Collide Gamer

‘Same windows as before.’ John thought.

‘Am I sad that I don’t get to have the active role in this game or happy I don’t have to kill my loves?’ John had a look around. No one around was dull enough to read their window with anything besides a poker face. Fresh chapters posted on noveⅼfire.net

Their large group was located inside a cantina of sorts. Four smaller tables surrounded a much larger one, a big red button in its centre. That was their way to call an Emergency Meeting.

The floor was made from metal tiles, the roof a dome of red-painted steel, with a window to space in its centre. Four corridors led out of the room, one pointing east, three west. Through other, smaller windows along the sides, John spotted adjacent segments of a vast space station. Immensely vast, in terms of any space stations that currently existed in mundanity. It was more an apartment complex in space than a functioning station.

It had to be that size courtesy of gameplay. There wouldn’t be a lot of chances for the Imposters to strike if the place was small enough that they were always in each other’s view.

“So, what’s preventing us from just going buddy system?” Lee asked.

“A sense of fairness?” Claire suggested.

“Fuck fairness,” Eliana declared.

Momo put her hands on her hips. “I’d assume Gaia build some systems into this to prevent us from easily organizi-“

The lights in the space station suddenly shut off. Immensely loud blares filled the champers, synchronized with red lights that flashed on and off. In the absence of their supernatural senses, the red was their only light.

“SABOTAGE!” John shouted over the noise. By the moving of other people’s lips, it was clear that they were trying to do the same thing. Everything was overpowered by the sirens. There was only one thing to do: find and fix whatever the Imposters had broken.

Problem: no one knew where that was. All they did know was that there was a slowly depleting bar in the corner. Once it reached 0, the Crewmates would lose.

The only thing to do in that situation was to communicate with hands and feet, run in a random direction, and hope for the best.

John’s feet were pounding metal, then wood, then ceramics. He was running through various segments of the space station in search of something that could be a reactor room. The visual telling of the level gave him a pretty good sense of direction, once he realized that the wires more frequently sparked down one tunnel. In video game language that meant: ‘the problem is this way!’

Navigating the tunnels on foot was… liberating and concerning. He knew all of this was only a game, but having himself be diminished to the strength and sensory capacity of a common man was… well, liberating and concerning. Since he had last played this game, so much time had passed and his ascent had only become more absurd. Then he could decimate a city over the course of an afternoon, now he could annihilate it over ten minutes and had several ways to do so.

Now he was just a guy, trapped in a space station with a number of entities that could instantly kill him. Even though he knew better, the blaring noises, the unused spaces, and the knowledge of how easy it was to lose his life put his hairs on end.

Cables sparked and lights flickered where he finally arrived. He went around the corner, almost slamming into the frozen body of his first fiancée. The pinkette had been killed without her knowing. Her expression was one of mirth.

The killer had not stuck around. John urged to report the body immediately, to call a Meeting, but then he would have to run back here after. He had to deal with the Sabotage first.

There was a console, sparking so absurdly frequently that it was practically veiled in an aura. John turned on the display. Patterns on it were easily matched to patterns on the rows of breakers and cables before him. Lines crossed in red showed what connections had to be reestablished or had been magically scrambled.

While John began the work, a couple of others entered the room. Beatrice, Nia, and Lu Zhi all helped John with the work. This being reality and not a video game, it took a lot longer than it would have in the equivalent gameplay.

When the last cable was jammed back into place, the red lights and sirens suddenly stopped. Everything went back to normal so swiftly it was jarring. John’s sigh of relief never came. He was struck by the fact that Rave was already out.

‘Which is smart, gets the mindreader out early,’ John thought. “Do we report that she’s dead?”

“I don’t see the use in that,” Nia put it bluntly. “You are slightly suspicious, John.”

“I can see why,” John agreed. He had been the only one there with the ‘corpse’ for half a minute. Nothing stopped him from undoing his own Sabotage in order to prove his own innocence. “Not sure which Tasks give a visual showcase, but you can just follow me around for a bit and we’ll see?”

“Hmm…” Lu Zhi tapped her lower lip, then held out a hand towards Beatrice. She appeared confused for a moment, only realizing she was pointing with a jade fan that had never manifested after two seconds. She extended an index finger, fixing the gesture. “Alright then, let’s follow you.”

And so they did. With the end of the Sabotage, the map feature had come back online. With that, John could work out where they were going.

Theirs was a quiet procedure. They wandered over carpet, constantly aware of their surroundings. The three women with him must have been wondering if he would decide to take one of them with him. He was wondering if he was being framed.

Without the terrible lighting, it felt a lot more like a game.

Beatrice checked her own map, then cut ahead of the group a bit. Likely, she had spotted that a task of her own was on the way. She turned a corner. The rest of their little group immediately followed.

This time, John did run into the corpse. Beatrice was frozen mid step, the culprit still in front of her. The green eyes of the blonde warrior met his. “Ah, fuck,” Metra groaned.

John reported the body.

All of them were teleported back to the cantina. A bell tolled, a window opened, listing the people that had been killed. Rave, Beatrice, Scarlett and Nathalia were all out already. “So, what happened,” John reported, “is that Lulu, Beatrice, Nia and I fixed the Sabotage, but found Rave there. Since I was first, it was agreed that I could have been the killer, so the other three followed me. Then, Beatrice walked ahead and got killed by Metra.”

“That is what happened,” Lulu agreed.

“Indeed,” Nia said.

“That seems pretty clearcut then,” Momo said. “Though, should be said, that doesn’t actually clear you, that just means Metra got caught in a way that you couldn’t defend her.”

“I could have killed a second person, then put both of our voices against hers,” John pointed out.

“I suppose… but that would implicate 2 of you down the line.”

“You’re trying pretty hard to implicate me anyways,” John pointed out.

“Nia and I can vouch that he is good.” Lulu put a hand on the table. “So we are definitely voting out Metra, yes?”

“I just wanted to use the kill on cooldown, got unlucky,” the Breaker of Armies groaned.

Salamander cackled. “How many did you get?”

“T- I am not telling you.”

“Two, got it,” the fire spirit stated. “Which makes your fellow Imposters cautious as fuck, if they only killed two other people in the same time.”

Metra kept her mouth shut, refusing to give them any more clues.

After voting had concluded, the blonde was comedically ejected through the big window above into outer space. That this did not cause any air to escape into the vacuum of space was a bit of a strain on the suspension of disbelief.

After the meeting, the game went on with all of them pursuing their individual tasks.

John found the Medbay first, which got him the riveting experience of sitting in a scanner for fifteen minutes while the machine whirled around him. It gave him much time to contemplate life.

It was also cut short halfway through, courtesy of someone else reporting a body.

They had 2 dead this time around, Claire and Eliana. The one to report the body, Sylph, began babbling, “So, I found Eliana lying on the floor. Someone probably, I think, maybe shoved her and then killed her while she tried to get up. She looked like a knotted pretzel. A delicious, delicious pretzel… and Delicia did it!”

“No-hehehe- I did not!” the alchemist denied, a poorly disguised grin on her face. “I just, ehem, find the pose you describe funny.”

“Did you see her, Sylph?” John asked.

“Nuh-uh, but Delicia would totally just laugh if she was innocent, she is a mean, bratty, loud-mouthed laugher and would never even try to hold back.”

“I will let you know that I am a well-behaved, curvy, loud-mouthed brat if anything!”

“I agree!” Sylph declared. “And you are the sussiest of sussy brats!”

There was no proof in this, but the vibes checked out. Delicia definitely would have openly mocked someone who had dropped down in a funny pose. Only her (failed) attempt to keep attention off herself would have justified that behaviour.

Everyone agreed, Delicia was ejected, and the message confirmed that they had, indeed, gotten rid of another Imposter.

“Alright, I am heading back to the Medbay,” he let everyone know. “I hope that scan saved my progress.”

It had indeed gotten saved, so that was a small mercy. He sat there, in the thinker pose, as green lights wandered up and down his body. ‘What is the nature of a good knight?’ he wondered, just because he had to think about something. ‘Loyalty, certainly, but loyalty to what degree? The sovereign alone? No, that is not a good knight, that is an amoral knight, who defines himself through who they follow. Loyalty to the people? The people are not a unified entity, they are an amorphous concept often marked by a craving for short-term pleasures. I suppose a good knight must be able to weigh his loyalty to his sovereign with loyalty to higher principles, to be the acting hand of the king while also holding the king to an ideal.’

“What are you thinking about?” Lee asked. The gamer girl had entered through the only door and approached him slowly.

“Just king stuff,” he answered flippantly. “What are you doing here?”

“Can I not have the task to get scanned right after you?” she asked.

“I suppose you can… I don’t know…” John rubbed his chin. “I think double tasks were a thing last game.” He paused for a moment. “Well, if you wanted to confirm I am a Crewmate, then this should do it, yes?”

“Yup… If I was an Imposter, I would totally kill you right now, because you are, indeed, confirmed Crew.”

John stared into her hazel eyes. “That would be the proper tactical move.”

“…”

“…”

“…Tag, you’re dead!” Lee lunged and tapped his forehead.

“Oh, you meta-narrating bitch!” John shouted, now hovering above his frozen body.

Lee lost no time to take this one step further. She reported his body herself, causing everyone to once more find themselves around the cantina table. “Well, well, I had a hunch that someone would kill John after he so boldly declared where he would go,” Lee explained the situation.

“Master is dead?” Aclysia growled.

“She’s another imposter, by the way,” Rave weighed, her transparent form hovering next to John’s.

“Really? She got it in both games?” John shook his head. “That’s unlucky. Aclysia is, like, the one person that would want to always play Crew.”

The meeting continued with Lee’s false report. “So I went there after doing a Task, found him, and reported him.”

“No.”

“…Wha-?”

Lee looked at Nia, who stared at the Fateweaver. Her singular, sapphire clear eye was focused entirely on Lee. “If you wanted to save John, you would have been there immediately. You waited until it was reasonable that he could be found, then made sure no one else was around. You killed him, then immediately reported him. That way, you wouldn’t risk someone seeing you walk out.”

“I absolutely support this logic,” Aclysia declared.

“Do you now?” Nahoa asked. That singular little comment remained in her pocket for now.

“That’s all just an accusation!” Lee crossed her arms. “Do we want to start punishing people for checking on each other now?”

Copernicus purred mockingly. “We already got 2 Imposters out and only 7 people are out so far. I’m willing to take the gamble.”

“This feels wrong… but I do not know what else to do,” Stirwin mumbled.

“W-w-w-w-why am I even here!” Daiyu cried out.

That was a fantastic question, why was Daiyu even there? John had, once again, managed to completely ignore her somehow. It became odder each time it happened. He wasn’t known to overlook adorable women, yet he had not actively registered her presence until that moment.

“I believe Nia, she doesn’t speak unless she is certain,” Lu Zhi declared. “So, you will vote with me, Daiyu.”

“S-sure?”

“Oy, that’s cheating!”

“We definitely need to vote Lee out,” Aclysia insisted.

“If she’s not an Imposter, you can vote me out after,” Nia said.

The voting happened quickly after that, resulting in Lee being ejected and the predicted message playing. “Overplayed your hand there,” John teased her.

“I was betrayed!” Lee complained.

The blaring sound of the Meeting Button getting hammered immediately after the last one had concluded grabbed everyone’s attention. “Alrighty,” Nahoa cracked her knuckles. “Can’t we all agree that it is mighty suspicious how quickly Aclysia agreed that it was Lee?”

“She killed Master,” the head maid answered frostily.

“And how would you know that if you weren’t aware who the other imposters are, hmm?” the axolotl demigoddess asked with a malicious smirk. “I believe my logic on this convinces all those that know our head maid.”

One minute of debate later, Aclysia was also ejected.

Four Imposters were out. Apparently there were more than that, since the game wasn’t declared over. “Guess we’re all just doing tasks now,” John said, while a very happy ghost maid hugged him. “You’re really unlucky and bad at being the Imposter.”

“I don’t want to be the Imposter, at least not without you,” Aclysia complained.

The rest of the game became a predictable march towards victory. Medbay aside, John at least found the minigames of his tasks decently entertaining, so he wasn’t bored out of his skull while they filled up the progress bar. The answer on who else was an Imposter came with the Crewmate victory screen.

Momo stomped her foot. “Why did I get saddled with 4 people that do not know the meaning of subtlety!”

“I tried! I just got read like a book!” Lee complained back.

Metra’s tail swished left to right. “I killed 2 people; I am happy with myself.”

While the Imposters bickered, the Crewmates celebrated victory.