Excerpt: NPC

I.

I am a test. I am only a test.

II.

A figure moves in the darkness, detaches itself from shadows only slightly darker than itself. It's never light here, not even in the daytime. Maybe the programmers, the architects whose code constructed this grungy brick-and-steel urban maze, thought it gave the place an ominous atmosphere. I just find it tedious and overdone. But even the overdone gets rave reviews if the blood spatter is pretty enough.

The shadow stops just shy of the pool of light shed by one of the few street lamps actually working. The edges of its long coat drift into the light for a moment, then drift back out again as the breeze from walking ceases. Every detail thought of, reduced to a mathematical formula, implemented so smoothly you could almost forget it's not real.

Which is the problem.

I feel virtual eyes on me. I tell myself not to get my hopes up, not to be interested. It's been such a long time-- over a month, at least-- since the last player showed up in this area. And he didn't even stay past the first firefight. What's to say this guy will be any different? I don't move from my perch on a crumbling brick wall.

The figure has reason to stare at me. My form was conceived by guys whose intricate physics stop just short of accurate female proportions. I'm idealized. Then again, everyone in this game is.

So maybe there's not as much of a reason as I'd thought.

...Damn. So much for not being interested. “Why are you here?” I call, my voice echoing a little in the dark.

He shifts, but still stays outside the light. I don't blame him for his caution; sometimes quests start with an ambush. Likely he's checking his ammunition before he replies, in case some word he speaks is a hidden trigger for assailants to spring out of the woodwork. He can't know it, but he doesn't have to worry about that. Yet. “You seem like you need help.” His voice is pleasant, a little deep.

“Who's asking?” I reply.

After a pause, he steps forward into the light. “I'm called Silur.” He follows the usual fashion for this world: lots of buckles and leather, a long black coat, a large gun. He's lean, a bit rugged, with a permanent five o'clock shadow. “A traveler who does what he can, where he can.”

Ah-- so he's one of those guys. He plays this world like it's real. This should make things a lot easier for me. They're not as difficult to convince. “Maybe I could use some assistance.” I drop down from the wall, keeping my hands plainly visible and away from my own weapons. No use getting killed if I don't have to. Dying here is nowhere near as pleasant as it looks. Which is saying something. “Call me Cael.”

The vertigo is something I’ve grown used to. It’s gotten weaker, the longer I’ve haunted these gutted brick edifices. Now it’s nothing more than a brief flicker, the tiny dislocating jolt in your stomach when you expect one more stair than there actually are in the flight. The accompanying urge to grab my weapons, I ignore.

He repeats the name I gave, pronounces it like the leafy green. To his credit, he doesn’t smile. The name isn’t mine, it was given to me. A breath of vertigo. Don’t think. “What assistance would that be?”

“I’m being hunted. Don’t know who or what, don’t know why. I just know they want me dead. Badly.”

“So you need me to find out about that ‘they’. And preferably keep you from dying along the way.”

“It would be nice.” He’s kinda entertaining. Cheesy, but close to believably earnest. I almost wish I could warn him that the ambush he was expecting earlier is coming in about two more seconds.