Gaming the System

[tekuno]

I wasn't at all sleepy after finishing the latest part of Caveman, but felt too tired to do anything else and too upbeat to work on either of the other two stories I have going. (In addition to In Corpore Sano, which will get a new part tomorrow night, probably, I have another one which I got up to the point of the actual muscle growth and then stopped. Sooner or later I'll polish it off, but it's a little amoral, and I felt like writing something upbeat, and so...) This idea has been hovering around for a while. Originally, I was going to spin it out some more, but I like the way it turned out.

No incest, no macro, and the growth is sort of oblique. But, I think, it might be entertaining.

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Gaming the System

My friend Albert is a nerd. I say that not as an insult, but as a good shorthand description. He had Super Marco Bros. underwear in junior high school, spent most of high school endlessly replaying Spinal Fantasy 3 (and then 7 when the Sany GameStation came out), has a collection of over 300 discs of anime -- and that's just the stuff he bought -- and bookcases full of comics. He has a job involving computers and networks at a local government research station, where he's the absolute tech guru. He writes code files on the computer which take other computer geeks hours to decipher, but which run faster than anything anyone else can create. When I first met him, he was around 250 pounds of blubber, with centimeter-thick-lensed aviator frame glasses, rarely bathed, and considered jeans and a polo shirt to be "dressing up". When I say he's a nerd, I mean: he fits just about every stereotype you can imagine when you hear the word 'nerd'.

And he takes pride in it, too.

Except one. He never dated in high school or college. That's not the exception; the exception is the reason why. Instead of being creepy and obsessive and shy about girls, he was (and is) gay, with a muscle fetish. Being brilliant, he didn't even bother trying to express it. He figured that every guy he met who he desired sexually would be insulted if he mentioned his fetish. And he was possibly right; so far, he hasn't met anyone from his youth who he had the hots for who has come out of the closet.

I met Albert just before we graduated from college. (Not that I was at his rarified, high-level institution. I was at an art school.) We met at a comic book/sci-fi/fantasy convention, and hit it off. I was cosplaying as Canyon the Barbarian -- I wasn't exactly Arnold Schwartzeweiss, but I was well above the average fantasy fan physique, even then, and I actually managed to get class credit for putting together the costume, so I wore it every time I went to any event where cosplay was acceptable.

I noticed Albert drooling over me and taking pictures in what he probably assumed was a clandestine fashion. Now, I may be a bit of a showoff, and spend a lot of time in the gym, but I'm not dumb enough to reject someone based on appearance. Besides -- and I hate to admit this -- there weren't a lot of jobs in the offing for an art school graduate of my talents, and it was looking as though I would have to start doing cam shows to make ends meet within two months of graduation, so any guy who was drooling over me was, at the least, a potential client, and a guy who was drooling over me in a fantasy outfit was a potential client who also shared my tastes, which would make things easier.

As it happened, though, things turned out a lot better than that. Not only did Albert and I hit it off and start dating -- my only condition being that he had to start showering and doing laundry regularly -- but I found gainful employment at a graphic design firm as the token non-digital artist on staff.

You'd think that Albert and I wouldn't get along well, being in some ways complete opposites, but our relationship worked really well. After a few years, neither of us could imagine NOT being together, so we had a commitment ceremony (no legal gay marriage in our state at that time), got a joint checking account, bought a great big house with room enough for my sculpture and oil canvases, his computer equipment, and our joint collection of books and DVDs and comics. There was even enough room in the basement that, after Albert started making so much money we didn't know what to do with it all, we were able to build a pretty good gym for me to use.

I was always after Albert to get into better shape. Not that I didn't love all 280 pounds (by the time we built the gym) of him, but I was worried about health side effects. Our sex life was absolutely incredible, but he was starting to show signs of being unable to keep up with it. I tried every trick I could think of, plus everything I could find online, to coax him into at least a little fitness routine. Nothing worked.

Meanwhile, I got bigger and -- according to both of us -- sexier for a couple of years, and then hit a plateau from which nothing seemed to be able to shake me. I tried everything I could think of to fix that, too, but my weight stuck at about 220 and wouldn't budge.

Then one day, I came home from another day at the salt mines to find Albert set up in the living room with equipment which looked like it came out of a science fiction movie.

"What's all this stuff, Albert?"

Albert grinned at me.

"It's a birthday gift."

"Huh? It's not your birthday -- or mine."

"It's a birthday gift to both of us. I've done a little testing, and I think it will make us both happy."

"What is it?"

"A little something I've been working on at the lab. Go put your stuff away and come back in here."

I stashed my portfolio and took off the tie I had finally consented to wear to work, and came back out.

"Okay, now... you need to stand in the chamber."

"For what?"

"For what this machine does. Trust me, you'll love it."

I sighed. Albert loved to surprise people, particularly me, with stuff like this. Sometimes his surprises were genuinely terrific, like the time he got me an autographed manga by Osamu Ashizuka (the creator of Black Knave, Star Boy, and Bimka the Mauve Lion), but sometimes they were less welcome, like the time he hired an import company to get a whole crate of Pokey, the famous dipped pretzel snacks, and they somehow managed to find the one last remaining crate of the wildly unpopular grape flavor. But I just couldn't resist Albert's excitement; his enthusiasm was one of the things which I found absolutely irresistible about him.

"Oh, before I forget: put this on." Albert handed me a headset, which I put on.

"Okay, now what."

"Now, I start the program, and--"

The world went white. Then it went black. Then there was an orchestral chord, and the Sany logo appeared, hovering in midair.

"See anything yet?" I could HEAR the grin on Albert's face.

"Is this some kind of new virtual reality system?"

"Better. Just you wait."

There was a tinkle of vaguely classical music, and then in huge, backwards script letters I read:
:stneserp skcinE tfoSebuC
ygetartS ysatnaF lanipS

"Albert, what the heck is this?"

"It's a game."

"Obviously, but why are you showing it to me? I don't even LIKE the Spinal Fantasy series."

"Oh, you'll like this one. It's different from the regular Spinal Fantasy series. The battles are turn-based, but you move the characters on a grid, and you have to position them, and there's lots of planning involved. It's a lot more like Prisons and Lizards than the usual Spinal Fantasy games."

"Oh, all right."

He had me there. Outside of liking fantasy novels and comics and shows, my one real geeky hobby was role-playing games. I was the Prison Master for our group's weekly games.

The view changed to show:
emaG weN
eunitnoC

Suddenly, I found myself standing on a grid representation of our living room. Albert and the machinery was nowhere to be seen. The music changed to a repeating loop of a vaguely medieval, martial tune.

"Albert, where are you?"

"I'm not in the game, just you."

I tried to step forward, and failed.

"What the heck? Albert, I can't move!"

"Yeah, sorry, I don't have that part fixed yet. You still need someone else to control you. I'll get that right someday."

"Wait, 'someone to control you'? You mean--"

"Yup. Look out world, here comes Tony."

Suddenly a roughly circular patch around me turned green for a moment. I heard a "plink", and I found myself walking across the room. I took five steps, and stopped.

"Wow, a speed rating of 5. You must be fast for a big guy."

"Albert, what's going on?"

Albert giggled. "You're in the game."

"What do you mean 'I'm in the game'? I'm pretty sure that CubeSoft never made any game using our house as a setting."

"Well, okay, more exactly, I have changed your interface with the universe to be through the game, rather than through physics."

"Huh?"

"Your mind is just the same as it always was, but everything about you, physically, has been changed into a sprite and a series of statistic numbers. Can you look down for a moment? You're a custom sprite, so you ought to have 'nodding' variants."

I looked down. I was, if anything, buffer than usual, albeit pixelated. For some reason, I was wearing my Canyon the Barbarian costume. I couldn't move my arms, but I could see them.

"Albert, this sucks. Get me out right now."

Albert chuckled. "Not so fast. There's a reason I chose this game, you know."

The green tint reappeared on the floor, repeatedly, and I found myself walking to the kitchen in a series of brief movements, each one beginning with a "plink" sound. On the floor, there was a treasure chest.

"Why is there a treasure chest on the floor, Albert?"

"Actually, it's our picnic cooler. That's as close as the game can get to a box you can interact with. Hang on."

I found myself walking to the chest. It suddenly opened, and the music was interrupted with a flourish.

A message popped up in front of my eyes. Before Albert dismissed it with a "plonk", I saw: "99x DIORETS dnuof ynoT".

I coughed. "Albert, what's this? Did I really just read something about 'steroid x99'? I haven't used steroids in a month, and I only had two vials."

Albert giggled again. "I bought a bunch of test tubes from a wholesaler, and squirted a single drop in each one. The game thinks each tube is a dose. Now, here's where it gets good."

There was another "plonk". A box covered my entire field of vision. At the top, I saw: "smetI". There were only a few lines in the box: "1x syeK esuoH", "1x tellaW", "1x enohP lleC", and, of course, "99x dioretS".

There were a few more "plonk" sounds, and a smaller box came up, saying: ".1 pu thgieW .2 pu htgnertS .dioretS desu ynoT" Then it vanished.

"Albert, what did you just do?"

"Oh, I had you use a steroid."

"Oh, for-- Albert, you have to use them at the right time and in the right dose for them to have any effect. One drop isn't going to do anything."

Albert sounded smug. "We'll see about that. Let me put the program in turbo mode and use auto-fire."

The music sped up. Then there was a series of "plonk" sounds which was so rapid that they almost made a continuous noise of their own. The little box came up over and over again. The numbers were a little different each time, but each one had two numbers in it: mostly "1"s and "2"s, but a few "3"s and even an occasional "4". After a while, the plonks were replaced by a horrible buzzing sound.

"Whoops! Sorry, Tony, that was all 99 of them. It took me a second to stop hitting the button."

"Well?" I looked down. Same pixellated view. Kind of disappointing, after all that buildup.

"Hang on just a minute."

With a series of "plink"s and more flashing green regions, I walked back to the living room.

"I'm switching it back off now."

The world went white again. And then it was back to normal. Albert was sitting in front of the computer and grinning at me.

It took me a moment to start moving voluntarily again, but once I realized I was under my own control again, I sagged, and then reached up to wipe the sweat from my forehead.

My hand was huge. It was connected to a huge forearm, which led to a gigantic upper arm, and a pair of pecs which blocked my view of the rest of my body.

"What the fuck?!"

"Your sprite didn't change, because you were the same character, but your body weight went up by about 120 pounds, and since it was through in-game steroids, it was all muscle."

I made a dash for the bathroom. In the mirror I could see more of myself. But there was too much of me, now, to see all of me at once in such a small frame. I was colossal, gigantic, titanic, huge. I flexed an arm; it was bigger than anything I had seen which wasn't blown up with synthol. My pecs were enormous and striated, with nipples forced outward. I stepped on the scale: 350 pounds, easily.

Albert followed me in, with a smug grin. "See? Told you so."

In answer, I growled, grabbed him, threw him over my shoulder -- he felt so light, now that my muscles were so huge! -- and carried him off to the bedroom. I managed to tire him out without much difficulty.

Today, Albert headed off for work. I called in sick. After spending some time looking in the mirror -- I'm going to have to let out some of the straps on that Canyon the Barbarian costume, I can tell; there's no way the straps around the chest or the thighs will fit any more -- I headed out to the drugstore.

It's been several hours, and I'm expecting Albert any minute now. I have a pair of handcuffs ready, and I've read all the documentation for his program, to the point where I think even I can manage it. The cooler in the kitchen is loaded with 99 Ziploc bags, each containing one of those dubious weight loss pills, plus another 99 test tubes, each with a drop of steroid in the bottom. It's time for Albert to get into shape, whether he wants to or not.

I'm just debating whether it's worthwhile placing a bulk order for penis pumps...