LevelUP: an 8-bit novel by Micah Joel. Author's definitive online edition.

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<Level Indeterminate>

There’s a wireless network nearby, but the signal’s faint. Too weak to have ever shown up from Nolan’s IT tent, but Max can sense it, as clearly as he once sensed a floating pixel front-and-center in his field of vision. The password comes to mind as easily as remembering an old friend’s name. From there, Max finds a network path to the police station, where he leaves a note that invokes Hemera’s authority, requesting police presence.

Since it looks like the request comes from a CEO, they’ll actually respond. Lots of things need to change. Starting here.

“Sit down,” Max tells Hemera, not unkindly, but in response, her face hardens.

Max turns his attention to her. She’s got more hardware than he realized. Not one, but two watches in her wrist. Was one of them already obsolete? A transceiver in the back of her neck much like Max’s, though a much newer model—and there’s an unmistakable presence riding shotgun alongside it. Max pushes his mind toward it, and the image of the black slime nearly knocks him off his feet.

With a thought, Max severs the implant’s connection, both to Hemera and the outside world.

The defiance drops away from Hemera’s face, replaced with confusion. She looks lost, a little girl separated from a parent in a dense crowd. Bit by bit, her expression shifts to fear built on loneliness. Hemera wraps her arms around herself as if she’d caught a sudden chill.

Max sits first. “Please sit. We need to talk and what happens next.” Shortly after he’d learned the truth about his own implant, he’d dreamed about what would happen if he ripped it out. “Are you hurt?”

“What have you done?” Hemera demands.

Yeah, she’s alright. “It’s over,” Max says. As far as he’s concerned, it’s a simple statement of fact, yet he can actually see his words’ impact settling across her face. “There are two ways this can go.”

“Ah! Welcome…Isidore Morris,” Hadley says.

“What’s going on?” Isidore says, out of breath. “I didn’t think I’d get here in time—” He tenses as he catches sight of Hemera. “What is going on?” he asks.

“Get comfortable,” Max says. “We could use your point of view. Please join us.”

Isidore looks unsettled, but he sits, eventually easing into a cross-legged pose. Hemera finally sits too.

“Hang on a sec,” Hadley says. “Bit of a situation here.” He reaches offscreen and pulls a large weapon that looks like none Max has ever seen before, except maybe on a sci-fi Laserdisc. He dashes off-camera, a tendril of black slime trailing from his shoe.

The sight distracts Molly. “I don’t get it,” she says. “Both him and the black slime can’t be real.”

Max’s heart sinks. For the briefest moment, he had let himself muse about a world where his father would be there for him. But alas, all he did was run away just when he was needed. Again. If that was even really him.

Molly returns to glaring daggers at Hemera. “Is it true?” Molly asks.

Hemera’s voice is weary. “Is what true.”

“The slavery,” Molly says.

Hemera breaks eye contact. “It’s only code,” she says into the floor.

“You’re no different,” Molly retorts.

Max holds out a hand, and Molly sits back down. “What happens if I don’t use the key? At least not right away?”

Isidore breathes, seemingly for the first time since he’s sat. “That would be highly advisable until you better understand the situation that led to Damage in the first place.”

“People are suffering,” Max says. “Even those whose camp hasn’t been recently demolished.”

“I’ll restore the camp,” Hemera says, suddenly more alert.

Max raises an eyebrow. “Uncharacteristically generous of you.”

“Police,” Molly says. Max doesn’t hear anything.

“But you have to keep me out of prison. I’m not built for that kind of life—”

“All the camps,” Max says. Not a question. “Starting here.” He ponders the situation. How can he prevent things from snapping back to the status quo? “And I get a seat on the LevelUP board.”

“As do I,” Isidore says.

“And each of us gets to appoint one more board member. That should make a majority, right?” Max says.

“Majority? You’d fire me as CEO on the first day,” Hemera says.

Max taps his nose twice and smiles. Now he hears the police sirens. “Your call. Unlike you, I want to use my influence for good. And if you’re not interested in making things better…”

“Fine, fine, fine,” Hemera says. “Deal. I’ll call and make arrangements.”

“Sounds like an IOU to me,” Max says. “I won’t even make you write it out in rhyming verse.”

The sirens are close now, at the bottom of the hill. “Oh, crap, better keep my end of the bargain,” Max says. In a blink, he makes a few choice edits to the police record.

The armored police cruiser leaves with handcuffed Hemera looking wistfully out the back, and Vic Vertex still alongside her, suddenly less interested in publicity.

“You betrayed her,” Isidore says, with what might be a hint of admiration.

“No,” Max says. “I promised to keep her out of prison. I said nothing about county jail. She needs a few days to think about the choices that led her to this point.”

“Fair enough,” Isidore says.

“And I promised nothing at all to the grease-stain,” Max says.

“Vic’s not built for prison, that’s for sure,” Isidore says.

Molly’s got her nose in her handheld game again.

“You know, there’s one thing I still haven’t figured out,” Max says. “Who was sending me all those messages in my HUD?”

“I think you already know,” Isidore says.

“I really don’t,” Max says. “Closest I can figure is the Muses, but I never even knew they existed before yesterday.”

At the mention of the Muses, Molly hesitates in her game. She buries her face in it again, working the controls.

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Copyright 2018, 2019 Micah Joel. All rights reserved.