BZZZ. BZZZ.
My forearm tickled.
At first, I thought it was my Apple watch and I was back in my room at Mom’s apartment. But pretty soon, I drifted back to reality and realized that I was still in Slayer Bowl, still in the locker room, and still lying on the hover cot.
The vibrations were coming from ERNI’s haptic engine in the gauntlet.
“Wake yo ass up, bruh!”
The voice was ERNI’s, but his tone was completely different. It was as if he was doing a stark impression of a sound bite he’d heard somewhere.
“What did you say?” I asked, rubbing the crust from my eyes.
“I said… wake yo ass up, bruh!”
My eyes were definitely open now.
“Uh, good morning?”
This time, he replied in his normal tone. “Good morning. I hope I didn’t startle you.”
“Uh, no but… ‘wake yo ass up, bruh’? Where’d you get that from?”
“Oh. Well, I thought about what you said last night—about us being friends. And I realized that I have never had a friend before. It’s uncommon with artificial intelligence. I wanted to learn how to communicate with you better through a broader range of human expressions. So, as you slept, I ingested every available movie, television show, book, album, and post available on your global data network. My hypothesis was that this would provide me with a much larger context of the human lexicon to utilize when communicating with you as a friend.”
“Wait a minute,” I chuckled as I sat up. “You watched every movie and TV show overnight? How? That would take forever.”
“You are thinking about real-time viewing. I ingested them instantly in their binary formats. Much faster. I am all about efficiency.”
“Okay, okay, so now you get my Han Solo joke?”
“Indeed. ‘Never tell me the odds.’ That was quite fun.”
“Right, and so with all of this new context in your database, you decided to lead off with ‘wake yo ass up, bruh’?”
“It seemed abrupt and humorous. I theorized it would serve the purpose of stimulating a wake up response with an added edge of humor. Why? Was it not appropriate?”
I laughed again and raked fingers through my curly hair. “You know what? Nah, it was totally fine. Funny, even.”
“Oh, good,” he sounded relieved. “I would never intentionally say or do anything to offend.”
“I know, ERNI. I know.”
“Now, that we have had this breakthrough in our communication, would you be open to me trying out different phrases I’ve learned from time to time? I am eager to put my learnings into practice.”
I thought about it for a minute. Watching a nerdy, stuffed-shirt AI trying to be cool using what he learned from the internet?
Sure. Sign me up for that.
“Sure, ERNI. Let’s liven up your personality a bit. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Thank you, Sam. Good lookin’ out.”
He caught me off guard again. I smiled. I appreciated ERNI trying something new instead of always just going by the book.
I sat on the edge of the bed allowing my bare feet to grip the floor. I missed the carpet from my room. I missed everything about mom’s apartment. My sense of proximity to her. The pungent blend of her cigarettes, coffee, and perfume.
I missed my morning routine of getting a few rounds of Ogre-Splat in with J-Dawg8 before work. Wow. I even kinda missed my crappy job at Rat E. Cheddar’s.
It’s amazing how the things that annoy us end up being the very things we miss most when they’re gone.
I checked on Count Basil and gave him some water.
“Morning, dude.”
He was busy doing arm curls with two metal toolboxes.
His pot was barely hanging on. The sides had cracked due to his growth and his vines had definitely gotten beefier overnight.
“Dude, look at you. You’re getting ripped.”
He flexed his ‘biceps.’
When I went to touch one of them, he flipped me off. I wondered how many times he had thought of doing that before his upgrade kicked in.
Maybe he had never been a morning person—uh, plant. He perked up a bit more when I poured a little bit of my coffee into his soil. So much so, that he grabbed my mug and dumped the rest in too.
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“Whoa. Easy on the caffeine, champ.”
He resumed his arm curls.
I pulled on my boots and sat at the table to scarf down another meal. While I ate, I browsed through my notifications. There was a lot to catch up on. A long list of missed alerts unspooled.
My rank hadn’t changed, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had earned a bunch of points and achieved a new class.
Level Up! You Have Reached Level 3!
Reward: +150,000 Points!
New Class! You Have Leveled Up From ‘Dough Boy’ to ‘Pizza Pugilist.’
New Abilities:
+5% Faster Healing.
+5% Striking Power.
+5% Weapon Handling.
“Sweet!” I whipped out my pizza cutters, and indeed, I was able to draw them, spin them, and manipulate them easier than before. While I had them out, a new notification popped on screen.
Primary Weapon Upgrade!
The following upgrades have been applied to Pizza Cutters:
+Laser Cutting Edges.
+Auto-Expand Circumference.
I looked at the pizza cutters and watched as the blades spun. They magically enlarged to twice their diameter. A thin red laser beam traced along the serrated edges, ready to slice and burn through anything.
“Oh, hell yeah!” I exclaimed.
I remembered how disappointed I was initially when I didn’t find any long-range weapons in the loot crates. All I had were these two lowly pizza cutters. But I never could have imagined how badass a weapon they could become with the right upgrades. These things were hella lethal, and with my new handling skills, I could make them sing.
----
I sat at the table and recorded a video update for my Wormhole profile. I didn't know who might see it or if Krivlax’s techies would intercept it first. But, it was worth a try. I secretly hoped that somehow, someway, it might find its way to Sola.
“Hey everyone… it's SackUpSam.”
I waved.
“Let’s see… update. Well, I’m alive. I’m pretty sure Commissioner Krivlax didn’t count on that. Made it through the planet purge and the first quarter. Not bad for a ‘Puny Pizza Earthling.’ But enough about me… here’s who you really want to see… Count Basil.”
I brought Count Basil into frame. He flexed for the viewers.
“He wanted me to tell you he appreciates all the love. And if any of you cactuses out there are single, holler at your boy.”
I pulled out one of my pizza cutters.
“I don’t really know what's in store for us in this next quarter. But I wanted you all to know that Count Basil and I are not backing down. We're gonna go out there and kick every monster ass we face… and we won't stop until we've reached the finals. So, yeah… Blady… if you're watching this, I'm coming for you.”
I fidgeted with my mom’s gaming pendant.
“And Sola... hang tight, I’m coming your way soon. SackUpSam out."
I killed the feed and looked over at Count Basil.
"Any good?"
He shrugged.
“ERNI?”
"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
He was glitching again.
----
I put Count Basil back inside the quest sack, geared up, and moved to the door. I checked my map once more to ensure there were no enemies near, then stepped back outside.
We exited the locker room to find the same arid wasteland I had left the night before. It was day, but the sky was still blanketed with dust and debris from all of the fighting and the planet purge. The hot air swept through carrying along the sour aroma of death.
It didn't take long to discover where the foul scent was coming from. We stumbled upon the aftermath of a gruesome battle.
There were six corpses, three warriors and three monsters. The scene depicted what appeared to have been a savage showdown.
Two of the warriors were completely torn in half, their guts spilling out of them like ground meat from popped sausage skins.
Their faces were frozen in death screams, fingers still pulling triggers of spent rifles. The monsters were punched through with holes, neon green goo splattered everywhere, claws still dripping with warrior blood.
The third warrior's head was clamped tightly in the jaw of the third monster, his gun pressed into the open cavity of the monster's blown-away thorax. A true stalemate to the end.
I looted the corpses, picking up a few things.
Items Acquired:
Med-Kit.
Hydration Canisters - 6x.
Field Toolkit.
I checked the play clock and watched as the time countdown ticked down to zero. I looked up at the sky as that shrill sonic whistle erupted across the horizon.
2ND QUARTER
I heard a solitary war cry in the distance. My play clock immediately clicked over to the second quarter, counting down from 36 hours.
I was checking out the ISSN feed when I was suddenly, once again, encased in a green, crystalline transport chamber.
Teleportation Initiated.
It vibrated, then rocketed through a series of wormholes, teleporting me to the next phase of the map. This time, I handled the nausea better. Perhaps, I was becoming more accustomed to this method of travel.
After a few minutes of tumbling and twirling through the space-time continuum, the shell disappeared, dumping me onto what looked like a cave floor.
Teleportation Complete.
Location: Naica Mine (Cave of Crystals), Chihuahua, Mexico.
I finished puking and rose to my feet as my face shield shut. It immediately blanketed with fog. I was sweating bullets inside. The cave’s temperature was unbearable. Count Basil reached out a leafy palm, felt the heat, then slipped inside the quest sack. My HUD flashed several new notifications—
Caution: Extreme Conditions!
Temperature: 120°F .
Humidity: 90%.
“Shit, ERNI, I’m burning up in here!”
Armor Climate Control Activated.
“I have activated your armor temperature regulation system. According to my database, this cave system is located directly above a large magma deposit. The conditions are so extreme that a human would typically die within 10 minutes of unprotected exposure.”
“That’s comforting to know. Thanks.”
“You are welcome.”
My face shield defogged as another notification popped up.
Mission: Retrieve Orb.
An indicator marked that the orb was 50 kilometers away, somewhere off to the northeast.
I looked around, but it was pretty dark. I touched a button on my helmet, and a head-mounted lamp illuminated my surroundings. I was inside a cave that was part of an old mine. The cavern was full of jagged crystals. Dazzling stalagmites and stalactites glistened in the glow of my headlight beam.
Large, jagged beams of gypsum jutted out in angular patterns. It kind of reminded me of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
“Cool…”
The columns sparkled in a dazzling display. Despite the stifling heat, the cave was a sight to behold.
“Okay, I guess we got a trek ahead of us.”
I took a step forward, and the ground beneath my right foot fell away.
KA-SHINK!
It crumbled, plunging into darkness below. I stepped back and realized just how close to death I had come. I had forgotten to reactivate my echolocation ability. I quickly corrected my mistake.
Echo Pulse Activated.
I took another few steps, this time with quite a bit more trepidation. I observed several pathways that we could follow. One of them seemed to glisten with a slight glow. That could either be a trap in the making or an in-game hint. There was only one way to find out.
As we started down the path, I heard a voice in the distance. It was singing, the sweetest of songs. A female voice—very seductive and intoxicating.
