gigantic font JACKIEZZ WINS!!!
'Shit!' I cursed my controllers, my puppy, and I kicked my forty-ounce beer bottle over. I stood up and stretched for the few seconds I would have while the game logged off to the Waiting Room. I slipped my visor and headphones off, rolled my neck left and then right, and then I realized, 'Shew, puppy, either you or I stink and one of us needs a bath!' It was probably both of us since I had been sweating profusely while fighting JackieZZ for the past few hours and puppies always need a bath. I tugged on the little fellow's ear and told him he was a good boy.
I had never been defeated at any of the Realm World Competitions, especially not at the Gladiator Sequence, ever. And damnit, this JackieZZ that I met yesterday in The Realm's Tavern had beaten me at everything.
I stumbled over a pile of empty cereal boxes on my way to the fridge and pulled out another forty ounces. Unfortunately, I was out of cereal, so I had to settle for corn chips. The Waiting Room door popped on the screen and a video square with JackieZZ's computer likeness standing there smiling back at me opened.
'Gotcha again, but man that was the longest it has ever taken me to beat a Sequencer. You're good.' She put her hands on her hips and winked while that pleasantly, if not freakishly, disproportionate body jiggled up and down.
'Where the hell . . .' I finished off a sip of beer and belched, 'did that mini black hole thing come from?' I was comfortable speaking to such an attractive image since I knew she was seeing my six foot two, chiseled granite washboard abs and giant muscles image. After all, I am a Sequencer. Although, come to think of it, that belch probably wasn't cool. And of course, my own personal appearance of six foot one and two hundred forty pounds, all fat, was well hidden behind the video display.
'You liked that did you?' JackieZZ's boobs wiggled with every movement she made. It was distracting, a good fighting strategy, especially since she undoubtedly knew that most of her opponents would be single and male and hard up. 'I call it ZZ's Hole!' Her video likeness laughed.
'Cute, but effective. Who wrote the code and have you sold it yet?'
'I wrote the code, StevieM09. You wanna buy a copy, that'll be seventy-six hundred euros.' Her CGI likeness held out its left hand palm up and then winked at me.
'Uh, uh . . . how much is that American?' I asked.
'Oh yeah, I've been in Ramstein so long I almost speak German now. That's about one point two times in U.S. You want it?'
'Shit, I couldn't afford it. How did you get so good?' I stroked my belly and propped the corn chip bowl on it with my left hand while reaching for my beer with my right hand. The picture in picture news alert icon blinked on in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. I ignored it for now.
JackieZZ chimed back in, 'Oh that; my dad works for RealmSoft Europe. I write code for them in the summer when school is out.'
'I see, uh, no, I don't see. What'd you mean, when school's out? How old are you?' I had a bad feeling about this.
'I'm fourteen.'
'How did you get in to The Realm? It's for adults only!' I thought of some of the other more adult Worlds within The Realm, like Orgy World and it spooked me a bit. Kids just shouldn't be in there.
'How do you think I can write the code for RealmSoft if I can't get in The Realm, stupid?' That last was more of an insult than a question. Her video likeness stuck her tongue out at me and put her hands on her hips. I felt bad about noticing the boob wiggles this time.
'But, you shouldn't be in here, JackieZZ,' I pleaded.
'Oh pooh. You're a prude just like my mom. Don't worry, mother, I have a special access that just lets me into the Gamer Level Worlds.' Again the wiggles.
'JackieZZ, that is impossible. You know as well as I do that once you open the door to The Realm there are no doors that can't be opened. You're in The Realm, for Christ's sake!' I shook my head then stuffed a handful of chips in my mouth.
'Yeah I know, this is a new experimental access with a worm attached to it. If you go to certain places the worm starts to eat you. I'm trying to figure out how to beat it for my dad. If I can't beat it, The Realm will no longer be an adul—' She stopped talking and her likeness vanished from the screen.
'JackieZZ, are you there?' No response.
'JackieZZ, Jackie are you online?' Nothing.
Oh well, I thought, she must've somehow gotten disconnected, turned off or something. I had heard of that happening but had never seen it. 'How about that,' I told Lazarus the Puppy, 'kids in The Realm. Bad enough they're in the Framework, but The Realm. Weird stuff, hunh? Yeah, that's right, you're a good puppy.' I tugged on Lazarus's left ear and scratched his neck. The little guy looked up at me with sad little two-month-old puppy dog eyes. My mom and dad had given him to me recently as he was a pup from the last litter of the family dog, Molly. They had kept a family dog from the same genetic line since I was a kid; it was sort of a tradition.
The news alert icon had continued to blink since I lost contact with JackieZZ, but rather than worry about it I decided that I was going to get another beer. Upon arrival at the fridge I realized that I only had one forty left, the horror. 'Oh God, Lazarus, we're out of beer! Go to the store and fetch some boy, good boy!' Lazarus just lay there chewing on his squeaky toy and didn't respond other than his ears propping up at the sound of his name.
Then I remembered where I had heard of the Framework connections being disrupted. It was a few months ago when the meteor destroyed Colorado and part of Wyoming.
Oh my God, I thought. I frantically grabbed the remote and opened up the news alert icon on the TV, afraid of what I might see. 'Let's just see what the talking heads have to say!'
' . . . again, so far to our knowledge, there have been huge explosions or perhaps impacts, near Los Angeles and off the coast of Cape Kennedy, Florida.'
'Mom and Dad! Carly! No!'
