The Finest Line

The way that lead developer for new start-up Adrenochrome has filed his teeth down to sharp points has me kind of nervous. But the way he’s strapped me to a medieval style rack in the basement of his mother’s crumbling beachside mansion somewhere on the NSW north coast has me more nervous still.

“For authenticity,” he insists, cinching down the leather straps. He struggles to arrange the Boots around the stocks arrangement at the foot of the rack, but finally manages to get them through the rough wooden holes by bending the tongues back in a way that must be pure agony.

“I don’t get it,” I keep saying, “I thought your game was an indie PC rip-off of Scribblenauts, where you draw cute cartoons and they come to life and grind for sweet loot!” Maybe I’m sounding desperate. Maybe it’s because of the way the lead developer’s grin just seems to be getting wider and wider. Maybe it’s because he told me his name was Flenser. If you don’t know the word flenser, wiki it. And be afraid.

“Look,” says Flenser, “the point that needs to be made here is that I was playing Splinter Cell Conviction, and at one stage in the game I had to stab a guy with the US flag and then drag him around by the throat for what felt like four or five hours.”

This doesn’t actually seem to BE a point, unless Flenser busying himself with an alarming collection of what looks like Russian dental instruments is in and of itself the point.

“Is… is this a protest?” I squeak. “Some kind of protest against violence and torture in games? Is this what you’re doing? As a developer, are you saying that gamers MAKE you put torture scenes in games, and you’re showing me how bad this is by actually torturing me? Is that what’s going on here? Hello?”

Flenser spins around with that terrible grin still fixed on his terrible face. “Hell no!” he beams. “Torture is awesome! Completely unrestrained vengeance in the form of orgiastic violence enacted upon the helpless body of your most hated enemy is one of the best things about games! I mean, who needs shades of moral grey? Who needs difficult choices? Just give me a rusty rail spike and a beautifully rendered - but cartoonishly evil - eye to shove it through!”

When he leaves his Russian dentistry gear and instead starts sharpening what appears to be a carving knife on one of those old-school sharpening spike things, that’s when I get properly scared. He catches my eye.

“Oh don’t worry,” says Flenser, with another of those grins that really makes me worry. “I’m just making us lunch. You like egg and strawberry, right? With mayo?”

“What?” I squeak. “What are you talking about?”

“On cornbread? I have some lovely cornbread. And some carob for after?”

My mind is whirling, lurching. So is my stomach. I’m starting to wonder if Flenser slipped something in the Coke Zero he gave me when I first arrived. But egg and strawberry? With mayo?

Flenser slowly and deliberately makes this horrible sandwich on a nearby bench, and then he slowly and deliberately mashes it into my horrified mouth, all the while grinning that grin. With the filed teeth and everything.

“Blargh!” I splutter. “Gnargh! Flargh!” I spit egg and strawberry everywhere. Some gets on Flenser’s shirt. He stops grinning and instead frowns at the mess I’ve made. Then he gets a wet chux right out of the sink, with breadcrumbs and stuff all over it, and wipes it right across my face.

I scream and pull taut against the straps, arching my back. I feel the Boots squirming and twisting, because every time I spasm it pulls them up against the stocks. I know I’m hurting them, but I can’t help it.

“Game over!” I scream. “Uncle! Safeword! Mercy!”

“Oh no,” says Flenser, breathing egg-and-strawberry right into my face. “This is real my friend. This isn’t one of your little games, where you can press reset or log out or wait for it to crash. This is just going to go on and on. But you know what I like with my lunch?”

Don’t say human flesh, don’t say human flesh.

“I like a bit of light entertainment. Look!” He points out a whole bunch of TVs stacked against one wall of the room. I HAD noticed them when I came in, but I’d been sort of distracted by the rack in the middle.

Flenser walks over to where he’s left his universal remote. He pushes one button, just a single, simple button. And the TVs start showing… oh God the things they start showing. Bright colours. Happy people. Romantic sparkly undead teens. I can feel my visual cortex trying to crawl out through my sinus. The pain is intense, and unrelenting.

“What is this?” I scream. “Why? I came here in good faith to see your game!”

“THIS IS MY GAME!” bellows Flenser, turning up the volume to drown out my screams. “You people wring your hands and shake your heads about videogame violence, but look around you!” He points at the screens. I try to look away, but I can’t. The things up there are terrible yes, painful yes, but they’re just so damn entertaining.

“There are worse things in the world than violent games,” hisses Flenser in my ear. “And they are watched, devoured, CONSUMED by millions.”

And that, mercifully, is when I black out.