Yapo eyed the formation of soldiers. A ray of the setting sun shone between the skyscrapers and warmed him against the cool wind. His computer relayed a quick count of the soldier’s total into his vision. “Spider Five to Para-Web Ten.”

Cysten’s voice whispered into Yapo’s earpiece. “Para-Web Ten, go ahead Spider Five.” “Today’s toy count is one-hundred forty.”

“Copy Spider Five. You can go home now.”

“Copy.” Yapo quietly retreated across the rooftop. Something sticky sucked at his boot. He wrinkled his nose at the sweet stench coming from an overflowing trashcan. He shook his head.

Update 9.24.2 of Urba-Scape had just launched yesterday. One of its touted features was the improved realism of smells.

Yapo curled his lip and lightly descended the emergency fire staircase on the outside of the building. “There’s such a thing as too much realism,” he muttered.

He left the warm ray of the sun’s light and descended into cool shadows. His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness and he surveyed the narrow alley below him. Computer-generated characters walked to and fro between the buildings. A couple of bums warmed themselves next to a trashcan fire. The alley was littered with every kind of refuse some poor artist had worked for hours to make look realistic.

Yapo’s eyes were elsewhere though. A quick look at the people showed that there wasn’t any other players like himself waiting for him below.

He climbed down from the staircase and walked out of the alley and into a bustling street. A mini-map showed his location in the corner of his vision, as well as a waypoint marker showing the way back to his clan’s base.

Yapo’s phone rang and he answered with a snap of his fingers. Cysten’s voice chirped up in Yapo’s ear. “Alright, I’m done gaming for tonight but I can wait for you to get back to the base. Were you able to level up today?”

Yapo eyed his progress bar. “No,” he said irritably, “their mechanics are totally jacked. I could have leveled up three times in any other game by now.”

Cysten sighed. “Yeah, I hear they plan on fixing that in the next update. If you don’t like it then don’t play. I only asked you to buy it with me cuz my clan was leaving Twice-Life and needed more people to join.”

Yapo checked behind him, looking in the crowed for anyone tailing him. Then he checked the rooftops. “You’re fine man, I think its my role in the clan. Being the scout every time just gets boring. I mean seriously, just let me ruin their plans every once in blue moon and allow me to infiltrate a base, or I don’t know, steal something or snipe somebody. I’ve been sinking experience points into the Infiltrator tree since Day One and have barely used any of my skills.”

Cysten chuckled. “At least they pay you good.”

Yapo scoffed. “If it didn’t help pay my real-life rent, I’d have left them long ago and become a spy for hire.”

“Oh come on! There are gamers who would kill to make actual money from gaming!”

Yapo’s mouth quirked into a smile as he slipped into a sewage drain. “I don’t think they know there’s a difference between gaming for fun and gaming for a job. I bet you anything none of them have even thought about making a base in the sewers, especially with the latest update.”

Cysten laughed. “Awesome man, awesome. Dude, I hear we ticked off some small clan for enforcing protection money on one of their stores. They were totally gung-ho about taking us on until they made it into the sewers. Turned back right then and there.”

Yapo chuckled. He made his way along the drain in a crouch, doing his best to avoid dubious lumps in the running water. “I don’t blame them.” He jumped down into a larger drain and stood up. From there it was only a short way to the locked iron grate that shut their temporary listening post off from the rest of the sewers.

“Be sure to rinse off your boots!” Cysten yelled from the darkness inside the grate.

Yapo washed his boots off with what he guessed was a hose that was usually used by maintenance crews. Then he unlocked the grate and closed it behind him. The rust clung to him and he brushed it off on his pants.

“I still don’t see how you managed to get ahold of the keys to this place.” Yapo walked around the pipe’s corner and ducked his head through an open door that was usually sealed. Inside were all sorts of sewage maintenance tools and machines lit by the blue light of Cysten’s monitors.

“Magic, hey, check this out.” Cysten turned his blonde moppy head for only a moment before looking back at the screen.

Yapo leaned on the back of Cysten’s chair, by what means he had gotten down into the sewers was beyond Yapo. On one of Cysten’s monitors was a live streaming of a news conference.

The headline read; Laughing Clown Games CEO Announces Efforts to Combat Perception of Reality in his most Realistic Game.

Yapo’s mouth quirked into a smile. “What?”

“Shh, listen.”

“…have to ask,” a news reporter was saying, “why go to so much effort to make Urba-Scape realistic if you’re just going to ruin that perception?”

The CEO set his lips in a grim line. “There is a difference between making it easy for players to immerse themselves in a game through realism and causing them to lose their perception of what is real. Our company hopes to implement several policies into our games that will still allow for their enjoyment while ensuring our customers experience a wholesome lifestyle.”

“What policies will those be?”

“We are planning to implement two of the policies tomorrow. One will place a hard limit on continuous gameplay to an hour and a half. A player will get a thirty-minute warning to come to a stopping point before they are forcefully logged out of the system. After that, they will have to be out-of-game for thirty minutes before they can rejoin.”

“The second policy will be periodic notifications in-game stating that they are in a virtual world and reminders to take food and water breaks. We believe that it is important to ensure the healthy lifestyle of our customers and…”

Yapo nudged Cysten’s shoulder. “Seriously? They’re going to limit our game time like we’re children?”

Cysten shook his head in disbelief. “Dang it. You know what this means? It probably means our clan is going to move over to something like Dream-Life 6 when it comes out. I hear VT Games won’t implement restrictions on their virtual games like Laughing Clown.”

“Really?! Are you serious?” Yapo threw his hands in the air. “Whatever, they want to be like that then they won’t have me as a customer. Just….whatever, I’m done for the day.”

“See ya.”

“Yep, I’m logging out. I’m done for the day.”

Cysten turned and looked at him, frowning. “Logging out?”

Yapo was already heading around the bend. “Yep! See ya tomorrow!”

Cysten gave a small laugh. “Yeah, sure, I’ll go log out too.” He shook his head. “You’re so funny,” he said to himself.

***

Yapo reached his apartment an hour later after filling up his hunger and thirst bar at a nearby fast food joint. He tried to walk as quietly along the hallway as possible, but his neighbor still cussed him out as the floorboards creaked.

Yapo shook his head and stomped the rest of the way to his door. “Why do I even try?” he mumbled. The carpet of the hallway was nearly worn through in front of his door. He walked in and locked the door behind him. Only then did he relax.

He cleaned himself up, brushed his teeth and took care of a few chores around his apartment.

He turned the TV on to a news channel out of habit and let it run in the background while he did chores around his apartment.

The newscasters talked about the controversy surrounding L.I.F.E. recorders. The topic of the day was a study done by a group of scientists on how Heads Up Displays projected into one’s vision affected a person’s perception of reality. The study showed that those who used the technology to keep track of their eating, drinking and learning status were more likely to lose their grasp of reality.

Hunger and thirst status bars, especially life experience bars were all there to help promote healthy living. However, the scientists disagreed that it helped the mental stability of users.

Yapo didn’t hear a word of it as he plugged his L.I.F.E recorder into its charger and proceeded to begin washing dishes.

It was already late when Yapo turned on his favorite television show and sat on the edge of his bed.

The character he’d made in this world had a robotic arm and leg. While they were useful for his work, they had drawbacks. By rote, as he watched the television he took off his robotic leg, then the harness that cushioned what remained of his thigh. He massaged the muscles and tissue, making sure blood was getting to all parts. Then, he cleaned his leg of all the grime it had collected during the day.

By the time he was done cleaning his arm it was time for bed.

He sat on the edge of his bed looking at the floor for some time. Suddenly, he roused himself and lay back on his bed. He took a slim helmet with a cord attached to it from his nightstand and put it on his head. “Time to log out,” he whispered. He closed his eyes.

A light lit up words upon the helmet.

URBA-SCAPE