THE VOID SHIVERS, BECOMES STATIC, AND SUDDENLY the universe is made of millions of screens stacked to infinity. Inside each screen is somebody’s face staring at their computer camera, and for a second, I feel like I’ve been dropped in the biggest Zoom meeting of all time.

  

  Livestream RiftTok Attendees: 207,998

  Good Lord, that's more people than go to the Super Bowl. All here for… what?

  As the screens zoom in and out, I can barely make out the faces, but most of them are teenagers. There’s the occasional middle-aged man and an even more occasional woman, but the vast majority of these faces are young and male. They’re all just staring at the screen, not playing, not smiling, just… waiting. Their faces glow pale in the screenlight—hungry eyes wide, mouths slack, fingers twitching like rats behind glass.

  The voice of a game-show host on crank echoes through the desolate void. “Mics ON, Blap Pack!” A gigantic head suddenly materializes into the empty void around Pepper and me, a face the size of a helicopter. Its eyes are covered behind reflective sunglasses over a sharp nose and a smile made of neon-white teeth. Its plastic-sheen skin makes it look like a parody of humanity, an AI wearing a too-perfect mask. The giant head is wrapped in a red scarf with the RiftBorn logo on it. “What do we say to looosers?”

  Have you ever been on a conference call where everyone tries to sing Happy Birthday? It’s a nightmare. They don’t start at the same time, they can’t hear each other, and they’re all on a different lag. This is the same thing times 100,000. A wall of children convulse and scream at the same time, creating a cacophony of insanity, but that’s not what goes out over the livestream. What the audience hears is a pre-recorded simulacrum of themselves, all their voices in perfect cadence:

  “CRY MORE!!”

  “You got that right! Let’s watch ‘em...” The moonfaced game show host gestures and the universe around him lights up into a thousand videos of RiftBorn: Black Salt Corsairs. “G-g-get wrecked!”

  Players die by the hundreds in the most ridiculous ways possible. Some get lit on fire, some get blown up, several fly through the air like rag-dolls, a dozen heads get chopped off, all to the zany tune of something that sounds like the 21st-century version of the Benny Hill Show. Each clip is repeated at the critical moment, stuttering frame to frame highlights as neon text overlays hammer down in seizure-bright neon. #BlapBlap #FailToWin #LoserVille

  As I watch the insanity, I see text chains fly by too fast to read, but I catch a few:

  

  >YOU DIED LOL

  >OmeGA BunGLe

  >TRY AGAIN, LOSER!

  The AI host grows arms and waves them in the air, then materializes feet so he can dance as the carnage flies by. Text fills the screen under his tap shoes: Go Blap Blap! Go Blap Blap! Go Blap Blap! “I’m Blap Blap, you are the Blap Pack, and your mics are on!!” The host’s voice pitch-shifts into an animal growl. “So w-w-what do we do with w-w-weaklings?!”

  The faces scream back a canned call-and-response: “WE EAT THEM!”

  Blap Blap opens his mouth and the dying players are suddenly ripped out of their video in three dimensions and cascade into Blap Blap’s mouth. He swallows them whole and rubs his belly as more of them spray past him into space. “Mmmm. Tasty. Delicious. Failure is fuel!”

  “FAILURE IS FOOD!” The children’s synthesized voices howl like a pack of wolves. Hashtags streak across the sky: #FAILFEAST #EATTHEWEAK #LAUGH2WIN.

  Blap Blap picks up 3D bodies and throws them toward the crowd. “Mistakes are meat, death is dessert, and tonight we dine until we’re sick!”

  I can see the faces on the screens. Some of them are joining in, but many of them look like zombies, their faces lit by the glow of their screens. Eyes too wide. Mouths slack. Eyes glassy. The silence was worse than the cheering. A hundred thousand kids waiting to be told when to laugh. The audience is the pack, and Blap Blap is their Alpha.

  A giant ad pops up over the fail vids. “Don’t End Up Like These Guys—Upgrade to RiftElite Battle Pass Now!” The video cavalcade ends with the detonation of the MOAB in Trader’s Point, an explosion so loud it rocks the screens. Blap Blap leaps up, clicks his heels, and his body dematerializes until he’s just a grinning face. “B-b-but wait! We got a fli-fli-flipside!” He leers at the audience, and I suddenly realize who Blap Blap reminds me of.

  You’re probably not old enough to remember back in the 80s when they changed Coke to New Coke, but you might remember the digital pitchman who told us newer was better, a digital head that glitched half his sentences while he sang the virtues of a soda-pop no one wanted: Max Headroom.

  Blap Blap is Max Headroom’s TikTok bastard child.

  “B-b-but Blap Pack doesn’t lose!” No! Shouts a team of digital bots. “When Blap Pack plays RiftBorn, all we do is…”

  WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN lights up the chat as the AI pumps in vocals for the word. The screens now become clips of players pulling epic wins, killing giants, slaying dragons. “Because the Blap Pack makes the Leaderbooooard!” I’ve never seen the RiftBorn Leaderboard until it lights up behind BlapBlap. The Top 10 players are already Level 7, all of them with a RiftElite badge. Beside their names, eight of them light up with a neon BB logo and the studio honks out Blap Blap!

  “Big dubs!” yells Blap Blap. “All-time legendary dubs for the dubba-bees! And you get even more wins when you sign up for the RiftElite! Which is now 10% off for A-A-ALL Blap Pack members for the next five minutes! P-p-pay and spray, Pack!”

  I see a thousand kids click the RiftElite button and buy a subscription. I’m guessing HumanAsset makes about a hundred grand in that one second as kids fling their parents’ credit cards at the hype train. “What up what up what up! Opening week’s big winner is right here!”

  The screens all pop to the same image, and I’m astounded to see—

  Pepper. Her face big as a house, smiling and laughing as two dozen Nyanmite C4ts dance in unison behind her.

  “Oh look, Dave!” Pepper points at the video. “It’s me!”

  “With over 5 million views on RiftTok, the viral sensation, the Waddlin’ Wonder, the Rainbow-Rave Ringer herself...” Text stamps the dance number: #Y-M-C-SLAY! “Peppa da Penguiin!”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The crowd goes nuts, or at least that’s what the AI tells them. Confetti bursts everywhere as enough screaming fans to beat Beatlemania sound off in a shrill scream of joy.

  

  >OMG ITS THE DUCK!!

  >PENGUIN POG!!! ??????

  >“PUT IT ON LOOP. PUT IT ON LOOP.”

  “Dave?”

  Pepper is teleported onto the stage in front of Blap Blap’s head. “Yes! And she’s a Blap Pack member!” A BB logo pops onto Pepper’s chest, branding her like a mascot. He leans in uncomfortably close to her. “Pepper. PEPPER. PEPPPPERRRR. What’s it like… knowing you just danced your way to fame and made #PepperParty the #1 RiftBorn tag TRENDING worldwide?”

  “It is? Oh boy!” Pepper blinks, overwhelmed. “It’s so fun!”

  “Give this bird a boombox and the world explodes.” Blap Blap turns to the audience. “Y’all agree?”

  Fake screams and applause erupt as a series of graphics appear on the screen, showing engagement spikes, trending views, and subs rising with #PepperParty and #BlapBlap, a social media dopamine tsunami.

  

  >CUTEST RAID BOSS EVR

  >BIRDIE SUS

  >THE NEW FACE OF RIFTBORN??

  “I don’t know what that means, but yay!” Pepper flaps her little flippers, giggling. “Now that all the children are watching… we can teach them long division!”

  “Oh we’re going to teach them, Pepper my pet!” Blap Blap grins sharp teeth. “We’re going to teach them to bring! You! Home! What do you say, Blap Pack? Does our new teammate deserve… her own -m-m-MERCH? Smash that Vote!” A banner pops up: Merch / No Merch. The votes pile in faster than the kids could possibly hit the buttons. In three seconds there are 50,000 fake votes, 99.9% for… you guessed it… Merch. “Well LFGooooo!”

  Online swag suddenly pops up behind Blap Blap. Shirts, blankets, coffee mugs, even an energy drink called PepPunch?… all with Pepper’s face. Thousands of purchases happen in a matter of seconds.

  

  >SHE’S TOO PURE

  >THIS PENGUIN CARRIED!

  >SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

  Pepper’s chalkboard lights up: HypeScore: +?5500↑. She stares at the screens, her eyes moist. “People… want me?”

  “The whole world wants you, Pepper! And now they can have you! But you know what they don’t want…”

  The studio glitch-lights snap red. The rainbows and confetti vanish. The camera hard-cuts to—

  Me.

  My face is on a hundred giant screens, unflattering angles stacked on each other like a police lineup. The world suddenly ignites with my humiliations: clips of me puking out of the barrel, screaming in the catapult, getting blown to hell by mines, each one replayed on loop with giant text overlays:

  

  >LL = #LAGGYLOSER

  >THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FUTURE??

  >PUT HIM BACK IN THE BARREL LOL

  Blap Blap’s face teleports directly in front of mine, taunting. “Ooooh, Davey-waavey. The LivingLegends were supposed to be hot sh§t! Premium content. The Next Big Thing. Instead…”

  Another poll meter slams onscreen. The options are LivingLegend ROX / LivingLegend SUX. The percentage bar jerks violently toward SUX. It gathers fewer votes than Pepper’s poll; it seems like the AI is collecting real data. The votes top out at 78% SUX.

  Blap Blap winces. “Ooo! Legends aren’t legendary. They’re filler. NPCs with extra lines. If this is the meta, Chat… maybe we uninstall, yeah?”

  The fake chat surges again, algorithmically cruel.

  

  >LEGENDARY WASTE OF SERVER SPACE

  >BRO COSTS MORE THAN HE’S WORTH ??

  >DELETE HIM IRL.

  Pepper yells something at Blap Blap, telling him to stop, but the AI makes her invisible and silent. I feel her take my hand. She whispers, small. “Dave… it’s okay.”

  I see myself on the screens, donkey ears over my hair, superimposed hashtags stapled to my forehead like digital post-its. #LLFail #MeatShield #DieDaveDie

  “Legends were supposed to be shiny-shiny, but instead all you’re good for is… dying loud.” The screens cut to Buck Granger getting mowed down by Teen Hunger Force. The AI has added a funny little squeaking scream to his death and plays it over and over in a loop, a repeatable joke.

  Something breaks inside me. Not something fragile and small. Not something precious. What’s inside me breaks like an earthquake.

  My jaw tightens as I listen to the crowd laugh. I don’t even look at Blap Blap, I look through the one-way glass right at the slack faces of the kids on the other side.

  “You think this is funny?” I shout louder than I ever have. “You think I’m here for your clips? Your hashtags?” Blap Blap’s smile glitches, unsure how to react. A warning pulse flashes behind his head. “You’re laughing while RiftBorn robs you blind.” I point straight at the camera. “You’re not part of something. You’re the product. Same as me.”

  The chat surges back to life.

  

  >IS THIS SCRIPTED??

  >F§CK THIS GUY

  >TRIGGERED!

  >HA! #DDD

  I lean forward and snarl. “So keep laughing. Call me old, call me a meat shield. But don’t forget—every joke you laugh at makes them richer and makes you emptier. That’s the real punchline.”

  

  EmpathyEngine: Whoops-a-daisy!

  Please refrain from insulting your generous employer in public. We’re all a team here! Making RiftBorn look bad only makes you look bad. And performance-reviewable. Keep smiling! Reputation -5

  The Engagement Meter glitches violently, spiking into unreadable numbers. Hashtags fire in every direction: #NPCBREAK #REALTALK #WTF. Blap Blap sputters, his plastic face stuttering into corrupted static. “Chat! Chaaaat! Here’s more Blap Pack wins! Don’t forget to hit SUBSCRIBE. SUBSCRIBE. SUBSCRI—”

  The feed switches to more RiftBorn video clips, then the whole thing cuts out. Zzrt!

  I hit the water with a splash and haul myself to my feet, covered in mud. I’m in a swamp, knee-deep in muck. It smells like wet frog farts and I’m covered in crap, but I can’t wipe the smile off my face.

  That felt good. Really, really good.

  I reach into the muck, find Pepper, and drag her out.

  She spits water, distressed. “He was so mean to you, Dave!”

  “I’m fine, Pep.” I grin through the mud. “I’m better than fine.”

  “Oh good!” Pepper hugs me. “I was worried you got your feelings hurt—”

  

  Warning! You have been transported to an InstaDeath Zone

  Something colossal rises out of the swamp.

  

  Mawbog Tsathoggua lvl150 Island Boss (Swamp Horror)

  Tsathoggua doesn’t fight you — it eats you. A mountain of moss, rot, and fang-covered mud, this swamp horror is like the world’s worst sewage treatment plant grew teeth. Once inside its yawning black throat, you aren’t just dead — you are digested in real time, slowly losing inventory and XP while your HUD flashes “Tastes like chicken!”

  Pepper cries out in terror, but nothing’s going to spoil my good mood. “Don’t worry, Pep. Just enjoy the moment.”

  “But it’s going to eat us!”

  “I’m not gonna let that happen, Pep.” I spin through the Party Invites in my HUD. The number is going up like crazy. We’ve just become very popular. “I think I’m getting the hang of this game.”

  As the Mawbog opens its jaws and moves to bite down on us, I hit one of the Party Invites, and we are yanked away from the swamp and across the world.

  Whatever’s next, I’m going to enjoy it with the satisfaction of knowing I just landed a punch.