The Link-Rink

“Welcome to the Link-Rink. Back again?” the bored attendant asked.

“Can’t get enough,” I said cheerily.

The attendant rolled their eyes as they scanned my card and opened the partition to allow me into the main building.

“Hey, Tommy.”

I heard the familiar voice call to me as I stepped inside.

“Bruce, my man,” I finger-gunned him and kept walking. He was fun for a few seconds in real life but only ever wanted to small talk, and I was here for business.

I headed straight for the locker room, where I got changed into my jumpsuit and pulled out my headset. The brand new 3450Z. I wiped my hands on my thighs as I walked to the game room, hoping the splurge would help me finally get to the lowest boss fight. Only 4400 points away from the 500,000 needed. It’d be a stretch to do in one day, but that would certainly be enough to justify the investment in the headset.

I tilted my head side to side to crack my neck. Ready as ever.

Stepping onto a pad, I politely ignored the other players shuffling about or leaving. I preferred to keep a few platforms between me and everybody anyway.

I donned the headset and grabbed the handles in front of me. A familiar scene came up, and my heart pumped harder, adrenaline coursing through me.

The short stone bridge before me led straight onto the training course. I crossed over and began a quick warmup jog around the track. I looked at the poor muscle-bound players in the middle of the field. They were the die-hards who came every day to grind for the pitiful points you got for training. It wasn’t a path I was looking to follow, so I finished my one-and-a-half jogs around the track—a measly twelve points—and crossed the larger stone bridge into the first challenge arena.

I scanned the large scoreboard and noted that my five favorite players to build with were all there. Jackpot. I’d been working at their buildings for months and was looking forward to seeing how many gold bricks I could get today.

Walking up to the first building, already a towering skyscraper, I grabbed a harness and slung a sack of bricks over my shoulder. Carefully selected ones, of course. While some people tried to leave just one brick on every building, I was of the camp that leaving a few well-placed ones on the right buildings would net me more gold bricks. I checked my total score on my wrist computer—496,612. If all five turned gold, that’d be more than enough to send me to the boss fight. I frowned. They had never all turned gold. I readjusted my calculations. If I got three and then did well at the canyon, it might still be enough.

I readied myself, my bricks feeling somewhat lighter than I thought they would. Good for climbing, bad for being turned to gold. It would have to do; I was in a hurry, after all. Efficiency points were rare but valuable.

I stepped back and glanced at the skyscraper. Hooking myself in, I started to climb.

Each yard higher netted me more points, and I continued to sneak glances at my wrist to see where I was at—446,628 . . . 446,641 . . . 446,659

My steam was starting to peter out, but the thought of a possible boss fight led me higher still until I couldn’t climb anymore. 446,684 points. Good enough. Stopping, I picked a brick and slammed it into the wall, jostling it between two other haphazard bricks. The area around them was about half gold and half not. A good place to attract attention.

I repelled down the building and waited with the hoards surrounding it to see if my brick would change.

There was little chatter between those waiting. Though, a few people drifted through the crowd, encouraging others to visit their buildings with promises of all gold bricks. I ignored them. Some of them were trolls who would turn bricks black and cause lost points. No. Thank. You.

After five minutes, I could still see my brick, red as day, sticking out of the wall. No use. I never got high enough, I concluded, hoping it wasn’t the brick itself that had turned the building owner off from choosing it as gold.

Walking to the next building, a smaller Victorian-style home, I took another brick from my bag and placed it lovingly in the foundation with the other carefully placed bricks. This was my favorite builder. A lovely player you could almost always count on for a gold brick, even if her house wasn’t very big and didn’t net as many points. Within two minutes, the brick had turned gold, and I smiled as I checked my wrist computer again—446,753.

I quickly took care of my last three buildings, with only one more brick turning gold. I’d done worse than I expected and started to huff, wondering why I had even purchased the headset. Everyone in the game forums swore that it gave you a leg up. I grumbled and accepted my poor performance.

I walked down the avenue and envied the millions of gold bricks I saw on every building. Finally, after the first boss fight, I’d have a score worthy of building rather than the canyon. But not yet.

I crossed the next bridge and grimaced as I stepped up to an empty spot at the edge of the canyon. After so much practice, it should have been easy to step up to the precipice. But the butterflies remained every time. I checked my database to review what I had already shouted the last few times I had played the game, and which had echoed back the loudest.

Not that it mattered. The secret code changed every day. It was almost a crap shoot as to what to shout. I took a few minutes to prep my words, then turned to the canyon. My stomach flip-flopped, but I knew this was the only way to the first boss fight.

I could hear the shouts of the players beside me, but I ignored them as I took in a big breath.

“Love yourself for who you are!”

I put my hands on my knees to steady myself. I’d really projected today, and the strain was hitting my vocal cords and making me feel dizzy. I took shallow breaths and stayed silent as I listened for my echo. Barely perceptibly, I heard a few rings.

One. Two. Three.

Then nothing. Not even close to the right words today.

I checked my score again—447,123.

I sighed, feeling like I’d never get to a boss fight.

I stepped back and followed the hoards to the next stone bridge, where I waited in line for my turn.

“Net or spear today?” The attendant asked.

“Net, please,” I answered, taking the small, weak fishing net he handed me. I looked with jealousy at the larger trawling nets and sturdy rope nets others walked onto the field with. One day, I promised myself, determined.

I hated this part. Despite choosing a net about 80 percent of the time, I really didn’t succeed that well here with the points. I usually got in and out as quickly as possible before I got snared or speared by too many stragglers who kept to the borders of the field.

I needed points badly. I’d have to venture toward where the action happened, and I never succeeded in snaring too many people there. But try, try, try was basically the motto of the game. So, I gritted my teeth and ran toward the middle of the field, net in hand.

Clumps of people jostled around while others ran solo through the crowd. I quickly analyzed the clumps and made a beeline to my left for a particularly dense group of people. They looked useful, and I recognized a few faces from other pods I’d tried to capture before.

There was no “behind” to sneak up on, so I ran as fast as I could toward the group and threw my net from a safe distance. Several shields sprang up, and a few on the outer edges saw my net coming and escaped. But there was still moderate success with six people trapped under my flimsy implement.

The net disappeared, and I raced away before anyone could spear or snare me. I glanced at my computer to check if all six had been counted—447,523.

Damn. One must have escaped. I approached the final bridge. This challenge might be the most harrowing of them all.

I cleaned my face and hands in the stream before proceeding over the bridge. I’d learned early on that looking ruddy after the previous adventures made this part much harder. I walked into the room and scanned it. Plenty of open booths to sit at where people might come up to me, but that never worked very well with so few points to attract them. I’d rather choose my negotiations myself.

I browsed the aisles until I saw a booth that caught my eye. They were a big but generous builder named Yont; I knew because I had placed a few bricks, and he had turned them gold. I slid into the chair and politely coughed to attract his attention on the other side of the glass.

“Hello, I’m Tommy. I’ve really enjoyed building with you,” I started the standard opening that I had found some success with. “Gosh, that building three days ago was beautiful. Really inspiring to see.”

Yont leaned forward and studied me. He kept silent for long enough that I was tempted to leave, but I knew that sometimes patience was best.

“Yeah, thanks. I was pretty proud of that one. How is your building going?”

We chatted for a few more minutes before I had him laughing. I finally felt ready to begin negotiations. I chose my approach carefully.

“So, I’ve really admired you from afar. I think we can agree, I’ve had more than a handful of gold bricks on your buildings. I’m looking for a points donation. Care to share?” I had checked his score before entering the booth, so I had my number ready. “Say, thirty-five hundred?”

He looked slightly taken aback at the number but not angry, and that was good. He contemplated me for a few more seconds and shook his head. I sat back, defeated.

“I’ll tell you what,” Yont started. “I’ve checked the canyon logs. You’ve done pretty well for yourself there. You haven’t gone unnoticed.”

My cheeks flushed red at this comment. “Uh, thanks,” I choked out.

“So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to set you up with Enworb.”

I shot up straight in my chair. That was over two million points away for me. “Really?” was all I could sputter.

“Do you think you’re ready for one of the top bosses?”

“Well, I—I mean, yeah.” My palms turned sweaty again. “I’ll admit, I’m a bit terrified.” I knew Yont was a sharing type of man, so I felt comfortable knowing my admission wasn’t going to make him rescind his offer. “But I really think I’m ready.”

He sat back and fiddled with his wrist computer. “Okay,” he said. “It’s set up, you’re third in his queue. He’s down at the far end of aisle one.”

I felt my wrist computer vibrating, and I knew the invitation had been successful. I tried not to grin too hard as I stood up and put my fist up to the glass. To my complete delight, he stood up and followed suit to complete our fist bump.

As I walked down the hall toward aisle one, I almost wanted to skip with glee. But I couldn’t be distracted from my goal. I scurried up to the line and took my place third. In some ways, I was lucky the first person was finished so quickly. But when the second person exited equally as fast, I gulped at my chances of getting more than a few seconds into the exchange.

Stepping into the booth, I took my seat and waited for what was to come.

No one talked about what happened in a boss fight—especially not this one. Which meant I was coming into the unknown. Suddenly the lights came up, and I was momentarily blinded. When I recovered, I saw a well-dressed player in front of me. His size was intimidating, and my throat went dry, wondering what sort of task this would be and whether I could triumph against this beast of a man.

Enworb took stock of me, and I could feel his cold eyes burning my skin. I started to sweat.

“What are you here for?” he asked nonchalantly.

“I want to know the secret,” I answered with a shaky voice.

“What secret?” he prodded.

“To beating the game,” I said simply. Wasn’t that what everyone was looking for?

Enworb leaned forward, his eyes glimmering.

“Interesting. And the points?”

I looked at him, confused. “I’m still supposed to be asking for points? I thought this would be some sort of fight or challenge or riddle or something.”

He laughed lightly.

“So, what really goes on here?” I asked. “How do you beat the game?”

He laughed again. “You really want to know?”

I nodded emphatically.

“You don’t beat it.”

My heart sunk to my stomach. What did he mean? “What do you mean?”

“Look, I like you, and Yont is a good guy. So, here’s the truth. You don’t win the game. You don’t work your way up to one of these seats.”

My brow furrowed. “So, how then?”

He smirked. “You get chosen. That’s it.” He threw up his hands. “You can acquire all the points in the game but still not make it to this chair.”

I sat back, aghast. What had I been playing? What did the points even matter for?

“You’re upset. I know. The rare few who have learned this before you felt the same.”

I put my head into my hands. My new headset. All the days coming here. I glanced up at him. “So, how do you get chosen?”

“Ah, that even I can’t tell you.” His smile fell into contemplation.

?I felt the tears welling behind my eyes, but I refused to show them to Enworb. I simply nodded, thanked him for his time, and exited his booth. Each person in the line looked at me expectantly, and I just shook my head, feigning defeat, the same as the two before me.

I had failed. We all had failed. The game was rigged.

I pulled off my headset and met the real world in raw, full force. I fell to my knees and began smashing the brand-new equipment into the platform until the tiles and the headset cracked. Two attendants raced toward me but not fast enough.

They approached cautiously as my banging stopped.

“Sir, are you all right?”

I looked up and put on the fakest smile I could. “Bad day,” is all I said.