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“Huh?”
Keys turns around in his chair. “You’ve died three times on the same boss. This dungeon should be a cakewalk for you.”
Weird of him to assume that. He’s not wrong, but he also doesn’t know me from Adam. Why would he figure I’d be good at this boss? “Just distracted, I guess. You remember the friend I messaged to let her know I was okay? Well, she hasn’t messaged back, and she’s not online either. I think I pissed her off.”
“Maybe she’s busy? I don’t know, man. Chicks are weird.”
“It’s just not like her. She’s pretty reliable.” I pause for a moment. “Hey, maybe you know her! She plays on this server, too. Bunnyluv69? Does that ring a bell?”
A muscle in Keys’ jaw tics. “Nope. Not familiar with her, but it’s a crowded server. I didn’t even know you were on here.”
Damn. I’d been hoping he knew Bunnyluv, or at least had seen her around since I got here.
“I wouldn’t worry about pissing her off, though. I mean, you haven’t done anything that would piss anyone off. Aside from hitting on Candy, but that wasn’t your fault. Your work buddy literally threw you at her.”
I pause my clicking and look back at him. “How did you know that?”
He gestures at the wall of monitors but doesn’t stop playing. “Dude, I watch the whole city from here. I saw it happen.”
“Oh. Yeah, I didn’t think about that. You really scan all the security cameras for Bunny? She says she goes out and basically plays vigilante in that leather getup.”
“Yep. If I see shit going down, I send Bun and Kendrick to stop it. Sometimes Doc, too, if things get bad enough.” The boss casts a spell on his character, freezing him in place, and Keys curses. “Fuck nuggets! Dude, can you dispel that?”
I try, but before I get a chance I’m frozen, too. “Shit! He got me.”
Keys pushes back from the desk as the boss casts another spell that wipes the entire party. “Fuck! Fucking pug healers can’t do shit.” He stands up and runs his hands through his hair. “I gotta step away before I nerd rage on them. You gonna bounce, too?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I leave the party and port out of the dungeon as soon as I’ve resurrected myself. “What else is there to do here? You guys got a TV?”
“Sure. We don’t have any streaming services, but I can pirate just about anything you want to watch. What are you in the mood for?”
I think about it for a second. “Got anything with a horror or supernatural vibe?”
Keys grins. “I can grab something, yeah. Meet me down the hall in ten. Last room on the right.”
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do for ten minutes while he downloads a movie, so I tool around on BU a bit more to kill some time. Keys had given me a magic item that sells for millions of gold pieces on the in-game market, but I stop myself short of putting it up for auction. It’s a nice item, one that would look cool on my avatar, and it would be rude of me to sell it when he gave it as a gift. I equip the item in my glamor slot and spin the camera around to see how it looks. Not bad. I’d almost say I look kind of hot in it. Bunnyluv would say I do—if she ever logs back in.
I’m in the middle of spinning the camera one more time and taking some screenshots when Keys reappears.
“Checking yourself out?” he asks.
I blush so hot that I’m sure I’m bright crimson, and Keys laughs. “I’m just fucking with you. I do the same thing when I get a cool glam. It looks good on your toon. I’m glad I had it to give to you.”
“Thanks.” Now that I’m not distracted by my in-game glam, I notice that along with Keys came the buttery aroma of popcorn. I turn off the laptop as my mouth starts to water. If I don’t accidentally chomp on a kernel, the popcorn should be soft enough for my jaw. I hop out of my chair and follow Keys down the hall to the TV room.
Home theater is more like it! The whole far wall is painted white, with a projector across from it, and they’ve got an assortment of theater seats in jagged rows in front of it. My guess is they stole most of it from Dumpsters outside of remodeled theaters. I don’t get the feeling that much of their stuff is obtained on the up and up.
I’m surprised by the number of available seats. They’ve easily got twenty chairs here, and I wonder who they have all these for when there are just the four of them living in the Burrow. I ask Keys about it, and he has a surprisingly wholesome answer.
“Sometimes the kids from the shelter like to watch movies or catch up on shows that they can’t get there, so every once in a while we invite a bunch of them over for a kind of party.” He gestures towards the elevator. “Down in the clinic, Doc treats a lot of homeless and otherwise unfortunate kids. The ones we can help, we help. The ones we can’t—or who won’t accept our help—we do our best to make their lives a little less miserable, at least for a little while.”
“That’s pretty cool of you guys.”
He shrugs. “It would be shitty of us not to, y’know? Keeping all this to ourselves … nah. Better to use it to cheer up as many people as possible.”
As we sit in the back center row of chairs, Keys hands me a beer and pours half his popcorn into a separate cup. I take it gratefully, and I suddenly realize I’m famished. It’s been a while since breakfast, and the pudding cups with Bunny didn’t really do much to tide me over. I devour the popcorn like a starving wildebeest. Keys just laughs.
“Dude, chill with that! You’re not going to have any left for the movie.”
