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I DIDN’T SLEEP WELL Friday night. The bed in my old room felt too small, somehow. I kept tossing and turning, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t shut my mind off.
What was going on at my apartment complex? Where had the girl come from? Who had she shot? Who was Derrick, and why was he working for Mr. Hauser? And who was the other girl outside his office? She’d asked me to help her, and I walked away. That ate at me.
What was going on in my life?
I kept telling myself this was all the product of an overactive imagination. People are storytelling creatures; we turn random coincidences and unrelated events into complex narratives that are mostly imaginary. I knew all that....
And it seemed like the obvious answer. I was nobody. I wasn’t a hero in someone’s story. I wasn’t even an NPC in anyone’s story. I was an out-of-work college grad with too much time on my hands. What I really needed to do was get a job, pay my bills, and start the hard work of building myself a future.
That didn’t help me sleep. And when I woke up Saturday morning feeling beaten up and worn out, it didn’t drive me back into the job hunt. I lay in bed a long time feeling anxious and tired. Then I grabbed my laptop and opened the Arcade.
A dozen new people had tried my game since yesterday. Two had left positive reviews. That felt good.
There were also some chat messages waiting for me. One from Ben said, “Duuude!” and nothing else.
Then there was one from my first fan—Cass1884—that said, “u up?” and another, “can i call u?” Both of those had come through in the middle of the night. She must’ve been watching for me to come online, because I got the message, “Cass1884 is typing....”
It was a strange request. “Can I call you?” She had asked me for my phone number the first time we talked, and I dodged it. I was trying to think of a smooth way to do that again when her new message came through.
“answer ur phone”
And then my phone rang.
What to do? The phone’s screen told me it was an unknown number. Potential spam. But my curiosity got the best of me.
I answered. “Who is this?”
“Cass,” she said. “Are we on speakerphone?”
She sounded pretty. Assertive. No-nonsense. And just a little familiar.
“It’s just me,” I said. “Why?”
“Do you still have the gun?”
“The what?”
“The gun. From the beginning of the game. You named the whole game after it.”
A suspicion pinged in my mind, but it was too much to believe. I said, casually as I could, “It’s just a game...”
“I’m not playing, Dave. It’s Dave, right? I need to know if you still have the gun I gave you.”
“You’re her?” I asked, incredulous. “You’re the girl with the gun?”
Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she was obsessed with my game and had lost track of her own identity.
“I’m her,” she said. “And I need to know if you still have the gun.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why would it matter? Who are you, and what’s going on?”
“I’m just some girl,” she said. “A bad one, but not the kind from your game. I’m...trouble. And I did a lot of business with trouble. And now that trouble has all caught up with me.”
She wasn’t kidding. If it was really her, my life had been nothing but trouble since she showed up! But how had she found me? Maybe I’d finally get some answers.
Before I could find my question, she went back to hers. “Do you still have the gun?”
“I do. Why does it matter?”
“They’ve got my sister. She’s not like me. She never should have been part of this, but Hauser started worrying about me, and he sent Derrick to pick her up—”
“Hauser is really part of this?” I asked, stunned. “And that was your Derrick?”
“Not mine,” she said, offended. “He hasn’t been mine for years. But yeah. You should’ve shot him and Hauser both.”
“What is going on?” I asked. “Who are you?”
“I’m just a girl who made a few mistakes,” she said. “But Trina’s not. And Hauser’s whole crew are real bad guys. Drug runners and human traffickers. If they move my sister—”
“I think I saw her.” I blurted it out. “Is she...a little plain? Sorry, I saw a young woman outside Hauser’s office—”
“And you left her there?”
“I didn’t know anything! I thought he was a regular guy. And she stopped talking as soon as he appeared.”
“She talked to you? What did she say? Is she okay?”
“She seemed healthy,” I said, avoiding the other question.
“But what did she say? I haven’t heard a word from her in a week. I’m so scared for her.”
“She asked me if I could help her.”
“And you left her there?”
“I didn’t know what was going on! And before I could find out, Mr. Hauser arrived and she shut down. She told me to leave!”
“You’re a real hero,” Cass said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“I’m not,” I said, and it felt like confession. I’d been thinking the same thing ever since it happened. “I wanted to be. I wanted to save her. I wanted to save you, when you broke into my apartment. But it’s only caused me trouble. Just like you said.”
“That’s over now,” she said.
“I... what?”
“That’s over. You’re not a loser anymore. You’re my hero. Because you’re about to save my sister.”
“Like hell I am!”
“Yeah,” she said. “It’ll be a lot like that.”