CHAPTER THREE - The Schism
The crowd stared at him, no small amount of anticipation written upon their faces. It was something special, seeing human emotion so accurately simulated in a virtual setting, almost as though the soul had been converted into binary.
But now was a time to dish out bad news, not to pat himself on the back for clever programming.
"Your headsets are defective," he announced as loudly as he could manage, hoping to reach the players in the back of the crowd. "When your characters die, they'll malfunction, producing a deadly explosion. And if anyone on the outside tries to take them off before you log out, you'll suffer a stroke severe enough to cause brain death. I understand if that's hard to digest, and wish I could offer you a more technical explanation, but that's all my legal team told me.
"As far as we know, a clean logout is the only method of safely disengaging the headset. That brings me to the next bit of bad news, which I'm sure you've already discovered for yourselves: the logout button is missing. That's thanks to a rival of mine — " he paused, resisting the urge to look back at Wong " — named Leonard, who managed to hack into the server and mess with the game. He also stole my admin privileges, so I'm stuck in here just like you guys."
So far, the crowd seemed to be handling the information professionally. That is, they weren't rushing forward to pummel him to death. More players were arriving by the second, and they were delivered the news in whispers by the ones who had heard him. It was hardly as efficient as a guild message would have been, but maybe it was better to deliver news like this in person. Or in avatar, rather.
He silently polled their reactions, reading their expressions as best he could. Half of them looked to be excited by the news, as though they'd been told that a terrible illness had been purged from their bodies. The other half looked contemplative, still puzzling out how they felt about the situation.
"So that's the bad news," he continued, "which clearly just sounded like good news to half of you. Pretty concerning, but moving right along. Here's the real good news: there's a way for us to escape. It requires us clearing all seven worlds then taking down the final boss. When we manage that, the server will shut down, automatically logging us all out. It won't be easy, but it's possible if we work together. The first step is spreading the news — making sure every single player hears what I just told you. I can't do that without your help."
One of the players stepped forward, a short man with the username Fezzy. He was a member of the same crew that Wong belonged to — the sort of people who enjoyed looking horrific. Fortunately, however, he hadn't discovered the glitch that Wong had, so he was limited to being intensely repulsive rather than utterly nightmarish.
"How do we know you're actually the developer?" he asked.
"Look at the admin tag before my username; regular players can't get those. And if that's not enough, I can tell you anything you want to know about this game. I created it, after all."
"You said there's seven worlds?" another played yelled out.
"Yes, and we're on the first one right now." Cody pointed to the sky. "You can see the other six from here."
Everyone looked up, though there wasn't a chance they hadn't already seen what he was referring to. The sky was Cody's greatest work of art — a masterpiece by any and all definitions and the thing every player couldn't help but gape at when they first spawned in the square.
Six islands sat amongst the clouds, each one higher up than the last. The tops of them were obscured, but their root and vine-covered underbellies drooped miles through the air like flipped mountains topped with beanstalks. Two bridges of auroral light ran from each of them, one from the previous, lower world and one to the next, higher world, like glowing celestial interstates linking them all together.
In any other game, the skybox might have been a still or a half-simulated duplicate, nothing to really spare a second glance for. But in Gates Online, players were looking at the real thing — the whole game shoved into the air for them to stare at — a fixed reminder of the end goal.
"This world is essentially just a giant forest. The Everwoods make up a good bit of it, stretching for a few hundred miles before — "
Several players shouted and waved their hands, just as one might do to dissuade a monkey when it was preparing to weaponize its feces.
"Chill, bro!"
"Spoilers!"
"We'll get there, dude, no need to ruin the surprise!"
Cody's eyebrows raised of their own volition, both independently surprised at what they had heard. "You're joking, right?"
"Well, it'd sort of ruin the experience if you just told us everything," another player added. Half of the crowd — the same half Cody had caught looking excited a minute ago — seemed to be in agreement with him.
"Wait a minute." Cody held up his hands. "Are you guys seriously worried about spoilers? I just told you what the stakes are: death is on the menu, folks, and at one hell of bargain. This isn't a game anymore."
Another player stepped forward — a guy named Ondori who had an orange Mohawk and a droopy flap of skin under his chin. "Thousand-foot-tall trees, giant medieval city, floating islands — looks like a video game to me, man."
"I'm speaking metaphorically, asshat. Obviously this is a video game."
"And we're the players, dipshit, so let us play the game how we want to."
The crowd had increased tenfold in size, and still more people were coming. News travelled quickly by word of mouth, but chances were that the message was getting tainted. Things were going to get messy if he didn't get a handle on them.
He had to find a way to seize control. Quickly.
"How do you think I even heard about the issues with the headsets? People have already died — seven players who left the city and five who had their headsets removed by their families." Cody paused for a moment, hoping to let his words settle in. "I went into the Everwoods just an hour ago and found a level sixteen monster roaming around the level-one zones. Maybe there's some bugs I didn't patch or maybe Leonard's throwing us a curve ball — either way, things are way more dangerous than they should be."
"So, what's your plan?" someone asked.
Cody internally sighed in relief — at least one person seemed interested in getting out. There were others who looked to be on the same page as him, but the bulk of the crowd now seemed about a gunshot away from racing off into the Everwoods to sign their own death certificates. It was a miracle that they had listened to him for this long.
"There's no getting around the fact that we'll have to fight, but we can, at least, choose to do it wisely. I can brief you guys on every aspect of the game, let you know what to expect — the monsters, the maps, the classes — all of it. And when I hit level ten, I'll form a guild. One hundred of us will form parties and go out into the Everwoods to grind together. Safely. Before long, even the highest-level creatures in this world won't pose a threat to us."
"There's thousands of us," Ondori said. "You want us to just wait in the city while you and your chosen people play hero?"
"I'm only asking for a week, man. When the other players get to level ten, they can start their own guild and take people outside if they want. But if a bunch of gearless level ones like yourself start running into the Everwoods with nobody to defend them, we'll end up not having enough people to even clear the game."
"A hundred people get a jump start on the rest of us, then. They get to grind and collect loot while we sit on our asses." He shook his head, and the flap of skin wiggled under his chin. "Doesn't sound fair to me, dude."
Some people murmured and nodded in agreement with Ondori's twisted, backwards logic, clearly more concerned with levels and loot than staying alive. A rift was forming between him and the crowd, and he was struggling to think of a way to stitch it closed.
Sax moved closer to his side. "A compromise may be what's needed here, Mr. Hales. Is there an alternate way to let people play the game safely?"
"No," Cody whispered. "There's stuff that'll instakill them less than a mile away from here. We need structure — leaders, strategies, optimized class distribution and party setups. That dickhead is going to get people killed."
"Calm down. You'll lose what hold you have over the crowd if you act rashly. A schism may be unavoidable here, but try to get as many people as you can onto your side. Compromise is your only option — control the damage."
Cody nodded and set his attention back on the crowd. Getting into a one-on-one with Ondori would only disengage everyone else. This was about the people themselves, not a self-elected spokesman who looked like a chicken.
"I see how this could perceived as unfair," he lied to the insane people, "but my only goal is to keep as many of you alive as possible. I'd like to propose a compromise: a set of rules we could all agree to keep that won't affect anyone's freedom too greatly."
Ondori kept quiet, as did everyone else. That was a good sign, Cody wagered. People were still open to listening, at least.
"First, nobody leaves the city to grind alone, including me. We leave with a full party or we don't leave at all. Second, anyone without proper equipment doesn't leave the city."
"That's too vague," someone said. "Define proper equipment."
Cody rolled his eyes. "More than the default clothes you're wearing, buttercup. At least have something pointy to jab at monsters with is all I mean. You start with a hundred talons — buy something from the marketplace. It's on the eastern side of Odes."
Everyone stayed quiet, so he decided to proceed. "Third, everyone agrees to join a guild or create one at level ten. It doesn't cost anything, and it provides a ton of perks that being in a party doesn't give you. And fourth — " he knitted his brow as tightly as he could manage " — nobody kills another player."
The players burst to life, talking amongst one another and hurling questions at him. Clearly PvP was a hot topic, but it had to be mentioned. There was no getting around the fact that: yes, murder was a possibility.
And with subhumans like Ondori walking around, it was probably an inevitability.
Cody didn't foresee it being an issue, though. People weren't as bad as . . . well, as bad as people said they were. Murderers were just a small portion of the population in the real world, and that probably wouldn't change in a situation like this. The keyword there was probably.
"And who's going to enforce these rules?" someone asked.
It was a good question. Cody regretted that he hadn't studied politics, because he was stumped. Who was going to enforce the rules? And were they going to do it by stick or by carrot? Stick seemed like a clear path to a medieval version of the Purge, but he was a little low on carrots at the moment.
There was only one answer he could think of that didn't end in a riot.
Cody shrugged. "Nobody will enforce them. You're free to break them if you'd like. Go ahead — go die in the forest before getting home or even seeing the rest of this world. You'll be another number on some news channel, another casualty jotted down and lumped in with the rest." He paused, and the crowd quieted to whisper. "Or you can follow them. Play things smart. Survive. Let's all work together and break out of this game. You'll return home warriors and leaders, having faced a greater challenge than any human in history."
The speech seemed to have worked, and Cody tipped his nonexistent hat off to himself. He couldn't fathom someone forming a rebuttal against any of his rules; they were pretty well aligned with common sense, he felt. Even an irrational, videogame-addicted maniac would have trouble going against them.
So, naturally, Ondori did.
"You listened to him, now hear me," Ondori yelled.
Cody ran a hand down his face. "Oh, for fuck's sake."
The chicken man moved to the front of the captive crowd, standing just a few yards from Cody. "I say we're in a better world than the one we came from. We're free here — freer than we've ever been and ever will be. No corrupt government, no greedy corporations, no soul-crushing nine-to-fives. We don't have to worry about any of that. We can start over, become kings and queens and . . . and non-binary members of royalty!"
Cody made to speak — jeer, actually — but Sax set a hand on his shoulder. "Not yet. Let him talk while you think of a rebuttal to his argument."
"What argument?" The words came out like a hiss. "He's insane."
"The one that most of us agree with: that this world is better than the real one. At least, it is until the novelty wears off, which I suspect it never will."
"You've barely even seen it, though. How could you or anyone else say that?"
Wong joined the group huddle. "Dude, this is a fantasy none of us thought we'd ever get to live out. VR like this wasn't supposed to get here for another few decades."
"Wong's right for once," Misty said. "You can't expect us to want to leave a place like this. It's a miracle, and you're like — like VR Jesus."
Arty nodded in agreement.
Cody sighed. He might be the first developer in history to not want people to play his game. Ondori was still chatting up the masses, rapid-fire vomiting delusions from his stupid mouth. But delusions to deluded people were simply truths, and he could hardly contend with the truth.
What he could do, however, was meet them at their level, way down in the deepest ocean trenches of stupidity. If they wanted to play a game, then he would play it with them.
He tuned his ears back to Ondori's speech.
"I'm not asking you to side with me or stand against Cody," Ondori said. "I'm just asking you not to take this world from the people who want to stay here. Let the ones who don't want to go back to reality live freely in this new world. Let us do what we want!"
The opening was full of players now. Thousands must have been standing upon its stones, weighing what both Cody and Ondori had said upon the scales inside their heads. And still, there were thousands more in the city who were completely unaware that this momentous event was occurring.
"Alright, everyone," Cody began, reclaiming the invisible microphone. "I'd like to start by saying that I'm really flattered you seem to like my game so much despite having only seen a square mile of it. Seriously — thanks for that. Worked pretty hard on it. Here's the deal, though: even if you don't want to go back home, you'll want to get to the other worlds. I packed this one with as much cool stuff as I could, but your little ADHD gamer brains are going to get bored of it within a few weeks. A month, tops.
"To get to the next world, you'll have to defeat the gatekeeper — a level eighteen Hindu god with three stages and twice as many health bars. The guy's literally designed to shit stomp an army of players into oblivion, so if you let — " he gestured to Ondori " — this pristine specimen of beta male lead you blindly into battle, most of you will end up dying. After that happens, our population will be low enough to soft cap us; we won't ever be able to take on the gatekeeper or his six significantly bigger brothers. To put it bluntly: don't listen to him. Join me instead of lubing up and fucking over the people who want to get home to their families. Thanks, that's all."
The crowd seemed appropriately affected by his speech, staring at him like a herd of dumb animals that had just been told the news about the slaughterhouse. Maybe he should have been gentler, spared them the pejoratives, but hey — they were acting as suicidal as sweatshop workers, and he wasn't really digging that.
No, they all needed to get their acts straight, Cody believed. It would take them at least a couple years to beat this game, and that was only if everyone worked together. Ondori's way of life wasn't simply escapist, it was sure to get them trapped in the first world forever.
And if he had to get trapped on a world, it definitely wasn't going to be this one; it would be world four with all the attractive mermaids. He programmed sex into this game, and he was sure as hell going to make use of it.
He turned to his friends. "How's that for a rebuttal?"
"I believe that was more an imperative, actually," Sax said.
Misty smirked. "Pretty badass, though."