LevelUP: an 8-bit novel by Micah Joel. Author's definitive online edition.
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SKILLS:
* KEYBEARER
Max opens his eyes. Molly gazes into them. A confused noise escapes Max’s throat. Pain stabs through his hand, once again tightly wrapped in a bloody rag. Reality, it turns out, is more confusing than a game.
“We need to move,” Molly says.
Sudden awareness hits. He’s outside LevelUP. “Where’s Isidore? Have you seen Hadley?” Max says.
“Hadley? Root? As in your dad? No.” Molly says. “But we’ve been spotted.” She gestures toward an iridescent blue SUV working its way out of a parking garage.
“Doesn’t matter,” Max says. “I have the key.”
Molly’s eyes go wide for a second, then narrow. “Doesn’t help if she kills you.”
“Points. Are you sure that nobody else has seen you? No resistance-looking types?”
“No,” Molly says.
“No, nobody’s seen you? Or, no, you’re not sure? Never mind, let’s get out of here,” Max says. His HUD lights up.
USE THE KEY
“Use the key? This isn’t a game. What good is it here?”
Molly looks confused. “Who are you talking to?”
“One of the AI factions, I think,” Max says. “Or at least something that speaks for them.”
Molly gasps. “You’re seeing a message?” She digs her game console out from her backpack and furiously taps at the buttons.
Now it’s Max’s turn to be confused.
“They’re coming. With guns and drones,” Molly says. “This isn’t a game.”
“But I’m…” Max says. Sometimes the little guy actually can win. Part of him wants to believe. Another part knows better. “There has to be something I can do.”
“The camp,” Molly says.
She’s right. He has to save the camp. The scroll said to return to where it all started. If that’s not an invitation back into the camp, nothing is—assuming they can get there before it’s bulldozed.
“Let’s go,” he says, and together they scramble back over the wall. Max’s hand flares with pain as he tries to get a grip with his injured hand. Molly offers her good hand to help him across.
Then Molly puts her fingers in her mouth and produces a whistle so loud that Max’s ears ring for half an hour afterward.
“What was that?” Max asks. Then the horses come trotting around the bend in the road. “Oh.”
They gallop hard back toward the camp, cutting through abandoned parking lots and across a narrow dirt trail that divides the salt marshes. Back in town, the early morning streets are eerily quiet as they pass through, as if the world is on pause. But when they approach the camp, the distant sound of construction machinery rumbles ominously in the distance. Closer still, sickening diesel fumes infect the air.
“Are we too late?” Molly asks.
“No,” Max says. No question in his mind. As they get close, the horses sense something wrong, and gallop even harder. The heat radiating off their muscular bodies makes Max’s legs sweat.
And his heart sinks as they approach the camp. The chain link fence surrounding the Superfund site has been flattened by heavy machinery’s trampling. Puffs of black smoke rise into the sky from the opposite side of the hill. Max’s horse clears the entire downed fence with a leap, and they race directly up the steep trail up to the camp.
“Good girl,” Max tells horse as they crest the top of the hill. A fleeing refugee, a middle-aged woman in ripped and dirty clothes, nearly collides with them. It takes Max a moment to recognize her as Maria, the grandmother he helped get time on Nolan’s network.
The sweat dripping off his face is filthy. He’s still smeared with mud to avoid the drones. He must look terrible. No wonder nobody recognizes him.
The devastation in the camp is catastrophic. Three dozers each cut an ugly scar into the earth, scraping away tents, market stalls—all reduced to rubble. One of the still-standing tents is on fire. Max sees a child’s toy—a tiny plastic stroller with a doll still strapped in, crushed flat under the machine’s tank treads.
More refugees rush past. One, a man with a patchy gray beard and a bleeding face, makes eye contact. “Max?” he asks. It’s Nolan. Molly nearly knocks him over with her rush to embrace him.
“They won’t say why they’re doing this,” Nolan says. “Everything. Everything’s gone.”
Molly’s voice pierces the air. “Where’s mom?!”
“She got out. I’m going to rendezvous with her now,” Nolan says. “It’s not safe here. Come with me.”
Molly shakes her head ‘no,’ a tense movement.
Her dad coughs, choking on the diesel. “I need to go…”
“C’mon,” Max says to Molly. “We’ve got to stop them.”
“Stop the demolition? Why do you think you can do that?” Nolan asks. “More to the point, how?”
“Hard to explain,” Max says. “It has to do with Damage. Making everything right again. Repair. Do you trust me?”
Nolan ponders for a moment, then nods. “What do you need me to do?”
“Distract that guy,” he says, pointing at the nearest dozer. Nolan looks incredulous for a moment, but then nods, covers his face with his sleeve, and waves down the driver.
Max and Molly sprint across the camp. Max plants his feet in front of the second dozer, Molly the third. Max assumes a power pose, hands on hips. The driver blares his air horn, but Max stands tall. Molly smiles at him and mirrors his pose. After a few minutes, the driver facing Max turns off the noisy engine, and the other two follow suit.
The silence that follows lets Max realize how tense his nerves have been. He breathes. Even the diesel-infused air feels good entering his lungs, and the tight cords on his neck loosen a bit. He never thought facing off against a giant earth-moving machine would be the most relaxing part of his day.
Then, Hemera’s SUV, glinting in the early sun, crunches across the gravel as it pulls into camp. It stops not far from Max.
WHERE IT BEGAN
But Max is already here. Where is he supposed to go? He looks over the devastation of the camp. The tallest structure remaining is the LevelUP factory building.
Hemera stomps out, shaking with anger. She’s got something the size of a cigarette lighter in her hand; when she holds it near her mouth, it amplifies her voice better than a much larger megaphone would. She focuses her ire on Max’s bulldozer driver. “What are you doing? Why is your engine off? Do your job! Move!” The words hang in the air.
Max tenses up as the driver reaches for the controls of the machine. But instead of moving forward, he pulls his key out, holds his hand high, and lets it drop into the mud. The other two drivers, relieved, follow suit[31].
“Go do what you have to,” the driver shouts. “She doesn’t pay enough for murder.” Max hesitates. “Go!”
Where it began. Max thanks the driver and runs for the factory building. He doesn’t need to look back to know that Hemera’s right behind him.
footnotes
[31] No need for Max to even lie down in the mud.
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