We were back in my house, and I was cleaning up the spilled orange juice from earlier. Jay was back in the recliner, and Patti was sitting right in front of her, smiling away and wagging her tail. I looked out my window and saw it was now under forty minutes to go until the start. Every now and then, the sky would flash a color before returning to its white, opaque state. Luckily, Jessica's giant head was nowhere to be seen during this. That was a relief, because I'm pretty sure she kept sneaking a look at me during the last time we were outside. She was really starting to give me the creeps. Jay was telling me what was going on outside. I was only halfheartedly listening.
"Right now they're generating the maze walls. My screen would let me know if we were near one being generated, so we're safe from having our faces cut off by a wall generating. They're also placing traps and monsters and loot, as well as setting up quests."
I knelt down to pick up the orange juice-soaked rag. "How are they doing this? Is there like a ship that's beaming this down and making everything out there?"
"I… actually don't know. I never knew how beforehand and there's also no information about it on my screen either."
I looked at Jay. "Have you ever seen any these aliens?"
Jay shook her head no to that. "Maybe after they recorded my consciousness, I might have met them, but not before. I would have remembered that."
"And what happens after someone finishes this game? Like, they managed to make it to the end, what next?"
She shifted her weight in the chair. "They change you back to your original race and help you rebuild your society. They then outfit your planet with the most advanced technology. Apparently, their medical equipment is the best in the galaxy."
"And where in the galaxy are they from?"
Jay looked down as if thinking to herself. I walked over to my washing machine and threw the juice-soaked rag in it. I then walked to my living room and sat on my couch facing Jay. Patti didn't immediately come over to sit next to me, which was unusual. I patted the couch cushion and she came right away, although rather reluctantly it seemed. I started to clear my throat but I stopped mid cough and wondered why the hell I was doing that, since, you know, I was a freaking skeleton now.
"Okay, Jay, let me see if I got this right. You haven't seen these Selarians or know where they come from, you don't know how the maze is built, and you don't even really know what happens after you finish the maze. Do you see why I don't want to do this game? I'm supposed to take all of this in good faith? That these murderous fucking aliens are actually good and benevolent? No, I don't buy it."
Jay smiled softly at me before speaking. "You don't have to buy anything. You've already been sold Maze Twenty, and it's happening whether you like it or not. Whether you do the quests, survive, or just wait here until you die is up to you."
I nodded as she spoke, and I pulled the joint roach from my pocket. I brought it up to the corner of my bony mouth and lit it with my lighter. I took a puff that immediately dispersed everywhere. Jay just looked at me with furrowed eyebrows in confusion.
"You just did that earlier, and it didn't work then, so why are you trying again?"
"Normalcy. I want things to feel normal before heavenly zombies come to smite me or something." I took another puff before I pinched off the ember between my fingers and tossed it into a nearby ashtray. I just sat and stared into nothing for a moment. For a second, I thought I was high, but I realized the weed didn't work. Guess that was over and done for, like everything else on this planet. All for some stupid alien league. I just thought about how unfair and unjust this all was while Patti snuck off the couch to go sniff Jay. While those two were buddying around, I wondered if my game screen had anything new to it, and so I pressed my thumb to my palm.
The screen popped up in front of me, and it had some new things on it. In the top left, it listed some basic information.
Max Milden
Bone Ranger - Skinrunner
Level 1
Health: 18/18
Stamina: 22/22
Mana: 22/22
Experience: 0/100
In the bottom left, it listed a series of stats that I guess I had now.
Vitality: 8
Strength: 8
Dexterity: 12
Wisdom: 12
Luck: 42
Why was my luck so high, I thought? I'd have to ask Jay about that later. There was also a clickable button for traits and skills underneath those stats, but I moved on for now. In the top right of the screen, it listed some pertinent information like time, date, weather, and temperature. In the bottom right was the word VICINITY with two drop-down menu items that I could click. One said People, the other said Items. I clicked the People tab, and it dropped down to reveal the names Patti and GM-Jay. I shut that and clicked on Items, and this list only had one thing: "Fuck Communism Zippo". That was a gift I got for my dad a few years ago. It was a reference to a comic book he really loved. In the bottom right was a blank square that said map but it was completely empty.
"Hey Jay, why is my map blank?"
"The map is only filled out when you explore. If you pinch the map to zoom out a bit, you should see a bit of the maze wall that killed your neighbor." Jay was now playing tug of war with Patti, and they both looked like they were having fun. It was nice to see Patti not so skittish around someone. Usually, if it were anyone but me, she would be very wary and wouldn't leave my side. I reached up to my screen and pinched at the minimap, and it zoomed out. There was indeed a thick line off to the side showing the edge of the maze I had been near.
"Since we're at the maze wall, how long does it take to get to the maze center?"
"It depends. Maze sizes aren't uniform. Some can be very small, some large, and I've even heard of a continent-sized maze before. Apparently, that maze biome was an underwater romantic fantasy."
"Underwater romantic fantasy?" I muttered under my breath. What the hell was that like? I couldn't swim, so I would have been screwed. Was there a bunch of mermaids in that maze? I wondered about that as I found the settings section of my game screen. It was a little cog icon near the bottom. I was now customizing the look of my game screen to my liking. I turned it into an always-on display, with the background fully transparent. I kept my health, stamina, mana, weather, time, and minimap on and disabled the rest for now. That seemed like the most important stuff to have on hand.
I was getting ready to check out skills and traits when some loud beeps were heard coming from outside. I went to the kitchen and looked out my window towards the wall. It was still the eerie white from the opaque walls and ceiling. I saw the countdown was below ten seconds now. Jay and Patti came to join me as we watched the final seconds tick away and hit zero. I was expecting a bit more to happen when it ended; maybe Jessica would appear again and say something crazy. Instead, the walls turned into this deep, red rust, and the opaque ceiling turned into a cloudy night with a bright, white moon illuminating everything.
"So… is it starting?" I asked.
Jay nodded while looking outside. Her expression had become noticeably more grim. She took a deep breath and turned to me. "Max, I'm here to support you, and I will. You need to know that this place is going to try its hardest to kill you. The point of all of this is to get your planet under twenty percent of the population. Play it, ignore it, it's going to happen all the same."
I thought about that last line for a moment. This was happening whether or not I liked it. Control has been ripped from my hands, and I hated that feeling. This was no different than a shitty boss or politician telling me what to do. I wanted to grab a bottle of booze from a drawer, stuff it with a ripped-up rag, light it, and toss it. The only problem was, I didn't know where to throw it. My building anger at everything was interrupted by a pounding at my door. Jay and I looked at each other, and we walked to the entranceway to see what was happening.
Through the door's window covering, I could make out a man. He looked frantic as he kept looking behind him nervously. The knocks grew more intense as something had caught his eye. Finally, he said something. "Is anyone there? Please, if you're in there, let me in! I need to get inside now! If you hear this, I'm… I'm about to kick down this door, and I'm really, really sorry!" He took a few steps back, and I scrambled to unlock my door. Jay watched as I did this, as if studying me.
I yanked the door open before he began to charge. "Dude, don't break down my door! I'll let you in!" The man just froze there and stared at me. He was a young man with shoulder-length hair and he was a human, at least as far as I could tell. My eyes were immediately drawn to the text floating about his head. It said "Church Fenwick". Was that his name? Did I have that above my head as well, I wondered? From behind Church, in my front yard, a beam of light suddenly appeared, and a creature with decaying, mutilated wings descended onto my grass. It had a lopsided dark red halo above its head, and its flesh was green and peeling off.
Church looked over his shoulder and started breathing loudly before crumpling to the ground. It now said the word "Unconscious" under his name. I looked from Church to the decrepit being who was now standing still on my grass.
Jay walked past me and up to the collapsed man. She knelt and took a look, shook her head, and stood up to face me. "This poor man got stuck with the Sleeper Agent class. He's going to remain unconscious as long as that's nearby." She hooked a thumb over her shoulder pointing towards the unmoving creature on my lawn. And that's when the ghoul made a low, rumbling growl.