Gamer (Gamer Trilogy) by Christopher Skliros Read Free Book Online

piled on the pressure to achieve
and so as soon as the opportunity arose – my name was put
down for Simulator – and I was determined to win.
See, there were two straightforward reasons I wanted the
Omega. The first was that I didn’t want anyone else to have
it. If some idiot like Victor managed to beat me at a computer
game, I’d likely jump off a bridge. That being said, I also
needed that Omega – I had nothing that would ever
guarantee my success in life. That meant there was a chance
that I could fail.
Succeeding was a duty to my parents and my school. I
needed to be the best at everything or else I was a nobody. I
was nothing without success.
I couldn’t even say I had friends – I was too quiet, too
creepy, and too weird. Nobody wanted to mix with the lanky
gaming Asian kid but I didn’t care. I would win Simulator at
any cost.
I was still running through the forest, deciding to put as
much distance between myself and everyone else as possible.
Every few seconds I’d check the map. I was making steady
progress. I began to sweat hard and according to the
computer we’d been in Simulator for a solid forty-five
minutes.
I stopped for a break. Although it was a great plan to run
north, I wasn’t exactly the fittest individual. I needed food, a
water source, some kind of shelter and perhaps even a fire.
On the map, the nearest water source was about five hundred
meters to my right. It would take me a little off course but it
would be worth it.
I walked, deciding to check out the wireless interface of the
computer. If Tech had wanted people to only have maps, that
would’ve been an option – surely this was something more.
Just as I began to focus, I heard a faint kind of popping
noise. Suddenly I realised how silent it had been but I also
realised that there was something wrong. The hair on the
back of my neck prickled. I turned around quickly to see
Victor standing there, just as surprised as I was. I didn’t have
time to react before he disappeared again.
“Great,” I murmured into open space. Victor could teleport.
I sat down, the water wasn’t going anywhere but this could
be important. I looked back down at the screen. I sent out a
ping for a wireless signal. Instantly I got a perfect connection
to a network called B3ast. I didn’t think that it was a
coincidence.
Clicking onto it, I found it was password protected. In less
than fifteen seconds I hacked in and- sweet mother of Jesus. I
was in the main file directory of Simulator. Every file on every
person, animal, plant and building was right before my eyes.
This was the developer mainframe – if Tech had wanted to
turn all the trees purple or make the sky yellow, this would’ve
been how he did it…
Maybe I could- YES!
Nearly every file was alterable. The lack of proper
encryption made me a little suspicious – but surely if I wasn’t
supposed to have access to the mainframe, then the computer
wouldn’t have been an option… right?
I briefly thought about the possible danger involved with
messing around the files but the moment was fleeting. I was
here to win – and this was how I was going to do it.
I had complete and total control over the game.
I found a folder named Player Data. Clicking into it I was
pleasantly surprised to find the six individual files that
determined EVERYTHING about us in the game…
Powers!
I opened my own file.
    Name: B3ast
Age: 13
Power: Undefined
Location: Outer-edge/Inner; Forest [56, 98]
    I didn’t have any powers at all. But I will soon, I thought to
myself. I briefly tried to open some of the other player files but
as I expected, they were all encoded properly. Hacking them
would take hours – but it was still achievable, maybe if I had
time later. I wondered what would happen if Victor had his
power taken away mid-teleport… oops.
    I went back out into the main folder, looking for a particular
file – found it.
Powers.main
    This was a list of all the