Magnus Opus With Rodents

The game began with a short video with a voiceover:

In 1938, twenty Nutria, or swamp dogs were brought to Louisiana to be raised for their fur, but escaped captivity rapidly. Bigger than groundhogs, but smaller than beavers, Nutria have yellow front teeth, long white whiskers, and thin tails. These large rodents have lush shorthaired fur many compare to seal. They breed with great enthusiasm producing five to thirteen pups per litter, three litters a year. Because they have few natural enemies, Nutrias have proliferated well beyond Louisiana and currently number in excess of fifty million. They are plant-eaters and consume 25% of their body weight in vegetation daily, destroying marshlands, causing massive sinkholes and damaging foundations of structures. Determined trophy hunters are needed to deplete the population before they infest the world. 

The game environment was a series of underground tunnels, dug by Nutria over the last hundred years within a vast semi-tropical swampland with thousands of connecting passageways. Each hunter was virtually equipped with sixty spring traps, a semi-automatic shotgun and a motorboat. Nutria kills were calculated by the number of tails deposited in each player’s cache, valued at five gluco-coins per tail. The trophy hunter with highest number of tails after completing Level 50 of the game won the Golden Nutria Trophy, the accumulated gluco-coins, and the opportunity to have sex with a consenting live human, choice of gender.Magnus was shocked. The trophy and gluco-coins were ‘same old same old’ rewards, but he’d never heard of a game prize package that included sex! It seemed exotic and so random, but the news feeds had been mentioning the aging population problem frequently, as well as, the smaller number of boys being born due to warmer temps – the last census 60/40, female/male. Those little boy sperms were delicate. Even NYC was under two million after the last pandemic. Magnus read parts of the Midwest were totally empty, but didn’t know 

that for sure. He did know none of his friends had children. And there was another factor, as well. 

Most of Magnus’ contemporaries were digi-sexuals with thousands of virtual, few actual lovers. No one went out anymore or interacted in person. Stimulation arrived on screens. The air was lethal and ADS suits were bulky and expensive. Public transportation was literally underwater. 

It was so much simpler being on your own – no hurt feelings, no performance issues, no pregnancy worries. Birth control had been banned in 2082. Besides, everyone had 24/7 porn access and, quite frankly, who knew what made you feel good better than you. Magnus and Hester had had sex a few times, but it was never as good as he thought it would be. He assumed he’d never have an opportunity for sex again after Hester left. 

Magnus focused on the game and two hours passed like five minutes. He had 9,034 Nutria tails in his cache. Not bad for his first play. He was already on level 16. It was an okay game – he’d give it 4 out of 5 stars on Yelp. He saved his cache and quit.

Magnus booted up his mandatory newsfeed with Facebook, but rapidly moved onto Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Buzzfeed, CNN, Wikipedia, Reddit, Vox, RS, TPM, Cloutwork, Dazzale, NPR, YouTube and Hulu. He split his monitor into sixteen sectors and let the chatter wash over him like snow while he analyzed his reaction to the game. 

He’d never considered himself an exterminator of furry creatures, but there was something exciting about hunting giant rodents through underground tunnels and obliterating them from a boat bobbing on the water. Very satisfying. The grand prize intrigued him, as well. 

He freed his dinner from the bin after watching the holo-ad. It was Chicken Fried Rice again. Afterward, he petted Chelsea during relaxation period, but his mind was elsewhere. His eyes drifted to his cell every two minutes until it was game time.

Magnus logged onto R.O.US. The player scores were displayed. He wasn’t first, but he was in the top hundred out of a half million players. Not bad. He dimmed the lights and checked that Chelsea cat was charging. His fingers danced across the controller as never before. He was a man possessed. 

In two hours, he was up to level 40, but 41 took another sixty minutes. It was getting harder. He wasn’t tired after sleeping late in the morning, so he continued, ignoring the vibration in his forearm telling him it was time for the nightly news feed. He completed level 46 at midnight with just four levels to go. His heart was pumping; he felt energized and laser focused. 

Magnus didn’t go to sleep as required; he continued to hunt Nutria. His cache showed 26,445,991 tails. He’d earned over 132 million gluco-coins. He was a rich man for the moment, but only the winner would keep the currency. He grabbed more Vitamin water, peed and returned to play. He’d never felt so in command before, not at work or on Facebook or even playing squash years ago when he was in school. All those sports trophies would look cheap and dinky when he won the Golden Nutria. Every fifteen minutes his forearm buzzed, but he found it easy to ignore.Narrow bands of light from the window blinds partitioned the blank walls of his apartment. Magnus blinked. Something happened. Did the screen freeze? It went black, then screamed – GAME OVER. He slumped in his chair and checked his cache: 50,000,000 tails. A giant Golden Nutria emoji appeared below the banner and it slowly turned toward him, 

(Click on number 4 to continue reading the story.)