Free Dead Man's Resolution by Thomas K. Carpenter

Dead Man's Resolution
    Tibor had two more days until high school resumed from spring break, but as sword-mage of the Destaria, he had a score to settle first.
    Light from the silver sky filtered around him like a haze while three fat moons calmly hung above. He paused as the massive volcano on the biggest moon, Sarpharian, shot a jet of lava spaceward like a pimple exploding on its red surface. Ignoring the distraction of the beautifully rendered landscape, he spun around, hoping his enemy hadn’t snuck upon him while he gazed skyward. As he scanned the surrounding area, Tibor saw the leg sticking out of the old dumpster like a discarded doll, except this one had dried blood covering the tattered boot.
    Momentarily forgetting his duel, Tibor trotted to the dumpster. The body, a middle-aged man in an azure jogging suit, lay stiffly over the old rubble. A jagged piece of steel stuck through the hip.
    The stench overcame Tibor and he dropped back down, coughing into the crook of his elbow. The air around him exploded in fire, the flames licking over the dumpster. The view screen on his shades flashed red and a skull covering his vision indicated he had died.
    A man in red trimmed velvet black robes with a shaggy gray beard ran toward him, pointing and laughing. Tibor had lost the game.
    “You low-rez whore, I wasted you. Never saw me coming, I told you today was my day,” William said. The wrinkled face split wide in a grin.
    “I was distracted…” Tibor started.
    William cut in. “Oh, that is so vag if you try to take my win. I told you I was going to beat you today.”
    “There’s a body…” he tried to explain.
    William continued to bluster about being cheated, so Tibor waited until his friend had to take a breath, then rushed, “There’s a real body in the dumpster.”
    “God. The smell.” William put his hand to his mouth through his digital beard.
    “It’s not so bad after the first whiff,” Tibor said.
    William walked a few steps away and retched. “How can you stand so close?”
    “I’m turning it off.”
    With a thought, using the neural actuator, Tibor switched off the mod Project Gandaymede, and the world around them changed in a blink. Gone was the silver sky, the three moons, the black robes, and the beard on William. Tibor had chosen simpler clothes, faded brown leggings and a gray tunic with a bastard sword strapped over his back, but those were gone, too. The skull and the flashing red disappeared as well.
    Instead two young boys in jeans, t-shirts, and black wrap-around goggles suctioned to their faces, stood on the street. Tibor pulled his shirt over his nose. “If I’m going to be a vet, I’d better learn to get used to bad smells.”
    He vaulted into the dumpster, one leg over, carefully avoiding the chunks of rusted steel poking from the rubble at indiscriminate angles.
    “What are you doing?” William asked. “We should get out of here before someone comes along and blames us.” William kept his distance from the dumpster as if the smell created a barrier he couldn’t pass.
    “I just want to check him out.” Tibor found a piece of two-by-four and used it to move the leg out of the way.
    “Are you crazy? We’re not supposed to be here. Our parents would kill us just for being in Old Detroit. And a body? Forget it. They’d put us on lock down, make us delete Project Gandaymede, and no more skins. I can’t go out without my skin on, I’ve got this huge zit everyone would see. Come on, Ti, get out of there.”
    William put a hand to the throbbing red spot on his forehead. Tibor was reminded of the moon, Sarpharian, and wondered if William had programmed the volcano unconsciously. The zit disappeared as a digital version of William covered the real one.
    “If I take my glasses off, I can still see the zit,” he laughed.
    “Shut up, Tibor.”
    The four story building next to the dumpster had brown ivy covering the wall. Cracks ran the length of the building. Tibor thought he