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INVENTORY:
* MEDICINE
* COIN
* TROPHY 1
* MYSTERIOUS SCROLL
* WOODEN SWORD
* BOMB
The Eigenthief marches them clear of the forest, leading along a narrow body of water. White pixels indicate that the water’s agitated, but when Max looks closely, it seems to resolve into something approximating photorealistic. The flat horizon makes it hard to tell whether this is a skinny lake or a slow river. Either way, they come to a sharp turn where dry land hairpins around the edge of the water.
As the travelers arrange single-file to pass, The Eigenthief steps aside, leaving Max to go first. The ground ahead is flat and tan, with small disturbances unevenly spaced out. They haven’t come across any enemies since they arrived at the waterside. “Why haven’t we run across any—”
Something changed. Somehow, the scene ahead of them is different. One of the piles of earth shift. A blue tentacle erupts from the ground with a spray of dust, followed by countless others, arranged in a circle. The creature pulls itself above ground, squeezing its bulbous head into the open air until its soulless eyes—the size of saucers—stare them down.
“Octopodes!” Molly says, carefully laying down all four syllables.
“Are they dangerous?” Max asks. One erupts from the ground, squirting sickly green ink at Max, who narrowly avoids getting slimed.
“Only when they do that,” Molly says.
A blade flashes, an energy beam flying from The Eigenthief’s sword, striking the monster square on. It crumples into nothing.
“You never said you could shoot laser beams,” Max says.
“You never asked,” The Eigenthief replies. “Magic sword. Let’s keep moving. And watch out for bugs.”
“Bugs?” Molly asks?
“You haven’t seen the bugs? How long has it been since you’ve played?”
“About ten years,” Molly says.
The Eigenthief whistles. “Oh, look, there’s one.”
“One wha—” Max asks, diving for cover to avoid what looks like a large pineapple with a blur of wings and forward-deployed razor blades. The harsh buzz it makes echoes in Max’s skull until it abruptly stops.
Max stands triumphant, blade raised. “Ha! I drove it off.”
The air stands thick with what could best be described as burnt rubber mingled with road kill—left in the sun for a week. The stench of fear?
“Nice move,” Molly says, flatly.
The Eigenthief raises an eyebrow, a look of true admiration in his eyes. Maybe this is a turning point in Max’s fortunes. It would be hard for anything to go worse than it already had.
Travel through the overworld goes on much like this. No wonder the designers had to keep adding ever more outrageous enemies to face—turns out that traveling long distances is dead boring. Moly opines at length at the various warp options in other games, but this one doesn’t seem to have one. Perhaps the designers were a bit too enamored of their “full immersion” technology and didn’t plan for how quickly the novelty wore off.
Over several minutes, the ground grows sandier, darker brown with red pixels scattered around to suggest texture.
When the next confrontation nears, The Eigenthief announces, “Step aside, striplings, and leave this job to a professional. This one’s a doozy.”
Molly and Max exchange a look, then Max shrugs. The Eigenthief charges ahead, letting loose with a full-throated battle cry.
“Question. What made you think The Eigenthief was an AI?”
“He is an AI,” Molly responds. “Whether I think it or not.”
“Fine, whatever. But how did you know? What gave it away?”
“You know, I’m right here, and I have excellent hearing,” The Eigenthief says, risking a look over his shoulder. “A little assistance would be helpful.” He dodges a snapping duckbill and parries with a flourish.
“See? He’s funny,” Max says. “AI’s don’t have a sense of humor”
“Do you mean ‘ha ha’ funny or the other kind?” the Eigenthief asks.
“I just know,” Molly says. “I can tell. Besides, no meat-brain would ever choose a name as dorky as Eigenthief.”
“THE Eigenthief, thank you,” The Eigenthief says. “Say it right!”
“Speaking of names, we need something less of a mouthful,” Max says. “I’m going to go crazy if I have to keep wrapping my mouth around The Eigenthief.”
“Hey, Prince of Thieves was already taken,” The Eigenthief says, and takes a mighty swing against the enemy. The deafening quack doesn’t echo.
“I’m not arguing against the logic,” Molly says. “The name is perfectly logical. Too perfectly. I say we call him ET for Eigenthief.”
“That should be T.E. The goes first,” E.T. says.
“ET sounds better,” Max says, just as a giant beak comes crashing to the ground alongside him. Downy feathers rain from the sky.
“At least, it’s better than a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles[16],” ET says. “That was from Sha—
Something resembling a mushy brown hubcap erupts from the ground in the spot where Max was about to set foot. Whatever it is, it has frowny eyebrows above beady little eyes and a porcine snout.
Something happens and Max stares down at the two clean-cut pieces wriggling in the dirt. “This I kind of scaring me.”
“Porcinis,” ET says. “I hate those things. Worse yet, they almost never drop items.”
“Look, how far to the graveyard?” Max asks.
“Not too much farther,” ET says. “First we need to ford the stream.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Max says.
“Then another desert.”
“Um…”
“And then scale Massacre Mountain.”
“Seriously?”
ET scans the water leading to the opposite shore. “Yeah. This is the spot. Follow me closely. Whatever happens, don’t let the water go above your waist.”
“What happens if it does?” Molly asks.
“Then you’ll look really stupid in a wet shirt,” ET says. “C’mon.”
The water here looks a slightly darker shade of blue, forming a meandering line across to the other side. As long as they stay on the darker water, it doesn’t splash any higher than their mid-thigh.
Max is nearly across when he notices Molly frozen in place on the opposite shore. “Molly, just walk through it. It’s not bad. You don’t even feel it.”
“I don’t like water,” Molly says. “I never go in it.”
“That’s fine,” Max says. “But remember. This isn’t water. It’s not wet. It’s just pixels.”
Molly sets one foot in the water, but she can’t seem to bring herself to put the other in.
“Molly, don’t even think about it. It’s exactly like walking. In fact, it’s another platform game. The darker water’s the platform. Come on, Molly. You’re the queen of platformers. I’ve seen you ace your way through level after level hardly glancing at the screen. All this is, in the end, is another game. No big deal. Yes! You’ve got it.”
Bit by bit, she does get it. She manages the crossing without further incident.
A narrow gap between dense trees leads them away from the water and back into the forest, but the landscape quickly turns hotter and dryer. Soon the ground they walk over becomes lighter until it looks like salt.
“The Vastness,” ET says. “But don’t lollygag. Many eyes are upon us.”
“Like those?” Molly asks, pointing at the ground.
A pair of eyestalks pokes up from underground. The pupils are a disconcerting oblong shape, following their movement. The earth trembles, and more of the creature emerges from the cascade of sand. A tentacle whips past Max, and curls around Molly’s leg, before powerfully retracting.
The force yanks Molly clear off her feet and drags her along the ground. For a split second, Max wonders what this must feel like for her actual body back in room 303.
Max snaps out of reverie in time to brandish his wooden sword. The tentacle is tough, but with sufficient tenderizing, it lets go.
“Watch your step,” ET says. “Those things burrow. They’ll pop up exactly where you’re standing.”
They continue on. Max stares at the ground in front of him so hard that he gets a headache. Eventually, the end of the desert is marked by sheer cliffs of a fake-looking (even by pixel standards) mountain.
“Massacre Mountain,” ET says. “A little on-the-nose, wouldn’t you say?”
“You never said the graveyard was up a mountain,” Max says. “Who puts a graveyard at high elevation?”
“Not all the way up,” ET corrects. “Come on, the sooner we get going, the sooner we get there.”
“How do we climb?” Molly says.
The question takes ET by surprise. “Oh, right,” he says. “I forget that you’re new here. You haven’t unlocked Mountain Goat yet. Hmmm. This calls for Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?” Molly asks.
“What’s Mountain Goat?” Max asks.
ET mutters to himself, but occasional words slip out clearly enough to be heard. “Catapult?… no… Eagles?… Teleport… Stairs?” He brightens suddenly. “That’s right, we can take the elevator!”
Molly squints at the sheer rock face. “Elevator?” she simply says.
“No elevator in this world can go up a mountain, but there's a one in the Veiled World.”
“Never heard of it,” Max says.
“Give me your bomb,” ET says. Max hands it over and ET carefully places it alongside a particularly pronounced crack in the rock. It shatters in a puff of smoke. A door, darker than black, as if constructed from shadow itself, coalesces out of the smoke. “After you,” ET says.
The Veiled World resembles the regular game world with a filter that blocks 90 percent of all light. But there are other changes too. Most notably, a narrow elevator platform rhythmically rises and falls of its own accord. The jump mechanics leave much to be desired, but Max makes it across in his first attempt. Molly and ET follow.
The platform pauses at the bottom and rises again. Even though he knows his body isn’t actually moving; his inner ears can’t be registering actual movement, what he sees through his eyes disagrees with that assessment. The sudden wave of nausea that ensues almost makes Max fall off the side. But the world flickers back into full color, then seems to spin around Max, and suddenly he’s lying flat with ET standing over him.
“Hey,” ET says, “You didn’t look like you were going to make the jump, so I gave you a little hand. You do not want to get stuck in the Veil, believe me. Thank me later.”
Without Max really doing anything, his character shuffles back to a standing position, the system once again in balance with Max’s physical body. He keeps getting thrown out of full immersion.
He looks around. A grassy plateau. Hard to tell with the pixels, but it looks as manicured as a golf course. Not that Max has ever been on a golf course, but he’s seen pictures.
There’s a hundred-ish unmarked white stones arranged in uniform rows.
“This isn’t the graveyard,” Molly says.
“Of course it is,” ET says. “Look—graves.”
“This isn’t the place,” Molly says.
Max wanders up and down the rows, looking for something. Anything. Then he sees it. “One of the graves is marked,” Max calls out to the others.
Molly and ET gather around. It’s a simple slab, a slightly darker shade than the rest, engraved with the following:
In loving memory of Alan Turing, the father of computation.[17]
Engraved on the stone is an apple with crossbones beneath it. All three bow their heads in a moment in silence.
footnotes
[16] A Winter’s Tale, Act 4, Scene 3
[17] The engraving also includes the image of an apple with a bite taken out of it, a detail not included here for trademark reasons.
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