Disconnect

The news broadcast had been transmitted all across North America: Over the past few weeks, thirty-one teenagers were found sitting at their computer desks or lying on personal hologram projectors brain-dead.  Both the cause of death and modus operandi remained unknown.  Some called it the work of a serial killer while others believed it to be a string of mass suicides.  Debates and conjectures sprang up on every social network website.  Despite the overwhelming amount of curiosity that the deaths had generated world-wide, the University of Pittsburgh campus remained relatively quiet.  The only sound that could be heard that evening was the tap-dance of fingernails on cell-phone keys as people continued to argue about the strange phenomenon online.  

Bus eighty-six, bound for Redwood Park, screeched to a halt at the stop just outside the Computing Science Center.  Already a crowd of students had gathered; most dressed in university-brand sweat pants, clutching I-Phones, with rucksacks slung over their shoulders.  Lance boarded the steps without uttering a word to the driver.  He slogged straight to the back, slumped into a seat next to the rear door, stretched out his long legs, and focused his droopy hazel eyes on the oak trees that lined the leaf-strewn sidewalk outside the window.  The naked branches twisted in the chilly autumn air like gnarled fingers trying to block out the azure sky. 

He just wanted to get home and play his fucking video game...

The bus seats filled up quickly, forcing the unwilling students to sit in pairs.  A girl moved for the seat across from Lance then bit her lower lip as someone else slid in to it.  Slowly she edged onto the seat beside him.  Without looking, Lance felt her eyes on him.  No doubt his hair was unkempt, his socks mismatched, and his face unshaven.  He subconsciously rubbed his fingers along his jaw to confirm, to his annoyance, that the beginning of a feeble goatee was protruding awkwardly from his chin.  

The girl brushed her shoulder against his and opened her mouth to speak.  Immediately Lance shot her a glower, causing her to shirk back in her seat and clamp her mouth shut.  Lance relaxed slightly, having successfully prevented the awkwardness of small talk.  However, the girl then began to fiddle with the zipper on her backpack.  A moment later she squealed as her nursing textbook slid off her lap into the aisle.  Lance watched her retrieve the textbook from the aisle with callous indifference.  She then lowered her head and began to frantically type messages on her cell-phone.  

One by one everyone quieted.  People occupied themselves with cell-phones and MP3 Players.  When the bus lurched into motion, Lance withdrew his own cell-phone from the pocket of his Nike blazer.  It was nearly five years old, chipped along the edges from being dropped so often, and much heavier than the newer versions that had built-in hologram generators.  He maneuvered his finger across the faded screen and activated the Internet browser.  The familiar World of Fantasia Online website appeared on his screen.  A recent news post declared that the revolutionary simulacrum fantasy world, which allowed players to transfer their physical self into a virtual world, had just reached over two-million users.  In just seven years following the technological revolution that took place in the year 2021, the Japanese developers from Golden Age had developed a gaming hardware that far surpassed the ancient consoles which bound players to their television screens.  

Lance navigated away from the main page so he could check his character statistics on the online database only to discover that his best friend Andy had gained five levels since they had played the previous night.  Lance lashed out at the side of the bus, indenting the cheap sheet metal with his fist.  Andy was only able to remain ahead of him in levels because he didn't have university studies or a job to worry about.  Again, the morning news report resurfaced in Lance's mind, this time altered: "Over the past few weeks, thirty-one teenagers were freed..."  Lance and a select few World of Fantasia fanatics knew why.  

Carlson Hughes, a player known to most as Ph34rz0mHax0rXIII, was the reason.  He was selling what everyone these days had always wanted: a ticket out of tedious everyday life.  Lance knew about it because Andy had been amongst the first group of players that were offered the option of leaving.  Some of the chosen players even called it being "reborn."  All Hughes asked for in return was to have one-thousand dollars transferred over to his online account.  Lance knew his summer savings would easily cover the cost since his parents had paid his university tuition, no doubt hoping that he would eventually find some dull but dependable career that guaranteed high wages.  It wouldn't be hard to transfer the money either since his credit card was already connected to his World of Fantasia account.

The bus halted in front of his house.  Shoving past the girl without a word of apology, Lance stepped off the bus and hurried up the asphalt driveway.  The crisp autumn air filled him with energy.  If Lance carefully avoided the detection of his mother he would soon be online where he could await his own invitation from Hughes.  Rather than using the front door, Lance crouched past the hedge that ran along the perimeter and entered the house using the sliding patio door in the backyard.  He paused on the threshold, listening quietly.  Suddenly the caterwaul of his younger sister Maria pierced his ears.  She thumped down the stairs and flung herself across the living room couch in a tragic fashion, kicking the cushions and tearing strands of blonde hair from her scalp.

"Give back my phone!" she screamed. "If I get kidnapped and have no way to call the police then you'll be to blame for it!"    

"Maria, I never see or talk to you anymore and I know your grades have been plummeting by the day."  Their mother, Julia, descended the staircase clutching a hot-pink cell-phone in her left hand. "Just this morning Mrs. Turner called to tell me that you've already been to detention twice this week because you were caught texting messages to your friends during class."  

"Everybody does it!" Maria wailed in her own defense. "First off, Mrs. Turner's classes are really boring... and... and secondly, if I don't log onto my Facebook account once an hour then my cows will die!"

"A matter of life and death is it?" said Julia, her impatient grimace sharpening into a scowl.  She gripped Maria's cell-phone tightly, as if to throttle it, before violently prying the SIM card out.  "You kids are too spoiled.  Your father will hear about this and he's not going to be very pleased."

"How am I supposed to chat with my friends now?" Maria demanded, tears welling in her eyes as she watched the life being ripped from her cell-phone.

"Why don't you try doing it in person for once?" Julia responded, flinging the SIM card into the garbage.  Lance seized the moment and maneuvered towards the basement staircase.  However, before he could vanish completely, his mother turned on him.  "Lance!  Why are you home from university so early?  Don't you have another two hours left?"

"I felt sick," Lance mumbled, while inching towards the staircase.  

"Don't lie to me," warned Julia.  "I'll have your father disconnect that virtual gaming thing until you start attending lectures regularly."

"Fuck you!" Lance shouted as he lunged downstairs.  His mother was only a few footsteps behind him but he managed to reach his bedroom and slam the door shut before she could wedge her foot in.  He locked the door and shoved a nightstand against it.  Julia's incessant pounding on the door caused one of the many soda cans on the nightstand to topple over and leak sticky brown soda all over the carpet.  Lance reached down, retrieved the can, crushed it in his right hand, and hurled it at the door.  "Shut the fuck up and leave me alone!"

Lance turned the television on before his mother could argue further.  He cranked his CD player volume up so that the music nullified the humming noise that his virtual console would make.  Finally, with the corners of his lips curling up into a smile, Lance stood on the virtual console ring in the corner of his room and activated it using the remote control.  Shimmering hologram walls began to materialize around him.  He let a sigh escape his lips and tapped his foot on the floor while waiting for the simulacrum fantasy world to load.  Lush green vines crept over the white bedroom walls, the polyester carpet softened to dirt, the low ceiling opened up into a vast blue sky.  

Suddenly, a menu screen appeared in front of him as the simulation halted, half loaded.  Lance had never seen it before but knew it was a message from Ph34rz0mHax0rXIII.  It read: "Congratulations, you have been chosen!  If you wish to upgrade your experience to Rebirth mode then speak "Yes" to instantly transfer one-thousand World of Fantasia credits out of your personal account."

Lance hesitated a moment as images of the lush fantasy world flickered in and out between glimpses of his bedroom: the empty soda cans, the plain IKEA desk, the family photo hanging on his wall.  He frowned slightly while studying the faces in the photo.  His little sister Maria was so obsessed with the latest boy bands that she probably wouldn't even notice his absence.  His mother was always doing tax returns or fretting over real-estate.  His father had worked abroad ever since he could remember, so they hardly even knew each other.  They wouldn't miss him.  Hell, they hardly ever talked.  

Lance stared ahead at the menu screen. "Yes," he finally answered.  Adrenaline pumped through every cell in his body, like an infectious malware virus taking over a computer system, when the menu asked him to confirm again.  "Yes," he repeated firmly, just as a quiet voice from behind his bedroom door called out to him.  

Instantly a sharp electric jolt seized through Lance's body.  For a split-second he spun on his heels like a decelerating top.  The world went dark.  Then, suddenly, blinding light filtered through his eyelids.

Lance opened his eyes as his clothing shimmered and transformed into virtual armor, complete with a fluted gothic breastplate, protective close helmet, tasset belt and pauldrons, all which were styled in the fashion of a medieval knight.  Somehow PhearzomHaxorXIII had managed to combine his physical data, memories, and personality with his character data so that he was reborn into the system mainframe: free from pain and disconnected from any tedious real-world responsibilities.  But what now?  It was too dangerous to remain in the outskirts of a village with player-killers always skulking about, so Lance hurried to the guildhall he belonged to.  

Inside, several faction members sat hunched around the common room table, unmoving, with their shoulders slumped and heads inclined in thought like petrified gargoyles.  Lance had to clear his throat to attract their attention.  But only the faction leader, Matthew, jerked up from his seat, nervously smoothing the barely-noticeable wrinkles in his tunic.  Upon realizing that it was Lance, he heaved a sigh of relief and began to wring his hands together. "Thank God it's only you.  Don't tell me that you accepted the invitation too?" 

"What if I did?  Did something happen?  Guys, come on, snap out of it.  Where's Andy?" Lance tugged at the collar of his cloak to loosen it, once again staring expectantly at his petrified comrades.  Yet they continued to direct their hollow expressions towards a pile of blood-stained loot that was piled decorously at the center of the table like some strange sacrificial offering.  Lance approached and studied the loot pile carefully, realizing at once that it contained Andy's most treasured game items: a pockmarked shield, the claymore with the ivory hilt, the signature dragon helmet that he always wore and bragged about. "Why do you have Andy's best equipment here of all places?  Well whatever.  He said he'd meet me here after I accepted the summons so we could get on with leveling..."

Matthew continued wringing his hands together as if trying to cleanse some imperceptible filth from them.  "Andy got speared to death by another player over a rare item earlier today..."  

"Well that's unfortunate, but it happens." Lance waved a dismissive hand.  Oddly enough, his comrades still remained silent.  "Well surely he respawned by now, right?"

Matthew pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to repress the onset of a migraine. "Would you stop shouting?"  

"Well where's his damned body then?  Speak up!" Lance slammed his fist down on the table. A few of the petrified members shifted from their stony positions.  They stared at Lance for the first time since he had entered the guildhall.  Two of the most skilled warriors and three of the best tanks were present.  Yet for some reason they chose to sit and warm benches rather than deploying to save a comrade in need.  "What's wrong with you guys?!" Lance searched the folds of his tunic and the hollow of his breastplate for a raise scroll without luck. "Look, just lend me a scroll and I'll go resurrect him myself."

"Lance... There's no point.  When his hit points dropped to zero his body completely vanished," said Matthew.

"Did you check his spawn point?" Lance frowned, subconsciously plunging both hands into his pockets in search of a cell phone.  It was not amongst the possessions that had transferred over, however, so there was no way to call an ambulance, the police, or even Andy's parents.

"The body wasn't there.  Believe me, we checked.  And nobody's seen him since.  We're afraid he might really be dead."

"Are you trying to tell me that we aren't immortal?"

"Based on what happened to Andy... we certainly don't seem to be..."

Lance closed his eyes.  It would be safer to stay in the guildhall from now on, or at least until they could figure out what was going on, but Andy had to be avenged. "Who killed him?" he asked at last.

"You won't believe me even if I tell you..."

"Just tell me already!"
   
"It was PhearzomHaxorXIII.  You know, the guy who offered the rebirth mode to us..."

Lance swallowed slowly and realized he was no longer able taste his own spit.  "Why would he do that..?"

"He told Andy to give over his helmet," Matthew explained, running his fingers through his unkempt hair.  "When Andy refused, Haxor speared him through the chest and swore he would do the same to us if we didn't spend all our time hunting rare treasures for him.  He's going to sell them online of course... to make a profit.  He left us Andy's loot as a reminder, and said that if we try to warn other players then we're all good as dead too.  See, he can still respawn because he hasn't transferred his consciousness into the system mainframe.  I don't think he even plans to."

Lance sank to his knees.  

"Lance, look, this isn't the best time to despair.  You said your sister plays games too, right?" Matthew asked.

"Yeah, lousy Facebook games..."

"Damn it!" Matthew kicked one of the table legs then plunked down in an empty chair, burying his face in his hands.  "Everyone is freaking out over this! I was... just hoping that we could find someone trustworthy who hasn't been, you know, reborn.  Maybe they could figure something out..."

"It'll be dangerous to leave the guild hall with so many player-killers about..."

"And Haxor will be back for sure.  We're basically his slaves now.  And if you thought university lectures were tedious then just picture spending the rest of your life running through the Orc caves searching for five-percent epic loot drops."

"That might have been tedious before," Lance replied grimly, "but the stakes are much higher now.  If only my sister Maria would log on..."  

Suddenly, as if in answer to Lance's wish, Maria's image flickered to life next to him.  It was a glitch that happened when someone tried to log into someone else's account.  Lance opened his mouth, but couldn't speak.  He continued to stand there with his mouth gaping open and shut like a broken garage door.  Maria's eyes focused on him and widened in horror.  She stepped back instinctively and vanished as quickly as she had appeared.  

"Maria!  Maria?" Lance called out, finally finding his voice again, but Maria was gone.  "Damn it!  Well, nothing to worry about really.  She must have recognized me..."

"Lance..."
  
"Maybe she'll come back..."

"But you're..."

"Shut up!  She has to!  Argh, why does everything always have to fuck up!?"  Lance raked his face with his stubby nails in frustration then realized, in horror, that they were scrapping against metal, not flesh.  He was still wearing the helmet; indeed, he had never bothered to remove it since he first logged on.  Maria had entered the holo-projector momentarily to switch it off, being the only one in the house with the knowledge to do so, and during that moment he had lost his one chance to communicate with the outside world; all because of the helmet.  Some forensics team was probably clearing his body off the virtual console ring now.  

Lance tore the helmet off and threw it on the ground.  "Maria?  Come back!"  

Nobody responded.  Worse yet, Lance could no longer weep tears of frustration and panic.  He was completely, utterly disconnected.