybe not, he honestly had no idea. God, how many he hadn't read! How many would he get through before he died? At his current rate, zip.

He pulled up a PDF of La Debacle, determined to get through at least 100 pages, physical copy or not. After six he tabbed to Netflix Plat to watch their newest original, Spectacular Failure, a "show about Scotland," as one faux-film critic (blogger) would have it. "The Scots, the spirits, the struggle." Belton thought his family was from Scotland (they were from Ireland, having crossed the Atlantic during the '30s on account of the Famine) and believed, by watching this show, he could get in touch with his roots. What roots? He had none, of course, and if he did, he wouldn't find them on Netflix. Beginning in Glencoe and going on to follow the Drummonds through their Darien disgrace and beyond, the drama culminates in poor, innocent, just pre-dangling Green shouting a Carton-esque declaration on his hopes for the Scottish people and their country. Of course, the real Green was English and, hilariously innocent of any wrongdoing, thought until his final moments he wouldn't get hanged. Whatever, figured Belton, the show was awful but awesome. The Drummonds in Panama, disease, turtle hunting, dramady in the colony, the besieging Spanish, 17th century New York, pirates n' shit…

She would hate it. Hate the whole damn thing. Iron Man sweatshirts and barely ironic Dora the Explorer backpacks. What'd Dora do to deserve getting plastered on some teen-meme's backpack? Bilingualability ain't no bad thing.

She had a pair of heart-shaped aviators, bright red, you know the type, all Lolita-like. They wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't had half-acre eyes and a flat chest.

–People need personality, she said. Not just stuff. I think it's an issue of being defined by other people's creations, you know?

Can we create an identity on our own? Does Belton among non-beings really exist? Is so, how? Does it matter?

This is the appropriation of all things by non-things that… somebody French was worried about. Who? What was Debord on about?

Belton hadn't dealt with Debord. He probably never would.

Living things are losing their once-privileged status, becoming more material… what they've always been?… maybe the march towards truth is all anything is?

Could you convince broke-boy-Belton his shattered-psyche is worth itself? Keep in mind, Belton isn't real.

Either way, he wished he still had the book.

Give her the ole nut n strut. You're a man, aren't you? so fuck her and fuck off. No, jizz-jazzing ain't his ish, he never was that sorta slut.

Over a year and not a minute in the bone zone. Enough for a conviction, probably. He remembered when they were last close, months ago, when the Sun sat high. She'd iced him; God knows where she got that shitty swill anyway. They sat in her living room, watching a DVD-ripped Russian thing, burping and gulping her booze.

She stretched out on the couch, legs crossed, head tilted, wearing her blue bathrobe speckled with tiny golden fleur-de-lises, blowing bubbles from her vintage plastic pawnship pipe. She eyed him and smiled.

Buzzed, with burning cheeks, he giggled for a bit but fell asleep soft.

Shane bought the game: Fanget Online. Two copies, one for him and one for Belton, both for a discount due to the amount of money he'd dumped into the Dev's previous game. And Shane's friends, including his GF, got copies, too. Belton kinda wished Shane hadn't. It was exciting, sure, the tech was top, but did a positive outcome exist? Either he'd hate it and have to suffer through for his brother's benefit, making up excuses whenever he couldn't bear, or he'd love it, get addicted, and waste half a year in digital dive. He'd surface to find himself as dumb as ever, knowing not a thing more bout the Germs or the Gauls or their stupid war.

In the end, the tech was just too top to pass. We're talking full-dive, full-immersion, finally. Belton told his brother to get him a copy. If Shane pinched it, he'd play it. He did, so he did.

Chapter TWO

Challenge Everything

The argument: Belton needs this game to be good. Games are falling so fast…

Belton hated bad books. But lit was dead, so he didn't tend to trouble himself over the b/pig-pub pushed pulp. Games, on the other hand, still had a chance. They had to have a chance. Greedy capitalist claws couldn't choke out a medium so quickly; it'd been a mere half-century and he was sposed to believe the productification was done? Microtransactions and macrotransnational geographies; a cinematic cynicism; sellouts selling subprime, pre-baked bug bundles; boys buying a wet hunk of dough with only the baker's promise that he might toss it ovenwards at some unknown point in time… or maybe not, he don't owe you shit. The primary problem, in Belton's estimation, was, as always, the hype-heads.

These stakes seem low. Who cares if games are boardroom lame-brainchildren instead of starving artists' baby boys and girls? Who cares if devs just dev to the chart's trendy tune? Well, Belton, for one, because mediocrity's mainstream success exposed a serious problem in his worldview. If games (and books, and whatever else) could be thrown together, vomited up and sucked down despite (in Belton's mind) a disregard for quality or craft, why bother? If the great subjectivity was the new quo ante, to be restored after every ideologically reactionary upset (T. Blake's proto-robo-spirituality was a recent one) and just as many people like James P. as James J., then, again, why try? What did the Wake awake but flap and fluster?

Fanget Online hadto be good. Lunar needed to know that his peers cared bout quality beyond buzzy-worded praisey phrases like "solid shooting" and "immersive gameplay." If Fanget engaged with VR's silver-platter-served themes, if it took time to establish interesting conflicts and characters, if it made players question themselves and their perceptions, then Belton might be happy. Cause he didn't think he could handle another memey gimmick bought by the billions and praised past Pluto by, as always, the fucking hype-heads. Belton would be the first to tell you, he won't no moron; he craved depth.

Is all this the real issue? What actually happened? How does all this look from outside Belton's Pappy-boozed brain? Did Belton get older but not grow up because nobody told him he had to and he was too stupid to figure it out for himself?

Maybe Belton subscribes to the theory of the inner-being, a deep, special Belton that exists deep within himself and awaits discovery? His lack of passion, direction, and purpose all rise from this Belton's dormancy. Once real Belton gets found he'll stop jacking off to K-On! doujins and start doing something great. He probably has it in him to become a history professor. He only needs to awaken his inner will-to-read. Till then, he can probably get by on Project Reality and Ken Burns documentaries.

Chapter THREE

Oh Lord, won’t you buy a night on the town?
I’m counting on you, Lord, please don’t let me down…

The argument: Belton, his brother, and his brother's buddies run through the jungle.

Mid-May, 1969, Sum Province, Vietnam. A force of US marines, supported by CAS, engaged a triple-their-size VC contingent holed up in a vaguely Vietnamese temple. Rice fields and jungle surrounded the temple, along with scattered thatch huts and miles of tunnels the VC used to ambush the Americans and avoid their spooky air shit. The American force, the War Corps' finest, consisted of seven squads of ten marines each: Alpha (the Alpha Males), Bravo (the Breach Boys), Charlie (Charlie's Angels), Delta (Dick Cheney's Own), Echo (Echo Squad), Foxtrot (Faggot Actual), and Golf (the Gooks of Hazzard). The marines wielded a mix of M14s, M16s, M60s, M9 flamethrowers, M79 grenade launchers, shotguns, additional assorted firearms, and all manner of explosives: frag grenades, C4, claymores, etc. and etc. Victor Chuck wielded, of course, AK variants and other Russian weapons. He also carried potato mashers and was known to booby trap every conceivable corner of creation.

Shane and company, including Belton (wearing his IGN), made up most of Bravo Squad, the Breach Boys. Shane, the squaddie, carried an M16, purple smoke, a 1911, and various other squad leader shit. His GF, Kitty_the_Kat, carried an M3, a claymore, and several grenades. BysonBeb, his buddy, carried an M1903 with a scope, grenades, smoke, and an M1917. Beb's brother, surfincharlie, carried a corpsman's kit, four white smokes, and an M60 with ample ammo (this encumbered devil was quite the sight). Ricardio, Kitty's longtime friend, carried a 1911 and an M79 with six HE rounds and two smoke rounds. Lunar, who often felt out of place with his younger brother's buddies, carried an M16 and two grenades. The other four squad members carried M16s, frags, smokes, extra M60 ammo for surfincharlie (known colloquially as Charles), and extra HEs for Ricardio. Some guy in Faggot Actual had the force's flamethrower and two fifths of the Alpha Males, fancying themselves some sort of shock soldiers, carried trench guns and C4. Someone in the Gooks of Hazzard also (allegedly) had a canister of CS gas. Most of the soldiers also carried general gear: canteens, rations, cigs, the occasional prick-77, binoculars, shit like that.

The player-conceived plan had the bulk of the marines approach the temple from the east. The Alpha Males, the aforementioned (alleged) elite unit, had the admin spawn them a Huey so they could land to the west. One of the Males, jupit, assured his peers he could pilot it.

–I was highly proficient at a particular flying sim, Jupit told DingoDave, the marines' overall commander.

–What are you talking about, Jup? When did you play a flying sim? I thought you're scared of heights?

–I got over that. Trust me, I can fly this helicopter.

–There isn't even anywhere to land. It's all jungle on that side.

–I'll find somewhere. Don't worry about it.

So the Huey headed out, loaded with Alpha Males sitting on their helmets so as to not get their balls blown off.

The remaining sixty or so marines set off on foot to stumble through the jungle and slosh through the rice paddies, their eyes peeled for the VC undoubtedly lying in wait. Watching, wanting, eyes squinted, AKs leveled, peeking through the leaves, hungry to see GI take a dirt-dive. The mission creator felt, to fulfill his goal of capturing the authentic Nam experience in a single map, that he needed both dense, dark jungle and wide, wet rice fields upon which the hot, yellow Sun never set. Unable to cleverly combine the two he placed both randomly. From the Huey, currently hovering a hundred meters over its spawn while Jupit tried to figure out how to fly it forward, the whole map seemed a crazy quilt, some abstract, LSD nanna's wacky creation. The rice fields were scattered throughout the jungle, put in incomprehensible locations far from hut or home. And some huts, thatchy and devoid of furniture, sat in the middle of the jungle, shrouded in darkness, as if their builders hadn't realized trees and plants could be cleared. The whole map failed not only to represent Vietnam, but human habitation in general.

The map creator, realizing all this post-publishing, decided his map better served as an artistic statement rather than a real representation. It's a simulacrum, you see. One doubts his understanding of Baudrillard.

–It is, in a sense, a representation of Vietnam's essence, not a 1:1 recreation of any particular province. Most map makers, they fetishize realism, accuracy, and in doing so miss the experience of Nam, he said, sipping some bourbon, sitting in a red, fire-front lounger.

The first to get schwacked? Some Gooks of Hazzard kid. Right in the chest, out of nowhere, while his squad waded through a rice field.

–Shit! his squad leader yelled. They're shooting at us! Return fire!

But they didn't know from where the VC shot, so they returned fire all over, dumping lead into the jungle.

Each squad leader wore a headset through which they could talk to the commander and each other. Anachronistic, yes, but even the most hardcore historical shooters made certain QoL concessions. This particular squaddie pressed his finger to his headset's talk button and shouted.

–They're shooting at us!

–Yeah, we got that, said Dingo Dave. Standby.

Dingo Dave had been rolling with Echo Squad, several hundred meters behind and a bit to the left of Golf. He ordered all squads save engaged Golf and in-the-air Alpha to halt. Everyone could hear the shots, even Alpha over their heli's rotor-roar.

–We need to get out of this fucking water, said Golf's squad leader. He could hardly hear himself over the 7.62 zipping overhead and splashing into the water around him. His M60 man, a few meters away, finally got over the shock of shots and started sending American lead downrange. The air would've reeked of burning brass had the players been able to smell.

–Eat shit, slope bastards, the M60 man shouted, now in the groove, spitting out rounds with gleeful abandon.

Nearby, the dead kid lay half-submerged, a steady stream of blood pouring from his ripped chest-flesh, staining the paddy water red. One of his buddies stood over him, oblivious to the rounds around him.

–Yo, Brad, you okay? he asked. He poked his Brad-buddy with the barrel of his M16. Schwacked Brad didn't respond.

–Ugh, I think we need a dustoff, he said.

–Dingo, we need help! screamed the squad leader into his headset. These fuckers are everywhere!

–Yeah, affirmative on that, said Dingo Dave, some ways away, studying his unfolded map. Standby for… ugh… CAS, I guess.

CAS was all they had. No arty, no mortars, no nothing. Dingo supposed he could have Jupit hover over Golf in his Huey and get the Alpha Males to put down pain with the heli's .50s and their small arms, but considering Jupit hadn't moved forward since the mission start, able only to ascend straight up, Dingo was hesitant to count on him. So, CAS it was.

Echo stood around, peering into the jungle, listening longingly to Golf's engagement just a ways away. Their fingers felt their triggers, as if to assure themselves they were still there.

–Where's the radio? Dingo Dave shouted.

A radioman scurried up to him. In limiting QoL to the true necessities, the Devs made it impossible to communicate with CAS and (in other missions) other support via the headsets; for that one needed a prick-77, inevitably lugged around by some poor prick.

–Stay near me, said Dingo Dave as he took the radio's handset.

–I was near you, the radioman complained.

–CAS, this is Dingo, interrogative, how copy? asked Dingo Dave.

–I don't think you need the "interrogative," said the radioman.

–Shut up, I'm the commander.

–Yeah boy, CAS solidly copies, came a response over the radio.

Steven, always pumped to dump, way up in his F-4 Phantom.

–Golf is getting hit hard, they need support.

–Oh, aight fam. Hit me up with some coords and I'll see what I can do.

Dingo Dave deliberated over his map. Golf was in a rice field, he knew that much. And he could hear the shooting to his front-right, which his compass told him was roughly northwest. Assuming Charlie was in front of them… that meant the enemy was… here?

–Steven, grid coordinates… one one… zero eight… keypad four…

–Ugh… reconfirm those coords, Dingo, said Steven.

–One one… zero eight… keypad four…

–I think you're sposed to read the x-axis first, said the radioman, peeking at Dingo Dave's map.

–This is the x-axis, said Dingo Dave.

–No, x is horizontal.

–Screw it, it doesn't matter, said Dingo. Steven, Imma have Golf smoke the target, okay?

–Affirmative, what's y'alls pos rep? said Steven.

–Our what?

–Nevermind, said Steven, I think I know where you are.

–Golf Actual, this is Dingo, interrogative, can you mark the enemy's location with smoke?

–I really don't think you need- started the radioman.

–Fuck, I'll try! came Golf Actual's ear-shattering response. The squaddie felt certain he'd get shot any second. A bullet dove into the water nearby, splashing the crop-fluid into his face. He let loose a couple rounds from his M16, just cause it felt wrong not to, then took out a purple smoke, pulled the pin, and sent it skyward, putting everything he had behind it, channeling years of baseball into a single throw. It popped the moment it left his hand. The smoke stretched out in an arc across the sky as the grenade sailed, like the primary purple-streak on the mad paint-tosser's prized canvas, something beautifully meaningless. Golf Actual was pretty sure smokes don't pop that fast.

–Purple smoke on target, barbecue those bitches! shouted the squaddie, praying he'd sent his smoke in the enemy's general direction.

–CAS, this is Dingo, purple smoke marking the target, burn them up.

–Dingo, CAS, I got you. Get ready for Stevie's world famous slope-roast!

–Golf, support incoming, danger close, get back!

–Oh, I didn't know right fucking on top of us constituted danger close, said Golf Actual. Thanks for the warning.

He fired a few more shots just to hear his gun scream.

–Okay, boys, we're getting out of this fucking rice field!

Lunar spent the first half-hour of his half-dive experience shooting his brother, unconvinced by Shane's claims that he could, in fact, feel it.

–That is wild, I hafta admit, said Lunar, pointing his loaded P226 at his brother.

Shane flinched.

This was CQB III, one of the earliest games with pain. Players wore a haptic suit that pricked them IRL everytime they got in-game shot.

–What does it feel like? Lunar, at the time Lunardude, asked.

–Like getting shot by a paintball gun, said Shane, known in-game as DDOXer. Or, like, a slingshot or something. A BB gun? How much does a BB gun hurt?

–More than a paintball gun, said Lunar, who would know. Here, I'll try it.

Lunar put the pistol to his temple; his finger hovered over the trigger.

–Agh, it feels too weird. Here, you do it.

He handed the gun to Shane. His brother took it and felt up the piece, much nicer than any IRL weapon either could afford.

–You sure you wanna use a gun without a safety? he asked.

–It's fine, my trigger discipline is perfect. Now shoot me, I wanna see how it feels.

Shane shot him.

–Oh, damn, you're right, that does feel like a paintball. Shit, that kinda hurt…

Only a short time till full-dive, when the haptic suits and omnidirectional treadmills went by the wayside. Following that, full-immersion, with everything important simulated. Peak VR, as many saw it.

The front now roughly resembled this: Golf Squad occupied the far-right flank, but they were beating a hasty retreat, sloshing through the wet rice field, under fire from every direction. They'd sustained one KIA-kid, the M60 man had been shot in the thigh, and some other marine lost his M16 in the water.

Faggot Actual advanced slowly through the jungle to Golf's left in an attempt to outflank the VC. They hadn't come under fire but were tense, the sound of shooting reverberating around them, originating somewhere close. Behind Foxtrot stood the still-halted Echo. They were eager and anxious and somewhat irked with Dingo, who still insisted they remain where they stood. He'd considered moving them up to reinforce Golf, but wanted to see what Steven's support would do before he made any definitive moves.

Charlie and Delta, massed haphazardly together, had the far left flank. They possessed little sense of themselves as they advanced rapidly, bloodthirstily, itching to get some. Dingo hadn't ordered them to move, but the two squad leaders got together and decided to push forward till they found something yellow to shoot.

Bravo Squad, Lunar and Shane and such, occupied the center of the line, between Foxtrot and Charlie/Delta. They'd come under some light fire from somewhere far-off, and currently advanced cautiously, weapons raised, heads on a swivel.

And then the Alpha Males, high in the sky, brutally visible under the hot, fat Sun. Jupit finally figured out how to move forward, and did so slowly, his Huey drunkenly stumbling through the sky, lurching this way and that, half of his squad nearly tumbling out with every over-correction. The slow-moving Huey made a tasty target for Chuck, and so Jupit sustained not only a barrage of insults from the bird-boys behind him but scattered VC bullets spat up from the jungle below. Nothing important had taken a hit, but Alpha's squaddie was certain his dim-witted pilot would take one to the chest and then they'd drop from the sky, right out of it, dying all at once in some big, boring explosion.

Jupit, as he wrestled with his flightstick, saw Steven soaring, his jet screeching, eagle-esque, grinning big and ready to dump hot death. Steven saw the purple smoke rising lazily from the jungle and dove towards it. His and his jet's smile grew wider as he imagined what he looked like from the ground, a great, speeding dragon bout to spit sticky fire. The marines would look up and see metal hope, a great God prayed to over the prick and, his rituals done, coming to help.

But who really had control? Steven was high-up and alone. The marines were some ground-stuck schmucks, not unlike the VC themselves. They happened, like Ado/Edith, to have favor in that moment, and could survive momentarily while the plain-peoples got fire and brimstone butt-fucked, but should the situation change, they too might perish for something as simple as looking.

No, God has gone to his heaven. Steven is no deity. He is but man's mastery of flame manifested into a sudden, huge swath of smokey orange, hot beyond belief, miasmic, furious.

He shot past the point. Moments later, the jungle erupted. Golf Squad, who'd finally reached the other side of the rice field, looked across it and cheered as the napalm leapt up, curling into an ashy black.

–Nothing else in the world smells like that! shouted one of the marines.

–I wish we could smell, said another.

–Give em a few years… then we'll know.

VR would get there, this they knew. And even without smell the napalm inspired awe in all who saw it, heard it, felt the heat upon their skin. The marines gained new life, reinforced by the knowledge of their apocalyptic technological superiority over the ground-stuck gooks. They didn't know that Steven's napalm had only killed one VC. They'd completely misjudged Charles' position and the squaddie missed with his purple smoke by about 90 degrees. Still, morale counts for much in war, and so the Gooks of Hazzard confidently advanced again across the rice field.

They got pinned down again pretty much immediately. Golf Actual got on comms and loudly demanded more Steven-support.

–Did the napalm do anything? Dingo demanded.

–Fuck if I know, but it's not my fault if CAS missed!

–Yes it is, you marked the target.

Meanwhile, to the left, Bravo had come under heavier fire. More accurate too. Quick AK bursts and SKS shots missing by mere inches, zipping past their ears. Shane was sure the VC had eyes on him and his squad. Bravo halted their advance, took up cover behind trees, and returned fire. Byson Beb, a bit behind the rest, peeked out with his Springfield. Peering down its scope he searched, scanning for where the shots originated from. The rest of the squad just shot. Lunar, burst by burst, emptied his twenty round mag. He couldn't see shit and could hardly hear Shane, who yelled something.

–Cover… Beb, fifteen degrees!

A round hit the tree in front of Lunar's face. The sound and the shock left a ringing in Lunar's ears. Honestly, how could going an entire op without any idea of who's shooting at who, then getting iced out of nowhere, be so much fun for these guys? One VC bullet could end any of them for the entire mission. The jungle was loud and crowded. The mission was long and confusing. But Beb, Shane, and the others smiled wide.

–Charles, cover me! shouted Kitty as she darted from her tree. She nearly tripped and half-dove, half-fell into cover behind another. She stuck her Greaser out and let loose half a mag. Meanwhile, Charles, looking absurd as his medic satchel bounced up and down at his hip, advanced, hip firing his M60 all the while. A steady stream of casings formed a trail in his wake.

Are we gonna have enough ammo to take this temple? wondered Lunar. Beb began popping off shots from his Springfield, robotically rhythmic. Shot, bolt, breath, shot, bolt, breath. Was he hitting anybody? How could he see? Lunar sorta wished he had a scope.

A grenade exploded a little ways away. Shane screamed into his headset. Kitty kept darting from tree to tree, slowly advancing via her violent zigzag. Dirt leapt up around her each time she moved, but the bullets couldn't connect.

Lunar looked up, through a small opening in the canopy leaves, just in time to see an RPG, expertly aimed, streaming towards the Alpha Males' lurching, high-above Huey. Jupit took panicked, evasive maneuvers and managed to avoid letting the RPG hit the main section of his heli. However, in doing so, he swung his tail right into its path. The ensuing explosion, a smokey black blast, ripped the tail to shreds and sent the Huey careening from the sky. It exploded in the jungle some seconds later.

–Aw, Alpha's gone, said Shane.

–This mission is really hard, Lunar complained.

Couldn't they just get to the temple already? He didn't care for this blind jungle-blasting. And the permadeath was a real bummer too. Now Alpha would have to wait and spectate the survivors until they won the mission or all died. They were probably going to town roasting the late-Jupit, oh so confident he could pilot the Huey.

–It's harder than it looks. I was lagging. The controls are bugged. None of you losers could do any better!

Kitty's brashness finally caught up with her. She took a round in the shin and grunted in pain and surprise. Leaning against a tree, watching as the blood seeped into the dirt and grimacing at the pinching sensation the wound induced, she called for Charles to come patch her up.

–Stop shooting and go heal her, you sposed to be the frickin medic! Beb shouted at his brother.

–I'm a corpsman, Charles mumbled.

–Ricardio, can you push left? asked Shane.

–I'm trying, hissed Ricardio. Mierda.

Another grenade exploded, this one much closer than the last. Ricardio sent ten rounds from his M16. Charles finally stopped shooting and bumbled towards Kitty. A few seconds later, barely peeking out, Lunar took a bullet to the brain. The round ripped through his helmet with a comical ding and his corpse tumbled to the ground.

–Shit, I think Lunar got domed, said Beb. Moments later, the boy was back to rhythmically ripping off rounds.

Not about to spectate, Lunar logged, ripped off his headset, headphones, haptic suit, etc. and fell into his bed. He lay in his dark room, lost in thought.

Chapter FOUR

Fahrt Alles Kaput

The argument: Lunar doesn't "get" trench warfare.

Some month, 1916, near Somme river, France. A force of just over a hundred Huns sat in their trench, eager to engage the numerically similar French force a hundred meters away in their own trench.

The French flung shells. While the trench-French did exist, the shell-shooting French did not, nor did their big guns. They weren't simulated. The shells just materialized at the edge of the map, already soaring at top speed, destined to slam down and rustle up dirt near the German trench. All the French commander, JoseJefe, had to do was talk into a radio and the shells would come.

The German squad leaders, Ricardio included, yelled into their headsets, angry and anxious.

–This is bullshit, why are they using all this arty now? he said. It's not doing anything, it's just annoying.

–Their commander is a dick, said Dingo Dave, leader of the Germans. He's not going to attack, he's just gonna sit around and wait for us to come to him.

Dingo Dave sat in his dugout, near his de facto if not de jure second in command, Jupit. The radio they used to communicate with the squad leaders sat on a table next to them. From it the squaddies squealed. Jupit sat on a stool and leaned against the wood wall, stretching his long legs out.

–How very French of him, he said. Jose never had the stomach to attack.

–You know what? fuck em, said Dingo Dave. Jose thinks he and his fucking frog eaters are gonna just wait us out and shred us when we charge? He's fucking wrong. We're gonna attack, and we're gonna make it work.

–It's the Somme, shouldn't they be attacking? asked Jupit, the thought just popping into his head.

–It doesn't matter. We're going to attack, and we're gonna win. Now… how do we do that?

–That's the question, isn't it?

–How did attacking work in World War One?

–Isn't World War One famous for attacking not working? asked Jupit.

–Well… but there was some attacking at the end. And wasn't the east really mobile?

–We're not on the east.

–Yeah, well, we're not on the western either, we're in a fucking video game, and we're gonna find a way to attack. What do we need to do?

–There was something about… submachine guns, said Jupit. And… tanks?

–Tanks! exclaimed Dingo. That's what we need. But… we don't have any!

–Should we?

–What do you mean?

–Did they actually have tanks at the Somme?

–Who cares about accuracy? We need tanks… and gas and shit. All we have is artillery. That shit useless. What can we do with artillery?

The German line? A single, well-built trench. About man high, it featured duckboards running its length, the standard firestep, a well-stocked ammunition shelf, and a sandbag parapet. Small, man-sized dugouts were scattered along it, with the larger commander's dugout in which Dingo Dave and Jupit sat roughly in the center. Barbed wire, craters, and blown-broken trees littered no man's land beyond it.

The Germans organized themselves into ten, ten man squads. The A Cups, the Breach Boys, Charlie's Angels, Die Franzosen Sind Schwul!, Echo Squad, the Foxy Fags, the Grewher Grunts, Hindenburg's Bitch Boys, Indiana Squad, and the Jock Straps. Each squad found themselves responsible for sitting in a small stretch of trench and, spoiled by the mobile nature of Iraq and Vietnam, were bored and bitching about it.

Lunar's squad, Bravo, boasted its usual composition. Only the leader had changed, Ricardio instead of Shane (the result of a coin-toss on launch day). Ricardio proudly carried a Luger, binoculars, a whistle, and, because he was that sort of guy, a sword. Shane carried an MP18, two potato mashers, and wore lobster armor and a brow plate on his stahlhelm. Most of the others got G98s with bayonets and as many clips as they could carry. Most carried canteens, and a few (like Kitty) carried clubs. All had gas-masks, useless on this gasless map. An MG08 sat behind some sandbags, facing the French trench, ready to lead-load em should they charge. But they wouldn't, cause they were bitches.

Each squaddie got their standard headset, through which they now heard Dingo Dave's exacerbated voice.

–Okay, everyone listen. First off, we're pretty sure they did have tanks during the Somme, so that's bullshit. Second, we've got a plan of attack. I'm gonna call in creeping artillery. We're gonna advance behind it, so it screens us. The artillery will stop just as we reach their trench, so they won't have time to shoot us before we're on top of them. Jupit assures me this is something they actually did.

–I'm pretty sure, they heard Jupit say in the background. Or, at least, something like this.

–Well, whatever. Once you get to their trench, just go crazy. Throw grenades, spray em, jump down and bayonet them, whatever. Kill em all and let God sort em out, okay?

The various squad leaders hesitantly replied in the affirmative.

–I'll alert you when the arty is thirty seconds out. On my order, charge. Get your guys ready now.

Dingo Dave went silent. Ricardio turned to his squad. They lounged around the trench, their calm state in stark contrast to the once-in-a-while French shell that burst nearby. Nobody had yet been hit by the French arty, but it was sure annoying, shooting up dirt into their faces and onto their clothes. They could feel the dirt on their skin, but they couldn't feel it in their eyes and mouths, thank God. Still, the explosions deafened them and the dirt obscured their vision and each shell represented a real chance that their time in this match might come to a sudden end.

Shane and Kitty sat together in a dugout, doing some lovey dovey bullshit wholly out of place in the drab, German trench. Charles and Beb peeked their guns over the parapet, peering for any French heads. Lunar sat on the firestep, looking straight up at the gray-cloud skybox. His mouth and eyes were wide open, his face covered in a thin layer of dirt.

–Squad, listen up, Ricardio called.

Kitty and Shane turned to him. Beb and Charles kept peering over the parapet but opened their ears.

–We're going to attack soon. We'll be covered by arty advancing in front of us. Get ready, bayonets and all that.

–Fix those bayos, boys, said Beb, hopping off the firestep, followed closely by Charles.

Kitty and Shane separated. They both grabbed their weapons and Kitty unsheathed her bayonet. The four other unnamed squad members positioned themselves nearby the trench ladders. Ricardio drew his luger.

But Lunar kept staring at the sky, the endless gray sky. The fake clouds rolled lazily across it. It looked like it might rain but everyone knew it wouldn't. Dingo Dave told both them and the French that this wouldn't be a rain battle. A single French shell exploded nearby, sending another shower of dirt over the squad. Everyone brushed it off, save Lunar, who let this new layer of dirt sit untouched atop the previous layers. Dirt was in his mouth, on his tongue, on his eyes, and probably up his nose. It was all over his uniform, obscuring the two medals he'd gotten for pre-ordering. His rifle sat nearby, bayonet already fixed.

Dingo Dave was having a hell of a time. Somewhere in the mission settings he'd fucked up and set his artillery officer's language to German, a tongue neither him nor lounging Jupit fluently spoke.

-Wiederhole, wir verstehen dich nicht, came the NPC's cry from the artillery radio.

–Why the fuck is it set to German? Jupit asked for the third time.

–I don't know, I didn't mean to, hissed Dingo Dave, sick of the question.

–What's German for "artillery"? asked Jupit.

–I don't know! said Dingo.

–Artillery! Artillery! Jupit yelled into the radio.

–Ja, artillerie, aber wo?

–What did he say? asked Jupit.

–For the last time, Jup, I don't know, I don't fucking speak German!

–Artillery! said Jupit. Ugh… rolling artillery!

–Affirmativ, rollende artillerie in drei minuten. Gitterkoordinaten sechsunddreißig, fünfundachtzig. Zehn pistolen, ein schüsse pro salve. Neun vollständige salven im abstand von einer salve alle dreißig sekunden. Jede salve rückt um zwanzig meter vor.

–Ugh… what did he say?

Ricardio blew his whistle and up and over Lunar and the rest went. The artillery's arrival didn't surprise them, as Dingo Dave had informed his squad leaders that he was "pretty sure" creeping arty was set to arrive shortly. It did, and the squad leaders blew their whistles and all the lads leapt up to attack the French.

The arty did a decent job of screening them, but French bullets still zipped past, downing a poor Hun here and there. Plus, the tough timing required for such a strategy meant that more than a few Huns got blown up by their own shells.

Bravo Squad would, in the course of this battle, go on to jump into the French trench and engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat. Kitty went crazy, bayonetting bitches like she'd been made to do it. Shane, for his part, put his MP18 to work, and Ricardio, who showily shot his pistol with all an officer's poise throughout, at one point beat a Frenchman to death with his sword's scabbard (he'd lost the sword itself in no-man's land). The squad then cleared a machine gun nest and (with some difficulty) turned the French gun on its own guys, catching a line of the French trench that'd repulsed Echo Squad in enfilading fire. Echo, at that moment cowering in craters nearby, saw this and advanced. Someone in Golf threw a grenade into the French commander's dugout. Jose Jefe, moments before the grenade exploded, came sprinting out of the dugout and straight into four Mauser shots to the chest.

The Germans won the day after a close, hard-fought fight. But Lunar didn't get to experience any of this, because immediately after jumping out of the German trench he got caught up in his own side's razor wire. He struggled to free himself, cursing, when a French bullet, not aimed at anything in particular, just shot, hit him in the head and downed him with a sad ding.

Chapter FIVE

He Doesn't Look a Thing Like Jesus

You sit there in your heartache
Waiting on some beautiful boy to
To save you from your old ways…

The argument: The world isn't the problem. Lunar is the problem. He's stupid and weak. He keeps getting duped into bad dope.

Shane, now upper high-school age, grew up a couch-stain kid. He spent his childhood television-set-staring, sitting through hours of cartoons and live action babysitter sitcoms. He got interested in games by watching Lunar and started gaming himself the moment he built his first rig. Having convinced their mother he needed a desktop for school and such, he spent his summer saving up oddjob money. The rig, therefore, consisted of second-hand parts and discount deal peripherals, picked up for pennies at flea markets or the down-the-street Goodwill. He adored the thing and spent hours every day and night in front of it, clacking away, incessantly clicking, screaming into his mic; or flailing around the room / on his treadmill in VR. While Lunar's love for games waned his brother's stayed fierce; LAN parties born from borrowed nostalgia, tournaments, speedrun events, and conventions galore. And as his devotion grew so did his rig. He built it into a behemoth machine. His closet got cluttered with unused components and peripherals, his desk could hardly handle his multiple monitors, his clicky-keyboard obsession nearly drove him to bankruptcy. And, of course, he was always cutting edge in VR tech.

When the Japanese revealed full-dive, he nearly burst. It seemed everyone had hit this tech simultaneously, because shortly after the Japanese announcement Deadeye Development, one of Shane's fav companies, announced their own full-dive project set to release shockingly soon. Shane ceased all other expenditure, determined to have early-adopter money in his bank account when that coveted "on-sale" day finally came. Lunar, who'd always been stingy on moral principle, had the funds already, and after several months of his brother's fevered convincing he caved and handed over the necessary bills.

–Fine, buy me one too, said Lunar, trusting his brother to do just that.

A little while later he said,

–This Fanget game better be as good as you say it's gonna be.

–Oh, dude, it's gonna be sick.

Each fandom got their first full-dive around the same time. The true first was the aforementioned Japanese game, a dumb social sim, Full-Dive Social with Friends. But one needn't meme in Moon for long, cause the market soon swelled. The hardcore military nerds got hyped for Fallujah 4D, but significant backlash from post-moms and other elements got the game scraped and scrapped. The fantasy freaks tended towards Mol'kov Online, while for the sci-fi fanatics there was Fleet Fight! The ship of the line enthusiasts patiently waited on Trafalgar Online, and the antiquity experts on Carthago Delenda Est. Fanget Online, for its part, targeted the "hardcore RPG/MMO enthusiasts." Deadeye Development, now led by the eccentric Diggory Dalton, was well-known for a previous half-dive hardcorepg, mechanically incomprehensible but undoubtedly die-hard, called The Dungeons of Lukia. Shane, Kitty, and their friends made dungeon diving in Lukia a bi-daily deal, at minimum. Lunar got the game just after launch, from Shane, but soon became frustrated with "artificially game-lengthening mechanics." He took the name of RNGesus in vain and never again found fortune in Lukia's loot tables. He angrily quit a short time later.

For his birthday Belton always asked for books. He read hardly half the books he hoarded, but simply having them around elevated him more than the uncracked volumes' constant reminder of his intellectual inadequacy brought him down. He pictured himself one day living, old and alone, in a small, musty apartment, during a time when books are as rare as quills are today, surrounded by stacks and stacks of the things. They'd rise up around him, sprawling but prudently put, a careful chaos, like the den of a cartoon egghead, a supporting character the heroes all call Professor, someone who drops bits of knowledge just in advance of critical plot points.

Of course, Lunar hadn't knowledge to drop beyond what mandatory American education had beaten into his brain, and he doubted he'd ever gang up with a group of quirky heroes to do aught of significance at all. The stacks were meant only to suggest. They'd give his personality the appearance of depth. Pure artifice, from the artificial man himself.

She always liked it, though; she thought it cute. Or maybe it just reminded her how much better she was than him. She was real literary, circle glasses and sweaters and such. The cutest brown hair she always did-up all who-cares like, as if to suggest she had more important things on her mind than looks. Effortlessly adorable. She was an autumn kind of gal, brown and comfy, bourbony. But nameless. Who's laughing now?

For his B-day that year she got him a lovely, leather-bound copy of The Well of Loneliness. Inside she wrote, "Happily gifted to the library of Mr. Belton B." Belton thanked her profusely for such a fine gift.

–You'll really like it, it's a wonderful novel, she said. I know it's not strictly 1870s, but I still think you'll enjoy it.

Is she mocking me? Belton thought. Shoving her superior taste in my face? How do I respond to this?

Shane, beaming so widely his face looked about to burst, gave Belton a copy of The Dungeons of Lukia, or, at least, a card that said he'd find himself gifted a copy the next time he launched Steam.

Shane, Kitty, Ricardio (their friend from school), and Beb and Charles, the twins from Tennessee they'd never met IRL but knew better than most of their flesh fellows; the gang. The game had only been out for a few weeks and already Shane and company talked about it like a lifelong passion. Belton coveted such a passion, but what he really wanted was the company, their closeness. Belton had nobody like that, not anymore. He used to spend hours playing and joking with a couple of kids, but they'd drifted apart and Belton hadn't bothered to replace them. Maybe he'd lost the ability to make friends? Maybe he'd become unlikable in some fundamental way?

–You're gonna love it, said Shane. It's so sick, and we're already getting in with the community.

Belton forced himself to smile.

–I don't know if I can play it tonight…

–Whenever you want to, dude, said Shane. We've got some gear for you. It's gonna be really sick. We're gonna play it all-day tomorrow, if you wanna play then?

–Yeah… I can probably play a bit.

–Dude…

Shane never finished his thought. He smiled boyishly. Dumb, ditzy. Hap- happy and holding on. How could such a full-face grin exist? Lunar looked, looked at his boy brother, almost squinted to see, but couldn't tell. Shane's screen-smile was all he got.

The Dungeons of Lukia was, at its core, a kickass game; nobody, not even Lunar, could disagree. Beautiful, boasting an old-school sensibility, atmospheric AF; the game roped in the RPG guys because it was, in a way, what they'd always wanted: their old RPGs updated for modern machinery but not fundamentally changed. This was not Morrowind Remastered, in which Bethesda marginally updated the graphics and gameplay but removed everything fun (and centralized and monetized the poorly-ported, decade old mods they stole from MMH). This was not the Mass Effect remakes, in which BioWare dropped all role-playing pretense and made them half-dive dating sims (in space). And it certainly wasn't the new Arcanum game, "a tactical, half-dive, steampunk shooter." Lukia was a true dungeon diver with big-ass, kinda dumb Daggerfall dungeons, real labyrinthian shit. Balance be damned, the game's prerogative was craziness and creativity, not polish.

But Lukia suffered from cashshopification. The Devs, assuming nobody could be arsed to subscribe to a game they played forty hours a week, went the whaling route. And whale they did. Lukia wasn't P2W, you see, just P2-have-a-significant-advantage-over-people-who-didn't-pay. Here's something: the game had pets, little creatures that'd follow you around and carry your shit. Useful little things. You could have up to three follow you at a time. These pets came from eggs. You bought eggs for 700 Dungeon Dollars (1,000 Dungeon Dollars cost 13.95 USD, but the cash shop only allowed you to buy Dungeon Dollars in intervals of either 2,800 [a 5% discount was applied for each individual batch of 2,800 you bought, starting with the third batch and ending with the fourth batch], or in amounts that end with prime numbers between 860 and 923, assuming that amount was greater than 2,800 [the 5% discount did not apply if you bought Dungeon Dollars in these intervals]) and would hatch the eggs (using an incubator, available from the cash shop for 500 Dungeon Dollars [you could buy three for 1,450]) to produce a random pet. Each pet had a random amount of inventory space that could be increased by "enhancing" it, a process carried out by combining the pet with an unhatched egg in a super incubator (789 Dungeon Dollars). The enhancement had a chance to fail, and failure resulted in the loss of the pet, the egg, and the super incubator. Each pet could be enhanced up to five times, with the chance for failure increasing each time. The cash shop sold items, called enhancer's potions, that would reduce this chance of failure by a random percentage (enhancer's potions could also be enhanced using the same mechanic). Some of these materials were technically available as in-game loot, but they were so rare that when a patch fucked up the loot tables and made eggs literally unobtainable as in-game loot nobody actually noticed.

Lunar's Moby Dicked brother, despite his paltry wealth, shelled out; Lunar did not.

Surely such fuckery wouldn't stand? It'd be nice to think so, but it did. Deadeye Development deployed every milking-method they knew and nobody much cared. It just so happens I've written something on the subject. Kindly consider:

Lukia's most devious deception lay in its early game design. The game, as has been stated, milked the money-spitting morons like nothing before it. But not at the start. First it sucked you in, got you hooked on free samples before snapping shut its trap. The early game contained no hint of the micro-transactional nonsense to follow. This was not a new strat, every game from EA's next, big-budget BS to your mom's mobile game does this; Lukia just did it better.

All the tricks: loading the player with early game freebies only to stop the free flowing supply suddenly and harshly; hiding the usefulness of the cash shop until later levels; and dressing up its cash shop shit as bonus; nice, not necessary. And one could, at least theoretically, get some of the stuff from playing.

But an obvious but often overlooked aspect proved Lukia's best milking asset. It was a good game. Awesome and ambitions and, both for those within and without its core demo, fun as fuck. People liked playing it, so they paid to do so at a reasonably competitive level. In Shane's mind, this cleared Deadeye of cupidity. In Lunar's, it made them all the more greedy. The delayed discovery of Lukia's micro-transactional necessity meant that players, caught up in the early game euphoric hype, would recommend it to their friends (or brothers) ignorant of the investment required. It doesn't, they'd assure, have the mico-transactional moronity you revile. So, by the time the duped dude realizes that, yes, it does, he's already bought and played it.

But Lunar didn't buy it. So every time he criticized he knew he was ripping on something Shane B-day gifted him. And Shane defended the game endlessly, even against minor, off-the-cuff critique.

–It's not that bad… you don't need to pay… you just get minor advantages… they don't sell anything a bit of skill can't overcome…

Kitty, Ricardio, Beb, and Charles apparently agreed, because they dove head-first into the half-dive dungeons and all their anti-consumer claptrap. Maybe the game was good enough to ignore the nonsense. Maybe the money needed for the micro-transactions wasn't as much as stingy Lunar thought. Or maybe this was just how things were and they'd all gotten down with it while Lunar, always on and on about something, whined nonsensically on.

Shane was a tank. He wore big, bulky armor and carried a kite shield and a longsword. His purple cape billowed behind him wherever he went. Kitty was their DPS, a red-robed mage with matching red-locks and a staff that spit fire. Beb dove around with daggers and other rogue-shit, smoke bombs, throwing knives, traps, poison, etc., while Charles, wearing a simple monk-brown robe that hid his power level, healed, buffed, and whined, as all good healers do. Ricardio carried a bow and a quiver full of special arrows, along with a silver, demon-killing longsword.

They told Lunar he could be whatever he wanted. But for Lunar this freedom was illusory. They had an airtight comp, every role covered. He didn't want to intrude on anybody else, to steal somebody else's place in the party. Besides, he'd be the second best at whatever he chose. No way, with limited playtime and no motivation, could he compete with these red-eyed computer kids. He hardly even understood half of what they said. Simple stuff, like pulling, he got, but he hadn't a clue what Charles meant when he called for Beb to "slice." And what about Ricardio always asking Shane to "rope"? Whatever.

Every member of the party gave Lunar something as a sort of welcoming gift. Kitty gave him five giant healing potions; Ricardio gave him a pair of Swiftness Boots, solid cross-class footwear; Beb and Charles gave him two Infinite Torches (Lunar didn't know why he needed two. He later learned, when he lost both, that it was because they were easy to lose), and Shane gave him 10,000 GP, enough to buy a decent set of whatever armor he wanted.

He deliberated on what to buy. Eventually, unable to decide, he bought himself a mix, pieces from all sorts of sets. He bought a shortsword and a wand. He was neither a tank nor a mage, unable to take damage or dish it out. The others praised him. How smart, they said, to go for a jack-of-all-trades style, but Lunar felt that, instead of being able to do a bit of everything, he was only able to do a whole lot of nothing.

The goblin grabbed Lunar by his long hair (Lunar hated helmets) and tried to drag him away from the party.

–Belton! cried Shane, gleaming in the torchlight as he cut swiftly through three goblins at once.

–Kat, cover me! Beb, get Belton! Charles, heals!

Shane dove away from a goblin's greatsword swing. Despite his massive stature and heavy armor he moved nimbly. Moments later, the goblin took a Kitty-sent fireball to the face. Shane steadied himself and slammed his shield into the dungeon floor. The clang reverberated throughout the dark, dank, stony space, drawing every goblin's aggro, including the one dragging poor Lunar. The dumb beast paused but a moment before turning towards Shane. He still clutched Lunar's tangled locks when Beb's dual daggers appeared through his neck. Green goblin blood poured onto Lunar's face.

–Kat, hit them now! said Shane as he led a string of pursuing goblins down the dungeon corridor.

Kitty let loose a stream of flame, roasting the monsters. Shane, safe behind his raised shield, cheered.

–Nice work.

–Here, Lunar, muttered Charles.

Lunar's health sprang back into safe territory as Charles' healing spell hit him. One of his finest, hardly necessary for someone with as much total HP as Lunar.

–Show-off, mumbled Beb.

–A few more to deal with, said Shane as he charged towards the few remaining goblins.

One of them raised a knocked bow and pointed it at Lunar.

–Don't draw their aggro, idiot, shouted Ricardio.

–What? What am I doing? Lunar shouted back.

An arrow thudded into his chest and his health dropped back to the danger zone.

–Goddammit, what did I do?

–Beb, watch out! shouted Kitty as she prepped a spell to get the goblins got once and for all.

Beb, once again in the fray, dove out of the goblin group. He moved at an impossible speed, daggers drawn and covered completely in green blood.

–Hit em, he yelled.

Kitty did, and they died.

–All right, good work, said Shane, lowering his shield and sword and scanning the group.

–Good job, guys, muttered Lunar.

Charles' healing spell hit him. His HP went all the way back up. He felt hollow and useless.

Chapter SIX

Gladney's Hitler

The college is internationally known as a result of Hitler studies. It has an identity, a sense of achievement. You’ve evolved an entire system around this figure, a structure with countless substructures and interrelated fields of study, a history within history. I marvel at the effort. It was masterful, shrewd and stunningly preemptive. It’s what I want to do with Elvis.

The argument: You're not fooling your professor by sending him a bad file.

Georges Melies. Well-regarded in the filmmaking community. Best known for his 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon. Most filmmakers will speak fondly of how Melies' work in the infant-medium popularized many techniques laughably standard today.

One of his earlier works, The Last Cartridges, based on the Alphonse de Neuville painting, depicts a Sedan micro-scene: a group of soldiers and a tender tending nun in a single house, vaingloriously defending against the elder Moltke's mousetrap. The film ends when the Prussians blow the house to bits, just as they blew Melies' school to bits some years prior.

A young American filmmaker, around Lunar's time, saw this film and realized, with some anxiety, that Melies made it only twenty seven years after the conflict and only five years after Zola's iconic debacle-chronicle. This seemed too close. It makes mathematical sense, but it reeked of peeps passing into epochs they shouldn't have access to; like hearing Tennyson's recorded voice. Perhaps this is just the American muddled-mind failing to make sense of history, misconstruing things, thinking things happened when they didn't. Or perhaps there is something theologically wrong with the Franco-Prussian War being portrayed on film while veterans of it still lived young.

Either way, this American filmmaker got inspired. He felt the Franco-Prussian War informed the 20th Century, that it led to its cataclysmic first half and peaceful but perilous and irradiated second. He thought this similar to his country's 2003 Iraq attack, under the shadow of which we are all still living. There was a vague feeling, not immediately (when Dubya stood on a carrier and proclaimed), but after, when the conflict was stretched and however many men had gotten themselves sand-schwacked, that this was how things were going to be. Long, drawn-out. This would be the century of stimulation, of simulation, maybe of simulated stimulation, but also of dullness. The bombardment of signs wouldn't negate the century's tedium. Maybe the bombardment caused the tedium; things would lose impact and become just a dull ear-buzzing.

The American filmmaker made a hugely controversial screen-film, 2003. It followed a single American soldier through the opening of the invasion. The filmmaker took great care in relating it to the Zola, and to the Melies, since he saw the French filmmaker as the beginning of screen-film and himself as its end. Of obvious interest was the fact that, in Zola, Jean fights with the French army, who run, routed, while the American in Iraq was very much, and remains to this day, a chaser.

Lunar saw 2003 but didn't get the obvious parallels because he hadn't finished his Zola or any of his other Franco-Prussian readings. He, too, remained a chaser. Are all Americans? If so, it's their own damn fault. They have too many bombs to blame anyone else for their problems. Lunar knew this, but it didn't make him feel better.

What Franco-Prussian war books did Lunar buy? Well, he found a list online. Compiled by a graduate guy, it gave the titles and a brief summary of every major book written on the conflict. Lunar ordered Howard's dense but decent The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France 1870-1871; the breezier but equally well-researched The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871: Bradsey's compelling primer The Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871; Perath's thrilling but biased The Franco-Prussian War: The French Days of Darkness 1870-1871; the thrilling but fascist The Franco-Prussian War: The Eagle Rises 1870-1871; the factually accurate but meandering The Franco-Prussian War: In Which Germany Invades France in 1870-1871; and the poorly received and factually dubious The Franco-Prussian War: Berlin in Flames 1868-1870. Lunar also got, of course, a spattering of Zola, a selection of Maupassant, and Robert Helmont, as well as more contemporary historical-fiction: Pals in Paris, Moltke's Mistress, and Honey, I Unified Germany. Lunar even thought he might write his own piece of Franco-Prussian War historical fiction.

As anybody with many unread books knows, the first moments of new-book ownership are grand. One spends all his time wondering how great things will be once he's read his new book, cracked it open, smelt its smell, absorbed its knowledge, savored its prose. The possibilities are endless because the book, an unopened object, exists in his imagination rather than within its dull, print pages. Whatever the book says doesn't matter, what matters is the feeling of being perpetually about to read it.

He looks at his book, especially if he's heard it's good, and feels better and smarter than someone who doesn't own a copy. What moron doesn't have the seminal Pals in Paris? He hasn't ready it yet, but owning a copy is explicit acknowledgment that he intends to. After all, why own a book if one doesn't mean to read it?

The countless other unread books stacked beside his bed mean nothing, the past doesn't exist in any real sense, this book he'll read. No, this book he'll study.

And maybe Lunar tries, reads a bit, a chapter or two. But does he enjoy it? If he's lucky he will, and he'll eventually finish. But often he doesn't, and the facade of intellectualism he's built around himself, his armor against being good at no damn material thing, his proclaimed Proustivity, cracks. I don't enjoy this, his subconscious thinks.

He'll go on until he stops. This new, unread book'll get stacked. At first, convinced he's taking but a short break, the sight of the book elicits only vague guilt. But eventually it becomes like all the rest, forgotten, unprocessed, a useless collection of unread words stuffed between two covers, a testament to his inability to enjoy the one thing he's convinced himself he likes.

Oxiana left the science building and loitered outside, under the wide, hot sky. The whole dome seemed to beat down upon her. It wasn't difficult, within the valley in which her campus lay, to imagine the edge of the sky rising from the surrounding mountains, trapping everything within a sort of snow globe, but one that's hot, not cold. If she drove to the mountains, she imagined her car would ram into the glass. What lay beyond the glass for her to see? Nothing, the globe was everything. It was absolute.

It was easy, therefore, to imagine all the Universe's abstract fury aimed down just at her. She imagined the CMB projected onto this glass globe. She imagined it cracking and popping, as if frying the sky, in blotches of evenish red, yellow, green, and blue, as she was used to seeing it portrayed. How hot this made the sky seem. Sweat rolled down her cheek.

A young man, backpack hanging off one shoulder, walked by her and said,

–Hey, Professor Kaldar.

Oxiana smiled and nodded. Who was he? Was he a current student? Maybe from the past, one of the students that imagines cause he came in and paid attention that she'd remember his name? She really wished she did. She vaguely remembered someone with his face in her Intro to Concepts in General Relativity & Cosmology course. But there were so many like him. A young, white dude with a pep in his step despite him attending such a pitifully mid-to-low tier university. Fine, she thought, it's good to be happy.

She headed back inside the building and made her way to her basement office. A colleague nodded to her as she passed him in the hall. She came to her door. Just above the handle, her label: Doctor Kaldar.

–Where's your name from? some nosey undergrad asked, a week ago, on syllabus day.

God, some of these kids have no sense of propriety, Oxiana thought. Her own fault for teaching physics, she supposed.

–It's an Afghan name, she said, simply.

True enough. Her parents, bless them, hadn't fully grasped Western naming when they arrived, her mother three months pregnant. That didn't stop them from trying. Hence her full name: Oxiana Spogmay Kaldar.

Oxiana. A rough name to have cause it raised in aware Americans thoughts of hillbilly heroin. Unaware Americans just stared and nodded, mouths hanging half open.

–Like Pollyanna. I used to read those books, she remembered one woman saying.

Oxiana settled in her office to await Dylan. Poor, dumb Dylan, the senior re-taking her Intro to Radio Astronomy course.

–Professor Kaldar, said Dylan as he entered.

–Dylan, have a seat… oh… keep the door open, if you don't mind.

Dylan settled into the seat before her. He placed his big, gibbous backpack at his feet. He smiled. He wore a blue polo tucked into his cargo shorts. His stomach bulged out. On his nose sat a pair of big, smudged glasses. Spots of red acne dotted his face. He'd emailed Oxiana a few days ago, informing her that he needed to meet with her about something "critical." He couldn't make her regular office hours, though.

–What can I help you with, Dylan? Oxiana asked. She interlocked her fingers and set her hands on her desk. She smiled, trying to seem inviting and teacherly.

–So… I'm thinking about going to graduate school, said Dylan. I want to study… particle physics, probably. I haven't really decided yet. But I need recommendations from at least three teachers… er, professors… in physics or, like, physics related stuff. Since I've had you in a few classes I was wondering if you could write me a recommendation letter?

Is he serious? thought Oxiana. Dylan's smile didn't waver. Who led him to believe he could study anything at a graduate level? Dylan had, as aforementioned, failed his first try at her Intro to Radio Astronomy course and snuck by with a D in Stellar Astronomy a year ago. Not only did he frequently skip class, he did nothing of note when he did attend. He sat dumbstruck half the time he was there and slept the other half. His questions were either off-topic or three classes too late. His assignments were mediocre if he managed to turn them in. She'd probably used an entire red pen on his tests alone.

Dylan's face betrayed no doubt. He kept smiling. Friday. Oxiana thought about later. That vague later. She'd get some good food and maybe a bottle of wine and sit down and watch stupid television. She'd read from a dumb novel. Maybe, if she found herself in the right frame of mind, she'd sit down or rig-up and play video games. Practice one of her runs. She smiled back at the boy.

–Okay, I'll write you a letter, Dylan. We'll want to talk about exactly what you expect to be in it, though. By when do you need it?

Lunar eventually abandoned Zola, just as he eventually left Lukia, and just as he eventually broke up with her via awkward text. Then he did his damndest to avoid seeing these things. He acted glad he lost his Zola, he uninstalled and hid Lukia on Steam, and he removed her from his contacts and rejoiced when she moved west.

These things served as reminders of a truth he didn't care to face and so kept buried. Bye, bitch, he thought, in his colloquially dismissive way. Don't have to deal with you no longer, nor what you represent.

But hiding from these types of self-truths has, as someone sorta-wise once said, predictably negative consequences.

Not that this meant much to Lunar, who kept lying to himself, just to himself (cause everyone else was gone), around and around, on and on and on. I didn't read Zola or my other Franco-Prussian books and I don't have to worry about the uncomfortable reasons why. I stopped playing Lukia and haven't gotten into a game in years and I don't need to worry about the uncomfortable reasons why. I broke up with her and I'm dead on dating and I don't need to worry about the uncomfortable reasons why. On and on and on and on and on and on; so many ons too many.

Chapter SEVEN

Big Dick, Big Balls

The argument: Lunar creates a character that seems somehow telling.

Fanget Online allowed players to change their penis size. This wasn't entirely unprecedented, games had long let players run amok with cow-tits or thicc thighs or whatever weird proportions the pervs thought fun, but a fully rendered phallus (with physics) hanging nearly to the knees, in a mainstream, multiplayer game, seemed special.

Newly in-game named Lunarkid stood in a dimensionless space, an infinite white (character creation), marveling as his fingers navigated a hovering menu and manipulated his extremities' size and shape. He found particular joy in giving himself a purple tinged mohawk, a hairdo unbefitting his IRL stature as a future academic, not to mention deemed unprofessional by his hardass boss at his min wage gig at the bookstore. His hair did up, he noticed a mirror icon at his menu's bottom left. Touching it summoned a body-sized looking glass. He watched himself grow and shrink as he messed with the height slider. Feeling his height shift suddenly was a strange sensation, stranger the farther he got from his IRL measurements. He eventually settled on something close to his real height, maybe a few inches taller. He figured keeping at least his body familiar would help him adjust to full-dive, full-immersion. There'd be those who with their first finger flicks would create a three and a half foot loli and never look back; he was not one of those people. Allowing a machine almost unfettered access to his brain was a big enough leap; he didn't care to shock his system.

This being his first full-dive in a little-tested tech, coupled with Deadeye's history of cash shop fuckery, made him watchful for wrongdoings. It should be noted that Fanget (Deadeye having finally grown weary of whaling) operated on a subscription model like the MMOs of old. Furthermore, other full-dives released in the past weeks had been well-received by critics and players alike. Lunar wasn't convinced Deadeye wouldn't add a cash shop to further milk their subscribers the moment they had enough hooked, and he regarded the early-adopters of full-dive, players and reviewers alike, as hype-heads, fundamentally unreliable until at least a month post-launch. Something better would come along and Fanget would go F2P, with a cash shop bloated beyond belief. Or, perhaps Lunar's cynical nature just kept him peering for problems?

These reservations shrank when he noticed he could control his character's BMI and muscle structure. They almost vanished when, meandering about the menu, wondering if his raging pectorals were too big to be considered masculine, he came across a subcategory labeled "sexual organs." These words, intriguing (obviously), sent him tapping through the full suit of carnal customization the Devs'd deved. His eyes came to rest upon an unassuming duo of sliders, tied to the length and girth of a particular person's dangling dong. Lunar fell into frenzied experimentation; the organ shrank and grew. But mostly it grew.

–Good God, said Lunar, this is how those pornstars feel.

Salt-tinged tears filled his eyes. They slid down his cheeks. He could feel them, their watery slither, rendered real-like, just as they would have been twenty minutes prior when he stood on Earth. One of the tears fell from his cheek, past his max-size member, and hit the white floor. Only March, yet Lunar knew his GOTY.

How big can boobs be? Most games did employ maximum sizes, usually twice the individual's otherwise weight (per boob). Some games went even smaller; one feminist oriented developer, tired of this titanic tit trend, limited each boob to 25% of the character's total mass. They claimed that characters shouldn't be, essentially, two big boobs running around, and that the prevalence of this problematic practice suggested the average gamer to be a sexually immature, mouth-breathing beta bitch boy, fundamentally uncomfortable with healthy expressions of normal human sexuality. This statement sparked civilized online discussion.

Deadeye decided, when designing Fanget, that the game's full-dive nature necessitated certain character customisation limitations. They convened a diverse panel and decided to limit penises to 16 inches in length and 6 inches in diameter, breasts to a bra size of 48Z, and vaginas to 20 inches in circumference. Total character weight couldn't exceed 1,500 lbs. and couldn't be less than 3 lbs. Character height couldn't exceed 10 ft. and couldn't be less than 2 ft.

Needless to say, there were still gonna be a lot of oddly proportioned people running around.

Lunar finished creating his character. He stood a few inches taller than IRL, about 6'2", and swimming swole, lean and mean, having toned down his pecs a bit. His purple tinged mohawk shot up about a foot. His face was that of a young man, early twenties, his IRL age, and gorgeous. On his right bicep he sported a small, pink, half moon tattoo and on each of his left fingers a single letter of the word "Lunar." His face was clean shaven, his chest just hairy enough to be hot, and he sported 12 inches of veiny, man-ready meat between his legs. He was ready to play.

But… looking at his clean cheeks and chin, he wondered if he couldn't add something… more?

One can try to imagine the moment Lunar spawned into the world, one of the first in history to experience full-dive tech, a pioneer, a Neil Armstrong with an arm-length schlong, some Charlie Marley sailing inwards, penetrating the fringes of human understanding… in search of truth?… towards the destruction of truth?… the death of providential faith?… Lunar just wanted to get to the game. He was hyped as hell to later alt a chick and feel for himself this whole "multiple orgasms" thing everybody always spieled about.

Consistent with his anti-system-shock policy, he'd set his species to human, figuring he could always alt one of the weirder species later. This sentiment seemed popular, cause an immense number of humans filled the spawn-town plaza. In line with the game's steampunky aesthetic, massive airships, metallic, Hunnish looking things, filled the sky, far, far above. The occasional biplane zipped between the zeppelins. The spawn-town square, specially decorated for launch, boasted banners of all colors, long strands of Edison lights, and swing music blasting from pole-stuck speakers. The whole thing seemed like a late-Victorian prom. Each player spawned with a tube of confetti in his hands, which few hesitated to use. In the distance, outside the town, a steady barrage of big guns sounded. Blanks, probably. Lunar took a massive whiff. He could almost smell the smoke from the far-off guns, feel the heat from the Edison lights, taste the treats being hawked by NPC vendors weaving their way through the crowd. He would grasp a sword or a gun. He would. He'd fight a monster. He'd feel himself kill it. He'd go to a brothel and do what one does. The NPCs wouldn't judge him. He'd feast till more than full and drink till beyond drunk. Then, when tired, he'd log and find himself thin and sober.

Maybe he'd meet a nice player he could do whatever with. The game wouldn't simulate STDs, surely. All the things that ruin humans, fighting, eating, drinking, fucking, existed here consequence free. I mean, we know all this. Lunar knew all this. He'd long known it. His was no stranger to (albeit less realistic) sex-sims, warzones, and IRL robots one could bob or pop, mood depending. But for it all to exist in one place, and in multiplayer, and so realistically rendered…

Faced with the enormity of this new neurotech, Lunar did the only thing he felt appropriate: he stripped naked. And, again, he could. Most games hid nudity; they'd leave your avatar wearing some stupid-ass underwear. Maybe you'd go cash-shopping for skimpier panties (the Korean games particularly) or just make do with the drab briefs and bras you got for free. But Fanget offered a full frontal experience no other (non-porn) game did. The Devs had promised all this. Lunar saw it in the trailers and interviews Shane insisted he watch. And, by God, the Devs'd delivered.

Lunar ran around, his eyes alight, his pink hair aflame, his sizable (sizable) konto billowing behind him like a fleshy, throbbing, vein crossed cape… you get the idea.

The Devs saw fit to supply each aspiring adventurer with a basic set of clothes. Garish, shit brown, torn bag affairs; they reminded one of the turnip farmers he undoubtedly descended from. These clothes differed slightly for each player that spawned. Some got belts, some got vests, some straw hats, etc. and etc. But many of the clothes met the same fate: torn off and thrown away. Thousands, all around, seemingly all those who'd set species to human and gave themselves dicks, maybe everyone who'd ever existed at all, pranced around, their equestrian members bouncing, their nostrils flaring, their eyes bulging, the sinew of their chiseled musculature stretching with every rapid skip of their throbbing legs; finally allowed by VR to become the demented stallions they'd always been. So many joined, so many involved. Female avatars with huge, hanging breasts flapping about; nymphy girls with neon orange hair; pink skinned demon dudes with hair did up to resemble horns, some kind of pagan god of sex; albino, silver haired chicks with vampire fangs; guys with dreads so long they dragged them along on the ground; bushy-red-haired Celts, crazy curls dancing as they jumped.

Oh the breasts bounced, comically, almost painfully, meticulously simulated bags of fat; who knows what wealth went into this triumph? Lunar, hypocrite, thought the breasts unbecoming. I mean, a giant, dangling dick is one thing…

Just before he spawned Lunar reconsidered his clean-shaven face. He self-selected a magnificent white beard, a flowing affair he could stroke to his kung fuey content. He figured he could shave IRL, but such a beard could only exist in-game. Maybe he'd stuff in some leaves, make himself up like the wild Green Knight, some half-mad nature spirit, or the bloodlusting, war whooping warboys of those crazy films and shows. But, looking around, carefully peering, he saw no nature near him, only town and fake flesh.

A late-ritual Dionysian cult, a pack of feisty satyrs, or some similar Greek thing. Lunar thought it important he ground what he saw in mythological origin; such was his sensibility. Surely humans freed had historical parallels? Who were the Vestal Virgins? Lunar wasn't sure, but they sounded good, sounded free. And what a freedom it was. IRL, the affair would have ended quickly, or never started at all, but in-game, in prime health and high spirits and newly endowed, the adventurers celebrated onward. An entire steampunk world was spread before them, Persia before Alexander, ready to feel the wrath of their 1337 skills and massive schlongs. But Lunar found more profound the swift escape from the creeping materiality that'd plagued persons far and wide since the living God lay down and never got back up. Lunar wasn't religious in life, he was nowadays as agnostic as one could be, but even he felt acutely the theological lacking in contemporaneity, some colossal crack no amount of dick could dam. The players got to laugh at their mass, so long "them," to joyfully declare, "you ain't me, not no more." Upwards and downwards might be fake-prophet fantasy, and outwards far-off future fi, but inwards we can go. The metaphysical matter wasn't resolved, the physicalists still pounded strong gainst the age-old holdouts, but a man not body bound is a happy fucking man.

Among the chaos stood one of the few reasonable looking avatars, a young woman, brown-haired and freckled. She wore plain peasant duds, her spawn suit. She wondered if she oughta take em off to fit in, but decided something about running around naked seemed wrong.

–This giant cock is gonna see a ton of action! screamed one crazed kid, a black-bearded, fully naked behemoth, seven foot five and displaying his proportionate dick.

No pregnancy, no STDs, full habitation of our mind-meant bodies. But… rules? This young woman realized she lacked answers to a myriad of ethical problems. Furthermore, she had no reason to believe the Devs had them either.

Having located the logout button, she spent the first and final moments of her VR vidya career wondering how the corporeal courts would prosecute a virtual reality rape.

Chapter EIGHT

No Breaks on the Hype Train

The argument: Despite his cynical nature, Lunar gets hyped. Maybe he properly placed his last lick of faith?

Lunar grew tired of his dick-out prancing. He returned to where he'd flung his clothes and was impressed to find they remained crumbled as he'd left them. He redonned them.

Clouds hung far above, higher than even the meandering-along airships. White and wispy… and sparse… kinda boring. But Lunar knew from the trailers that the game boasted every real-life weather-state and then some. He couldn't wait to see a storm, the eerie calm as the world blackens and, from the distance the thick, heavy grey clouds roll forward, carrying a drenchy wet-rain, ready to dump their fury onto the world. Wind rustles the grass and leaves, the animals hunker down, the whole of humanity shacks up, puts on some coffee or tea and finds something to read or watch. Lunar could experience that, but in steampunk.

As Lunar dressed back up he wondered how the inventory system worked. So far things seemed similar to real life. He had to take his pants and stick his legs through them, then pull them up. Would equipment work this way, too? Would he have to carry every weapon, every potion, every little thing? Lunar sent a quick prayer airward in favor of that not being the case; if he wanted to lug six dozen pounds of killing gear around he'd have taken his diddy's advice and shipped sandward with the War Corps.

–Speaking of simps, muttered Lunar.

Shane introduced Lunar to Fanget. Shane insisted he buy the game. Shane secured him a copy. So where was that mong? Lunar looked around but quickly realized the futility of optical recognition. After all, he had no idea what his brother's character looked like. Had he even rolled a human? Was he a map-length away, in one of the other species' spawn towns, just as confused?

–We really should have figured this out beforehand, mumbled Lunar.

Whatever. Shane, Kitty, Ricardio, Beb, and Charles certainly had a plan. They were, at this moment, probably rushing towards each other. If Lunar couldn't find him, he'd just hash out a game plan IRL, over dinner. Hype was one thing, but Shane didn't miss meals. Content, Lunar sallied forth, towards the square's edge, stroking his long beard.

An infinite sprawl of drab medieval houses, standard fantasy fare, straight from the mind of the uninspired, paperback hack, surrounded the plaza. At least it wasn't Bethesda-boring, three thatch shacks and four residents per town; stuff here had scale. But Lunar recalled the game's promo features, fantastic towns and cityscapes; massive, haphazard steampunk metropolises constructed from copper and rivets and interlaced with steam-leaking pipes; underwater towns built within translucent glass bubbles; towns high in the mountains, built into the crags and clinging to the cliff faces; cities within sparkling, gemstone speckled caverns; even a floating, mechanical city that meandered about the world, kept afloat by the simple power of unexplained vidya magic. Lunar wanted to see those places; the human spawn town seemed, TBH, phoned in.

But still, as the possibilities stretched before him his excitement rose. This wasn't the half-baked, gimmicky VR nonsense he'd been bored of for years, this was the real deal. Full feeling, full immersion, only (he presumed) pain turned down. His peasant threads itchy against his skin, his beard producing pinches of pain when pulled too hard, the omnidirectional sense of sound, the wafting odour of the overcrowded plaza. Clashing with Charles in the jungle, facing the French in their trenches, popping Johnny with his Springfield, or Saw-shredding through Hajis in the desert; these experiences lacked authenticity because he was always too separated by a lack of senses to feel immersed. He wasn't inhabiting his body, merely controlling it. But now… now he'd been transported, his entire mind, his whole self, transported and plopped inside a vessel of sufficient complexity to actually experience the place it was in. The future is now.

This was a feeling from his youth, long missed, from the fuzzy bordered, nostalgia-tinged memories of time spent sitting with a last-century console before a curved TV, of time spent clacking away at his budget rig; memories of a time before life grew boring. He wanted to see the sights, wanted to dungeon dive and fight bosses and join a guild. Early game euphoria had him. He was hyped. Compounded by this newly minted full-dive VR, Lunar came to believe for the first time in a long time that he might get some escape, a break from his dull life of forcing his way through online history lectures and hypocritically whining about the cancer of moe, a break from the pressing but static existential uncertainty, from the dull-pounding sexual uncertainty and the duller, omnipresent general anxiety. A break from the real. No, a new real. Something more real. Finally, he'd have what he envied his brother for having, what he used to have himself, something to grind away at, something to drain and refill his brain, something good to do or to have done.

But first he had to figure out how the fucking menu system worked.

Chapter NINE

Some Clever Lines to Say

I know I stand in line until you think you have the time
To spend an evening with me
And if we go someplace to dance, I know that there’s a chance
You won’t be leaving with me…

Part ONE

Reserved and Shy, Your Average Guy

Oh look at me, so ordinary
No mystery with no great capabilities, but
I could make out as if I had it, but you know
God I’m so obvious and I should let it go…

The argument: Have you ever had a dreams- that- that you… um… you had- y- you wo- could- you do you wit- you want- you- you could do- so you- you do- you could- you- you want- you want him to do you so much you could do anything?

Patty stood before Mr. Chester's giant desk; Mr. Chester who was wide and set to widen, who gave up when he came down with a nasty case of the diabetes, who sucked a cigar set between his yellow teeth and stared Patty down with something akin to pity. This confused Patty, who hung to his health and thought the pity ought to flow the other way.

Behind Chester's desk stood his shelf. It boasted all the trophies one could earn; sad, still, sterile, they seemed to Patty, like little idols, coated with faux-gold, some cheap Chinese sin, a knockoff of the biblical original, itself a fake, a… golden pig or… something. Patty hadn't actually read the Bible.

–Here's what I need from you, Pat, said Chester between puffs. What? Why are you looking at me like that?

–Huh? said Patty, pulled from his haze and set before Chester, thrust into the space, decisively there. Patty didn't care for this sort of presence, he didn't become a journalist so that he'd be involved.

–I'm sorry, sir, he said, I'm paying attention.

–Psh.

Chester, puffing away, adjusted his position in his seat. He grunted and groaned. Chester, who's too-repeated motto was "attention makes the story," who fired Angie (Patty had a crush on Angie) not a month before for misquoting a video game guy after his shocking acquittal.

–Oh, come on now, said Chester, don't look at me like I'm some kinda cheap cliche.

He puffed.

–Now, down to business. I need 10,000 words. Franky Fisher, his rituals, his inner-circle, his demons, you know, a profile piece.

–I got it, sir, said Patty. He'd read the email.

–This is important, Pat. Franky is hot right now. You go crazy, run into the forest, almost starve to death. Then, bam, you're back. People eat it up.

–Yessir.

–Okay, get out of here, I have work to do. I'm trusting you with this, Pat. Remember, attention makes the story.

Patty left. He looked back as the door closed, through the still-open slit, at the puffing patriarch; Chester, who demanded his writers be "sent off," who did things the old way, who fired Angie; the fast-drinking, hard talking maniac whose own body had finally rebelled against him; whose wife recently, while he puffed, resolved to quit her whining, quit her attempts towards his dietary regulation; who, Patty thought, projected pity as a defense; who, we're sure, won't live to see the next decade dawn; who puffed.

Patty didn't know how to profile. Patty didn't know how to do much of anything. Patty's problem (common amongst his ilk) was that he'd live thus far without actually doing anything and, therefore, didn't know how to do anything. So, in a half-asleep state, squished in with the other economy peasants, Patty researched the infamous "profile piece," a type of journalism, he quickly learned, becoming as obsolete as journalism itself. Some doubted that the tweeted terabytes, the ill-considered low-character anecdotes vomited from big bird to small bird, could replace subtle, in depth-journalism from trained writers who knew stuff like… well, stuff. Would those who could string bits into bites more nutritious than big-bird vomit always have a place? Patty didn't know.

Still, he doubted himself, for doubt was Patty's standard state. Why did Chester give him this job? Why did Chester give him any job ever? What would happen to poor Patty when his magazine and its hastily-made website went belly up?

Mostly Patty doubted that Franky Fisher, the bad boy, the GOAT at his gig, the enigma, the dark and dangerous sort Patty avoided out of anxiety if not principle his whole life, would let someone like himself, calm-voiced, anxious little Patty, profile him, follow him around, write him. Patty was a publicist enforced irritation for fellows like Franky, a necessary nuisance to keep the checks clearing and the cocaine flowing.

As a way of controlling his anxiety he decided he'd pick a popular profile piece, maybe the first one he saw, and base his own piece on that. Unfortunately, Patty didn't care for any of the pieces he saw, and so deciding which one he saw first became quite the task.

selections from "My Night with Joey Jenkins"

by Lacey Davenport

I wanted to find him in his element. People, when they are confronted, especially by the press, tend to withdraw. I'm not criticizing, just complaining. People have their reasons for withdrawing and I have my reasons for wanting to pull them out.

So, as I said, I wanted to find him in his element. I wanted to find him somewhere he would act like himself. This would be, as I like to call it, his "home." Everybody has a home, and it's not necessarily where they live. For washed up actor Bob Shodan (who I interviewed just before Cyberspace 3000 skyrocketed him back to the top) home was a bowling alley. For Joey Jenkins, home was a gym.

[…]

Finding out where Joey Jenkins spent his time took digging. I cold-called various people who knew him, but they didn't give me any info. Eventually, I found an old interview in which he mentioned spending a lot of time at a particular gym. Hoping this was still accurate, I dug further and found a solid lead. A little gym called the Cut Strut, not far from where Joey lived. I cross-referenced the gym's photos from their website with some of Joey's few photos from his Facebook and determined this was likely the place.

[…]

The stakeout tested my patience, but eventually, around 5:00 PM, I saw Joey pull up. He wore a ratty old sweatshirt and gym shorts and carried a blue gym bag. He kept his head down as he walked into the small, drab building. Stealthily, I followed.

This place was a gym-rat's nest. A small building, yes, but very open, like a warehouse, with tons of machines, weights, and no smoothie bar. I went in after Joey and bought a day pass. The counter-kid who manned the dilapidated front desk eyed me suspiciously as he handed me my pass; it was clear he didn't think I belonged in this space. My tight jeans, styling-tee, and short, dyke dyed hair contrasted heavily against the tank-top, gym shorts wearing sweaty fellas that groaned and grunted and mirror 'mired themselves.

A few of the worker-outers stopped their reps and stared at me. Joey, however, didn't notice me. He went into the men's locker room. I, obviously, did not follow.

[…]

I let Joey work out undisturbed for a while. Then, because its my job to disturb people, I approached him.

"Can I help you?" he asked. He sat on a bench, wiping his forehead with a towel. I looked down at him. Muscular, tattooed, with short hair and a trimmed beard. By all accounts handsome. Had I come to bat from a different dugout, I might've.

"Joey Jenkins?"

"Yeah. Who're you?"

"Lacey Davenport. It's a pleasure to meet you. Do you think we could talk?"

"In the middle of my workout?"

"At the end, if you prefer."

Normally, this type of intrusion annoys people. I fully expected Joey to retaliate, tell me to fuck off and leave him alone. But he didn't. He looked up at me and smiled slyly.

"Okay, Lacey, let's do that."

[…]

Richard's Grill, cheap (I was paying, after all), but solid. And good portions. People tend to talk when they've had a good meal and a drink, so I kept the food and booze flowing. And Joey ate and drank it all, seemingly unaffected. I started to worry after I'd had one beer and he'd had six. We drove here in seperate cars. Did he mean to drive himself home? And what about my wallet? Richard's was cheap, but beer is still beer. You can't get it that cheap.

"Are you going to get a cab home?" I asked.

"Six is nothing," he said. Moments later, he motioned to the waitress to bring him another.

"But you can't drive."

"Fine, we can get a cab."

We sat in silence for a while longer. He polished off the seventh beer and then sat back. Drunk or not, he was ready to talk.

"So, you got some questions?"

"You like working out, yeah? Anything to say about that?"

"Come on… that's your question? It makes me feel good. I like to be strong. But that's not what you wanted to talk about."

"Okay, Joey, we can talk. You were in prison, right?"

He froze then frowned. He leaned forward a little.

"Yeah, I was."

"And now you're not?"

"Obviously."

"What was that transition like? Not only in regards to your personal life, but also your career?"

"Yeah, ugh, fine, whatever. I shouldn't have been in jail, anyway."

"Right, you've made that clear in the past. But-"

"No, nobody listens," said Joey. "I didn't do shit. Sure, a couple of nerds lost a bit of money, but it wasn't_my_ fault. It was just an old friend who wanted an investment. I happened to have some money, so I gave it to him. Yeah, I've always been pretty generous with my money. 'Cause I'm a good fucking person. So when Dig came to me I said, sure, I'd invest in his little company. Whatever. At first it was just a little. And I felt kinda bad, 'cause he didn't seem like he had much going on. Just working in video games. I thought he had more potential than that. So, yeah, I invested, and things went along. I didn't expect to get the money back, but, whatever, I considered it more of a gift than an investment. I had plenty of money. Still do. But then Dig started making bank, and I saw some of that. Then he got control of a new company and started making even more. So, you know, on the advice of my people, I ramped up the investments a little, got a little more involved. I remember that it seemed like he was actually doing some cutting edge stuff. But I wasn't as involved as everyone thinks. Honestly, I hardly remember any of it. People think I'm lying when I tell them that, but it's true. I got the official diagnosis and everything. Acute memory loss. But people think I'm just another rich-bitch who paid a doctor to diagnose him with some bullshit to get off. You have any idea how hard all of this has been? Having these chunks of my memory just… gone? You know what, I was wrong before, go back to asking your bullshit questions. I don't want to think about this anymore."

"Some people believe you got off easy. I mean, a month-"

"Yeah, and Dig got just what he deserved, right? Fuck that, I shouldn't have seen a minute in the joint. Didn't do shit. Fucker framed me. How I got time and he didn't… the whole thing is shady as shit. Not that anyone cares to listen to me."

"But Dalton did pay out quite a lot. And you got most of your money back."

"It's my money. I didn't do shit wrong!"

Joey slammed his clenched fist onto the table. Our plates clattered and the restaurant fell silent. Everyone stared at us. I tried to make myself small, but Joey stared back, making eye contact with each and every single one of them.

[…]

I don't know how Joey got home that night. As our meal ended, the waitress brought the bill. Despite Joey's wealth, he sat and stared at me as I gave the woman my credit card. And he stared at me while I wrote in her tip. I didn't expect him to pay, I'd made it clear that this was my treat, but I hadn't expected him to eat two entrees, two appetizers, and drink seven beers, either.

Once we got out of the restaurant, just as I was about to bid him goodbye, he said,

"Aren't you going to get the cab? Or… Uber… or whatever people use now?"

"You want me to get you a ride?" I asked.

"You won't let me drive us," he said.

"Us? Joey, I'm going home."

He stared at me.

"We did the interview. I bought you dinner. That was it."

Joey looked back at the restaurant. We could see, through it's windows, couples, groups, and the odd single eating, laughing, smiling.

"I don't give you permission to print anything that happened tonight," Joey said. Then, as he left, "I'm sure you'll have a great fucking career."

He got in his car and drove away. I kept an eye out, over the next few days, for any news on a DUI or crash. Nothing ever came up. I can only assume Joey got home in his car. But, honestly, I don't know. Once he disappeared from my view, I have no idea what happened to him.

[…]

I found myself, as I drove home, reflecting. I knew Joey demanded a cab because I didn't want him driving. But he saw me drink only one beer. Did he not realize I could drive? I wouldn't have driven him anyway, but it's odd to me that he didn't seem to consider that possibility.

Then, I thought broader. What got us to this point? Not just me, a Grub Street hack, mindlessly pounding keys for pennies, but us? My problem, I suppose, is that I didn't try hard enough. But I can deal with being another failed novelist. What about us? What led to Joey Jenkins, a handsome young man with a nice smile and a promising career, acting like such an ass, getting so angry over doing a month for a crime that probably should have seen him doing years? In what life is getting away with that not something to be happy about? And what made his former associate, Dalton, spend so much time and money developing a video game that doesn't actually work? And how could Dalton, miraculously acquitted, be allowed to just disappear? Where is he? What is he doing? What are any of us doing?

How'd the world get to this point? Does anybody know, or did this point just arrive?

Was there a person behind the Lacey that sauntered into her English class on no particular day and, after wringing out her umbrella, took her seat, pulled out her book and laptop, and sat awaiting the arrival of her professor? Who was this creature, we wonder, that wore oversized sunglasses, kept her hair tied back, and hadn’t bothered to dress beyond sweats in half a week? Is this what Lacey had become as the dull comfort set in? Or is this what Lacey had always been?

Patty didn't preciate Lacey's characterization of journalists. Not all journalists are "failed novelists" nor "aspiring novelists" (AKA, soon to be failed novelists). Some, such as Patty, never wanted to novel in the first place. Some, such as Patty, found novelists uppity and preferred the company of poets, or even plumbers, unliterary as they may be. Plumbers know how things work. Novelists can't even work themselves.

But Lacey's piece got praise, particularly in progressive circles, and so Patty figured he'd take from it some advice.

He'd be decisive. He'd do something.