PART SEVENTEEN

MPD: 39

The screen faded elegantly to black.

That's what I wanted to happen, and in a sane world that's what would have happened. But you're reading this story in a world where the American brand Budweiser (founded 1876) has sued the Czech brand Budweiser (founded 500 years earlier) over a hundred times for using the name Budweiser. A world where I had lengthy chats with a disembodied British crystal. No, the insane reality was that the screen didn't fade to black because 386 had gotten his hands on some 1990s video wipe effects, and so each corner of the screen folded up into a cube, and each cube rotated and then 'rolled' off.

"Huh," I said, as much at the transition as the reactions to our new games.

"She's great," said 386. "She's a level 20 Sword of the Scales, so I got almost 20 Mana Points from her being here. That's as much as I get from all the bakers put together." I don't remember when we decided the locals were all bakers. It was a private joke between us, but in retrospect, 386 knew their professions. Why had he gone along with that joke when normally he'd have jumped down my throat to correct me? He continued, his crystal vibrating to match the excitement in his voice. "We should change our target demographic from the local residents to these high-level Hourlies."

"Should we?" I said. "Surely it's better to have 10 low-level guys who stay for a few hours than one medium-level woman who flounces after half an hour? Why don't you run some models? Make sure to include an option where 20% of your visitors are Hourlies, so that you can tell me that's the optimal mix and then I can say 'huh I was right' and you can say 'actually it's 19.8%' or something equally weaksauce." I rubbed my chin. I only had ten minutes left because 386 had shown me the video in almost real-time. "You need to edit these videos to be shorter. Cut out anything that isn't action that moves the story forward or important dialogue. Only leave pauses if they're funny." Urgh! I'd just told a highly evolved artificial intelligence to become more like a viral video creator! One of the lowest moments of my life. "And we need to make some changes before she comes back."

"Anything in particular?"

"Yes." I told him in as much detail as I had time for. He said he completely understood and would do things exactly as I had suggested. But there was a hint of amusement in his voice. Or should I say, a hint of BETRAYAL? I shook the suspicion off. "I have to decide if I want to be here when she comes."

"I thought you liked her."

"Put such thoughts in the trashcan of history. Put them in a special folder labeled 'Things That Are Extinct' and then create a program that overwrites those files a gigathousand times and call the program deadends.exe and then -"

"Yes, yes, okay."

"And then shoot it into space so that it tumbles into the sun. It's not hard to send things into space. We'll need to brush up on our knowledge of metallurgy and propulsive systems -"

"Stop or I won't let Lennie play music."

That threat worked. The dungeon was soooo much nicer with music filling the corridors.

A quick aside: Lennie was only allowed to play 'period-appropriate' music, which was a joke because the game designers had started with a kind of Victorian-era design philosophy but because they didn't want guns, huge parts of every city ended up feeling medieval. The further you ventured the more anachronistic things became - if you found a stonehenge-type place, it'd be guarded by ancient druids with golden sickles. In the desert areas of Gargantua there was a Wild West theme, but without firearms you had grizzled cowboys saying 'I know what yer thinkin'. Yer thinkin' did I fire 5 arrows or 6? So do you feel lucky, pink?' It was a mess. A glorious mess, if you ask me, but ThetanSoft would sometimes double down on their original principles. Any real-world music written before 1824 was fine, anything after was not.

If you'll indulge a microscopic aside to this aside, when I was looking up classical music written in 1824, Chopin's Mazurka was second on the list (after Beethoven's 9th). If you've read Nerves of Steel you'll know that the Mazurka is something of a plot point, so I asked Lennie to play it. He started playing and then his violin vanished and 386 spluttered "What have you done?" The Engine had been unable to decide if Chopin's Mazurka was 'allowed' or not and escalated it to ThetanSoft and they hired three music historians to debate the issue and as of me typing right now, it still isn't resolved! Of course, if you watch Nerves of Steel (the movie) there IS music in that scene. But was there music in that scene in reality? There must have been, right? Or all the NPCs just pretended to hear it and danced around? That's the end of this little aside. Sorry if it bored you - I just think it's hilarious the ways these big VR companies tie themselves into knots trying to stay 'faithful' to their theme but always end up with an upturned trifle.

"Okay," I said. "I've stopped."

"Why would you want to talk to her?"

"To ask her not to write about this on the forums or whatever. Until we're bigger." I stood up and sighed. "I suppose it doesn't matter. I've only got a few weeks left. You'll be able to carry on without me, right?" 386 didn't reply. "Right?"

"Tell me more about firing a hard drive into the sun."

At the time his comment just sounded weird so I said, "I'll be back this time tomorrow." In other words, not when the woman would be around. Looking back on it, I really should have understood what the dungeon was trying to say to me. It wasn't rocket science.

386, Lies, and Videotape

I sat in the cinema room. Alone, for once. 386 told me that Lennie was 'busy'. Anyway, we're switching to Valentine's perspective. Remember, she hasn't written a book about these events so why shouldn't you believe every single word I'm saying?

I, Nicki Valentine, logged in and dragged my knuckles to the dungeon. It was darker than the day before - much darker - but the two little girls were there, waiting with a man who I guessed was their father.

I went to shake him by the hand. "Hi, I'm Normal-Looking Woman," I said, respecting my own privacy like a boss. "You can call me Nicki Valentine, though, otherwise things would get unreadable and annoying."

"Um," said the man. "I'm the father of Jenny and Steffi. I'm not important so I don't get named. If I have an inner life and goals and aspirations your readers will never know about it."

At this point there was some interference with the video feed. I could see that the father and Valentine had a bit more back-and-forth but the audio cut out. "386?" I said. "What's up? Oh, never mind. It's working now."

With all that resolved, the father went home and I took his kids into the dungeon. We turned right and immediately we noticed there had been more changes to the waiting room. For a start, there were now 4 exits instead of 3. The pictures on the floor hinted at what lay ahead.

First, there was a chalk picture of me in my armor but I was the same size as Jenny and Steffi. It looked like a 7-year old had drawn it. "Kid's games," I said. I walked round to the next exit. The drawing had me at my normal size, with the two girls next to me, and lots of question marks around us all. "What do you think this is?"

"It's probably some kind of mystery room," said Jenny. "Maybe Steffi will get murdered and we'll have to solve the case."

"Hey," said Steffi. She rubbed her arm nervously.

"I'll check it's safe before we go in. I want to see the other pictures, first." The next one was me throwing coins in the air while the two little girls stood further away - Jenny rolling her eyes and the other checking her watch. Steffi wasn't wearing a watch - nobody did, everyone had a clock on their display - but I asked them what they thought the picture meant and it translated just fine.

The last image was the 'danger room' and now it was just a picture of me, without any graffiti, heroically holding a sword aloft while standing on a mound of heads. It made me laugh out loud. Each head looked like Bain.

"Wow," said Steffi. "How did you do that?"

I shrugged. "Not sure. Right, what shall we do first?"

Straight Into the Mystery Room

Naturally, we started by playing some Cannonball.

And Then Straight Into the Mystery Room

They'd made the kid's room bigger and added two more pinball machines so that we could all play at the same time and get it out of our system. I noticed that I was thinking about 'they'. The dungeon plus Bain. But that didn't make any sense, did it? They couldn't both be in charge.

Anyhoo, as much fun as we were having blasting pirate ships to kingdom come, we were keen to explore.

We made a beeline to the mystery room, and as we did, a few men came out of the casino area, smiling and happy. They were polite to me and friendly to the kids. Jenny spoke to them. "Have you seen Lennie?"

"Yeah," said one of the men, jabbing a thumb behind him. "He's in there, busking."

"Busking?"

"Playing music for money. He plays the tune you ask for, you give him a bit, and he shoves it in a bandit. He's turning into a right degenerate."

Another man said, "We're going to stage an intervention for him." His nose twitched. "As soon as we're all cured!"

They all laughed and wandered out of the dungeon.

I frowned. Could the NPCs get addicted to things? That was a worrying thought. The game was pretty realistic, but a lot of real life had been stripped out. I could worry about such questions offline - warning the girls to stay put, I popped into the mystery room. A few seconds later I came out and told them it was safe to enter.

We wandered in, through a double-door and into a hall of mirrors. There were varying numbers of mirrors on each wall and we went round them one by one. Each mirror did something different. One made you look really tall, one made you look short and fat. So far, so normal. The girls loved it, though. They thought it was hilarious, and being there with them I found it hilarious, too.

On the next wall the effects got... weird. I realised I was looking at those playful camera filters - one that gives you a pig's nose, one that makes you look like a cat, one that makes you look like a necromancer. Fun for me, but mind-blowingly amazing to the kids.

On the third wall there was just one, ten-meter wide mirror. When you looked at it you saw yourself in some famous painting, movie scene, or whatever. I recognised The Last Supper, Liberty Leading the People, Gremlins, and Abbey Road. The scene changed every minute and I found myself going back again and again.

The final wall, the one broken into two halves by the doorway, was even more meta than the previous one. There were four mirrors. The first one had a little sign on the top that said 'Please Stand Still'. I obeyed, and the words changed. Now it said 'Spot the Difference'. I literally gasped! It was so clever. I noticed the first difference right away. "I don't have 666 on my forehead," I said, and the graffiti vanished from the mirror image. The text changed to say 1/8. I had to find seven more changes. The little girls helped me. They wanted to try it for themselves, but they also wanted to see everything else, and they also wanted to go back and play pinball, and they also wanted to go on and explore the combat zone.

"One more mirror and then we leave, okay?"

The girls didn't reply - they were literally entranced by the Spot the Difference mirror.

I frowned. Was that what this was about? Some kind of mind control? I stood before the next mirror. The sign read: 'Scary Mirror. Not for Kids. Not for Cry Baby Sword of the Scales Warriors Either. Clear Off.' I was outraged. "I'm not a cry baby!"

The text changed to 'Pfff. Whatevs.'

I looked up at the ceiling for some reason. "Get on with it!"

The text changed to '10.' Then it changed to '9', and so on. When it should have hit '6' it said 'No, really, this isn't for you.' I gritted my teeth and let my weight sink even lower. The countdown resumed until it hit 3. 'Lady, you won't like it. I'm trying to do you a solid here.' I let out a little growl of frustration. 'Fine' said the sign. 'Don't say I didn't warn you.'

Then the mirror rippled as though someone had dropped a pebble into a reflection. The ripples... um... rippled out and away and the image returned to normal. I was just looking at myself in the mirror. Absolutely nothing scary about it.

My mind started to race. Was this the scary thing? Was it a kind of subversive comment about how we are our own worst enemies? We fear what's within us? Something like that?

I realised that my reflection had deep frown lines, and it wasn't because I was thinking so hard. It was because I was feeling warm. Almost hot. My reflection showed that my armor was turning slightly orange. It was getting really hot in here! "Hugghhhhhn," I said. Beads of sweat appeared on my forehead. "Argh!" I said, as the orange glow spread out. Some parts turned red.

'Danger,' said the sign. 'It's gone wrong! We can't control it!'

Then: 'Mana overload imminent. Fly, you fools!'

"Ugh," I said. I wanted to move but my legs were stuck. I looked down and saw skeletal hands had grabbed me and were holding me in place. I tried to unsheathe my sword but I found that my arm was covered in hairy tarantulas. I was really freaking out now! Everywhere I looked, something awful was happening. A change in the text caught my eye. Now it simply had one word on it.

'Duck.'

I was melting to death and about to be bitten by a hundred spiders so it took a second to process the meaning. In the mirror, I looked behind my shoulder and saw a stupendously enormous scythe coming right at me!

I flung myself to the floor and - miracle of miracles! - avoided the blow. I rolled and came up with my sword out, ready to smite everything (except the spiders if I could avoid it).

Obviously, there was nothing there. Nothing except two little girls with round saucer eyes. "Lol wut," said Jenny.

I realised what had happened and closed my eyes slowly. When my heart rate came under control, I put my sword away and got to my feet. I looked at the Scary Mirror. The sign now read 'Giant Scythe for Sale, Barely Used, Enquire Within.'

Nodding my head in a kind of angry way, I quickly checked the last two mirrors. The sign on the first was a quote from Snow White: 'Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?' And the mirror was split in half, with the left hand side showing a woman and the right hand side showing another woman. My blood started to boil, but I wanted to see where this would go. "The one on the right," I said. The images folded into little dumbbells, which span around and then disappeared. On the mirror came two pictures of horses. "The one on the left." The images 'tore' away from the mirror like they were made of paper, and the scene resolved into two pictures of door handles.

"What the fudge?" I said, and moved to the last mirror. It was labeled 'The Mirror of Erised.' Out loud, I said, "I remember this from Harry Potter! It shows your heart's desire. How did it work? You just look at it for a while and then you see it." I waited. Something was happening. My armor was sort of fading away, as was the rest of the hall of mirrors behind me. In its place, something was slowly resolving, coming into focus. I realised what it was long before it finished. It was me in a wedding dress standing next to - I'll give you a clue to show that the mirror did NOT show your heart's desire: it wasn't Errol Flynn. You guessed it, it was me and Bain, getting married, surrounded by cute skeletons in tuxedos throwing confetti over us. Bain had an absolutely insufferable look on his face. Just when I was about to smash the mirror he gave me a little wink.