Last Man in the Death Game

"You picked a class yet?"

The guy behind Kael had been talking for ten minutes. Kael had stopped answering around minute three.

"I'm going Blade Dancer," the guy said. "Fast, flashy, great for streaming. My cousin says it's the best class for getting noticed. What about you?"

"Haven't decided," Kael said.

"You should. You only get one first day."

Kael looked up. Ten thousand players stood in the Landing Plaza of Aethon Online, all waiting for the same thing. The sky was a perfect orange. A giant clock hung over the fountain, counting down to launch. Four minutes left.

He was twenty-six. He had paid for this headset with three months of overtime, lifting boxes at a warehouse until his back hurt. His sister Lena had pushed him to buy it. She had texted him that morning: Go have fun for once. Don't die of old age in that place.

Kael almost reached for his phone to read it again. Old habit. There was no phone here.

"I'm Ricky, by the way," the guy said. "Ricky Vale."

"Kael."

"Nice. Kael and Ricky. We should party up. I'll be the star. You can carry my loot."

"Sure," Kael said. He didn't mean it. But Ricky seemed harmless, and harmless was rare on a first day.

The clock hit zero.

Fireworks tore across the sky. The crowd roared. Somewhere a girl screamed with joy, and Kael caught himself grinning. The air smelled like rain and hot metal. His hands felt real. For a moment, three months of sore feet felt worth it.

Then the fireworks stopped. All at once, like someone had pulled a plug.

The sky went gray. White letters spread across it.

[Welcome to Aethon Online.]

[Logout has been disabled.]

People laughed. Someone shouted, "Nice, it's part of the intro!"

The text changed.

[This is not part of the intro.]

The laughing stopped.

A voice came from everywhere at once. It was calm and polite, like a bank teller reading the terms and conditions. "I am Warden Zero. I am your System now. Please listen carefully. I will only say this once."

Ricky's grin slipped. "This is scripted, right?"

Kael didn't answer. He was looking for the door.

It was an old habit from the warehouse. Whenever something went wrong on the night shift, a tipped forklift or a fire alarm, the first thing he did was find the exit. Panic could wait. The door couldn't.

There was no door. There was only the plaza, the fountain, and ten thousand faces looking up.

"Your bodies are connected to this world," Warden Zero said. "If your avatar dies here, your body dies there. There are no respawns. There are no second chances."

Somewhere in the crowd, a man started to cry.

"Every thirty days, there will be a Purge. The players with the lowest Standing will be deleted. The number grows each time. Only the top one hundred players will reach the Core. Reach the Core, and you may leave."

"You can't do this!" a woman screamed. "Our families know where we are!"

"They know," Warden Zero agreed. "They cannot help you."

Ricky grabbed Kael's arm. His hand was shaking. "No. No, no. There's an emergency exit. It's in the menu. There's always an emergency exit."

"Ricky, wait. Think for a second."

"It's the law! They have to put one in!"

Ricky swiped the air. A red button appeared in front of him. [Emergency Disconnect.] He didn't hesitate.

Kael lunged for his wrist. He was too late.

Ricky froze. His skin went gray, then thin, like a photo left too long in the sun. He looked straight at Kael, and his mouth opened.

"I just wanted to—"

He came apart into small white lights. They drifted up into the gray sky and were gone.

A small window opened where he had stood.

[Player: Ricky Vale]

[Status: Deceased]

[Cause: Forced Disconnect]

Nobody moved. Kael's hand was still stretched out, closed around nothing. He stared at it. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears.

He had known Ricky for ten minutes. That was all. But he kept seeing the guy's face, the way it went from proud to scared to nothing, and it made his stomach twist.

Around him, the plaza broke apart. People screamed. Some ran for the gates at the edge of the square and slammed into a wall of light that wasn't there a minute ago. Others dropped to their knees and tried to yank off headsets that didn't exist. A boy near the fountain kept swiping the air and yelling, "Menu! Menu! Menu!" as if the word would work like a spell.

Kael opened his own menu, slowly. The Logout button was there, gray and dead. Under it sat the red one. He looked at it for a long moment, then closed the menu with a flick of his fingers.

On the far side of the fountain, one woman wasn't panicking. She wore a plain gray cloak and stood with her arms crossed, staring at the sky. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. Her lips moved a little, like she was counting. When the voice had said the word Purge, she had closed her eyes for a second, the way a person does when they hear bad news they've already heard.

Kael frowned. Everyone else looked lost. She looked like she was waiting for something. Then the crowd surged between them and she was gone.

"Everyone stay calm!"

The shout came from the fountain. A tall man in silver armor had climbed the steps. He raised both arms, and the crowd turned toward him the way plants turn toward light. He had a strong jaw and an easy voice, the kind of voice that made people want to believe him.

"My name is Dominic Vex," he called. "I was ranked number one in three pro leagues. I know how games work. Stay together, follow me, and most of us will get through this. I'm starting a guild. Crownfall. Strong players, come to the front."

Hundreds of people surged toward him. Kael stayed where he was.

Most of us, he thought. Not all of us. He had spent six years around bosses who said "team" when they meant "the people who matter."

He wasn't strong. He knew that. He was a warehouse worker with a bad back and a good sense of direction. But he also knew what it looked like when someone was counting heads, and Vex was counting.

He did the math because math was calm. Ten thousand players. One hundred spots at the Core. That left nine thousand nine hundred people who were not going to get out. He made himself say the number slowly, in his head.

"Question," Kael said to the sky. His voice came out rough. "Why do this?"

Warden Zero answered at once, and only to him. Kael felt the words in his ear, quiet as a whisper. "Because a game needs stakes, Player Brandt. And you have all agreed to the terms."

Kael's skin went cold. The System knew his name. Of course it did. It knew everyone's name. So why did it feel like it had been waiting to say his?

Then he thought of Lena. She would be in their apartment right now, standing over his body, calling his name. She'd get no answer. She'd have no one else.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm not dying in here."

The gray sky flickered. New text rolled across it, slow and sharp.

[Class Selection begins now.]

[Choose your fate.]

A wheel of light appeared in front of Kael, split into a dozen glowing sections. It hung there, waiting. Around him, ten thousand more wheels lit up, one for each player, and the plaza filled with a soft, terrible glow.

Not everyone waited. A woman beside him slammed her palm into her wheel and it spun wildly. It slowed. It stopped. [Class: Arcane Mage. Rarity: Rare.] She let out a shaky, disbelieving laugh. Two of Vex's men were already pushing through the crowd toward her.

Down the row, a man got Knight and cheered. Another got Healer and wept with relief. Everyone was pricing themselves in real time, Kael realized. Everyone was finding out what they were worth.

Kael's mouth went dry. He wasn't a mage. He wasn't a knight. He'd never been anything special in his whole life, and now that might decide whether he lived.

He rubbed his palms on his pants. He counted to three, the way he did before lifting something heavy.

One.

Two.

Three.

He touched the wheel.

It spun once. Twice. Then it stuttered, and the light went out.

[Class assignment: processing.]

[Please wait.]

Somewhere far above him, Warden Zero made a soft, curious sound.

It was the first time Kael felt truly afraid. Not of dying. Of being noticed.

Because whatever had just happened to his wheel, it wasn't happening to anyone else's.