Cure for the Common Universe (4 page)

“Games are pretty small these days,” he said, walking closer and pressing me against the wall. “Tamagotchi, iPod Touches.”

I swallowed. “I might have a big butt, but I don't use it for storage.”

He smiled. “Just messin'.”

He knelt down, unlaced my shoelaces, and took them. In case I tried to play cat's cradle with them, I guess.

He led me down the long hallway. “Time to meet G-man,” he said.

“The bad guy from
Half-Life
?” I said, laceless shoes flapping off my feet.

Command chuckled. “That's what the players call the clinical director. Don't tell him why. Game talk is forbidden here, but the guy's never played a video game in his life.”

We passed doors stenciled with different symbols: a candle, a music note, a cauldron, a computer chip. At the end of the hall, Command stopped and pointed up a staircase to a metallic door.

“Good luck,” he said.

I swallowed and scaled the stairs.

How the hell did I get here?

How the hell did I get
out
?

I had to convince them I did not belong.

If this was the meeting where the clinical director decided whether or not someone who'd been committed was truly addicted, whether there had been some kind of mistake and
this kid should be immediately released so he could go on his date with the cute girl from the car wash, then I was ready to be the most well-adjusted gamer he had ever met.

This would require me to be a charming person . . . which I was not.

I smoothed my
Super Mario Bros.
shirt and opened the metal door.

“Juuuust a moment,” a slim man in a gray suit said. He was sitting at a small desk, pressing a row of stamps onto an inkpad, one by one.

The office looked like it had been built for epileptics. No loud colors. No sharp corners. No decoration of any kind. Not even accreditations. There was a desk and two chairs, and that was about it.

“Done!” The director stood from his desk, lightly punching at his hip to get all the way upright. His bright green eyes fixed on me. “Jaxon,” he said, in a voice that was warm but all business. He came around the desk and offered his hand. “Welcome to Video Horizons, the first video game rehabilitation center in the West.”

I shook his hand.

And even though I was exhausted . . .

Even though I felt stripped and humiliated and out of my element . . .

Even though I was terrified about not making it to my date . . .

I smiled.

“Thanks for having me. It's
great
to be here.”

“Really?” The director took a step back and gave a pleased frown. “No one's ever said that before.”

His teeth looked like they'd never been flossed, and I could smell moss when he spoke.

I smiled again and shrugged. “How often do I get a free desert vacation? Ha-ha.”

The director shook his finger at me. “I like your attitude. Have a seat.”

He gestured to the chair opposite his desk while easing his stiff hip into his. I sat. The fluorescent lights fizzed.

Over the years I'd picked up a couple of sales tactics from my dad:

1. Be passionate about the client's interests.

2. Mimic their actions to make them feel you're relatable.

3. Use humor as a lubricant.

4. Act like a normal human being for once in your life.

That last one was personal advice for me.

“I'm the clinical director here at Video Horizons,” the man in the suit said. “My name is John Borno, but everyone here calls me G-man because I'm the master of games.”

“
Pleasure,
G-man,” I said.

He smiled. “I like to personally greet each of our players when they first arrive.” He made a circular motion with his hand. “Give a rundown on how this place works.”

Players?
Hadn't I been committed there to
stop
being a player?

“Lay it on me,” I said.

“First of all, Jaxon, we encourage players not to use their real names while here. This allows you to retain patient confidentiality when you return to the real world and maintain a
healthy
online presence.” G-man dropped the business voice. “But it also means you get to come up with your very own player name. It can be anything you want. Anything.”

“Ooh!” I said, trying to sound enthused. “Um, gosh, this is exciting. How about . . .” I drew a total blank. That is, until a three-tailed fox helicoptered through my head. “Miles Prower?”

“Love it!” G-man said. He clicked a pen and wrote it on a chart with about a dozen other names. Then he stared at the name. “Oh! I get it. Clever wordplay.”

“Thought you might like that.”

“Well,
Miles
 . . .” He leaned back into his chair. “Video Horizons opened about two months ago. We don't even have a logo yet, but our population has practically
doubled
every week due to the ever-climbing number of kids who are afflicted with an electronics addiction. You might be asking yourself, is it really that many?”

“I
was
asking myself that,” I said.

Actually, I was wondering what Serena would think if she could see me right then. She'd probably throw her Schwinn at me and run.

“Up to
thirty percent
of youths are addicted to video games,” G-man continued. “It's a growing concern in our society.
That's how we were able to earn enough grants to acquire this old military training center.” He smiled at the fluorescent lights as if we were in some pleasure palace. Then he grew serious. “Humans spend more than three billion hours a
week
in the gaming world. If you were to add up all the time players have spent in
World of Warcraft,
do you know how much it would amount to?”

Six million years,
I thought.

“No,” I said.

“Six
million
years,” he said.

“That's crazy,” I said.

My dad had fed me the same statistic. I'd probably contributed a couple of years myself.

“Video Horizons is focused on slowing that number's growth,” G-man said.

“An admirable mission,” I said.

“I'm glad you think so,” he said.

“I do think so,” I said.

I didn't. G-man didn't understand gamers. And he certainly didn't understand me. When the real world rejects your efforts for sixteen years, when you're mocked at school, when you can't get a date, when you don't get picked for sports, when your knowledge of Japanese gods is worthless, even
frowned
upon, it's hard not to turn to a community where your talents are appreciated.

Also, you get to kill dragons.

“You'll find that we're a bit different from a regular rehab,”
G-man said. “Video game addiction isn't as serious as a drug or alcohol addiction, but that doesn't mean it's not a major concern. Especially if you've been playing some of those games that have no end. I think you know the ones I'm talking about.”

I exaggeratedly rolled my eyes. “I do, unfortunately.”

The Wight Knights were probably so pissed at me right then, trying to battle through Skyscrape Arena without their trusty tank who had been torn away from the world and hurtling to . . . whatever the hell this place was.

“But don't mistake us for strict disciplinarians,” G-man continued. “We're not trying to re-create the video game recovery facilities they have in China. You know, with the militaristic drills, and flashing colorful lights into your pupils at six a.m.”

“Thank goodness for
that
!” I said, faking a chuckle.

“No, we actually try to have some fun here at Video Horizons. We operate on a revolutionary system that appeals to a gamer's sense of success. We are going to try to reprogram your behavior by breaking your game habit with—get this—another game. Think of it as the PlayStation 5 of addiction therapy.”

“Wow,” I said. “You are really speaking my language.”

He narrowed his eyes and leaned over his desk.

I leaned in too.

“We've devised a system where players such as yourself earn experience points.”

“That sounds like a video game,” I said, coloring my voice with intrigue.

“It
is
like a video game. But it's the video game of
life.
Instead of leveling up pixels and polygons, ones and zeros, you are going to level up”—he swiveled his finger in my direction—“
you
.”

“Me?” I said, touching my chest.

“You got it.”

So Video Horizons had gamified addiction therapy. It wasn't a terrible idea . . . so long as
I didn't have to do it.

G-man reached into a drawer and took out a scrolled-up piece of paper printed and cut to look like ancient parchment. He quickly scribbled something at the top and then slid it across the desk. Below “
Miles Prower
” written in shitty cursive were five columns labeled with pictures of a brain, a ball, a paintbrush, a sandwich, and a smiley face.

“We have all kinds of classes and activities here at Video Horizons,” he said. “Music, racing, martial arts, cooking, and many, many more that I don't want to spoil for you. . . . Spoiler alert!”

“Ha!” I said, even though he had somehow, impossibly, misused that phrase.

“For every real-life skill you pick up within these walls, your teachers or guild leader will stamp your scroll with a certain number of experience points.” He pointed to the stamps on his desk, each with a different number on its handle. “A thousand points for eating a healthy meal, two thousand points for painting a picture of a pretty sunset,
ten thousand
points for playing a whole song on a guitar. You'll also receive points for laundry, food prep, doing the dishes, stuff like that.”

“I actually do all my own cooking and cleaning at home,” I said.

“Excellent,” G-man said.

I didn't tell him it strictly involved Hot Pockets and paper towels.

“You may think it's strange that we're substituting one game for another,” he continued, “but if our point system gets you addicted to running and cleaning dishes instead of playing games, so be it. Once you've earned enough points to sufficiently ‘level up' ”—he actually did air finger quotes—“you're free to go home. Any questions?”

I dreaded the answer to my first question. But I had to know. What was my Bowser? What was my Deathwing? What Video Horizons final boss did I have to defeat to get back to my date?

“How many experience points do I need to . . . level up?”

G-man gave a sly smile. “One million, of course.”

My shoulders must have deflated, because he put up his hands defensively. “I know that sounds like a lot. But think of all the skills you'll pick up. Think of all the people you'll impress back home. We believe the life lessons you learn here at Video Horizons will give you a much richer life in the real world. I mean, how many dates will the highest
Pac-Man
score get you, right?”

I tried to smile but felt my eye twitch. This was too much. I'd already scored a date without this place and its stupid experience points.

“And, uh,” I said, dreading another answer, “how long does it take the average player to earn a million points?”

“Let's see . . .” G-man tapped his desk and considered the ceiling. “The fastest player did it in just two weeks. But she was a former Olympic athlete, so she
killed
in our tournaments.”

My skin went cold at the word. I was certain these were not the kind of tournaments I'd be good at.

G-man teetered his open hand in the air. “But I'd say it takes your average player about four weeks.”

Four
weeks
? I imagined all the suitors Serena would charm between now and then. Suitors better suited than me.

This was it. It was time to close the sale. I had to convince G-man that I was so well adjusted he should let me go right then. There had to be a series of things I could say, a specific path through our dialogue tree that would get me out of this.

“Have you ever locked up someone who didn't belong here?” I said. “Someone who had a dad who just wanted to get rid of his kid so he could hang out with his new child bride . . . or something?”

G-man considered me for a moment. “If we did take in a patient—sorry,
player
—who shouldn't have been committed . . . I believe it would become quickly apparent that the individual was well-balanced physically, mentally, and emotionally.” I swear his eyes flashed to my man boobs for a second. “After the first week's assessment, we could have a conversation with his or her parents to find out what the real trouble was.”

Dammit. I didn't
have
a whole week. This meant I'd have
to compete. Not only compete but destroy this Olympic athlete's record by earning a million real-life experience points in four days. I could do it though, right? This couldn't be that hard. What did an Olympic athlete have that I didn't, anyway?

G-man showed his mossy teeth. “The important thing is that you have
fun
.”

No. It wasn't.

“What if I win in four days?” I asked.

He gave a flat smile. “You won't.”

“What if I do?”

“The game is built so that players who are ahead—your jocks, your geniuses—will be given a handicap, and those kids who might be lagging behind a bit will be given bonuses. We want everyone at Video Horizons to feel like a hero.”

Great. Like
Mario Party.
The most unfair game ever created.

“You got somewhere to be?” G-man asked.