Game Alive: A Science Fiction Adventure Novel (2 page)

“Maybe,” said Des with a half-hearted shrug. He sounded as reluctant about Xaloria as Jake had earlier about the lacrosse sim. “Come on, Sport, you know role playing games just aren’t really my thing.”

“He’s got you there,” said Kari, patting Jake’s shoulder consolingly. “Can’t say I blame him. I’ve never been much for the whole‘Ye Olde Blacksmith’thing either.” Seeing the hurt look on Jake’s face, she quickly added, “It’s cool and all. And, like I said before, it sure would be fun to get to be a princess for a change.”

“You guys’ll never really give it a chance,” said Jake, sliding forlornly down into his seat.

Mr. Kroner’s droning voice cut off any reply. Opposite to Ms. Johns in every way, Mr. Kroner never bothered to launch his VR classroom. The walls of his room remained a featureless gray grid day after day as he sat behind his desk and lectured. The teacher’s monotone review of adverbs had little hope of holding Jake’s attention, and his mind wandered once more to his private VR world.

What had begun as one small town had grown into a vast planet of diverse wildlife, plants, and climates. Anxious to make his world as realistic as possible, Jake had spent hours upon hours researching life on other continents, learning about the creatures that lived there, the people, their history and culture. Then he would adapt what he learned to Xaloria. He sat up late at night writing histories for his various nations, designing specialized structures to fit in with the stories he created. After all his seemingly endless hard work, Jake thought he had finally succeeded. The result: a rich, fully developed world that he could lose himself in for hours on end.

School? That was an unwelcome interruption at best. His life at home? What, with his mother making moony eyes at that chump Gerald whenever he was around, not to mention the way Gerald treated Jake? Another unwelcome interruption. No matter where he was, if it wasn’t in Xaloria then Jake had only one thing on his mind: going back to Xaloria.

Language Studies ended at last, followed by Algebra II. Jake was grateful that his development software calculated trajectories and velocities on its own; otherwise, he would have had to beg Kari for help with his formulas. Des and Jake both envied the skinny brown-haired girl’s quick grasp of math and her unerringly accurate calculations, but she refused to help them with their homework. She always insisted they’d “never get it if they didn’t get it for themselves,” but Jake had noticed she did not have the same problem when it came to asking them for help. Not that Jake had ever thought about refusing to help Kari.

He felt his face heating again, and realized he was looking across the classroom to where she leaned forward over her touchscreen kiosk, busily figuring the volume of a sphere. Jake looked away quickly.

Lunch turned out to be a completely unappetizing, watery version of beef stroganoff. Jake picked at his disinterestedly, sitting beside Des and across from Kari. He kept feeling her eyes on him, but whenever he looked up she appeared engrossed in her own less-than-appealing lunch.

“So we’re on for lacrosse this weekend, yeah?” Des urged them both with rising excitement. He turned to Jake, jabbing him in the ribs with an elbow. “Since you’re going to be finished with that new module anyway, right?”

Jake groaned, as much from his friend’s insistence on playing an otherwise forgotten sport as for the minor pain where Des had elbowed him. “I’m terrible at lacrosse,” he protested. “Besides, I wanted to spend Saturday testing out the new module to make sure there’s no bugs.”

“Oh, come on,” Kari piped in. “He always drags me along, why can’t you come and show a little support?”

Jake looked across the table at her, trying to fight down the heat that kept spreading up his neck and across his cheeks whenever Kari spoke to him lately. An idea struck him.

“Why don’t you guys both log in to my program?” he suggested, looking back and forth between them. “Just to take a look at Everheart. I put so much work into it. Why can’t you just take a look? Please? I really, really want to know what you think.”

Though he had been speaking to both of them, Jake looked Kari directly in the eye as he said that last part.

For their part, Kari and Des exchanged an uncertain glance.

“Fine,” sighed Jake. “After you come check out Everheart, I’ll play the stupid sports game.”

“For the rest of the day?” wheedled Des, his eyes lighting up. “We come and see Everheart Saturday morning, and you’ll play lacrosse with us for the rest of the day. Deal?”

“Deal,” Jake reluctantly agreed. Then he perked up, grinning. “That is, unless you guys decide you want to stay in Xaloria.”

“Sure,” Des agreed, smirking. “Unless that.”

When Jake got home that afternoon, Gerald was already planted on the sofa.

“Hey,” Jake muttered, hurrying past the den to get to his own room.

“Hey, buddy,” Gerald answered, craning around on the sofa to fix Jake with his eyes. “How was school?”

Jake turned his face away so his mother’s boyfriend wouldn’t see him rolling his eyes. He was never going to be Gerald’s “buddy.” He didn’t feel like chatting with anyone right now, but he made an effort to be polite. “Fine,” he said.

“Learn anything good? Anything interesting happen?” Gerald would not let up.

“No,” said Jake, starting to feel impatient. He didn’t understand why Gerald kept trying to act like his father. “Just normal stuff.”

“Got any big dates planned?” Gerald asked with a wink.

“No.” Jake couldn’t stop himself cringing at that. “No, it’s just another regular day.”

Gerald nodded slowly and sighed, apparently giving up on the friendly banter. “Okay, then. Got any homework?”

“A bit. I’ll get to it later.”

“Do it now so you don’t have to worry about it later.”

Jake glanced down the hall, to the VR room. “I have to check the compiler for errors,” he said.

“Compiler?” Gerald made a face, the one grown-ups made when they had no idea what you were talking about. Then his eyes lit up. “Oh, right. That knights-and-dragons game, or whatever it is?”

“Yeah. I just have to make sure it didn’t crash,” Jake told the man, still fighting to keep his annoyance from showing. “If it ran okay, I’ll do my homework before anything else. Okay?”

“You know, if you spent half as much time studying as you did fooling around in that VR room, it would show in your grades. Don’t you want to get into a decent college?”

“I’m going to college for VR development,” Jake retorted, his irritation getting the better of him. “Then somebody will pay me a lot of money to
fool around
in the VR room.”
More than you,
he added silently, though he was smart enough not to say it out loud.

“Don’t get short with me,” snapped Gerald, as if he had heard Jake’s hidden thought. “I’m trying to look out for you, kid. Just trying to help out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jake shot back. “Thanks for the help. But in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not your kid.” Before Gerald could reply, Jake stomped away down the hall. He ignored the shouting from the sofa and stepped into the VR room, shutting out the sound when he closed the door.

Leaning back against the door, Jake squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure why his knees were wobbling. His face started getting hot, and not in the same way it did sometimes when Kari was around.

Jake knew his mom would be after him to “discuss his behavior toward Gerald,” but right now he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, Gerald was just the latest in his mother’s long string of unsuccessful romances; one more, exactly like the others. Her “discussion” would be one he’d heard before: Gerald was a good man and Jake needed a “father figure.” Jake should treat Gerald as if he were a parent. She’d ignore the fact that the man had only moved into the house six weeks ago. She also wouldn’t mention how Gerald spent most of his time sinking into that sofa, watching sports. Maybe, Jake thought, Gerald should try being a father figure for Des.

“Some father figure,” he muttered angrily to himself. Then he tried to shake it off. He figured Gerald would be out the door like all the others before too much longer. All he had to do was bite his tongue until mom decided she didn’t like Gerald so much after all. Then wait for the next one.

Swallowing his frustration, Jake straightened up and walked to the center of the empty room. He could be alone in here, for a while. More and more, the VR room was home to him. Des said he was a genius with the VR, but then Des usually made a nasty face at the same time. But Jake knew his friend was right. Nobody coded VR like Jake.

“Resume Xaloria,” he instructed. With a soft click, the VR projectors sprang to life. The blank walls faded away and the compiler screen appeared hovering in front of Jake. “Compilation 100%; Errors: 0” was displayed in bright green in the center of the screen.

“Outstanding,” Jake said to himself. Satisfied, he left the VR room and went down the hall to his bedroom. Flopping down at his home kiosk, he slipped his Visi-Classroom over his eyes and got to work on his assignments. If he did what he’d promised Gerald, his mom would be less likely to include punishment in her “discussion.” Jake hurried through the school work, keeping his answers short and skipping steps where he could in the math problems. As long as he got the right answer; any passing grade was good enough.

Once he’d done enough to keep his head above water in his classes, he tossed the Visi-Classroom aside and ran back to the VR room.

“Run Xaloria,” he commanded. “Launch Everheart module.”

The empty room vanished.

In its place, Jake found himself near one edge of a small village square. Even though he’d been programming VR for almost three years, every time he ran the simulator he felt a thrill as the images appeared to overlay the more boring reality. It still amazed him that particle projectors and beams of light could render what seemed like an entire world. As his neural implant synced with the VR room, he felt the warm sun heat up the weighty chainmail armor that now covered his body and could smell the sweet blooms of fruit trees from a nearby orchard.

Jake knew it was a trick of the senses, of course. He wasn’t a silly child. It was just an illusion to make his brain believe what eyes, ears, and even skin reported – but it all seemed so
real.
The projected surface beneath his feet felt exactly like the cobblestone street it appeared to be, and he knew that if he ran as long and far as he could he would never reach the far wall – beneath him, the projected surface rolled like a treadmill. The projections around him would change appropriately, but he wouldn’t really be going anywhere.

Beneath his feet, grass grew between the stones, little waving green blades for which, somewhere deep within the sim program, a minutely detailed calculation ran that determined just how many micro-inches longer the blade should be at that moment compared to an hour ago. And if Jake snapped off that blade and stuck it in his mouth, the particles would taste of green freshness before dissolving, dissipating back into nothing. Every detail, every
molecule
worked together, creating a flawless simulation of Jake’s perfect world.

Shaking off his awe – he really should be used to it by now – Jake immersed himself in Xaloria. Up ahead, two matronly women gossiped, sitting on benches around the low stone well. A few small children played in the dirt at the women’s feet. Jake walked past them, hurrying toward the unfinished inn with its hovering “blue bars.”

Those blue bars, a tool in the compiling software to indicate incomplete objects, appeared around anything that still needed work. Normally, the AI would identify problem objects and the NPCs would behave as if something strange was going on in the world. Jake knew professional designers never disabled the fault recognition in the AI setting, preferring to let the AI alert them when things went amiss. But then, professionals were willing to wait until they finished an entire module before anyone played with it.

Jake just wasn’t that patient. He had changed the setting after launching Everheart and finding every villager standing in a worried crowd around the half-finished inn, worrying over the “divine blue walls,” half convinced they had stumbled across a portal to the nether-realms. Now that he’d disabled that function, the villagers ignored the whole area as if it were still just an empty lot.

One of the two women at the well noticed Jake as he passed. Raising one hand, she hailed him.

“Good morrow, Sir Xend,” she called. “Lovely to see you returned to our village.”

Jake returned her greeting with a warm smile, his earlier irritation with Gerald already fading into memory. “It’s good to be back, Goodwife Elsa,” he said, and he meant it.

“I do hope you’ll join us for the dancing later,” said Elsa cheerfully. “I’ve heard a few of the young ladies whispering, hoping there might be another fine young man to spin them round.” She shot her companion a conspiratorial look which the other woman returned with a barely stifled giggle.

“Uh, maybe,” said Jake, his face reddening. In the back of his mind, he could think of one young lady in particular he would like to spin around the village square in the moonlight, while the village band played its tunes. He shook that thought away, face growing even hotter. Quickly, he tried to recover. “I have so much to do this afternoon, but maybe if I finish my tasks soon enough…Maybe.”

Elsa and her friend nodded with knowing smiles, the one still tittering laughter. “We’ll not keep you then, Sir Knight,” said Elsa with a wink.

“Thanks.” Jake continued on toward the inn, cheeks still burning. Sometimes the AI was a little
too
realistic. He wondered whether he should adjust the Romance Initiation level as he entered the unfinished building.

The empty stone great room was just as he’d left it. He was pleased to see the fireplace had rendered just as he’d hoped it would. Soot dusted the stones without making the hearth seem dirty. Worn and well-used, but not dirty, just as it should be. Jake loved the little details; things that made this world seem truly alive. A dusting of black soot around the edges of the stone fireplace made it look natural, as though it had seen use and been cleaned regularly. He thought it looked exactly right.