Cult Fiction

Level 2 - Suit Up

The doors slammed shut behind me and left a nice frightening echo to reverberate around the spacious empty room. All that was inside the airlock was a single tele-screen - a hologram projecting computer console, or, as kids today described them: a big phone – and another door, in the same forbidding design as the one I came in by. So it had victory doors for the winners, and humiliation doors for the losers. Great.
I cautiously walked up to the tele-screen, eyeing the rest of the room to see if frikin’ laser beams were about to start shooting down at me, but when I got to the console I found a friendly welcome message waiting for me:
‘Welcome, Tina Lockhart, you will now be given the citizenship test for Municipal City. The test will be a series of questions to determine your suitability. If you get a question wrong, you will be electrocuted and ejected from the city. You may not retake this test until seven days have passed. Do you agree to these terms and conditions?’
‘Am, sure,’ I said. Electrocuted? That seemed a bit excessive.
‘Question 0: Name the five difficulties in the first DOOM game.’
Question zero? I thought that was a bit weird but I didn’t hesitate in answering. I listed:
‘I’m too young to die. Hey, not too rough. Hurt me plenty. Ultra-violence. And Nightmare!’
‘Correct!’
I nodded to thank the computer for that helpful little “correct!”
‘Question 1: What was the first FPS video game to use functioning mirrors?’
Hail to the king, baby!
‘Duke Nukem 3D,’ I answered.
‘Correct!’
This test was easy, hell, this test was fun! There was no way I was getting electrocuted. And those jerks outside said I’d be out in five minutes. Ha!

▪ ▪ ▪

Four hours... I’d been doing this stupid, fucking, test, for four, fucking, hours.
‘Correct!’
I closed my eyes and muttered that of course it was correct. All of my answers so far had been correct and yet the tele-screen felt the need to patronise me every single time! Somebody definitely went out of their way to programme this computer into being a total asshole, I was sure of it. But I was also going crazy! I was on number two hundred and fifty four, and I prayed I had only three questions left. Surely, someone thought two hundred and fifty six was the right number to finish things, surely. And no, I will call you Shirley!
‘Question 254: In the 1994 movie Airheads, what is the name of the protagonist’s band?’
‘The Lone Rangers,’ I sighed. Adam Sandler, Brendan Fraser, and Steve Buscemi - the three, lone, rangers.
‘Correct!’
‘I know it’s correct!’ I screamed, but then froze as the tele-screen tried to register my voice. Shit! Did it just record that as my next answer? No! No, not after four hours, not after getting every single question right! Not now! Not like this!
‘Question 255: What are the rules of Calvin Ball?’
Oh, thank Zod! And good question too. It could have a few different answers though. My brain was pretty fried, but one of the rules seemed to be that Calvin never won the game, Hobbes would always outsmart him. Kind of a psychotic kid if you thought about it: making his sub-conscious imaginary tiger friend always being one step ahead of his conscious mind. Someone should have made a graphic novel about Calvin as an adult - a crazed, lunatic, serial-killing, adult. His tiger Hobbes could be the brutal killer of all the victims in his mind too, without going full Life of Pi style. I made a mental note to maybe do that myself one day – draw the graphic novel I mean, not become a serial killer – and then went back to considering the rules of Calvinball.
Was the scoring one of the rules? The scoring was completely arbitrary, right? Not much of a rule. The only rule seemed to be that the rules were invented as they went, weren’t they? Was that the answer so?
‘The rules of Calvinball are...’
Wait! No! There was only one rule and that wasn’t it. I changed my answer in mid-sentence hoping the computer wouldn’t read it as an error.
‘The rules of Calvinball are that it can never be played with the same rules twice.’
I waited.
The tele-screen in front of me didn’t seem in any rush to let me know if I was about get electrocuted, and when it spoke next, it did not say “Correct!”
It said,
‘Congratulations! You win!’
I win? With only two hundred and fifty five questions? Not two fifty six? Then I grinned and nodded to the test designers, who must’ve been working to the old eight-bit byte systems that could only store two hundred and fifty six distinct values, including zero. That was why Pac-Man’s level two fifty six was a split screen mess, and why the max rupees you could collect in the Legend of Zelda was two fifty five. Two to the power of eight minus one - some binary finery. Nice.
The victory doors in the chamber opened and I paused to take a few steadying breaths. I had done it. I passed the test on my first go and I was in! It nearly broke my mind, but I did it. Four hours of being hungry and tired, of searching every nook and cranny of my brain for word perfect answers, of fretting over the fear of electrocution if I failed the test, and almost the same amount of fretting about my overwhelming new life if I passed it. So with much trepidation, I stepped forward into my new world, out of the airlock and into... another airlock.
It was much bigger of course, and to my left and right I saw dozens of other entrances trailing down out of sight in a giant curve. Most of them were locked shut, with only one or two opening in the distance. Very few people passed the test I supposed. Not everyone was as obsessively committed to cult media as me (and the twenty million others already inside the city) and now, in front of me, there looked to be another type of test. Big guys with big guns were standing in front of big checkpoints, waiting to give me a big welcome to my big new home.
As far as I knew there were two kinds of security in Municipal City, there were the Law Enforcers, who made sure you followed the rules inside, and there were the War Enforcers, who made sure the rest of the world stayed outside. These guys at the security checkpoints, they were War Enforcers, and by voluntarily entering their city you gave your consent to being shot by them right now if they didn’t like you. The one directly in front of me was motioning that I should come forward and I really hoped he would like me. So I swallowed nervously and then tried to come up with the prettiest, meekest, girliest smile I could.
I kept my smile locked in place - probably looking a bit creepy doing it - as I walked towards my potential death, and I looked around to see the War Enforcers at each of the checkpoints were all different. Some were dressed in black suits and shades, either in tribute to the Matrix Agents or to the Men in Black, and others further down the line were dressed like Starship Troopers, Storm Troopers, and Super Troopers.
One War Enforcer manned each checkpoint - a giant transparent cube filled with all kinds of machinery - and behind the checkpoints was another long row of closed airlock doors, each one unique in design. Every now and again an armour plated checkpoint was placed about. They were still just cubes, except made out of steel and surrounded with automated cannons. I looked down then to see a blood stain smeared along the ground, as if someone had just been shot and dragged away from the checkpoint in front of me, and just then I spun around as heard someone screaming in the distance. What the hell was I doing trying to get into this place?
Too late to turn back, I stepped into my big glass cube and waved amicably to my War Enforcer. He didn’t look impressed. He was dressed like a Jaffa from Star Gate SG1 – which I still think should’ve been called “MacGyver... in Space!” He was in full chain-mail armour, complete with zat gun at his hip and blast staff in his hand. He looked so serious that I had to fight to suppress a grin. I wanted so badly to call him a shol’vah, or tell him to kneel before his god.
‘Step onto the circle,’ he said, not even bothering to look at me.
‘Okay...’
I obeyed, stepped onto the circle and couldn’t resist hoping that they had built transporters and I was about to be teleported into the city. Municipal City had all the best technology, luring the smartest nerds in the world here with the promise of unadulterated sci-fi fantasy. Those that weren’t nabbed that way were simply bought, given juicy visas instead of fret-inducing tests. The city was a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry with all the Reality Quests it broadcast, but selling its technology was just as profitable. It made the city into one big, vicious, profitable, dirty circle having the most money to pay the best minds to develop the top technologies, which the city then sold the worst of to the rest of the world to keep its money flowing in and perpetuating the monopoly. So they could totally have teleporters by now.
The circle underneath my feet turned green and I held my breath as a ring of light floated up from it. The ring slowly rose and mini spectrums scanned my entire body before vanishing again. It was all over pretty quick, and then there was an awkward silence afterward. What was I supposed to do next? I tapped my fingers along my leg to power up my patience, but it didn’t work.
‘So...’
A klaxon sounded and the green circle underneath me went red. That couldn’t be good.
‘Take off your backpack and place it in the circle.’
I shrugged off my backpack and dropped it to the floor. Stepping out of the circle, I went through a quick mental check that there was nothing contraband in my pack. Not that I knew what wasn’t allowed, but all I brought were clothes. I left everything else back at home, gifting my awesome collections to John in the hopes that it might kick start him into following me here. Not that I needed him.
The green light flashed up in the circle and the same spectrum of laser beams shot out at my backpack. Since there was less of it than there was of me, the whole show was even quicker. Then the same needless wait – a wait that definitely could’ve been filled with an explanation of what was happening – until finally, there was a positive sounding beep. The green circle flashed greener and apparently my backpack was free to go.
‘Pour the contents of your backpack onto the X,’ he said, barely motioning towards a big red X in the corner.
‘Okay...’ I was reluctant to just pour it all out, I mean, I had underwear in there. Did he just want a look? Didn’t my bag just pass the test?
I unzipped and tipped all my clothes onto the big red X.
‘Step back,’ he instructed.
That didn’t sound good at all. I had barely taken one step back before there was a flash of red, a quick whoosh and all my clothes were gone! I turned to the War Enforcer with my jaw hanging open, all ready to hit him with a “what the fuck!”, when he hit me instead with a:
‘Remove your clothing.’
I guess I was wrong when I said all my clothes were gone. I let fly,
‘What the fuck, man! They were my clothes!’
The War Enforcer sighed. ‘Only ferrisfibre clothing is allowed inside the city. You will be given a default skin now and you can purchase upgrades at your discretion.’
‘Ferrisfibre?’
I could see the War Enforcer was weighing up if it was easier to explain this to me or just shoot me, but surely he had run into this question from every single other person who had ever tried to get into Municipal City. I mean the city had secrets but that’s kind of a big one not to tell people, “oh by the way, no clothes allowed, so nude up!”
The War Enforcer’s answer was all just one big sigh. ‘Ferrisfibre is used for all clothing inside the city, it allows for individual physics of the different worlds to operate, anti-gravity, slow-motion, hyper-speed, it interfaces with your Vambrace and also acts as minimum body armour, partially protecting from bullets, fire, plasma blasts, magics, all to avoid unnecessary deaths.’
He looked at me as if I had just asked him to explain the colour white, and his glare seemed to also say if you have any more questions, don’t ask them. The main trouble with that was that I had a thousand questions, the least of them being how this man had learnt to say so much with a single derisive look. But fine, I’d hold off on my questions. The War Enforcer was still looking at me though, waiting.
‘What? I won’t ask you any more questions, alright?’
‘Take off your clothes.’
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that. I looked around to see if anyone was looking. Only three of the other checkpoints I could see had new entries in them, all guys and they were all being stripped too. I was the only girl around, so yeah, everyone was looking. All the War Enforcers who had no-one to run through their checkpoints were all leaning against some machine, just waiting for the show. Fine. Let them perv at me, what did I care?
I stripped down to my underwear and threw my clothes on the big red X without being asked. I took my phone from the pockets but knew I wasn’t going to be allowed keep it. This place was so overzealously mysterious they were hardly going to allow me a phone to the outside world so I could snitch about all their secrets. My phone was my entire life back in the real world, everything I could possibly need or want was on it - it was my absolute identity. But when he motioned for me to throw my phone onto the big red X of destruction, I was prepared for it. I had made my peace with surrendering my old life in return for a new one. There should be no reward without appropriate sacrifice, so I laid my beloved phone down to its death.
I stepped back reverently and I nodded - both to signal to the War Enforcer to proceed and to reassure myself I was doing the right thing. But the War Enforcer just kept looking at me, his eyes only flicking over my body every other second, and he still seemed to be waiting for something.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ I asked, realising what he was waiting for.
‘Only ferrisfibre clothing is allowed in the city,’ he said professionally, but I could see he was trying to hold back a grin.
I took a breath. Who cared if these guys saw me naked? Chances were that I’d never see them again. The city had millions of people living inside, so even if these guys were normal players in their free time, what were the odds of running into them? I reached behind to unhook my bra, ready to brazenly flash the entire place, but then, just to make things worse, one of the airlocks behind me opened to let in another new player. It was just what I needed: one more person to see me naked.
I turned, hoping this new person was another girl to take some of the attention away, but instead of another girl, or anyone else even remotely normal, some kind of monster walked in. He was at least seven feet tall, with Hulk Hogan muscles bulging underneath his clothes, and if his bulk alone didn’t make him look unnatural then his skin definitely did. It was bone white with creepy grey veins all over him. He had wispy white hair dangling in shreds from his skull and even from this distance I could see his eyes were so bloodshot that they were almost entirely red. He looked like one of the Gentlemen, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but if they were on steroids, or maybe how the Joker would look if he was some kind of strange zombie crossbreed with the Incredible Hulk.
As he walked closer he caught me looking at him, and even though his eyes didn’t paw all over my body like everyone else’s had, his look was worse. This guy didn’t look like he wanted to jerk off while thinking of me later, this guy looked like he wanted to slowly murder me with the smallest bluntest item he could find. I didn’t know if he knew what I was thinking but he chose that moment to smile. His teeth were rotted and missing, with some sharpened to points at random places and I could say with certainty that I’d never seen anything as creepy as this guy in my entire life, fact or fiction.
He walked into the check point right next to me. I managed to pull my gaze away and, seeing all the War Enforcers were still staring at him, I took the opportunity to subtly slip off my bra and panties. I kicked them over to the big red X and tried my best to cover myself with my hands. My War Enforcer was still frowning at the weirdo that just walked in, so I coughed and he turned back to me.
‘Can I get my default skins so please? It’s kind of cold.’
It wasn’t cold, but I wanted very much to not be naked anymore. The War Enforcer took his time examining my nudeness, until finally satisfied, he said,
‘Step back into the circle.’
I threw back my head with impatience, but padded over to the damned circle again. As the green light started laser-beaming me for the second time, I saw my clothes and phone go whoosh in the corner. The red flash of flame was followed by another red flash from my circle as the lasers seemed to falter for a moment, before going on as normal. I saw the War Enforcer frown at this but then the light show finished and I got a bright green flash with the same positive beep my backpack got. Did that mean I was okay? Or that I qualified to be incinerated too? Well at least my backpack didn’t get crisped. It was the only thing still okay for now. Hey, yeah, why was this perv making me incinerate my underwear but not my backpack?
‘Do you have any cybernetics?’ the War Enforcer asked, oddly.
‘Do I look like I have any cybernetics?’ I asked back but that only encouraged him to look me all over again.
‘Step back onto the -’ he was interrupted by an alarm going off in the other checkpoint. Red lights were flashing in time with the sirens, but it was pretty clear the scanners weren’t needed to see what was wrong. The giant creepy guy was standing there naked, and even though I kept my eyes away from his junk, I couldn’t stop looking at his chest. Everywhere else on his body there was swollen white muscle, pulsing with those sick grey veins, but his chest was... well it was robotic. He had a metal plate instead of a left pec’ muscle, but it looked like it went deeper than that. He had mechanical flaps that were breathing for him and if I didn’t know any better I would’ve said he had a cybernetic lung.
I didn’t know what kind of technology they had inside of Municipal City regarding this, but in the outside world it was common enough to have cybernetic limbs, hands, feet and entire legs, but still nowhere near robotic organs. Yet this freak right here was practically a full blown cyborg. My War Enforcer was staring at him with just as much amazement, so I decided to take advantage of his distraction.
‘Hey, where can I pick my new clothes?’
The War Enforcer looked at me, frowned and then waved me over to a console. He let me figure it out by myself while he and every other War Enforcer were all still staring at this hulked-out cyborg, wondering how they could justify killing him rather than letting him into their city. My priority now however was just to stop being naked.
I stepped up to the console, activating the tele-screen, and was presented with a picture of Conan the Barbarian. I hoped that there was more of a choice than this for default skins, because really, wearing a few leather straps wasn’t going to help my nudity problems. My eyes flicked left and the console followed the command, scrolling past Star Fleet uniforms and Jedi robes, moving from Prince of Persia clothes to Fresh Prince of Bel Air clothes, from the green Peter Pan outfit of Link, to the green camouflage of an army extra from something like Desert Strike. If these were only the default settings then I couldn’t wait to see what the upgrades were, and suddenly I found my choice.
I had been looking for something that looked like Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII, you know, since my name was Tina Lockhart, but when I saw Tomb Raider, I decided it was just as good. I hadn’t really paid much attention before to how similar they both dressed, but it was perfect for now and I made my selection. I told the tele-screen my sizes and then just waited nakedly. There were sounds from underneath the floors, where who-knew-what kind of mechanical wonders were being employed unseen. Then one of the floor panels flipped over and my brand new Lara Croft ferrisfibre skins appeared like magic. I very gratefully got dressed.
My new look consisted of a white t-shirt and brown cargo shorts, (and underwear too of course), complete with gun belt with two more straps for my thighs, and a surprisingly comfortable pair of hiking boots. The so-called ferrisfibre clothing didn’t feel like they were laced with metal at all. When I was finished, I put on my backpack, and I had the uncomfortable feeling I was breaking some city law by bringing it into this place but the War Enforcer wasn’t saying anything. He wasn’t even looking at me. I turned to look at my reflection on the glass wall and nodded my approval. I always had my hair styled to look like Tifa before: perfect manga fringe and long flowing, brown hair down my back, but now I was actually her! It was amazing how much wearing clothes in public could do to your confidence, but being dressed like your favourite video game character and being only moments away from entering the world’s largest video game, it felt pretty awesome.
Looking around, I saw that the creepy freak in the next checkpoint was being escorted away by a bunch of War Enforcers now. He was still fully nude and I could see they were taking him to one of the armour-plated checkpoints. Were they going to kill him? Kick him out? Take him for further testing? Who the hell gave a shit? I wanted to enter the city!
The War Enforcer looked away from the scene and back to me. He seemed surprised I was still there. Moving his eyes over his console then, he said, ‘Vambrace, female, size fifteen.’
I was about to object to who the hell he was calling a size fifteen, when I wondered what a Vambrace was. I watched as more unseen mechanical wonders did their magic and another floor panel flipped over to reveal a metal tube. There was a large screen covering the top side of it, with some kind of gel-pack padding covering the entire inside. I frowned when I spotted that there were sharp metal needles sticking out through that padding, making me wonder why they would bother to pad something designed to stab you. I tried not to panic. I had seen these things on all of the players from the Reality Quests and tournaments; they looked like the arm plate that Leela wore in Futurama, only thinner, like a metal skin around your forearm.
‘Hold out your left arm.’
With a shaky hand, I did as he said. I had to do this if I wanted into the city. He opened the metal tube out, positioning those spikes around my forearm and then I withdrew my left arm suddenly, giving him my right instead.
‘I’m left handed,’ I said, hiding my left hand behind my back for some reason. The War Enforcer really looked like he deeply cared about what arm I used and only paused long enough to consider shooting me again. But he placed the Vambrace around my right arm, reaching from my wrist to my elbow, and that was as much as my eyes managed to sneak away from those needles about to puncture right into me. Oh this was going to hurt.
The War Enforcer slammed the metal tube shut around my arm, driving the needles deep into my flesh. I screamed and tried to struggle free of him on instinct. He let me go with a shrug, just as my legs gave way, and what could only be acid began pumping into my arm. I thrashed about on the floor hysterically and felt more and more liquid torture flood into my body, from the Vambrace to my arm, from my arm to my chest, from my chest to fucking everywhere! I bit through my lips trying to fight the pain and felt the blood flow into my mouth and down my face, and I could even feel the blood seeping out from my forearm, but these were minor little side notes to the full symphony of agony trying to burn me alive from the inside!
Then it was over.
My body was numb from the trauma and I just lay there, feeling like I had gotten the absolute shit kicked out of every part of me. I took a breath and strangely felt much better. Then I took another breath and all pain disappeared. I frowned as I stood up and looked my body over for signs of injury. There was nothing. The battering I had just taken was now erased, and instead I felt suddenly pumped and energised. I looked down at the metal Vambrace attached to my arm. The screen was blank but I had a feeling I knew what had just happened. I was injected with Elixir.
Elixir was probably the crux of the entire Municipal City ideal. It was also the main reason normal people wanted to get in here. The super scientists of the city didn’t just spend their time coming up with new technological wonders; they were superior in every other aspect as well, their pinnacle so far being Elixir. It was the all-cure that the world had searched for since history began, and there was no way Municipal City was giving it to the rest of the world.
It was a drug that entered your blood through these Vambraces, but it was in the air of the city too. Quite simply it gave you mutant super powers. It gave you increased muscle strength, speed, agility, it healed serious injuries in hours instead of days or weeks, and oh as an added bonus it also prevented you from ever getting any kind of sickness or disease for the rest of your life – you were immortal to everything but old age and violent death, as long as you kept taking the drug. I could see how this would probably benefit the rest of the world too, but Municipal City had real life video games inside, so it was absolutely more important to give its players all the real life abilities of video game characters.
‘Avatar name?’ the War Enforcer asked.
‘Lockhart.’
The War Enforcer moved his fingers slightly above his console and then my Vambrace flashed to life. There was a black coloured strip along the top and underneath in small writing it read:

LOCKHART: LEVEL 1
HP 10, MP 1, XP 0, CREDITS 255

I giggled. I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually giggled, but seeing my own stats displayed in front of me, I had to giggle. This was so fucking awesome!
‘So what’s your type?’ The War Enforcer asked, cracking a smile now, getting caught up in my delirium.
‘Huh? What do you mean type? As in dating? Hey man, I just got here, I’m not looking to date anyone, okay? Nothing personal.’
The War Enforcer shook his head. ‘Your type, dipshit, your class, your character of choice: hero, priest, mage, thief, soldier, captain, engineer, scientist, knight, sage, dwarf, elf, vampire, zombie, demon, berserker, paladin, ranger, spy, do you really need me to keep listing these?’
‘Oh. Is that going to affect my stats? Can I see a list of how the different types work?’
‘No, you can tell me your type now or I can shoot you in the face.’
This guy had gotten very weird very fast.
‘Ahh, maybe a thief?’ For no other reason than because it sounded like Tifa. ‘I can change it again later if I want, right? When I level up or something?’
The War Enforcer didn’t answer me. He was moving his fingers again and my Vambrace flashed a second time, this time reading down as well as across:

LOCKHART: LEVEL 1
HP 10, MP 1, XP 0, CREDITS 255
Thief
Lvl 1
Att 6
Def 3
Agi 9

I stopped myself from giggling this time, but I still had a perma-grin fixed to my face. I started flexing with fingers and making fists as if I could already feel my player’s strength crying to be unleashed. When I started bouncing on my toes the War Enforcer waved me off.
‘There’s a map on your Vambrace of the Sector Central, you’ll be able to use that to find the arenas, inns, armouries, help desks, whatever you need. If you’ve any more stupid questions, now is the time to ask them because from here on out, you’re on your own.’
I preferred it better on my own anyway, always more of a one player girl than mutli-player. I had an infinity of questions but I didn’t think I could wait any longer to get into this city. The Elixir and my excitement were both working hard to give me a heart attack if I didn’t get there soon. I looked towards the airlock on the other side and laughed when I only noticed now that it was an actual star gate.
‘Can I just walk through that thing?’
‘Get out of my cube,’ the War Enforcer said as his final words to me.
I practically ran out of the cube. I felt very light wearing only short shorts, a tank top, and an empty backpack. I bounced to a stop in front of the star gate and looked around frantically as if I had just downed a gallon of coffee. The airlock door was the same metal iris from the TV show but I couldn’t see the DHD anywhere to activate it. I looked back to the War Enforcer and wondered would he help me if I went back to ask him how to open it. But what I should have been looking at was the screen on my Vambrace which had been silently locking in chevron images without my noticing. When I did look down it was just as the seventh symbol was being entered and a flashing light on my arm triggered the airlock to release me. The metal iris spiralled open and Municipal City blasted to life in front of my eyes.