章 2: Browsing Games

I quickly reach the door of my house and pull out my keys. Without wasting a second I throw open the door and walk through the living room into the kitchen. On the fridge there is a note left by my mother which reads "Had to work an extra shift tonight, dinner is in the fridge so make sure you eat tonight. It's your favorite :)"

I took the note off of the fridge and walk upstairs towards my room. I throw open my bedroom door and without having any homework to do I turn on my Xbox. I see a couple of messages from my friends along with a party invite. I click the invite and join my friends.

"About time you showed up Josh" Nathan says in a joking manner.

"Yeah yeah, you already know how much I like taking walks during autumn and besides, the only reason you got home faster is because you live closer" I retorted.

"Alright love birds let's play some games" Eliza jokes while hopping into an online lobby.

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"Alright I have to go eat and then practice piano, I tried to play for as long as possible sorry." After an hour Eliza apologizes before leaving the game.

"No worries I have to go eat my dinner as well" I respond and leave the game.

"I'm going to get on my PC see ya. Oh yeah Josh I found a new game on steam you should check it out" Nathan explains and leaves the party

"Goodbye Josh" Eliza says.

"Talk to you later" I respond and she leaves the party. I head downstairs and turn on the kitchen light. I grab my dinner from the fridge and sit down at the table I happily enjoy my dinner and clean up. I turn off the kitchen light and head upstairs. Turning on my computer and opening my messaging application I find a couple of pictures of various funny animals sent by Eliza, I chuckle and respond with "lol" before going over to the messages sent by Nathan.

Nathan sent me a message with the title of a recent game he found so I searched for it on steam, I let him know I will download it and began to browse various video sharing platforms. After an hour I hear the game has finished so I decide to call Nathan, we play it for a few hours all the while enjoying it.

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"This is great man, the guns are super cool, I love being able to manually chamber a gun it feels super realistic. This has to be one of the most enjoyable FPS games I have played" I say excitedly and sit up straight, after just having played for hours I feel super tired.

"Yeah dude this is a hidden gem I found while browsing some of the lesser popular titles, would recommend taking a look yourself, you never know what you could find. Anyway, I'm going to bed I am exhausted" Nathan said and logged out of the game.

"I'm pretty tired myself I'll probably browse steam a bit and look for some more games like this," I ended the call with that brief comment and rest my shoulders. My fatigue from a long day of tests and playing video games finally set in and my eyes begin to become very heavy. I switch over to my steam window, my eyes burning, and begin scrolling through games. After a while of scrolling, I see a game that catches my eye, since I wanted to just be done with the search I hastily clicked download, checked the size, and wow it's a big one.

I decided to let my computer download the game overnight, throw myself onto my bed and begin to fall asleep. The sleepiness overtakes me as I stare towards my computer illuminated by RGB lighting.

The morning sun filters in through the crack between my curtains and my eyes begin to flutter open, I wake up facing the same direction and look up at my computer somewhat excitedly. However, I noticed something off.

"Games can't start up on steam by themselves, can they?" I say out loud but quickly realize I must have just told it to open when it was finished installing or something. I get up out of bed and quickly change out of my nightwear into a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt. I head over to my computer and sit down. There is a terminal style window open on my screen which says, "Welcome to Madhouse please enter a code name"

I decided to try out a simple username since if I recall this wasn't a very popular game. I tap my keyboard a couple of times and look to confirm. "Welcome to Madhouse Iota we look forward to working with you in the future".

"Nice it worked" I say excitedly, a loading bar pops up on the screen and after a while of watching the loading bar slowly but surely ticking up I give up. "Must be quite slow since it's a first time install," I decide to let it load while heading downstairs for breakfast. Near the table I see my mother placing a plate of food down, she hears me and turns around.

"Oh, hey Joshua, I was just about to wake you up. I have to go to work but I made you breakfast so you better eat, if I catch you skipping meals to play those games again you know what will happen" My mother warns me as she heads out the door. I eat my food and return to my room.

By the time I sit down the game has finished loading and there is currently a blue and black hologram globe acting as a background for the game, on the right side of the screen there is a list titled "Missions" and at the top of the screen there are several tabs most of which are written in encrypted text. The few that are unencrypted are labeled as such: "Shop" and "Training".

I click into the shop and see there are several categories that have thumbnails depicting different aspects of a military loadout like bullets, guns, medical supplies, and a ballistic vest which were all greyed out. Not being able to do anything in the shop I decide to head to the main menu. Looking around for a bit I see a red '1' in the bottom right hovering above a message Icon.

"Missions have been assigned complete one mission to gain [REP], 1 [REP] is required in order to access the basics in the shop, you have been provided with a starter gift below. Please note that if the operator does not complete a mission within two days of reading this then he or she is subject to termination. [STARTER GIFT CLICK TO OPEN]"A window pops up displaying a message in which the sender is labeled "System".