Solarversia: The Year Long Game (33 page)

“Another hour until your meds,” she said in a cheerful voice, with a gentle squeeze of his arm. He grunted as loud as he could, tried to grab her, get her to stay. He heard her shush into the distance. Don’t leave me here without my meds. Please don’t leave me here all alone. Come back, Mary-Ann, come back.

I’ll save you this time, I promise I will.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Nova arrived back at her room just after midnight. She ruffled Zhang’s neck and kissed him goodnight before he hopped to the floor and plugged his tail into the wall. She’d been in Burner’s room, getting him to download a new piece of code onto her headset, one he’d programmed himself. She took her shirt off, put her Booners on and, with an eye volleyed to the room, looked down to the yin yang tattoo at the top of her arm. She traced a finger round the design, slowly, purposefully. With her other eye, volleyed to her headset, she saw Soul Surfer launch. It had worked. A fine piece of craftsmanship from Burner.

“Hey, Nova. How are you?”

“I’m better than I’ve been in a long time.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. And it’s all down to the little things. Stuff I didn’t know mattered.” She crossed her legs on the bench and looked out over Seattle as if seeing it with fresh eyes. “Like the nifty way I launched your app just now, for instance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Now I can open the app by tracing my tattoo. Watch.” Nova traced the same pattern on her avatar’s tattoo: round the circumference of the yin yang circle and then down the curved line in the middle. She finished by pressing a finger against each of the two dots.

“Burner programmed it with his dork skills. It reminds me of being a kid, going on secret missions and writing messages in code. It’s made my day, and it’s such a silly little thing.”

“What’s that saying of Burner’s? Silly little things have a habit of adding up to stupidly big things.”

“I won’t tell him you quoted him from beyond the grave. He’d get an even bigger head.”

“Give him my regards. And no, that doesn’t mean I want to go on a date with him. I’m having enough trouble with my aunt trying to set me up with this dead lawyer she’s been visiting. Reckons we’d make a lovely couple. The problem is, this new ‘death dates’ feature within Soul Surfer was introduced after I died, so I never gave my preference on it. Mum thinks it’s way too spooky. ‘Copulating Corpses’ is what they’re calling it on the forums. What do you think I should do?”

Nova snorted. She loved shit like this. There were dozens of instances of Sushi: the one Nova spoke to, eight or so that spoke to friends and relatives, and various others who spoke to random people who Sushi hadn’t even known while she was alive. It was like each Sushi lived her own life vicariously through the people that visited. Nova got to hear stories about the other Sushis, but as told by
her
Sushi, as if they were dramas in her life. It was properly mental and she loved it.

“I’m not sure that you were ever the type to go for a lawyer, but I’d need to see a photo first.”

Less than a second after Nova had said the words, a photo appeared in Sushi’s outstretched hand.

“No way, tell your aunt to get some frickin’ taste. You wouldn’t have gone near that guy, he looks like a total slimeball. Look at all that grease in his hair, for a start.”

Sushi crumpled up the photo and tossed it into the bin that momentarily appeared at the side of the bench.

“Way more important than your dead douchebag is the fact that I’m still in Solarversia, and it’s nearly the end of the year. I must fantasize about making the Final Million a million times a day.”

“I can’t wait to find out what Pluto’s Portal of Promise is all about. If you actually make the Final Million, I swear I’ll find myself a dead boyfriend and make a baby with him to celebrate.”

“It’s getting ridiculously dangerous, that’s for sure. You remember the Travelling Circus of Nakk-oo? When the seventy-five millionth person went out, Ludi Bioski made the animals go crazy. They grouped together and escaped their cages. Most of the people visiting the circus at the time either got killed or seriously mauled. We’re talking forty thousand players killed in this one incident alone. And remember Travinsky and the giant Moa from the quest I completed? They turned on Octavia, their keeper, impaled her on the musical tree. It was gross. Once they were free, the animals raided the circus safe and stole thousands of teleport tokens. I swear, nowhere’s safe any more.”

Like the real world, the Gameworld had been programmed to evolve. Each change featured one of the four Simulator categories, and slowly introduced the Science of Solarversia. The first change occurred when the Earth Force Field was switched off. The inclusion of Planetary Puzzles in the monthly Bucket Lists had required Solos to use their Puzzle skills.

The second change happened when the fifty millionth person went out in August. Daily spins of the Tweel of Fate stopped being free. Instead, players needed to correctly answer a question about the Gameworld, testing their Knowledge. If players answered incorrectly, they were fined teleport tokens, while correct answers were rewarded with additional items.

This latest change was connected to Combat. Up until now, Combat, outside of the Simulator Booth, had been restricted to certain quests that players tackled of their own volition. From this point forward they would be forced to fight for their lives whether they liked it or not. One last change was scheduled for when the ninety millionth person had gone out, and would affect Combinations. The sequence of moves would disappear from a player’s headset, forcing them to execute it from memory.

“My God, you be careful out there, girlfriend. We’ve only got one life after this one, don’t go wasting it.”

Nova smiled. She loved the fact it was
their
life she was playing, not just hers.

“In other news, I finally called the Jockmeister. Do you know what I discovered? Apologising is a bit like revision. The thought of it is far worse than actually doing it. We had the best chat we’ve ever had. I don’t know what I was so worried about. And you’ll never guess what I did yesterday.”

“Hooked up with Charlie?”

“God, I wish. He probably thinks I’m a right ’tard after seeing me stuck behind that rock. No, I sent Mrs Woodward a present — a nice copy of King Lear. With a little apology note and everything.”

“You sent Mophead a present? My God, Nova, you really have changed. What did Burner say? I bet he thinks you’ve flipped out.”

“He thinks I’ve turned weird. Reckons I’m going to join a convent and become a nun.”

“How very Burner. He always had a thing for nuns.”

“So anyway, I had something to ask you. I was thinking about this,” Nova said, nodding her head.

“What, your fringe? You think it’s time for a haircut?”

“Not that, you idiot, the view. You remember how I used to change the image on my bedroom wall every so often? Well, I stopped doing it when you died. It was my way of remembering you. Keeping the same image was a way of freezing time, because I didn’t want it to move on. If anything I wanted it to go back to a time before the bombing. But I realised the other day that I might be ready to move on.”

Sushi pulled her knees into her chest and looked at her friend while she spoke.

“You remember when we used to watch Kiki’s show together? And he’d change something toward the end of the program with a click of his fingers?”

“How could I forget? It was the best part of the program. My favourite time was when he attached Vinnie Venassi’s beard to the back of one of his eunuch’s heads and the eunuch dragged Vinnie back to the harem with him.”

“Too funny, I’d totally forgotten about that episode. It’s so cool having you remember things like that for me.”

“You’re pleased that I did the Soul Surfer thing then?”

“I am now. Took me a while to get my head around it. But these days, I don’t know what I’d do without you. That’s why I’d like us to have something to do together. I realised that if I’m to be a game designer for real, I need to get a portfolio together. It’s no good keeping my ideas hidden in my journals where no one can see them. I need to get some real-world feedback to know if they’re any good. But I’m a bit nervous, so I want to start small. I wondered if we might create a game together in here before I branch out.”

“Cool. What did you have in mind?”

“You know my Super Nova project where I’ve been gamifying my life to make it more interesting? I want to turn the Seattle skyline into a game. Every time I visit you, we take it in turns to amend something. The first thing I want to change is the Space Needle. When I first log in to Soul Surfer and sit down on your bench, I don’t want the bit at the top that looks like a UFO to be there for the first thirty seconds. I want it to hover down from above and land there, as if little green men have come to visit Earth. I don’t know how we can make it happen — I only thought of it on the way back from Burner’s room — but I’m sure he’ll be able to help.”

“I love it, a game we can play together.” She grabbed Nova’s avatar by the shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. In her bedroom, Nova could almost feel Sushi’s arms around her.

***

Nova held her arm out and clenched her fist tight, as if she was getting ready to have her blood taken. She knew what she saw wasn’t real, but she winced nonetheless. Several bee-like creatures had landed on her forearm and punctured her skin with their serrated stingers and were sucking her blood into their elasticated pouches. Zhang sat patiently on her knee, drumming his little fingers against the sleeve of her coat, used to her virtual excursions.

“Go on, you little zapiers, you love it. I’d be surprised if they didn’t get drunk on my blood, the skinful I’ve had today,” Burner said, his outstretched arm next to hers.

“This is really weird; I swear I can feel them sucking my blood for real. Catch me if I faint, won’t you?” Nova asked, steadying herself on his bony shoulder. She watched as the vial in her display filled with blood.

It was a cold evening in mid-November and they were in town at the Nottingham Goose Fair, visiting a real-world exhibition associated with Spee-Akka Dey Bollarkoo and the artwork she’d been creating for the Magisterial Chamber. An Electropet version of her was sitting in the lotus position on a thick, patterned carpet in the centre of the circular marquee. Thirty Solos were seated in two concentric circles facing her, behind white digital canvases, arms outstretched, headsets on.

The exhibition had started with Spee-Akka’s story. Reputed to have been the most beautiful woman on Nakk-oo, she rejected men and marriage in favour of God and art. She spent all of her time down at the Great Lake, drawing and painting using the tools of nature. One day she would use fallen fruit and withered flowers to paint on a sheepskin hide, the next she’d work with zapiers — little bee-like creatures — using the pollen in their stingers to paint the leaves of Gooberry trees.

But her refusal to marry was unacceptable. One man would have her, she was too beautiful to go to waste, and with every man lusting after her, the other women felt resentful. They wanted her out of the way, fat with cub. So a tournament was organised, a fight to the death, and Spee-Akka was the prize. She was kidnapped and taken to the Bollarkoo Basin, the arena where the greatest battles took place. People travelled from all over the land, to watch the fights, to gorge themselves on feasts, and to get a glimpse of her, tied to a post.

Three days later, they had themselves a winner, Dieta the Dexterous, Lord of the Lagoons. He ordered his guards to take Spee-Akka to his den and prepare her for the wedding. But Spee-Akka wouldn’t be taken. She ran into the arena, took an orchid from her hair and turned to address the crowd. “I would rather give myself to this flower — this beautiful orchid — than to a mere mortal.” She replaced the flower in her hair and, before the guards could get near her, picked up a sword from the battlefield and decapitated herself.

For years after her death, there were sightings of Spee-Akka down at the Great Lake, creating her art. Where her beautiful face used to sit, a flower now grew, and zapiers buzzed all around her, interpreting her artistic visions through the power of telepathy. It was a skill that Nova and Burner were about to receive a lesson in. The sound of thirty headsets chiming reverberated around the marquee.

“Step one complete,” announced the soothing female computer voice in Nova’s earbuds as it guided her through the exhibit. “Now focus on the canvas in front of you and envision the art you want to create. The zapiers will do the rest. Your thought is their command.”

The tiny cameras embedded in Nova’s Booners were volleyed to the real-world digital canvas in front of her, the headset’s electrodes supposedly able to migrate the images in her mind onto it. Unsure quite how this so-called ‘artistic digital telepathy’ was supposed to work, but seeing the canvases in front of other people bloom into blotches and lines of every colour, she tried to picture some flowers. The squadron of zapiers that had been buzzing around her head ceased their mindless meanderings and flew, stinger first, at the canvas, onto which they squirted a splotch of greeny-brown mess.

She watched, fascinated, as the zapiers used their different body parts to move the paint around the screen. Large, untidy swatches of colour — that an artist might achieve with a palette knife — were formed by the zapiers using their wings as miniature fans, blowing the paint hither and yon. They mixed colours using their bodies, rolling from one hue to another and back again. With delicate licks of their long tongues they created finer strokes. The overall effect was of a pulsing, mutating colourscape dancing in tandem with the hazy images flickering through her mind.

“This is really freaky,” said Burner. “How the hell do you change colour? Woah, did it. Changed from red to blue the second I thought it.”

“How did you do it? All I’m getting is greens and browns. My canvas looks more like a dirty ocean than a beautiful flower.”

“It must be connected to brain power. Or Jedi skills. Or both. Go on, you little zapiers, atta boys!”