By David C. Daoust
Maile Purloin was known to the public as the writer of the ‘Domnic Expansion’, a series of books that were behind the popular television series of the same name. She spent most of her weekends making public appearances, book signings, and what not– all to promote a series of books, that, according to her fans, had started rolling out when she was just fifteen years old.
This, of course, was bullshit.
The Domnic Expansion was a corporate rip-off of an independent fantasy serial popular among the Lower Districts of Pinnacle City. The books themselves were backdated, to appear to have come before the Independent version, thus allowing them to profit off the televised series without paying a dime to the originator of the ideas. An easy task for the fat corporations behind the scheme; Social media campaigns enforced the lies, and the series of invented awards that Maile Purloin won for being this ‘young talented writer’, way back when they were ‘first’ published, gave the whole thing credibility. A credibility that kept fans from feeling too outraged at the similarities.
The truth was, Maile had only been Maile for the past five years- starting with season one of the now famous television series. Her real name was Jane Thomas. Prior to becoming the public figurehead of this elaborate ruse, she’d been a pickpocket and a thief—working the Lower Districts. Thus, such an immoral act was not so far off the mark of her earlier careers. …And given that the majority of her childhood girlfriends were now literal whores, she felt she’d made a wise choice. A solid step up at the very least, in her opinion.
Maile had never written a full page in her life. In fact, she’d be hard pressed to piece together a proper sentence. The Domnic Expansion was written by corporate writers, hired to fill a series of books with seemingly credible fantasy, which ultimately, mislead possible fans into believing, maybe the Domnic Expansion, was the source material behind the preexisting independent version. The team of corporate lawyers the creator would be forced to face, to fight such a claim, was enough to keep him in check. Considering they could hold him in court indefinitely, or rather, until they burned through the victims funds, any action would prove to be futile. For a government that boasted personal property rights above all, the Trade Consortium’s fascist corporations were enough to turn anyone’s stomach.
The first four books had been written by a small army of well paid writers within a single weekend.
Maile had to assume, if just a one of those writers, had been as charismatic as she was, she’d be on her back somewhere putting on a slightly different show. As it was, thanks to the ruse, she was collecting royalties on a project she’d honestly never bothered to read. (She got the gist, but she did not want any spoilers for the television show.)
A television show that had recently gone off the rails, as the real source material, had taken such a strange twist in content that the staff of corporate writers, simply did not know what to do next. (Space Pandas just didn’t mix with their previous alterations to the story.) The last three shows of the previous season, had involved the entire cast, one by one, frozen in time, or like stuck in this ‘quantum field’- Maile didn’t get it. But it was all in the hopes that these clueless writers could buy enough time to figure out what should come next.
A lot of fans seemed to think Maile was just slacking on the next book in the series. Frankly, she was getting tired of the comments. But whatever– she was still getting paid! Which was good- considering her landlord had thrown her out on her butt after she rebuked his advances.
In all honesty, Maile knew she had more than enough money to rent a new place, but she also knew, what would happen, if she laid this shit on Colin…
That guy should be happy Bernard hadn’t found me first, Maile thought smugly as she sat comfortably within the borrowed apartment. The controller gripped in her hands as the game world filled the farwall in front of her. She was returning to the game, Arachnoid. This was a little bit of side research. More and more, it seemed the Domnic Expansion was going to come to a close. A very unpopular close, in fact. Maybe she could find something else that ‘Maile Purloin’ could slap her name on? That was the idea at least.
Unfortunately, Arachnoid was fairly lame, story wise anyway. The game play and controls were so elaborate, she could see the draw… but what’s with these Drumps trapped in the nest? She was more interested in the ‘Dragon Moon’ thing, whatever that was going to be.
The first raid had her fully engrossed, at least, until they all got disconnected.
Yet, when she got reconnected, is when things got really strange… it took her a long time to figure out what she was looking at. Maile spent quite a bit of time re-exploring the game world. Nothing matched the previous game. The rocky planes, were replaced with a sandy desert, clear blue skies surrounded a giant orange orb which took up a massive portion of the skyline. She actually found it prettier than the previous world. But that was only the start of the changes. The Spidermechas were all gone, replaced by these squat little armored spider things. The nest itself was replaced by this crushed town. And the ‘spider-queen’, was now a pretty standard looking Starport. All those Drump were replaced by normal looking humans, and the Arachnoid themselves had vanished without a trace. Why would this be? It had been clear to her for days, that she was the only one seeing this new instance of the game world.
She didn’t get it.
Suddenly chat was abuzz with something. Everyone was going on and on about Chance the Splicer and his ‘massive beast’. She joined a whole party of players, rushing out into the game world to witness it. She did not see any massive beast. All she saw was this old fashioned Rover, like explorers used to use before the moons became habitable, tearing through the desert.
Maile finally pieced it all together when she heard the infamous trolls ‘Penn and Colbert’, trying to convince Chance, that that was their home.
Her mouth dropped open wide, as the truth hit her like a ton of bricks.
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