Is there crosspy with the real world?

  The red cell luckily, had a little bench bed suspended from the wall with two cables, so Gradie sat down and exhaled pointlessly through his nose.

  “Where you at bro?” Luke asked, after an embarrassingly long moment of silence.

  ‘Ba jail. Lost the fug fight.”

  “Shit. Ok sit tight, we’ll e get you.”

  “We got another wave ing,” Angel said.

  “Bro fuck it,” said Nova. “We’ll go get him then e back, probably get some kills on the way. We’re already attuo the prism so—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gradie said, feeling the blood rush to his face, somehow. “I’m heading up there. If I get pinned down, yall e get me, but I think I slip by on my own.” He leaned his head back against the wall and crossed his legs. Surely this game couldn’t st forever?

  “All right man. Good luck.” Angel said.

  “Nah bro, fuck that. We’re on our way,” said Luke.

  Gradie thought of other times in his life when he had been the dead weight in a game, and from there his thoughts drifted to the Hardworlds, and like dry kindling that had just been waiting for the passing focused beam of a magnifying gss, an idea fred up that he had been trying to keep from igniting for weeks. He saw himself in the Hardworlds alone, without Philips ands or EP’s watg drones, sailing down a highway, or robbing a bank, or using a million dolrs to live a day of unimaginable debauchery—

  “Top team wenty points to win,” the robotic female voice said from everywhere, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  “What the fuck?” said Nova. “I thought Colors was on a timer?”

  “No, it’s old school,” Angel said.

  “Shit no time to waste then,” said Luke. “Let’s go pick up Corpse and fuck them up!”

  “Bad idea,” Angel said, and for a miserable moment Gradie thought he meant the first part of Luke’s statement. “First of all, when a team is close, you want to just avoid them, starve them of points, get your score off easier teams. And sed of all we don’t know who they are. There’s no scoreboard on colors.”

  “So wait, then it could be us?” Luke asked.

  “No.” Angel and Nova said at the same time.

  “Top team en points to win!” The dy sounded absolutely unhinged.

  “See, that’s what happens when you go after the top team,” Angel said.

  “Thought you said you couldn’t know who it was?”

  “Well, we ’t, but I’m assuming everyone else is seeing them running train and figured it out. There’s probably a big brawl in the arena. Camping that pce was meta when Colors was more heavy in rotation.”

  “Sounds dope,” Luke said. “Where is it?”

  “It’s a big crater oher side of the—”

  “Victory! The winning team is… Hyperflex!”

  “Who’s Hyperflex?” Gradie asked, as the world turned white and foggy and fell away from itself. In an instant, the four of them were standing orange tact lens ptfain, as a wide s floating ahead of them dispyed a scoreboard. The world around was a ierminate mist of light clouds and white noise. Ghostly images of six or seven avatars floated momentarily over the scoreboard, posing and dang, until they faded into the mist. A banner over them had read “Hyperflex”.

  “The winning team,” Luke said with a smile.

  “Fuck you. I mean do we have a team name?”

  “Yeah, its Visio, uild,” Nova said. “We’re pying uheir banner for today.”

  Gradie found his own name on the scoreboard, highlighted, in red like the other three, but separated from them by a wide field of blue rows. Six kills. Two deaths. Angel was well at the top, twelve and zero, with Luke and Nova not far below him.

  “Not bad for your first time,” Luke said with a leering smile.

  Gradie looked out at the swirling clouds, hoping they could take some of the edge off his rage at once again being the new guy on the fug team, and threw the versation forward, as if it could take him with it into the future.

  “So I get the gun part, but why is it called a maze again? Did losi us backward in the maze, or—”

  “We didn’t lose, bro,” Nova said, sounding disgusted. “We just didn’t make top slot. And the maze is more a legaame, from the inner core, the OG maze. It’s not like this there. The segments blend seamlessly into each other, like a series of dreams. This is more for the mass market, get me?”

  Gradie studied the clouds again. The inner maze sounded like something that would actually be worth the time. Despite the brief moments of excitement in Colors, they hadn’t been worth the embarrassment. An it the back of his head, an unformed desire, took shape out of his refle. Gunmaze might have been a lot of fun if there was no oh him to disappoint. Once again, like kindling, the idea of going into the Hardworlds, telling no one, ignited in his mind, and whisked his thoughts away.

  “So no maze, but lots of guns, right?” Luke asked

  “Yeah bro. I queued us for shooters only today,” Nova said. “Good way to get familiar with the experience."

  The s dinged and a pop up appeared over the scoreboard. Two words stuck out to Gradie.

  “quest Invite”

  “Oh shit. Goat-Head is pushing that power pnt on Sarthor,” Nova said.

  “How many slots does he have?”

  “Looks like eight open.”

  “Fuck yeah, get us in.”

  Luke squi the s.

  “What is it?”

  “quest. Remember that big shared sci-fi thing I was talking about?”

  “The ohat’s like an MMO?”

  “Yeah. Got some openings.”

  “An MMO?” Gradie couldn’t imagine a game type that would punish him more for his inexperience.

  “Kinda,” Angel sighed, the parison clearly frustrating him. “Its four persistent ps and a bunoons. Multiple fas grouped by nguage. You make a character and respawn at the ing station, pay mem to lower the rebirth time, that kind of thing. Or you get dropped in on a maze run in a temp character. The makers put it out to pete with Arthel. Which is like the fantasy rolepy gameworld that kind of petes with Gunmaze.”

  “Yeah, but Arthel is way more stuck up about it. Lots of LARPers who live that shit,” Angel said.

  “Maze queue paused. Preparing…Soura.”

  “So, is it still part of the maze?” Gradie was trying to get a picture of the gameworld in his head, and his inal vision of multiple games arranged in a mazelike mesh had colpsed, noarently reserved for the top pyers at the inner core.

  “Yeah, you still get tokens,” Angel said. “And winning ts towards your streak. Theres a few portions of Guhat are like that. Sometimes if they’re hard up for characters they’ll offer extra for dropping in.”

  “Characters?”

  “Yeah, there are no NPC’s in Gunmaze. So if you have a game that needs enemies or something, it has to be done by actual people. Some do it professionally.”

  “Like, if every goon in a game had to be trolled by a real person?”

  “Exactly. It’s why so many of the segments are petitive. It’s usually either that or pyer versus enviro kinda thing.”

  “What’s the game like?” Luke asked.

  “Sci fi, space opera. Iual quest the avatars are pretty fleshed out. You get geic—”

  “ I get a lightsaber?”

  Nova stopped mid-sentend shook his head at Luke with a smile. Angel scowled behind.

  “Soura portal established. Prepare for departure.”

  The fuzzy clouded world went dark, and just like before Cradie suddenly felt like he was falling at an incredible speed. This time, however, after about five seds of falling, a mirror appeared in the dark, refleg the four of them in their avatars.

  “Previous loadouts found.”

  The twin’s avatar’s picked up new clothing as if they were falling through them on the way down. Angel had a kind of armor pting and monk robe bo, with a helmet that looked like a kendo mask made of metal and css, and Nova got something that reminded Gradie of a formu one Racer who had patterned his suit after a psychedelic experieopped with a space age gas mask and, surprisingly, a fug cowboy hat.

  “ bro,” Luke ughed.

  “Wele newers.”

  Luke and Gradie’s avatars were slowly given space suits and masked helmets that screamed space age grunts, and then two identical rifles and gear pouches. Ohe system was vihey had looked at themselves in the mirrors long enough to make the effect stick, a map appeared in front of them, with a dialogue box.

  “Sora Tutorial. [accept][dee]”

  Nova waved his hand and the dee button fshed red then vanished, leaving only the map. The sensation of falling faded and Gradie felt he was floating in zero g.

  “Ok, lemme see.” Nova maniputed the map with hand motions and zoomed in on a portion that looked like the ter of a spider web.

  “Ok, so this is high roads of Sarthor. Big fu sci-fi highways and skyscrapers. Drop ship is somewhere down here,” he motioowards the bottom edge of the s. “And here’s the fuel pnt.” He swiped up and the map revealed a bead o rendered in muted colors. A rge structure that looked like a oarfort was stu the beach, with five of the spider web lines brang out from it.

  “So here’s Geyser Squad trol.” He motioo the red overid on half the map. “And this is allied territory.” The other, bottom half, overid with blue, and turning purple at the edges. “So let me see what…”

  “Yo Quasar,” an unfamiliar voice said on the s. “You i?”

  “Nah bro I’m at the map,” Nova said. “Where you need us?”

  “One sec.”

  A box popped up on the map that Nova quickly ied with, turning it green before it vanished. A new i, like a circur avatar portrait, appeared on the map, as well as a pink and bck cursor.

  “Ok, ter road got nuked, we’re trying to build up o ter, but I need some cover so here.”

  The arked a dot on the map, just on the red side of the purple belt.

  “Clear this tower out and call a on team. If you guys are still around wheorm up, then that would be cool.”

  “Alright bro. You got a transport.”

  “Yeah, Mav and Robin are already on it. You ilot?”

  “Always bro.”

  “Ok I’ll drop you in.”

  Another box popped up and Nova hit accept and the sensation of falling renewed with a vengeance.

  “All right bros, pretty simple,” Nova said. “Shoot em dead and watch your head.”

  Gradie nded in a sitting position, and the world tugged away from him, two cross chest straps keeping him in pce

  The transition was so seamless, so perfect. That his mind accepted the new world around him wholesale.

  And very quickly, it became apparent that it was a world of violence.

  Ever dreamed of pying a game with your friends, but all of you were dreaming? Wheurn to Gu will be to a world of war and spaceflight. But for now, Luke's story begins. A tale of addi and obsession, and the rise of a Hardworlder. episode: Luke's Ladder - Part 1: Dr.X