Solarversia: The Year Long Game (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The headset that came with Nova’s rig was of similar quality to the high-end ones at Fragging Hell. The superb resolution and miniscule latency did a very good job of tricking her into thinking that she
really
was sitting in Hawk, suspended in mid-air over the Planetarium in Greenwich Park.

Around her, ninety-nine other pilots revved their engines, eager to start the race after months of build-up and hype. There were stealth fighters, helicopters and gliders, aircraft of every description. Because this was the final, players would race in all three vehicles: they would fly to the first checkpoint, sail down the River Thames to the second and then drive through the streets of London to the finish line. To make things fair, vehicle speeds had been set to maximum, regardless of speed points accumulated in The Game.

Nova flexed her fingers one last time as a series of beeps counted down to the start of the most important race of her life. Dozens of monitors around the room displayed the race from multiple perspectives and would provide real-time information and statistics on all hundred players.

George McCafferty, a local radio presenter, had been brought in to commentate for the crowd and was sitting in a lifeguard’s chair overlooking the cafe. He was best known for his late-night segment called ‘Shoot a Student’, where local residents called in with gripes about the student population. His quick-fire comments and outrageous laugh endeared him to everyone who tuned in. The sound of Gorigaroo’s gong reverberated around the cafe. George leant forward in his chair, waited for the cheer to die down and launched into commentary.

“And they’re off. All eyes are on Nova ‘Super Nova 2020’ Negrahnu, player number 515,740. Originally from Maidstone in Kent, she’s currently in her first year at Nottingham University. She started in 77th position, based on her finishing time in the Alpha Island heat, and is one of six finalists from the United Kingdom. There are three big names to watch out for: Park ‘The PacMan’ Min, the professional gamer from South Korea in 23rd, Arnold ‘Pump up the Jam’ Weber, the Austrian daredevil starting in 6th place, and the odds-on-favourite to win, Jools ‘The Beanstalker’ van der Star, the Dutch sensation, who starts the race in pole position. They’re all competing to win the first place prize of one hundred thousand pounds, although places two to twenty-five also pay handsomely.”

A hundred planes started flying toward the O2, a large dome-shaped building located on the south bank of the River Thames. En route, they would need to navigate a series of floating hoops, which, like the platforms leading to Meganja, increased in difficulty as they went on. Nova banked up, down, left and right, flying through each of the hoops with ease, grateful for the many hours of practice she’d put in with Burner. She’d nudged up to 75th place when she saw a flash up ahead, followed by a trail of black smoke, descending fast.

“That’s good news for Negrahnu. The player from Texas overcorrected herself in order to make the last hoop and smashed hard into the player on her tail. They both paid a big price for the mistake, one Negrahnu would do well to learn from. They won’t have lost a life in the main Game — the event is separate from that — but that would be little consolation for exiting the race so soon. Top seed, Jools van der Star, maintains his lead. He’s opted to steer clear of the bonus items on offer. When her time comes, will Negrahnu do the same?”

It was the question she had just asked herself. The twelve support towers sticking out of the O2 dome were ringed with bonus items. Like sirens, they tempted unwitting players into dangerous territory. She spotted a Turbo Boost icon hovering under the lip of one of the supports and lurched toward it at the last second. It was the kind of item she’d need if she was ever going to catch up with van der Star.

Which she wanted to do more than anything in the world. A few weeks ago she’d made herself sit through thirty dreadful minutes when he’d appeared as the guest on Kiki La Roux’s show. One of her favourite celebrities in the world, fawning over someone she hated. And boy, did she hate him. Not only had he screwed her over in the heats, but also he was grid twins with Holly. The thought of the pair of them made her feel sick and zone out for a second. Realising she’d misjudged the tower, she gripped the joysticks as tight as possible and tried to correct Hawk. In the cafe, she heard the crowd gasp.

“Negrahnu giving the crowd here a big fright as she gains an item, but loses some health, now down to eighty-six points. If you look over at monitors five and six you can see the replay. She clipped the end of her wing and was lucky it wasn’t more serious. Fortunately the accident won’t affect her overall speed, but I’m sure it’s knocked her confidence.”

In the foreground she could hear Burner yelling that she needed to pull herself together. He was right, it was a schoolgirl error, one she could ill afford in a race against such formidable opposition. As she cleared the last of the support towers to head east toward Canary Wharf, she checked her display monitors. Now in 71st position, she was still fifteen seconds behind van der Star in first place.

The next part of the course looked tricky. Ludi Bioski had altered the structure of One Canada Square, the tallest of the buildings in the Canary Wharf area. He’d cut a hole, thirty square metres, out of the core of the building, so that approaching from one side you could see through it to the red, white and blue sky on the other.

Players were expected to fly straight through it, which would have been easy enough, but there was a barrage of missiles being lobbed at them from every direction. Gorigaroo, who was perched atop the deformed building, was ripping solar panels off the roof and casually tossing them into the flight path like he was playing frisbee at the beach.

There was a separate onslaught of projectiles being launched by players who weren’t even in the race. A related quest had secured them places in one of the surrounding office blocks, from where they took turns to man catapults that launched office paraphernalia into the path of racers.

She yanked the joystick toward her and ascended two stories in order to get an aerial view of the carnage that lay ahead. The sky was full of flying office chairs, monitors and keyboards. Her display flickered like crazy as the planes ahead took hits. She was pleased to see the rudder of van der Star’s plane, Famous, hit by an old inkjet printer. He wasn’t immune to error after all.

She stayed as high as she could for as long as possible, but still lost a few health points to a spinning flip chart that clipped Hawk’s undercarriage. Hearing Burner yell at her to dive, and knowing that she was too high for the fly-through, she jerked the joystick forward as far as it would go. The next few seconds seemed to occur in slow motion. She was focused on the hole, but seemed to have gained perfect peripheral vision, and noted that Gorigaroo had just hurled a handful of solar panels her way. They fell around her in a shower, never touching her as she flew straight on, directly into the path of a filing cabinet launched in her direction from the building on her left.

“This is going to be tight, ladies and gentlemen, I’m not sure how’s she’s going to avoid the cabinet, especially now its drawers have fallen out. Oh my word, what an incredible manoeuvre. A treble spin to avoid the cabinet, a loop-de-loop to pass the solar panels, and she’s through. It’s the kind of skill that brought Negrahnu to the final in the first place. She’s taken a minor hit to her front left wheel, reducing her health to eighty points, but she’s up to 68th position. Go, Super Nova!”

The hole in the building was black with smoke. One of the three French competitors had come at it from a sharp angle and lost an entire wing when he hit the side of the building. He proceeded to death roll into the woman alongside him. Two places gained and another example of what not to do. Nova soared through the clouds of smoke and banked sharp right towards the first checkpoint, the giant Ferris wheel known as the London Eye. Another set of hoops lined this part of the course, some that were on fire, some that spun upon their axes, and some that turned invisible as the player approached them.

“We’re being treated to more great racing from Negrahnu. This is solid stuff, a veritable master class in flying. She’s really pushing Hawk to the limit. Take a look at monitor two: her split times are very close to van der Star’s, the guy in first place. The good news is that the pair of them are the fastest racers out there today. The bad news is that while she’s overtaking plenty of other people, she hasn’t gained anything on him yet. She needs to pull fifteen seconds out of a bag somewhere. Let us know if you spot one.”

As she flew through the invisible last hoop, she chipped up another position into 62nd place. The Belgian guy she’d been trailing had misjudged the location of the hoop and had been hit with a penalty — his top speed had been cut to ninety percent for five seconds. Straight ahead was the Eye, where van der Star’s plane had morphed into his boat. When she finally made the checkpoint herself, she was raring to go. It was good to settle herself into Bruno and to feel the lap of the waves below his prow. That was a third of the race completed, and a quick mental calculation reinforced what she already knew: she’d need to up her game if she was to be in with a chance of going home with some money.

“Can Negrahnu handle Bruno as well as she handled Hawk? She’s going to need to. This part of the course takes players through a series of gates which exact heavy penalties if touched. We can expect more interaction with non-racing players who have lined the banks of the Thames equipped with fishing rods. Anything they manage to catch can be thrown at the players, with plenty of bounties up for grabs. Wait a second. What in the name of bejesus caused that? The smart money’s got to be on Ludi Bioski. But more importantly, how fast is that thing going to travel?”

Deafening screeches of twisting metal drowned out the sound of the commentary. The spectators in the bar held their hands to their ears, and McCafferty flinched in his seat. Despite the racket, the river ahead looked quite normal to Nova. She could see the boats she was chasing, a bunch of gates and a few thousand fishermen lining the banks. It was in her wing mirror that she finally caught sight of it, the thing making all the noise. It churned out such a colossal amount of water that she first thought it might be a tidal wave chasing after them.

Catching glimpses through the wall of spray, she finally worked out what had happened. The London Eye had come unhinged from its mooring and had driven straight into the river. Rolling on its circumference, as if under the control of a unicycling maniac, it was slicing through the water, smashing to smithereens anything in its path. Hundreds of fishing lines got caught in its spokes, pulling anglers off the riverbank and dragging them through the white water that followed in its wake.

Her datafeed went wild. Two players at the back of the field had just been shredded, sending a clear message to everyone else. Nova didn’t need telling twice. As she caned around the next gate and straightened Bruno up, she activated her Turbo Boost, and although she didn’t gain any places, she did pull away from the Eye.

Back in the cafe, Burner looked more stressed than anyone else. Absorbed in conversation with Jono, he debated the relative merits of their proposed strategies for her.

“She needs to take more risks; it’s all about the items,” Jono explained.

“Dude, you’re one of the worst players I know. Get some skills before you offer your pearls of wisdom,” Burner said, right up in his face.

“You don’t need to be good at something in order to provide practical advice. There’s no point playing it safe and coming in 26th. Might as well risk it for a biscuit.”

“Negrahnu’s in 60th position. This faultless driving on the Thames has gained her two seconds on van der Star, who screwed up his last gate. Yet she can’t be happy with the situation. There’s no sign of the Eye coming to a halt — there goes another player — and the datafeed on monitor seven suggests, if anything, that it’s gaining speed. Players at the front of the pack just passed under Waterloo Bridge. I wonder—”

McCafferty stopped dead. “There goes the neighbourhood. Shit just got doubly real … if you’ll pardon my French.”

This time Nova caught sight of the disturbance straight away. Banjax the dodectopus — who had surfaced close to the next bridge — was pumping his mighty tentacles in and out and rotating on the spot. Within seconds he had created a giant whirlpool that stretched halfway across the width of the river. Every object within his event horizon eddied towards the whorl.

Dozens of fishing rods, and a couple of fishermen who had neglected to let go, were sucked under the waves. Van der Star and the pack of boats on his tail were taken by surprise and had had to make a split-second decision. They scattered either side of the vortex. The whirlpool was turning anticlockwise, so anyone who had opted to shoot right of it came through unscathed. Those that went left faced a surge of oncoming water.

The next minute was sheer mayhem. Four players steered too close to Banjax and got sucked under by the powerful currents around him. Six others misjudged the currents badly enough that they drove straight into the arches supporting the bridge and wrote off their boats. Nova saw all this happen and plotted the perfect course under the bridge on the far right-hand side of the river, as far away from Banjax as possible. What she didn’t foresee was the fisherman on the bridge, who had hooked a mangled shopping trolley from the banks of the river. He judged his throw well, and would have wiped her out, had she not steered Bruno a sharp left at the last second. The trolley clipped Bruno’s stern before tumbling harmlessly into the water behind them.

“That was the biggest upheaval yet. We’re down to 81 players and there’s been a significant shuffle of positions, except for van der Star, still in first place, proving once again why he’s rated the best in the world. Arnold Weber, the Austrian daredevil, didn’t fare so well; he got sucked under, so it’s auf Wiedersehen to him, or should that be goodnight, Vienna? Negrahnu did well out of the chaos, she’s up to 27th position, but suffered a couple of nasty blows, which have taken her health down to forty points. If she can’t find a health pack, she'll need to be more careful. There’s one thing every player can be grateful for: Banjax’s whirlpool stopped the London Eye in its tracks.”