The mouse arrow traversed the screen slowly, like a prowling cat maneuvering into position. It avoided the Microsoft Word icon, skirted World of Warcraft and Diablo 3, although it did hover briefly near Five Nights at Freddy’s 2—but ultimately, the mouse pointer would come to settle on Star Trek Online.
Helvetica had not braved an MMORPG in a few months now. School, drama, and growing up had taken their toll on her free time, and the confused disarray of her room reflected this fact. Sometime in the past months she’d gotten to cleaning, the carpet could be plainly seen in several paths between boxes between bed, computer, closet, and door to the hallway. The computer, of course, shed the only light, which lit the towers of cardboard boxes with a slatted glow, casting shadows of ruined columns on the wall.
The chair creaked beneath Helvetica as she turned slightly to the side. She rubbed her nose idly while waiting for the game to launch and suppressed a cough. Her stomach roiled and she tried to calm it with thoughts of video games and adventure. She suspected she’d be at home sick for a while.
Stomach flu, she’d been told by her parents, “Just keep a trash can nearby, and we’ll be in the next room, okay honey?”
Helvetica glanced at said trash can and hoped she wouldn’t need to use it.
Staying at home sick wasn’t such a bad thing—more time to play games on the computer—but it also meant one thing: the presence of the dire parents. If she’d accidentally coughed and one noticed, the mere lock on her door would be no safety. Her father would most likely try to clean her room, while her mother would make her take cough syrup.
It would be hard to play any game high on cough syrup in a clean room.
As soon as the game launched and the music finished playing a message appeared on the screen: “It’s been a while.”
“I recognize that font,” Helvetica said. “You’re the game! It’s nice to talk to you again. Weren’t you in World of Warcraft?”
“I get around. Your tastes are evolving, Star Trek Online is a science fiction game, Warcraft is fantasy. Why the change?”
“The orcs are revolting and the blood elves ended up burning down Hot Topic,” Helvetica said. “Also: I like Star Trek so maybe I’d like the game. A few of my friends have their own fleet so I’d like to make a character and get going.”
“Okay. First we’ll have to make you a captain…” The messages paused. “Is this going to be yet another hour-long session of me watching you choose a particular hair style? WoW has much less complex avatars than STO so, if you’re going do that I will go get a mocha.”
“No, no, I’ll spare you this time.”
The screen seemed to narrow its eyes and consider its next words. “First you’ll have to pick a race and a career.”
“I would like to be a human, they get all the good parts anyway,” Helvetica said.
“They also get a fairly nice bonus. Now for your careers you can go with Science, Tactical, or Engineer.”
“I choose the software engineer career,” Helvetica nodded to herself. Surely there would still be a place for computer science students in the future and she could use the programming skills she’d learned recently in her college courses.
“There is no software engineer, but there is an engineer. Do you want that career?”
“Sure, I’ll be an engineer.”
Choosing a figure and form proved easy enough—the game offered her a multitude of faces, hairdos, and features that she could simply click. She settled on a white-haired woman and simply clicked it…but then she noticed that she could be Borg…
“That’s odd,” the computer messaged. “That’s usually only reserved for people who have Lifetime Subscription. How did you get access to that?”
“I’m special,” Helvetica said and started clicking through the Borg variations, hair, eyes, various accoutrements she could attach to her face in different, weird places.
First it seemed simple, a gallery of faces and potential techno-jewelry bits…but then Helvetica discovered sliders. The tender elegance of being able to change the size of the nose on her face or simply the length of her legs (although Helvetica wondered about calf size momentarily) caught her as a form of expression she’d not been able to play with in the permutations that World of Warcraft permitted. So she set out to make a character that looked as much like her as possible—but prettier—maybe with better hair, and a nice ocular implant, just…right…there…
Oh and she’d need just the proper adjustment of her eye color! And there’s a cute set of boots in the uniform tab. And. And…
…almost three hours later…
“Tada!” Helvetica said. “And I am done, isn’t she the cutest Borg ever?”
“I knew I should have gotten a mocha.”
The author Helvetica writes the Helvetica Voyage, Helvetica Venture, and Hellvetica Chronicles for Vox Ex Machina and proudly supports the works of Kyt Dotson, whose writing includes Mill Avenue Vexations (a gothic webserial featuring cab driver Vex Harrow), Black Hat Magick, and Helljammer and invites you to check out the novel, The Specter in the Spectacles by Kyt Dotson.
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