“But it’s not real!”, I shouted. “It was a video game? Animations over the internet. I’ve never even punched anyone in real life!”
St Peter looked at me deafeningly. I realise that sounds stupid, but unless you have been given a withering glare by the gatekeeper of Heaven, I suggest you shut the Hell up. You know every 'take no shit' bouncer you have ever failed to convince that your trainers are smart enough or your ID is ‘you’ enough? Well, it’s like that, only he is stopping scumbags getting near God, and not Dane Bowers on a meet and greet at Tubes Nightclub on the costa del Essex. He has understandably higher standards.
“I am not, in fact, a moron”, St Peter said quietly.
“Huh?”, I said.
“Do you not believe I take this job seriously, mortal?”
“You look pretty serious.” He did. The robe was a little less glowing than I’d expected, and the skin tone a little more middle of the road than European artists had portrayed, but he looked every inch the Guardian of the Gates of Heaven.
“And as a serious professional, would you expect that I have done my research?”
“Umm…. Yes?”
“Yes. So why in the name of Azazel’s Arse do think that I would not be aware that all these kills were virtual!” The tone was even, but there was a shout hidden in there. I got the feeling that if it had been allowed to show itself, I would have lost skin and flesh to the blast.
“I….”
“I know it wasn’t real humans, but here is the rub. They were controlled by real humans. And every time you killed one, or ended a killstreak, or lost them a game, you hurt them. Not a lot, and clearly not as much as a real-life murder. If you’d killed this many people, we wouldn’t be talking. You’d already be in category A with all the genocidal psychopaths.”
“Hitler and Stalin?”
“Yes, and Pol Pot, Ghengis Khan, Florence Nightingale, all the worst ones.”
“The Lady with the Lamp?”
“Yes, you really let a lot slip under your noses with her. Anyway, the point is, its not as bad a hurt on a case by case basis, but you were just so very prolific.”
I tried not to grin, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Under your alias ‘LEETPRO69-NICE’ you killed millions over your lifetime. Many of them were children, many more isolated individuals who used video games to engage with the world. Sure most of them didn’t care too much, but the weight of averages is against you. With numbers that large I’m afraid you had a very large negative impact on the lives, health and mental stability of thousands all over the globe.”
“But I never met them!”, I protested.
“Irrelevant!”
I stared at my traitorous hands, with their lightning reflexes, and carefully honed muscle memory.
“I wasn’t even a spawn killer or glitcher or anything. How can I be going to hell?”
“Well”, said St Peter, leaning in conspiratorially. “We may not be at that point yet.”
I looked up in hope.
“I was wondering how you felt about coaching? We have a bit of league going up here in Heaven and Gabriel is a camping little winged bitch. I can make this charge sheet go away. Replace all the human kills with say, bot kills. No harm, no foul. I need you to teach me.”
I looked at St Peter and thought about how good the latency would be in Heaven.
“OK, Pete. May I call you Pete?”
“You may not.”
“OK St P. You got a deal. Let's go smoke an angel or two.”
After a surprisingly short amount of paperwork, I found myself sat next to St P in the comfiest gaming chair I had ever seen. I could, and hopefully would be able to spend weeks at a time in a chair like this.
“So, what game do you play?”, I asked.
“Currently, the divine wind is blowing towards Call of Duty, but it changes pretty frequently. You humans keep coming up with new and interesting diversions”, he replied thumbing the on switch on his controller.
The controller looked at once completely familiar, and like nothing I’d ever seen. “What are we playing on here? Xbox? PC?”
“All of them”, he replied. “We don’t like compatibility issues, so have combined them under one casing.”
“Ninsownbox One. Nice. That controller looks familiar?”
“Yes, it is the perfect design. Mortals can touch divinity here and there, and combining all of the elements of perfection leads you to this.”
“Can I ….hold it?” I asked.
“In a minute”, said St Peter, and transported me back to dealing with my older brothers hogging of the family PS3. He wouldn’t play with me anymore, after one too many ass-kickings once I got my hands on the game properly. Although now he wouldn’t play with me anymore because I was dead and playing games with literal Angels and Apostles.
The weirdness of that thought was in danger of tipping me over the edge, but the game booted up and the familiar lobby design helped ground me. Saint Peter jumped into a game and began to play. He was, unbelievably, a complete scrub. Running around corners, never pre-aiming anything, reloading mid gunfight. No idea of the flow of the map, or really even what he was trying to achieve apparently. Even more shockingly he appeared to be one of the better players. The game ended and he turned to me.
“So”, he said gravely. “Do you think you can make me a better player?”
“Than that?!” I asked incredulously. St Peter looked confused and I caught myself before I talked myself into a one-way ticket somewhere a lot warmer. “I mean, I will do everything I can, and yes I believe I can help.”
He nodded curtly, loaded into a new game. “Begin”, he said.
I wish that training montages were a real thing. I never knew that I wished that, but my God it was boring. Watching him stumble around and fuck it up constantly despite all my excellent advice and world-class coaching. Endless rounds of incompetence. Apparently, he had been playing the game even more than I had and his muscle memory was hard to overcome. It’s just that his instinctive play was straight bad. Gradually he started to do a better job, and I started to relax. I might be able to earn my keep after all.
After dropping Gabriel 3 times in a row, a chat message arrived from the ‘winged bitch’. He really was a camping piece of trash as well. It was great to see him start to lose.
Bite me, Simon. How are you doing this?
“Who’s Simon?”, I asked.
“I am”, said Peter.
I frowned.
“Peter is my middle name. I just always hated the name Simon, and I wasn’t about to have that engraved on eternity. Getting crucified should at least earn you the right to pick your own name.”
He handed me the controller so he could type a furious retort to Gabriel, offering him out on a 1 vs 1, drunk on his newfound ability. My hands wrapped around the controller, and I was instantly in love. It really was perfect. With St Simon not paying attention I started to play for him. I was like the avenging angel of death, leaving to one side that that angel was actually discussing the terms of his own ass-kicking on chat. I reaped my way through the match, wracking up a monstrous kill streak.
Peter looked up from his banter with Gabriel as one of my victims started to complain in the chat that Gatekeeper must be botting.
“What did you just do to JezzyC? He seems most upset.”
I grinned. “Throwing knife. He was trying to hit me with a sniper, but he sucked.”
Get out of your Dad’s basement, Jesus, Peter typed back to him. “I’ve really gone off him. He used to be my hero on Earth, but I’m starting to think in the last century or so, that he’s a bit of a tool.”
I tried to ignore the fact that I just killed Jesus with a throwing knife, and carried on. The end game was in sight and I wanted to complete my kill streak before I ran out of road. AlphaOmega1 was hiding at the back of the map sniping. They took a couple of shots at me but were too far away for me to hit them with my SMG, so I scooped up JC’s gun and headshot him as he peeked.
The chat erupted in pinging messages.
“Oh nono no nono, what did you do?” Peter asked, grabbing the controller back from me.
You’ve done it now! Dad is pissed, pinged up from JezzyC.
“What?”, I started to protest my innocence, when there was a clap of thunder and a distinguished-looking being appeared behind us.
HELLO PETER, it said.
Peter jumped out of the chair and dropped to one knee, dragging me down with him.
“Your Grace”.
YOU BESTED ME. YOU APPEAR TO HAVE IMPROVED A LOT
“Yes, your Grace. I’m sorry your Grace”.
PLEASE PETER, I AM NOT MAD. IT IS GOOD TO HAVE A CHALLENGE FINALLY. WHO IS THIS HANDSOME YOUNG LADY WITH YOU?
“This is Leetpro69…. Er, this is Annabelle, your Grace.”
ANNABELLE. IT IS A PLEASURE. DO YOU PLAY?
“Do I play? Yeah, I was the one who dropped you there, Grace”, I blurted out.
A MORTAL BESTED ME?! I HAVE NEVER BEEN KILLED BEFORE, AND A MORTAL MANAGES IT!
The was a long nervous pause. Then the being broke out into glorious, rich laughter.
PETE! YOU NEED TO TRY AND LEARN SOME LESSONS FROM THIS HUMAN, SHE IS PUTTING YOU TO SHAME.
“I am trying to, your Grace.”
WELL KEEP AT IT, IT WOULD BE GREAT TO HAVE A REAL FIGHT, PETE. ANNABELLE, A PLEASURE. I TRUST I WILL SEE YOU AGAIN.
And with a second clap, they disappeared.
“They get to call you Pete?”
“They are the literal creator of the heavens and the earth. They can do what they want! Why do you call yourself Leetpro69-Nice anyway? Can I call you 69?”
“You can call me what you want, Simon. I used to have my name in my tag, but this is better. Keeps the salt and the thirst out of my messages. I just like playing, I’m not trying to start a Twitch following.”
A party invite from AlphaOmega1 popped up.
“Well, it would appear that you have caught someones attention somewhat anyway, 69.”
I swallowed and hit accept. It was time to play God.
