Once their looting seemed to be done, Slink was getting antsy again. The young alien was shifting from foot to foot. Shaggy thought he looked like a kid that wanted attention. He snorted when he realized he wasn't that far off.
"Can we go now?" Slink whined.
Shaggy shared a look with Ren and Vlad, who both sighed resignedly. “Sure. Lead the way, kid.”
Slink looked annoyed at being called a kid, but he took off with an enthusiasm Shaggy hadn’t seen from the young man. Slink led them up the street, past the abandoned vendors and into a nearby alley. In the alley, Slink stopped and looked around. Shaggy thought he was looking for a way up.
“Which building?” Shaggy asked, looking between the two squat twelve foot buildings on either side of him.
Slink’s annoyed look seemed to deepen as his surprise was apparently ruined, but he pointed toward the building on the far side. Nodding, Shaggy leapt up to the edge of the building’s roof and swung himself onto the roof. He turned around and stuck a hand down toward his friends.
Vlad just did his disappearing trick and reappeared next to Shaggy in a blur of movement. Ren was shaking his head as Slink was trying to jump up and catch Shaggy’s hand.
“I think I’ll wait down here. I don’t trust these houses to hold my weight.” Ren said.
Slink turned to the giant rhino-man. “Oh, come on! It’s sweet.”
“I’m sure it is, but we really should get out of here.” Ren said good-naturedly.
Slink snorted as Shaggy heard Vlad grunt from somewhere behind him. Turning, he saw Vlad standing over a small body. It looked like an alien of some type dressed in similar leathers as the other Red Coil gang members. Vlad bent over to loot the body as Shaggy called out to Slink and Ren down in the alley.
“This is what you wanted us to see, Slink? You capped the guy who was creating tentacles?”
“Hell yeah I did! Cheap bastard was hiding all by himself. Moe snuck up on him and bit his ass!” Slink cackled.
“Great. You did your damn job.” Vlad scoffed. “You want a cookie for doing what you’re supposed to?”
Shaggy gave Vlad a withering look as the mutant vampire stood up. Vlad shrugged as he held up several more vials of liquid and a small handheld device that looked like it was held together by tape and dreams. Shaggy sighed as he took the device and looked it over. After a quick search, he found a port that looked like it could take a credit chit.
“What did you say, you bargain basement vampire!?” Slink shouted from the alley.
Shaggy sighed again as he slipped the device into his pocket and gestured toward the alley. Vlad followed, looking unapologetic as they both went over the side of the building and landed on the dirt floor of the alley. Slink was staring daggers at Vlad as the vampire just glared back. Ren looked like he was ready to say something, but Shaggy waved him off.
“Let them have at it. We need to get this out of the way, anyway.”
Slink looked at Shaggy before turning an angry look back to Vlad. “Oh, so that’s what this is about? You fucks wanna kick me out of the group, huh?”
“You do nothing for the damn group in the first place!” Vlad shouted. “You start shit, then you hide, and we have to take care of your problems.”
“I found Under-Town!” Slink shouted back.
“Oh whoop-dee-fucking-doo! You did one thing right since we’ve known you. But besides that and this one instance, where you had to be ordered to find this fucking guy in the first place, what else have you contributed?”
Slink looked at Vlad angrily as Ren spoke up next to Shaggy. “Oh, come on, that’s not fair. We haven’t really done much since we got down here except for that other player’s job. Plus, he has already told us. He’s a scout, not a fighter.”
Shaggy nodded in agreement with Ren’s statement, but he also had to give his two credits. “Sure, but he can still help in a fight, even if he doesn’t want to get involved. Also, he was the reason for this whole situation in the first place. Sure, we got some good info from it, but it was literally something we could have avoided if he hadn’t stirred up shit.”
Slink growled loudly. “ARGGGH! We are fucking criminals! We can do what we want and fuck whoever wants to stop us!”
“No, we can’t. We are four decently powerful villains who don’t know they lay of the land. We got lucky that this was just a small-time gang, but if this had been a bigger syndicate, we’d have been fucked. Even if we had still won the fight!” Vlad explained.
“What the fuck are they going to do? We can just run away!” Slink snapped back.
“To where?” Shaggy asked. “Above ground? Apparently, several of these syndicates operate up there, too. Or would you have us all run away from Austin just cause you pissed off the wrong person?”
Slink huffed, unable to say anything. He looked to Ren for help and the large gray rhino-man shuffled before he spoke gently. “Look, no one is saying you can’t be the type of villain you want. You just have to think about how what you do affects the crew. What you do has consequences.”
“IT’S A FUCKING GAME!” Slink whined.
“A game run by one of the world’s greatest AIs. Capable of creating minor AIs to run various quest lines simultaneously. This game, like a couple of other VRMMOs, was created to be an actual living, breathing world or at least as close to one as we can get digitally. It will react to your decisions in real time and we will pay the price… again!” Vlad shouted back.
Slink huffed and then sighed again, rubbing a hand down his face. Shaggy thought he looked like he was about to cry. “Fine. Just… what do you want me to do?”
Shaggy shook his head. “That’s not the question, Slink. What do you wanna do?”
Slink threw up his hands. “I don’t know! I can’t fight! My friends abandoned me! I’ve never even…”
Slink cut himself off as he realized he might have said too much. Ren pulled himself away from the wall he was leaning on as Vlad stared in shock at the young man.
“Your friends abandoned you?”
“You’ve never what?”
Ren and Vlad’s questions overlapped each other as Slink sunk to the ground and Shaggy was sure he saw tears. He didn’t know the game would recreate that.
Slink blew out a breath before he spoke. “A couple of guys and girls from school asked if I was gonna be playing Modern Age Online. I didn’t even know what it was. I kept mostly to myself at school. So when they asked me, I thought they wanted to play together.”
Shaggy heard the boy sniffle a few times before he continued. “I begged my dad to get me a pod. I argued that we have plenty of money and it would help me make friends. The others at school helped me look up stuff, told me what race to pick, and even picked a place where we could all meet. I should have known they were all lying when Lindsey said she was excited to meet me in-game. She didn’t even know who I was before this whole mess.”
Vlad sighed as he looked over at Shaggy. It was apparent to both of them that neither of them had been prepared for this. Ren moved over and place a large hand on the boy’s shoulder. Speaking in a soft voice, he asked.
“Then what happened?”
Slink looked up, tear tracks staining his face, cocky sneer gone. “They were recording when we all logged in together. I showed up last and they all started laughing. Saying how it had all been a big joke, how they were just trying to see if they could get the spoiled little rich kid to spend his daddy’s money on something he would probably never use again. They all laughed as that fucking bastard, Ron Teileigh, said they wouldn’t be caught dead playing with a creepy little freak like me.”
Shaggy put the rest together in his head. “So you attacked him. They all stopped you and then turned you over to the police. That’s why you were in jail, wasn’t it?”
Slink just nodded as Vlad sighed loudly and leaned against the alley wall. “Why did you stay? I mean, why are you still playing?”
Slink shrugged. “I figured I could be a villain. This game seemed to let you choose how you wanted to play. So I figured I could get back at them later.”
He turned a petulant look toward Shaggy and Vlad as he continued. “I wasn’t gonna let them win. I was going to make them regret messing with me.”
Ren sighed loudly and kneeled next to Slink. “Yeah, you can stop that train of thought right now.”
“But…”
“No, but’s. You want to get back at them? Just enjoy the game.”
“Tsk.” Slink clicked his tongue and looked away.
“He’s right.” Shaggy added. “Don’t get me wrong, you could probably hunt them down and make them pay in-game, but then what? They’ll probably just treat you like shit outside of the game anyway, or let’s say you make their gaming experience so miserable that they quit. Then what do you think they’ll do to you outside of the game?”
“I haven’t even been to school since it happened. I don’t want them laughing at me.”
“Fuck them.” Vlad said simply. Slink shot a glare at him, ready to say something, but Vlad cut him off. “No dude. Fuck them! They are going to say shit whether or not you are there. Better to get an education and, at the same time, prove to them that what they did barely even annoyed you. Sure, the first few days are gonna suck, but after that, they’ll leave you alone.”
“Back to being alone again.” Slink muttered.
Ren glanced between Shaggy and Vlad before he said. “Sure, while at school. But in here you can make new friends, have some fun, and work on some revenge.”
Slink glanced between them all. “But you said…”
“I meant you shouldn’t take it too far. Grief them a few times then let it go.” Shaggy explained.
“Yeah, but I suck.” Slink said.
“Yeah, but you haven’t played a game before, have you?” Vlad asked, realization dawning on his face.
Slink cringed back, looking like he was stung by the words. Eventually, the young boy shook his head. Shaggy and Ren nodded understandingly as Vlad sighed loudly again. The vampire mutant rubbed his hands over his face a few times before he crouched next to Slink.
“What kind of experience do you have with games?”
Slink coughed awkwardly before he said. “I’ve played a few games on my wrist computer at school.”
Ren and Shaggy coughed at the same time as Vlad pinched his nose between his thumb and pointer finger. “So your only experience with games is mobile games on your wrist computer?”
Slink just nodded as he looked between them all. Shaggy and the others stared at each other before they all sighed and turned back to Slink, who winced under their collective gazes. Vlad stuck a hand under Slink’s arm and made to lift the boy up as gently as possible.
Shaggy shook his head as they moved toward the end of the alley. “Well boys, we have a noob that we just dumped into the deep end of the criminal pool.”
“That’s not too bad.” Ren said as they exited the alley and started walking toward the center of Under-Town again.
“We are definitely going to teach you how to fight, though.” Vlad said as he led Slink out of the alley by the arm.
Gone was Slink’s typical look of annoyance and usual snark. In its place was a normal teenager, who looked a little scared at the prospect of having to fight. Shaggy felt for the kid. Getting used to the realism of VR was a head trip for a lot of first-timers. It could be scary if you didn’t learn to separate reality from the game.
“Don’t worry.” Ren said. “First, we’ll get you to lower the pain tolerance levels on your pod. It’s easier to fight when the hits don’t hurt as bad.”
“Can’t we just turn them off?” Slink asked.
Vlad shook his head. “That can cause even bigger problems later. Players get a little too gung-ho when they don’t have to worry about pain.”
“And you already have that problem.” Shaggy snickered.
Slink’s face grew red. “I was trying to act like a criminal. Y’know, uncaring, unfeeling, cool under pressure.”
All three of them stopped and stared at the young, pale alien. Vlad was still holding on to Slink, so he was also brought up short as Vlad stopped. They all stared at each other until Vlad, Shaggy and Ren all just shook their heads and continued walking. Slink looked like he wanted to ask something, but Shaggy cut him off.
“You are also going to learn everything you can about your race. What they can do, how you train your abilities, and how the other aliens view your race. It’s always good to know how the in-game factions will react to your very presence.”
Slink looked between all three of them as they continued down the now crowded streets of Under-Town. He sighed before he asked.
“Why are you even helping me? I’m just a noob.”
Ren shrugged. “We’re gamers. It’s what we do.”
“It’s what some of us do. There is always the occasional asshole.” Shaggy added, chuckling.
Vlad simply nodded as he let go of Slink and continued walking as the top of the arena came into view. Vlad sighed as he spoke, still not looking at Slink.
“Plus gaming is awesome, and you got a raw deal when your shitty classmates introduced you to it.” Vlad turned and swept his long black cloak, which was still covered in grime and trash from his log-in, around and adopted his vampire accent. “Please allow a couple of old-hands show you how great games can be.”
“Who the hell are you calling old, Vamps?” Shaggy muttered as Ren snorted a laugh.
Once their looting seemed to be done, Slink was getting antsy again. The young alien was shifting from foot to foot. Shaggy thought he looked like a kid that wanted attention. He snorted when he realized he wasn't that far off.
"Can we go now?" Slink whined.
Shaggy shared a look with Ren and Vlad, who both sighed resignedly. “Sure. Lead the way, kid.”
Slink looked annoyed at being called a kid, but he took off with an enthusiasm Shaggy hadn’t seen from the young man. Slink led them up the street, past the abandoned vendors and into a nearby alley. In the alley, Slink stopped and looked around. Shaggy thought he was looking for a way up.
“Which building?” Shaggy asked, looking between the two squat twelve foot buildings on either side of him.
Slink’s annoyed look seemed to deepen as his surprise was apparently ruined, but he pointed toward the building on the far side. Nodding, Shaggy leapt up to the edge of the building’s roof and swung himself onto the roof. He turned around and stuck a hand down toward his friends.
Vlad just did his disappearing trick and reappeared next to Shaggy in a blur of movement. Ren was shaking his head as Slink was trying to jump up and catch Shaggy’s hand.
“I think I’ll wait down here. I don’t trust these houses to hold my weight.” Ren said.
Slink turned to the giant rhino-man. “Oh, come on! It’s sweet.”
“I’m sure it is, but we really should get out of here.” Ren said good-naturedly.
Slink snorted as Shaggy heard Vlad grunt from somewhere behind him. Turning, he saw Vlad standing over a small body. It looked like an alien of some type dressed in similar leathers as the other Red Coil gang members. Vlad bent over to loot the body as Shaggy called out to Slink and Ren down in the alley.
“This is what you wanted us to see, Slink? You capped the guy who was creating tentacles?”
“Hell yeah I did! Cheap bastard was hiding all by himself. Moe snuck up on him and bit his ass!” Slink cackled.
“Great. You did your damn job.” Vlad scoffed. “You want a cookie for doing what you’re supposed to?”
Shaggy gave Vlad a withering look as the mutant vampire stood up. Vlad shrugged as he held up several more vials of liquid and a small handheld device that looked like it was held together by tape and dreams. Shaggy sighed as he took the device and looked it over. After a quick search, he found a port that looked like it could take a credit chit.
“What did you say, you bargain basement vampire!?” Slink shouted from the alley.
Shaggy sighed again as he slipped the device into his pocket and gestured toward the alley. Vlad followed, looking unapologetic as they both went over the side of the building and landed on the dirt floor of the alley. Slink was staring daggers at Vlad as the vampire just glared back. Ren looked like he was ready to say something, but Shaggy waved him off.
“Let them have at it. We need to get this out of the way, anyway.”
Slink looked at Shaggy before turning an angry look back to Vlad. “Oh, so that’s what this is about? You fucks wanna kick me out of the group, huh?”
“You do nothing for the damn group in the first place!” Vlad shouted. “You start shit, then you hide, and we have to take care of your problems.”
“I found Under-Town!” Slink shouted back.
“Oh whoop-dee-fucking-doo! You did one thing right since we’ve known you. But besides that and this one instance, where you had to be ordered to find this fucking guy in the first place, what else have you contributed?”
Slink looked at Vlad angrily as Ren spoke up next to Shaggy. “Oh, come on, that’s not fair. We haven’t really done much since we got down here except for that other player’s job. Plus, he has already told us. He’s a scout, not a fighter.”
Shaggy nodded in agreement with Ren’s statement, but he also had to give his two credits. “Sure, but he can still help in a fight, even if he doesn’t want to get involved. Also, he was the reason for this whole situation in the first place. Sure, we got some good info from it, but it was literally something we could have avoided if he hadn’t stirred up shit.”
Slink growled loudly. “ARGGGH! We are fucking criminals! We can do what we want and fuck whoever wants to stop us!”
“No, we can’t. We are four decently powerful villains who don’t know they lay of the land. We got lucky that this was just a small-time gang, but if this had been a bigger syndicate, we’d have been fucked. Even if we had still won the fight!” Vlad explained.
“What the fuck are they going to do? We can just run away!” Slink snapped back.
“To where?” Shaggy asked. “Above ground? Apparently, several of these syndicates operate up there, too. Or would you have us all run away from Austin just cause you pissed off the wrong person?”
Slink huffed, unable to say anything. He looked to Ren for help and the large gray rhino-man shuffled before he spoke gently. “Look, no one is saying you can’t be the type of villain you want. You just have to think about how what you do affects the crew. What you do has consequences.”
“IT’S A FUCKING GAME!” Slink whined.
“A game run by one of the world’s greatest AIs. Capable of creating minor AIs to run various quest lines simultaneously. This game, like a couple of other VRMMOs, was created to be an actual living, breathing world or at least as close to one as we can get digitally. It will react to your decisions in real time and we will pay the price… again!” Vlad shouted back.
Slink huffed and then sighed again, rubbing a hand down his face. Shaggy thought he looked like he was about to cry. “Fine. Just… what do you want me to do?”
Shaggy shook his head. “That’s not the question, Slink. What do you wanna do?”
Slink threw up his hands. “I don’t know! I can’t fight! My friends abandoned me! I’ve never even…”
Slink cut himself off as he realized he might have said too much. Ren pulled himself away from the wall he was leaning on as Vlad stared in shock at the young man.
“Your friends abandoned you?”
“You’ve never what?”
Ren and Vlad’s questions overlapped each other as Slink sunk to the ground and Shaggy was sure he saw tears. He didn’t know the game would recreate that.
Slink blew out a breath before he spoke. “A couple of guys and girls from school asked if I was gonna be playing Modern Age Online. I didn’t even know what it was. I kept mostly to myself at school. So when they asked me, I thought they wanted to play together.”
Shaggy heard the boy sniffle a few times before he continued. “I begged my dad to get me a pod. I argued that we have plenty of money and it would help me make friends. The others at school helped me look up stuff, told me what race to pick, and even picked a place where we could all meet. I should have known they were all lying when Lindsey said she was excited to meet me in-game. She didn’t even know who I was before this whole mess.”
Vlad sighed as he looked over at Shaggy. It was apparent to both of them that neither of them had been prepared for this. Ren moved over and place a large hand on the boy’s shoulder. Speaking in a soft voice, he asked.
“Then what happened?”
Slink looked up, tear tracks staining his face, cocky sneer gone. “They were recording when we all logged in together. I showed up last and they all started laughing. Saying how it had all been a big joke, how they were just trying to see if they could get the spoiled little rich kid to spend his daddy’s money on something he would probably never use again. They all laughed as that fucking bastard, Ron Teileigh, said they wouldn’t be caught dead playing with a creepy little freak like me.”
Shaggy put the rest together in his head. “So you attacked him. They all stopped you and then turned you over to the police. That’s why you were in jail, wasn’t it?”
Slink just nodded as Vlad sighed loudly and leaned against the alley wall. “Why did you stay? I mean, why are you still playing?”
Slink shrugged. “I figured I could be a villain. This game seemed to let you choose how you wanted to play. So I figured I could get back at them later.”
He turned a petulant look toward Shaggy and Vlad as he continued. “I wasn’t gonna let them win. I was going to make them regret messing with me.”
Ren sighed loudly and kneeled next to Slink. “Yeah, you can stop that train of thought right now.”
“But…”
“No, but’s. You want to get back at them? Just enjoy the game.”
“Tsk.” Slink clicked his tongue and looked away.
“He’s right.” Shaggy added. “Don’t get me wrong, you could probably hunt them down and make them pay in-game, but then what? They’ll probably just treat you like shit outside of the game anyway, or let’s say you make their gaming experience so miserable that they quit. Then what do you think they’ll do to you outside of the game?”
“I haven’t even been to school since it happened. I don’t want them laughing at me.”
“Fuck them.” Vlad said simply. Slink shot a glare at him, ready to say something, but Vlad cut him off. “No dude. Fuck them! They are going to say shit whether or not you are there. Better to get an education and, at the same time, prove to them that what they did barely even annoyed you. Sure, the first few days are gonna suck, but after that, they’ll leave you alone.”
“Back to being alone again.” Slink muttered.
Ren glanced between Shaggy and Vlad before he said. “Sure, while at school. But in here you can make new friends, have some fun, and work on some revenge.”
Slink glanced between them all. “But you said…”
“I meant you shouldn’t take it too far. Grief them a few times then let it go.” Shaggy explained.
“Yeah, but I suck.” Slink said.
“Yeah, but you haven’t played a game before, have you?” Vlad asked, realization dawning on his face.
Slink cringed back, looking like he was stung by the words. Eventually, the young boy shook his head. Shaggy and Ren nodded understandingly as Vlad sighed loudly again. The vampire mutant rubbed his hands over his face a few times before he crouched next to Slink.
“What kind of experience do you have with games?”
Slink coughed awkwardly before he said. “I’ve played a few games on my wrist computer at school.”
Ren and Shaggy coughed at the same time as Vlad pinched his nose between his thumb and pointer finger. “So your only experience with games is mobile games on your wrist computer?”
Slink just nodded as he looked between them all. Shaggy and the others stared at each other before they all sighed and turned back to Slink, who winced under their collective gazes. Vlad stuck a hand under Slink’s arm and made to lift the boy up as gently as possible.
Shaggy shook his head as they moved toward the end of the alley. “Well boys, we have a noob that we just dumped into the deep end of the criminal pool.”
“That’s not too bad.” Ren said as they exited the alley and started walking toward the center of Under-Town again.
“We are definitely going to teach you how to fight, though.” Vlad said as he led Slink out of the alley by the arm.
Gone was Slink’s typical look of annoyance and usual snark. In its place was a normal teenager, who looked a little scared at the prospect of having to fight. Shaggy felt for the kid. Getting used to the realism of VR was a head trip for a lot of first-timers. It could be scary if you didn’t learn to separate reality from the game.
“Don’t worry.” Ren said. “First, we’ll get you to lower the pain tolerance levels on your pod. It’s easier to fight when the hits don’t hurt as bad.”
“Can’t we just turn them off?” Slink asked.
Vlad shook his head. “That can cause even bigger problems later. Players get a little too gung-ho when they don’t have to worry about pain.”
“And you already have that problem.” Shaggy snickered.
Slink’s face grew red. “I was trying to act like a criminal. Y’know, uncaring, unfeeling, cool under pressure.”
All three of them stopped and stared at the young, pale alien. Vlad was still holding on to Slink, so he was also brought up short as Vlad stopped. They all stared at each other until Vlad, Shaggy and Ren all just shook their heads and continued walking. Slink looked like he wanted to ask something, but Shaggy cut him off.
“You are also going to learn everything you can about your race. What they can do, how you train your abilities, and how the other aliens view your race. It’s always good to know how the in-game factions will react to your very presence.”
Slink looked between all three of them as they continued down the now crowded streets of Under-Town. He sighed before he asked.
“Why are you even helping me? I’m just a noob.”
Ren shrugged. “We’re gamers. It’s what we do.”
“It’s what some of us do. There is always the occasional asshole.” Shaggy added, chuckling.
Vlad simply nodded as he let go of Slink and continued walking as the top of the arena came into view. Vlad sighed as he spoke, still not looking at Slink.
“Plus gaming is awesome, and you got a raw deal when your shitty classmates introduced you to it.” Vlad turned and swept his long black cloak, which was still covered in grime and trash from his log-in, around and adopted his vampire accent. “Please allow a couple of old-hands show you how great games can be.”
“Who the hell are you calling old, Vamps?” Shaggy muttered as Ren snorted a laugh.
