?????□ woke up after 4 pm for the third time that week. Her window was papered over with thick cardboard and her phone was at 0% battery, so there was nothing to wake her. It's whatever anyways. Everything is going great. She plugged her phone in, knocked four cans of caffeinated seltzer off her bedsheets onto the floor, and then fumbled around for her glasses. They were under a pile of clothing, somehow. I'm lucky I didn't stand up and step on them, again. She clumsily arranged them on her face just in time to be blinded.
Her phone flared to life and she quickly covered her eyes, then it started buzzing rapid fire with notifications.
She blinked out a few scratchy tears from the sudden light, then opened the app:
The messages went on like that for a while, starting at 9 AM and continuing until 8 minutes ago. ?〈???? dragged herself out of bed and kicked her legs through some athletic shorts, then turned on her computer monitor, which was on the floor with all of her other worldly belongings. She opened wallet.bat and read through the barebones readout that updated every minute or so:
Jumping jackrabbits... ■????? scrolled up through an endless report of new Z tokens being mined. She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Okay, just a casual 300 million dollars sitting in our wallet. Z was the most widely adopted cryptocurrency around, and basically the only coin worth mining. It was so widespread that most major companies used it for their blockchain ledger, with a few running their entire company through it. She found that to be incredibly foolish. The coins were worth about 40 dollars, depending on the mood of the internet, and she had just mined 6200 of them in the last minute. Well, she hadn't. Her computer could barely open the console she was watching update with another batch on mined Z coins. Plus six thousand three hundred and thirty six.
She opened SCHISm on her ancient computer and connected to the private network she used to communicate with COIN. klipse was typing out new lines at an incredible rate:
??℡?? closed the application and sighed. whit would monitor the changes just fine without her. She wasn't working on anything until she ate something. She wanted... a big gulp... and a burrito. The long, spicy one with eggs and cheese called "Gut Buster" or "The Big One". She slipped on a hoodie and some flip flops, found her keys, and wandered out into her living room. Chris was sitting on the couch with Rufus on his lap, watching something soap-y with the volume muted. She rapped him on the shoulder as she walked by, "You don't gotta mute it on my account."
He grinned at her, "I knew you were sleeping. You snore, girl."
"Take that back," ??? ?? held her hand to her chest as if devastated by the news.
"God's own truth. Like a small man in a big truck stuck behind a Prius."
She looked horrified, "No I don't. Don't say that."
"Rufus hides under the couch if I don't shove a towel under your door," She looked over her shoulder. Sure enough, a pink towel.
?????? leaned over the couch's back and scratched Rufus under the chin, "You love me don't you, Ruf. You're my feller."
Rufus immediately started purring and kneading Chris' leg. Chris rolled his eyes. She jingled her keys at him, "Biggest gulp of your life? Dare to taint your perfect intake regimen?"
Chris shook his head, "Eat something healthy. You're not well. Normal people don't sleep this late. Honestly, see a doctor."
??◆?? flipped him off and walked out of their apartment. They lived in a converted motel and it wasn't converted very well, still ringed by the grimmest of urban blight. It was only a short walk across her parking lot to the parking lot of the aged Shop-n-Save. It was dead, as usual, and she waved sleepily to the older man who worked the counter 18 hours a day, every day. She leaned against the ATM, shoved her debit card into the slot, and typed in her PIN.
What the HELL? She had not given detri her bank account information. The mutual destruction agreement she had made with COIN was going to get her killed if they weren't more careful with stupid shit like this. She guessed her rent was covered this month, though. Chris would like that. She took out 20 dollars and got a diet cherry coke 64 oz soda and the extra extra spicy burrito, the one with the red label, which Lawrence took from her and immediately started microwaving as she paid.
He knocked on the tiny LCD television shoved in between lottery scratchers and chewing tobacco, "You seen all this?"
The TV was showing newsreel footage of people carrying boxes out of a glassy office building, with a chyron reading "virtual reality company who endangered thousands lays off entire work force"
She nodded to him and felt a headache coming on, "That's messed up."
"You're one of those computer types, aren't you? A hacker phreak?" He raised an eyebrow at her.
"Jesus, Larry. Are you 100 years old? They don't even make pay phones any more. But yes, I am a super phreak."
"I knew it. Know anyone tangled up in all this?"
"Nah..."
"$12.13 back," he said as he slipped 4 coins, 3 bills, and a steaming burrito across the counter to her, "keep your nose clean."
"Same to you," ????? winked at the old man, just to give him a thrill, then headed back home. It was probably going to be another 12 hours straight of coding before they made any headway on their slow mining problems. She didn't know why detri cared so much about the supposed 50 day time limit, but klipse was starting to drive her crazy with his ceaseless whining. He needed to be funneled towards something productive for the sake of everyone's sanity. After they cracked gathering, she would fast track getting players into dungeons so he would have something to do with his pathetic life.
Their current solution was to have everyone, the players of Starchaser, wander randomly throughout the world, and it worked okay. Well, so mediocre that they only made 240 grand every minute of the day, but not good enough for some. The synchronization numbers were steadily going up too, just not fast enough. They had worked on a gathering loop last night that seemed to double the rate of synchronization gain, and if that worked, then dungeon combat should work like gangbusters. There were some technical reasons why getting players into dungeons without excess deaths would be an issue, but ??o???? could picture the outline of a solution in her mind already. Once that was solved, they should be able to hit their mining goals in around 47 days, give or take. She took a big bite of her burrito and got a thick hunk of tortilla stuffed with runny cheese and eggs. It was almost too mushy, but the salsa was so good that it was all worth it.
She passed back by her roommate and his cat, now watching their show at full volume, and returned to her 'gremlin cave'. Before settling in to writing and debugging, she did a quick check of how the new wandering algorithm was doing. She watched a display of coordinates slowly changing and smiled with satisfaction. The previous algorithm was causing a lot of the players to get stuck on random geometry, or something, and no new visuals meant decaying synchronization. Now that that was fixed and the fiasco with players dying over and over again was over, she could safely leave the players to their endless walking while she worked. She quickly scrolled up to near the top of the list to check the synchronization numbers.
Looks good to me, she nodded and switched back to her simple text editor. Her hands hovered over the keyboard but she hesitated. She pulled them back and pinched her thigh, then closed her eyes. She said a quick, "sorry" to the screen. They think they're having fun. They'll be fine. No one is going to die. In 50 days, this will be over and they can go back to living their lives.
She pinched herself again, harder this time. Stop telling yourself it will be fine. Make it be fine. Make them pay, and get out.
She released her thigh, a thick red welt rising on her skin, and winced. Her hands returned to the keyboard, she opened her file processor, and got to work on the gathering problem.
End of Patch 1.1
