SNBRN
All my years studying outer space could never have prepared me for an overzealous peppering of the planet by meteors. So, relying on the best instincts I had, I ducked inside. "Gian!" I shouted, most likely out of fear. There was nothing to be gained from it; he'd been gone when I returned from lunch, and if he had come back, I would have heard him and seen his car in the driveway. I was spacy, sure, but I wasn't completely out of touch with reality. Lord only knew where he would be, though. If I had to guess, he was probably already hanging out with the martial arts crew... Hopefully they had some sort of plan for inclement weather.
Inclement weather, now that's an understatement, I groaned. I gave myself a minute or two to work off the initial panic, even though a large part of me knew there was little protection to be offered by a roof. What do you even plan for in a downpour of fucking meteors?
My thoughts went immediately back to my friends. Indeed, a peek at my phone showed that they had been trying to message me. Apparently, whatever I'd done to silence the notifications worked, although I wasn't sure how convenient that would be in a time like this. The first chain of messages I opened myself up to was with Tae-joon, a veritable wall of lime green text.
crystalKrypton: kieran did you do the update?
crystalKrypton: ok the ask was just a formality. i know you didn't because i can't add you to the group chat.
crystalKrypton: damn it kieran, we don't have time for this
crystalKrypton: ki
crystalKrypton: god damn it kieran reply
crystalKrypton: anatoli and paulie already started the game when i messaged them
crystalKrypton: paulie is already anatoli's server but we need to hurry the fuck up and start playing
kuiperTitan: Tae-joon are you kidding me right now? There are literal meteors coming down, and you're worried about this game?
kuiperTitan: What the hell is going on dude?
crystalKrypton: ffs we talked about this in the group. did your old ass phone not update?
crystalKrypton: whatever listen these meteors are coming down everywhere
crystalKrypton: and if you don't want to get wiped the fuck out by one then put the damn server disc in and serve one of us
crystalKrypton: then anatoli can loop back and be your server and we're out of this fuckin world
kuiperTitan: Literally What the Fuck are you even talking about?
crystalKrypton: no time for that dude. paulie's takin care of anatoli but i'm up next so get pierce's client code
crystalKrypton: it's that three letter code on the client box, you'll need to get it from him and then when it's your turn give yours to anatoli
crystalKrypton: see you on the other side bro
That… was not comforting. I briefly considered asking Pierce a few of the choice questions I had given to Tae-joon, but the gamer had made me reconsider. If Anatoli was busy with this game already, it might have been wise to give him my client code right away, so he'd be able to hang onto it and retrieve it when necessary. I wasn't exactly sure what kind of time scale I was looking at here, but if Anatoli was the only one currently playing as a client, and that hadn't changed in the several minutes since my prior chat with Tae-joon, I at least had some time to think.
I ripped open my Snbrn envelope as though I was Paulie, hardly caring that the two game cases clacked on the ground in front of me. They had fallen just perfectly - the client case was upright, and the label was clear. The only difference from the one Paulie received had been three letters, which for me were THR.
kuiperTitan: Anatoli, I've got THR so whenever the time comes, yeah.
kuiperTitan: Taej started to tell me what the literal fuck is going on, but I've still got no clue. Care to enlighten?
kuiperTitan: ...must be rough.
captainTorpedo: No'ws not the time, too busy trying not to die here. Not covenient to use this when the ingame server/client chat separate. Will talk once I make it to the medium. Good luck.
The conversation had been less than enlightening, but I had at least gained one bit of knowledge - Snbrn included its own chat function, which seemed to be limited to the server and client pairs. I wondered briefly if there would be two separate windows to chat with both my server and my client, or if they were in the same place. I also wondered what the medium was.
My next best bet was Paulie, who perhaps could offer a touch more insight as a server player.
kuiperTitan: Paulie, mind telling me what I'm supposed to do as a server?
kuiperTitan: Oh, and perhaps also what the fuck the rush is with this game? Taej almost had my head on a pike.
tuCapisci: If you're me, Anatoli tells you "MET" and you pick the "MET" option once you start up your server disc, so you become his server.
tuCapisci: And then, you wonder why the fuck Anatoli's on your computer screen, and you drop a bunch of weird shit in his house.
tuCapisci: Then the weird shit starts to countdown, and a meteor slowly falls from the sky, heading towards his house.
tuCapisci: Point is, I've done what I can for him and he's got three minutes to get the fuck out of dodge before it hits him.
kuiperTitan: Uh… you've totally lost me…
tuCapisci: Well, tough; you better figure it out.
tuCapisci: This is no ordinary game, dude, it's the end of the damn world.
tuCapisci: As soon as Anatoli makes it into the Medium, Tae-joon is gonna be my server so I can get in.
tuCapisci: Then Pierce will get him in, you'll get Pierce in, and Anatoli will get you in.
tuCapisci: You'll surely have a lot of questions like, "What the hell is this giant machine thing in my house now."
tuCapisci: Well, that's something you should try to figure out when you're still playing server.
tuCapisci: When it's your turn to be client, be quick.
tuCapisci: You're lucky because you'll have someone who's already done what you'll have to do, so no excuses.
tuCapisci: He's almost outta time, I gotta go.
So, another one of my brothers was already knee-deep in this nonsense. I read his navy blue words again, then going for a third time. Frankly, it looked… well, there was no adjective fitting enough for this. I would have to sit on my hands until I got more information, or until someone else began to yell at me over instachat.
Update it, you imbecile, my brain chided me. I dropped into a nearly-seated position on a couch in the common room, my phone held tight between my hands. Indeed, the best bet I had for information was to check what the other four had already said. Hopefully I had not missed anything important.
As soon as the application had finished its update, I found myself on the receiving end of a personal message, so I would have to put off the group chat just a bit longer. Unsurprisingly, though, it was from Pierce.
kickinIt: Kieran this is looking like some fucked up shit
kickinIt: If I understand right, these meteors are coming down hardcore around the world
kickinIt: I guess they started a couple of hours ago and have only been getting heavier
kickinIt: So the only chance we have of surviving this is to play the game
kuiperTitan: How is a game gonna save us from a shitstorm of meteors?
kickinIt: I know this is crazy, but… playing the game whisks us away to some other universe, which is safe from meteors, I guess
kuiperTitan: So… does this mean the game happens in this other universe?
kickinIt: I guess so
kickinIt: Lookin like we'll be finding out here pretty soon
kickinIt: You'd better look at the conversation the rest of us had while you were updating
kickinIt: I'm not sure how much time we each have to enter the Medium, so I'll go ahead and post my client code here
kickinIt: It's CYS, so select that one as soon as your server disc loads
kickinIt: But not yet, cause I think that will rush the meteor that's headed to my place
kuiperTitan: Since we've got a bit of time here… can we all agree that this cannot actually be happening? That we've got meteors coming right at us that we have to play a computer game to escape from… God, Pierce, think of all the people who aren't playing this.
kickinIt: We can worry about everyone else once we worry about ourselves
kickinIt: It's like they say in the airplanes, you gotta fix your own oxygen mask before you can fix the one on your kids
kickinIt: Or something
kickinIt: It's a labored metaphor, but let's all just worry about each other staying alive before we worry about anything else
I didn't want to only worry about four other people. If meteors were crashing globally, then there were eight billion lives on the line here, and if this game was the only chance at salvation... God, I hoped we weren't the only ones playing.
For a moment, a splitting headache racked my forehead as I questioned everything I'd been told. How could I possibly accept any of this? There was too much telling me none of this could be true. The entirety of physics could basically be reworded into "computers have no causal link to space rocks" without a hint of doubt. But as beautifully and simply as that thought matched with my life experiences, there were a few things that were unquestionable.
One - there were a shit ton of meteors crashing into the ground. I could hear them from inside, although I'd been willfully ignoring them, praying that there might be some chance it was just a freak astronomical event. Two - four of my best friends were playing this game. They may not have always had their priorities perfectly set in every aspect of life, but they knew the meteors were happening, leading me to... Three - all four were saying the game was the only way to escape the meteors. Even if they had wanted to pull an elaborate ruse on me, it was impossible to fake an apocalypse.
Holy shit, an apocalypse. There was a train of thought that would not lead me anywhere helpful. I'd always figured that if there were some kind of apocalypse, I'd be relatively screwed. If it had been anything other than a zombie outbreak, I didn't see any point. Zombies, of course, were only ex-human, and I trusted my weapon and strategy enough to outpace them. However, if there had been a nuclear fallout, or if we had another asteroid extinction event, I had honestly been planning to just lie down in bed and die rather than live in a world without the internet and stuff. But here I was, using said internet to chat with my besties even as the end of times was upon us. The thought made me want to twist at my watch to work out the anxious energy. It helped, but only minutely.
It was such a shame to be sitting in my living room, not doing a damn thing as the world was ending. Who knew how little time I had, considering all of the people I could have called and said goodbye to. Gian had definitely not ordered a copy of the game… not that it would have mattered, with him out of the house. Maybe, somehow, Oriel or one of the others in the martial arts crew did, though, so maybe there was a chance. But the rest of the students at the university? My friends back in Ireland? …Farmer? There was no chance in hell Farmer happened to be following the release of this indie computer game.
Those were emotions I was not prepared to deal with. Alas, it was through tears that I finally read the conversation my four brothers had started without me.
crystalKrypton: listen closely everyone. you know that anatoli's already dealing with this snbrn shit, so here's the plan.
crystalKrypton: anatoli paulie me pierce kieran
crystalKrypton: anatoli and paulie is obvious, i am the one with the plan so i'm logically next, and homeboy ki isn't in here yet, so he's last. hope that's good enough for everyone
captainTorpedo: Yep
tuCapisci: Fine.
crystalKrypton: great. still trying to get him in here though but while we're waiting. anatoli and paulie tell us everything we'll need to know?
tuCapisci: Server selects their respective client's code out of the drop-down menu.
tuCapisci: Server opens up the Phernalia tab and sets down the four items in there in order: Cruxtruder, Punch Designix, Totem Lathe, Alchemiter
kickinIt: What the hell do those do
captainTorpedo: Client time. He's gonna pop open the Cruxtruder to get out a dowle of cruxite and his sprite. Then prototype the sprite with something in your house, preferably soething sentient so that the bastard can tell you what the hell is going on.
captainTorpedo: That's the key step. These sprites seem to actaully be built to tell us what this damn game is all about, so don't waste any time and get yours to do that. There's a countdown that shows up on the Cruxtruder when you poen it, and I'm pretty sure it counts down to when the meteors' supposed to hit you.
kickinIt: Dude, why are you chatting with us if you've got a meteor headed your way
crystalKrypton: pierce is right hurry up and finish your shit then worry about us
captainTorpedo: Here here
tuCapisci: Yeah, so what he did next was what his sprite said.
tuCapisci: Get a card out of the Punch Designix, use it and the cruxite dowel at the Totem Lathe, then use that dowel at the Alchemiter.
tuCapisci: Then congrats, you're in the Medium.
crystalKrypton: keep everyone in the loop okay? don't leave a bro hanging
Ironically, that message had been the last in the chat, not that I was complaining. The conversation had been filled with a lot of information that was still meaningless, but I did my best to internalize the main points. I wondered if I should say anything in it, so that everyone knew I read it. From the way things seemed to be going, it was probably best reserved for urgent information, at least until we all made it into this Medium. I was hardly the king of brief, clever thought, and the last thing I wanted was to distract someone who was trying to beat a timer, but if anything went wrong… well, I thought they'd want one last message, just in case.
kuiperTitan: Thank you guys for everything. No matter what happens, I love each and every one of you. Stay safe and good luck
As soon as I sent it, I felt kind of awkward. My friends were avoiding an apocalypse, not graduating from high school… But there were no better words to say that were coming to me.
Indeed, soon enough, there was a reply in the chat.
crystalKrypton: pierce, i can't seem to message you (this damn phone) just add me at phe
kickinIt: Roger dodger
kickinIt: We love you too, Kieran
If Pierce was getting Tae-joon into the game, that meant my time was coming soon. Thus, I rushed into my bedroom, putting everything I'd need on my desk and opening up the server case. I knew I should wait for Pierce's go ahead to load it up, but I figured the less time wasted, the better. So, I popped open the disc drive, tenderly set the server disc within, and drummed my fingers on the desk beside it.
That was doing me no good, though. If I was going to rush into this game, which seemed to be the only option, I was certain I'd rather do it with a clear mind. Closing my eyes, I let my body fall still, doing the best I could to enter a state of meditation. As I slowly reined in my wildly wandering thoughts, I did my best to picture nothing, focusing instead on the count of my breathing. One… two… three…
When I finally opened my eyes again, I saw that I had a notification from instachat. "Go time," I whispered, quieter than intended. As expected, it had been Pierce.
kickinIt: Okay, we managed to get Tae-joon in
kickinIt: He accidentally picked one of the client codes for someone we didn't know instead of Paulie's somehow
kickinIt: But it's all good, I got a message from Anatoli saying that Taej's client ended up being Paulie's server
kuiperTitan: Huh, weird, but fortunate. Looks like we've got a sixth in this round then…
kickinIt: Yep, maybe one of the other people who got the demo didn't have a group like we did
kuiperTitan: Well, the more the merrier, I guess.
I was momentarily comforted by Pierce's words. His reminder of the tons of other copies of the game that were distributed, at least, helped me believe that the five of us would not be the only ones to make it out of this meteor attack.
But as another boom resounded across miles, one question sprung to mind - if Anatoli was messaging Pierce from the Medium, why hadn't he posted it in the group chat? I supposed it didn't really matter, but… the thought left me uneasy. A quick glance at the main page of my instachat app told me that Anatoli was offline, so he must have been getting back to work on the game, but the little digits that showed how long he had been offline had vanished.
kuiperTitan: I guess it's getting time for you to make it in, huh
kickinIt: Yessir, you've already got my client code, so I suppose I'd better log out of here and get Snbrn running
kickinIt: The next message I'll get to you will be in the server/client chat
kuiperTitan: Alright. I'll review the rules and get to you ASAP.
Apparently Pierce had been instachatting on his laptop, which explained his momentary absence as he was getting Tae-joon situated. But now, it was time for me to do the same for him. Finally, I would see what Snbrn was all about. In a way, I considered myself lucky - I wasn't going to be clouded by the illusion of this being some kind of carefree experience. I knew that a game that was willing to destroy Earth would probably be less than a cakewalk. Indeed, playing this game was going to start hard and get harder. I'd never be able to explain how I knew that, but as the server disc loaded, I was awash with the realization of the choice before me.
And I wasn't going to take it lightly.
The moment the load completed, a small dialogue box popped up. "Select client," I read aloud, as though my ears were more trustworthy than my eyes. When I opened it up, I saw a short list of seven codes. I spotted mine near the bottom, then got to looking for Pierce's. "CYS…" They were alphabetical, so it should have been near the top.
The first code in the drop-down menu was "GLU." Whatever had happened… Pierce already had a server.