Solarversia: The Year Long Game (16 page)

“
… And a hundred million people, from every country on Earth, taking up the invitation to explore Solarversia.
”

The camera spanned the chamber, then zoomed out, slowly at first, moving through the roof and away from the palace, speeding up as it travelled into the sky until it was able to take in the whole planet, which now filled the screen. Lines sprouted from a miniscule dot in the ocean, then branched and branched again. Earth started rotating and the Solarversia theme tune kicked in, backed by a techno beat. Icons representing the major quests flashed up over the cities they happened in. At first the Earth was bathed in a violet light, but every time an Earth Force Field icon flashed on screen, the colour flickered out to a ruby red afterglow.

“
… And then, after six weeks of gameplay, the world of Solarversia changed forever. Nothing will be the same again …
”

The camera panned to Giza, Egypt. Thousands of players were taking selfies in front of the Great Sphinx, the peak of a pyramid visible behind them. The sky was dark and moody, and far away, a ball of lightning was streaking across the darkness like a meteor. And then suddenly it was hurtling toward Giza at great speed, roaring towards the Great Pyramid. All the players in the vicinity adopted the brace position or cowered in fear.

Just when it looked likely to crash into the north face of the structure, the lightning ball slowed. It was not tearing through the sky any more so much as drifting, and now, at this slower pace, its shape was revealed. It wasn’t a meteor at all, but a young man, strapped into waxen wings covered with feathers. Lightly, and with grace, he landed on the pyramid, unraveled the parchment in his hands and began to read.

“I, Icarus, man of air as well as earth, hereby invite you to help locate and unlock the tenth and final Earth Force Field switch, hidden somewhere in Giza …”

A population counter for Giza appeared in the top right of the screen, ticking up rapidly as Solos flocked there from teleport machines around the world. Players at the top of the Pyramid ran to the edge of the precipice and waved at the players below like wild men on acid. The camera swooped away from them to catch a glimpse of the thousands of players pulling on ropes attached to a harness around the Great Sphinx, which edged forward, a millimetre at a time, revealing a mammoth stone tablet engraved with strange-looking symbols.

Hundreds of players darted across the thin line at the base of the pyramid and began to climb, pausing frequently to swipe rapidly through their datafeeds, stopping to compare the hieroglyphs that appeared on the steps to the attempts to decode them that are flocking in. Players typed messages into keypads set into the stones and watched in horror as the screens returned big red crosses, and the steps they were standing on flipped ninety degrees, flinging them back down the pyramid.

The film cut to a shot of Ludi Bioski, tinkering at his Orbitini in the palace, bringing a pot of colourless liquid to the boil, tapping its surface and setting it on fire, moving glass beads along his abacus. The large screen at the front of his contraption displayed a new Event Card: a flaming bird’s nest.

Back in Giza, the eyes of the Great Sphinx heated up, turning redder and redder until, with sparks of light and emissions of smoke, they shot out laser beams which ignited fires wherever they hit. Birds from miles around were attracted to the fires and flew straight into them as if sucked in by a powerful current. Flying out of the fires came phoenixes, clutching blazing rocks in their talons. They circled the pyramid, flinging the fireballs at the players still attempting to match the right code to the right brick.

Suddenly, every brick on the East face spun as one, sending players tumbling down the pyramid. All except a young Chinese man, Johnny Wong, who had made a correct match. He’d typed in the hieroglyphs that translated as information about the Great Pyramid itself: that it was constructed using 2.3 million blocks, weighs an estimated 5.9 million tonnes, and that it was the tallest man-made object for 3.8 thousand years. As he tapped the deciphered message into the right stone, it vanished. Johnny dived into the gap as a flaming rock blazed toward him from above, missing him by inches.

The sun shone into the passage, reflecting off the sandstone like gold. According to the map on his screen, this was the Grand Gallery, a long passageway that sloped up to the burial chambers. Johnny followed the map on his screen to arrive in the King’s Chamber where the Pharaoh himself was enthroned, wearing a blue and gold striped headdress and clutching a walking stick whose grip had been fashioned like a cobra flaring its hood.

To the left of the King was the tenth and final Earth Force Field switch. It was a scale model of the Great Pyramid itself, but enclosed within a transparent Force Field. In front of the pyramid, outside the Force Field, was a floating keypad waiting for instructions. Johnny Wong kneeled before the King, who leaned forward ever so slightly before addressing him.

“Welcome, player number 55,211,801. I am Pharaoh Khufu, the man who commissioned this pyramid. I was rather fond of games myself. I’m sure that if I were still alive, I would be playing Solarversia with you. Which brings us to the ultimate part of this quest. If I was alive today, and playing the game, what would my grid number be?”

Yet another counter appeared at the top of the screen, showing the number of players who had made it this far in the quest — over two thousand and counting. Above the floating keypad Johnny saw that he had three attempts at guessing the number. He watched for a few seconds as other players, in their own phased instances of the pyramid, used all three of their tries, and were flung to the base of the pyramid and barred from re-entry.

“
But how could Johnny know what number King Khufu would be? Did he really have to make a one in a hundred million guess? No. Johnny knew that knowledge itself is power.”

A string of Google search results flitted past the screen as Johnny frantically hunted for clues about the Pharaoh. One page displayed an image of the ‘Ivory figurine of Khufu’, along with a description that claimed it was the only three-dimensional artwork of the king to have survived intact through to the modern day. The sculpture was held by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, its inventory number JE 36143. Johnny stepped forward and tapped the numbers in. His finger hadn’t left the ‘3’ when the Force Field flickered and then disappeared for good, leaving in its wake the exposed model pyramid whose tip was now glowing. Not wanting to waste a single second, Johnny stepped forward and slammed his hand down hard.

The entire chamber shook, and pieces of rubble fell to the ground. Above them a shaft of light appeared. Red sunbeams hit the chamber for the first time in four thousand years, dappling the King’s headdress, which diffracted the light in the room as the majestic sound of angels filled the air. The chamber was on the move, rising through the pyramid until finally, it reached the apex.

Now Johnny was at the top of the pyramid beside the winged man, who touched his shoulder gratefully. With a great leap, Icarus launched himself into the air. He flew up to the Earth Force Field and touched a finger to it, sending a ripple that reverberated through its red expanse. The red changed to orange, the orange to yellow, cycling back through the colours of the rainbow until the field turned violet, at which point there was an almighty crunch of static electricity and a bright flash that filled the screen, leaving in its wake a deafening silence.

The Force Field has disappeared and the sky had flared into a thousand intertwined patterns that were submitted by players who had contributed to the success of the various EFF quests. The sky looked like it was being painted by an almighty celestial being, and the crowds in Giza erupted into song and dance. The various counters along the top of the screen disappeared.

“
Johnny Wong, player number 55,211,801, will forever be known as the man who turned off the Earth Force Field and set into motion the events that would unlock the entire Solar System. Last week The Game changed forever. Solarversia got its space wings.
”

Small spaceships were seen docking with the International Space Station. Players wearing spacesuits floated around inside it, madly scrambling to return hundreds of floating Flakeroonies to the open cereal packet in the craft’s kitchen before they ran out of air and failed the quest. Other players back on Earth were shown solving puzzles and winning bounties, which caused difficulties for the astronauts aboard the Station: making it spin out of control, depressurising it, and starting fires that needed to be extinguished.

Arty studied the reactions of the people in the room and wondered how many of them understood the deeper significance of Solarversia. He’d designed its structure to mimic the nature of the universe itself — to start in a simple manner with the game of Paper, Scissors, Stone, and to evolve from that point on, complexifying as it went, forcing players to compete and collaborate, the way life forms had done since they emerged, echoing life's journey from Alpha to Omega.

“
Completion of the International Space Station quest unlocked a new set of spaceships capable of reaching the Moon. The quest that took place on the moon unlocked the Interplanetary Spaceships, creating a Solar System-wide travel infrastructure
.”

The Moonbase Quest, which had involved players finding and planting flags, should have been exciting for Arty to watch, given its significance in leading to space travel. In reality, the quest had been a total ballache. A griefing clan known as the ROFL Mongers had coordinated their efforts in such a way that they managed to decommission half the Moon buggy fleet. It had only been some quick thinking by a member of Carl’s team that had averted another PR disaster.

He now realised the irony of the situation. If they hadn’t encouraged players to collaborate, perhaps the leagues of griefers wouldn’t have got together to cause mayhem and panic. As the screens faded and the lights came back up, the saying
Be careful what you wish for
flashed through his mind.

***

The mayor walked to the lectern on the stage at the front of the room and shook Arty’s hand before scanning her notes and addressing the crowd in a calm, confident manner.

“The amazing thing about Solarversia is its size and scope. It’s a game played by one hundred million people from every single nation in the world. If it was a country itself, it would be the thirteenth largest by size of population. It’s a game that allows and encourages its players to travel the length and breadth of not only Earth, but also the entire Solar System. The opportunities to learn in this game are endless. In the words of St Augustine, ‘The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.’ Spiralwerks have enabled people from all walks of life to travel the Earth and the Solar System for free. And it was made here in London, the creative capital of the world. Eighteen months ago my office was approached by Hannah McCreadie, the Head of Communications, to apply for planning permission for an audacious public monument, one she firmly believed would not only become a tourist attraction in its own right, but would also act as an educational beacon, attracting pupils from around the United Kingdom to the vitally important subject of space exploration and understanding. Four months ago, after a wide-ranging public consultation, that monument, Sun Two Point O, was officially unveiled.”

Arty and Hannah grinned at one another. They were proud of this project. It was Hannah’s baby, though they’d both put in dozens of hours to help make it a reality. Sun Two Point O was a yellow sphere, ten metres in diameter, in the middle of Regent’s Park and was the centrepiece of Spiralwerks’ Mini Solar System project. The sphere was a giant Tesla globe — its surface looked like the plasma walls inside the Corona Cubes. Tourists could visit the sphere, download the app onto their headsets and phones, and then scour the streets and buildings of London trying to find the virtual planets on their orbits. It was a citywide Easter egg hunt of cosmic proportions.

Arty prepared a couple of headsets for the two of them. The mayor received hers warmly, propped it on her forehead and addressed the crowd one last time. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to leave the real world for the virtual. I’m told Venus will pass by in” — she looked at her watch — “approximately two minutes.”

Arty ensured that the mayor was comfortable before putting his own headset on. Around the room others followed suit.

“It’s pitch-black in here, Artica, is that right?”

“Look this way, please, Madam Mayor.”

“My word, that’s incredible. You’re dressed like an astronaut.”

“That’s right. And so are you. Our headsets have been synced so that we can see each other. You’ll notice other astronauts come into view as people in the room join the app. Please turn to your left. There we go, now you’re looking at the Sun, which appears larger than usual because we’re forty million kilometres closer to it. And to your right — you won’t be able to see it just yet — is Venus, which will fly past in approximately thirty seconds.”

“Forgive my ignorance, Artica, but how does the app work? Are we mere spectators, or will there be something for us to do when Venus flies by?”

“No, it’s very much an interactive experience. The first thing we’ll be able to do is stop Venus in its tracks. Here it comes, I’ll show you.”

As the blistering little planet approached them, Arty heard the mayor let out a quiet whimper. It really did look like it would knock you for six if you didn’t leap out its way. Before it could reach them, he held out a hand like a traffic policeman at a busy junction and the planet came to a sudden halt. He zoomed right into its thick, cloudy atmosphere, then back out again, before placing the planet on his index finger and spinning it like a basketball, delighting in his role as a modern-day Atlas who had total control over the celestial spheres. Beside him he heard the mayor make all the right noises in all the right places. He zoomed them away from Venus one more time until it was the size of a football a metre or so from their heads.