Starting to Like It
“It’s a murder simulator,” Dave Clearwater said in answer to the woman’s question. Others in his audience took notes as he leaned into the microphone. “The Death Alleys video game teaches our children to kill, and it teaches them to like it.”
The woman frowned at the billboards on Clearwater’s podium that advertised his new book, Video Games Corrupt Our Youth. “But where’s your evidence?”
“I’m sorry, but we have to move on to the next question.”
The woman blinked her eyes. “Oh, I see. Maybe you need to research this a little bit, huh?”
“Next question, I said.”
Her eyes began to glow. Clearwater felt a tickling sensation along his spine an instant before the room vanished.
He found himself in the front passenger seat of a car. The street scene tearing by looked like a cartoon drawn by computers. He screamed and looked at the driver, who was also a computer animation. The man–if you could even call him that–had close-cropped hair drawn with simple brown lines. His eyes were two black pits. His arms turned the steering wheel, but there were no pedals.
“What is this? Let me out!”
But even as he spoke, Clearwater recognized him. It was Nero Blaine, the protagonist of Death Alleys.
“Gonna get your ass,” a child’s voice spoke from Nero’s throat. It had a tinny quality, as if it came over the phone.
“Let me out! Please!”
“The people in this game are so noisy,” Nero said.
Another voice, a woman’s, answered in the same phone-in voice: “Maybe I should turn them off the next round.”
Despite his terror, Clearwater couldn’t help but note how unusual this was. What little research he had done into the topic suggested that males usually played these games. Not females… This was a game, wasn’t it?
As they conversed, Nero smashed out his side window with an elbow. Ahead of them, a white van turned onto the street. An Uzi appeared in Nero’s left hand, and he hung it out of the window to shoot at the van.
Clearwater screamed as they sideswiped the van. Both vehicles stopped in the middle of the street.
The two drivers shot at each other through their windows. A bullet grazed Clearwater’s shoulder, feeling like a bee sting. Still screaming, he pushed his door open and fell out upon gray, animated pavement.
Nero and the van’s driver, an animated woman, also got out. Clearwater gasped as he recognized her–or at least this crude representation of her. It was the woman with the glowing eyes.
She shot Nero in the head. An instant later, the main character of Death Alleys vanished. He left behind a glowing Uzi that glowed red until she picked it up.
She turned to Clearwater. “You’re next.”
A handgun lay on the street a few feet away, glowing red. Clearwater seized it and shot the woman in the chest. “Go to hell!”
The woman vanished.
Elation filled him. He’d never killed anyone before. The sensation was strangely exhilarating.
But how did he get here? Was he dead? Was this place Hell?
But there was no time to consider these questions. The street vanished and then reappeared. Clearwater and Nero again sat in the car. The car lurched forward. Nero again broke out his window with an elbow.
This time, Clearwater found a gun resting in his lap. Despite his terror, he couldn’t help but grin as he hefted the weapon.
Maybe this time, he could kill the van driver before she even got out of her vehicle. That would teach her.
