Quest over, the fight complete, I was back where I had begun, alone and without a gun, and sure, I had won, but if my notifications meant anything, I was far from done.

  First thing I did was send an angry text message to the woman who kept calling me. At least I figured she was a woman from the voice on the other end.

  “Stop hanging up on me”

  Of course she did not answer back, so in the meantime I scrolled through my phone and checked what this new quest was.

  “Good work so far. Slay the forty five remaining hollows of residential district nine and earn a reward.”

  That was like a punch in the gut.

  Forty five?! I was almost killed taking on four of them, let alone eleven times that number! Who did this lady think I was, some kind of military cyborg killing machine? I could not think about that right now, it frankly made me want to smite the stupid phone on the ground. The other apps might have some better news for me.

  The stat app had a notifications symbols next to it, but more interesting than that was a new app shaped like a dollar sign that simply said “store”. I don’t know if Amaze-Mart delivered to monster infested neighborhoods, but I clicked the app anyway. A generic looking store page glowed up at me and at first I was confused by all the categories.

  Firearms, ammunition, medical supplies, explosives, personal essentials, phone upgrades.

  No one who knew me would be surprised that the first category that I clicked was “handguns”. The weight of a pistol in my hands would have done wonders for my nerves, but the cost for the least expensive put a damper on my hopes.

  Eight thousand resonance points for a measly .22 pistol, ten thousand for a basic patrol pistol, and twenty grand for a .44 magnum. A small red number in the corner of my phone indicated that I only had one thousand points.

  “Nah man, inflation followed me here too.”

  The other categories were not much better. Rifles and shotguns seemed astronomically out of my league and the cheapest medical supply was some weird “vitality booster” for one thousand points. Most of the phone upgrades, while seeming valuable like a map or communication suite, were over two thousand points each except for one that said “inventory enhancement” for five hundred.

  Moving on from there, the ammo prices made me mad, since a pistol round supposedly cost two hundred and fifty resonance points, so even if I somehow got a gun and popped a two hollows with one shot, I still would not get enough points to balance the cost. That just left “personal essentials”, where at least in that category I could afford something tangible.

  There were four categories of body armor. The cheapest of the body armors was labeled “level I” and in tiny letters underneath said, “suitable for most puncture or stabbing attacks”. It was only five hundred points, same as the inventory upgrade. I figured these hollows weren’t going to be slinging lead my way, so level I armor would be just fine for my needs. The inventory enhancement was interesting but I had no idea what it meant. I purchased the armor for its utility and the inventory enhancement because I was admittedly a little salty that there was not much else that I could afford. After I hit the “confirm purchase” button that popped up, nothing happened except for the points decreasing from one thousand to zero in the corner of my phone.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  I thought wrong, since a blue light materialized a few feet away from me and started to take the shape of a small box. I jumped away from it and behind a car for cover, but I need not have worried since it was in fact just what it looked like. A box.

  There was a big logo on the box, some stylized “HV” which did not take a big brain to know what that stood for. Inside was a sleek armored vest that fit perfectly on me when I put it on. On its back was a different logo, a brain with a gothic letter C in the center and though I was not familiar with this second logo, I was not put off by its lack of aesthetic as my jacket covered it up. Moving my shoulders around, which had become a bit easier since the acetaminophen kicked in, was easy and I was happy to see that the lightweight armor did not slow my movement down.

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  I was down on points, so I scrolled out of the shop and back into my phone’s main screen. A new app had appeared, a backpack symbol, simply called “inventory”. I clicked this one next to see what my five hundred points had bought me. It was a simple enough layout, there were two boxes, one labeled “personal” and the other “storage”. The storage side was empty and had a “0/30” at the top while the personal side had a list of different items: coat, level I armor, makeshift spear, hammer, RC car.

  It was as creepy as it was interesting that the phone knew what was on my person, but I was getting a little used to that by then. There was not much else on the screen, so I tried pressing anything to see what it would do. I randomly hit the spear on my “personal” side and an option popped up asking if I wanted to store it. I clicked yes and jumped for the second time in as many minutes.

  The spear I was holding winked out of existence.

  I looked under the car, thinking that I had gone crazy for a moment, but it was not there either, it had just been leaning on my shoulder one second and gone the next. I saw the screen had changed, the spear was now in the “storage” side and the number had changed from 0/30 to 7/30, so I clicked it again and a new option popped up asking if I wanted to take it out of storage. I confirmed and the blue light came back, but after thirty seconds it was not a box that materialized but my spear.

  “Stats, inventory, quests, monsters…that all but confirms it. I’m in a freaking game.”

  But how? No matter how much money they offered me, I’d never willingly connect to one of those dive systems. Not only were there all those accidents that literally blew people’s heads up, but I’d seen men twisted into shells of themselves, warped by new perverted perceptions of reality that made them spend every last dollar just so they could spend a few more hours in their “second lives”. There was just no way.

  I looked up at the moonless night again, the air itself grew a weight that bore down on my shoulders and made my breath catch . Who’d want to connect their mind to a system like this anyway? Most of those rich perverts and addicts played in harems and pleasure palaces, not some monster infested po-dunk town. Yet there was that house full of drugs, that woman who I was now convinced had been made young again, and these obvious video game mechanics.

  I whipped my phone out and texted my observer, “This is a game isn’t it your just messing with me maybe ill just off myself and get a ride out of here”

  The phone was halfway back to my pocket when she replied much quicker than usual.

  “DON’T. This is not a game.”

  “Tell me why not”

  “Death here is real.”

  Memories of the hollows I killed came flooding back all at once. Burnt out eyes, feral emotions, like aimless automatons guided by the id. I had seen something similar to them once before, a memory of a case I had tried repressing from my earliest PI days. Some chick found out that her man was seeing another woman on the digital side, so she had set up his dive rig to make him piss his pants when he next used it. Classic revenge story that might’ve been a little humorous if it didn’t end so badly.

  It had worked alright, but not only did it have the intended effect, but a feedback loop had also sent so much electricity wired through the guy’s brain, that the coroner was scraping eyeball off the walls for hours.

  And his corpse had looked just like one of the hollows.

  “Get me out of here” Of course she did not reply again. This little one way back and forth was getting old, but as much as I hated to admit it, she had me by the throat. Even if she was lying ,and a quick bullet to the dome would be a quick ticket back home, she knew I wouldn’t take the risk that she may be telling the truth.

  I wracked my mind; I think the last thing I remember before waking up in that freaky forest was drumming squatters out of a slum tenement. Nothing to do with any system or otherwise. Maybe they drugged me, knocked me out and forcibly connected me. Weird that they’d do that to some random slouch PI, but I know the corpos did some weird things in the dark when they thought they could get away with it.

  “They’re going to miss me…”

  But who was they? My family? Both of my parents had died years ago from work related cancer, but there was someone out there waiting for me. No, not just someone, someones. Their names were on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn’t place them.

  “Who am I kidding?” No one is going to miss some drifter PI and maybe it was better that way. At this point, I’m convinced that I’m going to die.

  Well, while death is inevitable, maybe I can take a few of those things with me.

  I checked my stats screen, expecting that there would be another point to allocate, but it did not say I had any, just a new level and an increase requirement to level up of “400/1000” points. I leveled up and all I got was a shop full of stuff I couldn’t afford. That was a wash.

  It looked like I was on my own. If that lady on the other end of the phone didn’t want to tell me what was going on, then I’d play her game. The only way out was through and I had one lead to move onto.

  “Residential District Nine, here I come.”