This is real. And so are the consequences.
I glance up at my computer screen, reopen my email, and forward their message to Reclaim the Sun’s harassment support team. The people over there must have a file for me by now, but this...this one is different. This isn’t just a hateful email. Or a racist or sexually explicit tweet or message on the game’s server. It’s the first step in doxing. They know my address. They know where I live. They could blast it out to the whole of the Internet.
I move to forward the email to Rebekah as well, then stop. I can’t let her see this. I can’t do that to her. Not after what happened to her last year.
Not after him.
Instead, I archive it and click over to my social feeds, to see if the Vox Populi has followed through on their threat, but I don’t see anyone posting details about where I live or pictures of my building.
Not yet.
The crushing anxiety in my chest feels like it’s set to collapse my body inside itself, like a star gone supernova. Knowing that something might happen, and waiting for the axe to fall, is almost worse than it happening.
I click away and open Reclaim the Sun again, the loading screen waiting for me. After briefly closing my eyes in resignation, I hit start and find myself back at the beginning, at a space station, a few basic ships available to acquire. No upgrades, no paint jobs, no anything. My inventory is empty. My body and gear are at the bottom of a nameless sea on a planet across the digital universe.
Assholes.
But I refuse to be made afraid. I’ve got work to do.
4
AARON
ACT 2 (FOREST, EVENING)
[Transition seamlessly to Cut Scene]
The party stands around a campfire in the wilderness, warming themselves by the flames. The trees are silhouettes, dark and ominous, and a few pairs of yellow eyes can be seen peering out from the brush.
MAGE
If we don’t reach the bandit captain’s settlement at the end of The Dark Highway by sundown, they’re going to kill the Elvish Queen.
The MAGE waves their hands, and a purple haze materializes. In the foggy clouds, a vision of the Elvish Queen, Randielle, can be seen by the entire party. Randielle struggles against her binds, spitting in the face of an unknown bandit warrior.
ROGUE
I don’t see why those people won’t just pay the ransom. It could all be over so quickly.
The ELF takes an enraged step forward, shifting around the fire, and draws two daggers that glimmer in the firelight.
ELF
What do you mean, those people?
ROGUE
Whoa, now, I didn’t mean—
“Aaron!”
I look up from my laptop, just in time to catch the ManaPunk crew pulling up some seats. The café is a hodgepodge of miscellaneous furniture, enormous plush sofas with intricate carved wooden frames next to postmodern steel bar stools and tall tables. The team pulls up several wooden chairs, each a different bright color, each clashing against the other, squeaking loudly on the hardwood floor of LaVa. It’s my favorite spot to write—close enough that I can walk or bike, and not too crowded with tourists, being at the north end of South Street.
The roar of a coffee grinder whirs to life while Jason, Laura, and Ryan get settled, the smell of roasted coffee grounds wafting through the air, thick and sweet, blending in with the aroma of Mediterranean food. During the day, the place mostly does coffee, breakfasts, and light lunches, but for the dinner hour it closes down to café goers and becomes a restaurant.
“How’s everything going?” Jason asks. He launched ManaPunk three years ago, when I was just starting off as a freshman at Central and he was a senior wrestling with serious senioritis, with no time for anything that had to do with our high school. Despite nearly failing out of school, he’s now off changing the mobile gaming world—and he’s brought a few of us geeks along for the ride.
Laura, who just graduated this year, takes a seat next to Jason, and Ryan snags the chair beside mine. The cushion lets out a loud whoosh when he leans back against it, and we all chuckle, Ryan the loudest. He’s a year under me, and we’ve spent most of our lunches this year dreaming up video games or playing them.
Well, our lunches and our entire lives. We’ve been gaming together since we were in grade school.
“Not bad, working on the—” I start, and promptly stop as Jason stretches. He’s got a tattered jean jacket on, covered in punk rock–looking pins of bands he insists we all listen to and often blasts whenever we’re working at his small studio space. He threatened to fire me and Ryan when we didn’t know who MxPx or Goldfinger was, so now I know their entire respective discographies. But the buttons aren’t what’s giving me pause—it’s his T-shirt. It’s ripped all over the place, but not in some stylish way. In a this-is-an-old-T-shirt-and-it’s-time-to-throw-it-in-the-garbage kind of way.
“What?” Jason asks, and then looks down at his shirt. He laughs. “Oh, what can you do?”
“You’re literally a millionaire,” Ryan says before I can, pointing at Jason and his ripped-up T-shirt then glancing back at me, an exasperated look on his face. “Why do you always dress like you’ve just crawled out of a car accident or something?”
“Whatever, man,” he huffs. “People like my style.”
“What people?” Laura asks, smirking.
“There...there are people!” Jason argues, but he fusses with a few buttons on his jean jacket, closing off the view of the torn fabric and grumbling under his breath. “Focusing on clothes and all that crap takes away from my creative process, okay? I have games to make. I have a vision. Physical aesthetics just get in my way and take up brainpower I could be using for—”
Ryan, Laura, and I just stare at him.
“What? Mark Zuckerberg does the same thing.”
I give Ryan a look, and Laura purses her lips, eyes bright with amusement.
“Man, fuck you guys, it was laundry day,” Jason admits, and all of us burst into laughter. I feel the pressure from my mom washing away a little in moments like these, with the ManaPunk gang, away from the suffocating atmosphere of my house. Jason pushes the three of us to create what we care about: me, with my scripts; Ryan, with his gorgeous illustrations and storyboards; and Laura, with her coding, hammering away on her keyboard in a language I could never hope to understand, like she’s speaking right to the computer’s soul.
Jason shakes his head and gets up from the table. “What do you guys want?” he asks. “I’m buying.”
“Yeah, you are,” Ryan says with a smirk. “We’re still waiting to be paid, you know.”