System Overload Read online

  “Gameknight, how long do you think you’ll be able to stay in Minecraft?” Stitcher asked.

  “I’m not sure,” he replied. “You see, my dad doesn’t really know that I’m here. My parents went out for a while, and Jenny—I mean Monet113—is at a friend’s house. So they don’t really know I used his invention, the digitizer, to come into Minecraft for real again.”

  Gameknight paused for a moment and turned to face the young girl. He could see she was staring at the letters that floated above his head, spelling out his username, GAMEKNIGHT999. But then her eyes drifted up into the sky.

  “It’s still weird seeing your name over your head but no server thread stretching up into the sky,” she said.

  All users are connected to the Minecraft servers through a server thread. The thread looked like a silvery line of light that stretched from the user’s head straight up into the sky. Only the NPCs can see the threads, but Gameknight had none. That was because he was not really logged into the game—he was actually in the game. His father’s digitizer had transported his whole being into the digital universe so that he could see and hear and feel and smell everything in Minecraft. But this also meant he could also feel pain. It was wonderful and terrifying at the same time. He was a user, but not really in the game, hence: the User-that-is-not-a-user.

  “Well, I hope you don’t get into any trouble because of this,” Stitcher added.

  “I’ll be OK,” Gameknight said. “I just want to help get these forests replanted, then I’ll go back home.”

  “Hey, genius,” Hunter said from a few blocks away. “How are you going to turn on the digitizer so you can actually get back into the physical world?”

  “Well … ahh … I’m gonna …” A confused expression came over Gameknight’s face as he thought about it.

  Hunter started to laugh out loud. This caused Stitcher to join in, both of the sisters giggling at their friend. Eventually, Gameknight, too, was laughing.

  “I guess I’ll wait until someone comes home,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said. “Just like I planned.”

  “Yeah, right,” Hunter replied. “Sounds like you really put a lot of thought into this.”

  Gameknight turned back to his work. He started to dig again, but just as he was about to push the shovel down, he saw the blocks below him flicker for a moment, and then disappear. It looked like they’d been stuck in some kind of glitchy loop for just an instant, then vanished as the enchanted shovel tore through them.

  “What the—” Gameknight said softly.

  “What was that, Gameknight?” Hunter asked.

  “Oh … umm, nothing,” he replied, scratching his head. All the digging must have made him really tired—he was seeing things that weren’t there.

  They continued to work on the forest that sat near their village, digging up the melted and shattered dirt and replacing it with fresh soil. Treebrin planted saplings all around them, and Herder followed behind the light-crafter, sprinkling bone meal on the fresh plantings. Many of the saplings burst into full-grown trees; others shimmered with green sparks and grew healthier, but did not bloom into mature pine or birch trees.

  As the sun neared the horizon, the workers put away their tools and headed for the safety of the village. Though they saw few monsters these days, it always was a good idea to be safe and get inside before nightfall. Minecraft had a way of punishing the careless.

  When they reached the village gates, Gameknight found Digger’s twin children, Topper and Filler, waiting to greet him.

  “Gameknight … Gameknight, come quick!” Topper said.

  “Yeah, come see what we found,” Filler added.

  The boy and girl ran off toward a squat house that sat near the tall cobblestone watchtower at the center of the village. They opened the door to the wooden structure, then waited for Gameknight to catch up.

  “Come on … we don’t have all day!” Filler whined.

  Gameknight reached out and tousled Filler’s sandy blond hair as he stepped through the door. She stared up at him and gave her idol a huge smile that lit up her face all the way to those bright, blue-green eyes. It made the User-that-is-not-a-user’s heart soar with joy.

  The room inside the structure was completely empty, with the exception of the wooden chests lining the walls. Each had a sign on them: DIRT, STONE, IRON, LAPIZ, DIAMOND, COAL. … Every block imaginable in Minecraft was represented on the signs. Some, like DIRT and STONE, had many double chests, while the Diamond chest sat alone off to the side. At the center of the room was a torch-lit hole that plunged down deep into the ground; a wooden fence lined the edge so that no one accidentally fell in.

  This was the village’s mine.

  Gameknight stood, waiting for an explanation from the twins, but instead of talking, the boy and girl just plunged into the torch-lit tunnel. The User-that-is-not-a-user frowned, wondering what this was all about, but followed them regardless. They stopped after descending about twenty blocks, then turned and pulled out their iron pickaxes.

  “Watch,” Filler said.

  She swung her pick, digging the iron tip deep into a stone block. Cracks slowly formed on the face of the cube until it finally gave in. Gameknight heard a soft pop! when the cube finally shattered. But the strangest thing happened. The block didn’t quite disappear. It seemed to hover there for an instant before finally vanishing.

  “Did you see … did you see?” Topper asked, his voice squeaking with excitement.

  Before Gameknight could answer, the two kids took off again.

  “Come on … come on,” they said in unison as they ran.

  The twins sprinted down the cobblestone steps, going deeper in the mine. The User-that-is-not-a-user ran after the duo, having difficulty keeping up with them. Just as he caught up, the two abruptly stopped and repeated their experiment. Gameknight watched as cracks began to spiderweb across the face of the block in front of them, as they had before, until it shattered with a pop. But as before, the block seemed to hesitate, a little longer this time, before it finally disappeared.

  “What’s going on here?” Gameknight asked.

  The twins giggled and jumped up and down, then headed even deeper into the mine.

  “Wait!” Gameknight shouted, but the siblings did not seem to hear. “Topper, Filler, you know it can be dangerous down here.” But it was too late; he found himself speaking only to the darkness. They had already sprinted down the stairs and out of sight.

  The User-that-is-not-a-user drew his enchanted diamond sword. The magical power that pulsed within the weapon gave off an iridescent blue light that filled the stairway with an ethereal glow. He knew that zombies could sometimes spawn down here in the tunnels, and he wanted to be careful.

  Sprinting down the steps, Gameknight chased after the twins, shouting for them to stop and wait for him. Of course, they didn’t; they were just as stubborn as he was. Using every bit of strength, he bolted down the steps, taking many of them two-at-a-time. Slowly, he closed in on the boy and girl; they were just becoming visible in the distance. As they neared the bedrock level, they stopped and waited for Gameknight999.

  “You know you shouldn’t be down here by yourselves,” the User-that-is-not-a-user lectured. “A zombie could spawn down here or—”

  “We aren’t afraid of a zombie,” Topper interrupted proudly. “You taught us how to use a sword, and our dad, Digger, taught us how to use our pickaxes. A single zombie would be no concern, and you know that.”

  Gameknight frowned, but knew he was right. These two could probably defend themselves against any lone monster down here. But that didn’t matter; rules were rules. He was about to reprimand them when Filler started digging again. As before, the iron pickaxe dug into the stone block. Cracks formed and spread out across its face until the block finally shattered. But this time, the block hung there in the air as if suspended by invisible threads for at least a second, and then finally disappeared

  “Did you see it?” Topper asked.

/>   “Yeah, it just stayed there after it broke,” Filler asked.

  “Hmm …” Gameknight said.

  Suddenly, he could hear voices in the tunnel as many feet pounded their way down the stairs toward them. As they neared, Gameknight could see the village’s leader, Crafter, approaching in full armor, Digger and an array of warriors at his back.

  “What’s happening?” Crafter asked. “Some of the villagers saw you running toward the mineshaft. Is there something wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Gameknight said, then turned and glanced down at the twins. “Show them.”

  The kids beamed with pride, then both pulled out their pickaxes and started to dig into separate blocks of stone. As before, the cubes shattered, but the block of stone hovered there in the air for a second, possibly longer, before disappearing.

  “What happened?” Crafter said. “I heard it break, but then it was still there … that can’t be.”

  Gameknight shrugged.

  “Something is wrong with the server,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said. “It looks like it’s glitching.”

  “‘Glitching’?” Digger asked. “What is that, and why is it doing it?”

  “Glitch means that things aren’t working correctly,” Gameknight explained. “I saw this once on my own Minecraft server. One day we had lots of people on the server, but I had the software configured incorrectly. The server couldn’t handle the load.”

  “What happened?” Crafter asked.

  “First, little things started happening. The server started to lag, then blocks started to behave funny,” Gameknight said.

  “Like this?” Crafter asked.

  He nodded his head.

  “Then the games on the mini-game server stopped resetting,” Gameknight continued. “I started to notice plots disappearing on the creative server, entire creations disappearing in a blink of an eye. I thought maybe someone had griefed those plots, but then I noticed that the kits on the survival server had gotten all mixed up, as if they were randomly shuffled. Finally, I was playing one of my favorite games, TNT-Defense, and it completely stopped working. We had a big contest going that day. I can remember throwing a TNT block at another player, but instead of exploding, it just landed there on the ground and glowed, like it was about to detonate, but it didn’t.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Digger said. “After all, it was just a bunch of games.”

  “Then a bridge that someone built in the Nether disappeared,” Gameknight said, his tone deadly serious. “There were four users on the bridge at the time. They all fell into the lava and were destroyed. If they had been villagers, then …” He didn’t want to finish the statement. “Redstone mechanisms stopped working. Command blocks did strange things. Plugins stopped working. It reached a point where no one could play on it for a while. I don’t really care if a server full of users gets all glitchy, but not one with villagers on it as well. We need to treat this as serious.”

  “Do the blocks only glitch here at this level?” Crafter asked.

  “No,” Topper said. “They do it higher up, but not as bad.”

  Crafter shook his head as if he’d just been delivered terrible news.

  “What is it?” Gameknight asked.

  “You remember when we communicated with the Council of Crafters? We had to use the beacon down here near the bedrock,” Crafter said.

  Gameknight nodded his square head.

  “We had to be down near the bedrock because that’s where all the servers overlap and form the pyramid of server planes,” Crafter explained. “If the server lag and glitches are worse down there, then whatever is happening is affecting all the servers, everywhere, in Minecraft.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Topper said, a look of concern in his young blue-green eyes.

  Gameknight reached out and messed his sandy blond hair.

  “It can’t be that bad,” the User-that-is-not-a-user said with a smile.

  He turned and faced Crafter, but he could see worry in his bright blue eyes. What Gameknight didn’t mention was what eventually happened to that server, and it was not good.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE EMPTY VILLAGE

  They came out of the mine single-file. Gameknight stayed at the back of the procession with Topper and Filler. The twins were beaming with pride because they had brought this problem to the villagers’ attention.

  “Was it good we found these glitches?” Topper asked.

  “Yeah … was it important?” Filler added, her eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “Yes, it was very important,” Gameknight replied. “You both did a really good job today.”

  “Is this dangerous?” Filler asked. “Could it mean trouble for our village?”

  “No,” Gameknight said. “I’m sure it’s just a little glitch. These things usually just go away once the servers catch up. It will be no big deal, I’m sure.”

  He felt bad lying to the twins, but the fact was Gameknight999 had a bad feeling about this. When this happened on his server, the glitches and lag became worse and worse until eventually everything completely crashed. On a silly Minecraft server like the Gameknight999 Network, it probably didn’t matter, but this server was filled with his friends and with NPCs that were alive. Crashing might be very bad, if not deadly.

  When he stepped out of the mine and into the courtyard of the village, Gameknight could see word had already spread through the community. People in small groups were talking in hushed whispers as they deliberated over the possible meanings of the server glitches. He could just imagine all the terrible things they were probably saying.

  I wonder if this is linked to me somehow, Gameknight thought. All the monster kings were after me, and then Herobrine chased me all over the server. Then we had to disable his command blocks, and finally the blazes tried to destroy the Overworld. Is this just the next chapter in the destruction that seems to follow me everywhere I go in Minecraft?

  Glancing around the village, the User-that-is-not-a-user could see the villagers were getting nervous. All they wanted to do was till their soil, care for their animals, be with their families and friends, and live their lives. They didn’t want another deadly adventure with the User-that-is-not-a-user.

  “Crafter, we should say something to everyone,” the Gameknight said. “The villagers seem worried, and—”

  “CRAFTER … GAMEKNIGHT … COME QUICK!” someone yelled near the watchtower.

  Turning, Gameknight bolted for the tall cobblestone building, sprinting around NPCs and stray animals. When he reached the tower, he found a young villager staggering out of the building, Stitcher helping to hold him up. He wore a charcoal-gray smock with a bright sky-blue stripe running down the center. Gameknight pulled out a block of wool and placed it on the ground, to make the NPC more comfortable, then motioned for Stitcher to have him sit.

  “Stitcher, what’s wrong?” Gameknight asked. “Who is this?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “He came out of the minecart network calling your name.”

  “Give him some food,” Crafter said as he knelt by the youth.

  Someone handed him some bread. The boy eagerly grabbed the loaf and began stuffing it in his mouth, taking huge bites to quell his hunger and allow his HP to regenerate.

  “Son, what is your name?” Crafter asked.

  The boy stared up at Crafter with a pair of sad, brown eyes. His light brown hair was matted with sweat.

  “My name is Cobbler, and I need to find the User-that-is-not-a-user,” the boy said between mouthfuls of bread. “Am I at the right village?”

  Gameknight stepped forward and peered down at the boy. Cobbler gazed up at the letters floating above his head, then glanced up higher, looking for the server thread that was not there. An expression of amazement came across his face.

  “It’s you,” he whispered.

  “I think so,” Gameknight replied. Some of the villagers chuckled. “Now tell us the problem. Is it zombies? Or mayb
e spiders?”

  “Or ghasts?” Topper added excitedly.

  Cobbler just shook his head as he finished off the bread.

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” the boy said. “My village … it’s disappeared.”

  “What do you mean ‘disappeared’?” Crafter asked.

  “I mean everyone is gone without a trace,” he replied.

  “You mean they left the village?” Digger asked.

  “No, everyone, I mean everyone, is gone,” Cobbler said. “I don’t know what to do. Everything bad happens to me, and now this…. I’m cursed.”

  “You aren’t cursed, Cobbler,” Stitcher encouraged. “We’ll find out what happened, right Gameknight?”

  She glanced up at her friend, the young girl’s warm brown eyes expecting some response.

  “Ahh … yeah, of course we’re going to help,” Gameknight replied.

  ““Great! Come on,” Cobbler said.

  The young boy sprang to his feet and darted back into the watchtower.

  “Wait …” Gameknight said, but the boy was already gone.

  Pushing through the villagers that clustered nearby, he followed Cobbler, only to see his light brown hair disappear down the vertical shaft that led to the crafting chamber.

  “Come on,” Gameknight said. “We need to follow him.”

  Without waiting for a reply, the User-that-is-not-a-user moved to the secret tunnel and descended, sliding down the ladder as fast as possible. He could hear feet and hands on the rungs above him, but in the darkness, Gameknight could not tell who was there.

  When he reached the bottom of the ladder, he ran through the passage that led to the crafting chamber. Just ahead, he could barely catch glimpses of Cobbler in the darkness.

  “Wait for us!” Gameknight shouted, but Cobbler did not slow.

  The User-that-is-not-a-user sprinted onward, dashing through the tunnels that he’d used so many times to get to the large underground chamber. The passage quickly ended in a circular room, the iron doors on the far side standing open. Gameknight could remember that first time he’d met Crafter in this very chamber. It seemed a million years ago, but the memory was still vivid.