op pls nerf: Part Four

God and Anime

If you're trapped in the dream of the Other, you're fucked!

Chapter Twenty Four

Pinkie_Pound and his Fairy Fortune

I will come up with words, but I am enjoying my food; I’ve been hungry for, like, an hour and a half. So go do that, you’re stressing me out. You just decided to do that, and you’re already like, “I need some words.” Give me a fucking minute.

The argument: Will a young man with a considerable chunk of change share it with a chump?

All extraneous operations ceased. Deus was delighted, certain he'd get Jerusalem-sand-bloke-blood soaked within a week. The Crusaders prepped to raid.

LadMan sat through a constant stream of meetings. He did his duty diligently, but dully. He was a viceroy now, for the real Imperator ruled from the east. Reduced, august-less. All the glory grabbed out from under him. Like a mother hen whose eggs got got, cracked, and thrown on a griddle. At his highest flight his wings melted and he careened dirtward. Let the man with the real wings take the reigns. Striker could fly high enough to tame Aegletes.

Lad knew he had only himself to blame. The great LadMan, so long absolute in Deadeye's games, finally found a fraud. He resolved to keep his head down and do what he could to facilitate clearing the dungeons.

The other fallen-from-grace-fella took things less nihilistically, which meant, in practice, that he made more noise. Chump, his experiments made redundant within a day, flew into rages so violent the SNAFU staff considered running him off campus. After the players' meeting Chump destroyed his SNAFU office, flinging furniture and ripping up notes. Sleepr reported that Chump punched a hole straight through his chalkboard.

–We got the information from a book we found, Striker had said at the meeting, after everyone recovered their senses. It's called Breaking Free From the World. It says that to "escape into a realer realm, fifty dungeons need to be mastered." Then it gives riddles to uncover the location of each dungeon.

Striker told them that FLEEK had just discovered the book, and were still in the process of having copies made. Of course, he'd have copies brought to Brandonville ASAP.

Within days, the news had shot across the world. And with the news of escape came news that it was Striker who found it.

SNAFU inna funk. After destroying his room and rampaging across campus, Chump had stormed off. Nobody had heard from him since. He soon went beyond messaging range, which was worrying, considering he wasn't one to go teleporter-trouncing halfway across the world. Certain academics argued in favor of forming a search party, but Sleepr shut them down, insisting that he knew where Chump had gone, and that he would go retrieve him himself. With Sleepr set out, Pfo was the only board member present when LadMan and his posse pulled up in their car.

–Lad, shouted Doughy, descending down the manor steps.

Lad wondered if Doughy was porch-on perpetually, waiting for people to arrive so he could sprint down the steps, shouting.

–Did you see my garden? Doughy asked.

Feeble hydrangeas planted in slapdash fashion around the yard. A row of liriope started near a wooden hobble but fizzled out halfway to the manor. Lad watched as a wandering academic, lost in thought, stepped on a hydrangea and kept going, unaware. Several steps later, noticing the flower stuck to his shoe, he scraped it off.

–Yeah, they're nice, said Lad, summoning a smile. Good job, Dough.

Erectio and Ty nodded greetings to the little lad.

–Shooky's doing better, Doughy said.

–Oh yeah? The news got him up?

–Yup. He's excited to see Muff again.

–I bet he is.

–Where's Dan?

–Brandonville, said Lad, quickly. Had some business.

–You guys are busy, I bet. How long do you think till we get out?

–Hard to say, said Lad. Fifty dungeons is a lot. Just… stay realistic.

–Ya, you right. You right.

Lad looked past Doughy, at Shooketh, bending over a ways away, watering a row of hedges near the house. The most hopeful Shook LadMan had seen since Muff. Thanks to Striker…

LadMan entered the manor and headed up to Pfo's office. Academics sat or strolled, silent and stunted. He caught a glance of DeJaVu, normally under siege at the library, stretched out in a red chair, sipping cocoa. Librarians hate not having the book someone wants. Painful to send readers away with a "sorry." DeJaVu's library was bursting with books but she lacked the one book anybody wanted.

LadMan sympathized with this languor. Confidence had dissipated. Hollow, useless. And now, no Dan. Lad'd lied to Dough, Dan hadn't stayed back for business. He and Lad were fighting.

The Dan and Lad of Lukia fought often. But over little things, nothing fundamental. They knew with a certainty reserved for each other that no fight could threaten their friendship. They'd bicker, Dan would call Lad a retard and storm off, but by the next day they'd be grinding together like nothing'd happened.

Only one time did Lad and Dan's relationship fall into doubt. Lad got himself a new GF. He tried to get her into Lukia. Dan cared about as much for Lads' various GFs as he did for all women, but didn't worry much bout it cause Lukia and Lad's love-life didn't often intersect. Until this girl threatened to dive down to Lukia's level. Dan let it be known he didn't like her, and Lad exploded. It didn't matter what Dan thought, Lad said, cause she was his GF and he was gonna learn to like her or lose them both.

How unfair. Dan couldn't compete with this girl. Faculty wise, he had her beat, but she could offer Lad something he couldn't. Why so obsessed with carnality, Lad? You don't have to be a slave to sex. You can say no to being a night-looker, a boy-hooker, a rent-boy bro-ho. Lads gonna lad.

The fight stretched. Dan planned to wait until Lad inevitably broke up with this bitch. Then things could go back to normal. But, he realized with a start, what if the stress of strife with his best boy got blamed for the breakup? Then Dan'd be responsible for destroying Lads' prized pounding. Dan made up with Lad immediately, even offering to prostrate himself before the girl if necessary (it wasn't), and sat back to let nature take its course. The fling lasted a few more months.

Dan didn't know if this row could be so neatly resolved. Things in Fanget had a life-or-death dimension absent from Lukia or the real world. Simply, Dan thought Striker a shifty shit, while Lad thought him a savior. Dan denied Striker's assertions, and claimed that he, at best, meant to wrest power from the Lads. Lad bowed to him, Dan claimed, because Lad lacked confidence. A common occurrence, something that happened often in Lukia. Dan had so loved the last-few-months Lad. Lad couldn't let his leadership be shattered by one shyster strutting into his space and spewing lies.

Ludicrous. Lad was astonished. Dan could, in the face of freedom, make things about guild politics. Who cared about power when purpose had been handed to them? Striker had saved them. Stop raising hell, leave it down in the ground, and fall in line behind Striker, the only guy who'd gotten anything of worth done.

The differences in viewpoint proved irreconcilable. After a thirty minute fight Lad set off with Erectio and Ty and left Dan pothering in the palace.

Oxie sometimes felt like the protagonist in a post-modern novella, some vaguely defined, wandering chick, created as an audience eyepiece, the author's way of showing them shit. She wasn't a person in her own right, but a jumble of objective perceptions, unfiltered, the complexities of which came later in the process than her.

She felt like a person. But she questioned if outsiders would see her as such. If they didn't, did she exist? Did her existence depend on her rendering? What if the renderer did a poor job? ignore her internalities and over-emphasising a single quality? This threatened to dissolve her.

Foreign physics lady had, during her time at SNAFU, started a map of the game's skybox. Using primitive tools she charted the movements of the pseudo-celestes and found, to no great surprise, that they roughly followed our own cosmos. At first she was annoyed that she couldn't reach a fraction as far as she was used to. She couldn't see all the crazy cosmo-shit she could in our own sky. She couldn't get no info on expansion, even knowing what to look for. Then she realized that here she was farther. Here she saw it all. The only thing more sight would expose were pixels. Things would get blurrier. She couldn't build a rocket and shoot starward. She'd hit a limit. Just like, for some asinine reason, you presumably couldn't go around their globe. The map showed a plane. With an edge. It didn't loop.

Stupid. Sitting here studying space when space didn't exist. They didn't need scientists, they needed speedrunners.

LadMan arrived to find Pfo on his floor, sprawled out, staring at his ceiling, a cig in his mouth. A pack of smokes, half empty, on the floor next to him. A bowl filled with ash.

–Pfo, what are you doing?

–Nothing, said Pfo. Honestly, Lad, I'm bored. Kinda crazy, isn't it, that I can be bored in a situation like this? But until we get that book, what are we supposed to do?

LadMan slumped down against the wall. Erectio leapt into Pfo's bed and remained there, motionless, staring into the pillow. Pfo peered at the little loli lying in his bed and frowned. Ty stood silent in the doorframe.

–It's coming soon, said LadMan with a sigh. A day or so, just hang in there.

–Sure, said Pfo. Nothing else to do.

–Where's Chump?

–Dunno, he ran off.

–Ran off?

–Yeah, went crazy and ran off, said Pfo, laughing.

–Is he okay?

–He's fine, said Pfo. Sleepr will find him. Let him sulk, I say, God knows we don't need him now. If we ever did. Whatever he's doing out there in the woods, or halfway across the world, or wherever he is, is going to end soon, God willing.

–What's he upset about? asked Erectio, muffled, most of his voice disappearing into Pfo's pillow.

–Crazy right? I guess because he didn't discover this himself? Or because he'll have to stop doing his fucked up experiments? Doesn't wanna go back to whatever mid-range university he studied at. Back to his IRBs and such.

–Well, try to find him soon, said LadMan. He could still discover stuff to help us. I don't want anything to happen to him.

–Fine, but don't lose sleep over it.

Impossible. Stress couldn't keep you up when you couldn't get tired. And the second you took the potion, poof, nothing could stop your sleep.

Silence for a sec. Then Lad,

–So… anything else going on?

–No, said Pfo. Just waiting on that book.

Another silent sec.

–Can I ask why you're here, Lad? asked Pfo.

–It's our weekly meeting, said Lad, a lil hurt.

–Oh, right.

Final silent sec.

–All right, said Lad, rising. I'll get you the book as soon as I can.

–Sure, said Pfo. Then,

–Think about it. A book of riddles. That's what this comes down to. Practically a book of poetry. That must be driving Chump insane.

Pfo was still laughing when LadMan left.

The book came in prime-time, two days after Striker's announcement. The original text, along with a copy. Striker handed them to Lad with the solemnity of a missionary handing a holy book to a pre-saved savage. And, Dan thought, the condescension.

LadMan looked upon the original, but Striker soon asked for it back. Too valuable for the likes of Lad. Lad complied, and Striker handed the book back to one of his guards. Thus, Lad was left with a single copy.

This he gave to Bonaparte, instructing him to copy the text like crazy.

The book was big, leatherbound, with its title, Breaking Free From the World, printed in handsome gold type. The in-book text was bold, but the pages were ripped and yellowed with age; a strange contrast, as if the text had magically remained pure while the pages withered. The book was sixty five pages. The first fifteen blank or devoted to short paragraphs explaining the book's function. The explanatory prose was poor. What information it did give was vague. Nobody expected better of the Devs' writing.

The next fifty pages held the riddles, one per page, each, presumably, describing a dungeon that needed to be cleared. The riddles were puerile and patchwork, like they'd been composed by a single, underpaid, overworked writer on his fifth cup of coffee.

Striker left. With him the original. As Lad bid him adieu, watching from his window as Striker entered his car then sped off, Bony was already hard at work scrounging for a printer to mass-produce the riddles in pamphlet form. Get the text disseminated. So many implications.

After debate the Crit Committee agreed to accompany the Crusaders in their dungeon clearing. With Beb and Charles, the Crusaders' finest, and other assorted divers (Bobby, Di, Liao), this team would boast the most proficient players in the world. SNAFU attached most of their game mechanics department (Jenny_Say_Kwa, Monica89, Dance, Kokomo, Menace_Dennis, Winrate, and Zoltair) and, at her own insistence, Oxie and Healthy Man. Squares tagged along as security. LadMan put Rufus and Jil on as "intermediaries," tasked with keeping the needs of the team clear so that LadMan could meet them. ExplorerDotExEhasCrashed, a Dwarvia FLEEK member, served as Striker's main contribution. Plenty other parties got formed, but none could compete in level, skill, or resources. Beb and Charles put significant funds towards the team, and Pinkie did the same.

The plan couldn't have been simpler. Wait for SNAFU to find the dungeons, send scouts, then send the team to clear it. If multiple dungeons needed clearing, send this team, the A-Team, to clear the hardest one. Send a lesser team to clear the other. If the lesser team stalled, wait for the A-Team to finish their first task, then redeploy them as reinforcements. Don't let any old team with a dream schlep to a dungeon and get themselves schwacked. A central command needed to dictate dungeon clearing with an iron fist. The player population didn't protest this authoritative approach, perhaps because an end to their ordeal loomed. The dungeons would be taken slowly, carefully, Resources and reinforcements efficiently flowing. If things got too hot, call for backup. Nobody dared plan for the obvious worst case: the A-Team's wipe.

LadMan assumed Striker would take charge. He did not. He sat back in Merse, his input limited to little suggestions or reiterating obvious macro-policy points. Explorer kept him informed, presumably (Dan assumed, as his name implied, that he was more of a spy than an emissary), but Striker kept his hands off. Little by little, LadMan regained his confidence, if not his autonomy. Striker seemed to trust him to handle things…

Lad's final thrust outta his funk came when Slick stood up and slapped him during a dinner.

–Goddammit, Lad, she said, responding to a self-deprecating remark. You got us here. You kept us together. We only lost a few people, and they were hardly your fault. The Sad Lads made it this far because of you, so perk the fuck up. We're almost out, but we aren't gonna get there without you.

Slick remembered sitting on the boat, sailing up the River Chancellor. Lost within herself. Nobody helped her then, but she wasn't gonna let Lad fall prey to himself. She was strong enough to emerge on her own, but didn't need to be. But Slick, once he gets out, where will he turn?

–You're right, Slick, said LadMan quietly. I'm sorry.

After all, Striker, the savior, thinks he can do it…

LadMan wondered if he'd stop leading the Lads after all this. What Lads? This was the boys' last bool, their last 2AM bean hunt, their last bit back in town. He put on a smile, enough to placate, and pushed forward. He did feel better. There was no shame in striking out. We're not all hitters.

The typical parties offered resistance. Vac was on the street, though Striker had nullified his threat. Let him street-preach, he'll be freed with all the rest. Sleepr dragged Chump back to SNAFU, where he continued acting a fool and occasionally slipping out of messaging range. But Doughy spoke with him and convinced him to stop destroying shit. Deus was still a dick, but a dick with something to penetrate ain't a prob.

The lion's share of strife came from sources once inconceivable.

–Lunar, welcome, please sit down.

Lunar sat before the Lads: LadMan, Woman, Phat, Pbbbbbbb&j, Brostein, Slick. Erectio leaned against a wall. Dan sat silent off to the side.

Strange for little Lunar to request a meeting. Something important, he'd said.

–How you holding up? LadMan asked.

–Good, good. I'm doing fine, said Lunar.

Lunar shifted in his seat. The Lads waited politely for him to begin. Finally,

–LadMan…

He felt all eyes bearing down on him. Already on fire. He blinked. Figments… cause his brain knew they wouldn't well receive what he had to say?

Clean sat beside him, energizing the ions. Clean, the lone Committee kid to believe him.

–I… I don't know if you've seen or heard anything strange. Or if you know something I don't. But I think Striker is hiding something.

Lad soured. The other Lads looked towards Dan, whose face exploded.

–You think so too? he said excitedly. That's what I've been saying, there is definitely something strange going on.

–Dan, enough, said LadMan.

–Lad-

–Enough!

Lunar realized he'd waded into the middle of something.

–Lunar, I don't need you spewing this nonsense too, said LadMan.

Lunar couldn't summon a coherent response.

–Why are you two so bent on proving that Striker is a liar? He's saving us, for Christ's sake? Do you not want to get out of here? Are you unable to accept that he's saving us?

Slick shot Brostein a sideways glance.

Lunar knew he lacked plain proof. His suspicion arose from a feeling. But not formed from nothing. It had burrowed deep inside him, yes, and wiggled around, upsetting his insides until he proved it true, but he hadn't let it in for free.

–It's just… the whole story is… strange, said Lunar.

–What's so strange about it, exactly? The whole thing? You're just not willing to accept something once you've made up your mind about it?

Lunar knew LadMan was talking to Dan. But Lad was plenty pissed with Lunar too. Just as Dan was about to resign, Lunar lumbered in and got the guy all worked up again.

–Why not tell us the second they found the book? asked Lunar. Why-

–Why? said LadMan. Because the world doesn't revolve around us. Do you think Striker spends all his time sitting around, thinking, hm, what do I need to keep the Lads up to date on? He has more important things to do. He was going to tell us during the meeting, during his speech, but we couldn't keep things calm enough to even get to that point.

Lunar had a response, but Lad thundered forward.

–I don't know what your motive is, Lunar, but I'm sick of people trying to rain on this parade. If you can't accept, for whatever ridiculous reason, that Striker is going to get us out of this game, then you can screw off and wait for us to win.

–Striker isn't doing shit! shouted Dan. If this is how we escape, why are we the ones doing all the work. Why is he sitting in Merse-

–Get out! shouted LadMan.

Lunar didn't know if Lad meant him or Dan. Unwilling to risk it, he and Clean hurried into the hallway. Ty, standing guard at the door, shot them a dirty look.

Fine. Clean and Lunar left. They walked slowly, sadly, down the hallway.

Am I wrong? Lunar thought. Striker's strange behavior was cause for concern. He wanted to let Lad know what he'd seen. He didn't mean to start a fucking fight.

–Lunar!

Dan rushed towards them.

–Dan, I'm sorry. I- I don't know-

–It's not your fault, said Dan, his words spilling over one another in his hurry. LadMan just doubts himself. He's angry and depressed because Striker showed him up. This isn't the first time this has happened, though, granted, this is the worst. But we just need to cover for him until he gets through it.

–But-

–He's being blind. Striker is pulling something, I'm sure of it. I thought I was the only one. I thought I was going crazy.

–It just seems suspicious.

–It's more suspicious than a black kid in a 7/11.

Clean cringed.

–He's up to something, Dan continued. At first I thought he was making a power move, but now he's sitting around in Merse, not doing anything. But that's even more suspicious. I need to figure out what's going on, for everyone's sake. You're on the A-Team, right?

–Yeah, technically, said Lunar. But it's Beb and Charles they really want.

–Come help me investigate this, said Dan. Just for a little while.

Lunar looked to Clean. They never meant to get dragged into an investigation. But they'd spent the last few days getting yelled at by Deus, who found them subpar Crusaders. The other Committee members had the balls and skill to yell back, but Lunar felt woefully inadequate, unable to question or challenge the seasoned raider's criticisms. If he couldn't take training, what would happen during a raid?

Face it, nobody would miss him… or Clean. They wanted the real Committee, not these auxiliary schmucks. Besides, they hadn't found the first dungeon, so there was no raiding to be done.

–I guess we can look into it, said Lunar.

He looked again at Clean.

–Is that okay with you?

–Sure, why not?

Oh Pfo, always so, yo. They found three dungeons in rapid succession. The fourth riddle in the book, hinting towards a dungeon on a peninsula, within an hour's walk from the sea. Far southwest of Brandonville. The scouts confirmed it.

Then the second, a deep-forest dungeon, where the birds sang. Then the twelfth, a dungeon to the north, at the foot of a mountain covered in snow.

–Do we have to clear them in order? LadMan asked. We haven't solved the first riddle yet.

Gui gram'd Striker. Striker responded: I'm sure it doesn't matter.

The A-Team was on the job, prepping gear, finalizing plans. First the fourth. They cleanly cleared it. They beat up the final boss, a club wielding skeleton. Charles dealt the final blow, a holy light spell, much to Beb's consternation. The rogue had been moments away from driving his daggers into the undead beast's back.

The team returned to Brandonville triumphant. They feasted at the palace. Then word from the Wisteria. Pinkie holding a party at his place. The entire A-Team invited. A waste of time, some said, but Pinkie insisted on keeping morale high. Only a short TP away, with dust provided free of charge, all courtesy of the fab capitalist.

Much of SNAFU was also invited. But Pfo couldn't get his spirits up. Even as his team made strides on other riddles, his mind resided elsewhere. Chump, the sulky pseud, kept scurrying away with Sleepr and a few others. Pfo still wished to know where they were going.

–Don't worry about it, said Dead Dude, as Jmar nodded along. Chump is impossible to understand. Don't harass him while he's down.

–Focus on them riddles, Jmar said.

Some split in the Chump camp. Yui, the anatomist (and a fascist, she seemed to Pfo), had some issue. Then she was gone. Pfo asked about her, but Chump gave the predictable response: she went crazy and ran off. Sleepr nervously, in a rare private conversation with Pfo, added details,

–Things have been really tense. Yui… got tired of being around, so she left. I think she went to Merse… I'm not really sure.

Pfo kept badgering the other academics for answers. What had they seen, heard, smelt about Chump? But they found it sad, sad that Pfo, now numero uno en el juego, was so obsessed with one crazy kid.

Pfo's appeals to Lad went worse.

–Why are all my people becoming obsessed with these crazy conspiracy theories? the Lad thundered. Find the other fucking dungeons, for Christ's sake!

Pfo kept looking. His room became overrun with riddle-notes. He wheeled four other chalkboards in. He hadn't studied this hard for his GRE. Still…

The Wisteria world existed in a hacky, halfway point between Rapture and the Gungan spheres. There is something imminently romantic, even within the horrors of the aforementioned game and movie, of underwater living, hanging in transparent spheres, watching the fish-folk peacefully float by. Within these big spheres, connected by glass corridors, the Wisteria cities thrived. Some buildings built from stone, human style, some carved out of huge coral configurations. Outside the spheres, vast tracts of "farmland," plantations producing underwater food and cash crops. Wisteria swam, or rode around on mounts (literal seahorses). The richer ones cruised in subs. Huge, three dimensional pens held domesticated food-fish.

Any player with sense found the whole thing profoundly disappointing. Underwater was cool, of course, but no effort had been made to adapt life to this setting. The world above, your basic-bitch Victorian shit, had been slapped onto the ocean floor and hastily coated with an under-the-sea aesthetic. Seaweed farms? Seahorses? Really? Some of the cities had walls, for fuck's sake.

Furthermore, the Wisteria could breath underwater. Why then, situate their cities within spheres? They weren't squirrels among the seafolk. They were the seafolk. Their cities didn't need air. And yet…

It made it easier for the other species to visit (which was why, clearly, the Devs did it), but it was boring. Everything wrong with MMO design made manifest. Precarious notions of balance favored above world consistency. Lukia wouldn't have done it like this. Right?

At any rate, Pfo arrived in the Wisteria realm's capital, Atlantis (obviously), and was promptly blown away. Despite its stupidity, the city was beautiful. Huge blue lights built into the dome shone down, wonderfully dressed Wisteria ran about, outrageous architecture rose in every direction. Pfo hadn't left the Chancellorsburg-Brandonville beltway, seeing this sight struck him with a strange feeling: he wanted to actually play this game.

Pinkie lived in a fine penthouse in The Coral Heights, the classiest coelenterate in the city. Pfo arrived and, after arguing with the doorman over his name's pronunciation, he was let in. Through a luxurious lobby and up an elevator and into Pinkie's upscale abode.

Ten huge rooms. Overkill for two? All dark, lit only by red lamps strewn throughout. The walls covered in abstract art. Wacky furniture, arguably art-pieces. And replete with peeps. All too chic to beat.

Times like these made Pfo regret making his character so massive. Such a scene, pushing through the little people, trying to find Pinkie to politely pay his respects. Then, if he couldn't find a quiet corner, he might just leave.

Pinkie saw him well before he saw Pinkie.

–Pfo! the pound hound called in his glaring Geordie. Pfo, hon, how are you?

Pinkie had at his hip Imma Wut. Imma Wut, the sea-green Wisteria, wore a baggy brown sweater, baggy pants, and a pair of round rimmed glasses. Like a lovable stoner, greened out.

–Nice to meet you, mate, Imma Wut said in a thick cockney.

–Pleasure's mine, said Pfo,

Pfo was at his wit's end. He had to ask.

–Do you have any idea how the voices work in this game? he said, struggling to be heard above the party's roar.

–Huh? asked Pinkie.

–Are you British in real life? Pfo asked.

–Newcastle born and raised, said Pinkie. Why?

–The game changed everyone else's voice. My real voice isn't this gruff. How'd you keep your accents? Was it just luck? Did the game just happen to give you a voice like your real one?

Pinkie and Imma Wut looked strangely at Pfo.

–Honey, Pinkie finally said, there was a voice customizer in character creation.

–What?!

–Tough to miss, bruv, said Imma Wut.

–Are… really?

Pfo thought hard. A lot of the Lads got voices they found unsatisfactory. Some of them, like LadMan, were meticulous character creators. They wouldn't have missed such an option.

–There couldn't have been, said Pfo.

–Honey, there was, said Pinkie.

Pinkie, peering above the heads of partiers, lit up.

–Oh, Chumpy, come here.

A miserable Chump shoved his way through the crowd.

–Chump, darling, how are you? I haven't seen you in ages, said Pinkie.

When had Pinkie met Chump?

Chump grunted something in response. He might've spoken, but whatever he said was lost in the roar. Pfo was surprised to see Chump. Not a partier, that one. Even more surprising that he'd been invited at all.

–Chump and I have the most fascinating discussions, said Pinkie to Pfo. Chump, dear, you saw the voice customizer in character creation, right?

Chump scrunched up.

–The what?

–Voice customizer. Am I going mental? The game let you pick how your voice sounds.

You might think, looking at Chump, that he went with a default character upon creation, taking only time to make himself barely resemble his real-life self for convenience sake, hardly caring what he actually looked like. You'd be right, but that doesn't mean he didn't curiously check all the options.

–There was no way to customize your voice, Chump said. Voices are randomly assigned based on character type. I figured that out in the first few days.

–What is this? exclaimed Pinkie, half jokingly. Honey, there was an option. Oh, George, get me another drink!

This went on for a while. Buzzed Pinkie bounced around the party like a polling Heather. Many players insisted they had an option to customize their voices. You could even let the game copy your real voice, built from samples taken from the console itself.

–That's what I did, said Pinkie. Did you think the game created this fabulous voice from scratch?

Others insisted that no such option existed. No customization of any type. Then, Chump got it.

–Only the humans couldn't customize! he shouted.

To their shock and awe, he was right. The voice customization option was bugged for the humans. Chump quickly formulated a theory. As everyone knew, you selected your species first. Then you customize every aspect. As the non-humans claimed, you set your voice last. So, shocking as it seems, they'd gone through several months with all the humans assuming the voices were randomly generated, and all the non-humans thinking that they were not.

–You thought I gave myself this gruff voice by choice? Pfo asked.

–Honey, I don't judge, said Pinkie.

Chump: shook to the core. He sat in Pinkie's drawing room, the only penthouse room barred to the general party population. With him, Pinkie, Imma Wut, and Pfo. Pfo sat across the room, on a dark red couch, smoking a pipe. The party pounded gainst the walls, the music, the dancing, the jumping. In the lowlight, his vision obscured by his pipe-smoke, Pfo felt bad for the boy. Something about parties filled Pfo with ennui. They seemed entropy personified, all the fleeting fellas blasting against the night or the light, as if by shouting and bouting they could break the cycle. As if, in that moment, they could secure themselves against the infinite inflation, the going on and on, forever on, far too on.

–I don't understand how we could have missed it, said Chump. What else have we missed? I thought we had built a foundation.

–Don't worry about it, honey, said Pinkie. It isn't knowledge we need.

–It's…

Chump looked up.

–We need to understand how the game works.

–So we can clear the dungeons, yeah. But this doesn't have anything to do with that.

–That's not all we need to know, said Chump.

–Knowledge for its own sake, said Pfo between puffs. That's what you're advocating for, Chump?

Pfo felt bad, but not that bad. How often had Chump, the pragmatist, poo pooed Pfo's studies, belching on and on: science was an end in of itself as only truly pragmatic pursuits can be. Such a lame idealogue. Would've been boring if he hadn't been such a threat. Oxie and Healthy Man shot back in Pfo's defense. String theory, they said, was originally a candidate to explain the strong force. Then, when it failed, it was only because people were able to study stuff without submitting their bi-monthly reports to the DoD that the theory had the chance to mature. If every damn thing had to further some Nazi's rocket revenge, we wouldn't have half the science we do. Let the boys study, for fuck's sake.

Chump didn't see the parallel. String theory, no matter how it came to be, couldn't be compared to the uselessness of sociology, psych, the other soft sciences or, worse, the humanities. Dogmatic nonsense, thought Pfo. Stick a picture of Sheldor on your shirt and be done.

Chump's experiments mean nothing. Pfo's study is the study of the supreme. Their book is the Bible as it was seen in olden times. Pfo the theologian, the scholar of salvation.

Chump just wants some change. Things were good, now they aren't. How do you explain that? Just give him some damn money. His motivations for attending this party become clear.

Could Chump demand pounds for his passion and still get pissed at the funding of his local lyceum's sociology school? Pfo wondered.

Pinkie, to change the subject,

–Did you ask Charles and Beb for money? They have more than I do.

Chump did, but the twins found him annoying and stuck up. Furthermore, they found his science stupid. God, how Chump hated having to justify his research. Back in reality, fighting for grants, trying and failing to court peeps rich in cash, poor in sense.

Does Chump see the irony in all this?

–It takes a constructed environment to make your research important, he said.

Evidently not.

Chump maintained a world view driven out of immediate necessity. Pfo feared necessity and all who extol it. They got beaten back once. And the Allies didn't repeat Bony's blunder, they burned Berlin to the ground. Pfo didn't know if they had another good fasc-bash in them.

Chump dissolved. Immediate, pragmatic rewards? That's a strawman, surely. It's that they refuse to follow the process, that's what pisses him off. He tried to appeal to empiricism, but can't speak.

–I'll give you some money, Chump, said Pinkie, smiling sadly.

Pfo was aghast.

–I've plenty, Pinkie continued. If giving you some makes you happy, then it's worth it.

A tattered Vac on the streets of Chancellorsburg. He looked up. A sniffling figure stood above him. A human, his username above his head.

–What do you want? Vac asked. Here to yell at me?

–Get up, Coke said. I'll buy you a meal.

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

All I Wanna Do Is -Bang- -Bang- -Bang- -Bang-

If you walk into my kitchen you will see the white powder
I’ll be by the cooker, whipping at you harder
Don’t be alarmed I’m just cooking pounded yam…

The argument: But deep down they knew there were many socio-economic problems in the hood.

Lune told the Committee he n Clean was heading out. Investigating. They wouldn't be gone long. That's all he said, but Kitty intuited the rest. Beb def didn't, doe.

–We need your help clearing the dungeons, he whined.

A cheap lie. What would Lune do but die?

–You guys'll be okay, said Lunar.

Lunar and Clean met Dan at the Brandonville teleporter. The Lad looked prepared, with a bag on his back and a gun at his side. Lunar and Clean wore their black armor, still, despite Beb and Charles' searching, the best armor anybody had found. They carried two changes of clothes each, their fine attire, acquired early from the Chancellorsburg tailor, and an innocuous set of working class threads they'd bought a day ago in Brandonville. They had weapons, but Clean had exchanged the elephant rifle for a carbine. The big gun was going with Beb to help clear the dungeons. Finally, Lunar had his wings, taken from Valefor (and Beb) and won gainst Clean with a good throw of the fingers. The wings, though equipped, didn't show until Lunar unfurled them, at which point they would extend ten feet in either direction. They leaked evil energy, the air around them seemed to throb. Lunar could use them to ascend or descend or float, like a dark angel, without flapping. Or he could flap and fly, faster than anyone. A fine find indeed, and little surprise Beb was still salty at having lost them to Lune. They stuck out, though. Lunar had blown his cover cause the rule of cool before.

An outpost had formed outside the teleporter tower. Two Sad Lads sat behind a stand labeled "customs." Wooden, hastily built, like Lucy's shrink stand. Other players smoked near a stack of crates. Six or seven stood in line behind the stand. Trash littered the ground. Air infused with the electricity of commerce. But a sad, dead electricity, like that of a flickering motel sign. Hardly invirogarating. NPC guards flanked the tower entrance, and stared at the trio with the required suspicion.

Dan didn't do lines. He sauntered up to customs, past the protesting players. The two Lads recognized him, and groaned.

–There's a tax of-

–Not paying, said Dan. I'm a government official.

The Lads decided not to fight this.

–Where are you going?

–Merse. Myself, Lunarkid, and Mr. Clean.

–How long are you staying?

–As long as it takes.

The Lads marked their papers and waved Dan along. Dan decided to skip the line for the teleporter too. To the grumbling he responded that he was a high ranking Lad, who had in fact been present when the teleporters were fixed. Lunar and Clean declined to remind him that they were the ones who actually fixed the things.

The tele sat in the tower, cleaned since Zyron's days, not musty but cozy, like a grandma's living room, old furniture and a cackling fire. Zyron's replacement, a mid-age mage named Zweister, sat on a stool beside the teleporter, watching with hard, serious eyes as Dan approached.

Dan flew through his menu and materialized a purple pouch in his hand. He opened it carefully and poured the powder within into a tin measuring cup on a table. One fourth a cup for three to Merse. Dan took his time, pouring a bit of dust into the tin, then pouring it back, then again, trying to get the amount as exact as possible. The line behind him tapped their feet and muttered amongst themselves.

–Hurry up, retard, someone said.

Dan was the sort that stands at the soda fountain, waiting for the fizz to die down so he can top off his drink. He didn't care if a line formed behind him. Lunar stared straight ahead, as if studying the teleporter, trying to avoid the waiters' watch. He was the sort to fill his cup quickly and GTFO, even if it meant, post-fizz, he had half a drink. Finally, Dan finished. He poured the dust into the fuel canister.

–To Merse, he said to Zweister. All three.

Zweister tapped at his tablet.

–Okay, let's go, Dan said.

Lunar walked quickly through the teleporter, sighing as he felt himself whisked away, away from the foot tapping and angry staring. Zweister saw them off with a serious, somber, but somewhat amused gaze.

Clean and Dan, without demon wings, had to settle for purchased mechanical ones built into their backpacks. They worked as well as natural Meria wings, with the drawback that they required fuel. But compared to Lunar's they sucked. Like losers out of a failed 1890s flight experiment against the prince of pandemonium himself.

Many Meria buildings could only be reached by flying. Their capital, Mer, floated high above the world, an entire city suspended in the sky, cruising a consistent course, held aloft by pure vidya magic. FLEEK had gotten fellas into the city, and found it controllable, but couldn't get farther than that. The city was a mess of steampunk construction, tubes, levers, gears, rivets. NPCs, presumably the ones controlling the city, hunkered in a vast control room deep within, but remained insolent, miserly with their info. Merse, therefore, remained the Meria center.

The spawn town was built high into the mountains, some sections literally hanging from vertical cliff faces via steel cables. The buildings were wooden, painted bright, and open. All clearly Asian-inspired. Like a mythical Buddhist temple high in the clouds, the kind a pilgrim would have to climb a thousand steps to reach.

Clean cringed when she saw it. Lunar figured she was scared of heights. For the altitudinally challenged, the city was a nightmare. The Meria players with such a fear had, almost without fail, migrated to Chancellorsburg, a boring city firmly on the soil.

But Clean claimed her problem wasn't with the height, but the presentation.

–What's it supposed to be? she asked.

–Uh… Asian? Lunar suggested.

–What type of Asian, Lunar? Japanese? Chinese? Indian? Saudi Arabian?

Lunar wasn't sure.

–East Asian?

–Why are the humans, the default species, the jack of all trades, the most "normal," represented by a Western European style, while the other species, the exotic, the strange, are in the style of, say, East Asia?

Lunar didn't know. Such a thing seemed natural. But as he thought about it, he realized why Clean was upset. She went on about orientalism, something he didn't get. He personally thought Merse beautiful. By far his favorite in-game area. The soft, mellow colors, the openness, the sakura trees, the scattershot construction; buildings hung out on the side of mountains, unaware of how ridiculous it was to do so.

But he tried to listen.

–Let's settle in, said Dan.

–We should lay low, said Lunar.

All the dark noirs he used to watch came flooding back to him. Better not to stir shit up until you were ready.

Clean had to explain to Lunar why laying low prohibited them from staying in the town's finest hotel.

They got a room in the slums, in the lowest part of the city, directly under a factory. But still, cozy, with a good view of the stars on the horizon, if not the stars straight up. Lunar loved the skybox stars, the streaks of color. Brandonville blotted out the stars with its artificial light, but Merse, lit at night only by the odd paper lantern and torch bearing link-boy, couldn't silence the sky. He only wished the mountains didn't block the Moon rising in the east.

While Dan menu-dived in his bed, Lunar wandered out onto their room's little deck. Clean sat, sprawled out on a reclined, wooden chair, staring towards the horizon. Lunar took the other chair.

Clean wore a loose robe. She'd tied her hair into a bun. Still, strands fall across her face. A soft light, sourceless or from the stars themselves, bounced off her face, lighting up her cheeks. Lunar, in a similarly loose robe, stretched and yawned. He positioned himself with his head back, but carefully, as to not squish the back of his mohawk. It felt good to be free of his armor, but a certain onerous organ, currently lying awkwardly against his thigh, threatened to rise, now that it had purchase to proceed. Glancing at Clean, he figured she felt similarly bout her big breasts, sagging. Pale and veiny, Lunar imagined.

Gross, right? Eh…

With his unnamed last-love, he didn't hafta worry about the veins, cause she had nothing stretching her skin. Lunar didn't know a lot about female anatomy. Regardless, he found his thoughts pierced with puriency. In the few weeks he'd known Clean, he'd become unusually enticed. He felt a burning in his belly, a within-him heat that almost hurt. Did this mean he was in the clear? His prior fagification a false alarm? Naw, things ain't that simple.

Always outside. A privileged position? Pft. Perpetually between, always within, stuck.

–You're lucky to have a brother worth looking for, she said. I only ever liked my grandma. Babaa… we used to sit together and play board games. She was good too. Never went easy on me.

Lunar peered, counting the stars. He thought of Shane, sitting in the living room before school, chowing down on his daily breakfast spread. He and Kat, cruising around in her grimy auto. They'd come to the house and sit on the couch, watching dumb movies late into the night. Lunar, in his room, allegedly reading, could hear the electric sounds of the set. He might descend for midnight rations and see them curled up. Shane, in his fashion, asleep, his head on Kat's shoulder. Kat, awake, would look at Lunar and smile.

At barbeques, at the pool, even in-game – in Lukia, in some milsim. With Ricardo and, if in a game, the twins. Shane let Lunar in. And the Committee welcomed him. Just like they'd welcomed Clean.

–You know, Clean was saying. I haven't been this clear headed in ages.

She was rambling now, talking to talk. Lunar let her. They were both lost in their own minds, but brushing up against each other's.

–Funny, isn't it? I really don't want to go back to that body. This one's not perfect, but it was so nice to pick it. It just seems so cruel…

Clean started crying.

–I really fucked up.

She hadn't. Not really. She was dropped into the world. Disoriented. With an unhappy family, save for her obaachan. Rejected. She turned to the wrong drugs. Sucking short-term pills, nothing close to salvation. Talked like a gentleman, nowhere near Jesus, so on and on. She could've got there. She would have. Even now, even still, she has to believe she will.

Lunar dragged his seat close to hers. He put his arm around her, awkwardly at first. Then, he settled. Not for nothing, not for less. Settled with life for something decent.

The mountain still blocked the Moon. The underside of the city was grimy, dirty. Lunar and Clean sat together. Kitty, excitedly spewing Spanish. Ricardio, laughing along. Beb and Charles, bitching and battling with one another. Clean, watching the star-speckled horizon, enough herself to stand.

Shane turned to Belton with eyes wide and full of admiration.

Dan gathered them for a morning strategy meeting. But first, food.

–This isn't enough, is it? asked Dan, motioning to his paltry portions. The innkeeper had brought them steamed rice, miso-esque soup, grilled salmon (where did she get it, up in the mountains?), and pickled plums. Lunar was hyped to dig in, but Clean was irked by the cultural insensitivity set tablewise for their consumption.

–We should definitely have more, Lunar said. Then, looking at Clean, he blushed.

–While… uh… acknowledging the… orientalism happening…

Clean remembered visiting her grandma, whose breakfasts resembled the one before her. Her grandma, bubbly, sarcastic, taught Clean the tricks to make a fast-breaking meal on the quick. Rice in the cooker, heat up miso soup leftover from the night before. Clean loved breakfast at grandma's. She was always in a good mood when she'd wake up and realize she'd slept there, not at home.

She couldn't articulate it, but she felt this vidya breakfast tarnished that tradition. Besides, as her grandma always said, Japanese breakfasts aren't meant to fill one all the way up. The innkeeper, younger than Clean's grandma ever was, couldn't run to the corner market and pick up instant miso soup packets. Was she making Dan's every absurd request by hand? Or did she, as Clean's companion seemed to think, dematerialize outside their door, sit unrendered until a set time had passed, then reappear right as she reentered, bearing a labor-free platter of eats?

Dan demanded much more rice (and some rice fried) and more miso soup. Lunar, acknowledging the orientalism this move implied, requested more salmon, fermented soy beans, pickled cucumbers, seasoned seaweed, sashimi beef, tempura vegetables with flavored salt, soba with broth, and tofu. When the innkeeper produced all this, Lunar and Dan grew bolder.

–Do you have sake? Lunar asked.

–Lunar, it's morning, said Clean.

–Sake? asked the innkeeper. What is that?

–Uh… rice wine?

–Oh, yes, I can get some for you.

Then: shirasu, inago, kurage, kamenote, and shiokara. Clean had to demand a stop to the breakfast fiasco when Lunar asked the innkeeper to fix him up some fugu. Once the boys ate, they got to planning.

–We can't be too obvious, said Dan. We can't let Striker know we're on to him. Not yet.

–I agree, said Lunar. If they find out what we're doing they'll clamp up.

Dan had further thoughts. Two fears. First: he was afraid FLEEK would try to kill him. Second (and more importantly): he was concerned they'd complain to LadMan.

–Dan, what do you actually think Striker is doing? asked Clean. She phrased this as politely as possible. Still, the doubts in her mind crept through her filter and intermingled with her words. If Dan noticed, he didn't show it.

–Not sure, exactly, he said. But he's definitely up to something. I think he knows something that he's not telling us. It's possible most of FLEEK doesn't even know. Maybe only him and his top dogs do?

Lunar thought back to his milsim days, with Shane and company, under the command of Dingo Dave and Jupit. Incompetent, Lunar thought. They tried, but any success their forces achieved couldn't be attributed to them. How could those characters be embroiled in a conspiracy?

–Here's what I would guess, said Dan. I think Striker has information about the Challenge that he's not sharing. That, or he found out something about what dying in the game means. Maybe he found another book, maybe he found something else. The whole thing is just weird. He said he was going to wait until his speech to tell us how to get out of the game? Why?

–Let me offer a counterpoint, said Clean, her mind revving up. If Striker wanted to trick us, and he knew that waiting until his speech seemed suspicious, why would he have waited?

–He might not have known it was suspicious, said Dan.

–Okay, said Clean. If he doesn't think that kind of thing is suspicious, then it wouldn't affect his behavior either way.

–What do you mean?

–If he thinks that kind of thing is normal, he would do it whether or not he actually found the way out of the game. Waited for his speech, I mean. It's a little strange that he didn't tell everyone earlier, but it doesn't prove that he's hiding something. Why make your deception so suspicious?

–Fine, said Dan. But why is he not more involved in clearing the dungeons?

–He sent some people to help, said Clean.

–Yeah, some. If clearing those dungeons is our way out, why not put all efforts towards that? There has to be some catch.

–Do we know he's not putting all his efforts towards clearing them?

–Why sit around in Merse, then?

–It's only a teleporter trip away, said Clean.

Dan tried to keep from getting flustered. He assumed Clean was playing devil's advocate, a position he had great respect for. This was not the case. Clean harbored major doubts about Dan's ideas. She would've dismissed them entirely, had it not been for Lunar, deep in thought beside her, seemingly considering them possible.

–I think, Dan said slowly, leaving his mind time between words to catch his mouth, that Striker thinks clearing the dungeons is more dangerous then we know. Maybe he found something, maybe he's just a coward. He played Lukia like a sissy, trust me. But if he's sitting here while we face all the danger, LadMan needs to know. Whatever is going on, Lad needs to know.

–What do you think, Lunar? asked Clean.

–It's… hard to say. Something was off during that meeting. I don't think Striker told us everything, I agree with Dan there. What I found really weird was Dingo Dave and Jupit. They acted… surprised, almost, when Striker told us about the dungeons. Later, though, they acted like they'd known about it all along.

–Were they taken by surprise in the moment? asked Clean, now playing a respectful devil's advocate.

–They should have known what he was going to say, said Lunar. When Striker said he knew how to get out of the game they… panicked, basically. Did they think he was going to announce something else?

–Yeah, yeah, said Dan. They know something we don't, I'm sure of it.

–The problem, said Lunar, is that we need some way to prove all this. We can dig around for suspicious stuff, but we don't even know what we're looking for. I don't think we'll get a signed confession, so we need a smoking gun. Does something like that exist?

Nobody could answer. When the innkeeper returned to clear their dishes, all three were deep in thought.

A week into their search, with nothing to show, the trio heard about the A-Team's successful clearing of another dungeon. No casualties, minus Deus, who'd been shot by Beb during a loot dispute. One of Chump's miracle bandages dealt with that little injury. They'd steamrolled the final boss, an automata wielding two shotguns. They were in high spirits, trekking back to Brandonville. Kitty, personally, found her excitement tempered only by Lunar's absence and Shane's still-missing state.

Their success made Dan's failure all the more acute. A week gone and nothing done. They'd pissed off the few Meria NPCs they'd questioned, and Dan had almost been arrested by an NPC beat cop. Plus, another dungeon-clearing success, instead of bolstering Lad's confidence, would send him more towards Striker-subservience. Since LadMan attributed his achievements to Striker, like the devout his deity, any good news was seen as savior-sent. Soon Lad would be too far down on his knees, supplicating his sky-Striker. A time window on saving him from this antichrist.

Failure found Dan's resolve reaffirmed, but, as only ⅓ of the detective team, this won't enough. Clean, the week weakening her tolerance for hard boiled bullshit, whined and nagged near every day. She was convinced Dan had gone mad, and was worried Lunar would follow suit. Dan's theories got more far out. At first he thought Striker was hiding something, now he thought the whole city, maybe the whole world, Lunar and Clean (possibly) excluded, were set in a deep-dove conspiracy against him. Only LadMan remained firmly on his side. In Dan's dented mind, the true LadMan always agreed with him. The LadMan they currently dealt with was a cheap imitation, a lame-brain, brainwashed LadMan, less than a reflection of the real one. This conception made his relationship with Lad unassailable. If Lad stood by him, it was because he always would, and if Lad did not, it was because he wasn't himself. Maybe it helped Dan maintain his convictions, but it also made him seem insane.

Tensions climaxed when Dan broke a shady, underworld NPC's nose during an unenhanced interrogation. The NPC sold illegal magical grimoires from a stall near a sewer, and had been seen near a player. Dan thought he knew something bout something, and demanded answers. Lunar had to drag him away.

–Let's just go back, Clean told Lunar that day, when she was certain they were away from Dan's prying, paranoid ears.

–This is getting a little crazy, said Lunar. Maybe everyone else is right? I mean… I swore I saw something. Striker was acting weird. Maybe… maybe he just is weird. Some people are just like that. Weird without rhyme or reason, you know?

Clean did.

–What do we tell Dan, though? asked Lunar.

Clean would've been content not telling him nothing. Who knows how that loony Lad would react? Just pack up and head out. It's not like they hadn't tried. Clean had done her best, her real best, to stake out FLEEK. She watched their HQ, a big temple they'd taken over, for endless hours, trailed Dingo and Jupit, sat near them at restaurants so she could overhear what they said. But she didn't blend in, and even if she did, she doubted she'd find shit. All she'd seen were two boneheaded boys. And Striker never left HQ, the temple at the tippy top of the mountain. Busy, bustling with the activity you'd expect, but nothing suspicious to her eyes.

Lunar, for his part, had scoured town, searching for anything out of the ordinary, especially things involving players. Little things popped up, fights and such, but nothing anomalous enough to warrant real attention. A rape had been that week's only true upset. The players had early on raped NPCs on the reg, but, Lunar learned, Striker mostly put a stop to that in the name of normalizing relations. Prostitutes were everywhere, just pay. Striker would subsidize it. But, halfway into the week, word came in that a human player had been raped by a FLEEK fella, a Meria named Skquib. Skquib evidently thought his enhanced intercourse would be forgiven, but the human player, TioletStore, went screaming at Striker, decrying Skquib as a menace and demanding he get locked up or shot up, depending. Striker didn't desire action, but two indignant FLEEK members, Shout975 and Misty Rogers, convinced him to lock a surprised Skquib in a makeshift cell until he could spare the matter further thought.

A distasteful affair, but not indicative of wider conspiracy. At least, Lunar thought so until a revelation whacked him in the forehead. The day Dan nose-socked the NPC, Lunar sat alone at a seedy pub, sipping on a tall, dark beer. He'd gone to get away from both Dan and Clean, be alone for a bit with a brew. Nobody else in the bar, save three dirty Meria NPCs in the corner. They spoke in their notion of whispers, but Lunar could discern everything they said.

–You hear that fella got locked up?

–What fella?

–The fella, you know, the rapist. The one been terrorizing everyone.

–Oh yeah, the devils up at the temple finally did something about him?

–I've been saying for weeks, the Mayor shoulda kicked them out when he had the chance. Meru be damned.

–He religious?

–Naw, not till now. He compromised, that's what I think. They got something on him.

Lunar listened a while longer. He learned three things. One: Skquib (and others) had raped many NPCs. Skquib evidently got tired of Meria NPCs and wanted something realer, more human. Two: most of the NPCs hated and feared the Meria players, despite their religious position. Even the preachers doubted their Meru-sent purpose. Striker had evidently protected FLEEK's fellas from NPC complaints in the past, and had not, as Lunar thought, put a real stop to the NPC mistreatment. How he'd normalized relations, Lunar couldn't gather, but his unaware informants blamed their cowardly, "compromised" mayor for bowing to the boy. Three: he (Lunar) was an incredibly shitty detective.

Clean was cross with Lunar's sudden 180. He returned inn-in and told her he was determined to detective on. When she asked what he'd learned, he only told her he had a revelation and was gonna approach the case from a new angle.

Lunar had neglected their greatest asset. The NPCs had eyes and ears everywhere. In limiting his investigation to players and NPCs with direct player connections he'd ignored most of the picture.

He started digging through every bit of NPC intelligence extant. Every day he trekked to a newsstand and bought a paper. He went into bars and wandered the market, listening to gossip. He struck up conversations. He learned a lot, just from talking. Amazing what he could gather when he wasn't following Dan around, socking suckas at the slightest provocation. Interrogation didn't work, talking did.

He confirmed FLEEK's poor reputation. The townsfolk understood the religious implications of the players' arrival but, especially in the cosmopolitan, atheistic city, dismissed them. The players were a menace. Something had to be done. Why, then, wasn't anything getting done? Most blamed the Mayor, apparently in the player's pockets. Each Meria Lunar spoke to was one more outrage away from acting themselves.

FLEEK fortified themselves in their temple. They conducted all sorts of shady business. They had a fortune, but nobody was sure from where. Then, Lunar learned it all. From the brother of a beat cop.

The papers hadn't given juice that morning. Sports scores, store openings, some grieving relative demanding justice for a loved one. Lunar prefered people to paper, anyway. They said more. As for the beat cop's brother, Lunar overheard him drunkenly whispering to his bar boy that his bro had been paid good bucks to fabricate an incident and arrest three human Begottens. Some sad kids, according to the brother. Staying at such-and-such inn, armed and all, blah blah. Lunar couldn't believe his ears.

–I'm just worried bout him, is all, the Meria drunkenly grumbed to his guys. You know my brother, he would always do something for a buck. Even if these humans have all the weapons in the world, my brother would walk right up and try to arrest them.

–That's what he gets for being a crooked cop, one of his buddies said.

–Naw, come on, man, don't say that. He's just trying to support his family. Pay for the force ain't what it used to be.

–Should be nothing, far as I'm concerned.

–Hey, well, he got two of those damned temple devils off the street.

–Huh, when?

–Few hours ago. Should've gotten them a few hours ago, anyway, if everything went okay. It was all planned out, ambush the devils as they go into a whorehouse.

–How you know all this?

–Cause he tells me everything, obviously. He my brother. Can't break that bond.

–Well, two more devils off the street is fine. That makes three this week, with that rapist getting locked away by his own kind. Assuming they bother keeping him locked, that is.

–But you know what's weird? said the brother. He leaned in close. Lunar strained to hear him.

–What's weird? asked his pal.

–My brother, guess who he says paid him to arrest the devils? Guess who told him where they'd be?

–Who?

–The temple themselves, said the Meria, hissing, as if to emphasize.

–He says the temple gave him big money to lock up two of their own. Told him to ambush them and put them away. Make it seem like they did something.

–Now he gonna go arrest these humans?

–Yeah, that's right. Tonight. It's gonna be dangerous… oh, I hope he's okay. You know, these two characters he got earlier was sposed to be dangerous, but these humans sposed to be straight crazy. My brother told me, he said, "if I don't come back, watch after my kids." My two little nephews, they so cute, I couldn't bear it if their daddy-

Lunar had heard enough. Striker, that shit, was using the NPCs to put players away. This whole thing was worse than he'd thought. And God, these Meria were corrupt as shit. Luckily for Lunar, money, thanks to Beb and Charles' generous allowance, wasn't something he lacked.

The Meria beat cop, in plainclothes, one hand under his jacket clutching his revolver, approached the slummy inn. A weak light lit the inn's stoop. On it, one of the cop's targets, a human with a strange purple hairdo and a flowing white beard. The cop hadn't expected this. The human sat, drumming at his thighs, humming, and nodding his head. A brown bag sat sagging next to him. When he saw the approaching cop, he asked him a question, disinterestedly, as if he asked everyone who slunk by the same thing,

–You the cop?

The cop drew his firearm and held it at waist level. Few souls slithered along the street, but he tried to hide his gun regardless, afraid of starting a scene. The human, once he'd wiped the surprise off his face, raised his hands.

Was this a trap? The human had help. Two others. The cop's beady eyes darted around. In a window? A rifle trained on him?

–You the cop that's coming to arrest us? asked Lunar. Yes or no?

–You're under arrest for-

–Good enough, said Lunar quickly. Whatever the temple is paying you, I'll double it.

The cop stared. The academy hadn't trained him for this level of corruption.

–All you have to do is answer a few of my questions then leave us alone, said Lunar. Double your money.

–The… the temple wouldn't like it if I bailed on them.

–I wouldn't like it if you arrested me, said Lunar. Take the money, take your two little boys, get out of town.

–What do you know about my kids? demanded the cop.

–Where do you think my buddies are? Lunar boldly bluffed.

–You bastard!

–I didn't want any of this, said Lunar. I'm offering you a good deal. Take the money, answer my questions, and leave.

The cop considered popping Lunar then and there. Plant a gun on him and call it a day. But… images of his kids flashed through his mind. There were too many unknowns here. Lord, he'd fucked up. He lowered his gun.

–Okay, said Lunar, nice.

Lunar threw the bag at the cop's feet. Bundles of bills spilled out. The cop's eyes went wide.

–It's all in your currency. I'm assuming that's enough, said Lunar. Unless Striker broke the game too.

The cop carefully bent down, keeping his eyes on Lunar, and swept the bills back into the bag.

–My questions, said Lunar, before the cop darted.

–What do you want to know?

–The Meria at the temple paid you to arrest me and my two friends?

–Yeah.

–Why?

–Don't know, said the cop. Honest, they didn't tell me.

–What about those guys you arrested earlier?

–What about them?

–Tell me about it.

–Same situation, said the cop. Temple paid me to put them away. I ambushed them at a whorehouse and staged a scuffle. Then I arrested them

–But they're from the temple too, right?

–Look, said the cop. I don't ask questions, okay? They paid me, I did the job.

–What did they look like? What were their names?

–Cuck and Cuckerson were the names they gave me, said the cop. Never heard such names before.

–Goddammit, Lunar muttered.

–They were both big and tall, red feathers and orange beaks. One of them had big pink plumage. How many more questions you gonna ask? I gotta get outta here. I swear, I don't know much else, anyway.

Lunar sighed.

–Fine, I got one more thing.

Lunar needed more time. Now, more than before, he needed time to investigate. Even if Striker was being truthful bout the book, this wacky tobaccy needed exposing. Blackmailing the Mayor, terrorizing the NPCs, arresting not only his own rowdy peeps, but trying to bag Lunar, Dan, and Clean too. Not the actions of an innocent. Lunar's heart raced. He'd been so far cool, but he felt cracks appearing. No, he had to keep on track. He had a plan. Prolly hairbrained, but whatever. His hands dripped sweat. He was shaky, but also pissed.

–Did the temple tell you to do anything specific when arresting us? Anything unusual?

–Uh… yeah, said the cop. They… they said to make sure you couldn't move your arms or nothing.

So we couldn't message, yeah, thought Lunar.

–Also, they was very clear that we had to transfer you to Taki.

–Where is that?

–West coast.

Of this continent? Oh, out of messaging range. If anybody came to Merse, looking for Lunar, Dan, or Clean, they couldn't contact them. Not that it would matter, cause they'd have their arms bound. But what about after Taki? Lunar's friends would see his location. Kitty and the Committee would head over there and learn the truth real fast. Oh, no, thought Lunar. They intend to kill us in Taki. Then their location would show as unknown. Nobody would be able to say for sure what happened to them. Striker was killing players.

–Okay, said Lunar, reeling from this revelation. Just… just skip town. Get out of here, go far and never come back. Talk to nobody. Get your kids and go.

The cop didn't need a second telling.

Lunar couldn't think right. His brain was stuck. Shane. Spawned as a Meria. Location unknown since day one. No, that couldn't be it. Why would Striker kill Shane? And why so early in the game? Lunar felt sick. His chest twisted. Of fucking course the game simulated physiological reactions to stress. If it simulated semen, it would simulate stress. But not hunger, anything but that.

His heart hurt. Something pricked at it. He pulled up his menu. Dan and Clean weren't even in the inn. They were off doing their own thing. Jesus, why were they split up? Why hadn't they taken this more seriously? He messaged them.

Unfriend all of FLEEK. Get out of town. Go to the east. Inn compromised. Emergency, stop for nothing. Message me when out of town.

Common courtesy was to friend a player around the time you met them, if not before. Lunar had more than a few FLEEK fellas on his list. And every one of them could see his location. Could track him. Could watch in real time as was wasn't dragged to Taki. He'd get them off his list. Then, at least, FLEEK couldn't see his location from the menu. That first, then formulate a plan.

God, how he wished that he'd kept better track of Dan and Clean. Dan had set off for his shift of staking out the FLEEK temple. He watched it during the night then, during the day, when Clean watched it, caught a few hours of sleep before stomping around town, usually with Lunar, harassing NPCs. Clean usually came back to the inn after her shift. But not tonight.

Lunar burst into their empty inn-room. He grabbed all the scattered gear he could carry. Then the documents, the conspiracy-esque bulletin board collage, the notes and pictures. What he couldn't inventory-carry he dumped into a metal wastebasket and lit on fire.

He darted down the stairs. He felt FLEEK curling their fingers around him. Felt Striker dragging him into the nebulosity.

Fume of a fella, rock of a woman. All are parts uno de omnia. In the cafe, sitting cleanly, watching, across the sky-street (flying Meria, some BttF2 nonsense), the temple. An hour past noon and nobody notable had come out. She sipped tea that sloshed in a porcelain cup, a little cup, handled daintily, fingers holding the dainty handle.

Gotta learn Lunar to let go the two-bit theories. The server stepped up, peering down. Clean knew she needed to keep him content, buy stuff often and tip top to keep him from slinging her streetward.

–Another tea, she said, handing him a bunch of bills.

Back to the window, watching. Another presence. Not the server, too soon for him to return. She turned. Dan had snuck up on her.

–Hey, Clean, he said, can I sit here?

–Fine with me, said Clean.

Dan sat and settled. So sure. Society's stricture. Didn't Dan know surety was taboo? Right to be he?

Seconds of silence broke by Dan.

–Seen anything?

–Nope, said Clean.

–It's so suspicious, isn't it? How Striker never leaves the temple?

–Maybe.

The server set another tea before Clean.

–Thanks, she muttered.

Dan leaned forward, his chin resting on his hands. Clean stared into his eyes. Black eyelashes, thick, sticky; blotched, blotted skin stretched and folded; the pink, fleshy tear duct. The milky sclera, criss crossed with red, the blue iris; a mess. So organic.

It's not real. Blue eyes are brown. Missing melanin, tends towards Tyndall. Same as the sky. Clean focused on the pupil. Pitch black, lightless. Nothing escapes that. Nothing on any time frame Clean could handle.

The human eye, complex, the result of half a billion years of evolution, an explosion of life the likes of which no known Sol has seen.

Inside the eye. So far stuck for such sight-seeing sons of Sun-bitches. Do the blind burst out? No, beaten by no man, but still stumbling. Chucking shit outwards.

Don't you see, Clean, this is your eye. The human eye sees our omnia by opening to light energy. The energy enters: cornea, pupil, lens. Photons to retina. Converted, sent to the brain. Fanget skips the first steps. Pre-packaged electric signals sent straight to the brain. Better than basic-bitch eyesight shit.

Clearly. Cleanly. But she needed to scrub some scrubs. Shut down the implied interactions, the so-long assumed suck it slut sit rip raff rocked bout.

–You did a good job making your character, Dan said. Is that how you really look?

Clean couldn't bear to blush. Existence ain't confirmed by the drooling of them dudes. Set things ___ then get going. Argue about the I. Don't fret, the metaphysics of self don't evaporate with the E or the T. It's all aliens, the whole way down, down to the last cell in the dying dude's brain.

Clean left the cafe. Needed air. And things got awkward with Dan, the lech, pining for the physical he claimed to be above. Clean didn't despise the physical, strictly speaking, but looking into Dan's eyes, the black… she didn't think her brain could tunnel outta that.

She went down the street, the afternoon Sun blaring above, straight down, searing the top of her head, melting her from the crown down. At a level, luck. Something serendipitously said that spurs Sherlock to solve. A piece of the puzzle picked from the pile. Clean saw a small newsstand outside a bookstore. Among the papers, the headline:

FIANCE WANTS JUSTICE FOR DOUBLE MURDER

By chance Clean took up the issue. A week ago two Meria, a father and a daughter, had been murdered. The paper took pains to note that it had featured this story front and center. The father owned a printing press in a seedy-city-section. Apparently, the daughter's fiance had just summoned the courage to come forward and demand justice. He alleged that a massive, deep-set publishing conspiracy killed his fiance and future father-in-law. A murder-motive he failed to furnish. Nevertheless, he wasn't afraid, only appetent for amends, possibly monetary.

Had Lunar read this? Clean wondered. What about the preceding front-pager, a week ago? No, he wasn't getting the papers then.

–Hey, human! piped the little Meria working the newsstand.

–What? said Clean, annoyed to have her reading interrupted.

–You gotta buy that if you wanna read the whole thing, the kid whined.

Clean threw him a bill.

–Have you heard anything about this? she asked, pointing to the headline.

–Uh, yeah, pretty big news. Least, last week's story seemed to be. My papers sold out in ten seconds that day. Must be some kinda record.

–Ten seconds?

–Well… It was only one fella, really. He came here at opening and bought all my papers. My boss yelled at me for leaving early, but what was I sposed to do, sit here with nothing to sell?

–All your papers?

–Yeah.

–The second you opened?

–Uh huh. Figured he really likes news.

–What'd this guy look like? asked Clean. Was he a Meria? Did he look funny? Did he speak strangely?

–Yeah, you know him?

–Do you think he was Begotten?

–Yuh, probably. I don't have much to do with them, though. My momma says that's all bad company, you know? No fence to the faithful. But he definitely acted weird, like I heard those Begotten act.

–What exactly did he look like?

–Big, mean, with a bunch of tattoos on his face. Bright feathers and a black beak. Oh, an some real fine armor. I didn't know if I was allowed to sell all my papers to one guy, but I didn't want to mess with him.

–And his talking?

–Hard to understand, said the boy. Talked real fast and used a bunch of words I don't know. Like… (the kid considered)… soyboy. Thought it was some kinda cuss word, so I asked my brother, but he ain't heard of it neither.

–Where does this paper have its office? Clean asked.

–Don't know, said the kid, that's above my pay grade.

Clean handed the kid another bill and went on her way.

The temple clocked Clean. She knew it, though they wouldn't say. Born deformed, un ujiko, en pen so extant. They had her name, Yuutonym, that they refused to remove. She'd die and dissipate, her body thank God gone but, ujigami, namae wa-would remain. Stuck in stone, stupid. Eternal weather weathers stone. Cosmic currents, streaks in the sky, would wash it all away. No sense delaying. Strike the striker!

Clean scoured the swankier part of town, sticking the paper in people's faces until someone directed her towards its office. She flew for a while and arrived at a spiffy, squat office building out of sync with the town's aesthetic. Merse Today, the outside sign read. Sitting on a platform all of its own, surrounded by hedges. Clean headed in.

A wide, wood paneled room. Two elevators with operators flanking a big, round desk staffed by a sour secretary. A large Meria with long, yellow hair, under the green hue of a banker's lamp, scribbling away. Clean approached, but the secretary didn't look up.

–Excuse me, she said.

Another Meria shimmied out of a side-door, bearing a typewriter. Glanced at Clean and hurried outta the building.

–Um… excuse me? Clean said again to the secretary.

She looked up slowly. Inspected Clean with indifferent eyes. Eyelids fell half over, her mouth hung open, as if surprised anyone had the audacity to interrupt her scribbling. Clean caught a glance at her pad and found, with alarm, literal scribble. Just loops on the paper, like a child's ill-conceived artwork. The secretary reached into a nut-bowl and shoved a handful of shell-less cashews into her mouth. She stared at Clean and chewed.

–What do you want? she finally said, her mouth half-full.

–I'm looking for Akio Longfeather, she said, holding up the newspaper. The Meria featured in this article.

–You here to kill him?

–What? No.

The secretary narrowed her eyes.

–You sure?

–Yes, I'm sure. I want to talk to him about the murder.

–He's pretty convinced someone is coming to kill him. Told me to make sure nobody who's going to kill him gets through.

–Wait, is he here?

The secretary brushed a loose hair-strand from her face and took another bunch of nuts from the bowl. Hole stuff.

–Yes, she said, chewing.

–Well… can I see him?

–You sure you're not here to kill him?

–Yes, geez… I'm sure.

–Stupid Meria is holed up on the top floor. Says since we ran that article we're responsible for keeping him safe.

–And you're doing a wonderful job, muttered Clean.

The elevator operator, a male Meria in a red concierge outfit, wouldn't shut up. During the long ride to the fifth floor, he hit Clean with his opinions on every subject, spewing speech, spitting.

Even in the steampunk reality, one got the needlessly tweeted terabytes. High pitched, re news cycled opinions, all pronounced in an implausible warble. An abscess inner head?

Look what you did, kid. Stand up for yourself, dammit. Clean stared at the construct with newly ignis'd anger. Something thumped in her brain.

Render, won't you? You'll get paradiso chill. What will I be in heaven? Clean asked. Absent. Adopting her sin. Her say. Shouldn't shift what God gave you. Is that true?

Don't be a bootlicker.

Milton warned us about you.

Blind.

They've got his daughter. The Mayor, I mean. Struck her, took her. Fed her some concoction. Daily antidote or she'll die. What's a man supposed to do?

Not nothing.

Clean got to Akio. Let's see if he's a key, yo. The ex-fiance was barricaded in a corner office. Filthy and fidgety, black bags under his eyes. Piles of dirty dishes rising up around him. Clean, peering through a window, took ten minutes convincing Akio that she wasn't there to kill him. Finally, he unlocked the door.

–If it's my time, it's my time, Akio said. I'll go with some dignity.

–Too late for that, said Clean, retching as she entered. God, how long have you been in here?

–Since breakfast, said Akio. It's been tough, but we have to sacrifice in pursuit of the truth.

Clean swept some filth off the cleanest couch and hesitantly sat.

–I'm here about that article, she said.

–Yes, yes, said Akio. It's all anyone talks to me about anymore.

–But… you wanted people to come forward with information?

–Still, it would be nice if someone would stop in just to say "hello."

–Well, I'm not here to say "hello." I want to know who killed your fiance and her father. I have some questions for you.

–Ask away, then, said Akio as he sank into a wooden chair behind a big desk. Leaning back, stretching his legs, lighting up a cig. Almost impossibly melancholy, sighing, smoking, staring at the ceiling. Clean couldn't take seriously such melodramatic mannerisms.

–Tell me about the murder, she said.

–Haven't you read the article? It's all there.

–I want to hear it from you.

–Oh… fine then. Where to start? About a week ago, my darling fiance and her poor father… I should mention that they own- owned… a small printing shop… oh dear… a week ago they were slain. Savagely. Ah, just terrible. What a sweet girl she was. And her father was a good man. A good man.

Akio grew angry.

–I suspect it was the local publishing association. Barbarians masquerading as a guild. A hired hit, or something similar. It is strange, though… Riko and her father were in good standing with the association. They paid their dues and everything.

The article failed to mention this detail.

–Could it be somebody else? asked Clean. Did they have anything to do with any other… strange groups?

Akio deliberated.

–Not sure, he finally said. There could have been something I don't know of. But my money is still on the publishing association.

Clean delivered her question cleanly,

–Could the Begotten have killed them? The Meria up at the temple?

Akio considered the possibility, seemingly for the first time.

–Those devils do run a terror around here, he said. But what issue would they have had with Riko and Genta?

Clean frowned. Was it too much to ask that the Devs code the Meria to use their own names correctly?

–How were they killed? she asked. The article didn't say.

–Don't know yet, said Akio. Going to have an examiner look at them, but it's tough, what with all the burns.

–Burns?

–Yes, the burns they got when the building burned down.

–What? Clean exclaimed. The article didn't mention that!

–Oh… didn't it?

–No!

–Well, sometimes these things slip through the cracks, said Akio. This paper isn't known for their quality, you know? But, yes, their shop was burned down. Whoever murdered them wanted to cover their tracks.

–You moron, said Clean, standing.

Irate. She'd been chasing phantoms. This was worse than Lunar. No, worse than Dan. A mention of murder and she gets the run around from a paranoid moron who, when his fiance and future father-in-law got accidently incinerated, made a big scene, cried foul-play. Clean knew people like this IRL, people who, having lost a loved one, demand answers beyond randomness' paradoxically indifferent cruelty. Someone has to be responsible, people don't just die. Cept, of course, they do. Decent dudes die and passed out pounders prosper. Divine justice won't be wrought in this life or the next. Nobody will burn. The worst sometimes get schwacked, like the nastiest Nazis who, thank fuck, dangled for their deeds, but often the miserable, sordid psychos die peacefully in their ninth decade, on a waterbed, surrounded by family and friends. Caring Christ, for his sake, got nailed by the man and died starving on something as rude as a rood.

–You don't think it's possible it was all just an accident? asked Clean, voice dripping venom.

–No! They were murdered, I'm sure of it!

–What evidence do you have?

–That's why I came forward with the article, he said, to find evidence!

Clean left.

Clean wandered the Merse streets. Head down, watching her feet pitter-patter. The Sun beat down. Despite the altitude she felt hotter than when she'd schlepped at sea level. She looked up at it, the Sun, staring straight until her eyes burned. Blackness. When it became unbearable, she looked away, directing her gaze back to the ground till the black-pain subsided and the world returned. What exhaustion, fighting the Sun. Unbroken, from myth-time till now. Can't contest that.

She stood on the sidewalk, on an uncrowded street, in a seedy section of town. Stained stone, rotting wood. Unlit lanterns fluttered in the breeze. She sighed. Was the so-called Sun really up there? No, of course not. It was rendered beyond her reach, and at a fraction of its IRL counterpoint's size. Not a gas-ball slowly dying but a bit of bits, pre-coded. Clean, like many players before her, wondered what would stop her from reaching it. A height you couldn't exceed? A loop beyond a certain altitude? Higher and higher, but the skybox always above you? If the Fanget fellas got together and built a rocket, could they shoot from the atmosphere into cold space? Would they loop in the troposphere forever? Would they hit a point and stop, blasting their thrusters to no avail, a rocket running on a treadmill? Some of the SNAFU scholars had endeavored to answer these questions. As best they could tell, once you got high enough you just passed out.

Her people, you know, walked on the Moon. With nothing save 60s tech and determination they got two dudes up there to step small and, therefore, leap. How must things have looked from the Moon? What'd those fellas feel? looking down at the green-blue Earth cloaked in wispy-white cloud cover? And what'd they feel looking outward, away from the Earth, at the black but speckled blanket beyond?

Blanket doesn't do it justice. Blanket implies two dimensionality, a firmament hanging over creation, far up but pierceable, dotted with lights or, perhaps, holes through which light shines. The image comforts us cause we feel draped. We feel, Creation unique et seul, specially cared for, tucked in tight. But space boasts depth, infinite depth, stretching forever away from us. Far beyond what we can see. Beyond what we'll ever be able to see. Standing on the Moon, stuck in a tiny suit, gazing at the infinite stars beyond, one can't help but feel small.

What was a lunar kid to do? What could a kid do, no matter how clean? The strongholds were crumbling. No kami could save her. Neither God nor anime held together.

–That may be, she muttered eventually, eternally. That may be… but we'll match them with something.

Clean clenched her fists, tightened her mind, and hardened her soul. She wasn't gonna let something as stupid as eternal inflation keep her down.

Clean stood with Akio among the charred skeleton of the printing shop. The fire had been quickly contained, and as such had only damaged four or five buildings on the block. But the printing shop it had destroyed. Wooden rubble, burnt black, littered the floor. Half a staircase clung to half a wall. The remnants of a metal printing press sat front and center. The whole scene was taped off with white tape. Akio and Clean ignored it and headed inside.

–Any idea what started the fire? Clean asked.

–The murderers, obviously, said Akio.

Clean refrained from further questions while she picked and poked about the rubble. She inspected the press. A big, drum cylinder press, pretty nice for a pop and daughter operation. It was busted, not only from the fire, but, it seemed to Clean, from a brute force beating. Trashed, but pre-fire or post-fire? Digging around, Clean found further evidence of such actions. Equipment and books strewn and broken in ways fire couldn't achieve.

–What were they printing? Clean asked.

A theory was forming, slowly, like lines producing a page in a type gallery. But could it be? Way far out, much crazier than anything even Dan thought.

–They had a big job right before they were murdered, said Akio. I called upon Riko the night before, but she said she couldn't see me. Said that her and her father were working around the clock on something urgent.

–I assume any evidence of that job is gone? said Clean, again inspecting the trashed equipment.

–Probably, said Akio.

–And this was right before they died in the fire?

–Uh-huh.

In a city of shitty detectives, Akio was quicking proving himself the worst.

–So there's no documentation? asked Clean. Did they keep logbooks of customers or… something? Files, records? Would all that have been lost in the fire?

–Oh, said Akio with a start. He rushed over to the remnants of a big desk and swept away rubble to reveal a floor safe behind it, relatively unharmed.

–Genta kept a book with all his transactions in here, Akio said.

–Who else knows about this? asked Clean as she bent down to inspect the safe. Large, metal, with a four-dial combination lock. Clean felt confident its contents had survived the blaze.

–Only Genta and Riko, as far as I know, said Akio. Genta only told me about it a month or so ago… when Riko… (Akio teared up)… when she agreed to marry me. Genta keeps- kept… valuables in there, like his late-wife's jewelry, his mother's pearls, his logbook… things like that.

–What's the combination?

–I don't know, said Akio, tears trickling down his cheeks. He said he'd tell me when I officially became his son. Gah… I was really looking forward to that…

Clean tried 0000, 1234, and 9876.

–What was his birthday?

–I don't know about Genta. Riko's is- was August 6th… only a month from now… I was already thinking about what to get her.

Too tasteless to be intentional, Clean decided. She pushed forward.

–What year?

–…354.

She tried 8654. No luck.

–Damn it, she muttered. What's this place's address?

–Um… 1349, Red Road, Merse…

The lock clicked. Clean pulled the door open.

–Small businesses are all the same, she muttered with a hint of affection. She rummaged through the safe and removed a box of jewelry, a gold bar, pearls, a stack of cash, a thick book, and two photographs. One photo featured three Meria, all unknown to Clean: a young man, a young woman, and a little girl, standing in front of what Clean assumed was the still-standing shop, smiling. The second picture featured the girl, now grown up, the man, grown gray, and Akio, in the same spot and with the same wide smiles. Clean handed them to Akio. He had to step away, so strong was his crying. While he stood sobbing, Clean inspected the book. She leafed through it, through page after page of transactions. So and So for 20 copies of The Wide Wall_, to be printed on such and such paper, with the cover looking like whatever, however many pages, at this much a book for however much total, June 15th, 373._

Clean got to the last used page. The final entry read:

Cuck and Cuckerson for 1 copy of Breaking Free From the World_, to be printed from manuscript on our oldest paper, with a leather cover and gold-colored title. 65 pages. Rush job. 100 for copy, and 100 if finished in 24 hours. June 19th, 375._

Clean stared wide eyed at the entry for an eternity. Akio stood the whole time weeping in the corner. He'd set the treasure on the ground but held the pictures close to his chest.

–Those fuckers, said Clean. Those fucks…

She didn't know what to do, what to say. In a trance, she opened her menu and typed "Cuck." Nobody came up. She tried "Cuckerson." Same result.

Fake names. They could give Genta fake names, but they couldn't fake the title they wanted on the actual book. And Genta's description matched exactly the book Striker had presented to LadMan. Furthermore, the date, June 19th, was a day after Striker's big, in-meeting announcement. The whole story stretched out in Clean's mind. There were still holes, but she had the gist. Striker lied, not just about the specifics of the book, but about the book itself. Why, Clean couldn't figure, but she knew that he made up the book then frantically got a copy printed. Does that mean this whole solution is fake? Would clearing the dungeons get them out? Clean wasn't sure, but she couldn't imagine why, if Striker had real proof that it would, he would present fake proof. Maybe the solution is real, but there's something about it Striker can't let LadMan learn. Or maybe it's all a farce, the whole damn thing.

Striker got the book printed, probably not himself (he wouldn't be stupid enough to give such obviously fake names, then kill the fucking printer and set fire to his place). Clean heard that the printer FLEEK had copy the book was an upscale place, at the peak of the mountain. So they got the original printed here, in the slums, and then made a show of getting the original, their "found book," copied. Evidently, whatever cretins Striker sent to get the original printed wanted to cover their tracks, so they killed the printer and his daughter, smashed his shit, and burned his business to the ground. The logbook represented a reasonable oversight. Only a few people knew about it. Still, who would be so stupid to kill the printer and burn his business? Was that not certain to attract attention?

Maybe not. After all, it took her this long to find out about it. And having no witnesses to the book's creations wasn't a terrible idea. The thing was just handled poorly. And again, the logbook was an understandable oversight. Without it, Clean couldn't confirm nothing. Cuck and Cuckerson she could chalk up to old time stupidity. The players probably felt confident all records of their transaction would be destroyed in the fire. Either way, Clean was certain of the rough picture. Striker lied about part of or all of the solution and produced a fake book as evidence. This explained his dungeon-clearing apathy. He'd sent some people to help, probably to ward off the worst suspicion, but he, Dingo Dave, and Jupit sat in Merse… cause they knew clearing the dungeons wouldn't do anything? Clean struggled to conclude anything for certain, but that made sense. But how did the book, if FLEEK faked it, predict the dungeons' locations? No, this is a common scammer's trick. The so-called clues are so vague they could apply to any number of different dungeons. Striker was only betting the game had a bunch of dungeons spread around, which, given Deadeye's history with Lukia, was hardly a bet at all. Anyone half competent in astrology could hack out fifty such vague clues. Plus, if the players struggled to find the dungeons, that would just help Striker, as it would extend the time they believed his lie. But still… why?

Clean, amongst the rubble, racked her brain. At the meeting, the players had started to panic, thinking the game was a battle royale. Then Striker shoots up with his solution. Dingo and Jupit looked terrified. So they must know something. They thought he was going to say something else? Maybe they do know the solution, and it's awful? Do they have evidence that the game is a battle royale? Something worse? So they calmed down after they heard his lie. But what evidence does Striker actually have? That's the rub. What does Striker know?

Clean bid Akio adieu. The crying Meria thanked her for figuring out the combination to the safe and, in doing so, giving him the pictures. Clean promised Akio that she'd find the folks who killed Riko and Genta.

–I need you to lay low, said Clean. Just disappear. Don't make any more fuss about all of this. You might not hear about it, but I promise that I'm going to get Riko and Genta the justice they deserve.

–I'll be content with that, said Akio. I'll have faith. Thank you… Riko would have really liked you. You could have been friends.

–That may be… muttered Clean as she left.

That may be…

A beep from Lunar.

Selection from 奈那子物語

The Judgement of the Great Deceiver

by Aphostate o Shma

And there came to Nanako one of the angels who talked to her, saying, come, Clean; I will show you the judgement of the great deceiver; he who lied to all the Earth and made the righteous drunk in his deceit.

He carried Clean high above Merse: and Clean saw Striker standing upon a white tower, his arms outstretched, his mouth muttering obscenities.

He was arrayed in robes of red and blue, and decked with red, dripping, shining stones, having a stained mug in his hand full of red wine.

Clean saw Striker drunken with the wealth of the land, a green bile seeping from his pores; and from his mouth leaked lies.

And when Clean saw him, she wondered how such a being could persist.

And the angel said to her, Wherefore dost thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of Striker, and of the tower on which he stands, and the garments that adorn him.

The thou sawest-Striker was, and is not.

The tower upon which he stands is a tower of ivory gathered by a serpent who, with his jaw aghast, will consume all the air, all the Earth, all the men.

And the garments that adorn him are the throbbing millions, each but a piece, but all spouting black smoke.

And the wine is his lies, which overfloweth from his cup, and stain the ground far beneath him.

And the jewels which thou sawest shall hate him, and shall make him desolate and naked, and shall eat his flesh, and burn him with fire.

For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the jewels, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

And the Striker which thou sawest is the great nation, which reigneth over the kings of the Earth, but that will be thrown down by a great violence to be found no more at all; and from him shall be found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the Earth.

[…]

Selection from Fanget Game Online (Volume 4): The Gamers Have Confronted Striker

by Atomu Ono

J二E 翻訳者ほんさんす夫人地獄

存在したことがない人。現実は実現しませんでした。

Chapter 4

Kyogi… no, Genjitsu

TS: I'm use the Japanese names bcuz localization is cancer

Part 1

Tsuki3 and and Ohta-chan walked up to the steps that were the front of the FLEEK temple in Merse. A guard stopped them and accosted them as to their purpose.

"We're here to see Utsu."

After Tsuki3 said this the guard peered at him.

"That isn't about to happen without appointment."

"Nii… should we… kill him?"

Tsuki had to motion to stop Ohta-chan after she said these frightening words.

"We won't have to, if guard cooperates."

"Well…"

"Maybe?"

The guard stepped aside and let the two gamers pass. He informed Utsu as to that they were coming up.

[…]

Part 2

"Tsuki-san and Ohta-chan. The Ones who helped the make the teleporters working again?"

Utsu was sitting at his desk. Inu Deibu and Moku was stood nearby, looking as if they were in the presence of an authority. Utsu, who was in charge, gave off a aura of superiority and authority.

"That wasn't only me and her. It was mostly due to the efforts of Bebu and Charuzu."

"I heard you were having a great affect on the outcome."

"Thank you regardless."

"So… what can I do for you?"

"We want to ask about the Challenge."

Utsu crossed his arm with the posture of one who was annoyed. Tsuki3 did not differ from keeping his stone-faced expression.

"What about the Challenge do you want to know?"

"… the book… looks… artificial…"

Tsuki had to restrain Ohta-chan again.

"Wait a minute my little sister, we will get to that soon. What I want to know firstly is where did you find the book?"

"It was bestowed to us by an archangel

Utsu then muttered a phrase which indicated that he thought Tsuki3 was saying things that were annoying.

"Random, don't you think?"

"You getting to fixing the teleporters was random…"

"No, we were taken there because Charuzu had the quest trigger by being the highest level in the game. What is the quest trigger to had for getting the book?"

Utsu did not make a response.

"Let me run by you a scenario. What if there was a group that owned all the city and kept doing whatever they wanted with no negatives? That would be nice, right? But how would that group, let's say… (random name) the Yurei, do this? Why would not the local officials do something about their poor behavior?"

Tsuki3 grinned big. Ohta-chan cut in, relating to Utsu the gamers' deductions from the past few days that nobody except the gamers with their high intellect could produce.

"…a Apathia poison…"

"I'll take it from here my little sister. You see, if this Yurei group had a Apathia poison they could control the whole government. The poison is special because it has an antidote that is easy to make but only if you know the chemical combination that went into making the original batch of poison. Also, the antidote only cures the poison for a day before you need another antidote to ingest. If the Yurei group poisoned the Mayor's loved daughter and told him he could have the antidote only if he cooperated, they would have control of the whole city."

Utsu made an angry face indicating that he was angry. He reached for a weapon under his desk but Tsuki3 beat him to in telling him why not.

"I would not shoot us. Others know about us being in here. If we don't leave, they will get suspicious, yes?"

With the threat being cleverly avoided Tsuki3 kept talking.

"This group, the Yurei, could do whatever they want and the NPC won't be able to do anything about it, on account of their Mayor being blackmailed. This is a good plan. But this is a bad plan. If the Yurei want to do something that nobody is knowing about, then they can't have the NPC ignore it. If they tell them to ignore it, then they would know about it. So, if Yurei puts an embargo on printing bad stories about them in the paper, that doesn't matter if the NPC doesn't know that story is about the Yurei. So they print the story. You see?"

"Then the Yurei, realizing the mistake, try to buy all the papers to cover up the bad deed they want nobody to know about. But they don't realize that the paper might print another article a week later. If this paper tells about the murder of a printer and his daughter, and somebody reads this article, they could figure out things. The people who were to killed the two NPC didn't realize, you see, about a logbook the printer was kept safe from flames that an investigator might come across. The investigator, if she looked in this logbook, would know all the orders made to the printer before he died, complete with the prices, dimensions, and title."

The room kept a silence. Utsu stared in an angry way. Inu Deibu and Moku were stayed frozen.

"…nii… you're putting on them too much…"

Striker would've clenched till his veins burst. Lunar and Clean, in that moment, would've felt scads of satisfaction born of a righteous bearing; pure pleasure from seeing the sinner squirm.

Lunar, Clean, and Dan installed themselves in a spacious country home, far enough away from Merse to avoid Striker's searches but close enough to operate their own burgeoning espionage network. They'd met up east of Merse and fled down the mountain after deciding that bolting for the teleporters was too risky. After throwing money at everyone they came into contact with, they gained a perimeter of sentries, and settled into an uneasy routine.

Lunar figured himself a regular Martin Clemens, well behind enemy lines, relying on his loyal contingent of natives and his own wits to evade the dastardly Japs. Any inspection of Lunar's similarities with the coastwatcher's situation broke the analogy, but Lunar didn't think that far, content to romanticize his own resistance. What else could he do? Every day, Lunar received reports from his Merse-operating spies. Dozens of highly paid NPCs, tasked with staking out FLEEK's operations in the city. Another network, operating in the country village near the human's country HQ, kept him abreast of any FLEEKers in the area. A few close calls, with FLEEK fellas asking about strange humans a few villages over, but no Striker sent strikers had yet made it to the village near which the humans housed.

Dan, vindicated beyond belief, tried everything to get in contact with LadMan. He was well out of messaging range. Striker had the teleporter closely guarded. Finally, he'd done his best to blockade all ports, airstrips, train stations, telegraph offices, mail services, and couriers. Dan paid several NPCs to try and smuggle written messages to LadMan, but he couldn't be sure if they were getting through. At the moment, Dan buzzed with the bliss of conquest, but stood frustrated as he waited for something more to happen.

Clean, since her discovery, had her eyes temple-trained with a vengeance. She fought harder than either Dan or Lunar to uncover Striker's purpose for prevaricating. From the country home, a big sukiya-zukuri style house, the ima of which seemed ripped from the vaguest periphery of her memory (hazy scenes of her grandfather slaying in shogi), she sat seiza and schemed.

She felt like she'd been shot in the chest. Sick of being tricked. Her whole life she'd been lied to, hoodwinked. The had lads might not have seen it, so ass-stuck were they, but she'd suffered under the dishonest reign of sly guy society. Everyone, while whining that they'd been tricked, acted as if everyone else had it coming. Anyone stupid enough to fall for such shit deserves to get trampled… cept for me, cause my game was rigged from the start.

Clean didn't harbor hate for these boys. She didn't care about them, truthfully, their bullshit, their transwrecking terabytes. She blamed more those who, atop the peaks, electric with power, preached falsehoods and fuckery. Turn around for a sec and they'd shift reality right out from under you. Why can't people just tell the truth?

C'mon Clean, you know it ain't that simple.

A half-week into their country retreat, the trio got word that an NPC-agent had spotted Striker sneaking out of the temple. Dingo Dave, Jupit, and other FLEEK fellas had left the temple previously, but failed to do anything interesting. But this was the first time Striker himself had ventured out.

As relayed by the NPC, Striker snuck out the temple's back exit and, in a convoluted series of twists and loops clearly meant to confuse followers, flew, drove, and walked down the mountain.

He lost Striker once, but found him again thirty seconds later. Striker rolled with a two-guard escort, presumably to lower his profile, and took measures he probably saw in some movie: flying around buildings several times, stopping in dead-end alleys, halting and spinning around to scan. This might have worked had the NPC-agent been an idiot, but he kept enough distance to avoid being spotted entirely. When Striker went into an alley, he flew high above, getting an angle, or, already knowing the alley to be a dead end, waited patiently for him to emerge.

Following became harder as Striker descended the mountain. Fewer Meria to blend in with, fewer buildings, traders, and street figures to hide behind. But still, he managed to stay out of Striker's sight.

So it was that Striker arrived at an isolated grove at the mountains' base. The NPC stood behind a country shack, high above, peering at Striker through a telescope. Striker addressed an unseen someone. The NPC shifted to get a better view, and saw that Striker stood before a door guarded by four Meria. The door was large, simple, and stone, built into the rock. After an exchange, the guards stepped aside and let Striker pass. The boy grabbed the door's metal handle and heaved it open. Then he strutted inside, leaving his two escorts behind. The guards pushed the door shut, then they and the escorts stood chatting. Striker exited after fifteen minutes. He and his escorts flew back to the temple, taking a shorter, straighter route.

Lunar, Clean, and Dan received this report in silence. When the NPC finished, he was paid and bid bye. The humans sat in quiet contemplation. Who knows what Lunar and Dan thought, but for Clean, their next step was obvious.

Out of sight, lurking, their shapes obstructed by bushes and foliage. Clean had special specs specced for long range viewing, several magnified lenses switchable with a switch. She peered at the four door-guards, her sight set to x10. When night fell Lunar left their position, ready to do his duty. He technically had the safest job, but he desperately wished he was with Dan and Clean in the sneak-in crew.

At last light the guards changed shifts. Four fresh nighters took positions. Lunar was ready, several dozen meters from where Dan and Clean crouched.

G2G.

Go when ready.

Clean focused on the guards. Cloaked in the night. The guards lacked lamps, undoubtedly to avoid drawing attention. This both helped and hurt the human trio. Clean heard Dan breathing heavily next to her. They were well out of the guards' earshot, but the sound still annoyed her. Everything Dan did seemed heavy, overbearing, boorish. He walked with such force upon the Earth. Like he had divine right to strut with such confidence. Why was he so sure? He never doubted his presence, was never unsure of who or what he was. He reminded Clean of one of her old acquaintances IRL, a bougie boy who showed no shame in relating the source of his family's fortune.

–My great-great-grandpa was in the arms business in the early 20th. Then he bought up a bunch of land in California in the early 40s for dirt cheap. Like, really good land. We still own a lot of it.

At first Clean thought it a dark joke. That she could appreciate. But as she learned more about the boy she realized he was serious. He had the brazen-boy audacity to brag bout his doughboy dooming great-granddiddy stealing a bunch of shit and building his bitch-boy brood a summer home on it.

Minutes ago, while Lunar had crept into position, Dan tried to make conversation with Clean. He spoke quickly, stuttering nervously, obviously uncomfortable around her. Tiresome, no matter how deepset the satisfaction felt. Dan sucked, sure, but she had to admit, passing rocked. How would getting out go? Like a double decade jailbird emerging from the joint to realize not a thing had changed? You're free, but free to do what?

Not a great brain-place when diving. Clean didn't want to return to her drug-addled brain, her pesky peener, her wide shoulders and stout hips. She wanted re reality. Plus Lunar, though the boy seemed denser than a neutrino star and/or pathologically opposed.

–You should join the Sad Lads, Dan whispered.

–What about Lunar? she asked.

–Well… he's already in a guild, right? With his brother's friends?

Clean didn't respond.

Lunar meant to throw the rock so it'd hit just above the guard's head, thudding into the mountain face and drawing their attention towards him. But he missed and the rock smacked the guard in the face.

–What the hell? the guard said, raising his rifle. His bayonet sparkled faintly in the moonlight.

–Hey… dipshit, said Lunar from the forest.

Dan and Clean cringed.

–That's his distraction? Dan muttered.

Maybe the guards, who hadn't shit to do but stand before a door, were itching to get some? Maybe being rock-assaulted angered them out of their reason? Maybe Striker skimped on quality and got them at a big-box bargain store? Maybe it was old ass Atari NPC stupidity, a lack of tactics or strategy perpetually unpossessed lest they be too hard for idiot players to handle? Whatever the reason, all four guards broke position and, whooping a ridiculous war cry, ran into the woods. Lunar, surprised his ploy worked, hesitated a sec then sprinted off, screaming insults at the guards all the while. Once he'd run a while he'd take to the sky. He'd loop and swerve, dodging hastily aimed rifle shots, using his demon wings to keep the guards far enough that they couldn't catch him but not so far that they'd lose hope and leave.

Clean and Dan, back at the door, sat in stumped silence. Had they misperceived Lunar's ploy? They were certain he had something clever up his sleeve, not a profanity-riddled rocking. Hey, sometimes stupidity works.

By and by the duo emerged from the trees and came to stand before the door. Dan took hold of the handle and, with great effort, heaved it open. Clean moved to assist but Dan shooed her away.

The door led into a long hallway lit by wall-mounted blue-flame torches. Drafty, cold. An old wind seemed to blow from within. The duo drew weapons (Dan a pistol and Clean a carbine) and proceeded inwards, carefully and quietly closing the door behind them before they went. Clean prayed this wouldn't lock them in.

–Is this a dungeon? she whispered once she and Dan were on the move.

–Could be, said Dan, stay ready.

Absent info, they knew that anything could await them within. Monsters, hostile NPCs, furious FLEEKers. They took slow, controlled steps, checked their breathing, kept their barrels forward-pointed, scanned the walls, floors, and ceiling for traps, and glanced behind them every few seconds. Clean's confidence leaked. They had no plan for running into someone. What could they do, anyway? Explain themselves? Stutter that this wasn't what it looked like? If someone showed themselves, regardless of who, they'd turn tail and run and, if necessary, shoot.

They kept sneaking down the corridor. At its end, dimly illuminated by the dancing blue, was a wooden door. They reached it and silently, fiercely debated what next to do. Figuring they were too deep to turn back (fallacies fuck off) Dan cracked open the door and peeked inside.

–Oh fuck… he whispered.

–What? asked Clean.

Dan pushed the door open and the two slipped through. A small stone balcony overlooking a colossal library. Two staircases led down, snaking around the edge of the huge room. Walkways and platforms criss crossed. Doorways dotted the circular room's wall. Dan and Clean peeked over the balcony railing. The room's bottom, some hundred meters below, was visible only due to hundreds of bright lanterns hanging on the walls. Bookshelves rose from every floor, like plantlife on a rocky incline, taking even a tuft of dirt as the stage for its ascent. The shelves overflowed with books. The books spilled over, onto the floor, where they sat piled. Desks and chairs were strewn with abandon. Like a national library, zapped with an Escher-ray. Impossible but before them. Clean and Dan, so overwhelmed, at first failed to notice the people present. Players, usernames floating but indecipherable due to distance. All Meria, scattered throughout the lower levels. One sat at a table, five books open before him. Another, with agonized apathy, took a book from a shelf, read a few words, put it back, and repeated the process. On one platform, scattered among bookshelves: cots. Two occupied. All the Meria wore the spawn suit, brown rags. Dan hadn't seen those duds in a while. Even the saddest, lowest level humans in Chancellorsburg had better clothes by this point.

The Meria were far below and far off in thought, so nobody noticed Clean or Dan gazing down at them.

–A giant library? whispered Dan. Why didn't Striker tell us about this?

–There must be something he doesn't want us to see, said Clean.

This seemed obvious, but finding the sensitive info in the mountain of books won't no easy task.

The Meria players, however, proved easier to evade than expected. Sneaking around a library is easy, especially if the peeps there have been present for a while. The Meria moved with automatic abandon, pathing purposefully but thoughtlessly, like NPCs. Their brains were in their books.

Still, while Dan seemed unconcerned, content, even, to slink around and check every nook and cranny, Clean couldn't help but think of Lunar, far outside, likely still leading the guards. She didn't wanna put him in unnecessary danger. And if the guards got tired of chasing Lunar and returned to their posts, her and Dan would have a bitch of a time getting out. Clean hated quests with time limits. Her whole life had a time limit hanging over it. Time stressed her out.

The duo snuck down a staircase and took positions behind an out-of-the-way bookcase near the sleeping area. The few slumbering Meria didn't stir, even as Dan brazenly tiptoed over and stole a leather journal from underneath a cot. He returned to Clean and the two flipped through it.

The whole journal was devoted to notes on a single, shittily written, ten line poem. The journal's owner recorded the poem itself on the first page in a small, dirty cursive that stumped Clean and Dan. Luckily, they stole from atop another cot a second journal, this one a diary written in neat print.

Dan's eyes widened as he skimmed the book. His foot tip tapped against the floor. Clean glanced. Any louder and it'd get them detected.

Found library in mountain […] collecting Loresters to help us investigate the books inside. Thank God Jamal has a cool head on his shoulders. Maybe the books will give us a clue as to a way out of this game? […]

Striker, head of a Dungeons of Lukia guild, FLEEK, established a rough system of governance in Merse. We told him about the library. He's going to come investigate it soon. […] Striker wants us to keep our discovery of the library a secret. I was initially skeptical, after all, knowledge shouldn't be restricted, but he made some compelling points. If everyone learns of this library, they might flock to it and any attempt to systematically document the knowledge contained within will become impossible. I can only imagine how many players would take books and never return them, or accidentally damage them, or just lose them. Of course, we'll share whatever we learn. […]

Jamal asked me why I keep this diary. What's the use? Morale, I told him, laughing. Simply put, it calms me down. […]

This is a fucking disaster. There's no way to sugarcoat it, we're all doomed. Jamal found a book that almost certainly contains the game's solution. Nobody wants to believe that this is the case, but the evidence is piling up. We're debating whether or not to tell people about this. Surely we should tell Striker, right? […]

We told Striker. He handled the news remarkably well. Very calm, a real electric brain. Telling him was probably the right call. We've heavily restricted access to the library. Not that it was open to the public before. God forbid a non-Meria finds out about all this…

Obviously on to something. But the diary was frustratingly vague as to what Jamal actually found, and the other journal's cursive all but unreadable. Dan and Clean scanned the cots for more journals but found nothing save a few scraps of paper.

They checked another floor but couldn't find meaning to the organization. Even if the library had followed the Dewey Decimal system, neither Dan nor Clean knew it. Angry and anxious, Dan led the duo down another staircase and into a small, dark room. Lined with stone bookshelves, only a few books on them. Room-center: a giant stone desk with a banker's lamp, a typewriter, and a stack of paper. A paper sign had been glued to the desk: Jamal's Office. Clean searched through the shelf-books while Dan rifled through the desk-papers.

Clean lifted a particularly big book off the shelf. Religious Prophecies. Big text and ample pictures depicting events allegedly to come. She turned to a page marked by a paper-scrap bookmark and saw a full-page illustration of shining armored heroes doing battle. A human, sword drawn, snarled at a Meria opposite him. In the background a Wisteria and a Dwarvia dueled, while a Frostia stood to the side, pointing a bow at both of them. Above the battle floated a creature Clean didn't recognize, a plant-like thing with green skin, viney hair, leafy ears, and flowers sprouting from her cheeks. She frowned, as if protesting the violence. The picture's caption: The Reckoning, The Champions Duel.

The opposite page had text: The Reckoning will occur when all the species' great champions, chosen at the beginning of time, descend from their ethereal realm, along with their chosen servants, to do battle alongside their native species. The Champions, one from each species, will descend when each species has shed sufficient blood from each of their rival species. Legend says that the Reckoning cannot be triggered by un-enlightened beings, but only by the Begotten, those who, upon the eve of Reckoning, will enter the world in order to prepare for the cosmic war to come.

–What the fuck? whipsered Clean.

–Clean… muttered Dan, eyes wide as he rifled faster and faster through the papers on the desk.

Clean didn't hear him. She took another book from the shelf, titled: Religious Sites of the World. More scrap-paper bookmarks.

Chapter VII

The Seven Holy Libraries

There are six holy libraries spread across the world, each containing ancient wisdom that cannot be found anywhere else. According to the prophets, the Begotten, upon their descent, must uncover these libraries in order to learn how to conduct the cosmic war they were born to fight. Each of the world's five major species has a library located within their natural domain. […]

Archivum Logos, the Great Library of Logos, is hidden within the vast human realm […] the Meru Karchag, the Great Library of Meru, is hidden within the Merian mountains […]

In addition to the libraries of Logos, Meru, Kumu, Tamo, and Nemo, there is a sixth library, the Nanahuatzin Camatl, the Great Library of Nanahuatzin, in the land of the extinct Forestia to the far west. This library is said to contain knowledge not present in any of the other five libraries.

The seventh holy library, the Akashic Library, does not exist within this world, but rather, beyond its boundary. Past the edge of the world itself, this library contains more than knowledge or wisdom, but the direct power to shape the world around us, achieved as easily as putting words on a page.

–Should… should we be taking these? Clean asked. She wasn't sure if Dan had returned the journals to their cots.

–Yes, take everything you find, said Dan. We need the evidence. But first, look at this.

Clean took the papers Dan handed her.

An Official Report

Secret

Clean nearly screamed.

–What the fuck is this? she hissed.

–Shh… keep quiet.

A careful reading of the Poem, in conjunction with research conducted regarding the nature of the Reckoning and related religious prophecy, suggests the nature of the Challenge is that of last-species-standing-wins. We are unsure by which mechanisms exiting the game will be achieved, but are convinced that every surviving member of the remaining species, upon the total extinction of every other species (only players?), will constitute the completion of the Challenge as set by the Developers and, therefore, according to the Developers, entitle at least those survivors to exit the game. We are of the opinion that locating the Nanahuatzin Camatl and the Akashic Library, both mentioned throughout the relevant texts, could hold important clues to help expedite the completion of the Challenge in favor of the Meria.

–It's… it's a giant team deathmatch, said Clean, her voice small.

–Everything makes sense, said Dan, speaking quickly. This aligns exactly with what we already know. Striker… that fuck.

Clean was too smart not to piece it together, as much as she didn't want to.

–We need to find this poem they're all talking about, said Dan. The original copy.

–Why? Can't we just go? begged Clean, about to break into tears. She was convinced that if they were found they'd be summarily executed. Her throat was clenched. She couldn't swallow. Her eyes burned. She saw Lunar, outside, getting chased down and shot up. She saw her and Dan, on their knees, begging as bullets from behind entered their heads.

Dan almost agreed. Then, with something akin to pity,

–LadMan will want to see the original copy, said Dan. He needs solid proof.

–Why? If you took that journal, that means we already have the poem. We'll find someone who can read it. Please, let's just go.

–But we could forge that journal, said Dan.

–We could also forge the original poem, said Clean. We already know that kind of thing can trick LadMan. Besides, we have no idea where the poem is. It's probably locked up, if it's here at all. Please…

Dan stood for a five-second eternity.

–Okay, message Lunar and make sure he still has the guards distracted.

Clean sighed heavily and did just that. Dan grabbed everything interesting within the office and stuck it into his inventory.

–Lunar says the guards are distracted, said Clean. Our escape route is clear, let's go.

But clear the route was not. Dan and Clean turned to leave and saw, standing, stuck still by shock in the doorway, a spawn-dressed Meria. He held a big book in one hand and a half-eaten loaf of bread in the other. His username: Jamal88. He opened his mouth to scream.

With speed Clean brought her carbine to bear and said,

–I'm a high level, it'll kill you in one.

Jamal's mouth didn't close, but no sound left it. He simply stood, mouth all the way open, brain blank. Clean didn't know if she could actually kill this kid in one shot. The carbine was fine, sure, but TBH, she still had little knowledge of how combat in this game actually worked. She gambled on Jamal not knowing neither. He seemed to take her word that she could one-shot him should he scream or flee.

Clean's quick move gave Dan time to get his wits back. He pointed his pistol at the Meria and said,

–We don't want to kill you, but we will if you make us.

Jamal's mind snapped back and, now revved, took off. Three players engaged in a brutal battle of brains, trying to guess what the others knew. Dan decided that Jamal couldn't have reliable info on what happens post-death. Or he did know, and it spooked him. If he had no reason to fear death, he wouldn't be complying with Clean's demand for quiet. The duo only had violence to leverage. That Jamal didn't run or rage suggested violence still compelled.

–Okay… said Dan, now…

–Take your shirt off, said Clean.

–What? stuttered Jamal.

–Shirt. Off. Do it now, demanded Clean.

Jamal complied. His feathery chest was a soft yellow mixed with tufts of white. Quite shapely, would've been hot if the boy hadn't been a bird. Jamal set his shirt on the ground, as per Clean's command.

–Stay watchful, she instructed Dan. She took the shirt and gagged the captive kid, struggling to look fierce while she did so. Then she removed the worn rope belt from his pants and used that to tie his hands.

–Okay, find something to tie him to the desk, she said.

–No, we should take him with us! said Dan.

Jamal's eyes widened but he remained silent.

–What? Are you crazy? asked Clean. How are we going to do that?

–Don't you see? This is exactly what we need. He can tell us everything.

Jamal turned to look behind him. Dan stuck his pistol into Jamal's bare back.

–Don't worry, Jamal, he said. Killing you isn't part of the plan. I promise.

Clean couldn't protest. If she refused to help Dan abduct Jamal he'd just do it himself. Whatever sway Clean held over the Sad Lad had dissipated. As far as Dan was concerned, LadMan needed to see Jamal, and so it was Jamal LadMan was going to see.

–Don't forget to tie his wings up, she said.

Chapter TWENTY-SIX

Hector Gets Hecked

The argument: Things wouldn't be so hard if the DPS wouldn't pull.

The A-Team arrived after a half day's hard riding. Out of range from Brandonville or Chancellorsburg, they relied on Rufus and Jil to ferry messages back and forth. The team took survey of the dungeon's entrance: a large, copper door inscribed with strange runes. Pipes popped from the hill, spitting steam into the air. The scouting team had a tent set up right outside the door. They greeted the A-Team as they arrived.

–Okay people, Deus declared. Set up camp… I don't wanna sit around with our thumbs up our asses for two days like last time.

The Crit Committee set up a big blue tent with ample room for all of them. The twins, much to the A-Team's general annoyance, hired NPC servants to accompany them. The servants set up comfortable cots, chairs, and a desk in the Committee's tent. They laid out food and drink, tended to the Committee's horses, and cleaned their armor and weapons. Most of the dungeon delvers made do with little A-frames and single, grass placed sleeping bags. The Crusaders, however, set up a giant tent to function as a command center. Inside they put every conceivable mapping material. Maps of the above ground-area, huge, blank sheets of paper to map the interior, drawing tools, measurement tools, chalkboards, tape, and hundreds of pencils, pens, erasers, scissors, tape, glue, etc.

Players set up horse housing, sprawling open-air kitchens, and supply depots. Squares, leader of camp security, set up a round the clock guard at the armory. He generally trusted the players, but during their last raid an NPC from a nearby village snuck into camp and made off with several rifles and ammo. Andykey and Hector had to chase him down and cut him up.

Oxie set up her one-man A-frame next to Healthy Man's. They built a fire between them and set up a foldable table. Deus originally resented Oxie's presence, but she proved herself during the last raid when she discovered a shortcut that skirted a mini-boss. She and Healthy Man got all the resources they needed to mathematically improve their dungeon diving efficiency, mixing the power of two number nimrod PhDs with Oxie's obsessive speedrunning prowess.

Finally, Squares set up guards at the dungeon entrance itself. He didn't want anybody sneaking in, and he sure didn't want anything sneaking out. With preparations complete, the once one-tent town had been transformed into a full-on war camp.

Deus divided the A-Team into several squads designed to, in doctrine if not in practice, be able to work independently and in tandem. Instead of the entire team massing and stomping through the dungeon, they'd divide up, moving in force only when necessary. First they sent scouts, stealthy suckas who ascertained enemy-types in rooms without aggroing. Then they sent the force necessary to deal with them. All the while the mappers worked with the combat teams to learn what the dungeon actually looked like, as the in-game map, when opened within a dungeon, came up blank.

The Crit Committee, lacking their tank, took on Bobby for their squad. And with Bobby came Di. Wanting them to have an additional tank, Deus introduced them to Hector, the brash, loud, kind Crusader. Then, to fill the squad out and give them some much-needed firearm expertise, he assigned them Andykey. Beb and Charles were still the highest levels by a lot but, much to their chagrin, the other players were catching up. Leveling was exponential, but so was XP gain per creature level. The twins rued that, had they found slightly higher level goblins, they'd be double, possibly triple, their then-levels. The cream of the Crusaders: Deus, Richard, Cycler, Urban, Explorer, Charlemagne, SuesanueQ, and Rorchester, formed another notably skilled squad, though the twins regarded them as reserves, people to call in when they got tired.

Hired NPCs streamed into the camp, setting up crafting stations and stores. LadMan spared no expense getting the A-Team everything they needed. A steady sprinkle of supplies: food, ammo, medicine, weapons, materials, information.

Once camp was sorta set up Deus called the A-Team's leaders to meet in a medium sized tent next to the command pavilion. During their last raids they found having the meetings in the command center was a bad idea, as it was already stuffed with mappers and other logi losers. Therefore, they set up another tent for intensive, often long, often contentious strategy meetings.

After much command confusion, LadMan had ordered the A-Team to vote for their leaders. Deus was unanimously voted leader of 1st Squad, and narrowly voted leader of the entire team (these results were still disputed). Kitty was leader of 2nd Squad (Beb and Charles immediately voted for her, despite Ricardio's insistence that he should do the job, and Bobby, after consideration, backed her too, a vote that came pre-packaged with Di's). Other prominent players led squads 3 through 6, with Jenny_Say_Kwa leading the academics, Squares security, yuge the mappers, and ILean6 the supply squad. Oxie, Rufus (as LadMan's liaison), and Explorer (as Striker's liaison), were also permitted to attend the strategy meetings.

–It's a steampunk style dungeon, said Deus, sitting at the head of the table, waving the scouting report around. Lots of… like, automata and shit. You know, robots that run on gears and all that.

–We all know what automatons are, said ILean.

Deus angrily eyed him before he continued.

–Most of them have guns instead of arms. But a bunch of them have swords, shields, claws, bombs… other shit like that. They're fast, and pretty tanky. We also know they're resistant to fire. And shock heals them.

Kitty, fire and shock mage supreme, groaned.

–What about water? asked Rufus.

–Vulnerable to water, said Deus. Seems to short circuit them.

–But you said they're made of gears, said Kitty. They aren't electric. How does water short circuit them?

–I dunno, ask the Devs, said Deus.

–Juego de mierda, she muttered.

–They're neutral to frost, earth, aether, and air, said Deus. So go crazy with those, but focus on water when you can. They only have minor resistance to non-enchanted physical attacks, so no issues there. Same for explosives. Go wild. We're still testing debuffs, but it seems like blind and deafen have no effect. Silence shouldn't matter, cause we haven't seen any of them with magic. Avoid… probably any confusion effects, honestly. We'll see. Petrify and charm work, but only 25%. The best stun is to just hit them with water. Now… onto traps…

The dungeon burrowed deep into the ground. It featured all manner of devious traps: spikes, pits, piping hot steam, shocks… set off by tripwires, pressure plates, fake chests, dummy levers, etc. The corridors were tight and dark, walled with studded brass or the occasional wood, stone, or bare earth. And all labyrinthian. The entrance room alone had six paths to choose from. The scouts couldn't even penetrate the dungeon's lower levels. One report claimed the corridors could shift. That'd make mapping a bitch. Too many unknowns. Yet the players had to push forward. Go deeper. Descend.

They broke for a meal, a drink, and a good sleep. Gotta get those buffs: rested, full, quenched. Pop potions for defense, health, attack, etc. Then, they'd go forth.

Kitty called halt. The squad stopped, weapons ready. Kitty inspected her hand-drawn map.

–Four enemies ahead, she whispered. One with a six shooter, two with swords, one with a shield and a spear. This is our last room, clear it and we're good. Let's take standard formation. Ricardo, watch your aggro.

Bobby and Hector in front, each with a giant shield. Kitty just behind them, next to Andykey. Di, Charles, and Ricardio behind her. Beb to the right, dual daggers thirsty for the fight.

At Kitty's command they rushed into the room. Large, open, devoid of features. The four automata reacted with such cliché surprise Kitty half expected exclamation points to pop out of their heads. Their gears spun, they raised their weapons.

–I got pistol boy! shouted Beb. He disappeared with a puff of smoke. The pistol-bot stood behind the two sword-bots. The one with the shield and spear, to the side, advanced rapidly towards the players.

–Bobby, get him, shouted Kitty.

Bobby rushed to meet the advancing spearbot. It thrust its spear but the Lad knocked it aside with his shield. Then he and the bot's shields clashed with a clang. Di sprinted to outflank the spear-bot while his brother kept it busy.

Meanwhile, Hector engaged one of the sword bots. The bot slashed wildly but couldn't penetrate Hector's shield. Ricardio and Andykey moved to get a shot, while Kitty spread out her mechanical wings and with a great heave thrust herself into the air. She seemed to hang. Then, like a well-trained diver, she bent and plummeted headfirst towards the second sword-bot. She smashed into the bot before it could react, sending both it and her sprawling. While it struggled to recover she slid around and slammed both hands into its chest. She sprayed it with aether-infused water. The thing went mad, shooting sparks and grinding gears. She sustained shocks but didn't relent.

She hated using the boring, wet element, but she succame to necessity and outfitted herself accordingly. Since all good mages appreciate aesthetics, she'd traded her old robes in for flowing blue ones. When she darted and dove she looked like water itself, vague, changing, but powerful, present.

She kept her spell slamming into the bot. The poor thing squirmed violently. As its health neared zero it opened its mouth and screamed; metallic, guttural. Then it stopped and slumped.

The pistol-bot had trained its six-shooter at Andy, but before it could shoot, Beb appeared behind it. He slashed at the bot but missed. Cursing, he rolled away as the bot turned and shot where he'd just stood. Millimoments later its bullet clanged against the metal wall.

–God, how'd I miss that? said Beb as he rushed towards the spear-bot currently fighting Bobby.

–Happens, keep your head up, said Hector over the sound of shots and clangs.

Andy and Ricardio managed to nail Hector's opponent with several shots. Each time they hit the bot recoiled before renewing its attack with greater frenzy, greater panic.

–Ricardo, gun-bot! shouted Kitty.

Ricardio redirected his aim at the gun-bot. He put a bullet into the back of its head. The bot turned and screamed; mechanical, artificial, like an old alarm clock. Then, his attention diverted, Beb, having changed back to his original target, appeared behind it and rapidly stabbed it. The bot dissolved into a mess of gears and scrap.

–Revenge, bitch, said Beb.

Di had moved to get a perfect angle on the bot fighting Bobby. He'd knocked it down to one fourth of its health when Beb rolled in and dispatched it immediately.

One bot left. Hector kept it busy. Kitty, with help from Charles and his limited offensive means, had it almost dead. Andykey and Ricardio reloaded, prepping for another bullet barrage. But before they let loose, Hector blundered. He tried to shield bash his foe but lost his footing and slipped. With the boy defenseless the automata thrust its sword downwards, stabbing through Hector's chest armor. The blade burst outta his backflesh and hit the floor with a ding. The actual pain amounted to little more than a bad bee sting, but Hector still screamed, more from panic than anything. His health dropped by half.

–Hector! shouted Andy.

Bobby, Di, Ricardio, Beb, and Kitty rushed the horse-breaking boy's opponent, but only Andy was in range to strike before the bot's next attack landed. She dropped her pistols and literally tackled the bot, sustaining a decent hit from the bot's sword to her shoulder and losing a fifth of her health for the effort.

–Finally, something for me to heal, muttered Charles, unsure of what all the fuss was about.

As Hector tried to crawl away, and while Andy bare-fist beat the bot underneath her, a party-wide, pre-battle applied passive triggered. Healing washed over everyone. Both Andy and Hector's health returned to full. Then, an active spell from Charles: a buff to health and health regeneration. Beb rockstar slid beside the bot and, when sure he wouldn't accidently impale Andy, drove his daggers into its chest. The bot leapt away, right into a blast of water from Charles' staff. Shocks racked its metal self and it fell, fucked.

–Everyone okay? Kitty asked once the chaos subsided.

–Damn it, Hector, you scared me, said Andykey, coming to kneel next to him. Hector had rolled onto his back and lay breathing heavily. He stared at the dark, featureless ceiling and replied,

–Sorry, Andy, I got too confident.

–You don't need to take risks. Just…

He got the point. She sat beside her friend, happy to have him.

–We good, Kitty, this room's clear, said Beb. Let's looooot!

They didn't find much. Some ammo, crafting materials, a shitty six shooter. Kitty jotted notes on her map.

–Okay, good work everyone, she said. Let's go.

Second Squad gathered themselves and headed back through the dark, creaking corridors. Sounds from far below seemed to echo up, like a physical object, smacking against the metal as they sped towards the sky. The squad fancied themselves raiding fanatics, and they sorta were. But they were also sky guys, the blue and the black. Denial wouldn't last them long. How far into the depths of the Earth could the cosmic kids go?

Fairly far into the dungeon but still on the first floor the players had established OP Alpha. Spartan in comfort but heavy on supplies, they built the forward base in a large, circular room with only two entrances. Barricaded and guarded, the room held a reserve team sitting ready for rapid deployment. In addition: a few campsite facilities.

Second Squad sauntered into OP Alpha with a success-infused swagger. They'd pushed Hector's blunder from their minds. They were the elite team, the best, Deus be damned. The Crusader stood with Cycler over a map-table. A lantern tied to a stick hung over it. Every few seconds Deus would tap the lantern and it would swing, its light rippling along the map. Cycler squinted, distracted, but never said anything.

Nearby, Oxie and Healthy Man squatted over a pile of papers, ripping through calculations. A mapper stood beside them, watching with a mix of interest and amazement. Further along stood Squares, admonishing the guards of a depot. The boy assigned to it had been caught taking a wank break halfway through his shift. Squares sympathized with his boredom, but wouldn't tolerate slacking.

Kitty sashayed up to Deus. The Crusader set both hands on the map table and looked up, like a boss inspecting his new intern. Kitty smiled sweetly and said,

–Second Squad reporting. Mission success, zero casualties sustained.

She set extra emphasis on "zero casualties." Deus had, the day before, sustained a casualty in First Squad. Charlamagne had been knocked out by a sleep dart trap and had to be dragged out of the dungeon. Only his pride had suffered, but it'd suffered bad. The coup de grace had been Beb and Charles (against Kitty's advice) visiting the boy in the infirmary with flowers.

–Whatever, good job beating up trash mobs, Deus grunted. Report to mapping and loot. I'm busy.

–Don't work too hard, Deus, said Kitty, leaving with a wave.

Cycler watched her depart. Deus tapped the lantern. Waves of light across the map.

Jenny Say Kwa stood in front of half a dozen anxious faces. They'd been clearing this thing for far too long. Suffered too many close calls. Nobody dead yet, but that'd change if they didn't beat the dungeon soon. Deus lay on his arm, looking at Jenny sideways. He was running on four hours sleep per night, just enough to keep him from getting debuffed. His body couldn't tire, but the stress of an always-awake mind ate at him. Out of sync, his whole physiology felt gaumed up. The game's semi-simulation wasn't meant to be lived within.

Jenny delivered a report from the academic squad. With help from mapping, she'd stuck together a little presentation, set before the A-Team's leaders in the special meeting tent. Graphs, charts, a map…

Some of the squad leaders, such as Kitty, hadn't left the dungeon in ages. She'd been down there, in the dark, among the clanging, for days. Emerging into the overworld shocked her system, sent her spinning. The rest of her squad, Beb, Charles, Ricardio, et al, were still down there, resting up at OP Delta.

–It's a city, in principle, Jenny was saying. A whole subterranean race of gremlins live in a massive series of steampunk constructions far underground. They're the ones who built the automatons. As far as we can tell, we're currently fighting through one entrance to their city. The evidence isn't conclusive, but we expect that there are other entrances, similarly guarded.

–So at the end of all this shit, Deus said, is a city of gremlins?

–Essentially… yes, said Jenny.

She pointed to a well drawn pencil picture she'd taped to her chalkboard. A small, slimy, angry creature with big, droopy ears and oversized chompers.

–This is Oxie's interpretation, based on the descriptions of them we've found, Jenny said.

–Hm, pretty good drawing, said ILean. Didn't know you drew, Oxie.

Oxie blushed.

–Well, the reason we need a damn drawing, said Deus, is because we haven't seen any of them yet. Where are they?

–Deus, you might not be grasping how big this dungeon actually is, said Jenny.

She motioned to Yuge, head of mapping.

–It's yuge, said Yuge, spreading out of his arms, then slumping exhausted on to the table, the lame brain joke draining his last reservoir of mental stamina.

–Maybe we should retreat, said Squares in his low, serious voice. Rest and recuperate. Everyone is-

–No, said Deus. We've been over this, we're not leaving until this dungeon is clear. It could reset or… who knows what could happen? We have everything we need, we just have to do it.

–Back to the gremlins, said Jenny pointedly. Most important, at this time, is figuring out how they will react once we meet them. We know basically nothing about them. Their automatons are hostile, but will they be? How powerful are they? Could we speak with them?

–Too fucking complicated, whined Deus. What even counts as clearing this dungeon? Do we have to kill all the gremlins in this city? Get to the city? Do we have any fucking clue?

–In a word, no, said Jenny.

–I just wanna raid. Lukia didn't have anything this complicated. You just killed shit. Figure out what we need to do, all right? That's your only job.

–And what a simple job it is, snarled Jenny. As far as we know, we've wandered into the hardest dungeon in the game, so I'd suggest a bit of academic rigor in figuring things out.

–Goddammit, we need to clear this shit!

–Okay, enough, enough, said Rufus. We're all trying our best. Calm down.

Deus, harbinger, Aphrodite Pandemos. Oh, the bells. Ding ding ding dong. Ding ding ding dong. Falsa enim luna. But the bells.

Marble Aphy, Philommedes, perpetually stretched, white-teeth shining. All we need to know?

Deus couldn't deal. His forever-fair GF, the bliss of whose kiss he wouldn't know. All on Earth, but some too deep-set to see. The dive itself the problem? Immortality, but posthumous, the Keatsian kind. Heel-holding Thetis lost her bitch boy Achilles to such a somber survival. His body burnt, his legacy lives on through the immortal image: tending bashful Patroklos, the later looking away. Akhilleus fixates on his friend's appendage. Patroklos' painful grimace, Akhilleus' slim smile. Always smiling. Aphrodite Ourania. No lesser love.

Look, gremlins among the players

Fighting and bruising them

Battering their bodies, scarring their souls.

The baddest gremlin against Squad One.

He hit Urban, sent him sprawling.

He left him and went after Richard,

the forest guard, who pranced with the spirits.

But no prancing now, the gremlin wounded him

and the boy bled. Deus screamed.

Next the gremlin went after SuesanueQ.

Like a lion after the heifer.

Deus couldn't abide this rank-wrecking

and made his way to confront the upsetter.

He stood before him and spoke:

"Gremlin bitch, you suck ass.

Why did you attack us, anyway? Why

is everything in this gay game hostile on sight?

We attacked your robots, so what? Even in this game

they are less than alive. So fuck off or we'll kill you

and your whole city. We'll burn the motherfucker down."

His beady-eyed opponent sized him up and said:

"You speak of whys? I have many for you.

Why is it that you arrive uninvited to our city

and storm our gates, slay our machines, and speak rudely?

We have no business with you, have offered you no harm,

yet you, armed for war, struggle towards us.

We want no part of your overworld affairs,

and you have no right to interfere in ours."

Gleaming Deus replied thus:

"Fuck off, it's not our fault we have to clear this place.

I'm sick of you, eat spear!"

The spear flew cleanly through the air,

just past the gremlin, who had jumped aside.

The gremlin, grinning, said:

"Missed me, fool. Your aim is as poor as your manners.

If you came to fight, you should fight for real."

A dart flew from the gremlin's hands, cutting through the air

but not Deus' shield. The tip dripped green poison, globbed.

Before Deus could act, the creature went at him

knocking aside his shield and striking him with a sword.

The blade burst through armor, into skin, and Deus

howled as he stumbled then fell. He scowled,

but felt midnight calling.

Deus would've died, met his day,

had Charlemagne and Cycler, his comrades,

not leapt forward to relieve him.

The gremlin was taken by surprise,

in one lop he lost his head, his neck

severed by Charlemagne's strong swing.

He was dead. His soul seeped.

–The dimensions of this place make no sense, said Healthy Man.

Oxie rubbed her chin.

–It's like it's shifting, she said.

–Daedalus' labyrinth, said Healthy Man. But we weren't smart enough to try the string trick, were we?

–Wouldn't we notice? she asked. We're in it, after all. How can it shift underneath us without us noticing?

–Too many unknowns. It's unfair, honestly. We're trying to do Newton's physics in another universe. We can't control the experiments. And if the rules of space don't apply, what use is our math?

–They're running us in circles, said Oxie. We're never going to get through the dungeon because they reconfigure it to loop us around.

–Quantum superposition, sort of, said Healthy Man. The rooms in a cat state?

–Not really, said Oxie. That analogy doesn't work.

–What if we put observers in every room? Could they still shift?

–We don't know, said Oxie. That's the issue.

–Just thinking out loud. You're right, of course. We don't have time to figure this out. Deus won't sit still that long.

Use the dungeon's mechanisms against them. Deus called a crusade to capture a gremlin. Hold him and demand passage through to the city. What was the plan after that? Deus didn't have one.

Either way, Squad Two schlepped around in circles, trying to draw a gremlin out. The A-Team had encountered four total. Two had been killed, and two had escaped. One had, before he died, gone bonkers, raged and flailed and hit Hector with a nasty blow. Hector fell, ninety percent of his health gone.

Charles, unperturbed as usual, readied a healing spell, but the gremlin slapped him with a silence before he could cast. Shocked and enraged, Charles tried three times to cast the spell before he accepted that he couldn't. The gremlin lunged at Hector, determined to finish him off, but Kitty's quick fist caught him in the chest. He went flying back and met a barrage of bullets from three separate sources. Hector, on the ground, blood leaking from his mouth, smiled meekly. Andy turned away, her eyes burning.

Armored Andykey, that powerful, headstrong woman,

Faithful friend to Hector, and daughter of Evan,

Evan, who lived in the Cincinnati suburbs

and ruled the Walgreens from Lawton Road.

Andy came to Hector, holding firm.

With a quivering voice, she said to him:

"You're too distracted Hector. It's going

to get you killed, and then who knows what

will happen? I couldn't stand it if something

happened to you. Who could I turn to then,

Deus? Cycler? All those Crusaders who

were fine to play with in times of ease, but

lose their minds and souls now that things

are tough. They offer me no comfort.

Only you, Hector, can be there for me

through this ordeal. So stay back, stay safe,

we'll find someone else to take your place.

Liao, or another, there are many who

have your levels and your skills. But

only you mean so much to me. You don't

have to fight, you have nothing to prove.

Nobody will think less of you if you stay

in the camp, apply yourself to a safer

pursuit. And it would mean so much to me."

Hector listened attentively, then spoke:

"You're right, Andy. Everything you say is true.

I am not the most skilled, nor the highest leveled.

Beb and Charles, Kitty and Ricardio, Bobby and Di

even you, you all have much on me. I cannot

ensure that if I continue to clear I will be safe.

And I know how it pains you to see me put

in danger. I know because I feel the same

whenever I look at you, helmet shining, engaged

in brutal battle with these beasts, be they metal

or flesh. Even though your competence is never

questioned, I worry still. So I understand how I,

someone whose competence in combat inspires doubt,

worry you when I go into the fight. But still, you know,

I can't stay back, can't stay with the academics and

the mappers in the camp. Can't stay with the supplies

and the security while you and the others risk

life and limb to clear this place and save us all.

The shame would be too great, even more to bear

than the shame of death. I have some ability,

however meagre, and I must use it for the good

of all. I pray that you understand me, difficult

as my message might be to hear."

Andy looked at the man before her, eyes hot

with anger and pity. Pity for him, and anger

at a world that had misled him so. She

loved him, but even love couldn't pierce

the age-old wall in his heart. He

would do it, death though it may entail,

and nothing she could say would change his mind.

Hector knew his feelings were flimsily based,

but he couldn't dishonor himself. He looked

at Andy, her soft face, her hot eyes, and said:

"Don't fear too much, Andy, I'm not helpless.

Though I lack your skill, I won't be brought

down by something so mean as a couple of

gremlins or gremlin-built bots. I must fight,

but that does not mean I must die."

Squad Two's schlepping worked too well. From a dark corridor came marching two gremlins, leading a pack of ten bots, all of the sword and shield sort. The gremlins snarled and raised their weapons, crooked, rusty short swords dripping green goop. The automata formed a square around them.

–Fuck, outnumbered, said Beb. Get ready, boyos, and don't let those gremlins hit you with those swords.

–Mierda, where'd they come from? said Kitty. And why so many? Okay, standard formation, everyone. Front, keep those shields busy.

Hector and Bobby planted their feet firmly, raised their shields, and clenched their teeth. In a flash the fight broke out. Before anyone could act, ballsy Beb appeared dead center in the bots' formation, behind a gremlin, and whacked him rapidly with the pommel of his daggers. The gremlin collapsed, out cold. The bots turned inward, but by then Beb was gone, a puff of smoke in his place.

–Beb's got one down, shouted Kitty. Kill everything else!

Ricardio, Andy, and Di let loose. Rapid fire, barrels blazing, hot to the touch. Bullets slammed into the bots' shields, but couldn't penetrate. The enemy formation advanced.

Hector and Bobby held fast. No reason to rush; the bots lacked range, let them come. Ricardio, Andy, and Di's barrage paused a moment for reloading then started up again. Kitty darted to the right, looking to catch a bot out of formation. Charles sprayed water above Bobby and Hector, in a wide arc that crashed down on the bots. Sparks shot up but still the formation advanced.

Manhood's bloom, youth's splendor, ripped out from the hero's chest. Hector hecked… had. Honorably falling before the gods who, up in their heaven, threw die.

More scrapping far-off but getting closer. Reinforcements, the players realized. Twenty more bots, some with guns, led by another two gremlins.

–Fall back, fo fuck's sake, retreat, shouted Bobby. We ain't beating thirty! Dem, come on!

Disaster upon them. Bullets rang out. Ripping through flesh. Health fell. Kitty cast everything, Charles healed furiously. Beb tossed smoke, but the bots advanced through it. The gremlins chucked darts.

The players wouldn't make it. Even if they got to the corridor, their opponents would follow them through. They'd chase them around in circles, unknown forces on their side shifting the dungeon to keep the players stuck. Maybe they would never catch the players, but the players would never escape. Round and round; the wheel of fate.

Andykey emptied both her pistols. As she stumbled, she tried to reload. Enemy lead tore through her. Charles' constant healing kept her barely alive.

–Dem, go! shouted Bobby. Get out!

Bobby's shield, clanging as it suffered shots. He moved to try and cover his brother.

Fate. Can't change it, can you? Alea iacta est. Do you believe in such things, Hector? That the Sun and the Sky have left you to her gray-eyed mercy? They were on your side once, weren't they? Where have they gone? Do a great deed, Hector, then die.

Hector charged. He hoped that his body would dematerialize. He didn't like the idea of the gremlins getting it, dragging it away, perhaps, or feeding it to whatever beasts they kept down there.

–Hector, what are you doing? screamed Andy.

–I'll cover you! shouted shining Hector as he clashed into the mass of metal.

Charles couldn't heal him through the pain he sustained. A dozen swords slashing through him. He tried to keep his shield up, but it could only absorb a fraction of the blows. One of the bots thrust a sword through his throat. Pain erupted. In his shock, he couldn't speak. His health plummeted.

–We're going! said Kitty, tearing her eyes away from Hector. Vamanos!

Bobby pushed Di out of the room, then turned to go himself. Beb, with difficulty, followed. Charles stood still, casting every healing spell he had on Hector. But still the boy's health dropped. Charles, scowling, redoubled his efforts. Beb reappeared and grabbed him.

–Dude, stop! shouted Charles.

–It's useless, bro, come on! said Beb as he dragged his brother.

Kitty had to do the same to Andy. The girl had readied herself for a Hector-saving charge when Kitty grabbed her. She struggled and screamed, but Kitty prevailed in dragging her away.

Andy watched as Hector fell limp under the bots' blows. He didn't dematerialize, but lay, bloody and still. The gremlins grabbed his legs and started to drag.

Andykey burned the image into her mind.

Beb, perhaps inadvisably, knocked Andy out. After the players' retreat she got free from Kitty and started shooting, screaming that the cowardly squad had let Hector die. Kitty took several of Andy's shots to the chest before Beb appeared behind her and put her down.

–This a fucking catastrophe, said Bobby.

Kitty, as Charles' heals hit her, opened her menu and started firing off messages.

–Is they gonna come after us? asked Beb.

–We need to get further back, said Ricardio.

Charles turned to his brother.

–Dude, why'd you grab me, I coulda saved him.

–You couldn't, said Beb. His health was dropping too quick.

–If we die here his sacrifice will be in vain, said Ricardio. We need to get further back.

–Screw off, you coward, said Charles.

Ricardio had never heard Charles speak so. He blinked. Then, recovered, fired back,

–We were losing that fight! It's stupid to waste his sacrifice!

–Stop, everyone stop, said Kitty, still firing off messages. We need to figure out what to do next. What do we do with Andy?

Nothing, because Andy, awake sooner than expected, had jumped up and darted back towards the battle site.

–No, Andy, stop! shouted Kitty. She's gonna get herself killed. Shit.

–It's not our fault, said Ricardio. We have to go.

Kitty looked long at her friend. Then, to her messages.

–Deus is coming with reinforcements, she said. First Squad and the reserves. Everyone get ready. We're going.

The meeting tent. Kitty sat, exhausted, teary eyed, her head slumped over, staring at the table as tears fell and pooled on it. Deus sat at the head of the table, his face blank, still in disbelief. Oxie and others: Squares, Jenny, sat sad and stared ahead.

Nobody really knows how to react during a disaster. You put on a mask, molded after all the others. A giant simulacrum, endless copies of a non-original. Why not bare your soul? Be honest.

–Mission failure, said Kitty slowly, her voice muffled. Casualties: six. Bobby, WIA, put to sleep, in stable condition. Cycler, WIA, poisoned, in critical condition. Liao, confirmed KIA, body recovered. Explorer, confirmed KIA, body recovered. Hector, confirmed KIA, body not recovered. Andykey, MIA, presumed KIA.

Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

Poor Keats

‘Tis a strange mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an Article.

The argument: Grow, dammit. Go somewhere.

Lunar didn't hate Jupiter. It's nice to have around. It sucks up all sorts of space-shit that would otherwise smack into our Earth and cause a bunch of trouble. And Sailor Jupiter ain't worst girl (but she's not best). But Lunar was worried. Worried because quiet Selene was floating away, getting farther and farther every year and ignoring Lunar's repeated implorations to stay put. Lunar foresaw her breaking free from us and getting sucked up by Jupiter. Which is profoundly unfair, cause Jupiter has some 79 moons, including four big boys, while we got just our one. Losing the Moon to Jupiter would be a big hit to human morale.

But Lunar, the educated say, that isn't true. Yes, the Moon is drifting away, which will, at some point, make full eclipse impossible, but it won't leave Earth's orbit. Jupiter won't get it.

The real enemy remains inward, at the center of the system, big and blaring, the G. Fusing 600 million tons of H into He every sec. Blasting and burning. In 5 billion years it'll start its undeserved Heing and jump to 200 times its size and 2,000 times its brightness. It'll eat the messenger and the morning star and maybe even us. It's coming for our Moon cause it can't stand something in the sky being better than it.

Lunar, you grew up in the Sun. Surya freyr xihe's ra sué áine, sulis aten neto yhi. Wi nahuneed Sol, Shapash, Sulis, Sopdu, Savitr, Shamash for ah kin. Without Utu what would we do?

Mano, máni men diana llargi. Set hors sin SOL, kuu sin chang'e.

The Solar sets all. The diurnal rise den dive, our Earth's orbit, the mechanical motion the measure. The atom obeys. A MOTley laser crew cools em to near knowthing, then the atoms are probed. Quantum clocks could be more accurate. Add optics, even. Yes sr, 86 the old with one.

The brain breaks. Lunita reflects the light from the Sun. Baby Sol in its molecular cradle got rocked awake by some supernovae nearby. The shock wave compresses matter. Collapse. Rotation. Pressure. Nuclear fusion starts. The extra mass, disk strewn, turns into us. Then, some time later, Theia whacks us. Boom, Moon.

But Lunar emits his own energy. 5e28 eV per day. Good job, dude.

Pfo didn't have a degree. He had a bachelor's, but he never got a master's. A shameful piece of his past he hid from the Lads. He was their top literary lad, after all. Quick with a book tip, a canon quip, or a piece of trivia. Doughy asked him for help with his papers and reports: Brave New World, Ethan Frome, The Odyssey, Lord of the Flies, Sister Carrie, Heart of Darkness, All Quiet on the Western Front… Even the Lads who didn't ask Pfo direct questions regarded him as the authority. The thing was, he never explicitly confirmed his MA, but didn't deny it neither. Slick with words, he planted in the Lads' head the idea that he had such a degree without stating such. They assumed he had at least an MA, possibly a PhD, and was just humble about it.

Pfo told himself he quit his MA cause he hated his advisor. The bitch, stifling his style, trying to get him to write like her. This wasn't all wrong, but deep down Pfo knew it was an excuse. Academia is cancerous, but Pfo left because he was scared, scared of going up against people read enough to school him. He was weak. He'd rather spend time with the barely-literate Lads who, had he told them Milton shot Shakespeare, would probably believe it.

Some people can't do it. Lunar long suspected that when the zombie apocalypse arrived he wouldn't be a grizzled survivor, cutting up zeds with a katana, but one of the zombies themselves. Maybe he'd be Patient Zero? He'd bite into a bad burger (serves him right, he was supposed to be a vegetarian) and start roaming around in search of brains. Not that he'd find any in his neighborhood.

Lunar was supposed to be spared the horror of the disaster because he was the one who was supposed to cause it. But here he was, dead center, right in the death game, a veritable team deathmatch in which he and the only peeps he knew for real had rolled different teams. Could he kill Kat? Ricardo? Shane?

Of course not. He probably wouldn't have to. The game was big, someone else would do it for him. What a sickening thought. Lunar wanted desperately to fight forward, like someone outta those animus, fuck the rules, the consquences, and fight through until everything is all right, as implausible as the world being all right actually is. He wanted to come to a great revelation, perhaps divinely inspired. It'd be okay, cause in the end the just get their ish. Or do they get iced? Seems so.

Was Lunita fighting just to live? To work, drink cheap coffee, binge bad television, and pretend to read till he died. Couldn't he fight for something cleaner?

What had he done to warrant admiration, anyway?

Round and around. The pillars have crumbled. The same old problems till they stick us in the ground. Resolution and relapse. Riverrun. Always new, always the same. Get used to it. Or don't, it doesn't matter. Lunar will come back around. It always does.