I stepped out of my office onto the street. The 2009 mafia 1 henchman looked me over but didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t about to click on him.
Being a free lance avatar gives a 2-D shamus in this 2-bit town a bit of an edge. First, I can get into servers that aren’t up and running for the usual meat sacks on the other end, the “real world”, of the internet. I can still prowl the abandoned underground. Heck, I even know of a couple of servers that still operate the Sweets Factory.
I went over to Alton Towers. If there was any loose lips trying to sink ships, they’d be there.
They weren’t. No one was. There wasn’t even any automatons like myself, loose cannon virtual cartoons that made like they were the real deal. Apparently Zynga, or the hackers (I’ll find the truth), didn’t leave any virtual doors cracked even a virtual bit, or byte.
What was especially disconcerting was there weren’t any programmers prowling either. No ninjas in disguis. nobody. Someone had redecorated the apartment building from the 2011 Western Theme, so the only movement was a tumble weed which scurried from the direction of Vinny’s and might be headed toward the Realtor’s.
This was going to be a tough case to crack.
I pulled out my flask and took a long pull.
“Yo! Anybody here?!!! YO!!!!! Yadda...”
I prowled the empty Alton Towers. Clearly, it was shut down in an instant. Food on tables, leashed pets needed walking, showers running, toilets unflushed. It was as if someone had just pulled the plug, yanking avatars, links to the “real” world severed, leaving a a Ghostville of automatons.
Looking out from an upper floor balcony over Zynga Bay I saw a few shuffling henchmen staggering zombie-like through the surf: “You’se just an empty suit.” “Brains...”
Then it ocurred to me... This wasn’t the first sudden unexplained change of Y Town. Four years ago the underground had disappeared. A tarmac spiral into the bowels of Zynga had been on the maps one day, and the next, a sappy billboard about a raceway. Perhaps there was something there... The underground had been across from the bank...
I took the stairs down, and somewhere between the 2nd & 3rd floors I heard voices. When I stepped into the bright Zynga sunshine there were people milling around. All excitedly describing two days, three hours, and fourteen minutes of Yoville withdrawals.
There were the usual riff raff... faux ladies of the evening, hawkers and hackers, homophobes and homophiles, pajama-clad noobs looking for Mwommwies. Half of them Uber dancing. The screen staggered to the left and right as I tried to find a place to stand where a dialogue balloon might be visible, but no dice.
I checked Yo Bay, and yup, there were the Good Vs. Evil items I had posted in making a Halloweenish profit, still sitting there. So much for that little mark up. But that’s OK... I was ready for T Day and the Holidays and might turn a profit there.
No one had any concrete facts. Most were just regurgitating what they had heard in forums and empty ninja announcements.
In front of the bank stood the billboard. And in the street... a manhole. Well, it would have to work as an avatar hole this afternoon. I pulled up the digitally heavy disc and peered into the darkness. Taking a good pull from my flask I let the imaginary fluid warm the cockles of my imaginary heart. I lit an Itsaboy cigar, and dropped into the darkness...
I was suspicious... The whole "HACKERS ARE PICKING ON US!" whine of Zynga didn't ring true. So I had found an old server that still showed the original Yoville Underground and was making my way into the heart (or at least the spleen) of the darkness beneath Y Town... The coiled tarmac was covered, and I followed my Itsaboy cigar...
The underground corridor ran straight, sloping west, under the bank. Suddenly there was a chasm, stalactites hung from the ceiling pointing at the stalagmites towering around me. A ladder stretched up where the hair salon would be (in ‘08 it was a gym). Ahead stretched a decrepit bridge that would give Indiana Yones pause.
Behind an outcropping of old code shaped like a cliff, zombies staggered between shifting graveyard mists and the bridge. Two 2009 “Giant Creepy Eyeballs kept watch on the road. No conscious entities I could see. The bigger problem would be the half dozen...
...Venus Flytraps lining the path. Trip on one root... There didn’t seem a way to get through. Fortunately I had the SWAT rope crawl from Mafia II in my inventory. It reached the left pillar holding the bridge. Soon I was standing atop it. I tossed a Viking...
...fireball at the Venus flytrap in the middle of the path. It gobbled it up and burst into flames. Zombies staggered toward the flames. The Giant creepy eyeball on the other pillar had seen me, but since it had no mouth, all it could do was frantically look at smoldering...
...zombies and back at me. I gave it a little salute with my flask of Old Noob & dropped to the dirt, lit another Itsaboy cigar. Now the second eyeball could see me and it also seemed frantic. I grinned, toasted each eyeball with my raised flask, and turned to the bridge.
The bridge was trash. Free gifts, discarded toasters, burnt pastries & old ovens from the Sweets Factory. Halloween 2010 pillars held swaying, fraying, rusting cables over gurgling water; the fragrance of decay wafted from unseen depths... the new Roadkill theme.
I stepped onto the bridge. It shook. I’m not fond of heights. In ’08 a guy in the Sky Light lounge (we got drunk there) sold parasailing rides, a hacker’s gimmick. It was really just a shove off Alton Towers. Thank God there’s always a crowd there. I almost became 1D.
The zombie automatons had melted into puddles of random pixels. I made my way onto a swaying bridge of junk over a Warner Bros. version of The Matrix. The scent of decay, the new Roadkill theme, wafted up on a gentle breeze. Somewhere a harmonica was playing.
The bridge was littered with "furniture" from the new Roadkill theme. Oppossums, squirrels, a cat... a bloated raccoon holding a heart balloon... I was grateful I hadn't upgraded to VIP to get the smells feature. Each step made the bridge tremble and sway.
The zombies which had avoided the fire I started were now shuffling toward me, joined by several hundred others. A few had already staggered onto the bridge. No way this bridge could hold more than a dozen. I hustled into the darkness.
Soon the bridge was swaying 6 feet to each side of center. I usually don’t stagger much, even after a full bottle of Old Noob (Kentucky’s finest). The zombies, never very agile, were spilling off (one did a remarkable 1/2 gainer), but enuf were on to strain the cables.
I wasn't going to make it; there wasn't anythingin my inventory that might help. The zombies were going to get me. Stupid way to go. I faced the shambling hoard & clicked the 1st one: "Nom nom nom nom..." I clicked the 2nd: "Brains..." and strolled across the bridge.
I was working a case... Why Y Town had shut down. I found the old underground, which led to a zombie-filled hinterland guarding a bride made of free gifts. Now the zombies were packing the bridge while I made my way deep beneath digital streets...
The bridge was swaying & chunks of it, various free gifts (mostly ’09 toasters) were breaking off and tumbling into the darkness. It was getting hard to keep my feet under me... Almost as hard as finding something interesting to buy at the store... The cables strained...
With thirty feet to go a cable snapped. I almost dropped my Itsaboy cigar. Dozens of '09 zombies and Mafia I henchmen tumbled into the dark. "You's just an empty suit..." "Brains..." A few linked arms like a barrel of monkeys, swinging above the abyss. I nearly clicked home.
I pulled myself up the swinging cable, Itsaboy cigar clenched in my teeth (in this business a fella needs skills). The whole dingus was attached to a pillar. I pulled 2 cotter pins & yanked on the hitch pins. The remains of the bridge swung away satisfyingly. :)
I took a pull from my stake out bottle, just to remind myself why I was here (investigating the recent Y Town shut down). The passage was filled with '09 stalagmites & stalagtites and desert island torches flickering in a nonexistent 2D breeze. I heard chanting ahead.
I walked quietly along the tunnel's edge toward the sound of chanting and heavy machines. Passing side tunnels I stubbed my Itsaboy cigar out, dropping it into a channel of liquid. Mist was gathering around my feet...
The trickle in the gutter became a stream, the thrum of machines & the chanting grew louder. Moss hung on the walls. Here & there a crack revealed Zynga code streaming in the dark... I put on a long black KeannYo Reef trenchcoat & upgraded my gat to higher caliber.
A copper pipe, and then a larger brass one rose & ran along the floor. The waterway widened, slippery things quietly surfaced and sank. More pipes, valves, a large glow, I was entering a large cavern. The chanting and machinery grew loud.
I came to a copper railing overlooking an immense chamber. Puffs of steam floated from smokestacks, condensing on dripping stalagtites, over enormous gears, belts, swaying baskets on cables, a clunking, churning, bewildering steampunkish scene in twilight.
An enormous stone bulldog stood in the center, its wide stance permitted a shuffling line of avatars to inch beneath. I couldn't see what happened to them, but I could tell that was where the chanting came from. Surrounding the stone dog was clanking machinery.
Whatever was going on in Yoville, the halt to the game, the events stopping, the end of new themes... whatever it was, the answer lay in this subterranean steampunk nightmare beneath the streets of sunny Y Town. These shuffling avatars would lead me to the truth.
I sidled around, trying to see what was happening. Avatars went in the dog-shaped stone temple none came out. A crowd surrounded the temple, they were chanting... “Yo yo yo Zingggg-HA! Yo yo yo Zingggg-HA HA HA!” OMG... They were Zynga worshipers!
“Yo yo yo Zingggg-HA! Yo yo yo Zingggg-HA HA HA!” The swaying crowd wore VIP clothing. Zynga worshippers. A line of abandoned avatars, zombietars, shuffled toward the dog-shaped stone temple, its eyes glowed red, incense curling from its nostrils.
This was why Zynga was “encouraging” folks to find greener digital pastures... The old avatars were being siphoned off for some dark purpose. I couldn’t get to the temple without going through the Zynga worshipers. I took a long pull from my flask. I needed the exit.
The cavern was filled with steampunk machinery, gears, steam, clanking, groaning. Materials going in, somewhere something was going out. Catwalks hung from stalagtites, here and there, ladders. Time for a swig of Old Noob and a fresh Itsaboy cigar.
The Zynga worshippers’ chanting was creepy, but covered any noise I might make. I found a ladder, made my way to catwalks high between stalagtites beneath Yoville. In the distance I saw platforms filled with crates rising. There might be my way out.
Far above the din of machinery and chanting VIP Yovites, Zynga worshippers, I could see the back side of the stone Dog-shaped temple. Something like an enormous still was attached, with inverted funnels and spirals of tubing. I had to get closer...
I turned from the Yovitical chanting and crept toward the copper and brass tanks. At the back of the temple I saw the avatars tumbling into a hopper, into the machinery. There wasn’t any way out. I wouldn’t be able to help them, perhaps I could find what happens...
The hopper was connected to an enormous copper kettle topped by an inverted funnel. Coils of tubing sprang from its top and spiraled toward various containers. In the distance mafia henchmen were loading boxes onto platforms that rose into the darkness...
I got to where the boxes were packed. Bottles rolled down chutes, filled with liquid, packaged and labeled energy drinks. The enormous vat was labeled... “Yolent Green”. The energy drinks were made of YOLENT GREEN! YOLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
It made sense... Yoville become too popular. Too many people were giving away energy drinks, Zynga needed a new source for energy. A few bad themes, a couple of glitches, a three day shut down, and avatars cut their digital cords... zombies for the machines.
There are strange things done, under the Yoville sun,
Where the P.I. toils for gold...
The Zynga trails have their secret tales,
That would make your blood run cold...
The VIP lights have seen strange sights,
but the strangest they ever have seen
Was the steampunk night with temple zombie fright
I finally understood Yolent green.
