Game On! A GameLit Anthology Read online

  Game On!

  A GameLit Anthology

  Anthea Sharp

  Alethea Kontis

  Alexia Purdy

  Angel Leya

  Avril Sabine

  Danielle Annett

  Marilyn Peake

  Pauline Creeden

  Sarra Cannon

  Stephen Landry

  Game On! A Gamelit Anthology, first published May 2019, Fiddlehead Press. All stories copyright ©2019 their respective authors.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Looking for even more more GameLit?

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  FEYLAND TALES Volume 1 - GameLit short stories, set in the Faerie magic/high-tech gaming world of Feyland.

  THE FIRST ADVENTURE - What if an immersive game was a gateway to the Realm of Faerie? Start the USA Today bestselling Feyland series for FREE!

  THE GAMER CHRONICLES - GameLit stories from 11 top authors of SF and Speculative Fiction, including Ken Liu and Seanan McGuire.

  Contents

  About the Stories

  True.love - Alethea Kontis

  Husk - Stephen Landry

  Battle Mage - Pauline Creeden

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  The Anchoring - Alexia Purdy

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About the Author

  Level Ten - Danielle Annett

  Tales of Inadon 1: The Disc - Avril Sabine, Storm Petersen, and Rhys Petersen

  What’s in a Username? - Angel Leya

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Loxley - Sarra Cannon

  1. The Dark and Dirty World

  2. Everbrooke

  3. The End of The World

  4. More Than This Life

  Shade and the Secrets of Summer Camp - Marilyn Peake

  Real Challenge: A Spark Jaxley Story - Anthea Sharp

  About the Stories

  True.love - Alethea Kontis

  In this futuristic retelling of Sleeping Beauty, a gamer hacktivist tries to take down the world’s largest matchmaking site…and stumbles on a side quest he never bargained for.

  Husk - Stephen Landry

  Adventure, excitement, the never ending thrill of discovering new worlds in an ever expanding sci-fi setting. All fun and games until you find yourself crashing with a bout of amnesia on an unknown alien world with no escape, and mystery down every corridor.

  Battle Mage - Pauline Creeden

  Can a clan master control a player both in and out of the game?

  Jordan Park loves the sub-levels in his favorite game, Battle Mage. But when he sees someone important from his past suddenly show up in the game, he wonders if she is there because of her own choices, or if she’s controlled by someone else. The only way he can discover the truth is by fighting a battle highly stacked against him.

  The Anchoring - Alexia Purdy

  In a futuristic America, a sixteen-year-old hacker turned Robin Hood, Tatiana Miramar, has lived her entire life in a wheelchair. She awaits the possibility of winning a lucrative lottery for a functioning body. After meeting a captivating stranger in the addictive, online virtual game called Red Herring, she’s given the chance to change her life for a steep price.

  Level Ten - Danielle Annett

  Trapped inside the Helix, Serina is forced to complete thirteen levels to win her freedom. If she loses, any chance of seeing her family again is lost, her life forfeit to the game - but can she overcome the unbeatable odds?

  Tales of Inadon 1: The Disc - Avril Sabine, Storm Petersen and Rhys Petersen

  When all actions have repercussions, it isn't really a game…

  Carissa has felt lost since the death of her mother. Learning about the Guardians Of The Round Table and Inadon has her alternating between hope and disbelief. Dark forces, a role-playing game style world, magic and being able to make a difference. No wonder she can't quite bring herself to believe it's real.

  What’s in a Username? - Angel Leya

  When gamer girls Maddy and best friend Amber run into Maddy's crush while playing the hot new MMORPG, Power, Maddy decides hiding behind her guy Avatar is the perfect way to get close to said crush--without all the stupid awkwardness that usually ties her tongue and unties her shoelaces. But when she suspects her best friend has eyes for the same guy, their gaming suffers... and there's more at stake in the MMORPG than anyone realizes.

  Loxley - Sarra Cannon

  In a dystopian world where citizens log into The Realm online to escape from their dark reality, one hacker fights to make a difference as she goes in search of a rare artifact.

  Shade and the Secrets of Summer Camp - Marilyn Peake

  Shade and her best friend Kai attend summer school before starting their freshman year at a college for magically gifted students. Shade is a Ghost Whisperer, which means ghosts contact her when they need help resolving issues from their earthly lives before moving on into the afterlife. When she is contacted by a ghost within a virtual reality game, summer camp stops being fun and games, and turns instead into something deadly serious.

  Real Challenge - Anthea Sharp

  Sometimes, the true challenge isn’t what you think…

  Top-rated gamer Spark Jaxley has made it to the World Championships, ready to give the competition her all. The stakes are high, the gaming is fierce, and her entire future is riding on the outcome. In the end, will she make the right choice?

  Read even more GameLit!

  GAME MASTERS v2.0: LEVEL UP - A collection of novels, just .99 cents at all retailers.

  FEYLAND TALES Volume 1 - More GameLit short stories, set in the Faerie magic/high-tech gaming world of Feyland.

  THE FIRST ADVENTURE - What if an immersive game was a gateway to the Realm of Faerie? Start the USA Today bestselling Feyland series for FREE!

  True.love - Alethea Kontis

  The music stopped as Brandon reached the ruined castle at the top of the mountain. Wind whistled in his ears. There was a sense of sulphur in the air. His heart pounded in his chest. With one hand he pulled his sword from its sheath, revealing the intricate pattern of thorns that twisted around the deadly blade. With the other hand he removed a golden key from the pouch at his belt and unlocked the dark castle’s massive door.

  The dragon met him on the other side.

  He brandished his sw
ord and raised his shield. The crimson rose on the face of it glowed with protective magic. He quickly spotted his destination: the treasure room door. On the opposite side of the beast.

  Brandon stared up at the dragon and quietly took a deep breath. Its black scales had an iridescent indigo sheen. Its wings were scored and tattered, but still strong. If that mythological vulnerable patch at the base of its neck existed, Brandon couldn’t see it.

  The surest way to lose a fight against a dragon was to make the first move…but nothing fought for was nothing won. Brandon felt like a toy soldier in comparison to the beast, but his lack of size also meant that agility was on his side. His mind raced, focusing on his destination, trying to calculate a path across the room that would minimize his interaction with the dragon.

  The dragon snorted, distracting Brandon for a moment. It lowered its serpentine head to the ground and stared at Brandon with eyes of blood and flame. It did not open those massive jaws and gobble him whole. Instead, the dragon raised a sinewy forearm, lifted a deadly claw, and brushed Brandon’s nose with the tip.

  “Boop,” said the dragon.

  “Mal?”

  The dragon grinned a toothy nightmare. “Hiya, kid. How are you?”

  “Great.” Brandon’s shoulders dropped in defeat. He sheathed his sword and returned his shield to inventory. “I don’t suppose you have a spare key? I burned my last one trying to acquire the grail behind that door, which I assume is now gone.”

  Mal absolutely had the ability to hack herself into a game and leave without a trace, but she wouldn’t have bothered wasting precious code on her little brother.

  “Seriously?” The dragon’s aspect shimmered, shifting into humanoid form. The woman that stood before Brandon now was only eight feet tall instead of eighty. Her hair was still black, as were her eyes and large wings. The black design that covered her body seemed to be half lace and half tattoos. “You never play the games you create. What is it about this old chestnut, anyway? How many times have you become King of Dyrlland? How many princesses have you saved? You must have quite the electronic harem by now.”

  “Come on, Mal,” he said. His sister was such a purist. She was always pestering him about not trying harder to have a real life in the Real World. Brandon hadn’t been interested in the Real World since their parents had died in a train crash fifteen years ago.

  Mal said nothing.

  Her name was really Elinor, but she’d been Malwere—Mal for short—the second she was old enough to claim a gamer tag. “Mal” for a million obvious reasons; “were” because her avatars always involved some animal aspect or another. In contrast, Brandon never had a desire to be anything other than “Brandon.” His login was Brandon24276464.

  The dark angel raised her hand. Golden keys rained from her palm into a pile at his feet. Brandon narrowed his eyes at her as he saved them to inventory. For all that she was a bleeding heart Gardener hacktivist, Mal rarely gave him anything unconditionally.

  “What do you want, Mal?”

  “A favor.”

  Well, at least she didn’t waste time quibbling. “For a bunch of keys?”

  “For the armor.”

  Mort.

  “The time has come, Brandon. It needs to end, so a new era can begin.”

  Brandon hadn’t asked for much in his life. When their parents died, Mal had been old enough—and smart enough—to take care of them both. She’d sought assistance from the Gardeners, as their parents would have wished. The community had embraced the two orphans without hesitation.

  Gardeners were a sect who eschewed the electronic way of life, focusing instead on actual human interaction. That’s not to say they didn’t dabble at all. A faction called The Cut ventured into the online world and constantly fought against the electronic establishment. Their greatest feat to date was Look Up, a virus that found its way onto screens around the world and prompted the user to “look up” at the Real World around them. The elegant simplicity of the bug raised considerable awareness of the Gardeners, and added thousands to the movement.

  Mal had been instrumental in the launch of Look Up. She was so passionate about the cause. Brandon wished he felt passion like that about anything.

  Unlike his sister, Brandon sought solace in the virtual world. He shied away from other people. He completed his online classwork, watched his vids, and played his games without bothering anyone else. As long as he participated in a few community events and wrote the odd code, Mal had left her kid brother alone to grieve in his own way.

  Until the armor.

  Over the years, Brandon had become obsessed with Dyrlland, an old adventure game containing a myriad of twisted supplementary side quests. Even though it was decades old, it became fashionable for websites to offer promotional avatar skins of the cult classic to new registrants. After much research, the skin Brandon decided he wanted the most was from True.love. Unfortunately, Brandon was only thirteen, well under the matchmaking site’s legal age limit, and the offer was for a limited time only.

  True.love was the relationship website to beat all others. Every person who signed up at True.love found what they were looking for, no matter what their proclivity. Every single one. Mal and Brandon’s parents—a hapless astrotech and a romantic English Classics instructor—had found each other through that site. Everyone’s parents’ had. Due to the wide range of offerings and one hundred percent satisfaction rating, registration required a million personal details. More than a few were traps meant to stop unsuitable candidates.

  Mal rose to the challenge and dove into True.love’s massively complex server. She ultimately found it was easier to hack Brandon’s birth records and change his age than it was to breach True.love’s protocols. He still remembered their conversation the day he’d opened the v-mail containing the skin’s confirmation code.

  “You’ll owe me for this one day, gamer boy,” Mal told him.

  “You’re the best sister ever,” he said with stars in his eyes.

  “I’d have to be, to wade into that hellhole,” she replied. “All that data…True.love eats it, sells it, and who knows what else. Every tiny little preferential detail right down to DNA—who wouldn’t want to get their hands on that? You want to know what’s really running things? Sites like this.”

  “It’s just a convenience,” Brandon reminded her.

  “Love should not be convenient,” she said adamantly. “Love takes faith. True.love may be bringing people together, but I argue that it’s not love. Taking down that site might just save the Real World someday.” She made him look at her then, pushing the screen of his tablet down far enough to reflect in her green-gray eyes. “And someday, my genius little brother will help me with that.”

  “Sure, whatever,” he’d said, as any teenager would.

  The suit of armor he’d received that day—despite being flamboyantly branded with the roses and thorns of the True.love masthead—ended up being the most valuable item in his arsenal. The code written for that skin was so powerful and so foolproof that the Dyrlland Game Runners were forced to run a background executable to pull it from play without notice. Only, they missed the handful of gamers whose characters happened to be actively wearing the skin at the time. The software company considered the man-hours required to deal with the loophole and ultimately allowed those lucky few gamers to keep the skin. They became a guild of sorts, calling themselves the Rosenthorn Guard.

  The Guard gave Brandon a sense of identity that he’d never found among the Gardeners. Just wearing the armor in the game made him feel special. He didn’t need a community that highlighted his awkwardness; he needed to be part of a goal-oriented strike force. Mal’s little hacktivist collective did seem a lot more like that.

  And now, apparently, The Cut was ready to take out True.love.

  There was no way Brandon could ask Mal about her plans here. Virtual worlds were full of embedded spyware. Even if it was just a bunch of benign adbots, they needed to speak around what they were reall
y trying to say.

  “You think I’m an idiot,” he said. “I’d just screw up your stupid favor.”

  She wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily. “If it’s a stupid favor, then an idiot’s exactly who I need.”

  He had to counter with something else. “An idiot who’s going to be alone forever?”

  It was true enough. In all the time that he’d been a full-fledged member of True.love, the site’s supposedly infallible algorithm had matched him with exactly no one. Deep down, he suspected it had something to do with Mal’s tampering.

  Regardless, it was yet another reason Brandon had thrown himself so deeply into his game development work. He enjoyed making worlds full of quests, puzzles and Easter eggs for the masses to enjoy. His personal challenge was to create a platform that fascinated him more than Dyrlland. So far, that hadn’t happened.

  Mal’s dark angel gave Brandon’s knight a black-lipped grin. “Little brother, a girl could walk right up to you and say that you were literally her reason for living, and you wouldn’t know what to do with her.” She stretched out her wings and ran her fingers through her feathers. Brandon could see the green code sparkle along the edges of her fingers.