The reporter droned on, "There appears to be asurvivor. He looks to be very badly burned." The reporter and thecameraman rushed in to get a better look. Trust the heartless reporter to takeadvantage of some poor human's last moments.
The figure in the fire blanket was still struggling,which was no surprise. Anyone that had ever had a burn larger than a Skittleknows just how terrible a deep burn is. The amount of nerves that were firingon that poor guy must be in the thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. Itwasn't surprising that he would struggle so badly.
"Firefighters here have just rescued a victim fromthe fire," she said, almost believably. You could see the excitement buildin her lips and her cheeks, not the excitement that comes with doing a goodjob, but the excitement that comes from finally attaining a goal. You could seeher dreams of prizes and promotions dancing behind her soulless eyes.
Rudy had seen enough. He picked up his chocolate bar,shoved the last chunk in his mouth and then changed the input over to his X-Box.Just before he switched the input, he thought he saw the burn victim chomp downon the arm of a paramedic that was trying to help him.
That coldhearted bitch would probably actually win aPulitzer Prize. As his X-Box booted up, he decided that he would pretend thateveryone he shot tonight was a vulturistic news reporter. He was just about toenter an online lobby when he heard a door in the hallway slam.
As silently as he could, he walked on his tiptoes to hisdoor. He could hear clumsy footsteps in the hallway. He looked out of hispeephole, straining to see anything. He waited patiently; the barely visiblepulsing of the neon lights in the hallway played tricks on his eyes. Just whenhe thought there was nothing there, a shape rushed past the peephole.
It was the neighbor from next door, a relatively nicewoman who tended to look at him as if his entire body might be crafted fromshit. He couldn't blame her. Few people found redheads attractive. Fewer stillwere attracted to the 300 pound variety.
Her hair was in disarray. She had clearly just woken up,and he could hear her audience-less muttering as she passed the door. "Fucking drunk assholes banging on the door..." Her tirade trailedoff as she passed his door and headed down the stairs. He hoped she wouldn't bedumb enough to let in his friend downstairs.
The human part of him thought about going out there andwarning her about the man downstairs. But then the asshole part of him thought,If she can't figure out not to open the door for an unresponsive man who isbleeding profusely from his face, then she's got bigger problems in her life. Thiswas Darwinism, plain and simple.
Rudy plopped back into his La-Z-Boy, and tried to loginto a lobby. The night was slow, and there wasn't nearly as much traffic asthere usually was judging from the little map of the world that was featured onthe main page. Where normally the entire country of North America was lit uplike a goddamn Christmas tree to indicate who was online, this morning therewere pockets of darkness here and there. It was odd. Maybe the COD servers werebeing updated. He hadn't heard about any downtime for the game, but when yousold millions of copies of a game, you could fuck your customers over withouteven thinking about it. They would always come back.
By now, the franchise had become a tradition more thananything else. Some people only bought one video game a year, and it was alwaysCall of Duty.
Rudy was pondering the dimwittedness of the series' fanswhen he was abruptly dumped into a domination lobby mid-game. The connectionwasn't the strongest and the lag made his character jump around the screen.Rubber-banding they called it. Oh, boy. He wondered what area he had beenconnected to. Usually, he'd find himself lumped together with local playersfrom the city, in order to cut down on lag. But occasionally, when you playedthis late in the evening, or morning as it were, you tended to get dumped intorandom groups of people from all over the country.
"Rudy adjusted the mic on his head and said,"Where are you guys from?"
A staticky voice promptly replied, "Alabama overhere."
It appeared the rest of the lobby wasn't usingmicrophones.
"Where are you from?" the other voice asked.
"None of your goddamn business, you fuckingnoob!" he shot back. He laughed at his own cleverness, while deep downinside, he knew he was not particularly clever. He liked to pretend he washaving a good time anyway.
The other man didn't take the bait, and he continued toignore Rudy as they played. There was a thumping sound over the man's mic."What the fuck?" he mused intelligently as the thumping continued.
Rudy took the chance to be even more of a dick. "Whois that, your dad trying to break down the door to get a piece of yourass?"
"Fuck you, noobkiller420x," the man spat back.Then, to himself, he said, "Who the fuck is banging on my door likethat?"
The man must have left the room, because Rudy stumbledacross his character sitting listlessly in a corner. He aimed his shotgun atthe man's face and blasted it point blank. "Thanks for the points,Iceman."
Iceman ignored him some more, and instead yelled,"What the fuck do you want? Go away! It's six in the fuckingmorning!" There was more pounding. Rudy found Iceman again, his charactersitting in a different corner of the map but the result was the same.
The pounding continued. "I've had enough of thisshit." The sound of a chain rattling could be heard over the mic, and thenIceman said, "I don't know who the fuck you are, but you need to get thefuck out of here before..." Iceman shrieked into the microphone. "Getoff me, faggot," he yelled.
Rudy giggled a little bit and said, "Oh my God,
