1.36 - Quizmaster
I prop my feet up on the coffee table and attempt not to fall asleep. Daamin has taken to sitting in a corner cross-legged position and meditating. We’ve been sitting in a lounge area of AutoSoft tower as Kai manually breaks down the data on each of the four drives and reassembles it into something that can be useful. I wish I could help him, but this isn’t in my wheelhouse. The best thing I can do now is to provide him with snacks, drinks and occasional verbal support.
“Keep going Kai, you’re almost there,” I’m great at motivating people.
“I don’t think I can solve it,” Kai sighs and leans back on the couch.
“What’s up with it,” I can’t actually do anything but provide a wall to bounce ideas off.
“The actual data assembly wasn’t hard. It’s just made up of a lot of really small puzzle pieces. You find the slot and slide it in slowly. Most of it is actually just useless nonsense. It’s there to throw you off the trail of what you really need. The hard thing is that parts of it are like a trivia game or a scavenger hunt. The further you go into the data, the more difficult it gets. The pop culture stuff was easy enough. I can just hop on the game forums and read one of the dozens of threads people have made about it and we’ve seen all kinds of user created content in the game. Problem is, I’ve gotten super deep and all the questions are about game lore and I don’t know nearly enough to keep going.”
“I’m sure you can do it; you’ve never let me down before. That brain of yours,” I pat Kai’s head “is unmatched.”
Kai smiles and looks away from me, “when you compliment me like that, I swear,” he shakes his head. “It’s like I’ve been waiting to hear the words my whole life,” he sighs.
“You smart,” I lean over and whisper in his ear. “You loyal. You grateful. I appreciate that.”
Kai leans closer until our heads are touching, his voice suddenly nervous, “do you really mean that?”
“Every word of it.”
“You don’t even know what you’re doing to me right now, I could just melt.”
“Earlier you said you were lonely. Is it rude if I ask about your friends and family.”
Kai sits up, “you really know how to kill a mood and crush a guy’s dreams,” he laughs. “But would be you if you didn’t? I lost contact with a lot of people when I made some, ‘lifestyle choices’ they didn’t agree with.”
“Well, fuck them. You’re an awesome person, and I’m glad to call you a friend. We’re internet friends, but we’re good friends. That makes us real friends. On the inside, we’re all fundamentally lonely. No man or woman is an island. I gave you my phone number so you can call or text me whenever. You don’t have to feel alone.”
“Damnit Dre,” Kai punches me in the shoulder. “You’re going to make me cry again. You can’t read emotions or feelings worth a damn, but almost always know what to say.”
“Can I call you too,” Daamin asks from the corner.
“You were just listening the whole time,” Kai asks, somewhat angry.
“Nope, I fell asleep meditating. I woke up around the crushing dreams part,” Daamin stands and stretches. “What’s the status of the code?”
“Ran into a problem,” Kai responds. “We don’t know enough game lore.”
“I can do that, just read me the questions,” Daamin sounds confident.
I sit patiently as Kai leads Daamin through questions about the game. I can’t tell if they’re making progress but occasionally, they high five or Daamin fist pumps. It’s fun to watch them interact, it’s a different vibe than what I have with Kai or Daamin. Eventually Kai sits back as Daamin answers questions and trivia himself. Half an hour passes before a question finally slows him down. He doesn’t stay paused for long before he goes right back at the questions with a vengeance.
“I think I’m finished,” Daamin passes the drive back to Kai.
“Woah, he did it,” Kai seems surprised before he starts to manipulate the data again. “I’ve got it. I know how we finish the game.”
“What’s the plan,” Daamin sounds excited for a guy who didn’t want to end the game earlier.
“Well, in this building we need to launch the space shuttle, but there’s some heavy security.”
“The Space Station DLC that got scrapped? We’re going to space,” Daamin is really excited now.
“Calm down, we need to get through the security first,” I put a hand on Daamin’s shoulder.
“We can call Kevin and Ashley to help,” Daamin says.
“I don’t see why not,” Kai says. “The more the merrier for this. I wonder if they’ve contacted any of their old gang.”
“What’s next,” Daamin is wringing his hands now.
“We take the ship to the station. Up there, we take on more security. One person needs to upload the data and beam it back down to Earth. Another person needs to take out the final boss. Once we’ve got the final boss taken out and code uploaded, credits should roll, and we should be able to log out again.”
“Guys, I can’t wait, this space DLC is going to be amazing,” Daamin physically leaps out of his seat. “It was supposed to be based on an old Cowboy Bebop manga about a space prison that Spike has to escape from along with the bounty the crew is chasing. Space prisons are cool, but Kay might have put some of the stuff in from the casino episode where Faye is introduced as well.”
“You do realize we might die right,” I have to ask.
“Yes, but also, we’ll probably die if we stay in the game too long anyway. I’ve been thinking about that. Who’s keeping our bodies filled with food and water and stuff. We really do need to get out of here. Diaper rash is probably crazy. We might be just stuck in VR shitting ourselves. You know America’s healthcare is trash. We probably got millions of dollars in hospital bills waiting for us,” Daamin brings up a good point.
“They never forgave our student loans, they aren’t going to forgive medical debt caused by a crazy woman locking us in a game,” Kai stands and packs up the date. “We need to get going. Someone call those two weirdos.”
***
If you're enjoying the story, check out my newsletter on Substack
