Top Level Player, page 8
The crowd started to lose interest, slipping back into the low drone of conversation when the hissing vanished with a burst of radio-station switching and the first riff of “Black Betty” replaced it. The thug looked down at the boombox, which slowly rose back up out of the crowd. He then turned to the bar, where Leet was clumsily climbing out from behind the bar.
“Hey! Bruiser!” he barked. “No one touches my boombox!”
He grabbed an ice bucket from the bar, dumped it on his head like a helmet, and bounded across the tables toward his foe. The man wound up for yet another one-hit knockdown, but Leet vaulted instead off the shoulder of one of the other patrons and soared up above the crowd. He came down headfirst on the man’s nose and mouth, driving his full bodyweight into the bucket-assisted headbutt. Both men collapsed to the ground. Leet was the first to get up. When the other man did, he grimaced and spat a tooth to the ground. Leet picked it up with a crazed look on his face.
“Ha! See! Mission accomplished! I win!” He pulled a zipper bag from his pocket, filled with other teeth, and dropped it inside. “More teeth for Motif!”
The thug didn’t agree with Leet’s assessment. He grabbed him by the head, marched to the front of the establishment, and hurled him through the window. The boombox did an impressively good job of looking sheepish given its lack of facial features as it followed through the broken window.
With that, the spell was broken and the place went back to business.
“That’s our guy,” LP said.
“What? First of all, in what way was that at all Dirk Benedict-like or Bradley Cooper-esque? And second, he lost,” Jazz said.
“I mean, technically he said he’d knock a tooth out and he did,” Didi said.
“The purpose of a fight is to win the fight,” Jazz countered.
“Sure, but if you can’t win, you should at least look cooler while you’re losing,” Didi said.
“And that was super cool,” LP added.
“Granted, it had a good soundtrack, but I’m not sold on the idea. We don’t even know if he’s looking for a party. Let’s put him on the maybe pile while we sift through the job listings, okay?”
“I’ll get his contact info!” Laurel said.
“No, you don’t have to—” Jazz objected, but the overeager PDA had already buzzed out the window.
It took the better part of five minutes to find a booth both large and intact enough for them to gather in. Then another few minutes to gather the napkins necessary to soak up the remnants of whatever swill the previous occupants had been drinking. LP acquired a bowl of pretzels and casually snacked. After a conspicuous glance at the clock, he slid the bowl in front of Doodad to graze on.
Early indications from the pile of listings weren’t encouraging.
“Am I reading this wrong? Does this say ‘Find the Holy Grail’?” Jazz said.
“How much are they willing to pay?” LP asked.
Didi leaned aside to scope it out.
“One hundred thousand PTs,” she said.
“Not bad.”
“Isn’t that notoriously impossible to get, though?” Didi asked.
“Couldn’t be that hard. Indiana Jones found it,” LP reasoned.
“We’re not looking for the holy grail,” Jazz said. “This person wants thirty wolf pelts for ten thousand tokens.”
“Ugh, pass,” Didi said. “It’s a good paycheck but there’s nothing more tedious than farming common mobs.”
Jazz shut her eyes and set down the stack of pages for a moment.
“Okay, I’m sorry, but can someone please explain why the best thing anyone could come up with for a digital afterlife was to make it into an MMO?”
“I would be ever so happy to answer that!” Laurel said.
“Why am I not surprised,” Didi muttered.
“You know you can fiddle with the settings to make her less chipper,” LP said.
Jazz held up a hand. “Let her talk.”
“The After-Image is largely sculpted by player feedback. This is in the literal sense in the form of surveys and in automatic, autonomic feedback as a result of co-processing between the world and the collective consciousnesses has produced this result. People expected and desired it, and so it became reality.”
“People wanted to be farming resources and grinding levels?”
“It’s sort of what happens in real life anyway. At least this way there’s numbers,” LP said.
“If I was in charge, I can tell you for sure this isn’t how things would have been,” Jazz said.
She flipped through a few more pages. One of them was particularly dusty.
“Jeez. How old is this one?”
“Careful. Sometimes people forget they posted jobs after a while and then they’ll stiff you upon completion,” Didi said. “Had that happen one too many times.”
“What are they looking for?”
“Something called a Roland TR-808. They’re willing to pay half a million tokens for it. Even split four ways, that’s a pretty good deal. Depending on how hard it is to get.”
“Oh, I can tell you where to get it.”
They turned to find Leet, mostly recovered from his scuffle, standing at the edge of the table.
“How did you get back in here?” Jazz asked.
“How are you still walking?” LP asked.
“The answer to both questions is ‘I am DJ Leet Motif.’ Nothing can keep me down, and nothing can keep me out. I’ve got the music on my side. And the music always knows what’s what. So, you want to know where to get the Roland TR-808 or what?”
“What even is it?” LP asked.
“What even is it? It’s the Roland TR-808! It’s the first drum machine to make a splash. It’s the backbeat of the eighties!”
“So it’s a piece of mass-produced music hardware?” Jazz said. “Why would someone be willing to pay five hundred thousand tokens for it? Is it rare?”
“They’re not asking for a Roland TR-808. They’re asking for the Roland TR-808. We’re in a simulation, and that thing existed in reality. When you try to program something from the real world into a simulation, it takes skill and finesse to make it capture the essence of the original. For any given reproduction, there’s only ever one that’s real enough to be the version of it. You dig?”
“But couldn’t they just make copies of that one?” Jazz said.
“You could, but they’d just be copies of that one.”
“But they’re copies.”
“Yeah, as in not the original.” Leet glanced at the others. “Am I stuttering or something?”
Didi placed a hand on Jazz’s arm. “You’ll understand once you’ve been here a while. Some things are just… quintessential. It’s hard to explain, but couldn’t be more clear once you’ve encountered it.”
“So where can we get the Roland TR-808?”
“That little goodie happens to be in the possession of a collector in NEMNUT-2G.”
Didi rolled her eyes. “Ugh. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go back there anytime soon.”
“What’s NEM—” Jazz began.
Laurel burst in front of her. “NEMNUT-2G is the official name of one of the more popular hubs in The After-Image. It is an acronym for New Exo Mega Neo Ultra Tokyo 2 Gaiden.”
“So… it’s a place where people originally from Tokyo made a new place for themselves?” Jazz said.
“No, that’d be ‘New Tokyo,’” Didi said.
“It’s really nice, you should visit. Super friendly people,” LP said brightly. “It takes forever to figure out if they don’t like you.”
“So what’s… NEMNUT, was it?”
“NEMNUT-2G is a haven for aficionados of the modern Japanese expression of several traditional and neo-traditional art-forms including animation, music, and video games.”
“It’s Anime-Ville,” Leet said.
“I suppose I should have guessed that.”
“Yeah, there’s a guy there, huge collection. But we can probably convince him to part with the Roland. Maybe he’s willing to sell it. Maybe he’s willing to trade. He likes to keep the collection fresh, so there’s always stuff getting swapped in and out.”
“So why hasn’t anyone taken this job? And more to the point, why hasn’t the person who made the request just contacted the person who has it directly?” Jazz asked.
“It was up in the corner of the bulletin board, behind three other things. Other people clearly don’t have nearly as effective PDAs,” Laurel explained. “It was probably there for ages waiting for someone thorough to look for it.”
“And maybe he/she/they/it is just lazy? Didn’t want to look, or to negotiate with the guy,” Leet said. “Maybe they are on the outs with the guy and that’s why they’re doing it as a dark task. Who cares? Easy money! So what do you say? Am I on the team?”
“I like him. He’s got a radio. I still haven’t sprung for a radio in the Warthog,” LP said. “Makes up for him not being anything like Faceman.”
“He dropped in right when we needed him, and had info we needed. The Algorithm is giving us a sign,” Didi said.
“I guess you’re in,” Jazz said.
“Okay, great! Hands in,” Didi said.
She held out her hand. LP and Leet slapped their hands down on top. Jazz imitated.
“Objective Complete: Form a Party. Objective Complete: Tutorial 101. Level up! You are now Level 1. New Ability: Inter-Hub Transit!” Laurel said triumphantly. “Incoming reward.”
The fairy held out her hand to conjure the envelope. Jazz grabbed it.
“Now that you have leveled up, you have earned five attribute points to assign. You can also choose a class which—”
“Later, Laurel. You know what, guys? Drinks are on me!”
“I’ll remind you,” Laurel said quietly.
“Aw, yeah,” Leet said. “Red Bull and vodka for the win. Who wants what?”
“Arnold Palmer,” LP said. “I’m driving, after all.”
“Ask if they have a diet raspberry iced tea. Otherwise, just a regular iced tea, unsweetened,” Jazz said.
“Coffee, light and sweet,” Didi said.
“Nothing for me thanks,” Laurel said. “That cupcake was very filling.”
Leet vanished into the crowd. LP rubbed his hands together.
“I can’t wait to get moving. I’ve been hanging around Tutorial Lobby for weeks. It’ll be nice to go inter-hub for a while.”
“What were you doing in Tutorial Junction anyway? You look to be about Level 17,” Didi said.
“I’m sick of streaming. I used to do the full-time stream thing and… let’s just say I’m not proud of everything I got up to during that time. I paid a fortune getting the streaming agreement nullified and I’m really not interested in falling down that rabbit hole again.”
“I didn’t even know you could get out of that agreement,” Didi said.
“Neither did I, and I’m the reference manual,” Laurel said.
“If you’ve got enough money and enough lawyers, you can get out of anything. It cost me. Most of my money and all of my prior identity, except for prestige progress. Suffice to say, I’ve been working the gig economy hard since then, and one little death costs you weeks or months of freedom while you’re recertifying, or else you’re cleaning out the bank account to skip the recertification. So I try to avoid being in situations where I can die with serious consequences, and in Tutorial Lobby you’re mostly dealing with people who are themselves recertifying, and thus don’t re-trigger the whole mess if they kill you.”
Jazz considered his words. “Let me get this straight. You spend all of your time running errands in Tutorial Lobby, because if you didn’t, you might get killed and end up spending all of your time running errands in Tutorial Lobby.”
“It’s about me deciding to do a thing versus someone else deciding it for me,” LP said.
Jazz nodded. “I can respect that. So… you say we’re driving. Can’t we just fast-travel there?”
“No. It doesn’t work that way over long distances. Remember, we’re all data on servers. An awful lot of it, by the way. We’re dragging around petabytes of data on top of our own executables whenever we move, and if you’re moving to a different server, it takes time. More time than a fast-travel, that’s for sure. So you can either step into a fast-travel and wait until the transfer is complete, or else travel your own way. Again, if it comes down to me doing something on my terms or someone else’s, I’ll take the steering wheel, thank you very much.”
“So how long will it take us to get to NEMNUT?”
“Roundabout eight hours, I’d say.”
“Eight hours in that dune buggy of yours?”
“You’ve never been through the Procedural Space. As far as I’m concerned, on four wheels with the top down is the only way to see it.”
She considered asking what Procedural Space was, but it felt like the sort of thing that would produce one of Laurel’s outbursts, so she decided to take the “wait and see” approach. Instead, she took the unpopular step of potentially pooping on everyone’s parade.
“Oh, listen. How do we check to see if this job is even still good?”
“Doodad, hand me my communicator,” LP said in an official tone. “Also, lay off the pretzels.”
The well-bundled PDA reached into the pocket of its rain slicker and produced the oldest cell phone Jazz had ever seen. It looked like someone had painted a brick gray and stuck an antenna on the end.
He slid the paper over and tapped out something on the keypad. It certainly wasn’t a phone number, because there was no number listed on the page. Regardless, after a moment or two, LP nodded and gave the thumbs up.
“It’s ringing. … Hello, yes. Is this… Beebop_Swing_Mama_81? Yeah, I’m at a shady tavern and we’ve got a posting here that says you’re looking for the Roland TR-808. … Yes, I suppose it has been a while. Is that job still good? … Well, yeah, assuming we can get it, we’d deliver it personally or drop it off wherever you want. … Okay, great! Hopefully you’ll be hearing from us soon.” He ended the call. “We’re good to go. Seemed like it was an older lady. Says the job’s good so long as we drop off the goods at her drop box. She’ll give us the address when we’re through.”
“Drinks!” Leet announced, marching back to the table and sliding in next to LP. “What’s the word? We doing this thing?”
“We are.”
“Rock! Okay, so. All we need now is a name. How about DJ Leet and the Backbeats.”
“Why would you get top billing?”
“I’m the one who knows where to get the goods! And besides, I think we can all agree I’m the one who’s got the protagonist vibes out of this group.”
“We’re sort of doing this mostly because of Jazz,” LP countered. “She showed up without knowing what’s going on, she’s the one who has the best motivation. Seems like she’s the one with the football on this one.”
Didi nodded. “She saved me from falling off a building. That’s a fairly ‘protag’ move.”
“Is this really a discussion we’re having?” Jazz asked. “We’re all the hero of our own story, right?”
“Yeah, which is why we’re trying to establish whose story it is,” Leet said. “Tell you what. We’ll split the difference. DJ Leet and the Jazz Band.”
“Hey,” LP said. “The Jazz Band has a ring to it.”
“DJ Leet and the Jazz Band,” Leet said quickly.
“Yeah, it works on a couple levels. Jazz Band. I like it,” Didi said.
“Come on, guys! Don’t forget the DJ Leet part.”
“You know what? I’m excited! Let’s get the Jazz Band on the road!” LP said.
“DJ Leet and the—”
“Yeah, let’s go!” Didi said.
“That’s cold, guys…”
LP handed his drink to Doodad, who slipped it behind his back to vanish it into an unseen inventory. Didi, though hers was an open-topped coffee cup, dropped hers into her tiny little clutch without a second thought. Jazz, somewhat more reluctantly, lowered her tumbler into her large lab coat pocket. It slipped easily inside and, once it was fully concealed, left not so much as a lump to betray its position. No spill, no stain.
“A girl could get used to endless pockets,” Jazz said.
“Not endless,” LP said. “Just disproportionate. But yeah, it’s handy. Trust me, you might feel iffy right now, but you’re going to love it here. It’s like life with the edges smoothed over and the volume turned up. Good times!”
Chapter 5
Jazz gazed through her goggles at the countryside whipping past. She was glad she hadn’t asked what Procedural Space was. Experienced as LP and the others were, somehow she doubted they would have been able to piece together an explanation that would have preserved the sheer splendor of it. Or, at least, the sheer spectacle of its creation.
In all honesty, the landscape itself was unbelievably bland. A perfectly level, perfectly smooth field of medium gray with black gridlines subdividing it. The sky was a field of lighter gray with white gridlines, though sweeps and swirls of aurora-like color splashes made for interesting features now and again. But that boring, placeholder of a landscape only held for the middle ground. In the distance, gleaming points of half-visible skyline hinted at the hubs they were heading to. And nearby? Well, that was worth the trip all on its own.
The countryside was crafting itself around them. A few miles ahead, trees and a quaint gravel road formed, weaving in a gentle, sweeping motion toward them and then receding back into the baseline landscape behind them. It was like they were driving through the darkness holding a lantern, except instead of light revealing what was already there, their proximity was creating things to see. Trees sprung up and uncoiled, growing in fractal complexity until they looked precisely like their real-life counterparts. There were even animals, a deer here and a red squirrel there, watching in interest as the military vehicle slung gravel on its journey. Then they just scampered back into the trees, which were simply unmade. The growth and decline of the landscape brought to mind the pictures AI would draw when given all of the images on the internet as reference, though with considerably fewer unexplained dog noses and eyeballs. Just a progressively larger and more treelike shape that eventually was a perfect tree, and then the same in reverse.
