PART TWENTY-FOUR

MPD: 108

Namedropping

We logged in within a minute of each other and when she saw me, she set off towards the town center.

"One second," I said, and ran to the dungeon with Valentine in hot pursuit. There I told 386 about a game idea I'd had overnight. Then we jogged to the bank.

We passed some familiar faces - Austeralia regulars going about their daily business. I got a warm glow from the feeling that they'd be thinking about the park while grinding their skills.

In the bank, I talked to the same beige guy. I told him which land I'd like to buy and he asked how I wanted to pay and I looked at Valentine with a shrug because I didn't really have the first clue.

"The Swords of the Scales will guarantee his loan," she said. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. What if I couldn't pay it back?

"Indeed?" said the banker. "Well, that's very acceptable." He pulled out a parchment. "Mister Bain, would you sign this?"

I scanned it. It seemed to be a deed to the land I wanted. All of it! There was an interest rate. "Four percent? That's crazy. I can't afford 4% a week." Valentine gave me an odd look, like she wasn't sure if I was joking or not.

"That's 4% a year, Mister Bain."

"Oh," I said. "Can we negotiate that down to 3.9%? 3.9 is my lucky number."

"Regrettably, no. And 4.1 is my lucky number so I suggest you..." He inhaled. "Take as much time as you like. The customer is always right."

I shrugged and signed the thing. I got a notification, but didn't open it right away. It seemed like bad luck.

Valentine said, "Now, there's more worthless land around his worthless land. We'd like to buy it."

"We?" said the banker.

"The Swords."

"Oh," he said, with a smile. "Please indicate every plot you're interested in and we'll quote you a price." He pushed forward a map and she tapped quite a lot of stuff around the periphery of my stuff. My stuff. Was it my stuff? This scene kind of feels slow when I write it out but it really happened so fast I could scarcely believe it was real.

He nodded and wrote a number down on a piece of paper. She didn't blink at it. Just nodded and then they signed a contract and that was that. I did notice that her quoted interest rate was 1.3%. Of course rich people get money cheaper. That makes sense.

"Wonderful," she said. "Now we'd like some cash to make improvements. Put up some buildings and so on."

He gave her an apologetic smile. "Miss, your credit is good but... not quite so elastic as that."

"Oh, I'm sure," she said. "But perhaps I might namedrop and convince you to change your mind."

He smiled mirthlessly, and opened a folder into which he carefully deposited our contracts. "Miss, please. It doesn't matter who you know. Our decisions are strictly factual."

"I know about Torquemada," she said.

He was unmoved - he didn't know the name and neither did I. But he dutifully rolled his eyes up to check the codex. I saw the exact moment that he found the entry - his face registered mild surprise. There was the tiniest look of confusion on his face as he continued reading. I've told you before about how quickly 386 was able to send tickets to the engine and/or get my madcap ideas approved. So the banker was really taking his sweet time reading about this Torquemada chap. It took so long that I fixated on the last four letters of the name - an anagram of Adam. Not even an anagram. Just the letters in reverse. Could it be -?

"I see," said the banker, beigely. He slammed the folder closed. He sneered, folded his arms, and stared through the large, square window next to his desk with a disgusted look on his face. "I have a husband, you know."

"I'm sorry," said Valentine.

The man seethed for a while longer. He tutted and looked down as his desk. "You want money? Here." He scribbled two notes. "Sign."

"Um," I said, but Valentine kicked my ankle.

I signed.

"Thank you for choosing The Austerity Bank," he said. Then he hurled his chair through the window like an olympic hammer thrower. He hopped out into the street and paced away, whistling.

Beta Male

I let out a nervous laugh. "That was pretty hot. Ah... what happened?"

Valentine tucked all our contracts into the folder and popped it into the banker's outbox. "Guy just found out he has two weeks to live."

We left by the front door. She was striding back towards the dungeon. I was following at a snail's pace. She turned back and asked me what was wrong. "What do you mean, two weeks to live?"

She laughed. "Don't tell me you didn't see the news." I panicked. Was some nuclear reactor going to explode and kill us all? A comet? Did we have two weeks of food left in the world? Valentine had the emotional intelligence to recognise that I was freaking out, but she couldn't help but smile. "You are the least informed person I've ever met." She took a breath while she thought of how to tell me the news. "It leaked last night. Someone noticed there are no World Events scheduled after a little series of them happening in Zenith. The guy did some social engineering and found that quest line is called Torquemada slash End of Beta."

"End of beta? This is just the beta version?" I didn't remember reading anything about that when ThetanSoft took my subscription fee. "Okay but so what? They're going to patch some of the weird broken stuff like that bard who doesn't age or the way every single policeman walks away from you and comes back saying 'oh just one more thing.'"

She shook her head. "They're going to start again. Complete wipe."

"But that means..." It was too horrible to even say. I looked around. We were on one of Auster's busy high streets. One of many. Dozens of businesses, hundreds of workers, thousands of shoppers. NPCs living rich, full lives. Players jogging around looking to buy a magic sword or sell an Amulet of Encroaching Despair. All this would be gone? 386 and Lennie, gone? I staggered backwards, standing on some broken glass. "Why... Why did we just buy all this land if you knew there was no point? Why did you let me waste my time here?"

She stared at me with wide, unblinking eyes. "You wanted it and it was something I could give you."

I'm not sure what happened next. I thought I heard her saying more things, but the next thing I remember clearly was being in my microscopic apartment trying to pour a glass of water down my gullet. I thought about all the time I'd lost in the game and felt sick. Like, sick enough to nearly break my 8-year vom streak. I kept drinking water. My phone was blowing up with emails so I turned it off and went to sit down and stare out of my bedroom window.

I had a great view of an old, leaky air conditioner. I watched as a droplet of water took shape, filled, and thought about dropping. Another one formed an inch away. Which would jump first? It gave me an idea for a new Austeralia game. That made me feel even worse. I closed the drapes and sat on the edge of my bed. I turned my phone on, ignored the increasing number of inbox alerts, found the number for ThetanSoft and called their customer support. I asked about canceling my subscription because I was unhappy with the way they were handling the end of beta and there was no point developing my character if they were just going to delete him. The lady on the line offered a pro-rata refund for the last few weeks and asked if I wanted to cancel immediately. "No!" I said. I might have shouted it. "Sorry. I mean, no, thanks. I have to go in and say goodbye to my friends. Set the end date as two days from now."

And That's the End of the Story

You're probably thinking three things. One, Billy-Bob has foreshadowed about twenty things that haven't happened yet, so this can't really be the end. Two, life's hard so it's fine that there's another depressing bit but I hope the rest of the book is more in the gonzo fun style of the beginning. Three, wait: Lair Hockey is a pun on Air Hockey. I just got it! And I just know there's one person reading this, probably in Seattle, probably 16 years old, who's thinking: Four, there still hasn't been a Ready Player One joke yet, and that's the only reason I'm still invested in this story. And to that little dullard I say: You don't always get what you want. This whole chapter is about not getting what you want. Try to pay attention.

Another Thing I Didn't Want

Another thing I didn't want was a phone call. I hate talking on the phone. The side of my face gets hot and I'm sure I'm just microwaving my innards. But I was just curled up on my bed not doing anything and the call would at least break the monotony.

"Hai moshi moshi," I said.

"Uhh, okay. I'm trying to contact Billy-Bob Bain."

"Why? He's no better than he should be."

"Mister Bain?"

The guy had a deep, resonant voice but I was not in the mood for human contact. "Just get to the point already."

"Okay. Could you please not cancel your BetterVerse sub?"

"What? What the Helena are you talking about?"

"Ahem. We can't..." He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. "We would like to meet you. In person." He read out my address. "Is that up-to-date?"

I probably should have been scared, but it was like some parts of my head were boiling hot and others were still fridge-cold. "Yes."

I heard him tapping on a keyboard. Nice clicky noises. Relaxing. This guy needed to do an ASMR channel. "Can you get to Doxx City?" He said the name of the closest major city to me, which obviously I'm not repeating here BECAUSE I DON'T EVER WANT TO MEET YOU, YOU REPROBATE.

"No," I said.

"No?" he said, confused.

"It would take hours and I can't afford it."

More tapping. "There's a bus -"

"No. I'm hanging up now."

"Please don't. Okay, let me check something." More taps, slightly faster. "Um... I think I can get someone to you. How about Nearby Park?"

"Sure. Send all the king's horses and all the king's men. March them up to the top of the hill. I'll be there." I hung up.

He called back. I rejected the call, put the phone under a pillow, and tried to sleep.

Part of a Healthy Breakfast? You're 86% carbs!

The next morning I felt a strange mix of elation and sadness. I felt like I'd made a decision I should have made long ago, but of course it meant the end of the dungeon consultancy gig. I didn't feel bad because I wasn't the one killing 386. I told myself that enough times I started to believe it.

I stared at my generic, unsponsored breakfast cereal as I spooned it into my mouth. When I was a kid I used to read the boxes while I ate, but at some point they went from having little stories on there to just 'follow us on social media' and easily disprovable health claims, and now I can't even imagine what the boxes used to say. (There must have been enough text to last five minutes. How is that possible? But there was.)

I was pondering what cereal boxes had to teach us about the human condition when I heard my phone vibrating. I went to find it and picked up the call.

"Good morning, Mister Bain."

"Yeah."

"I'm calling to see if you've thought about what I said."

"Bro, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I called you last night. I tried to set up a meeting in Nearby Park. You hung up on me."

"And I shall do so again. In exactly thirteen thousand nanoseconds. Hold on, I've got an app that converts measurements."

"We have an offer for you. An opportunity."

"Oh, it's one of those. I've always wanted to do some scambaiting. Keep you on the line so you're not ripping off some grandma. But now's not convenient. Can you call back after work?"

"If you won't do it for yourself, do it for 386."

That floored me. Scammers wouldn't know about the dungeon. "What?"

"We can't have this conversation on the phone. Please, Mister Bain. Tell us when and where we can meet you."

I tried to go through all the snippets of conversation I could remember having with this guy. There was a lot of me being rude and him not saying anything tangible. "But who are you? You haven't even told me your name."

"I can't. I could lose more than my job. I work for ThetanSoft. Just... just hear us out. Please?"