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There isn’t much community to be found in the Freelands.
It makes sense — reluctant HypnOS user Re3koning_inc has seen many digital empires like it. Slapdash and messy, red-blooded and impulsive acts of the closest a group of adults will ever get to playground fights over who’s playing pretend the fairest. Not that they’re surprised to see that behavior coming from the playerbase of Quest of Six Mountains IV.
They don’t blame the endeavor: they’ve given themself an island on its shores to begin with. It tickles the part of their brain that thrives on complexity, on theatrics, how the death of their beloved NetSettler brings in its wake another layer of encryption to slot into their arsenal. If the world’s going to push them into the shadows, they may as well make them their home.
Still. What Gill Secretes has done with the place toes the line between a puzzle and a labyrinth. They don’t mind the extra security, and they’re sure it appeals to the sensibilities of LARPers scooped up from the wreckage of the deleted Zones — Freelands’ lowest common denominator — but there’s an art to this sort of thing. Something the members of the Sovereign Alliance of Imagination seem to understand more than the members of M1NX, but it’s still perhaps closest comparable to searching for ground between the art of a preschooler with Play-Doh and that of a submarine designer.
There’s a sliver of something in Roddy Wall, something that may have died with Sam Parker and had its corpse shit on with the birth of Merchantsoft. Something they still sense in the rare, transactional ChitChats, in languages scarce few understand. Some connection, files passed beneath proverbial tables, stunted by the fact the man is incapable of putting his foot down about anything more of an offense than a children’s cartoon. There’s something in him that Merchantsoft has broken, something that belongs to the cushy California tech offices — something that Dylan Merchant holds in the palm of his hand.
For all the Freelands’ talk of Merchantsoft’s hypocrisy, Re3koning doesn’t understand what keeps them from looking inward.
…well, they suppose they do. The same reason Dylan of all people is on M1NX. They don’t consider themself a bastion of morality, content in their place as a vigilante in poor company at best, but they sure as hell don’t pretend otherwise. How can you rock the boat, in one direction or another, from the lap of the person who built it? Honest to God they thought those video rants were a fucking marketing ploy at first.
They’re sure it would eat him up inside if they called him the marketable kind of geek to his face: told him that even his meager attempts at rebellion were pitiful. That there’s little point in masking your Headband ID if you barely make an effort to rehearse your lines, and that odds were Dylan would just buy Axxelerator off of him when all was said and done, going the way of that cartoon he didn’t shut up about. That if he didn’t either dig his heels in or walk, Merchantsoft would have their way with him for the rest of his life.
So Re3koning walks. They see the writing on the wall — you can lead Hypnospace users to water but you can’t make them drink. M1NX is smart, as they have been for years, but if people like Roddy are content to stick around on the sinking ship of a five-hundred-dollar wearable microwave out of brand loyalty, then that’s their prerogative. Nothing Re3koning can take from them.
(From the private ChitChat group of M1NX, December 31st, 1999 —
>> you know dylan probably would’ve posted less if you didn’t insist on taking the bait every time. the hateboner isn’t really funny anymore re3
>> DO YOU THINK I THINK IT’S FUNNY?
>> your moral high ground bs? yeah i do. sais really rubben off on ya
>> HAVE YOU EVEN LOOKED AT MY LEAKS? I’M SAVING LIVES YOU NUMBSKULL.
>> ayup and next you’ll tell me jezzo actually gives a rats ass about the kids sexting in teentopia bwl
>> I HOPE YOUR HEADBAND EXPLODES.)
So it doesn’t surprise Re3koning, in the end, that Roddy Wall spends New Year’s online. The kind of closeness that kills you of an irradiated seizure at age 26 and puts your name on international news is one that Re3koning is grateful to never feel. The floppy disk on their desk feels like cinder blocks — they expect to go vomit in their sink at the inhumanity, or throw on their coat and drive to California to toss Molotovs through Merchantsoft’s windows. But all they do is shakily settle into their chair and open ChitChat.
A friend-of-a-friend dumpy_1 invited aboard about a year ago, they don’t even fucking remember, asks if they’re okay. They really don’t know how to answer that.
Roddy Wall is the only one they knew personally, but M1NX kept tabs on most, and they feel something sour in their throat to think that they recognize these names from Dumpster diving — Mavis Ann Greene, Rodney Hooks, Carl Parker III, Tiffany Wright and Zane Loften… elderly and children. HypnOS, fun for the whole family. Who knew what the body count would have been if most people weren’t cozied up watching the ball drop in New York. Those “geeks and loosers” Adrian tried to ward off likely had their lives spared by how much Dylan made them hate him.
Tim’s on TV. The pictures of him on Hypnospace can’t be that old, but he looks as if he’s aged a century in a day. A dark-eyed thousand-yard-stare, an unkempt pubescent neckbeard, caught in the whirlwind of hospitalizations and recalls and the same handful of clips of Adrian Merchant. It occurs to Re3koning that they are sitting in history, that they’re on the ground floor of something that will be remembered every New Year’s Day for the rest of time. They ask the same question they’re sure everyone else is.
Photos leak in hours — ones M1NX, of course, get their mitts on in instants. A 16-year-old girl caught in the flash of a coroner’s camera, a sliver of sclera bloodshot between folds of eyelids, pink foam dry and crusty down her chin. The mid-frame bustle of a nursing home in panic with one corner visible of the comforter they wrap an old woman’s body in, where you can see the paint on her toenail. Under-band sweat turning burns from the overclocking of the mechanics into discolored swamps of infection, no doubt requiring a closed casket at a father’s funeral. Hadn’t they wanted Merchantsoft to suffer?
Months — no, days — ago, they would’ve had these files backed up on their hard drive twelve times over. Another bullet point in their manifesto, with another quippy name and befitting GIF, right next to ChitChat logs of Adrian babbling about his comfy giraffe chair.
Instead, they shut their eyes and close their inbox, fingers twitching with the urge to snap at their compatriots to PUT THAT SHIT AWAY, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Still, even through their eyelids, the afterimage burns. Second sight indeed.
Lines to Merchantsoft confirm seeing Dylan full-body sobbing at Roddy’s funeral, in a suit Adrian wore at one of his first press conferences. The man himself is hovering behind his brother and murmuring as dumbly as ever. No doubt remembering the day the small, crying thing on his shoulder was born. It has to be the millionth time he’s comforted him, petting that curly hair as its owner bawled about breaking his own toys. Re3koning would be sadder if they didn’t deserve every ounce of it, unable to shake the five other families in their place, the two middle school teachers who will have to explain the empty seats when winter break ends, the Christmas decorations that will never come down.
At least Dylan can show his face at his friend’s memorial, though Re3koning is surprised Roddy’s relatives don’t sock him in the face on sight. Tim, meanwhile, will be spending Tiffany’s in court — it’d be a ten hour drive even if he wasn’t.
Kids make dumbfuck mistakes. It’s a law of life, let alone the Internet, and let alone an Internet Adrian seemed intent on selling to them. A sharp, mean part of Re3koning is glad the boy’s been thwacked over the head about playing toys with peoples’ senses like that, and then it fizzles out when they remember who he got it from. The intern in question regales the ChitChat group of their plans to sell their headband in twenty years when it’s a vintage, and Re3koning themself is too tired to tell them where to stick it.
There’s some justice. Only some. No authorities trust, nor understand, HypnOS’ stability enough to actually look into the nebulous hacker group Tim killed six people trying to impress.
He doesn’t give their names. Out of fear or something else, they don’t know.
3y3’s PC port looks smoother — perhaps it’s the fact they’re seeing it while awake, no longer funneled through the hazy steam oven that was HypnOS. They don’t know what Roddy needed it for and now they will never be able to ask. They think for a moment, though one always thinks more fondly of the dead, that they could have helped, whatever it may have been. Get in his head before that smiley jackoff could. Give the Freelands a real ringleader. Who knew how much he could have accomplished without the leash around his throat?
M1NX would’ve eaten him alive, walking Dumpsterbait he was. When not praising SamWich, his reputation preceded him: that of a spineless shill only on the roster as Dylan’s slurry-voiced and dweeby plus-one, a bread crumb to reassure all the nerds in the crowd that Merchantsoft’s marketing team hadn’t forgotten about them. His attempts at the newfangled tech of digital art were laughable, his soapboxing on comic books downright cringeworthy, and if there was anyone in all of Hypnospace who could stomp a soul out more thoroughly than Dylan Merchant it was this group of assholes.
But he would’ve made it to the new millennium.
They don’t know why the thought matters so much to them. Ultimately the loss of life is just another bullet in the chamber, another puncture in Merchantsoft’s leaky piping. The fact it happened to someone Dylan cared about personally — well, that just made the karma sweeter. But the headbands are off the shelves, and they’d be surprised if sleeptime computing as a concept survives into the 2000s. Whatever the Merchant jackasses get up to next will have the grubby hands of an operating system that gave three hundred and forty people seizures all over it, regardless of if the hand that pulled the trigger was theirs or Tim’s.
Or maybe they just don’t want to get their ribcage beaten in by corporate lawyers. Maybe they just don’t want to think about Dylan Merchant any more than they have.
(From the private ChitChat group of M1NX, February 2nd, 2000 —
>> Man I know this isn’t a friend chat but job hunting’s fucking SUCKED!!!! i never thought I’d miss Merchantsoft but the one upside to it being a clown circus is that I fit in
>> you got them a government grant for nothing
>> like the misfortune on display is kind of fucking comical
>> at least you got cupcakes out of the ordeal before they pushed you out into the street like a dog
>> I’m being serious ok?!? Can we have a real conversation here?!?!?
>> I don’t even have time for music anymore)
Other prospects take their time. Hypnospace is not their first fallen empire and will not be their last. It’s ironic to say it begins to feel like a bad dream, just another notch in their belt, but it does. Sleeptime computing becomes a forgotten novelty of the late 90s, marked only by the tragedy at the turn of the millennium, and even then it’s ill-understood. HypnOS was a niche within a niche, dodgy technology in something that still felt new to the layman, to every busy Mom in 1998 who could shell out $500 on what was, in essence, a strangely-shaped new video game.
It feels like their teeth are being pulled. Happy 17th, Zane, a commemorative blogpost from Seepage’s frontman says. Miss you, Carl and Lisa, say scattered mourners. To the bravest bullfighter I knew. Hope the brat is shaping up in prison. They don’t go out of their way to keep up with it but the world has its way of reminding them, of pressing on the bruise that’s not even theirs to feel.
But there’s always a bigger fish. The high they chase, alongside hacking laws tightening after the Mindcrash, lands them a brief jail stint for a period. Trying to eye a mishandling of funds in a big tech startup — unfortunately, not every outlaw is as stupid as Dylan Merchant, and they get kicked into the dirt. It’s easy to spin a yarn about the androgynous, vaguely alt weirdo sulking outside their offices, chatting up interns on burner accounts and getting too cocky with their calling card on public networks. And in their defense, not all of it is wrong.
Returning home to a messy, gnat-filled house, their old computer is tanked. Files are all wiped, though they’re not so stupid as to keep backup drives where the authorities can find, and their new machine has childproof locks on something as small as a VPN. Can’t set up their shortcuts. Can’t modify the thing. Can’t even open a private browser. For a long time, they would have found catharsis in this kind of punishment.
When 3y3 doesn’t open, they cry a little.
ChitChat, though — Grandma’s computer from the fucking 1800s can probably run ChitChat. CCSpy only half-works, but it’s fine, they don’t need it for anything right now anyway. Shakily, they breathe. One step at a time. They steel themself.
(From the private ChitChat group of M1NX, June 18th, 2002 —
>> HELLO, LOSERS.
>> WITW?!??! Re3koning?!??!?!
>> M1NX WAKE UP THE REVELATOR HATH RETURNETH
>> witwwww did you DIE?
>> The second coming!!! OMG!!!!
>> THEY REMEMBERED THEIR PASSWORD LFGGGG
>> Hi!!!!)
Maybe they do cry a little. Again. It’s fine. Not for anyone to know.
(From the private ChitChat group of M1NX, June 18th, 2002 —
>> Where have you BEEN??!?!?
>> WENT HUNTING IN THE WRONG WOODS. GOT LOCKED UP FOR A STINT AND I’M CURRENTLY TYPING THIS FROM A STATE-ISSUED PC THAT FEELS LIKE I’M TRYING TO COMMUNICATE VIA LIGHTUP CHRISTMAS TREE. YOUR MESSAGES ARE COMING AT LIKE ONCE EVERY FIVE MINUTES.
>> DAMN!!!!
>> you went to PRISON??
>> look out tim re3’s comen for your job
>> mindcrash 2 BWLL
>> no like real actual prison?
>> I’M NOT BULLSHITTING I SWEAR.
>> Omg are you ok?
>> witw
>> why the fuck are you here then
>> seriously if you’re on lockdown or whatever that’s really bad for us
>> ...IT’S A CHITCHAT GROUP, DUDE.
>> Hey I’m glad to see you Re3koning
>> what if you bring the feds here
>> TO CHITCHAT.
>> to US dipshit oh my god
>> I’M THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO’S GOTTEN THEIR HANDS DIRTY AND YOU KNOW IT.
>> YOU’RE ALL FINE.
>> I JUST WANTED TO SAY HI.)
I MISSED YOU GUYS — nope, backspace — YOU IDIOTS — nope, backspace, backspace, backspace — CAN’T I JUST SAY HI? — definitely not. In the end they clench their jaw and let that be their piece. At least Jezz0 and whoever the hell GHOSTTEK4 is give them a warm welcome.
They give the sidebar a once-over. Their numbers are slimmer, though it’s telling that they can’t name any of the missing lurkers if they tried. Slushmouth is out. Jezz0 says he was an asshole anyway and gives them a bunch of screenshots that mean nothing to them.
They rarely if ever catch dumpy_1 online at the same time as them — others say they’re busy enthralled in their newest take on the same old tricks: a blog poking fun at amateur writers. They’re in hot water with their family after putting something of a niece’s on there.
Re3koning doesn’t know at what point they blinked and it was over.
Better yet, they don’t know why they care.
(From an envelope at the feet of Dylan Merchant, in the far-off year of 2021 —
I HAVE HAD MANY YEARS TO WONDER IF IT HURTS.
IF YOU EVER REMEMBERED THE TOUCH OF SOMEONE WHO LOVED YOU.
THE CONTOURS OF A BODY —
OIL,
BLOOD,
LIQUID,
HAIR,
THAT YOU ONCE
TASTED.
DO YOU THINK OF THE CHILDREN?
DO YOU THINK OF THE PARENTS?
DO YOU THINK OF THE LIVELIHOODS?
I HELD
THEM IN
THE PALM
OF MY HAND.
THEIR WORDS,
THE BINARY,
THE TEXT,
FOREVER
SUSPENDED
FOREVER
LOST
I HOPE
I HAVE
THE CONSCIENCE
YOU DON’T.
YOUR FRIEND,
RE3KONING_INC)