Robin fell back, giving Tisha the space to steel her nerves, smooth out her skirt, and charge the squirrels, who scattered at her approach. She turned on a dime — good reflexes — and darted after the one with the glasses, who dodged her grasping hands and darted up a nearby tree. It climbed a branch right over Tisha’s head, taunting her with the dangling glasses, before throwing its head and tossing the object to its playmate, who likewise ran.
Robin settled on a nearby bench to watch with undisguised amusement. It was always fun to see newbies tackle Blind Without ‘Em. It was a purely optional quest, a reward for new players who curious about their surroundings, but it also served as an extra tutorial, of sorts, for how The Golden Age was played.
Sure, you could chase the squirrels down and snatch the glasses from their tiny maws. Or you could buy or steal food from the nearby nut vendor and use that to befriend the squirrels or lure them into a trap. Or you could patiently follow the primary culprit to its tree, wait for it to leave without the glasses in hand, and climb the tree to take them back. There were dozens of possibilities, and some veteran players on their fourth or fifth character made a game out of finding the most unusual ways to do it.
In short, the quest was a low-key introduction to one of the game’s most iconic features: the Personality system.
While playing the game, every action a character took, every quest they accepted and every choice they made along the way was recorded by the system. Said system then drew on that data every time a character leveled up, automatically distributing Skill and Attribute points in a way that suited the character’s methods. So, a character who solved all their problems with skill and speed would be given a build that prioritized Agility, while one who relied on guile and gadgets tended to develop high Intellect and a Hacking skill. And since characters’ Skills and Attributes were tied to the generation of Powers, the distribution of points was the single most important factor in determine what kind of hero the player character would be.
Of course, the system could be manipulated. A player who knew what they were doing could commit to a certain kind of role-play, thus increasing their chances of generating a particular suite of superpowers. But for the vast majority of players who weren’t hard-core gamers, the Personality system was a delightful novelty. Like an online quiz with tangible rewards.
So, watching a new player interact with the one quest designed to place that game aspect as front-and-center as possible could grant a lot insight into their personal character; but that wasn’t the only data point to be gathered here. As Tisha stumbled her third attempted snatch and tumbled head-over-heels into the grass, Robin took out her phone and selected the app labeled Analyzer.
The I.A.H. logo briefly flashed across the screen before giving way to a camera view. Robin centered Tisha in the middle of the frame and could barely adjust the focus before information started to pop up, layered over the camera’s view the way the U.I. displays had been in the game.
Because they were on one another’s Friends list, pointing the app at Tisha brought up the name Tisha Madison alongside her character level (2), the green bar indicating her health and, in smaller font, the letters TM45. The latter would be Tisha’s screen-name, the original account handle under which she’d registered her game. The former was her character’s name, input at character creation. Naming and modeling your first character after yourself was commonplace here, especially among players looking to play with the Personality system.
Meanwhile, turning the app on the surrounding crowd listed almost every character as “Level 6 Hero,” “Level 8 Hero,” “Level 5 Hero,” and so on.
In this world, a character’s name represented their civilian identity, while heroic code-names were tied to a separate system that only came into play after Level 10. In other words, the Analyzer was providing all of the information about her fellow players that otherwise would have been part of the head’s-up display in the game.
Robin panned the camera through the crowd, contemplating how much this was bound to increase the value of techno-visors and eye-mounted scanners, when the light sound of singing suddenly reached her ears. It seemed so out-of-place among the doom and gloom of downtrodden players that it took a moment for her to place the voice as Tisha’s.
“Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Swish your bushy tail.
Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Swish your bushy tail…”
Back in the grass, Tisha had settled onto her knees and into a childish little dance that involved curling her hands under her chin and wiggling her rear-end. And the squirrels were responding. The leader, a big brown fellow the size of a small cat, was now wearing the glasses like a cheeky cartoon character but was nonetheless poised in front of Tisha, mimicking her movements and dancing along with the song.
As other nearby players began to take notice, his fellow squirrels likewise lined up behind him and joined in, performing an amusing, choreographed routine to Tisha’s simple acapella tune. Though a few players started snickering, Tisha just sang louder.
“Wrinkle up your funny nose,
Put it down between your toes!
Gray squirrel, gray squirrel,
Swish your bushy tail.”
She repeated the chorus and verse all the way through a second time, with all thirteen squirrels following her every move. When she finished, the back-up line threw up their tiny hands with chittering cheers. The leader ran to Tisha and offered up the glasses, which she took.
“Thank you.”
The squirrels chattered back and dispersed, disappearing into their holes and whatever digital existence they occupied. Tisha trotted back to Robin’s bench with glasses in hand and a huge grin on her face. Robin pocketed her phone and rose to meet her.
“How did you know that would work?”
Tisha ducked her head. Her skin was too dark to flush, but Robin could tell that she was blushing.
“I didn’t,” she admitted with a small laugh. “I, ah, was only singing to get into the squirrels’ heads. ‘Cause see, I thought, if I could think like a squirrel, then I’d be able to predict where they’d go next. But then they all lined up so I kept singing and…”
She shrugged adorably. Affection swelled in Robin’s chest, before her common sense kicked in and checked the feeling hard. She barely knew the girl. And Tisha knew nothing about her.
They returned to the man in blue, who stopped looking and straightened to his full height as Tisha approached. Robin’s tiny character model had to crane her neck to look him in the eye.
“Thank you, miss,” he said, as Tisha held the glasses out to him. “You did very well. I see a bright future ahead for you.”
It was the standard scripted response. The warm words only changed if a player hurt the squirrels or stole from the nut vendor, to which the man in blue would give a warning about great power and greater responsibility.
Instead of taking the glasses, he folded Tisha’s fingers back over them and pushed them towards her chest. “Keep them. You’ll need it more than I do.” He winked. “Up, up and away.”
He disappeared. His movement blur shot straight up, faster than the eye could blink. Then, a red and blue streak cut across the clearing sky.
Tisha gawked at it, then whirled on Robin. “Wait. Was that…?”
“Yeeee-up.” Hands in her pockets, Robin grinned up at the fading color. “Or, that’s what they’re implying. Like I said: he’s an Easter egg.”
“Wow.”
They fell to silence, standing side by side, and watched the red streak until it finally faded away.
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