“Deluded human!”
The skeleton swung its gladius and slashed a dozen pictures pinned to Debbi’s kitty bulletin board. She pulled to the left, jamming a thumb down on the console. Armor clanked and Dirk struck out with his claymore, slicing the creature in half (and severing the bottom two feet of the Hello Kitty curtains.)
“Now, demon, never shall you….”
“Fall for that move again,” said the skeleton as its bones leapt from the ground into their previous arrangement. The gladius came down: Dirk and his weapon clattered to the floor. He did not seem to have the monster’s power: his pieces stayed where they were.
That made three dead bodies on Debbi’s Grumpy Cat rug. If these characters didn’t pull back into the game console at the end, she’d have some explaining to do. They had also kicked up plenty of dust from the dry, baked earth that had taken the place of her bed and bedside table. Debbi peered into the little screen, looking for another hero.
A grating cackle came from the skull. “Now, REAL human.”
Debbi gave up on finding another champion, and tried instead to scroll to the command to shut everything down.
“That will profit you nothing,” the skeleton cackled, striding forward. Debbi had played plenty of games. Her reflexes were sufficient to get her out of reach of the gladius. She could tell the blade would have missed her anyhow. If the bony clown was playing with her, he’d learn a severe lesson.
As soon as she figured out how to teach him. She cast her mind to other strategies as the skeleton came forward, turning more of her floor into cracked alien soil.
Her loser dad complained all the time about the hours (and money) she spent on her games. He had tried putting a parental time control in the games he helped develop. That had been Debbi’s first big sale online, sharing how to bypass that. Since then, she had helped pay for her game work by stealing his, and leaking it online. He STILL had no idea who Honeygamer
the Hawful was, and he never would, so long as he kept telling her what he and his company were going to use next to trap the hacker.
The skeleton cackled and swung again, but tripped on the cord of her Cinderella lamp. Debbi glanced at where her bedroom door had been, but a twisted cactus sat there now.
Dad had been working way late on the VGR, or Virtual Game Replicator, which meant babysitting by Aunt Alice who busied herself with match-three games on her phone and let Debbi play what games she wanted. Dad would come home exhausted with this weird console and tell Debbi he didn’t feel it was quite ready for trial. “The monsters are a little overpowered,” he confided, with a serious sigh.
If Clack, a level one skeleton, was any indication, he was right. Dark Breakout was certainly going to be a challenging game. But if trial and error meant dying, and she had to do it for real….
The 3-D game was no mere photographic illusion. Debbi, easing to the right and searching the screen for help, stepped on Dirk’s swordhand and tumbled into Clack just as he lunged. The crash sent them both into another crash. Her stack of game discs mingled with his scattering bones.
“Ha!” Debbi pulled back against her desk. There HAD to be a way to shut this thing off. Clack growled as he tried to reassemble, his ribs and fingers stuck through assorted shining discs.
This was pathetic. She refused to be killed by a level one. She’d spent hours in other games, customizing heroes, any one of which would crunch Clack into…. She looked down at Clack, about three-fourths reassembled, and yanked the disc out of the VGR console.
“Shutting off the game will not stop me, loopy human!”
“Not the plan.” She grabbed up a disc from the floor. “Immortal Renegade”? Excellent choice! She jammed this into the console. Her thumbs went to the controls, her brain humming “Be compatible…Be compatible.”
She felt a tremble. Of course. Dad would never use a new system. Loser.
Clack rose and took up the short sword. Hearing music, he glared at the ceiling. “What’s….”
Stone flagging appeared on part of the baked earth as Immortal Renegades came out through the eye of the VGR. Debbi tapped a line of type on the screen.
Chaodius the Malwart stood forth from the stones on taloned feet. He raised his enchanted sword and smiled. Clack screamed and turned to run, but hit the wall hung with boy band calendars. He had no time for anything else.
When even the dusty skull had been ground to powder, Debbi heaved a sigh of relief. “You have done good work, Chaodius.”
“Thank you, Mistress.” Chaodius knelt before her, and Debbi gave him a regal nod. She then gave a shriek as the orc jumped up and snatched the console.
She felt the heat of the light from the eye of the console as he turned it full on her. Stone floor and stone walls replaced what was left of her bedroom.
“Now!” Chaodius’s voice took on a different note. “You’re the one who thought I’d look cool with purple eyeshadow on green skin, not? With glow-in-the-dark tattoos? And put me in this orange kilt?”
“Wait!” Debbi grabbed at the VGR console. SHE was playing this game.
Chaodius shoved an elbow down, knocking her onto her backside. A big green thumb slid across the VGR screen as she staggered to her feet. “Flippers for hands. No more button-mashing for you! Hair color…. you’d look better bald. And you need real armor.”
Clutching futilely at her clothes, her curls tumbling around her feet, Debbi wished she hadn’t automatically shut off the parental game timer.
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