Game Alive: A Science Fiction Adventure Novel (3 page)

“Launch Development Tools,” he told the empty room. A digital tool kit shimmered into existence in the air before him, awaiting his next command. It looked like a hovering screen covered in icons, each one representing a number of choices available for adding to his VR world.

“Display object categories.” The icons blurred and changed, action items replaced by symbols of plants, buildings, furniture, decorations, and a variety of other things Jake rarely used.

“Filter for furnishings,” he told it. The icons changed again, displaying thumbnail versions of potential furniture. Above the icons, a counter displayed
1 – 25 of 2,486,730.

“Filter for tables.” New icons appeared and the counter changed:
1 – 25 of 7,812.
“Filter dining tables” provided new icons and counter updated again. “Filter wooden tables. Filter oak. Filter round tables. Filter medieval styles.” By now, the counter read
1 – 25 of 42.
Satisfied with that selection, Jake scrolled through the options until he found one he liked.

“Render samples. Fix to floor plane.” Before him, a round and rough-edged oaken table appeared in the center of the room. Jake inspected it, then shook his head. Not quite perfect. “Next sample.” The table disappeared, replaced at once by another with a hole in the center where a pole could pass through for an umbrella.

“No,” Jake muttered to himself. “Next sample.”

Another table appeared, then another and another as he flipped through the choices. Finally, he settled on a worn and stained table with beveled edges. He pointed his index finger toward the corner of the room. “Select sample. Set location.” The table vanished from in front of him and appeared in the corner he had indicated. He pointed to another spot in the room. “Copy sample. Set location.”

Another table appeared. Jake placed several more tables and then added chairs to each one. Next came a long, heavy bar and stools followed by three stout oak kegs behind it; one for ale, one for wine, and one for cider. Once the main furnishings were in place, Jake finished it off with a selection of typical inn items – mugs and plates, brooms, buckets, and a few stuffed animal heads on the wall. He hesitated for a moment, but decided not to include a dragon head above the fireplace.

Satisfied at last, Jake took a seat at one of the tables. “Launch Populater,” he said. The tool screen changed again, displaying rows of faces. “Insert random NPC: Innkeeper.” A fat man in a greasy apron appeared behind the bar, frozen in time. “Insert random NPC: Innkeeper’s Wife.” A thin woman with a mean scowl popped into existence beside her husband, and Jake made a face.

“Rebuild Innkeeper’s Wife,” he said. The sour-faced woman morphed into a plump figure with a cheerful smile. She looked like the kind of woman who kept fresh-baked pies and snacks for the children. Jake nodded, satisfied. “Insert random NPC: Innkeeper’s Daughter.” A friendly, dark-eyed girl appeared at one end of the bar, stooped slightly over with a cleaning rag pressed to the bar top.

Jake was just about to activate the NPC’s AI when a repetitive pounding, seeming to emanate from nowhere, startled him.

“Jake! Come on out of there right now. I need to discuss something with you.” Jake groaned as his mother’s voice filled the nearly completed common room like the commands of an unseen god.

“Just a minute,” he said, careful not to sound whining. “I’ll be right out!”

“Don’t you make me override this door,” threatened his mother from outside.

“I’m coming!” he shouted. Dismissing the development screen, Jake quickly saved his work and started the compiler before his mother could burst in and shut the program down prematurely. Then he walked to the door and took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders before stepping out of Xaloria and back into mundane Leiner Hills. His angry mother was waiting.

“Okay, I’m in.” Kari’s exasperated voice bounced around the empty VR room. Faint and ghostly at first, her image built itself in the air before Jake and Des until she appeared as solid as they. “I don’t know why it was so hard to connect in to your feed today. I usually get right in.”

“Maybe your dad installed a security update,” Jake suggested. He knew Kari’s family had a much newer VR suite than the one he was using. His mother couldn’t afford to upgrade, and if there was a new layer of firewall on Kari’s set-up that might cause it to have trouble interfacing with his room.

“No, he didn’t,” said Kari. “Besides, I didn’t have any trouble getting into Des’s feed earlier.”

“Yeah, she jumped right in,” Des agreed.

“Anyway, we’re all here now,” said Jake quickly. Des was also using a better VR room than Jake, although his was not as top-of-the-line as Kari’s. Jake didn’t think that was the problem, but he wasn’t eager to compare systems with his friends. The set-up in his VR room was good enough. After all, he’d used it to create an entire world. “You guys ready to see Xaloria?”

“Sure.” Des sounded bored already.

“Boot it up,” Kari added impatiently. At least she seemed interested in the game.

“Resume Xaloria,” Jake ordered.

The virtual world appeared instantaneously, placing the three of them at the spawn point he’d set near the well in Everheart. Jake’s everyday clothes vanished, replaced by his customary garb in the game: a sturdy chainmail shirt and leggings, leather boots and gloves. A round, bowl-shaped steel helmet covered his head and a heavy sword hung at his side.

Kari and Des had materialized beside him in their normal clothes. They were each being projected from their own VR rooms at home, via system link. While they could have all played together at Jake’s house, logging in separately allowed them to move around the world more freely. They would not all have to stay within certain range of one another. Plus, nobody would have to leave early to go home.

“Here we are,” Jake told the others, spreading his arms proudly to indicate the town. “Welcome to Everheart.”

He watched his friends’faces closely for their reaction. Both looked round slowly with widening eyes and lifted brows. They stood in the center of a living, breathing medieval village. People wandered along the streets, some paved with cobblestone and others nothing more than muddy paths. They went about their tasks, pausing here and there to chat with one another.

Nearby, a few chickens pecked busily over the grass. As Jake and his friends watched, a housewife chose one and carried toward a butchers block near the back of her simply built but sturdy house. Children chased each other around another house further up the street, and a wagon pulled by a team of four shaggy-maned horses rattled past. The driver raised a hand in salute to Jake as he went by, before taking up the reins and giving them a gentle snap.

“This is incredible,” Kari said, her voice low and full of awe. Turning about in place, she pointed to a procession headed through a flower-laden stone archway on the far side of the square. “Look at that!”

Jake followed Kari’s finger with his eyes. “Looks like Hershan and Loya have finally gotten married. They’re both really shy.” Kari turned a questioning look on Jake. “They’ve been smiling at each other for years,” he explained, “but nobody was sure he’d ever work up the nerve to ask her.”

Des made loud smooching sounds. “Did you put that in the program?” he asked teasingly.

Jake shook his head. “No, they were just random NPCs I added to the environment. The AI did the rest.”

“I still think it’s amazing,” said Kari, still watching the procession as it passed out of sight down one of the streets leading away from the square. “Do they all have stories?”

Jake, pleased that Kari was so enthusiastic about the game, was about to explain. Just then he was interrupted by Ethrett Palon, blacksmith of Everheart. “Good morrow, Sir Xend!” Palon boomed warmly, striding past on his way to the well. His thick arms shone with sweat and his heavy leather apron smoldered from the forge he had only just walked from. “Good journey?”

“Not exactly, no,” Jake answered distractedly, thinking back on the week of extra chores his mother had imposed for his “disrespectful behavior.” He didn’t want to dwell on that now, not in Xaloria. “It’s good to be back,” he said, smiling again.

“Certainly good to have you here,” the blacksmith added, stooping to lower his bucket into the well. “What with the dread wolves and all.”

“Dread wolves?” Jake echoed in surprise. “What dread wolves are those, blacksmith?”

“You must’ve just got to town. A pack of them have been picking off livestock in the outlying farms. Sure could use your sword out there.”

Jake’s hand jerked toward the weapon strapped to his side before he checked the motion. He had let himself get taken up in his role, fully in character, but he realized that something more was wrong here than dread wolves picking off sheep.

“I’ll take care of them,” he said thoughtfully. “My friends and I, that is,” he added, glancing hopefully at Des and Kari. Kari nodded excitedly. Des’s expression was grudgingly impressed, and he also nodded.

Blacksmith Palon eyed Jake’s friends uncertainly, taking in their t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers. “Your pardon, Sir Knight, but they lack the looks of good companions in a tussle.”

“That’s because we haven’t picked up their gear yet,” Jake assured the blacksmith quickly. “Not to worry, Master Palon. We came equipped for the task at hand.”

The big man patted Jake’s shoulder with one heavily-muscled arm, causing the chainmail to jingle. “I never doubted you, Sir Xend. The people of Everheart can always count on you.”

Retrieving his bucket, the blacksmith offered each of the three a shallow bow before striding away with his water. Des and Kari stepped closer to Jake.

“Did you plan this?” Des asked, looking slyly toward Jake. “Did you set it up so we’d get hooked in right away and have to play it through?”

“No,” Jake answered, holding up his hands. “It’s actually kind of weird. I don’t remember putting dread wolves anywhere near this area. They should all be up around the Great Fissure.” He looked at his friends sheepishly. “I don’t know what they’re doing here.”

“Could you have placed a few of them here by accident, or forgotten about it?” asked Kari. Jake’s eyes fell, and he wasn’t sure why the suggestion stung coming from her. But he shook his head.

“I doubt it,” he said, although he was not completely sure. “Anyway, let’s get you guys some gear. I put a character customization node in Everheart, so we don’t have far to go.” Jake led the way to a roughly built, wooden lean-to around the back of the town hall. “In here.”

They were both old hands at VR gaming, even if Des’s preferences ran more toward sports games. Kari and Des needed little time to build their Xalorian personas. Kari stepped out wearing a red jumpsuit of flowing, voluminous fabric. A bright orange shawl draped over her shoulders and hung down her back like a clock. An incredibly thin, twisted circlet of shining gold wove round her head and through the short, blonde hair that had replaced her real-world brown ponytail. She carried an onyx staff barely shorter than she was, one end fashioned into a claw which clutched a shimmering ruby that seemed to pulse with its own inner light.

“I thought you said you wanted to be a princess,” Des teased her.

“Elemental sorceress,” Jake said approvingly. “Nice choice.”

“Who says I can’t be both,” asked Kari with a grin that she quickly suppressed, getting into character. “You may call me Lady Alista.”

Des had chosen tight-fitting but light-weight, padded leather armor that resembled the pads he wore in his preferred sim. The lacrosse pads looked a little silly when reproduced this way, but Des didn’t seem to have noticed. Slung over his shoulders was a two-foot staff ending in a sling. Jake had to admit, as a sling-shot style weapon the lacrosse stick just might work. He nodded approvingly.

“Ranger or thief?” he asked musingly, still studying Des’s get-up. Then he held his hand up to stop Des from answering. “Nevermind, you’re totally a thief. Why did I even ask that question?”

“Why should my completely made-up alter ego worry about rules and consequences?” Des shot back with a cheeky grin. “I can get into this too, you know.” He said that with a brief but meaningful glance that flashed to Kari and back to Jake, who reddened slightly. Des laughed, letting him off the hook, and swept a low, flourishing bow to “Lady Alista.”

“Your elemental wizardy highness, may I present myself; the prince among all thieves, Des the Hand.”

Jake groaned loudly, though he was secretly pleased that they both seemed to be enjoying themselves in his virtual world. “Alright, you two, be serious,” he said. “I don’t want you clowning around and ruining my good name in Xaloria.” He drew himself up proudly. “I am a knight, after all.”

They both grinned at him. “Sure thing,” said Des. “So what do we do now?”

“Pause Xaloria,” said Jake, and everything around the three friends froze in place. Jake looked to his friend expectantly. “First of all, what do you think? Do you like it? The game?”

“It’s really amazing,” Kari said, looking around at the square before the town hall again. “It seems so natural. It really feels real, Jake.” She turned back to look at him with bright eyes, smiling widely.

Des nodded. “Yeah, even the way that guy talked to you seemed really normal. He acted like you had really just gotten back from a trip and he was catching you up on the local news.”

“The NPCs always think I’m traveling and questing whenever I’m not logged in. I’ve set it to keep simulating when I’m not here. I can have it run at different speeds as long as I’m not in here at the time, but I set it to real time. Days pass at the same rate in Xaloria, whether we’re here or not.”

“Why?” asked Kari, wrinkling her brow. “Don’t you want them to wait for you? What if they do things you don’t want them to when you’re away?”

“They do sometimes, but that’s what makes it seem real. I mean, when I’m not at your house, you don’t all stand around frozen, waiting for me to come back. Why should they?”

“That makes sense,” Kari admitted. “But what if you have to quit in the middle of a quest? What then?”

“Well, then I can pause it,” Jake said with a shrug. “But I haven’t tried any lengthy campaigns yet. Parts of this world are still being built, and anyway I like to come in with enough time to see a mission through to the end. Speaking of which, follow me. I’ll show you the Watering Hole.”