I was stunned. Freedom of speech was one of the founding pillars of the American way, and that included cursing, goddammit. It was how I expressed myself.

  Karen continued, doubling down. “People who curse have limited vocabularies. It shows how uneducated they are.”

  Oh, the irony of her last sentence.

  I took a slow breath to steady myself. Attacking her directly wouldn’t work; she’d just shut down. I needed to prove her wrong.

  “My favorite word,” I said, “is the most flexible word in the English language. None are more versatile. It can be a verb, a noun, an adjective, an adverb, even an interjection. And that’s just the surface. It works perfectly as an idiomatic intensifier.”

  Her eyebrows pinched together.

  “What the f? Who the f? Why the f? How the f? Where the f? And when the f—those are the questions that matter.”

  I leaned in slightly, watching Taylor’s amusement as I schooled her mom on swearing.

  “It conjugates for flavor. It builds new compound words for fun. And no other word can deliver humor, frustration, emphasis, camaraderie, or shock with little more than a shift in tone. It’s a scalpel and a hammer, a paintbrush and a wrecking ball. Wielded properly, it’s the most elegant tool in our entire goddamn language. It’s only as crude as one’s imagination.”

  Karen blinked, speechless for once.

  Then someone called my name.

  “Frank?”

  I glanced around the church. Nobody was looking at me except a giggling teenager and her stupefied mom.

  Karen snapped out of it and stammered, “Well, I—I don’t want that kind of language around my child.”

  I turned to Taylor. “You’re in what? Eighth grade?”

  She nodded.

  “Hate to break it to you, lady, but your ‘child’ probably hears worse before the first bell.”

  Taylor pressed her lips together, desperate to hold back a grin. Karen just glared daggers at me.

  I heard that voice again. “Frank. Frank, you’re awake! Finally! Thank the gods.”

  I spun around; it sounded like the guy was standing right next to me.

  “What the frank is going on?” I muttered.

  Was he under my seat? I leaned as far as my bum leg would let me, nearly tipping over. Nothing but a layer of dust the vacuum never got to.

  “Frank, buddy, I need you to focus.”

  Taylor’s eyes lit up first. “The voice in your head is your manager.”

  Karen groaned, rolling her eyes. “Ugh. Don’t listen to him. None of us did. All he wants to talk about is joining them.”

  I raised an eyebrow, unsure if she was talking about immigrants or invaders. “Them?”

  “The illegals trying to take over the world.” She scoffed, shaking her head.

  “Frank!” the voice in my head practically yelled. “This lady is going to get you killed!”

  Wait, is this guy in my head? Then I chuckled. He had a point. Karen didn’t have the best grip on reality.

  “All right, Mister Manager. What can I do for you?”

  Karen let out an exasperated sigh and jabbed a finger at me. “Don’t let him talk you into becoming a godless spawn of hell!”

  Taylor tugged at her mom’s hand, trying to lead her away, but Karen wasn’t done.

  “You need to stay right with God, like us. Stay pure, Frank. Stay Christian. Stay human and stay white!” she shouted over her shoulder.

  Taylor’s eyes met mine for a second, embarrassed on her mother’s behalf.

  Poor kid.

  This manager guy spoke fast, like a New Englander after their third cup of coffee. “Listen up. There’s not much time left, and we’ve got a lot to cover—”

  “How little time, exactly?” I spun around in my seat on the pew until I found a clock on the wall.

  “About ten minutes, so unless I ask you a direct question, please, for both of our sakes, just listen.”

  I marked the time. “What if I have a question?”

  The manager sighed. “Uh, raise your hand; I’ll see it.”

  “You can see me?” I didn’t think that was very fair.

  “Frank… I cannot express how important it is for you to shut the frank up, right now.”

  I wanted to point out he wasn’t able to say the f-word either, but I let it slide.

  “Earth is minutes away from completing its transition into the Tutorial. World Dungeons, like yours, are intergalactic competitions. You could think of them as fundraisers, really, really big fundraisers. The prize for winning is ownership of the planet.”

  I raised my hand.

  “Yes?”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “So, some asshole gets to own Earth?”

  “Correct, but it won’t be you—probably won’t even be a native.”

  That was some bullshit. But I wasn’t interested in being the king of Earth anyway, so I put my hand down and let him continue.

  “It takes a day to install each expansion. You’re about to enter the Tutorial, but you need to pick a class first. You do not want to enter without one.”

  I glanced over at Karen, who appeared to be Karen-splaining to one of the older ladies on how to use their sewing machine.

  “Everyone else had a whole day to pick their class; you’ve only got… nine minutes and counting.”

  Picking a class sounded easy enough. Most of the video games I’d ever played had some sort of character creator, and making a good-looking avatar was usually the most time-consuming part. Luckily for me, I was born with a handsome face.

  “I’ll bring up the list; hang on. Your World Dungeon is a bit… unconventional. This is the first time I’ve seen them do it this way.”

  I was about to ask what unconventional meant when another semi-transparent screen appeared in my vision.

  There was a long list of choices.

  Aboleth

  [+] Amalgamation

  [+] Angel

  …I started scrolling.

  Bandersnatch

  [+] Banshee

  [+] Basilisk

  …I continued scrolling.

  [+] Cockatrice

  [+] Cyclops

  [+] Death Knight

  …I scrolled faster.

  [+] Ghast

  [+] Goblin

  [+] Golem

  …the list kept going.

  Ifrit

  [+] Imp

  [+] Intellect Devourer

  …and going.

  [+] Ooze

  Pegasus

  [+] Phantom

  …and going.

  [+] Sprite

  Stirge

  [+] Strix

  …Jesus, how many kinds of monsters were there?

  Umber Hulk

  Unicorn

  [+] Vampire

  …It had taken me a couple of minutes, but I finally got to the end.

  [+] Yaoguai

  [+] Yeti

  Zombie

  Not all of them had the symbol before the name, so I raised my hand and asked, “What’s with the plus sign?”

  “Drill down menus. You can tap them to expand the selection to see more options.”

  “More options?!” I’d scrolled past hundreds already. These weren’t classes; they were clearly monster types. I shrugged and flicked my finger to navigate back to what I thought would be the most powerful option.

  [+] Dragon

  The screen pulsed, then flooded with even more choices:

  [+] Esoteric

  [+] Outer

  [+] Planar

  [+] True

  I tapped on True. Another list spilled across my vision:

  Black

  Blue

  Brine

  …there were as many kinds of true dragons as there were monsters.

  Cave

  Cloud

  Faerie

  …some of these had to be made up.

  Gold

  Jade

  Mist

  …I skimmed faster.

  Mithral

  Silver

  Sky

  …and faster.

  Sovereign

  Umbral

  Underworld

  I stopped scrolling. Another minute wasted, with only six left. There wasn’t enough time to even look at them all.

  “See anything you like?”

  I blinked at the list, my mind swimming in options. “Yeah, what about a golden dragon?”

  “Let’s see…” The voice went silent, then came back. “Hmm. Looks powerful. Ugh, nope—we’ll have to pick another.”

  “Why?”

  My manager sighed. “Another weird deviation. They’ve capped the number of native players allowed per class.”

  Native players? Time was ticking down, so I’d save that question for later.

  “How’s that fair?”

  “It’s not, but World Dungeons aren’t known to be very fair. They’re always twisting the rules and—” He cut off mid-sentence.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just… we’ve got to keep moving. How do you feel about a gender swap?”

  “A gender what?”

  “Succubus looks interesting. Ambush predator. Death by snu snu—interesting trait name. They’ve got an attack called Sexual Assault—”

  “Pass! I will not be sexually assaulting anyone.”

  “I found a male variant. You could keep your—”

  “Still not interested!”

  “Uh… It looks like the options are based on local planetary mythos. Alright, you start naming powerful creatures while I check if they’re available.”

  “Okay… vampire.” Bloodsuckers were usually strong. Even if I had to give up garlic, it’d probably be worth it.

  “No spots left.”

  Damn.

  “What about a werewolf?” Primal hunters with excellent senses. Even in human form, they usually came with a physical upgrade.

  “Taken.”

  “Are there other were-variants?”

  “Yes! Loads.”

  “What about werebillionaire?”

  My manager hesitated. “You mean… a rich guy?”

  “Yeah, that’s basically Batman.”

  “…billionaire—of any kind—isn’t on the list.”

  We were wasting time. There had to be a more efficient way. “Can we filter by what’s left?”

  “Great idea; give me a moment. Sorry, I didn’t think of it first. They’ve never had this restriction before.”

  I didn’t blame him. We were both feeling the time crunch. I glanced over at the clock on the wall. Five minutes left.

  “What about zombie?” he asked.

  “Did you just start at the bottom of the list?”

  “I figured everyone else would have started at the top so—”

  I cut him off. “No, no, that’s good thinking. But zombie?”

  “Yeah, I like what I’m seeing. They’re tough—hard to kill. Gods, they use Strength in place of Constitution.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Oh yeah! That means you’ve got a dump stat.”

  That’s all I needed to hear. Dump stats were powerful. They allowed you to min-max by ignoring less impactful stats to focus on ones with the most bang for your buck. I liked Strength, and it sounded like it would be a double whammy here.

  “Zombie?” I repeated.

  “Yeah. Super Strength level two, Super Toughness level one.” He paused as if unveiling the best part. “And… you gain Intellect by eating brains!”

  Aw, hell no!

  “I knew it… I’m not eating brains.”

  “Frank, Frank, listen to me!” he pleaded. “You have no clue how hard it is to increase your Intellect in a World Dungeon. Unless they’ve changed that rule, which I highly doubt. Now, this isn’t what you want to hear, but it’s what you need to hear. Once this thing kicks off, you’ll have to make some tough decisions.”

  I didn’t need the tough-decisions pep-talk. Life hadn’t ever taken it easy on me before, so why would it start now? I was a survivor, and when push came to shove, I always punched back. Sometimes that ended with bruised knuckles or even a pink slip, but I always got back on my feet. I’d eat brains if I had to. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  I glanced at the clock again; less than three minutes remained. My manager returned to selling me on becoming undead.

  “Look, look,” he said as if I could see his screen. “You even get Dead Ends. All your pain gets reduced by 99%.”

  Frank me… that sounds really nice, I thought.

  My knee burned and throbbed in sync with my heartbeat. Not to mention all the other ailments that came with busting my ass for the past twenty-odd years as a glorified Mr. Fix-It.

  There wasn’t a whole lot of time to pick something else, and my manager thought it was good enough. Maybe zombie wasn’t the worst idea? My finger hovered over the Select Class option.

  I pressed it.

  Without a second prompt or confirmation of any kind, my choice went through. A message flashed before my eyes and then disappeared.

  [Zombie, accepted.]

  “Dang,” my manager said. “Nope, zombie won’t work.”

  A knot formed in the pit of my stomach.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, no. We’ll need to pick something else. Zombies only start with one Intellect. Anyone with an Intellect of less than three is little more than an NPC.”

  I swallowed hard. My hands shook as I tried to bring up the screen again with my mind.

  “Wow, it gets even worse. Zombies have a level cap of 1. Weird. Level caps are usually only for the NPCs.”

  My breath quickened as the franking class selection refused to appear no matter how I waved my trembling hands. My mouth was bone-dry, and I really, really had to pee.

  “What—How do I unselect a class?”

  “You can’t. Wait—” My manager paused. “You didn’t—”

  I stared at the Bible in the pew rack dead ahead, trying not to hyperventilate or piss myself. My heart pounded in my ears as I contemplated finding religion.

  “Frank, you didn’t pick zombie, did you?” His voice rose inside my head. “Gods, Frank, you’re scaring me.”

  He started yelling. “Tell me you didn’t choose a class, Frank!”

  “I—”

  He must have had a way to look it up for himself.

  “No, no, no!”

  He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Frank… your character sheet shows that you’ve selected your class.”

  “Yeah…”

  “It says you’re going to be a zombie.”

  “…Yeah.”

  “We are so franked.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”