CHAPTER 13
ATTACK OF THE WHINERS
CLAUDIA
When I got to Reese’s room, he was hunched over his laptop, banging out a ClickChat message while he yelled at Xander on FaceTime.
I said, “Hey, Reese—what’s up?”
And he said something like, “CAN’TTALKPLANETAMIGOMAJORCRISIS!”
I started to say, “Is there anything I can do to help?” But before I could get more than a couple of words out, he went:
“FINNISHHACKERSCAN’TTALKVERYSERIOUSWUAAAAAGH!”
So I decided to back off and watch the situation unfold from a distance.
REESE
Xander and I were mad angry. It’s totally illegal to be invisible in a deathmatch! Planet Amigo doesn’t even HAVE invisibility!
We figured “InvisibleDeath” must be some kind of hacker, and we should alert Akash ASAP. He’s got a ClickChat account for his admin stuff called “AmigoGod,” so we went there to let him know what was up.
CLICKCHAT COMMENTS ON PUBLIC WALL OF “AMIGOGOD”
REESE
Xander and I were pretty shocked that Akash didn’t totally freak out about InvisibleDeath. It seemed like a serious situation. And when we told everybody about it the next day at school, it turned out a ton of other kids were getting griefed by him on Planet Amigo.
CLAUDIA
This is where it gets crazy. Because all I did as InvisibleDeath was go on that one night and kill Xander and Reese a bunch of times.
That was IT.
But suddenly, InvisibleDeath turned into this weird boogeyman who got blamed for everything bad that had ever happened to anybody in the history of the Internet.
AKASH
I should have told them I’d banned InvisibleDeath right away. But I had a ton of stuff going on that week, so I didn’t want to deal. And when I ignored them, they turned the whole sixth grade into an angry mob.
CLICKCHAT COMMENTS ON PUBLIC WALL OF “AMIGOGOD”
CLAUDIA
Reese got so hysterical about InvisibleDeath that he even infected my parents.
MOM AND DAD (text messages)
(MOM) Reese says Finnish hackers may
have put malware on our home
network. You should change all
your passwords
(DAD) WHAT???
I don’t really understand it either
Do I seriously have to worry
about this?
Hard to tell. Think so
I miss the good old days when
people just got mugged on
the subway
AKASH
The whole thing was insanely irritating. I had, like, two tests and a five-page essay due by Friday, plus my prep class for the SHSAT, plus play rehearsals. So I was totally stressed, and suddenly I had these stupid sixth graders messaging me every five minutes to tell me I had to ban InvisibleDeath for, like, destroying their lives. And when I ignored them online, they started hassling me in the hallways at school.
It was like a plague of idiots in soccer jerseys.
CLAUDIA
I’m sorry. It’s my fault they all freaked out on you.
AKASH
I guess so. But you weren’t the one I was mad at. It was them.
Mostly because it was the principle of the thing. Like, I built that whole planet! They’ve been playing on it for free since January, not a single one of them has ever even, like, thanked me for it—and then suddenly, they start ordering me around like I’m their slave!
And some of them had SERIOUSLY bad attitudes. Your brother was just kind of, like, whatever. Low-grade annoying. But that Xander punk kept going [EXTREMELY STUPID PERSON VOICE], “Yo, AK-Fiddy-Seven, you gots to lock dat ish down!”
Who even talks like that?
And he wasn’t even saying it right. “Fiddy-Seven” is “FIFTY-seven.” But it’s an AK-FORTY-seven.
What an idiot. Is it true his ancestors were on the Mayflower?
CLAUDIA
I think so.
AKASH
Wow. That is just sad. America’s really gone downhill in the last 400 years.
And he kept whining about how somebody stole 5,000 goldz from his account! Which is totally impossible. And it’s not even real money! Hello? I invented it! IT’S WORTHLESS!
The last straw was when Xander started texting me at eleven o’clock at night. I got so mad, I was like, “I should just blow up Planet Amigo.”
That’s when I decided to stop being a fair god and start being a vengeful god.
CLAUDIA
Akash got so mad at Reese and Xander that he told me to do what I’d wanted from the beginning—which was to destroy everything they owned on Planet Amigo.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I was up for it. Killing them in the deathmatches hadn’t been nearly as satisfying as I’d expected, and I still couldn’t figure out why.
But I thought about it for a while, and I decided the problem was that the deathmatches weren’t real enough. Every time I’d killed Reese and Xander, they’d just respawned back in their giant castles. They didn’t even lose any goldz. Other than their paranoid freakout over InvisibleDeath, once they logged off, it was like nothing had ever happened.
Meanwhile, I was still feeling so much leftover trauma from the “Vest Song” horror show that I was convinced it’d take me years of therapy to get over it.
So I figured the only way to guarantee justice had been served was to COMPLETELY ANNIHILATE Reese and Xander—to kill all their soldiers, burn down their castles, and leave them with nothing but bitter tears to show for the hundreds of hours they’d spent building their stupid little Amigo empires.
I realize that sounds a little psycho. But the thing is, after you’ve been in a war for a while, it messes with your head. If you’re not careful, you can wind up convincing yourself that something totally psycho is not just normal, but actually a smart thing to do.
Plus, god Ed. Note: (Amigo god, NOT real God) told me to do it. So I figured it must be okay.