Solarversia: The Year Long Game (44 page)

“‘An interesting find,’ the waterfall burbled. ‘Leave the disc behind my falls this eve. Allow me to meditate on its secrets overnight. I shall give you my answer tomorrow.’

“Content with her response and worn out from the day’s drama, the animals quickly fell asleep around the edge of her pool. Dreams came, of circles and spheres, of suns and stars, of music and mirrors. In the morning, the waterfall delivered her verdict, just as she had promised. Her falls parted like velvet curtains, revealing the disc resting against a ledge of rock. It twinkled as it reflected the turquoise water in her pool, rendering it more beautiful than any of them had remembered.

“‘The disc you have brought before me is very special indeed. It contains secrets that haven’t been spoken of in centuries. It comprehends mysteries beyond the mind. Creatures have died for it. Young have been born on it. And poets have gone mad trying to chronicle its infinite nature. It is priceless beyond word, enchanting beyond thought, ancient beyond time.’

“On hearing this, the animals leaned in closer, enraptured by what they were hearing.

“‘Because of the disc’s inordinate value, the law of the jungle dictates that it cannot be owned by a single species. And yet a competition to divine a deserving owner is befitting of the prize. I therefore propose a competition that requires each animal to form a pair with a beast of a different kind. The victorious duo will make arrangements to share ownership of the disc afterwards. Cast thy berries into my waters so that I may know your thoughts.’

“Standing at the edge of the pool, each animal cast a berry into the water: green if they agreed with the proposal, red if they did not, and a thorn if they were unsure, for that was the way of the jungle. Dozens of berries flew through the air, plopped into the pool, and descended to the bottom. When the last one had settled, the waterfall spoke again.

“‘My waters are mostly green. The majority have decreed we continue.’ The curtains of water closed once more and the disc was hidden. ‘The disc was found in the jungle. As such, the competition must take place in the jungle. Stay by my waters another night, and when you wake tomorrow, the disc will be gone from my safekeeping. It will manifest elsewhere in the jungle. To win the race, and ownership of the disc, you and your teammate must be the first to find it. Thus speaks the Waterfall of Wisdom.’

“This latest pronouncement was met with lots of murmuring as the animals sought to untangle its implications. They spent the rest of the day in a frenzy of politics, trying to pair themselves, blindly stabbing for strategy in an exercise that saw plenty of boasts and just as many put-downs. When the cockerel crowed at dawn the next day, his partner the hare scampered behind the falls and saw that the disc was gone. Soon all the animals were awake, and the strangest hunt in the history of the jungle began.

“Some animals believed that the Obarian and the leopard would be the ones to win, so well did they seem to complement each other’s abilities. But they turned out to be as stubborn as they were speedy, and argued more than they searched. Others thought the Huntropellimous and the squirrel might end up triumphant, and when the squirrel was seen bolting back to the waterfall with a smile on her face, many thought the competition would soon be over. But to everyone’s delight, the squirrel had merely remembered where she’d hidden a supply of nuts.

“All day the animals roamed in their pairs over the jungle. The dolphin scoured the river while the parrot searched from the sky. But it was two landlubbers who found the golden disc, hanging from the branch of a monkey puzzle tree, sparkling and resplendent in the sun. The gorilla and the kangaroo — a pair in whom nobody had invested much hope.

“It turned out that the victors had worked together with great camaraderie. In the clearings of the jungle, the gorilla had clambered on to the kangaroo’s back and, clasping his legs tightly round his partner’s shoulders, the two had hopped as one. When the jungle floor was dense and impassable, the kangaroo had clung to the gorilla’s waist, and together they’d swung from the branches and dangled from vines. Where the jungle was neither clear nor dense, they separated a distance and combed the vegetation in a deliberate and methodical manner.

“Folklore has it that the golden disc
was
magical and could grant its owner a wish. The gorilla and the kangaroo had to share the wish between them. Here their partnership continued. Rather than argue and squabble over what they desired, they made a wish to be united forever. In the ultimate act of synthesis, the gorilla and the kangaroo became one: the Gorigaroo. And what became of the disc? Why, you know it well, it’s Gorigaroo’s gong. When he strikes it with the club he carries in his pouch, the sound is a reminder of their teamwork that day. We remember that when we come together as one, we can achieve great things.”

Nova finished the tour and gazed at Charlie as he slept. If she hadn’t taken his advice to choose ‘black’ in the Minority Winners round, she’d be deader than dead right now, lying in a pool of avatar blood somewhere in the Decision Dome.

She kissed his forehead and quietly thanked him for his help. It dawned on her that he was only one of many people who had helped her get this far. Burner, Jono and the Solar Soc crew had all played their part. Even Computer Sushi, in her own way, by calling her stubborn in front of Charlie, and making her self-conscious about being so.

She gently lowered her head onto Charlie’s chest, closed her eyes and enjoyed the moment for what it was. And when she fell asleep soon after, she dreamed of circles and spheres, of suns and stars, of music and mirrors, and of the teamwork that lay ahead.

Chapter Forty

Nova felt a chill go down her spine as the Huntropellimous charged at her. She remembered the horribly violent way she’d lost her second life after teleporting to the wrong destination with Burner and Pedro. Would another death at the hands — or, in this case, the freakishly mutilated claws — of these deranged scorpions signal her exit from Solarversia in the second of the final rounds?

She looked down at the Sword of Sadism clenched tight in her fists. The jewels in its long, curling grip sparkled, while the polished edge of its blade reflected the monster clattering towards her. She slid her thumb over the dark blue sapphire to activate it and hoped to high hell that she remembered the only combination of moves that would save her life.

The second round had started two hours previously in a more tranquil setting — Pluto’s Portal of Promise, the same place she’d been all week since completing the epic skydive. The core of the planet had been hollowed out into a sphere whose surface sparkled like plasma, similar to the walls of the Corona Cube.

She’d been there with the 500,000 other players who had survived the first round, gently floating and frolicking in zero-g until the Portal had been switched on. It had started with a distant hum, like a vacuum cleaner being used in a nearby room, and had got progressively louder until the plasma patterns on the wall convulsed in an angry, moody dance. Blue sparks leapt off the surface, zapping players out of existence.

One second Nova was drifting about the portal in peace, the next she was hurtling through a cosmic wormhole dug out of hyperspace. She landed with a bump in a crumpled heap, brushed herself down, got back up and took a moment to get her bearings. She’d arrived in a small cubic room whose walls were adorned with pictures.
Puzzles
. Her hands tingled with excitement. If the Science of Solarversia hadn’t demanded a balanced diet, she’d be doing them all day, every day. Hopefully the round was full of them. One thing was guaranteed — she’d need to be on top of her game. Where the previous round had wiped out half of Solarversia’s population, this round would deplete it a further
eighty
percent.

“Greetings, second-round players.”

It took her a second or two to locate the source of Arkwal’s voice. Looking up, she found that the ceiling had turned transparent, affording a view of Castalia’s Magisterial Chamber where all the entourage were present, including a re-stitched Ludi Bioski.

“You might find the view a little strange. Although you’re looking up, through the ceiling, you see us in the Magisterial Chamber from a side-on perspective. That’s because you’re standing on the northern wall of the Chamber in one of the four corner cubes of the Player’s Grid. In this round, called Race to the Origin, you get to play the grid itself. Although you can’t see them — the cubes are phased zones — there are 125,000 other players in the cube with you, a quarter of the players who have made it this far. Although you’re all familiar with how Puzzles work, let’s look at how to use them to navigate the grid. Please turn to face the painting of the Mona Lisa. You’ll notice something strange about her smile — something stranger than usual. Her mouth is upside down. Please approach the painting and rotate her mouth through 180 degrees. Chop chop, we don’t have all day.”

Nova rotated the mouth using her finger and the Solarversia jingle sounded. The wall that had been displaying the painting disappeared, revealing the cube next to hers in a clockwise direction. After five seconds the wall reappeared, once again enclosing her within the corner cube.

“Now face the adjacent wall. It contains a sixteen-square slide puzzle of a famous photo. Because you’re in training mode, a series of arrows will guide you through the correct moves. They won’t be there when the game begins, and neither will the instructions for any Combinations you’re asked to execute.”

She recognised the photo even in its jumbled state — it was Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out. The photo had been divided into sixteen squares, and had had one square removed so that the remaining fifteen could be moved around. She smiled as she slid the squares back and forth. It was a type of puzzle she’d played dozens of times in the Simulator Booths throughout the year, and one she’d mastered without the presence of arrows. Hopefully there would be lots like it.

Completing this puzzle had the same effect, sounding the jingle and dissolving the wall on which it had been displayed to reveal the cube next to hers in an anticlockwise direction. Arkwal made them repeat the exercise one last time on one of the outer faces of the Grid. The wall displayed a crossword puzzle, complete except for one twelve-lettered word, which already contained the third letter, an ‘m’ and the eleventh letter, an ‘o’. The clue read, ‘
Fun way of solving problems as organised by fit magician with oxygen’
.

She smiled and made a mental note to let her dad know that his years of teaching hadn’t gone unrewarded. Clues in cryptic crosswords were little puzzles in their own right. All you needed to do was work out how to interpret them. This one was elementary and she solved it in seconds just by looking at it. She proudly scribbled the answer —
gamification
— on the wall using her finger before Arkwal provided it to everyone else.

“Please note that the outer face of the grid goes somewhere too — it connects to the cube on the far side of the grid, ten thousand rows away. Every one of the hundred million cubes in the grid is connected to the cubes adjacent to it. All you need to remember is that if there’s a puzzle on the face of the cube you’re in, whether it’s the wall, ceiling or floor, it leads to another cube somewhere.
If
you can solve the puzzle, that is. The goal of Race to the Origin is simple: you need to get from the outer ring to cube number one in the very centre of the grid. The hard part is ensuring that you’re one of the first hundred thousand people to do so.”

Nova gulped. Minority Winners, with its single, binary decision, suddenly seemed like a walk in the park.

“There’s no way I can do this. I’m going to crash out, I just know it.”

“You’re just having a last-minute attack of nerves,” Burner said. “If anyone can do it, you can do it.”

“And we’re right here to help you,” Charlie said, rubbing the back of her neck as he spoke.

Thank God for her front-line support team — her ‘crack commando unit’, according to Burner — there to help her solve puzzles and navigate the grid. Players were allowed as many people as they wanted in their support team, although as Arkwal had reminded them earlier in the week, too many cooks spoil the broth. So she’d chosen to tackle the round in her own room, rather than the common room, which everyone agreed might be too rowdy.

Additionally, students in her corridor had agreed to have their rooms turned into mini command centres that hosted specialised teams: maths bods, puzzle fans, subject specialists and so on. Jono, the overall project manager, would be dipping into each room and publishing the best comments and suggestions in a datafeed that Burner and Charlie could review. He’d also lent Nova his quality speakers, so any game sounds or instructions would be crystal clear. It was the best setup they could think of. She only hoped it would be good enough.

“There are two other things you need to know. First, you will always be able to tell which cube you’re in and how far it is it from the Origin because each of its internal faces is stamped with the cube’s number and ring position.”

Nova glanced at the bright blue stamp that adorned each face of the cube: Ring: 5,000, Grid Number: 99,990,001. She was in the top-left hand corner of the grid.

“Second, the behaviour of the Grid during the round will be similar in nature to that of Solarversia as a whole. That is to say, the gameplay will
evolve
as the game progresses. As usual, those changes will be signalled by the sound of Gorigaroo’s gong. Without further ado, I’m delighted to announce that the Emperor himself will start the proceedings. The moment he starts singing, the grid becomes live. Good luck to one and all.”

Although the exact shape of his body altered by the minute, Emperor Mandelbrot had maintained roughly the same form throughout the year. The purple gooey substance he was composed of still dripped over the edge of the circular dais on which he was positioned. Arms, legs and faces still poked out of his body, the central column of which still rose all the way to the ceiling of the chamber, a deformed totem pole punctured with hundreds of grotesque mouths. His song started with the mouths at the bottom of the pole. Several bass voices set the tone of the song before the chanting crept upward to the contraltos and sopranos closer to the ceiling. The Race to the Origin had begun.