Gena leaned against the side of the school, a lit cigarette tucked between her fingertips. Her light green vest fluttered in the wind, every now and then causing her to reach up and brush back her strands of russet hair. Her torn clothing (jagged sleeve, midriff, and ankle ends as well as ripped holes in the knees of her jeans) did little to help stop the bitter chill of fall creeping its way into the tiny, screwed-up town along the east coast.

Turning her head to the side, Gena watched a dark figure riding towards her on an imaginary horse, complete with the sound effects of beating hooves and neighing. When he came within arms-length distance from her, he dismounted from the horse that didn’t exist in the first place and looked her over, eyeing her, scanning her, knowing her inside and out—just in case.

Gena ignored his rather magnified inspection, particularly when it wound up at her chest, and instead lowered the cigarette from her lips. “You…are late.”

“A thousand apologies, O patient one,” the figure bowed sheepishly.

“You have it then?”

With a yellow-toothed smirk, the figure reached into his jacket. “I had to slit a few throats to get it….but yeah, I have it.” He pulled out what appeared to be a normal computer chip with a beetle on the front, crossed out in a deep red ‘x’ as if was used for extermination purposes.

Gena’s eyes widened and she reached for it.

“Ah, ah, ahhh!” the figure said, pulled his head away. “First…my reward.”

Pressing the burning end of the cigarette into the figure’s hand, he yelped and Gena snatched the computer chip before it hit the ground. She smiled. “Trust me, my pungent friend. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

“That’s good because my mom would be really upset if I was late for dinner.”

“Well, bad news there. You’re coming over to my apartment to help me install this thing.”

“But—” the figure started to say before he had a finger jab him in the back.

“Better start walking,” a voice whispered in his ear. “I wouldn’t want to have to shoot.”

“You don’t have a gun… They don’t allow them on school property!”

“They don’t allow cigarettes either,” Gena said calmly, pulling a pack out from her vest pocket. “Want one, Roxanne?”

“No thanks,” the figure behind the figure said. “I’d rather smoke this chump.”

The ‘chump’ glanced around nervously. “Come on, what are you girls trying to pull? I risked my neck to get you your hacking program! You promised me a reward.”

Roxanne shoved him forward into the brick wall. “You should be glad we don’t waste you right here. This finger is loaded, you know.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Oh, yeah?” Roxanne aimed her finger at the imaginary horse. “Say hello to my little friend.”

“No, don’t!” the chump cried.

“And say good-bye to your little friend,” Gena whispered, pulling her thumb down. With a grin, she mouthed a soft, almost muted, ‘bang’ with her lips and the imaginary horse dropped dead.

The chump fell to his knees, picking up imaginary horse hairs with his imaginary bloody hands. “Nooooooo! It’s like a nightmare I had in bed last night and I woke up and the sheets were all wet! …Or was that a nocturnal emission…?”

“…That’s sick,” Roxanne spat. “I say we waste him now.”

“Not so quick, my trigger-happy friend,” Gena said. “We still need him.”

“Then can we waste him?”

“Sure,” she said, the chump still well in earshot range. But neither of them cared. They each picked him up by one arm and dragged him to Gena’s apartment, where they forced him to install the chip into the computer and then tied him to a rather uncomfortable wooden chair.

Gena tapped her fingers on the mouse, waiting for the game to load. “Damn dial-up connection…” She glared at the chump. “This better work like you said it will, Narsis.”

“…Trust me, I made the program myself and I’m the biggest computer nerd in ESH.”

“Got that right,” Roxanne grumbled, opening a mini-fridge next to the computer and grabbing a can of Coke. “Tell me again about all the unlimited power we’ll have. It makes me hot, even if it’s coming from a dork sprouting pimples from his zits.”

“Well… You won’t ever have ‘unlimited’ power, per se.”

Both Gena and Roxanne glared at him with their cold blue eyes. “…What?”

“I-It would create a paradox in the alternate reality the dimension,” he swallowed hard. “You know, like the paradox of, if God created an unmovable boulder, could he move it? Because if he can’t move it, he’s not omnipotent. And if he can move it, he’s still not omnipotent because he failed to create an unmovable boulder. You see, it’s a…para…dox… You two look really mad…”

“Oh, no,” Roxanne said. “We always have scowls etched across our faces. Just like you always wet yourself.”

“I don’t wet myself…”

Roxanne opened her soda and turned it upside down over Narsis’ lap, causing a torrent of brown fizz to pour over him. “You just did. I’d make you lick it up, but I just got the mental image in my mind of you trying to lick your lap and it’s funny enough to keep it right there.”

Narsis breathed a sigh of relief.

“Nevermind,” Roxanne said. “Go ahead and lick. Now.”

Gena dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. “No time for that. Narsis, are you trying to tell us we won’t be gods when we log on the game?”

“Not exactly… The hack will make you far more powerful than the average player, that’s for sure, but taking over the game and becoming a god is up to you. I only created the cheat so I wouldn’t have to play video games 24/7…even though that’s all I do anyway.”

“And yet you’re still a newb,” Roxanne sneered.

“Not even I could bypass that system. The moment you put on the helmet, the game instantly makes a model copy of you. Guys get the short end of the stick.” He shook his head. “This game had to be made by girls… God dammit, why can’t I be surrounded by girls smart enough to make a game like this?”

“You’re about to get even better,” Gena said, slapping a game helmet onto Narsis’ head. “You’re going to be surrounded by two goddesses, the queens of Neverquest.”

“Hell yeah!” Roxanne said, putting on her helmet as well.

Gena was the last to strap on her helmet. She clicked the mouse, ignoring the error message on the screen that warned of a possible hacker attempt, and got ready for the ride of her life. Neverquest would never be the same again.