NPCs
To the Nest, adventurers!” the giant guild leader said.
I followed the Fury Burds out of the Hub and along the eastern corridor. The prepubescent kid kept glancing over his shoulder at me. He couldn’t seem to keep his tongue in his mouth.
We climbed another staircase to a purple door painted with a picture of a bird’s nest. Inside, the two girls combed through an activity chest while the smaller kid started unfolding chairs with the effort of a squirrel trying to pry open bear traps.
“Thank you, Fury Burds mayor!” the giant guild leader said. He took the kid’s scroll and stamped it.
I stood there like an idiot.
The Nest was a small, gray brick room that smelled like dead grass. A half wall divided the far wall in two, with four bunks on each side. On the right side of the wall was a punching bag and a crafts table. On the left was a workstation and the activity chest. Above the half wall was a small, barred window that looked over desert dunes and a pale sky. A bird-themed clock above the door said it was a quarter after canary—5:13.
Four days to earn a million points.
The guild leader’s hand thunked down onto my shoulder. “Let’s start guild therapy, shall we?”
I nodded, like what he’d said was perfectly normal, and joined the circle of chairs. The small kid immediately sat next to me. The two girls also sat, holding circles of wood that framed perforated pieces of cloth. The fluorescents flickered on the dead-fish gray of the walls. I needed a Red Bull.
“Greetings, players!” the guild leader said. His voice was so big and warm that for a moment it felt like we were gathered around a crackling hearth in Azeroth. Y’know, as opposed to being in a gray-brick jail cell. “We have a new player joining us today. Greetings, Miles!”
I gave the guild a flat smile and a small wave.
Earlier I had failed to convince G-man that I was a healthy or good person. I needed a new tactic. When you find yourself in a dungeon that’s too high-level, you remain stealthy. You memorize the layout of the passages and study the enemies’ movements from the shadows while searching for a way to get the hell out.
“Normally,” the guild leader said, “we would have guild therapy during this block, but because it’s Sunday, we’re a little more relaxed, and I can give you a proper welcome.” He gestured around the circle. “I want you to get to know your guildmates. You’ll be pretty close with these guys for the next few weeks.”
Not if I could help it.
Going clockwise from my chair were the two girls—a larger Asian with short shiny black hair, and a girl with dark skin, her hair bleached white. Then there was the giant guild leader, and finally, the small kid and me. The kid was sitting so close, I could feel him breathing.
“I’ll begin,” the guild leader said. “They call me Fezzik. I’m a very nice man, but I’m also a giant. Heh. Guess I don’t have to tell you that part.”
The bigger girl raised her hand. “Do we have to listen to this again?”
“You can stitch for points if you’d like,” Fezzik said.
The girls started to sew. The small kid kept his attention fixed on me.
“Miles, they say the best kind of sponsor is one who has experienced the same addiction,” Fezzik continued, “or as I like to say, has gone on the same dangerous quests. I’m no different from you. I’ve experienced gamer regret. I’ve come out of a gaming haze and discovered the world had left me behind without any real connections or appreciable skills.”
My dad had used similar words when trying to discipline me. But I knew I had enough “appreciable skills” to get by in life. I could build a computer from scratch. I could order underwear online. I could microwave Hot Pockets.
Fezzik rested his elbows on his knees so that his eyes were more level with mine. “No one loves a giant. Just like in fairy tales. I don’t know if people are worried I’m going to break them or what, but when you’re my size, no one invites you to things. No parties. No football games. No dates.”
Something squeezed inside me. I may have complained about my looks and my luck with girls, but it would be nearly impossible to find love with a giant’s stats.
“So one day I gave up on it all,” he said. “I went to Costco with my savings and bought three shopping carts full of food. Then I shut myself up in my apartment with an Arcadia subscription.”
My eye twitched. I hoped he didn’t notice.
“I stayed there for six straight weeks, ordering an extra large supreme pizza every night, and spending every possible moment in Arcadia. I would’ve stayed longer, but then my sobering moment came. The thing that smoked me out of my cave. I’d been fighting the Click Clack God for four straight days—waiting for him to respawn again and again so I could get him to drop a pair of epic titanium cuff links—when I ran out of food. The fridge was empty. The cupboard was bare. I couldn’t afford pizza three times a day, so I needed another Costco run. But . . .” Fezzik gave a giant-size sigh. “When I tried to leave my apartment, I couldn’t fit out the front door.”
My eyebrows leapt to the top of my forehead. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh.
Fezzik pinched up his shoulders like he was still trying to find a way out of that door. “I squeezed and squeezed until I was afraid I might get stuck in the frame.” His shoulders released. “Finally I had to just . . . give up. I went and sat on my couch.” He shook his giant head, ashamed. “That moment hit me like a bucket of ice water. I didn’t want to be one of those people who had to be lifted through a hole in the ceiling by a crane after I died. So I sat there in my apartment for days, eating nothing, playing nothing, just staring at the wall until I lost enough weight to fit out my door again.”
It was so quiet, I could hear the girls’ needles threading through cloth.
“BUT—” Fezzik lifted his giant hands and let them fall with a big SLAP onto his lap. “That was another life. The Emperor is long behind me.”
“Wait,” I said. “You’re the Emperor?”
Fezzik blushed and tried to contain a smile.
I nearly dropped to my knees before the most famous player ever to grace Arcadia. I looked around the circle.
“You guys are sitting in front of a god,” I said.
“I doubt that,” the Asian girl said.
The white-haired girl stared admiringly at Fezzik, but then quickly dropped her gaze when the Asian girl looked her way.
“Tell them!” I said to Fezzik. “Tell them what you did!”
Fezzik waved his hands. “No, no. I left that life behind long ago.”
The small kid next to me bounced in his chair. “Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us!”
“Yes. God. Please,” the Asian girl said. “We’re dying.”
“Well,” Fezzik said, cheeks red from the attention, “my guild was the first to complete the Jack and Lop quest. I obtained Eeqwuan’s blade and fed it to Gurglaxe, the lava amphibian, in order to acquire the Toasty Scythe, which I took into the Temple of the Horn and used to decapitate the Mallow King, earning me the Jackalopesus mount. I used it to build the Pyramid of Atmo . . . which earned me the title of Emperor.”
I caught the girl with white hair secretly smiling as she stitched.
“I didn’t sleep for ninety hours,” Fezzik said. “I’m not proud of it.”
He clearly was.
I wanted to invite the giant guild leader to join the Wight Knights guild, but that seemed inappropriate in a video game rehab. So I just said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emperor.”
“No, no,” Fezzik said. “Don’t call me that. Like I said, that was another life.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “The point is, I know what it’s like to get lost in a digital world and watch the real world leave you behind. More than most, probably. Heh. Think of me as your healer, Miles. The white mage of the guild.”
“A-hem,” the Asian girl said. “White?”
“Excuse me,” Fezzik said. “I’m your healer. I’m here to give you a phoenix down in life.”
He gave an infectious chuckle, and I smiled. For real this time.
Fezzik gestured around the circle. “Let’s go around and have everyone give a brief introduction: name, tier, and why you’re here.”
“What’s a tier?” I asked.
“It’s just which quarter of a million points the player has. You’re a first tier.” He gestured to the big girl, who kept her eyes on her cross-stitch. She looked annoyed enough to crumple the chair she sat in. “Meeki?”
She kept stitching. “I’m Meeki. I’m a first tier. I’m not addicted to video games. I’m here because a controller accidentally slipped out of my hand during a Wii tennis match against my brother, and it accidentally gave him a concussion.”
“Meeki,” Fezzik said. “Did the controller accidentally break the television too?”
She dropped her needle and made an annoyed sound. “I already told you. The Wiimote bounced off my brother’s head and then hit the TV. I’m not a violent person.”
“Meeki,” Fezzik said, “your avatar’s name was ‘mekillyoulongtime.’ ”
Meeki rolled her eyes and then pointed in my face. “I’m gay. So don’t flirt with me.”
“Uh . . .” I scowled. “Don’t worry.”
The Nest door opened, and Command led the electric warlock into the room. He didn’t look dead anymore, but he didn’t look not dead either. No way could he look that terrible because of a gamer hangover.
The small kid next to me leapt up, creaked open another chair, and set it down to my left. The electric warlock slumped into it. Meeki and the other girl scooted over to give him and his sunken eyes some space.
“Greetings, new player!” Fezzik said. “What are we going to call you on this adventure?”
The kid held his head up from his legs and gurgled something that sounded like “Zxzord.”
“Heh. Okay.” Fezzik gestured to the dark-skinned girl with the bright white hair. “Next, meet our mystic elf.”
The girl set down her cross-stitch and shook her white hair so it partially covered her face. Then she quickly tucked it back behind her ear again, like hiding her face was a thing she was trying not to do anymore. She was one of those eternally gloomy-looking people, like someone had left her out in the rain and all her happy had seeped away.
“My name is Aurora. I’m a third tier. . . . I don’t want to talk about video games today.”
“Sounds good to me,” Fezzik said. “What would you like to talk about?”
Aurora tucked the other side of her hair behind an ear. “It’s pleasant not to stare at a computer screen anymore. I . . . see things. Like, flies are adorable. Have you noticed? They clean themselves like kittens.” She mimicked the action. “They lick their legs and then wipe off their big spotty eyes. It’s amazing. Their proboscises are like tiny little gummy straws . . .”
Her voice was so floaty, it went straight in one ear and out the other. I studied the Nest’s half wall, which had been tagged with video game references, some of which had been painted over. Through the paint, I could still see the silhouette of a Super Mario question mark block and the Triforce from Zelda, but “the cake is a lie” and “praise the sun” hadn’t been painted over at all. I wondered if G-man eliminated obvious references but thought the last two were about healthy eating and outdoor fitness.
“I could watch flies for hours,” Aurora said.
Meeki pointed at me again. “She has a boyfriend.”
Again I scowled. Why was this girl such an asshole?
“Soup?” Fezzik said.
The squirrely kid fidgeted in the chair next to me, eager to tell his story. He seemed so genuinely wholesome, I was surprised he didn’t have a flower bud growing out of the top of his head.
“I’m Soup, and I’m a first tier,” he said, way too close to my face. “My stepbrother got me into video games. He liked scary stuff like The Last of Us and Dark Souls, except I didn’t, ’cause they’re too scary, but I like all video games, so it didn’t really matter. I used to have to do things for him so that he’d let me watch him play, like get him drinks or take off his shoes and stuff, but then he died, and then I could play as much video games as I wanted.”
Before my heart even had a chance to flutter, Soup continued. “I like the 3DS. I like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, but my favorite is Nintendogs ’cause my parents won’t let me have a real puppy.” Soup’s eyes shifted from happy to a sad glisten. “But then they said I didn’t play outside enough and they took my 3DS away . . . and they let my poodle, Minus, starve to death. You kinda look like my stepbrother.”
Soup stared at me like I was supposed to say something to that. I opened my mouth, but then he perked up and jumped onto his knees.
“My favorite part of Video Horizons is all of it. It’s like one big Animal Crossing. That’s why even though I’ve been here for a month and a week, I’m still only a first tier. I don’t even want any points. I wish it was my first day. No, first minute! First second!”
“Heel, Soup,” Fezzik said, chuckling.
He hooked Soup’s shirt collar and pulled him back into his seat. I squinted away a headache. I’d been listening to the kid for two minutes and already felt like I’d had too many energy drinks.
“Miles,” Fezzik said, “remember these faces. Your guildmates will help you earn points so you can return to the outside world where your real adventure will begin.”
I did look at their faces: Meeki, Aurora, Soup, and the electric warlock, whose head still hadn’t left his hands. Hell, my dad thought I had a problem? I never ate so much that I couldn’t leave the house, or cracked a family member in the skull with a Wiimote, or bemoaned the death of a digital dog more than a real human being. The only thing I was guilty of was being turned down by girls too many times and not wanting to spend time with my shitty stepmom or controlling father.
I might have played more video games than most, but at least I’d had a good reason. Unfortunately, that was probably what everyone in that circle thought about themselves.
“Miles,” Fezzik said, “do you want to tell us the tale of how you came to Video Horizons?”
Aurora and Soup turned to me.
“My name is, um . . . Miles Prower. I’ve been a gamer my entire life, but I’ve been playing Arcadia for about two years.” Fezzik gave a grunt of acknowledgment. “Sometimes as much as, uh, five hours a day. But I’m done with that now. Because . . . well . . .”
I studied my guildmates. The non-player characters who would help me escape. If I could make it out of there in time for my date, then I could show G-man, my dad, and all of the girls at my school that I wasn’t like these weirdo gamer inmates. That I actually did deserve to go out with someone as lovely as Serena.
“I need to get out of here as soon as possible,” I said. “See, I made a girl laugh for the first time today. My stepmom asked me to wash her Xterra, so I went to the car wash, and I met this cute girl there. Apparently some dickhead had sprayed her with one of the, um, sprayers, so . . .”
I told them the story. Or, at least, a version of the story.
When I finished, Meeki looked up from her cross-stitch and gave me a poisonous look. “So, what, your princess is in another castle, and you gotta go save her?”
What the hell? Did Meeki have to eat someone’s heart every day in order to survive or something?
“It wasn’t like that,” I said. “She was interesting . . . and interested. And she wasn’t wearing a pink dress.”
Soup laughed. A little too hard.
Meeki crossed her arms tight and narrowed her eyes.
“And what was this fair maiden’s name?” Fezzik asked.
Meeki cleared her throat. “We don’t know if she’s fair or a maiden.”
Fezzik chuckled uncomfortably.
“Uh . . .” I thought about patient confidentiality. I thought about my exaggerated story of how she and I had met. I thought about how she had drawn me in. . . .
“Her name was Gravity,” I said.
Meeki snorted.
“Gravity,” Fezzik said. “Excellent. Thanks for sharing, Miles.”
He didn’t say anything about trying to get me out of there as quickly as possible so that I could get to my date. Instead he tried to nudge some life into the electric warlock. “Greetings, Zxzord! I think that’s what you said your name was. Heh-heh. Would you like to share the tale of what brought you to Video Horizons?”
Zxzord rubbed his face like he was just waking up. He wiped his nose, cleared his throat, and spoke for the first time. “Heroin.”
Meeki laughed so hard, it made Soup jump. The sound made Zxzord cradle his head again. Meeki’s laughter trailed off. In the ensuing silence Zxzord dropped his hands and took in our shocked expressions with raw eyes. He spoke in his undead warlock voice. “Every time I went into my room to shoot up, I told my parents I was playing video games.” He sniffed. “So they sent me here.”
Everyone in the circle shifted their limbs, as if one of his frayed wire tattoos could lash out and electrocute us. Holy shit. While we’d all chased digital dragons, Zxzord had actually been chasing the dragon.
“Maybe Mario mushrooms are a gateway drug,” Meeki said, and snorted.
Zxzord pressed his palms into his eyes. “I don’t know why more people don’t just kill themselves.”
Fezzik grew red and made a sound like a Wookiee. “Heh-heh. Sounds like someone needs a health potion! Um, uh, let’s get you to G-man’s office, shall we?”
He helped Zxzord to his feet while the Fury Burds dispersed around the Nest. Meeki worked the punching bag, Aurora continued cross-stitching what looked like a dog with leprosy, and Soup whipped sheets off two of the bunks.
Again, I stood there like an idiot.
“Hey, Miles,” Meeki said. “You want me to grab you some cross-stitching materials so you can start earning points?”
“Oh, um, that would be great,” I said.
“Too bad. I’m not your slave.” She hit the punching bag again.
Fezzik poked his head back into the room. “Fury Burds mayor?”
“Yeah?” Soup said.
“Would you give Miles the tour?”
Before I could protest, a smile burst across Soup’s face, and he ran up to me.
“Welcome to V-hab!” he said, throwing wide his arms.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Get it?” he said, poking my stomach fat. “V-hab. Like, rehab for video games?”
“I get it,” I said, brushing his hand away.
Soup cracked up, sucking in laughter like he was having a seizure.
“If you need anything, anything at all, just say, ‘Soup, I need . . .’ and then fill in whatever you need.”
I need a million points, I thought.
Soup patted my arm. “Don’t worry. Everyone’s a grouchy cow on their first day.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you while you’re here.”