Alex stopped them. “Before we go…” It was the first time he’d spoken all night. He looked like shit—his eyes were tired and his hair was mussed more than usual—but he seemed excited. Proud, even. “I have something for us.”
He picked up the box that had been waiting for him on his bed, as promised, when he came back from smashing the car.
They would love him now. He did this.
Fifty thousand Goldz well spent.
Vanhi shuddered when she saw the box. It was strikingly similar to the one she’d delivered to some random house, just longer and flatter. How many people were out there playing this Game, delivering parcels? Were they all good things? Her bass pedal was, and Alex certainly seemed happy about his package, too. But that didn’t mean they were all prizes. Could there be bad packages as well? Hate mail, so to speak? Vanhi wondered again, What did I deliver tonight, and to whom? She felt like an ant in an ecosystem she couldn’t see.
“What’s the matter?” Charlie asked, noticing her reaction.
“Nothing.” She smiled weakly. “Shiver.”
Alex spoke so quietly the group had to lean in. “What’s the one thing that would make this game better?”
“Sleep,” Kenny said. They all looked a little worse for wear after being up for most of the last two days.
“I have something for that,” Peter said.
“No,” Charlie jumped in.
“What, I was talking about Red Bull.…”
“Pay attention,” Alex blurted out, too loud. He hated the way Charlie and Peter could command the room instantly. He was the one talking.
He ripped open the box and folded the cardboard arms outward.
They all leaned over to peer in.
“They’re Aziteks,” he said.
“No way,” Peter said. “How did you get these?”
“They cost a fortune,” Charlie said. “They’re brand-new.”
“How much did it cost?” Kenny asked.
“Just some Goldz.”
“What did you have to do?” Vanhi asked.
“Just a little search and destroy! Don’t worry about it. Worry about this: never having to walk around like a moron staring through your phone to see the game. Think about the immersion we’ll get. And we can play all day now, easy!”
Alex slipped a pair on. They looked like normal glasses, some more hipstery than others. His pair were like him. Thin, unobtrusive. The frames disappeared on his face.
Peter picked a black, thicker rim, the kind only someone handsome could pull off and look better with glasses than without.
Vanhi went for the artier tortoiseshell style.
Kenny picked half-shell clear frames. Scholarly, yet edgier than anyone would have guessed for him.
Charlie picked what was left: silver frames, modern and sleek.
They all put them on.
“You sync them like this.” Alex pressed a button on the stem.
Charlie stared through his glasses. They felt impossibly light on his face, barely different from regular glasses. You could only see the AR on one side, meaning to everyone else in the room you just looked normal, walking around with innocuous glasses on.
Then the world flashed as the glasses synced with Charlie’s phone, and the Game came alive in front of him. Wherever he looked, now he saw the God Game on top of realspace. The cracks in the walls. The flickering torches. The glowing signs and pulsing runes. It all felt real around him, moving with his head. Yet reality was there, too. He could see the obstacles and paths in realspace, through the augmented reality. It was fucking awesome.
Peter reached toward the computer tables, where a virtual red-glazed vase was glimmering. He closed his hand around it and lifted it off the table. It moved perfectly in his hand.
They all watched.
“This is a game changer,” Peter said, smiling at Alex with admiration.
Alex beamed.
Peter tossed the digital vase to Charlie.
Without thinking, Charlie caught it in the air. He tossed it to Kenny, who tossed it to Vanhi, who lobbed it to Alex. Alex grabbed for it but fumbled the catch. It hit the ground and shattered.
Alex felt himself blush.
“You have to admit,” Vanhi said to Charlie quietly, “this is pretty cool.”
Suddenly there was a crash, as Peter picked up a troll-skinned lamp and hurled it across the room at Kenny’s head. It slammed against him, and Kenny heard a shockingly loud thud from the speakers playing straight into his ears.
“Hey!” he shouted, a grin spreading over his face. “Watch it!”
Words appeared in the air before Peter:
Hitting a teammate! 5 Blaxx.
Everybody laughed, but Charlie felt a slight chill. This was the first official report of Blaxx he’d seen. Five was a low number—their Goldz had gone up in the thousands already. But still, what did five Blaxx mean? What would five hundred mean?
“Serves you right,” Kenny told Peter, laughing. No one else seemed worried about the consequences.
“Let’s go!” Alex cried, beside himself with pride.
They ran down the hall to the boiler room. Sure enough, all signs of the Breath of God were gone. The Hebrew was gone, and the keypad was blank, even through their snazzy new AR glasses. The walls around them were decayed in the gamespace, the door itself solid iron.
“Access denied,” Peter said in an “I told you so” kind of way.
Charlie went to his inventory to see what tools he could buy. He, too, had a lot of Goldz saved up from being a Good Boy, at least in the eyes of the Game. But he found no new skills to buy now. “So where’s our salvation?” he asked the group.
They stared at each other blankly, no one having any great ideas.
Then the Game asked a simple question, another set of words floating between them in the hallway:
Do you hate Tim Fletcher? Y/N?