Gaming Life
An attractive woman in her mid 30s is skiing in the alps on a beautiful day. She looks over lovingly at a man skiing beside her… and he beams back at her. As she is distracted by him, she cuts an edge and falls. Her temple cracks hard on a rock everything goes black.
a pin of light spreads into a cone… she sees a tunnel of light… winged angels descend on her…
they hold her arms and gently she is lifted weightlessly towards a bright light. As clouds begin to disperse, she finds herself surrounded by familiar people…
“Mom? Dad? Grandpa?… uncle Sparty?” she says groggily.
“dear… ” says her mother with a glowing look of pride, joy, and tears in her eyes “…you” she pauses and beams with happiness “you have to go back… it’s not your time. I am here and always with you, I am so proud of you and the life you are living.”
“mom no… i want to stay with you.”
“Susan” her father says “you have such an incredible life… a family who love you and needs you, it’s not your time yet. Cherish this life with all of your heart, find happiness in every moment you can” Mother nervously looks up at him
“i know Daddy… I’ll go…i love you, and I miss you all so much” she says. The angels lift her weightless form away as she reaches for her mom and begins to descend back into the tunnel of light
“live a happy life… love with all your soul” says mom as she begins to drift from sight
“and she could use a few more orgasms honestly” says her father in a somewhat inappropriate tone to her mother.
As a puzzled look falls across Susan’s face she is carried down by an angel who shakes his head with a look of warning and disapproval at the father. As the angels turn Susan away the Angel with the disapproving look tosses a small, yellow, weighted flag, pulled from the back of his belt at her father’s feet.
Her mother responds with an angry look, and pulling her arm out of the crux of his inner elbow she stomps a foot angrily, “what the hell Kevin!”
Susan’s mother fades off in white smoke while she is carried through the clouds and Susan opens her eyes in the snow, her head throbbing and dripping blood… her worried husband is huddled over her…
From her family’s point of view Susan’s life is now being viewed in first person as if through an open window so three dimensional they could reach into it. They observe her waking through her eyes from her perspective. Her vision has just made a curved 3D television screen hovering in the heavenly world she just left… time starts moving like time lapse photography through the screen of Susan’s eyes. Her mother, grandfather, and uncle stand around the screen… all 3 of them glaring at Kevin from the other side of this window into Susan’s high speed life. Ski patrol is tending to her and strapping her to a board with a helicopter overhead… the brightness of this heavenly scene begins to darken and contrast picks up as white background smoke is sucked away into dark vents in the floor. The scenery around the group has faded.
They stand in a large purple carpeted circle with purple railings that runs around a bright white, lit walled, circular shaft descending into a white abyss below. These glowing circles repeat, going off in an expanse, with several large white circular shafts in the floor surrounded by railings. Sections of this massive stadium are divided into quadrants of many different colors. Each ring with several winged humanoids wearing the colors of their ring, standing around the railings. Surrounding the white shafts are arrays of curved screens suspended from the warehouse height ceiling, including the one featuring Susan’s life, which is now moving in ultra high speed. With the smoke cleared it becomes apparent that the screen hangs from highly mobile, suspended crane-like apparatus, designed to move the screens around weightless by grabbing them.
The 4 people that were once Susan’s family, though they clearly remain the same individuals with similar features, all begin to flicker and change. Longer faces and larger eyes, with broader cheekbones than what would make them appear human. As a digital holographic façade around them begins to pixelate and vanish, they quickly age backwards. They are wearing mechanical lightweight armor that appears to be like that of an athlete, plastic plating, but clearly designed for agility of movement. Each of these humanoids walk comfortably with their white feathered wings, resting behind them like a tall feathered cape.
“holy shit Kevin” says the young woman who was just called Mom by Susan
“What!?” Susan’s Dad, now a brown haired early 20 something responds
A calm male voice answers from behind Kevin, “You know what ass-hat, you just got the squad a warning foul” says old grandpa quietly with less anger than Mom. He is now a man of about 30 years of age, in excellent shape with short sandy hair. He is clearly the oldest in the group. A thin 18 year old blond boy stands silently outside the three observing the conversation. Grandpa reaches over Kevin’s shoulder and pushes a button on the holographic display beside the screen.
All four standing relaxed at the purple railing are in matching purple color gear, looking into the large white glowing tunnel with a huge black bundle of dangling machinery and electronics dipping into the center from the ceiling like a mechanical sea creature, it’s arms reaching outward holding screens. The screens hanging all around the pit all displaying high speed movement in the first person.
“you want to get scores this round wiped for our squad, keep it up you fucking idiot” says the woman who was mom, as she pushes hard past Kevin bumping into him to get around the railing and slapping him in the face with a white wing somewhat inadvertently. She starts walking angrily away from him. The group follows her and walk a short way around the pit, they pass another screen/window into the world, and on their way following, they pass another angelic figure in purple gear. The blond once called “uncle Sparty” gives a friendly pat on the shoulder of the stranger as they pass him. Sparty is now an attractive spindly yet strong 18 year old boy.
“Stacy”… Kevin says, then pauses and looks at the woman known to Susan as Mom, she promptly stops storming away, but doesn’t turn. “look…” he continues “in this round I was pretty open with her about sex and had a good sense of humor, I can defend the comment with the Angels if I had to, it was just a warning… I can argue it’s something I would have said as her dad. I think we can get away with it if anyone disputes the warning with the Angels and asks for a full foul, and that’s IF someone calls the Near Death Experience for review. They didn’t immediately foul Susan out when I said it, they would have thrown a red if the Angel on sight believed it was a full infraction. It was just a warning, which honestly, considering her only pleasure is a 2 week fucking vacation a year right now, wouldn’t have been a bad loss if we can play her again this round. Can you please just trust me and let me do my thing?”
“Fuck that Kevin” She says as she turns on her heels “you know how bad this round has sucked for us. We can’t afford the loss of time XP alone from a DQ life ending event at 36. You just took a huge risk in a round where I spent 7 years slowly dying of cancer… not much pleasure points earned there, plus it SUCKED for me”
“sucked for me too… I was your husband”…
“wow… just… wow” Stacy bemoans, clearly exhausted, angry and annoyed.
“hey I was supportive. I’m the reason we pulled happiness points for a lot of those years… and pleasure points from them too. Even when you were bald and miserable we had a ton of sex. Did I not cheer you up a lot?” argues Kevin
“I know Kev…” she relaxes her shoulders and pauses to think, she places a hand on his on the shoulder with a deep breath and an exhale. It is clear they are long time, close friends. Stacy speaks calmly now “But seriously this skirting the razor edge with obvious rule breaks thing you do, you are pushing limits. That could have cost us a major penalty for a 4th wall breach during an N.D.E. You know how hard they can come down on a team for that shit, especially if Susan starts to question the game itself now through reality-cognition? You still might have ended Susan’s life back there with that comment, if she remembers it clearly in reinsertion and causes a dramatic spike in orgasm pleasure acting on it, we could go for Angelic review, and your yellow could end up with a full red flag foul.”
“She won’t cause a spike above NDE standards, not enough to cause a review. Susan’s a natural pro, I know her cognition rating is high but she has never cogged out of a game” Kevin assures her.
“Kevin we boosted her cognition numbers really high, remember? She could become aware. It’s Susan man… her cognition retention is off the charts already, I was worried she would join a spiritual cult this round. She was the squad leader when we planned the rotation. I know you weren’t remembering her insertion tuning when you made that comment. Worst case if they red flag you in review and we get a full round DQ, they could pull the squad. We could also lose you for years for the penalty and can’t sync lives for another round… you know we need you in there now no matter how this ends. We are in the tech storm. Nuclear apocalypse, singularity, AI overrunning mankind, plague, maybe we go into overtime but honestly right now no matter how this goes, we need you in play. Was it worth that risk? It might take us 60 real-time minutes to reinsert if they foul her out, centuries of e-time Kev” she shakes her head. “We were lucky to afford the near death experience with pooling our XP this round or Susan would have had a long drawn out bullshit boring life, and you just about blew it, if we do get points taken for a full 4th wall breach, Shit… we wouldn’t even have time for tribunal to defend lost points before finals in this game. The Satanists could push into our seat against the Abrahamaics.” She huffs, having re-annoyed herself, and looks up into Kevin’s eyes. Her face softens, and she shakes her head and sighs “look I’m sorry I got upset. You know this round was total bullshit for me. I peaked early, lived carefully and then died hard… and gutted all of it it out. Maybe I am overreacting.”
“You think?” Says Kevin with a smirk, and a little playful tap on her shoulder pad with his fist
“Don’t Push it” she says. “You know going out like that sucks”.
Grandpa shakes his head behind her “now you did it, here it comes” he says with a laugh as Kevin’s brow grows high.
“Stacy” says Kevin “at least you have never burned at the stake”, the whole group sighs and shakes their heads as Kevin begins a soap box rant.
“If Christian strategy teams are in the game. At all. No way I play during religious spikes”. He pauses, then as if his train of thought derailed entirely he started to talk quicker “I still can’t figure out how Coach Jesus got magic yanked from the game entirely with the crap he pulled this game, total bullshit even when they crucified him and DQ his entire team. Then he was benched for 340 e-years and they still pulled out of that nose dive and used that troll Constantine to crank up the strategy again. I can’t believe they managed to bring Christianity back so strong and practically destroy the Philosophers while doing it, and now they are seated first in the finals?? Fuck… that… shit… I am not playing ‘safe'” he air quotes gestures “in a game where that kind of fuckery should have the entire score of the last 2000 years chucked for them. That should have been more than a red flag, the entire team should have forced a full score tally timecard split and reset to zero on that, and as a result magic got shut down because they managed to purchase a resurrection hack and THEN had EP to spare to shut magic off?” he spits the entire run on sentence without a breath “we need some points back on the board, if those fuckers can get magic pulled from the round and fuck up my game and get off with just a DQ and 350 year team penalty and ONE fucking RED flagged player? Fuck that… I’ll skate the edge of fair play, when it’s the semis, especially when those guys are still in first seat”.
the older man, named Chris, responds “yeah we know Kevin, you sat out the dark ages this game, because you were burned last year, I remember”, speaking up finally “and please, enough whining about the magic shit and what Jesus managed to do. He ran a team that pulled enough XP to buy a resurrection hack and end magic in one move, he played it brilliantly and red flagged out on purpose to do it. So yes the RED was fair play because it was strategy and he’s out. Their coach, one of the best who has ever played the game, is benched for 2127 e-years. and so he won’t get back in the game even IF this is the longest overtime in history. Give them credit, Constantine’s play in 340 was fair, and also brilliant, and took out the entire Philosopher team for 1700 e-years, pushing back the tech age, which also strongly supports their strategy. I don’t see it challenged even if you tried, we could learn from it. The game is way better without magic for our strategy anyway, it’s hard to run hedonist strategy if people believe in a God they can talk to. If it wasn’t for your whining about your skills with magic, I would opt that we try to end Magic as fast as we can so the Abrahamaics can’t even get their strategy off the ground.” Chris finishes his summation and continues to observe panels and grab and read small holographic display tablets beside first person windows” he continues, “no Christians, no hedonistic counter, no deliberate heathens falling of their team and scoring for us, and half our game doesn’t work”
Kevin is looking at him while pulling down a clear plastic pad and adjusting holographic sliders on it “and those dicks (gesturing over the wall behind them to a yellow section)” he says as if completely ignoring Chris, and was just waiting for his turn to talk again “can get away with loophole cheats using fouls to their favor… then they short avatar recurrence time to ¼ the hertz rate of what we run, and not tip their game strategy from the IQ hit because they can autopilot half their decisions, since their whole strategy is never changing their hard-coded belief structure no matter what other teams pull. It’s really close to running illegal bots, which I still think should be considered for review in a bot-free league, they are practically scoring EP with NPCs. They can split avatar us 4 to 1, and boost births 1000%. We have had 2 of those quad drifts compete with one of us sometimes. I’ve even seen them take North America with a battalion of 20 squads, and then go 12 avatars per team members, breeding like that for like 200 years”.
Chris responds calmly with a shake of his head “you know that never works, and their fear and animal aggression ends up off the charts when it’s automated, they split into factions and kill each other… the system is balanced, and you know it is designed to make that shit breakdown. Their net gain was no where near what we did in the same time period in europe, and not to mention all the selfish acts near-auto-piloted avatars do that deplete happiness for their entire team”
“yeah, like the pedophiles” Stacey chimes in as she reaches up for a clear lightweight glass pad next to a screen with a holographic display showing graphs and sliders, and starts pushing bar sliders around with her index finger “let’s not forget how many lives they fuck up for their team, and send points our way with that insanity.” she lightly tosses the holo pad back towards the main screen and it is caught in an invisible stasis field and slowly returns to its resting place.
“I know” Kevin shakes his head and pauses in thought. He reluctantly replies “Once they split into factions they should have just thrown in the towel and backed out the team for a full reset, but that’s not Jesus’ style. He will keep playing his team even when it’s clear they are done. I know they lost bad, but, they almost pulled it off that game”
“yeah and the whole team was so burnt by the end of the round most of their best pro players stopped playing with the team.” said Chris
“Plus” injects Stacy as she turns a holographic dial on a screen, slowing time, and then releases it “that’s playing for numbers only Kevin. If and when I lose my love for this game or pro-play really starts to be a pay day for me, sure, I’ll sell out and try split avatars to maybe 4 and run 78 IQ lives getting ‘stoked’ about team sports, and when I recog after each round I have to go shower to wash off the moronic shit I did. Then, like those guys, I’ll get railed on by spectators and real gamers for playing like shit the way the religious strategy teams do, their observer scores are so low it’s not even worth being a pro player for them, I mean, their team doesn’t earn personal sponsors at all they sustain on prize money.” Stacy looks down at her feet and lets out a deep breath before she continues, “I’m playing the game to play it… and I’m doing it on a team that encourages one to one cog to avatar play per insertion, that’s the game I want. To learn what I can do. With all of my focus, not just to rack up volumetric score, but to really learn about myself. Plus, you know when you split avatars it practically divides all your joy scores anyway, and you retain a lot less of your core self going in since you have to put a lot of free will functions on autopilot. You have to have mad skill not to overlap trains of thought and skitz out, you also have to constantly re-evaluate your auto levels as you go which takes a copilot as good as Chris, out here, instead of in the game… if not you can end up with one avatar in an insane asylum miserable while you choose to pilot a primary you enjoy without even knowing what you did until the one living life dies, and then you end up with your primary out of the game, and stuck in a timeout on diazepam kept alive until your 80s by nurses and doctors. No thanks!”
“and that pleasure divide hurts them primarily in the sex department.” says Chris ” “which is why Coach Prince says very clearly we shouldn’t split unless we have a really good reason to, or we are forced to do it. When we do split, we do maternal twin if we can to handle the hertz drift. Which means cranking cognition and risking high spirituality which could help or hurt us based on the direction that goes. We have beat those idiots, playing our way with our strategies”… Chris trails off pulling a screen down as Stacey smirks at Kevin for Chris coming down on him. Chris notices her smug gesture and turns to her, “Don’t go all noble lifer on us either Stacy” Chris laughs “you still tank your IQ based on the hot-ass body you like to run into your early 60s.. we know you play for this team for a reason, you are starting to sound like a hippie tree hugger or a philosopher, not a hedonist” Chris finishes.
“Chris” she says with with her back straight and head held high “I have found, a very good balance of tits, ass and brains for this century… thank you very much”
Kevin coughs into his hand attempting to cover up a laugh.
“after all…” she turns and squints at him “you sir… ate it up last round. You both know I do well as a free spirit” she flips her hair back comically, ruffles up her wings, and the group chuckles at the gesture.
“well…” injects the blond boy formerly called Uncle Sparty “I know I’m a noob to pro play who played through torture in the dark ages this game.” he has been following the conversation from the back since it began, “I went back in after an NDE during torture this game. Without needing a 4th wall breach to push me back in, Kevin I don’t want to overstep but I’m with Stacey and Chris on this one, it was too much of a risk for how close we are to making the finals. I also think we could use you in the game during religious peaks”.
“noob…” now Kevin snatches a tuning pad while talking “Even with cognition cranked as low as I can allow it, my natural cog squeezes through and I struggle to not get caught up with an inquisition, or crusade crap, even when I am born religious. I end up stuck playing as a closet atheist. In religious spikes, especially with magic still in, I end up a heretic magic user. Which doesn’t help the team much at all when they strap me to a post and light a match”. Kevin replies looking between Stacey grandpa and the noob, “I do think I could quad avatar the spikes, dumb me down so I can maximize EP without getting slaughtered. Coach Prince doesn’t want me to, so I sit out and tune the squad” says Kevin without looking up from the panel he is messing with.
Chris raises a finger… “Shot and burned on a boat, then eaten by a crocodile while nearly drowning, during the last week of my tour in Vietnam. This game. I went back in very close behind that. You were 3 years old when I exited, 19 when I went back in, and I still found the squad and took your daughter’s cherry in 14 years” Chris says to Kevin
“they didn’t tell us that entire thing” Says Stacey with an odd look, and Kevin looks back at Chris with a look of ‘Holy Shit’ on his face.
“yeah not the kind of thing usually reported to a mourning 3 year old daughter Stacey, and I’ve been playing long enough to know that’s not even the worst way to go”, slapping a pad into Kevin’s chest and letting it go, forcing Kevin to nearly drop the pad he was tuning, Chris says “you need to learn to stop complaining, figure out how to navigate the Christian team in the years before tech, and the only way you do that is fail and fail until your cog finds a way to play when they run shit, and my god, you have to stop fearing pain so much. You need to practice and start contributing in round where other strategies spike, without dumbing out your IQ or your reality cognition. You keep your tuning up, so you can be docile and take more of yourself into the game man. When you split, you lower cognition, you also lower your natural skill and rely on stats, tuning, and instinct rather that cogging our strategy. It’s just not going to work! You could end up with all four avatars racking up points for the Christians. Even without magic to save you, you can learn to be…” he gestures at Kevin waving up and down his body “…yourself in there” I haven’t played a game in years where magic survives to technical age, it just doesn’t happen anymore in this league, no one wants it in the tech age”.
“yeah… damn… I know… And really? You got Shot, drowned, eaten and burned in one death? Which part sucked the worst”?
“I think the all of it at once part” said Chris smiling and twice tapping the screen he pushed into Kevin’s chest earlier.
“that had to blow hard…” Kevin replies looking somewhat guilty and disgusted at himself, his teammate Chris with his hands on his hips shaking his head slightly. Kevin breathes out heavily and finally looks at the clear panel Chris shoved in his hands. “oh shit… Chris… it worked” Kevin says tossing the other holopad back up to its relevant live vision screen. Chris tips a finger at an imaginary hat towards Kevin with a sly eye raised smirk and slight bow at the waist.
Kevin shuffles back a few screens to look at the screen for Susan. Years have passed in Susan’s life and in a floating holographic heads up display to the right of her screen the pulsing line next to a grid labled “pleasure” is glowing bright as a slowly scrolling line graph has a noticeable spike in it, and then remains high. The spike is marked with a vertical red dotted line with the words “NDE” at the base of it. In the vision screen her and her husband are in the throws of sex (at high speed), in time lapse the group watches the couple going about their day then having sex and going about their day and clothes come off again… The noob grabs the screen and with a rotating hand gesture like turning a dial a holographic glowing yellow knob appears, as he turns it left he slows time down to observe a first person pornographic scene of Susan and her husband as the pleasure score is boosting in a side panel. Stacey slaps his hand off the knob and it vanishes…
“go watch another squad if you want to see that stuff, we all have to hang out tonight. That spike is what we need to worry about” Stacy says with a disapproving look and a gesturing up to the holo-hud.
The group looks at Kevin
“Spikes are normal after an NDE, that’s the entire point, there is a chance they will just think it’s a renewed sense of joy for life that made those two start fucking like bunnies again, it’s not a big enough spike to cause another team to challenge the NDE…” he pauses. “They don’t check the interaction for faults unless it falls way out of normal ranges and guys”, he looks up, looks back, looks up again with his arms drooped at his sides “it’s only slightly out of normal range” he convinces himself “plus if they keep at it like that we might get another vessel to pilot this round”.
“we just did” says the blond noob pointing at a large readout of statistics and graphs floating above the screen, “she’s preggers”.
“aaaahhhhh??? what did i fucking tell you”, Kevin rejoices clasping his hands.
“Kevin… if they question the NDE you know someone is calling foul… we could get dinged.”
“not dinged a full fucking life, you know those two were never having kids before that NDE… so… it worked” he makes a small bowing gesture… then lights up bouncing on his toes like a boxer before a round “who are we sending in?” he switches to rubbing his plastic armored, gloved hands together and rocking side to side with his legs apart as though he’s stretching his thighs.
the group looks around at each other “Susan is squad leader and she’s in play, Chris is ranking.” says the noob.
“What’s the rest of the squad up to?” Chris asks
pulling a screen down Kevin says “apart from Todd and Susan” he looks up raising an eyebrow “who didn’t have kids until now you fuckers.” he growls flipping a quick comical bird down the pit at them… “we have mike leading the score averaging 47ppd, he’s 17 years of age at the moment, has a fake ID hitting club scene doing well, he hasn’t touched hard drugs, gets laid constantly, mostly with members of our teams but” he leans over to Chris and shows him the screen “he’s fucked a few members of Christian team too, and he’s good in bed while they all sucked, so less points for them, he almost completely banked those interactions for us”.
Chris grabs the pad back… “We should have started figuring this out 10 minutes ago, let’s get our heads back in this game guys”
“I say Stacey and Kevin are out” says the blond noob. A statement received with disapproving looks by both of them, he looks at them both and says “look, you guys know this is my first championship, but, you also wouldn’t have me in your squad if I didn’t kill it with external sim strategy in the minors, it’s why I’m good as a Hedonist. It’s not me either, if I go this round, I will always fucking die young doing my thrill seeking shit I can’t deny that. So I am not advocating you guys throw me in either, we can’t reset the squad and go in together for a couple lives even if we skip me. I’ll go in late in this round rack up tons of points in my childhood, and you guys pull my plug with an act of God reset if you can… make it a quick car accident, lighting strike if you can. You know me though, if all we can afford with XP is getting impaled by a shower curtain, or suffocating under my own television set, just do it to pull me out so we can resync the squad age and own a round”.
“what if we can’t A.O.G you because you’re miserable?” asks Stacy “you know where your total happiness index has to be for an A.O.G death” she adds.
“seriously guys” the noob interrupts “have you ever… ever not been able to pull my plug? remember I’m a noobie to the pro league, I’m still enjoying this game way too much even though I suck at longevity, I still net a ton of points on the board every life”
“I’ll give you that” says Stacy
The noob continues “alright, so l was reading up on this theoretical strategy run in some lab sim games, of pushing Freudian offspring hard for agnostic and atheistic teams in the 2nd early millennium, and since Chris was her first love tragically ripped away for our last act of god partial squad reset…”
Kevin Checks the clock and opens his arms “so? what’s the plan? still birth will fuck Susan’s life so we better hurry”
The noob hurries his speech “Freudian strategy models show us that if we throw Chris in as her son now… some residual sexual attachment boost could be good for her intimacy with him, and (if you buy into Freud strategy) that will get him a very strong healthy sex drive as an adult. so it’s gotta’ be Chris who goes”
“you sure we want to play a boy? right now? we could genderbend Chris send him in as a tomboyish slut…” says Kevin
“what are you kidding me?” says the noob “we play primarily for thrills, and bank massive on sexual pleasure output for the squad given and received. We could crank up his libido if we send him male and bisexual in the early millennium he’s fucking gold for a solid life… plus a female is outside the Freud model” says the Noob
Kevin looks at Chris, “you good?”
“Always” replies Chris
The team splits, and jumps into action… Chris runs and grabs a helmet off the wall. And slaps the center of his chest armor… His suit lights up from his chest out with bright purple light rails between the cracks and patterns in his armor. A pod resembling a standing sharp bottomed egg shaped cockpit lowers into view on a large metal crane arm and lines up behind Chris. Kevin and the Noob begin to help strap him in as Stacey pulls a holopad off the side of the pod, and begins to manipulate sliders on the user interface of the glass. They help Chris into a harness as he climbs in to a suspended large white open pod, he has to adjust shoulders as he climbs in to slip his wings through long open slats at the back. Kevin presses a button over his head and his wings are closed down gently from the sides and trapped behind him comfortably… Chris ruffles his wings slightly as he wiggles into the upright yet supported and slightly reclining seated position. Kevin pulls a larger holopad from an outstretched arm on the left side of the pod, he slides his fingers up on the screen in his hand and swings the arm around until the pad is facing Chris. As it clicks into place the pod is lifted off the ground and fully suspending Chris off floor. Chris pulls down his purple mirrored helmet visor, and is now looking like a fighter pilot ready for takeoff. he looks to his gloved hands and flips switches on the back of each one at a time with the opposite hand. His fingertips light up purple. He reaches forward and presses a button on his console in front of him, 2 small foot pedals rise up from below him, attached to his chair. He jams his right toe into a brace at the front and then locks his boot down hard to the small metal plate, then repeats the action with the other foot. As his second foot slams home, the glowing arrays in his suit and his entire face shield shift color from purple to white.
Two Angel’s fly in, descending from different directions, as a purple light begins to turn at the top of the cockpit. An Angel lands on top, another flies in front of him and lands on the platform a few feet in front of Chis, he approaches the. A deafeningly loud horn alarm begins to mechanically chime. The crew steps back from the pod. The Angel above Chris on his cockpit shouts something only he can hear, and Chris gives a thumbs up in response.
“Chris we didn’t reset your avatar attributes and aesthetics” Shouts Stacy loudly over the commotion, and noisy alarm. “you don’t want the same tune you had in the 90s do you?”
“just give me a slightly bigger cock, take the points off my IQ. Keep my physique. Increase libido 30%.” Chris’ voice sounds out as if spoken through an intercom.
The angel on the platform in front of Chris makes a sign for “time” by tapping his index finger on his wrist
“look just give me a millennial tune up. I trust you guys. Let’s see if I can spray half the team with bodily fluid before I kick it” he shouts. Kevin nudges Stacy with his shoulder and even she smirks a bit.
“10 seconds seconds until still birth or steal challenge, 8, 7 ”
Chris looks down, then nods at Stacy and gives a “hang loose” sign with his thumb up and pinky extended and he shakes his hand at her. She smiles big and slides a finger quickly along a screen boosting his empathy slightly more than his penis size.
“plugging him in” Kevin shouts at the angel above the pod. He steps in and slams a large button on the side of the pod hard, which lights up red. The cockpit ascends over the tunnel with angels flying one either side of it. They all descend into the tunnel while Stacy continues to slide bars a little on the clear plastic screen in her hands “I hope I didn’t just give him a giant cock and make him too virile, we might not have enough squad members to avoid running split life multiples if he has more kids than we have players”
Kevin turns and leans his back on the railing. “Fucking Mormons” says Kevin leaning next to Stacy on his elbows facing away from the pit. He makes a slight chin up to a yellow stadium section in front of him.
“what about them”? asks Stacy laughing and looking up at him in awe of the totally disjointed train of thought “I just remember the days when birth score used to be competitive in this game, even if Chris has eleven kids… we wouldn’t be close to a Mormon squad this round in numbers” he shakes his head looking down, he turns and looks her up and down and grins “but sex our way is a lot more fun”. Kevin leans and nudges her…
“eh, gross… Kev… I still have ‘wifey feels’ clinging to me…” she mocks him shivering like shaking water off of her, “don’t joke about shit like that until I’ve had a life as your sister or something to wash it off.”
The noob checks a screen above… and shakes his head “Chris went in breach birth” he chuckles “poor guy got a bumpy start”.
“after drowning while shot burned and being eaten by an alligator. I think a breach birth will be like a literal breath of fresh air” responds Kevin.
Stacy pauses, “hey check out Kat.”. She grabs the holographic dial to the side of Kat’s screen and slows time down for Kat’s window “she’s going to Peru to do Ayahuasca” she claps her hands “Vision quest BABY!!!!” she lets go of the floating holographic dial and time speeds up, Stacy runs back to a wall and grabs a headset off of it.
“isn’t that a breach of magic getting cut?” asks the noob
“No it’s totally off the magical code-line, it’s self induced not scored into abilities. This is just a channel to her subconscious, she can’t show it to anyone or prove its real. No fireworks in the real world, nothing anyone can actively witness. We could try to start a new age hedonistic religion or make just her super slutty.”
“coach would love the latter” says Kevin with a chuckle
Stacy cracks her knuckles and slips on a headset and slows the scene down by turning a dial. “come on bitch.. drink that tea and don’t die”. She looks at the noob “ever wonder why time seems to slow way down when you trip hard enough to talk to god?” she pushes her hand into the screen and colors and patterns flow… the gang can see Kat’s hands reaching up for the swirls from her perspective. Stacy scrolls with 2 fingers on a holoscreen to the right of Kat’s, flipping through a series of animals. She selects a tiger, and with a flick of her wrist pushes it into Kat’s vison screen”
“Spirit animal??” sighs Kevin mockingly.
Stacy covers her mic and in a playful voice says “fuck off” before removing her hand from it.
Kevin leans on the railing and turns to the noob
“Noob, what’s your name?”
“Avatar or Real?”
“Both?” says Kevin
“my real is Devin, but my I.G.A. is Spartacus”
“Fuuuuck… that was you?”
“yeah…haha Angels retired my avatar name in Rome this game. I managed to run as Sparty from there, kinda goofy but it feels close enough to me”
“Epic fucking round man… holy hell… you pissed off a lot of religious. Welcome to the squad Devin, I’m impressed.”
“don’t forget I also started a lot of orgies too” he giggles a bit, “…but thanks Kevin. Swords… for some reason that’s just my thing”, he glances to the opposite side of the tunnel “did you check in on Shona and Simon? Those two were like my right and left hand in that whole rebellion. She was his wife. She’s pretty handy with a sword herself” says Devin
“Nah, they are always solid… married and bangin’ it out every damn day probably”
“They are married in the real too right? You don’t see that happen much in play.”
“Yeah man, they are major points for us. Check their scores. Still heading up the round. Somehow they always find each other no matter what… we can birth them on opposite sides of the earth and as long as it’s a 20 year gap or less, they end up together. For years I thought it was some kind of hack they had managed, but they got investigated for it and Angels found no code behind it at all. Sometimes that’s just the way souls are.” says Kevin smiling across the glowing white pit.
“guess they can’t shut off all the magic” says Devin.
The End
TheGrayJedi 