A REVENANT ON MY BACK

By JOSHUA QUITTNER

I HAVE A PROBLEM. I'M STUCK AT Level 6. I've been playing the computer game Doom II for, what, a week? Two weeks? Does time even matter anymore? I've blasted my way up to Level 6, and I can't figure how to get out. Two dozen higher levels await me. I've slaughtered "hell knights" and revenants and blubbery pink things that resemble bulls on tiptoe. I've armed myself with shotguns, rocket launchers and plasma guns that can kill a zombie faster than you can say Hasta la vista, baby, but still won't get me out of Level 6.

I have finally discovered the dubious joys of Doom. I sampled the original two years ago, of course, shortly after it spread across the Internet. But the truth is, Doom made me sick. Not the blood and guts of it--Doom is no gorier than, say, a Sam Peckinpah movie. What nauseated me was the vertigo that came from peering over a gun barrel while twisting down narrow corridors.

My friend Audrey, a Doom aficionado, diagnosed my condition as dims. "Doom-induced motion sickness," she explained. "Lots of people get it. At first."

In the interest of participatory journalism, I swallowed my rising gorge and tried again. I wanted to understand why Doom, in the hands of an estimated 10 million players, may be the world's most popular computer game.

So I overcame my DIMS. And immediately contracted an acute case of DAS--Doom addiction syndrome. In the space of a week, I was late for two meetings, canceled three lunches and spoke curtly to friends and family. Worse, my trigger finger has begun to itch when, in real life, I round the corner to the coffee machine. The demons, I fear, are everywhere. I plan to worry about that later, after I escape from Level 6.

One appointment I did keep was with John Romero, co-founder of a company based in Mesquite, Texas, called Id Software, which created Doom. I called him at 2 p.m., as arranged, but he wasn't there. I recognized the symptom. Later Romero explained how he handled appointments while living in Doomspace: "I try not to make any."

I take comfort in the fact that we are not alone. So many people are Doomophiles that some firms have banned it from their networks. At AT&T's Bell Labs, computer jocks quickly mastered all the levels, then created their own special challenges. If a Bell guy says, "Do Level 12, Mahatma Gandhi--style," he wants you to race through the level barehanded, without harming any monsters.

The other day I met a fellow known as "Wad Master" Steve Baldwin, who works right here at Time Inc. and specializes in creating wads (Doomspeak for new levels). Steve has created an elaborate wad that looks exactly like the 37th floor of the Time & Life Building. The Wad Master, like me, is a mild-mannered, bespectacled guy with a crayon picture on his desk drawn by a young daughter. But he has it all figured out. "Why watch Rambo when you can be Rambo?" he asks. What I want to know is how to get out of Level 6. I tell him where I'm stuck, a place that looks like a fever-dream parking garage in which I'm pinned down by a pair of lethal skeletons. The Wad Master nods thoughtfully, then gives me a closely guarded five-letter password that, when typed, will bring me every weapon and secret key. I will be a Doom god. In the elevator back to my office, my fingers twitch.