Matt had considered trying to run or resist for a moment, but doubted his chances of even being able to faze the two men who were watching him as they drove to the developers headquarters. Besides, he thought to himself, he hadn’t technically done anything wrong. He just really hoped they felt the same way.

“We’ll be taking you around the back way, Mr. Harper. Given recent events, it’s for the best if we avoid the reporters that have been camped out the front this past week.” Smith said, breaking the silence that had filled the car.

As they began walking him through the building, Matt couldn’t help but feel like a man on death row with one guard on each side. The building was almost empty at this hour, but a few people peeked over the cubicles and whispered to each other. Eventually they came to a halt before a large set of double doors.

“Here we are, sir. If you would step inside, I believe the board is waiting for you.” Johnson said, opening the door. “Smith and I will be waiting out here.”

Waiting in case he tried to run? Matt thought to himself. Psyching himself and taking a deep breath, he stepped into the room. As the door clicked shut behind him, he took a moment to look around. A dozen men and women in business wear sat talking quietly, around a large marble topped table. Engraved on both the tabletop and the wall behind them was the company logo, a simple jester mask winking at the onlooker.

“If I can interrupt everyone, I believe our guest has just arrived.” One of the businessmen said. Almost as one, they turn slowly to look at him, studying him closely, as if he were on display in a show.

“This is him is it? I imagined...something more I suppose. He doesn’t really look the type.” One woman stated, sounding almost offended.

“Well let’s confirm that before we move on shall we? You are indeed Matthew Harper, and the player behind Maser, who engineered and triggered the upheaval earlier this week?” Asked a silver haired man at the head of the table.

He considered lying for a moment, but it was clear they already knew who he was.

“Yes, I am” he said, triggering a wave of murmurs from the board, which the table head silenced with a look.

“Good, then I can continue. I am August Fronz, founder and CEO of Masquerade Entertainment, and developer of Genesis. A game that at roughly six o’clock Monday morning you almost completely destroyed. Do you dispute this?”

“I'm not sure if destroyed is the right word, but yes I did it.” He said deciding to just come clean with everything.

“Decimated then? Ravaged? Take your pick. During this time, slightly more than 90% of all life was wiped out, mobs, npcs and players alike. Not only that, all capital cities, and the majority of smaller ones, were similarly destroyed. From there, we go to the destruction of hundreds of popular and well known dungeons and land marks, ending with the loss of the Mt. Cloud spire. Mr. Harper, you killed almost all of Genesis.”

“And yet,” he continued before anyone could interject, “you did it all within the rules. Despite what the media are trying to claim, we’ve had people going through the files, and they’ve been unable to find even a hint of cheating.”

“Can’t figure out how he pulled it off though either.” One member muttered.

“You don’t know how I did it?” Matt asked surprised.

“As of yet, no.” Said August, who looked annoyed at the disruption. “This is Mr. Bindle, our head programmer, who has been looking for your actions leading up the event in question.”

“I’ve still got my notes on how to work it at home if that helps, but don’t you have a record of everything that’s done in game?” Matt offered, trying to keep on their good side.

“Do you know how hard it is to go through hundreds of thousands of hours of playtime for millions of players? It takes a while, so yes the notes would save me and my team a few weeks of work so I’d appreciate it. How’d you do it anyway?” Bindle asked curiously.

“While this isn’t the reason for this meeting,” August said, looking pointedly at bindle, who looked embarrassed, “I admit I'm rather curious myself at how you pulled it off. If you don’t mind telling us we can make sure that loop hole gets closed in the next few hours.

“Well,” Matt began, trying to figure out where to start, “The base was using various magic crystals as the cores in the explosives, so they’d have a wider range of damage types for maximum coverage. Then I placed each bomb in a giant oyster, which was a rare drop from a few sea monsters. That applied a magical layer of pearl around the explosive, which I carved amplification runes into, then repeated until it reached the level required.”

“Right, right, and each layer amped up the previous one exponentially,” Bindle said, nodding as he marked down some notes on a tablet. “But that oyster takes six months to a year to create a layer, what you’re saying would’ve taken centuries.”

“True, which is why I rigged them into a frame powered by lich dust that would cast aging touch on them repeatedly while it was turned on, accelerating the process.” He said proudly, particularly pleased with that idea. He’d never been able to talk about any of this with anyone, so it felt freeing to finally say some of it aloud.

“Very clever, an original use of the spells. So that explains what they were, but how did you get them everywhere unnoticed? Some of the locations should have been monitored closely enough to spot them.”

“That took longer to figure out, a lot of wasted time experimenting, but eventually I figured out that using portable guild chests was the answer. If you payed to upgrade them, they could become invisible and untouchable to anyone not in your guild. Then it was just a matter of creating a trigger that could set off the bombs from inside them, and placing them all over the continent.”

“Hmm, hadn’t considered using chests for that sort of things.” He said sounding concerned. “Mr. Fronz, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go and get to work on dealing with this now. The sooner we get this squared away, the sooner the media will get off our backs.”

“See to it then.” August agreed. “I’ll have a copy of the minutes sent to you after wards.”

As he left, the remaining board members resumed their study of Matt, his hands twitching, looking for something to fiddle with.

“I suppose the next logical question,” August said, breaking the silence, “Is why? Why did you decided to attack, well, everything? As I understand it, you’ve been playing fairly consistently for the past seven years, so why suddenly decide to snap?”

That was the big question wasn’t it, Matt said to himself. Out loud, he tried to explain himself. “I...loved the game. Really, it was, and is an incredible thing, that has given me nothing but happy memories. But it grew dull. Nothing ever changed, the forces that drove things along were defeated and it all became... something less. I can’t really put it into words very well, but it didn’t have the same spark it used to have. So, I did what I could to try and reignite that spark.”

As he trailed off, silence fell in the room. August got up from his chair and wandered over to the window, staring out.

“Do you think we were unaware of this?” He said bitterly. “We know that people were losing interest, but ever since major companies started taking advantage of our server security as a means to make money, our hands have been tied. On average, we make less than five percent of the money that travels through our system every day, and that numbers been dropping every year. Our own lawyers have looked into, but its air tight that our people can’t affect the game in any major way.

Which brings me to why you’re here today, Mr. Harper. Your actions, while viewed as destructive, have indeed succeeded at revitalising our game. Already we’ve seen more than double the number of people creating new accounts or renew old ones, leading to a large increase in revenue for our company.”

He turned and gestured to another of the board. “The truth here is that we wish to make you an offer, a job of sorts. We wish you to return to the game, and engineer other events and actions, to keep things... fresh as it were. Under the table of course, and we’d need you to sign a few confidentiality agreements, the usual sort of things.”

Matt was speechless. He’d been expecting complaints, not whatever this had become but... “No. Thank you but no. After what I've done I think its best that I cut ties with the game at this point.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way Mr. Harper, though I suppose that’s your choice.”August said sadly.

But as Matt began to leave, the CEO continued.

“Confidentiality agreements are a funny thing, Mr. Harper. On the one hand they stop a person leaking information. On the other...”

Matt’s blood went cold. “What are you saying?” he said, turning back around.

“There are currently many powerful people in the world looking for ‘Maser’ who cost them and their companies millions of dollars. While a lot of them were insured I'm sure, those sorts of people don’t take this sort of thing lightly. You have to wonder what would happen if they found out who was responsible.”

On the contrary, Matt didn’t have to wonder. His nightmares had been filled of late of people chasing him down, of being dragged into unmarked vans. There was a big difference between things that were legal, and things that people wouldn’t retaliate against.

“Giving out personal information like that is illegal.” He said, trying to sound sure of himself.

“Oh indeed, if any of your information slipped out to the public, you could sue us for quite a bit. But could you sue us for more than the various offers we’ve gotten to release your identity? And could you do it before you were found out? I'm sure you would end up losing more than we would, and we both know it would be more than money in the end.”

“That’s...you can’t!” Matt exclaimed, stunned.

The CEO’s face turned hard, all of the supposed friendliness draining away in an instant. “I’ve put my life into this company, as have everyone else in this room. We’ve seen our work become nothing but a meeting room for others to make their money, leaving us as a dying business. If you think I would sacrifice one random nobody to save my work and the jobs of hundreds, you are sorely mistaken. You will do this, like it or not, or I will see to it that you are destroyed for you actions. Do not think for a moment that this will play out any other way.” He let that sink in for a moment, a dark expression on his face, before snapping back to his previous polite and friendly tone of voice. “Now then, I believe our lawyers have drawn up a contract for you to sign, covering your agreed silence on the matter, as well as your reimbursement for your work.”

“I can’t!” Matt said, trying to find a point to stand on. “Everyone is looking for Maser right now; if I went back in I’d be hunted down until I was found!”

“Hmm, a fair point... you’ll simply have to put together a new character then! I’ll have one of our programmers assist you in setting one up after we’re done here. And as an added bonus for this, we’ll pay out the current value of Maser for the inconvenience.” He looked down at a table on the table and scrolled through a few pages. “Which is, as of now due to your actions is... Let’s see, three point two million, give or take. We’ll have to give that to you in several smaller payouts to ensure discretion, I’m sure you understand. I’d recommend you use some of that to ensure you have our latest models to play with to ensure you can do your best. In fact we can have one sent around tomorrow morning, so you can spend most of your time working on our agreement.”

“I...I have a job and-“ He started desperately looking for some kind of out.

“Mr. Harper, we looked into your details before we brought you in. I’m sure a grocery store will be just fine should you choose to quit. Honestly, if you look at the contract you will see we are offering a good deal more than you have been earning previously, though that’s not saying much is it? I would have thought you would have aimed higher with your degree in graphic design.”

They really had done their homework hadn’t they he thought bitterly. “These days’ computers and AIs are doing more of that work, so there’s not much of a career in it anymore.”

August nodded in something resembling sympathy. “The changing times are hard on everyone, so think of this as an opportunity. Not one you chose for yourself, it’s true, but nevertheless. Now, if you’d be so good as to sign the contract here, “He said, passing over a small stack of papers, “then we can send you down to our programming level and you can get started.”

Matt felt completely defeated. He knew he’d messed with people so far above him that it was a mistake to even think of it, but he’d done it anyway. Now, as he signed the contract, he realised why it had been such a terrible idea, that what was legal only really mattered if it could be enforced. As soon as he finished signing it, one of the suits took the documents away.

“They’ll be taken and processed immediately, so no need to worry about anything happening in between, and we’ll send you a copy to peruse at your leisure. So all that’s left is- Ah, Miss Tolson, perfect timing!” A woman in her early twenties came in through the door, knocking as she entered. “This is Mr. Harper, the one you were briefed on. Mr. Harper, Miss Tolson here will take you down and get things organised with you. She will also be the one in charge of tracking your actions to ensure you’re following the regulations of the contract.”

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Harper, feel free to call me Sarah.” She said cheerfully, offering her hand. Unlike the board members, the blonde woman, who couldn't have been more than five feet tall, was dressed as if she hadn’t planned to be seen by anyone today, wearing sweatpants and an old sweater. Deciding that she probably wasn’t a part of the CEOs scheme, Matt decided not to hold his actions against her. As he went to take her hand, she noticed him looking at her clothes.

“I’m normally just down in engineering so I hadn’t really-“She tried to explain.

“It’s fine, sorry if I put you off there. No one was expecting this today, “Matt said, shooting a look at August, “So it’s hardly your fault. I look forward to working with you.”

“Right, so then, um...Mr. Fronz? Can we leave and go down and do the things, Sir?” she said quickly, looking flustered.

August waved his hand at them, already having checked out of the conversation and looking at some other information he was being shown. “Yes, yes, carry on. I’ll expect the report either by tomorrow morning or when he finishes up. Goodbye Miss Tolson, Mr. Harper.”

And with that, Sarah all but grabbed Matts arm and ran from the office.

“I’m sorry about this,” She said as they hurried down the halls, “I’m normally a lot calmer about things, but I don’t think I've said anything to Mr. Fronz more than a passing greeting, let alone the full board. And of course, it had to be on a casual Friday, which makes me look oh so professional.”

She stopped talking for a moment as they entered an elevator, pressing a button to head down. As they began to descend she started again, in a much more quiet tone. “Sorry for rambling a bit there, but I don’t get a lot of opportunities to meet with the bigwigs, so I normally try to act very professional around them. But then I get told about you less than three hours ago and, argh, it’s not your problem, and I'm rambling again.”

Leaving the elevator, she led him past a series of smaller cubicles and into another room, currently the only one with the lights on.

“I might not look it, but I'm good at what I do, it’s how I earned an actual office.” She said proudly as she entered. “So the instructions are to set you up a new player character, which shouldn’t take too long, since I've got some of your old info, as part of the contract you signed, as well as a confidentiality agreement on my part as well, so don’t worry about that. So for the moment, feel free to take a seat, and there’s some drinks in the mini-fridge there, help yourself.

Matt went over and grabbed himself a coke as she began typing away, needing the sugar to deal with the situation.

“Right then,” she began. “Now for reasons that for official reasons are and will remain unclear to me, you’ve been given permission to select you class from the entire list of allowable starters, which I’m sure you can appreciate. However the racial selection is pretty heavily locked into the AI’s choices so let’s see what you have to work with.” As she began typing more information into the terminal, she continued listing off a bunch of information seemingly out of habit. “The AI will select your race, and starting point based on various information provided by you through a questionnaire, combined with its own randomising algorithms and processing. Once chosen, any character you create for the next six months will be from that race, after which you may attempt to have a different one chosen.”

As she finished her speech, she continued typing away quietly, leaving Matt to look around the room aimlessly. Various folders, books and gaming pieces littered the room, leaving it clear that this person loved their job, or at least the medium they worked with.

“Okay!” she said suddenly, breaking the silence. “I’ve copied across the information from the character I don’t know about, so now let’s see what you get!” she seemed oddly excited as she spun a monitor around so they could see the reveal together.

Processing...processing...complete!

Race selected: Gremlin

Sarah winced “Yeesh, I didn’t know an AI could hold a grudge.” She muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” Matt asked.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing, just... Any way you’ve been given the race of gremlin which is... an unusual choice of race, which isn’t used by players very often. It’s, well, have a look at it for yourself.”

Tapping a few keys, she brought up the features and details for the gremlin race, and saw why it had prompted a reaction.

Gremlin,

Standing at around 3 feet tall, the gremlins generally live in goblin warrens, around city dumps or whatever slums they can get into. While similar to the goblins in appearance, they lack their whipcord muscles and reflexes. As such, often bullied and attacked by their neighbouring goblins and given poor treatment, they have developed an increased tolerance to both poisons and disease. This had forced them to focus on their mind to improve their standing, making do with whatever they can scrounge from their surroundings.

Gremlin Traits: -50% Strength, -25% Constitution, +25% Intelligence

Small size: -25% Constitution, increased sneaking ability

Poison resistance: 50%, Disease resistance: 50%

Mother of invention – Level 1 - When learning or creating recipes, gain a chance to substitute ingredients and components to various effects. Chance based on intelligence, craft level, and recipe grade. Changed recipes only function for creator.

He sat staring at the screen for several moments in silence, before it became too uncomfortable for Sarah to let continue. “Look, Mr. Harper,” she began.

“Please, call me Matt.” He said.

“Fair enough. Anyway, off the record? I’ve seen people just put the game aside after getting way better options than this. With what you’ve been asked to do I’m sure that if you went to the board that-“

“Asked?” Matt interrupted angrily. “Doesn’t that kind of imply I have a choice in the matter?” He sighed. “Even if they were willing able to do anything about it, which I doubt on both counts, one more handicap won’t make much of a difference in the scheme of things. Considering what I've been asked to do.”

Sarah raised her hands in defeat. “Fine, it’s your call, just trying to help. Now, any ideas for the class you want to go for?”

Right, he remembered, he had access to the full list. Normally when you started, you were given a selection of the ten basic options, plus three chosen at random from the remaining several hundred options. You could change your class later to any of the others if you found a teacher who accepted you, including a few hundred more that could only be gotten like this. But changing class cost you half your levels and skills, plus even more based on how different the class was. Not a huge deal early on, but there were plenty of high level players who felt locked into a class they didn’t like, unwilling to climb to the top again.

He thought about it. “Hmm, you got filters for that list?”

“Of course, this isn’t the stone age.”

“Then let’s try and narrow this down. Let’s see, drop all of the ones that are based on physical stats, the fighters, thieves and tanks. Even if I didn’t have a huge penalty for it, I doubt a fighter type is going to be able to pull off what they want. We can probably drop all the good ones as well.”

“The good ones?”

“You know, priests, paladins, peacekeepers, that sort of thing.”

“Why there’s plenty you could do with those ...” she trailed off.

“By all means, go on.”

“...to try and ruin the world. Right, point made. Any other requirements?”

“No, that should cover most of it; let’s see what I've got to work with.”

He began scrolling down the list, flicking through the various wizards and assassins, cultists and summoners. Opening up and looking at a few that caught his interest, he eventually found that seemed to fit.

“Hmm, here we go... Dark Chemist. A single target healer, with a number of buffs and debuffs, access to a large selection of poison and disease based skills, and another tree of something called life shaping? I think I could probably do something with this, looks to be mostly intelligence based, and I can make the most of the resistances. Sure lets lock this in.”

She seemed surprised. “Really? No comparisons, no research, you’re just going to pick it straight away?”

Matt shrugged. “If I spend a heap of time, I'm sure I'll start doubting this decision, but as things are right now, it seems as good as any other, and honestly? My gut says go with this one. A weird reason I know, but it’s the one I have, so it will have to do. Besides maybe I can put together a plague or something like that.”

“For official reasons, I have no idea what you just said. And again, it’s your call. So, let’s put you in, and get your character generated.”

She led him over to a couch in the corner of the room, and offered him a headset.

“Right, so we don’t have a lot of time today to actually let you play here, so just create your character and get settled in, then drop back out. I’ll need to report how you went afterwards. After that, it’s up to you I guess.”

Taking the headset, he set the mask over his face and pressed the button on the side. A 10 second countdown began giving him time to lie down and get ready. As soon as it hit 0 a small surge went through his head, and his senses went black.

~~~~~~

Matt found himself floating in a familiar black abyss, although black wasn’t quite right. There was simply no visual input, leaving him completely blind as he drifted for a few moments, before a voice rang out.

Welcome to Genesis, Matthew Harper, and your new virtual life. Now generating avatar...

The darkness was burned away in a flash of white light at the voices words. Instead he now was looking at what at a small wretched creature that, for the foreseeable future, would be “him”.

This model was created by a randomising engine, would you like to make any adjustments? Be aware that you will not be able to change your appearance afterwards.

“Yes.” He quickly agreed, bring up the various tools to modify his appearance to what he hoped would be passable in any form of society. In the end, once he threw in the towel, he was left with a three foot tall gremlin with a dark bluish green skin tone. He’d shrunk its over sized ears as much as he could, leaving them still 8 inches long pointed backwards along the sides of his head. It left him looking a bit rat like with his sharp facial features, but it was better than the almost elephant like proportions before. It seemed impossible to get a gremlin to be anything but scrawny, but he’d managed to get it to point where he looked overly thin but healthy, instead of an emaciated wreck. It wasn’t going to be winning any beauty contests, but it was now an appearance he could accept, instead of the one before that put him off eating.

Avatar accepted. Class has been selected as Dark Chemist. Do you accept?

“Yes.”

Class accepted. Please name your character.

Matt paused. He hadn’t put any thought into this yet, considering the rest more important, but there was a lot to a name. No one wanted to hang around someone called xXxKillerxXx, and there were entire guilds of people who got rejected for having offensive or inappropriate names. No, these days you needed a proper name, something cool sounding but usable in a sentence.

“My name will be...Jicker”

Name accepted. Welcome, Jicker, to the world.

Again, everything went white before falling into darkness.

Except this time when things began to reappear, it began with a green fist, aiming for his face.

Crack

You have taken 4 damage.

Reeling back, he clutched his nose. You didn’t feel pain exactly in the game, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

“Oi, runt! Why aren’t you at your mining post?” A gravelly voice came from above him. “Lumgra help you, if you don’t get moving in the next few seconds I’ll…”

Blinking his eyes clear he looked up at speaker, seeing not a goblin as expected, but an orc. Taller than a normal human, they were big, tough and known to be little more than cruel thugs. Being stronger than most, they tended to capture, threaten and enslave anyone smaller or weaker into servitude whenever they could. The orcs deep green skin was closer to a leathery hide than normal skin, this being mottled in various scars, pockmarks and what looked like a burn mark that cost him most of his left ear. Wearing a dirty grey cloth shirt over what looked like armour, the orcs arms flexed menacingly, each bulging bicep larger than Jicker’s head.

“Eh? You’re not one of mine, your one of those gremlin wretches! What do you think you’re doing out of the Pit?” The orc question suspiciously, clenching fist to strike him again.

“Please wait! I’m lost, I just arrived and I don’t-” Jicker began desperately in an oddly pitched, gurgling voice. He couldn’t tell if it was his normal voice, or whether his nose was broken. He also didn’t know which the better option was.

“Huh, a strong soul are ya? That’d explain why you’re out here instead. You new?”

He breathed a sigh of relief. Strong souls, the developer’s way of explaining how players would just appear and disappear, and even come back from death, were common enough around here that apparently this orc recognised what it was. Players, as well as important npcs and monsters, were anchored to the world, either by destiny, faith or some other power. This meant they could never fully leave the world, but sometimes this same power called them away for a time.

“Yes, so if you could-Hurk!” he said before the orc reached down and picked him up by the throat effortlessly.

“Don’t think that makes you special, runt. Normally, I’d just kill ya for talking back, or being out of place. But since you’d just come back there ain’t a lot of point, so listen up and listen good, since I ain’t letting go til I'm done.”

The orc began walking down what seemed to be a carved floor, and now that he had a moment to look around, he realised the entire area was an immense cavern .An entire city seemed exist within its walls, stretching up in every direction as they travelled downwards, the ground sloping to one side. The vast darkened area was filled with various inhuman races, all of whom were trying to stay out of the orc’s way. His captor shifted his grip slightly allowing him to breathe, but not enough to talk, imply a frightening level of practice of strangling people.

As he was dragged along with his feet trailing uselessly behind him, his captor began to speak. “I am Grolug; I'm foreman for one of the goblin mining crews here in Mount Kaloh and more importantly, the warden of the Pit. That means if you cause problems, it becomes my problem, which means you have a problem with me, understood? Good. I’d explain everything around here, but it doesn’t matter, because the only place that matters to you is the Pit.”

As they came over a small rise, Jicker got his first look at what Grolug was talking about. An enormous crater, over a mile wide, was sunk into the ground. Filling the bottom to what must have a dozen stories deep was rubbish. Broken carts, metal scrap, broken pots and pans and all manner of rotting and mouldy substances filled it as far as he could see. Already he could see that his poison and disease resistances were going to be needed, but he couldn’t see exactly how.

“This is the Pit, where we put everything we don’t want, that’s broken or useless, several cities round here used to put stuff in here as well, have for a long, long time. Don’t know why, but that ain’t important. This is where you work, and live. You don’t leave it, ever. I get why you were out before, but if I catch you out again, I’ll feed you to a troll, or just eat you myself. Got it?”

Releasing his throat, Jicker took a breath, coughing as he rubbed his throat.

“What about things like food, weapons or supplies?” he croaked.

Grolug grinned evilly at him. “You have access to whatever gets thrown in, no more. You want food? You make do, and as for weapons? Doubt you’re much of a fighter, but you make do. And it’d be a good idea to get something; because there are a few things down there you don’t want to meet. Other than that you can try and trade stuff with us up top, but we might just take it from you anyway, so it’d better be good.”

Jicker swallowed. “How can I leave?”

“Oh? Don’t like your new home? Well if you’re set on leaving, you got two ways. Get one of your betters from up top to take your place somehow, fight ‘em, bribe ‘em, whatever, I don’t care. Or, and this is harder, impress me. You got a name runt?” he asked.

“Um, Jicker.” he said hesitantly, unsure of the sudden question.

“Well then, Jicker, welcome to the Pit!” And without warning, lifted him by the rags he was wearing, and threw him down into the Pit, laughing as he fell.