Rush to Level 0: The Game (Chapter 2)

Every game had rules. The e-sports circuit had its anti-mod policies, the commercial IPs had their user code of conduct, and the dark web games had their silence pacts. This game had two sets of rules: one while in the virtual world and one for outside. I had no idea what the rules within the world were, but the rest had been drilled into my mind the day I completed the entry quest: don’t discuss details of the game with outsiders, and never lie when you do.

“Show me the gate,” I said. The words echoed in the white void. The last time I was here, I had been forced into a choice. This time, I was making it on my own accord. No more hesitation, no more hiding or postponing.

The noise of static crackling filled the air as a giant gate materialized in front of me. A platinum frame held doors of sparkling crystal. From what Kyle had explained, the game was the equivalent of a lobby room that finalized my transfer into the game. All I had to do was pass through and everything would become clear.

What am I doing? A sudden sense of fear swept through me.

“Twinkle, disconnect me!” I shouted. The gate and the entire virtual realm disappeared. I was back in my room now, lying on the floor, gripping the phone tightly with both hands. A sweetish metallic taste filled my mouth.

“Are you okay, Sarah?” the AI companion asked from the phone.

“I’m fine.” I pushed myself up from the floor. “Go to sleep mode.”

“Sure thing, Sarah. But before that, you have nine thousand, one hundred and eighteen new messages. Do you want me to read them to you?”

“Mark all as read, then go sleep.” I leaned against the mattress. The experience had left me entirely covered in sweat and so weak, as if I’d been trampled by the rush-hour crowd. “Buy some vitamin shots,” I said, even if I knew that Twinkle wouldn’t respond. Since I had ordered him to enter sleep mode, he was going to remain inactive next morning. I wished I could be as lucky.

Tomorrow I was going to call Jeff and ask to move to his place. Hopefully, that would take care of my temptation of returning to the game.

“Just when things were getting normal,” I whispered, closing my eyes. It was a mistake not telling Jeff what was going on. First thing I’d do after waking up was to tell him about both Kyle and the game. I was going to—

“That’d be a stupid thing to do,” a soft female voice interrupted. “Unless you want him to get involved.

My eyes popped open. My room was gone, replaced by a sunny meadow near a forest. A large tree had taken the place of the bed, providing me with a comfortable shade. I took a blade of grass. It looked unnaturally perfect: bright green and ideally shaped. I could feel the texture as I moved it between my fingers. The only problem was that I wasn’t supposed to feel in dreams.

“Better use your rig to connect,” the voice continued. I looked up. A slender elf stood above me, her scanty clothes covered with jewelry. “You’ll have a headache when you leave.”

“You.” I recognized the person. Her avatar was slightly different, but there was no mistake. She had helped me in an online trial I was stuck on. At the time, it had seemed the most difficult encounter of my life. I had agreed to accept her help in exchange for future favors. I had been naive.

“Everything’s alright.” She sat next to me. “It’s just a bit of culture shock. We all get it the first time. Don’t worry if you throw up a few times.”

“I don’t feel sick...”

“Not yet.” The elf smiled. “In the real world. Lag only works one way.”

“I’m beyond the gate?” A wave of fear swept through me. Twinkle was supposed to have taken me offline. I reached to open my settings menu, but no window appeared.

“The gate is just a metaphor. You don’t need to go through it to get here, although I suggest you do.” She patted me on the back. “There’s no need to exert yourself so early. And I really suggest you avoid Kyle.” The elf’s eyes narrowed a fraction, giving me the distinct impression that the two didn’t get along too well.

“But I should trust you?”

“Of course not,” the elf laughed. “You shouldn’t trust anyone. Not until you have figured out how things work.”

“And I suspect you’ll tell me.” I let the blade of grass go. I’d heard this conversation hundreds of times. The woman was sugarcoating it better than most, but the truth was clear: I owed her and she was here to collect.

“That’s not how it works.” She reached out into the air. A red sparrow flew down from the tree landing on her hand. “The rules say that you should find the rules on your own. The only thing I can tell you for free is that I’m not allowed to lie about the game.”

The sparrow chirped a few times then flew off.

“In here, anyone can tell you anything they want. It doesn’t have to be true, although often it is.” The elf smirked. At this point, I couldn’t tell if she was sincere or was deliberately being unhelpful.

“And what would you tell me?” I wasn’t about to leave the conversation hanging.

“To log in with your rig, for starters. Less pain and more options. Plus, you get to keep your cat companion.”

“That’s it?” I crossed my arms.

“What would you like to know?” The elf tilted her head.

“What’s the game about?”

The smile on her face grew into a grin. “No one knows.” She stood up. A gust of wind rustled her hair. Looking at it, I wondered about my own appearance. When I logged in through my rig, games would take my biometric data, making the avatar close to my natural look. At present, I wasn’t logged in through a rig. “Let’s walk a bit.”

Any person with an ounce of sense would have logged off at this point. By now, I had come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t such a person. Curiosity had made me fight my way into the game, and despite the voice in the back of my head urging me to flee, I knew I wouldn’t.

As we walked through the field, more of the world became visible. It was magical in its mundaneness, as if someone had made a perfect copy of the real world, but turned up the colors. The sky was deep blue, as if taken from a children’s animation, with white fluffy clouds. The grass and trees were a lush green, flowing into the distance like a carpet, up to the foot of a snow-covered mountain of bluish-grey stone.

“Nice, isn’t it?” the elf asked. “When I first came, I spent weeks sitting here looking at the world. I couldn’t believe anything so complex could exist. The truth is that it shouldn’t.”

The elf reached out into the air. A wave of light particles appeared around her hand, swirling around it like a swarm. I’d seen lots of magic systems in games from laughably crude to over the top flashy, but this one was nothing like them; soft and delicate, it made the effects look organic. A faint smell of ozone filled the air as the sparkles condensed into a single glowing marble of whiteness. The elf grabbed the sphere, crushing it with a pop. A beam of incandescent light shot from her hand, darting to the ground fifty steps ahead. The moment it touched the ground, there was an explosion of incandescent light, making me shield my face with my hands. My initial urge was to pull back, but a hand on my shoulder kept me from moving. When I peeked through my fingers moments later, I froze.

“We call this scorchlight,” she said as I stared at the smoldering chasm that had appeared in front of us. An entire patch of grass, at least twenty meters wide, had disappeared, as if someone had taken a scoop of the ground itself. “One of the first spells I learned. Given enough practice, I could probably even dent the mountain.”

I didn’t say a word. I knew this was all part of a complex virtual magic system, but that didn’t stop my subconscious from wanting to run away. The level of realism was so good that it had crossed the uncanny valley, making me doubt what was real.

“How did—”

Before I could continue, the elf reached for my face. A second ball of light appeared in her palm, blinding me. The heavy smell of ozone filled my nostrils as I flung myself back, covering my face, hoping I’d somehow be able to avoid the blast. Images of my life flashed before me—childhood with my grandparents, my seventh birthday with my parents, the hundred level quest—but nothing happened.

Slowly, I moved my hands away and opened my eyes. The field was still there... I was still alive, standing in it.

“Full invulnerability,” the elf smirked at me. “One of the perks of level one hundred. Nothing can harm you. You could say that you’re a virtual goddess.”

I looked at my hands. There wasn’t a single mark on them, unlike the new patch of scorched ground behind me. “What’s the catch?” I asked.

“Good.” The elf patted me on the shoulder. “You’re learning. I could tell you, but that will defeat the purpose. If you really want to find out, fix your rig and dive in. If not, see you again in a month.”

The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment. Night had fallen, making my gamer rig’s diodes the only lights in the room. My old phone lay beside me, its screen still in sleep mode. The clock showed half past two in the morning; in the few minutes I had spent in the game, seven hours had passed. Any other night I would have thought this to be a nightmare. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been through scary vivid dreams. However, I knew it wasn’t.

I spend the next half hour in silence, staring into the dark, contemplating what to do. One after the other, my mind came up with dozens of reasons to forget all this ever happened. When I finally ran out of ideas, I took my phone and called a rig tech and cleaning service. One of the few perks of my job was that I was part of a priority response list when it came to tech cleanup—there was no discount in price, but I could rest assured that I’d get a team visit within fifteen minutes of my call, day or night. In this case, it took only twelve.

The first thing the rig cleaners did when they saw my equipment was to recommend I subscribe to their monthly check-up service. Considering the condition of my virtual gear, it didn’t come as a surprise. I smiled my way past the insult and let them get on with their work. It took about ten minutes for them to remove the stale net gelatin, and twenty more to clean the remaining parts of the tech. Several times they recommended upgrading some of my software modules, to which I flatly refused. I knew that my equipment was dated, just as I knew that they were under contractual obligation to offer me crap from their business partners. In most cases the “new” replacements were average and required custom software to reach normal, let alone optimal, performance.

The bill, with the express service surcharge, came to seventeen hundred and twenty dollars. Quite the jump from a hundred and fifty—which was the original cost of the gel. Half a year ago, I’d have considered it a fortune. With the amount I’d stashed away from my previous involvement of the game, it was manageable, even if it still caused me pain. The cleaning crew probably gathered as much, seeing the state of my apartment, so they slipped me a few extra discount vouchers before they headed off. Five minutes later, I was alone again, staring at the rig once more.

“No hesitation,” I whispered and turned on my cell phone.

“Hello, Sarah!” Twinkle immediately reacted. “You still have four hours and twenty-seven minutes before you need to be ready for work.”

“I know.” It felt strange talking back casually to an AI, but I also missed it. The last time I had long conversations with Twinkle was when I was a child and believed he was a “real virtual cat.” I missed those naive days of my life. “I’ll go play a bit.”

Entering a rig after a three months’ absence was strange. My body took a while to get used to the sensation. I allowed myself a few seconds pause, then I put on the headgear. An infinity of light and ad windows formed around me, making me flinch. I had forgotten the information overload the web brought. A row of mail icons with different game logos flashed in front of me—unread messages. From the looks of it, I had missed thousands.

“Vesperia has sent you a premium invitation to their latest event!” Twinkle said. “You’ve been chosen for a thirty-day trial of their latest avatar type.”

“Maybe later.” I waved my hand, dismissing the notifications. Vesperia was the world in which I’d received the trial to the game. At the time, I had considered myself lucky. Now, I remained undecided. “Connect me to the gate.”

“Sure thing, Sarah!” The ad banners disappeared into the distance. In their place a single giant doorway emerged. Unlike before, the double doors were open, leading to a gentle yellow glow. “You don’t have any shortcuts to this game. Do you want me to mark it for you?”

“No.” It’s not like I could forget it. “How much camera space do I have left?”

“All cameras have been reset to six hours.” He appeared in the air in front of me. “Do you want me to start recording?”

“No.” I opened my app section.

There were three web cameras apps there. Each was capable of streaming and recording up to six hours’ game activity. Originally, the rig had come with a one-hour storage cameras, but I’d quickly upgraded it to six to get more tips from my stream followers. There was another app, however, which wasn’t on the standard list. Technically, it was defined as a free user mod. In truth, it was a bit of code developed by a dark web information broker. We’d had a few dealings in the past, though I had effectively cut them short after the game incident. In theory, that wasn’t a very healthy thing to do, but since he was the one who broke the initial deal, I knew there would be no reprisals. Besides, I’d earned him more than enough to cover his initial investment.

“Use this.” I selected the mod. The info broker had said it was hackproof and had unlimited video storage. “Don’t stream it.”

“Your streaming account has been closed due to inactivity.” Twinkle's expression changed to sad mode—deep frown, wide teary eyes, trembling lip. Even after a three-month absence, I found it annoying. “Do you want me to open a new one?”

“No. Just local record.” I was going to have to change his animation sets again. “Start recording.”

Moving through the gate felt like any standard game. One moment, I was in a vast empty space, and the next, I ended up at a small waterfall near a stream. There was one key difference: I could feel everything.

“Holy Jeremy.” I moved my toes. Even in the standard adventure boots, I could feel the ground—soft, uneven, with a few pebbles thrown in. And that wasn’t all. I could feel the sun on my skin, the spray of water from the waterfall, the aroma in the air containing more plant smells that I’d experienced in real life.

There was no way I was supposed to register all that. I didn’t have the money to afford taste mods for my rig, not to mention the more exotic stuff. Full experience virtual rigs were in the six figures range, with custom top-of-the-line builds going as high as seven million. And still, the world felt as if it were real.

“Twinkle, open all game systems,” I ordered.

“I can’t find any game systems, Sarah,” my companion said, floating onto my shoulder. “Do you want me to explore?”

“No.” No systems? Hardly a surprise, everything else considered. “Just keep a lookout.”

I made the universal menu gesture. A semi-transparent window popped up in front of me. It looked very different from what I was used to. No shortcuts, no inventory, no linked sections, just a single line of text: Saraphin Lvl 100.

“Twinkle, can you access this?” I asked.

“You have to be more precise, Sarah,” the cat said, then rubbed its head against mine.

“The game menu window.” I picked it up from my shoulder and moved it to the air in front of me. Tomorrow, I was definitely going to readjust his settings.

“I don’t have access to your current avatar, Sarah. If you want, I can—”

“What do you mean?” With the permissions I had granted Twinkle, he was supposed to access everything of mine in the web. “Focus on the window in front of me.”

“There’s nothing in front of you, Sarah.” A new set of tears appeared in the corners of his eyes.

“Did you start recording?” I asked.

“Of course!” His cheerful expression returned. “Over the shoulder view, three meters back and two from the ground. Your preferred setting!”

“Show me.”

“I’m sorry, Sarah. I don’t have permission to open windows in this environment.”

So that’s what it was. The builders of this world had blocked all access permissions, cocooning it into itself. I’d heard of similar attempts. A few years ago, some company had attempted a similar thing, creating a “fully realistic world.” Their gamble was that they could steal the hardcore players from of all other games, becoming a small but elite virtual server. The attempt had ended in failure. About a hundred thousand people had initially joined, thanks to a massive marketing push. In a few days, most of them had left. The company had folded a few months later. This place had done the same, but with unreal quality.

I went to the stream and put my hand in, the water felt cool flowing through my fingers. I grabbed a rock and hit the knuckles of my other hand with it. There was no pain, just a gentle pressing sensation.

No menu, no hardware limits, no interface, no tutorial. It’s Hello World all over again. I was going to have to learn everything about the game from scratch.

“Twinkle, map the area.” I looked over my shoulder.

“Sure thing, Sarah!” The cat floated up into the air. “How much do you want me to explore?”

“Just the immediate area.” There was no point in stirring unnecessary trouble. “Come back if you see any mobs or players.”

“Okay!” The AI companion shimmered, flying out of view.

A bit anticlimactic. The game looked like an empty shell. A very beautiful empty shell, but lacking any activity. Just like the pebble in my hand—its texture was among the best I’d seen in any game: the correct weight, a good feeling, but completely useless. I was about to reach out to grab another one out of gamer curiosity when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the water.

They said a game’s worth was proportional to the effort spent on its avatars. Companies always put in the most resources there in an attempt to draw in players. Avatars were made by huge teams of specialists worth millions. This game had no avatar. Looking back from the surface was my own face. To achieve it, someone must have taken a fresh copy of my bio-data. My stomach turned at the thought that full visual readings of me were floating in the dark web.

“Twinkle.” I stepped away. “Message Claire I want to see him.”

The silence made me look up. By default, my AI companion was supposed to confirm my order with one of his standard responses. It was a source of incessant annoyance, the lack of which made me feel uneasy.

“Twinkle?” I said louder. Several red sparrows flew above me, chirping as they did, but still no sign of Twinkle.

Damn it, Twinkle!

I opened the menu again out of habit, expecting to find the settings tab. There was none, but I could assume the emergency logout shortcut still worked. My fingers moved about creating the combination: left thumb to pinkie twice, thumb to index, thumb to ring, thumb to pinkie, then to index knuckle three times. A small blue window appeared.

Confirm emergency logout!

At least that was working. I glanced at the sky once more. Should I go search for Twinkle? As an AI, he was supposed to be linked to my online presence and as such unable to get lost. Although in a game that used illegal bio-data to create an avatar, or allowed me to connect without online gear, everything was possible.

“Twinkle!” I shouted, my hand moving closer to the window confirm button.

“Hey, Sarah!” the high-pitched voice echoed in the distance. I felt the weight of the cleaning station fall off my shoulders. At least I hadn’t lost him. “Great news!” He swirled around me, waving his tail in joy. “I found something!”

“I’m sure.” I tapped on the cancel option, ending the emergency exit option. “Anything useful?”

“A market!” he said, beaming. “I found a market, and it’s full of players!”