Metropolis - Goldilocks: Wing-E / Block 5 | Room 0812/5826

Thursday, May 14th, 2089 | 12:00am

Chris stared at the bunk above her, seeing nothing in the inky darkness. It was the middle of the night, but she couldn’t sleep. Her eyes were wide open, aching in exhaustion, but they just wouldn’t close. This was it, the last day, Chris’ last chance to redeem herself. She’d checked her rank, and she knew what she was up against, how far she still had to go.

[5470/5791]

She’d missed matching Yaz’s level 15 rank by a single rank, one. It was as if her rank were mocking her, taunting her with the fact that even after dedicating an entire day to paying off a huge part of her debt, she still couldn’t measure up to a teenager – a very annoying, obtuse teenager. At least, that’s how the girl was in real life. Chris was coming to realize how little the real world mattered in Era, and conversely, how much Era mattered in the real world.

Repeatedly clenching and loosening her fists, Chris tried to lull herself to sleep. She counted sheep, listened to the rhythmic breathing of the woman above her, listened to the waves of her virtual environment but still, she remained completely awake. Chris had been on edge since the moment she’d arrived at Goldilocks – no, before that, since the moment her parents died – but this was the first night that it kept her from sleeping. She knew she’d need energy in the morning, but her brain wouldn’t shut down.

Her thoughts kept circling back to dinner and her eyes once more landed on the bunk above her. She’d been wrong about Tiny, completely wrong. As far as Chris could tell, her roommate wasn’t affiliated with Doris’ or Serena’s faction; that only left Yessica’s. Chris clenched her fists in thought. Did it mean that Chris could trust her roommate, after all? Had the woman ever really done anything that caused Chris harm?

Chris’ eyes burned. Her head was pounding and she knew she was just making her situation worse by staying up. The harder she tried to sleep, the harder it became. She had one day to solve all of her problems, but she already knew it wasn’t going to be anywhere near enough. Sid had given her fleeting hope the day before, but with her new rank, it had sunk like an anchor.

There was no ‘pending’ anymore, no miracle way out, no argument she could use to win the Warden over, no matter what Suerte said. Curling up into a ball, Chris almost cried. She really wanted to, her eyes were begging for it, but crying just made things worse. She’d simultaneously lose body moisture and start a vicious cycle of self-pity.

No, she was better than that. Chris straightened her body again and resumed her careful watch of the bunk above her.

“Sleep, Barbie,” Tiny suddenly groaned from above. “You’re moving too much.”

“I can’t,” Chris said.

“Count sheep.”

“I have.”

“Use the b-link melatonin or just hold still.”

“The…” Chris stopped herself. It would take longer to get a groggy answer from the woman than to discover it for herself. Opening the search bar, she entered ‘melatonin’ and was surprised by the first result.

[Accept Melatonin Dose]

There was a moment of doubt, but she clicked accept. She’d seen people buy the pills at the supermarket on many occasions. She’d never had need of or money for it herself, but she figured it couldn’t hurt. Everything else had already failed, so what other option was there?

Chris accepted the dose and waited for it to take effect.

“Wake up!” Tiny was suddenly shouting in her ear, shaking her awake.

Chris jerked up and pushed herself away from the woman, immediately on defense.

“Woah there, Barbie, just getting you up. You were snoring like the dead, and well. We gotta go.”

Chris checked the time: 6:58. Jumping out of bed, she rushed through her morning routine as the adrenaline of being woken so forcefully wore off. The cafeteria doors were already open by the time they reached them and the usual crowd already dispersed. As Tiny left her as well, Chris tried to gather her wits about her. She was still groggy with sleep and finding it hard to focus on anything, much less watch out for possible avenues of attack.

Having had the opposite problem than the night before, Chris fought to stay awake all through standing in line and eating her breakfast. She sat at the same table as Tanisha, but that was about as much as she could remember from the meal. Having never taken the drug before, she had no way of knowing if her dose was too high. Slowly, she noticed the drug start to wear off, but by then, she was already on her way to the Capsule Bays. If that was the effect you could bring upon yourself through the b-link, she didn’t want to know what the Warden could do when he felt like it.

Thankfully, the concoction the b-link had infused her with was wearing off enough for her to be aware of her environment. Walking along, she tried stretching her body a bit, only then realizing how stiff it was. She yawned, felt the moisture well up in her eyes and immediately felt a thousand times more awake.

“Joined the land of the living then, Barbie?”

Chris jerked around, expecting to see Tiny, only to be confronted with Needle lurking above her with her thin height.

“Oh…” Chris said uncertainly. “Morning.”

“Word to the wise,” Needle said. “Don’t dope yourself more than you can handle.”

“More than I can—”

“Five-Eight-Two-Six!” Chris heard the guard yell. “Don’t make me say your name again!”

Needle nudged Chris forward and only then did Chris realize she was 5826. Looking down at her uniform, she saw the velcro tag on it before she was herded into the capsule to face her last chance to be more than just a forgotten number.

“Finally decided to join us today, have you?”

Aya looked around, momentarily caught off-guard by how she could suddenly think clearly. All of the grogginess disappeared the moment she stepped into Era. Aya was standing in her store, behind the counter, lamely looking at a torso in front of her. The sad thing was, it wasn’t even the upper part of the torso. No, her direct line of view mainly contained the bottom half of the torso.

“Hellooooooo!” another voice said from beside her, sticking a hand in front of her face before snapping long, elven fingers impatiently before her. Aya’s first impulse was to slap the obnoxious hand away, but she’d been taking too many brusque actions of late, so instead, she took a deep breath while taking a step back.

“There we go!” Elfyr said, coming into view next to Xavier, crossing his arms as the blacksmith in his frilly apron had done.

“Come on,” said Xavier “there are a bunch of people waiting for Contracts already.”

“And don’t forget the people lining up for some Elfyr lovin’!” Elfyr added excitedly.

“And what’s she got to do with that, kid?”

“Well…” Elfyr said uncertainly. “It’s exciting.”

“Great, woohooo,” said Xavier, untangling his arms long enough to give a sad imitation of jazz hands. “Can we please get to work now? Go work the floor.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Elfyr said, mockingly coming to attention.

Xavier rolled his eyes and went back to the counter. Aya watched him, but before he started attending the next customer, he turned around to look at her.

“Well, come now,” he said, waving her toward him. “We got work to do.”

Aya shook herself clear of the surreal feeling of Era and got to work with the custom Contracts people were asking for. The next couple of hours went by in the same way. She worked on Contracts requested in person, Contracts she found in the Forums and even some that came directly to her inbox from people that she’d done commissions for already. It seemed like her name was spreading in the Contracts community.

As her hands continued to move over parchment after parchment, Aya kept thinking about how much time she had left in the day. Was paying back debt really the best thing she could be doing right now? Part of her wanted to go out and level up as fast as she could, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough. The work she’d put into her stats was not a sunk cost, it was an investment and if she backed out now, it would turn into a loss. The only problem was that she couldn’t go out yet, not without high-level company. Her inbox had once more been spammed with dozens of Serving Time messages threatening her life.

Sighing, Aya knew her only option was to wait and hope for the best. She’d messaged Foot the day before, but the boy had still not gotten back from his quest. Donovan was still, as far as she knew, working for Serving Time and avoiding her like the plague. All her other high-level ‘friends’ were either busy with their own enterprises or really not interested in traipsing through the region, protecting her sorry ass from criminals just like herself. Aya sighed again.

“Stop it with the sighing!” Xavier yelled with absolutely no regard for the customers in the shop. “If you dislike being here so much, then go elsewhere.”

“But I…”

“Go check on that NPC you’ve got building your coop or whatever. Just… get out from under my skirt.”

“You really are being a downer, Aya,” Elfyr said as he approached the counter. “I didn’t want to say anything, you know… In case it was because of your lady days…”

Aya rolled her eyes and packed up. She was obviously just getting in the way there.

The moment she stepped out of the shop, into fresh air, she felt better. The weather was gruelingly hot as usual, making her sweat the moment she came into contact with it, but even so, she felt less caged in than she had all day. Stretching her body, she walked toward the chicken coop. The location she’d chosen was not very far from the shop.

Ackman was on a support beam, setting the base layers of the roof. The coops would not be installed until the next day. Seeing that her presence would just get in the way, Aya headed toward Nelson’s homestead. The next day, she’d be able to really start looking into the Layhen Egg Contracts, but there was no point in investing any time into it when the returns wouldn’t be immediate and she wouldn’t know until the following day if she’d be able to play full-time. Aya took a few references and made quick copies just in case, hoping to jinx herself in a positive way. Then she headed back out.

Aya considered chopping some more wood for Old Ma’am Lulo, but after realizing she could sneak into town, she really didn’t see the point. There was already enough wood with Ackman to get the job done, and there were more efficient ways of gaining strength stats. Plus, she hadn’t seen any effect whatsoever on her rank. Instead, she headed over to the mines in order to oversee her ore business. Being very careful, she drew her cloak up and used her Stealth skill non-stop.

It didn’t take long to ascertain that everything was running smoothly and then she was once more left with nothing to do. Serving Time’s threats were real and the only way she’d be able to do anything safely would be to be accompanied by high-level players. Thinking about Foot, Aya checked her messages. Expecting to find her inbox empty, she was stunned when she saw three messages from Foot.

[HEY, I’M DONE. COMING OVER NOW.]

[HEY, WHERE ARE YOU?]

[ALRIGHT, I’M OUTSIDE YOUR SHOP KICKING SOME ASS]

Aya didn’t even finish reading the last message before she started running back toward the shop. Her mind was already conjuring up the worst possible scenarios. What kind of ass could a kid be kicking in front of her shop and why? The most likely answer, was Serving Time.

After minutes of all-out running, her worst fears were confirmed. Aya arrived at the crime scene too late. All she saw were small pixels floating into the air before Foot turned around to look at her with joyful exuberance.

“Aya!” he shouted as he ran toward her, tackling her with a hug.

“H-Hey…” Aya said, feeling a little weird about being in a kid-hug where she was shorter than the kid.

She didn’t have to worry long, because Foot soon let her go and jumped into recounting the tale of how the ‘ass-kicking’ came about.

“No, but seriously, we were like minding our own business!”

Aya nodded.

“I’m talking for real! Frank!” Foot shouted at the mountain of a man who lurked silently behind the kid like always. She wondered for the hundredth time if they knew each other in real life, but asking about real life seemed to be an unspoken no-no, the same way that asking about the crime was in prison, so she didn’t.

Frank just nodded, reminding Aya of the story Foot was telling.

“So then they were real rude to the apron-guy and I don’t think Frank liked that very much, did you, Frank?”

Frank was expressionless.

“So then we pulled them outside and taught them some manners. You can’t jus’ go around like that being dissispectful to people, can you, Frank?”

Frank shook his head.

The story had so many holes in it, Aya knew she’d have to talk to Xavier to get the complete version. The kid was obviously too focused on little details to be able to recount the whole picture and Frank… getting words from the large man was like pulling teeth. Though, pulling teeth was probably easier. She needed to find out exactly what had happened to know what to do about it. Now that Foot and Frank had killed whoever had shown up, there wasn’t much she could do to undo it, but she had to stop the situation from escalating as much as possible.

Her guild had bought Serving Time’s debt and now that she’d completely cornered the market for weapons, it was just a matter of time for them to completely default on their loan terms. When that happened, she’d be able to swoop in and take everything. They’d be so indebted to her through Contracts, she’d have them all playing in the palm of her hands. The secret now was just avoiding them long enough for them not to kill her beforehand.

“Hey girl,” said a female voice Aya hadn’t heard in quite some time. “Long time no see.”

Aya turned around to see Furia and the horde of Serving Time members behind her.

“Likewise,” Aya returned with false bravado from Timbuktu. There was no other explanation; internally, she was ready to melt into a puddle of fearful submission. Never had she seen such a large group of players congregated in one place before. Even Foot and Frank would not be able to kill off dozens of players on their own. They might be able to fight their way out, but she was toast.

Xavier was suddenly beside her. “Friends of yours?” he asked in a calm voice.

She was not calmed. They were four; the others many more.