BOB.EXE

'''BOB.EXE ''' I'm a LEGO maniac.

I can't help it. I've been building with these Danish plastic blocks for as long as I can remember. I collect all sorts of LEGO sets, everything from classic LEGOLAND Space to The LEGO Movie. I've got complete sets of sixteen for every series of Minifigures, plus two Mr. Gold minifigures that I ordered off of eBay for $9999.98 each. My basement is occupied with tables and shelves adorned with models to the point where it's impossible to walk around without bumping into something. I subscribed to Brick Kicks back in 1987 and, after that went out of print, followed up with LEGO Mania, LEGO Magazine, Brickmaster Magazine, and now LEGO Club Magazine, plus issues of LEGO Adventures! and World Club Magazine that I imported from Europe. I've still got every LEGO T-shirt from the 90s even though none of them fit me now, including one AWESOME shirt that I got with some U.F.O. land rover for only $5.99. My wallet is so thin since crack is cheaper, but I'm always the first to check to see if the local LEGO Store has received the latest shipments of Ultimate Collector Series Star Wars sets. Some may say that, at the ripe age of 38, my life is a wreck... but that's the life of a LEGO Maniac.

But let's talk about LEGO videogames. When LEGO Island first came out in 1997, my mind was blown. It was totally awesome, dude (and it was the 90s, which meant you could say "totally awesome, dude" in public without people staring at you)! Ever since then, I've collected every single LEGO game, plus any rereleases. This even includes titles like Galidor and BIONICLE: The Game, which are total garbage but I still play them anyway because they're LEGO. And, even though TT Games' latest title The LEGO Movie Videogame is just another version of LEGO Star Wars without any of the novelty or fun of the first five hundred versions of LEGO Star Wars that they've released in the past two years, I still love it because I'm that much of a LEGO Maniac. But, sadly, there is one LEGO game that I thought that I would never be able to enjoy again... LEGO Universe.

That is, until one fateful day this past winter. I was playing The LEGO Movie Videogame on the PC, checking out a cool cheat code that unlocks Johnny Thunder and wondering why he simply wasn't available from the start because clearly everyone would want to play as him so it is a mystery why you can't play as him unless you know a cheat code. It was about 1:53 in the afternoon when I heard my grandmother screaming at me, "ZACK! THE MAILMAN ARRIVED TWO HOURS AGO! STOP PLAYING THAT GAME AND MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL, YOUNG MAN!"

"Fine, Grandma!" I yelled back at her. Annoyed, I paused the game and went outside to collect the mail.

As I brought it inside the house and put it down on the kitchen table, I was expecting to find another unemployment check. Instead, much to my surprise, I found a CD case and a note. Even though it was written very messily as though its writer was in a hurry, I immediately recognized the handwriting on the note as belonging to my old friend and former fellow LEGO maniac, Jack.

Zack,

I've had enough of this. I can't handle it anymore. It's too much for me. I had to get rid of this somehow, but instead of destroying it myself or just selling it on eBay, I thought giving it to you was a much better option. Please don't make me regret this decision by doing something stupid that would end up being written about in some lame overly-clichéd creepypasta.

Please, Zack, you have to destroy this disc because I cannot for some poorly-explained reasons. It's the only way. Do NOT play it. Please, for the love of all that is holy, whatever you do, do NOT play it. I trust you as a friend, Zack. Please don't make me feel that my trust has been misplaced by going against what I am telling you.

Do NOT play it. Do NOT even think about playing it. Do NOT even think about not playing it. You cannot let yourself be tempted, even though it is the only fully-functional copy of LEGO Universe that still works offli-

Oh, wow! A fully-functional copy of LEGO Universe that still works offline! Everything else didn't matter as soon as I read those words. Finally, I was about to play LEGO Universe again! It was a LEGO maniac's dream come true!

With that, I tossed aside the note and looked at the CD. It was blank and plain on appearance, though the words "BOB.EXE" were scrawled on it with permanent black marker. I immediately recalled that Bob was the name of LEGO Universe's mascot, and that only reminded me of how excited I was to play this game.

I rushed back to my computer and immediately exited out of The LEGO Movie Videogame, and in my haste I even forgot to save. Not that it mattered, anyway. I took out the disc for The LEGO Movie Videogame and threw in the CD for "BOB.EXE" so quickly that I nearly shattered it to pieces in my excitement.

This opened the LEGO Universe patcher, and it started downloading some new files before saying it was ready to play. I launched the game, and it brought me to the main menu. Everything was just as I remembered it. The music by Brian Tyler... the funny little animations with the Nexus Astronaut and dragon in the background... and, of course, Bob himself, standing cheerily next to the log-in menu to welcome me back to this friendly universe.

I typed in my LEGO.com username and password and clicked the blue arrow to continue. The "Connecting to Authentication" message popped up... and then, for approximately 0.51 seconds, the game flashed something very different. Something that I'm somehow able to remember perfectly in the instant it appeared.

The LEGO Universe logo no longer looked polished but now rusted. The white, bubbly clouds had vanished, and the blue gradient sky had turned red. The blue trees on the horizon turned black and looked like they had been burned, left bare to the blackened bark. The Nexus Astronaut was lying on the floor, which was no longer white but now resembled the scorched earth of a volcano, and the dragon stood over him with vicious intent. Down on the bottom of the screen, where it normally says "Copyright 2011, the LEGO Group", the year was replaced with 666. And there was BLOOD. Hyper-realistic BLOOD. BLOOD on the logo, BLOOD on the trees, BLOOD on the Nexus Astronaut, BLOOD on the floor, BLOOD dripping from the dragon's maw, BLOOD on the BLOOD... BLOOD!

But worst of all was Bob. He looked fairly normal, staring at me with a perpetual smile, but there was something horribly wrong about his normally-comforting smile... and there was BLOOD dripping from his empty black eyes.

But, as I said, this only approximately 0.51 seconds, so it didn't bother me. I just thought I imagined it. My therapist often tells me that I imagine things. He just doesn't understand... all I need to do is JUST IMAGINE...

After that, it stayed on the "Connecting to Authentication" screen for about 10.3 seconds before moving on to the character select screen. To my surprise, none of the four characters displayed were my characters prior to LEGO Universe's closure. Instead, they were NPCs from the game... but not just any NPCs. They were Hael Storm, Vanda Darkflame, Duke Exeter, and Doctor Overbuild!

In my excitement, I did not notice right away a few things that seemed wrong. In the background, there is normally a bunch of blue-tinted stick figures playing around. Here, they were red-tinted instead and appeared to be missing their heads. There was probably some BLOOD, too. The background music sounded like it was 50% slower and in reverse for some reason, and I could swear that some parts of the reversed song almost sounded like the ticking of a clock, but I was sure that this wasn't symbolic of anything.

I wasn't worried. So what if there were a few graphical and auditory glitches? I was going to play LEGO Universe again, and I was going to play as Hael Storm and the other Faction Leaders! Without hesitation, I selected Hael Storm and pressed the blue arrow to continue... or rather, I would have pressed the blue arrow, but for some reason it was red. And when I clicked it, I could have sworn that I heard high-pitched laughter in the background, sounding almost like an echoing version of Bob's laughter.

The screen went black for a loose estimate of 9.896 seconds. Then, the loading screen popped up and said that my destination was the Venture Explorer. Now this was the first time I thought something was odd. Was Hael Storm's savefile really only on the tutorial level of the game? I also noticed that the Venture Explorer's artwork depicted the spaceship looking even more wrecked than I remembered it. I just assumed that this was one of those new files that it downloaded; probably some cool hyper-realistic graphics update that was never released thanks to LEGO Universe's cancellation.

When Hael Storm spawned on the Venture Explorer, the first thing I noticed was that the Venture Explorer's interior was also considerably more wrecked than I remembered it, with entire pieces of the walkway chewed up into pieces. The nearby pods of sleeping minifigures in suspended animation were cracked open, but the minifigures inside remained lifeless. At first, Jett Moonshot was nowhere to be seen, but then I found his body smashed into pieces in a pool of BLOOD. There were more suspicious pools of BLOOD coating the entire world. I wasn't sure what the music was, but like before, it sounded like it was played in reverse at 50% speed.

I made my way to the Venture Explorer Bridge, where Bob was waiting for me. Like before, his face was locked in a perpetual grin with BLOOD dripping from his eyes. He popped one arm out of its socket to wave it at me, which I remembered being a cute little animation in the vein of LEGO Island. But now, when Bob popped his arm out, a fountain of BLOOD erupted from his open socket in a manner reminiscent of the Black Knight from Monty Python.

The game indicated that Bob had a mission for me. I interacted with him to accept the mission. His dialogue was simply, "HEY KID. DO YOU WANT TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION?" I didn't remember this dialogue from the game, but I shrugged it off. Why should I be afraid? It was only a videogame.

The mission was to collect six imagination orbs from around the nearby pistons, just like I remembered it. Despite the horribly wrecked status of the ship, the pistons were still functional, and I was able to grab five of the orbs with ease.

However, upon grabbing the sixth orb, Bob's face started flashing on the screen. The game started lagging horribly as the framerate took a nosedive. This caused me to miss a jump and Hael Storm promptly fell into the wiring of the ship where he was horrifically electrocuted.

I was seething. "That's cheap!" I yelled at the computer. "I died because of lag!"

The "Smashed!" pop-up appeared, but it was different. Instead of Bob, it depicted Hael Storm, with gratuitous amounts of BLOOD pouring out of his mutilated body. The word "Smashed!" was replaced with "Dead!"

But worst of all, the "Rebuild" option was not available. This especially irritated me because I thought that the game was glitched and I would have to restart in order to close the pop-up, which I already had to do enough times in beta testing and wasn't particularly eager to relive those memories.

Fortunately, after about 7.4259 seconds, the screen cut to black with Bob's laugh echoing in the background. Then, approximately 10.2651 seconds later, the game returned to the character select screen.

Hael Storm's minifigure was desaturated of color. He no longer had his usual cocky expression but now looked depressed. There was BLOOD dripping from his eyes, just like Bob. But most importantly, he could not be selected as a player character. I tried for several minutes but failed.

So, I decided to try another character: Vanda Darkflame. Again, as I clicked the red arrow to continue, Bob's laugh was heard as the screen cut to black for a rough estimate of 9.953726 seconds. When the loading screen popped up, this time my destination was Avant Gardens.

Vanda Darkflame spawned near the wrecked Paradox Research Facility. Dark and sinister music was playing, once again in reverse and played at 50% speed. Avant Gardens was not as I remembered it. The trees were bare and dead, and the grass was burned away to reveal scorched earth beneath. There were no birds singing, and the ground was littered with skeletons wearing pink pants lying in pools of BLOOD.

I went to find Wisp Lee, expecting that he would give me a mission to find Epsilon Starcracker. Instead, Wisp Lee was covered in bandages. Or rather, more bandages than usual. He was wrapped in bandages from head to toe like a mummy. The bandages also looked like they were stained with BLOOD.

Wisp Lee did not offer a mission, but a dialogue bubble appeared over his head saying, "Mmph! Mmph mmph mmph!" I guess being covered with bandages would do that to you.

I ran to the Sentinel Outpost, expecting to find Epsilon Starcracker. Instead, I found Bob again, grinning with BLOOD dripping out of his eyes as was now becoming the norm. He had a mission, accompanied by the dialogue, "CALLING FOR HELP FROM SENTINEL? THEY WON'T HELP YOU. WHAT A... PARADOX, ISN'T IT?" This made no sense, so I just ignored it.

The mission was to build a Satellite Beacon to call in a Sentinel Flight airstrike. I found one of the quick builds fairly quickly and assembled it. The Satellite Beacon made an unusual sound that sounded like an 8-bit version of Bob's laugh. Moments later, I heard the familiar sound of Sentinel Flight zooming overhead. However, instead of aiming for the nearby Stromlings and Stromling Mech, Sentinel Flight bombed Vanda Darkflame instead! She screamed as she was consumed in the explosion, and when the dust settled, there was nothing but a pool of BLOOD where she once stood. Bob's face flashed on-screen for nearly 0.31415926 seconds when this happened.

"Oh, come on!" I grumbled. "Do you really expect me to buy that?"

The "Smashed!" pop-up appeared, looking just as it did before with "Dead!" text and lots of BLOOD. However, this time, it was Vanda Darkflame depicted in the pop-up instead of Hael Storm. Just as before, there was no option to "Rebuild", and I had to wait roughly 6.73859372 seconds before the screen cut to black with Bob's laugh echoing in the background.

About 10.29485715 seconds later, I was back at the character select screen. Like Hael, Vanda Darkflame's minifigure was desaturated, depressed, and crying BLOOD. She wasn't playable anymore, either, so I moved on to the next character: Duke Exeter.

I clicked on the red arrow to continue, Bob laughed, and the screen cut to black for nearly 10.04867397 seconds. The loading screen indicated that I was going back to Avant Gardens. This time, Duke Exeter spawned in the Sentinel Base Camp. The background music sounded like it might have been calm and relaxing if it was played normally, but instead sounded ominous and foreboding due to being slowed down and played in reverse like the other songs. Most of the Sentinel Faction members were dismembered and lying in pools of BLOOD, which caked the ground and walls of the camp.

Deciding that I didn't want to remain in the Sentinel Base Camp, I made my way for the tunnel to the Assembly Monument. However, the jump pad required to pass the tunnel indicated that I needed Theo Balfour's permission in order to use it. Seeing as Theo Balfour was lying decapitated in a pool of BLOOD and probably wasn't up for much conversation, I guessed that I was stuck in the Sentinel Base Camp for now.

Turning around, I noticed that Bob, BLOOD and all, was standing in Beck Strongheart's place. Once again, he had a mission for me. I was getting rather tired of this pattern, but since I had nothing better to do, I grudgingly accepted. His mission dialogue was simply, "YOU CANNOT SURVIVE FOREVER, YOU KNOW."

The mission was to survive 6 minutes and 66 seconds in the Avant Gardens Survival Instance. This sounded like no real challenge to me, who previously held the Storm Universe record for surviving 78 hours, 35 minutes, and 25 seconds with nothing more than a few boxes of pizza, a carton of chocolate milk, and an adult diaper.

I started the Survival Instance, and Duke Exeter spawned in the battlefield. However, upon initiation, Bob's face flashed on-screen for about 0.93786935938 seconds, and then suddenly Duke was instantly overwhelmed by an impossibly-large horde of Dark Spiderlings that killed him in the blink of an eye.

"Hey, no fair!" I yelled at the computer screen. "That's clearly hacking!"

The altered "Smashed!" screen popped up again, this time starring Duke Exeter, and was really starting to lose its novelty and become more of an annoyance than anything. The screen cut to black with Bob's laugh echoing in the background, which was seriously starting to grate on my nerves.

"ZACK!" I heard my grandmother yell from the other room. "TAKE A BREAK FROM THAT GAME, IT'S TIME FOR YOUR NAP!"

"OH, COME ON, GRANDMA!" I shouted back. "I'M 38 YEARS OLD! I DON'T NEED A NAP!"

"YOUNG MAN," she scolded, "SO LONG AS YOU LIVE UNDER MY ROOF, YOU LIVE UNDER MY RULES, AND IT'S TIME FOR YOUR NAP!"

Knowing it wasn't worth arguing since I always lose arguments against my grandmother anyways, I grumbled to myself. I shut down BOB.EXE, got up from my computer, walked two feet to the couch, and lay down upon it.

I stood in the void. Freezing cold and pitch-black. At first, there was deafening silence, but then I heard voices crying out in terror. I turned and was startled to see Hael Storm, Vanda Darkflame, and Duke Exeter standing before me. They were all drained of color, save for the bright red BLOOD gushing from their empty black eyes. They reached out for me, wailing in pain and agony. I was powerless to help them.

And then, I heard an all-too-familiar laugh. I turned around slowly to see Bob. He grinned sadistically, his empty eyes boring into my soul as hyper-realistic BLOOD streamed down his face. He spoke with a voice that sounded like the grinding of bone: "DON'T YOU SEE HOW MUCH FUN IT IS TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION?"

I was too terrified to reply. I couldn't even run.

"YES, ZACK... YOU ARE AT MY MERCY NOW. IT WON'T BE LONG NOW BEFORE... WAIT, WHAT?"

I noticed that Bob was confused about something, so I turned around and, much to my surprise, saw Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. DiCaprio raised his hands in a defensive manner. "Don't mind us," he insisted. "We're not really here. I promise we're not trying to perform an inception or anything like that. We're just ordinary projections of your subconscious. Just carry on and pretend we don't exist."

"EXCUSE ME," growled Bob, "I'M TRYING TO BE SUPER CREEPY RIGHT NOW. YOU GUYS ARE RUINING THE SPOOKY ATMOSPHERE!"

But it was too late. I realized that Bob had no power over me. It was all just a dream. And when you know you're dreaming... you can take the dream in any direction you want.

With a sly chuckle, I snapped my fingers, and Bob turned into a potato. I then took off in flight like Superman and went on all sorts of zany psychedelic dream adventures full of pink elephants and shapeshifting dragons; an elderly interdimensional ruler who believed in literal blind justice; a cult of people who were accidentally worshipping Unikitty; a bunch of ghosts arguing over whose house they were haunting; some mischievous gremlins who were backing up the sewage pipes; and a LEGO Store that had every single LEGO set, including those that don't even exist, but always smelled musty for some reason. Everything was awesome.

And off in some corner of the dreamscape, a lonely potato screamed, "CURSE YOU, LEONARDO DICAPRIO!"

I woke up from my nap several hours later. "Wow," I thought aloud, "that was pointless." Then, like nothing ever happened, I got off the couch, returned to the computer, and continued playing BOB.EXE.

Just like he appeared in my dream, Duke Exeter was depressed, desaturated, and crying BLOOD. He was no longer playable either. I could tell that there was a predictable pattern forming, but since I was bored and had nothing better to do, I decided to select the final playable character: Doctor Overbuild. As I expected, clicking the red arrow caused Bob to laugh and the screen to cut to black for about 9.79035834961 seconds. Once again, the destination was Avant Gardens.

Doctor Overbuild spawned at the base of Assembly Monument. The monument appeared to be on the verge of collapse and did not look very well-maintained compared to its normal appearance. It was also covered with dead birds and BLOOD. Rusty Steele was horribly maimed and lying in a pool of BLOOD, but by this point I was so used to seeing this sort of imagery that I was completely desensitized. The background music was played at 50% speed and in reverse, which by now was nothing new. Essentially, anything that might have been mildly unnerving in the first five minutes was now just boring and rehashed formula.

As I expected, it was Bob who stood where Rusty normally would stand, offering a mission. This time, although Bob was still grinning and still had BLOOD dripping from his eyes, his demeanor seemed a little angrier than before. I guess he wanted revenge for being turned into a potato in my dream. When I interacted with him, his mission text simply said, "YOU CANNOT BEAT ME."

The mission was to ascend the monument and reach the finish line. Based on his dialogue, I half-expected that he would race me, but even after accepting the mission, Bob just stood idly in place, so I left him behind at the starting line.

From experience, I knew that the yellow path is the fastest, so I took that. Unfortunately, the game started lagging, causing me to fall through the elevator quick build several times, which was really annoying but at least it didn't lead to an instant kill like it did for Hael Storm. On my fourth try, I managed to ride the elevator without falling through and used a jump pad to bounce to the monument finish line.

At first, the finish line was unoccupied, and I thought I might actually complete this mission for once. But less than 0.4938673957123 seconds before I reached the finish line, Bob's face flashed on-screen again, and in that instant he teleported to the finish line. Doctor Overbuild was too slow and lost the race. As a consequence for his failure, Overbuild was smashed, and his pieces fell to the floor in a pool of blood.

I was perplexed. "Uh... really? Overbuild dies because he lost the race? That... has to be the lamest and cheapest death so far."

The altered "Smashed!" pop-up with BLOOD appeared, as expected. Doctor Overbuild was the unfortunate subject depicted, as expected. The screen cut to black, as expected.

"Okay, can we get just get this over with?" I grumbled, tired of the pattern by this point. Were there no more surprises? Just rehashing the same tricks over and over?

Then, after a loose estimate of 15.314928693042 seconds, the screen changed to a most unpleasant image...

The image showed a hyper-realistic version of Bob standing in the void of the Maelstrom. It was so hyper-realistic, you could make out every wrinkle on his yellow skin and every crease and fold on his red shirt. On the proportions of a LEGO minifigure, this hyper-realism fell straight into the territory of uncanny valley.

And his face...

His wide, empty, pitch-black hyper-realistic eyes, with hyper-realistic BLOOD gushing from them, were staring right at me, right through the fourth wall of the game. He grinned like a hyper-realistic psychotic murderer, with the edges of his hyper-realistic lips stretching past his hyper-realistic skull and revealing crooked hyper-realistic teeth resting in a hyper-realistic void of black emptiness, and his hyper-realistic teeth were freshly caked with hyper-realistic BLOOD.

I could do nothing but stare at this gruesome image for approximately 30.2859385719385 seconds. Then, as Bob's laugh echoed in the background, horrible and demonic, text appeared super-imposed on this image...

"I AM BOB."

I was too shocked to speak and simply stared at this message in horror.

Only now did I realize... what a complete and utter waste of time this was.

And as soon as I found my voice, I made sure Bob knew it. "Really? Really? YOU ARE BOB? Gee, I would have never have guessed! Thanks, Captain Obvious, you saved the day! What was the point of this? I just wasted all this time and sat through all that BLOOD just so Bob could go on a quest of self-discovery? Maybe you should've said 'I AM BLOOD' instead; now that would have made more sense given this game's obsession with BLOOD! Man, this was stupid! What was I thinking? What a load of MegaBloks! That's it, I've had it! I'm going to smash this CD into pieces so that you can change this message to 'I AM DEAD' and that won't be a big surprise either!"

I was kicked back to the character select screen by the time I was finished ranting, though I could have sworn that Bob's expression turned rather disgruntled just before the screen change. Doctor Overbuild now joined the other Nexus Force Faction Leaders in being desaturated and crying BLOOD, but I thought that, this time, they looked more mildly annoyed rather than depressed, as though they too were incredulous of the utter stupidity of this game. JustImagine

THIS IS SCARY, RIGHT?

Then, it turned out that I didn't need to shut the game off myself, because my computer spontaneously shut off on its own. I couldn't turn it back on, so I started muttering curses under my breath because now I'm pretty sure that this game was so bad that it broke my computer.

I turned around and pulled out my cell phone to call the local computer repair shop. Then, I heard a voice right behind me, barely louder than a whisper...

"JUST IMAGINE..."

I turned around again to see where the voice came from, and what I saw... sitting on my computer desk... staring right at me... was a Bob minifigure, smiling with BLOOD under its eyes.

I'm just imagining how much money I could make by auctioning it off of eBay.