Solarversia: The Year Long Game (52 page)

Nova puffed out her cheeks, exhaled slowly, and when it came to her turn, shook Connie’s hand with as much sincerity as she could muster. On the screens behind them Connie’s avatar flew down a pipe and plopped unceremoniously into Banjax’s tank. Nova glanced along the stage to see Holly posing for the cameras. She hated herself for looking — her blood pressure went through the roof every time she saw Holly’s smug face — but couldn’t help herself.

They were down to six. The clapping died down and attention returned to Artica.

“You should be well-acquainted with Castalia, Emperor Mandelbrot’s flying palace. Earlier in the year you were invited to take Arkwal’s guided tour of the palace. The tour started in the Overdome, which houses the arkwini living quarters. With the aid of a compliant arkwini, Arkwal would have demonstrated one of two machines: the Wake-a-nator or the Sleep-a-nator. Between them, how much time do these two machines save each day, per arkwini?”

A holographic scale model of Castalia floated along the front of the stage. The tubes that sprouted from its Underdome dragged along behind it, giving it the appearance of a discarded helium balloon. She stared at it in a vain attempt to jog her memory. Had she ever been asked the question in the Simulator? Charlie certainly hadn’t asked the question during her revision, she knew that much. Having been through the Wake-a-nator herself, this was one question she should have known the answer to. Except her mind was blank.

There was the ridiculously long bed whose mattress wrapped back round on itself, the mechanical arms that lifted the duvet off at the end, and the machines, one at each end. Arkwal had mentioned the number of minutes saved, she was sure of that. Except it could have been any number you cared to pluck out of thin air. She plumped for ninety-nine and prayed that the other players were as clueless as she was.

“Your answers are in,” said Arty, “and I can see we have quite a range. Anu, you were very close with your guess of ‘eleven’. The actual number of minutes saved is thirteen.” Nova clasped her fingers over her head and cursed her stupidity. How could she have been so far out? Another peek along the line, another fake smile from Holly, sending Nova’s heart rate through the roof.

“The person whose answer was furthest from the truth was Edmund, who guessed 2,350. Bad luck, mate. It’s goodbye to you.” It was an older guy, from London. Nova squealed and then tried to suppress a giggle. How he’d got this far was a mystery. He left the stage, waving madly to the crowd, and watched in mock horror as the dodectopus devoured his avatar. At least he could enjoy his final few seconds of fame before the gong sounded.

“And then there were five, which means another change to the rules. We’re moving into Instant Winstant. No more timers, you need to buzz in to answer these questions. If you buzz in with the correct answer, you’re through to the penultimate round. And we all know what that means. At the moment, you’re guaranteed £10,000. If you make it to the final hundred, you’re guaranteed a whopping £100,000. So get your brains in gear and your hands ready to buzz. What was the name of the old man who controlled the nets that you had to crawl under in the Fire Demon’s Obstacle Course on Alpha Island?”

Nova hesitated for the smallest instant before buzzing. She was too late. The delay was long enough that the guy next to her got there first.

“It was Nico’s Nets that you had to crawl under, Arty. His name was Nico.”

“Oli Rivett, player number 32,109,240, from Tyneside, ‘Nico’ is the right answer.”

She grimaced as Arty shook his hand and congratulated him. Why had she flinched? It was such an easy question, Solarversia 101.

“The first UK player is through to the penultimate round. There are two spaces left. You’ve each got a fifty percent chance of joining him.
If
you can answer the next question. Here goes. What is the Red Spot on Jupiter entangled with at the quantum level?”

Again, a slight flinch meant that she was outbuzzed — and it was such an easy one, too. Charlie had asked her the exact question a couple of nights ago. She’d answered so quickly that he’d said she would totally dominate the round, the way she knew everything. The thought that her hesitation might have just cost her £90,000 — and the championship — gnawed away at her.

“Is the Red Spot quantumly entangled to a massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy?”

“Correct answer. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Anu the Annihilator, player number 61,618,002, the second UK finalist to progress to the next round.”

While Arty held Anu’s hand aloft, Nova and the remaining two players were rearranged on the stage so that they stood next to one another, with Nova in the middle.

“We’re down to three, the magic number. Interestingly, the two girls are both current students at Nottingham University. It must be the way they teach their Science. There’s one space left. It’s yours if you can buzz in and correctly answer this. What was the name of the princess in Ludi Bioski’s story?”

Nova heard the words ‘Ludi Bioski’, got excited, and very nearly pressed the buzzer. She knew all about him: his tree house, the random events he spun on his Orbitini, the way he had stitched himself together after being killed by the King and Queen. But what was the name of their daughter? She could picture the princess clearly, first as a midget on tiptoe, reaching for door handles in the castle, and then as a titan whose feet stuck out of the end of her bed.

Why hadn’t she spent more time mastering the Science instead of researching Theodore Markowsky? Sushi was right. It
was
a stupid obsession. The Holy Order had been wiped out. Markowsky was probably lying at the bottom of the Mississippi, fish food or worse. When a buzzer sounded to her left, Nova’s body convulsed, as if she had awoken from a bad dream. Her stomach felt like it had turned to stone. It was the guy from Newcastle who had made the foosball table in the Show and Tell round. She stared at his answer on her tablet:
Emina
. Was that correct? Right there and then, she couldn’t have said either way.

“I asked for the name of the princess in Ludi Bioski’s story. Joe, you said ‘Emina’. It’s
not
the answer I was looking for. The question goes back out … and Holly’s buzzed in!”

“I think Joe was close, Arty, but I remember it starting with a ‘Z’. Was it ‘Zemina’?”

The few seconds’ pause between Holly giving her answer and Arty responding were among the longest of Nova’s life. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if Holly went through instead of her. Murder, manslaughter and assault were all possibilities.

“I’m sorry, Holly, that wasn’t the answer I was looking for either. Over to you, Nova. Any ideas?”

Nova breathed a long, deliberate sign of relief and managed to refrain from looking at Holly, whose death stare she could feel burning a hole in her face.
Zemina
. She said the word over and over. Artica tapped the question card against his open palm and looked at her expectantly. She could sense the whispered conversations in the audience. Shuffling uneasily from foot to foot, she willed the answer to come to her with every ounce of her being.

“I’m going to have to hurry you, I’m afraid, Nova. The Game is only
one
year long after all …”

Laughter from the crowd. It bought her another few seconds.

“Was it …” She gulped and only then became aware of how dry her mouth was. “Was it ‘Zibelda’?” She glanced at her chest, actually worried for a second that the palpitations in her heart might be visible to the people watching.

The answer came as a surprise; she hadn’t known what she was going to say until the word came out of her mouth. It just seemed to happen, like one of her inspired manoeuvres in Krazy Karting. When she heard herself say it, she still wasn’t sure where it had come from — or even if she’d made it up on the spot.

“Super Nova 2020, player number 515,740, originally from Maidstone in Kent, ‘Zibelda’ is the right answer. Congratulations. You’ve made it through to the sixth and penultimate round, guaranteeing yourself a minimum prize of one hundred thousand pounds.”

***

Casey watched Theodore telepathically command the target to retreat back down the narrow passageway that constituted the shooting range. As a series of pulleys whirred above their heads, Casey studied his prosthetic limb and repeated, “shoot the target, shoot the target,” in his head, like a holy man chanting a mantra.

He’d found chanting to be the most effective way of concentrating on the task at hand and keeping his subversive thoughts at bay. He wondered what had happened to his brain after the incident at the Epicenter. Perhaps the electric shock had ruptured his personality, splitting it in two. Was he now suffering from some sort of multiple personality disorder? He wasn’t sure.

All he knew was that his existence had become torture. The knowledge that his every last thought was being monitored and recorded was too much to bear. It had reduced him to a stammering, gibbering wreck. A thought of escape would pop into his mind. Knowing the thought might get him killed, he’d immediately counter it, telling himself to shut the fuck up and begging Father to ignore that part of him. It was a form of mental tennis and it was slowly destroying him.

“You ready, Elmer?”

“Y-y-yes, Fa-father, I’m r-ready.”

“We only have fifty of these ceramic darts, and they were extremely expensive to manufacture, so don’t go wasting them. If you keep missing, stop. We may have to recalibrate the targeting system.”

Theodore held the dart out in front of him, narrowed his eyes and studied its tip. It was no longer than a fingernail. He carefully placed it in Casey’s hand, stepped to one side and crossed his arms.

Casey gulped. He took the dart between thumb and forefinger and tried to stop shaking long enough that he could press it into the lifeline that curved round the palm of his prosthetic hand. Managing to do so after a Herculean effort, he watched as it disappeared through the tiny flap. A few seconds later his middle finger jutted straight out, signalling that the dart was correctly aligned in the chamber. He positioned a foot alongside the line and tried to remember the training he’d undergone in the virtual environment.

Shoot the old bastard in the head, quick as you like. I didn’t mean it, Father, please don’t hurt me. Yes, you did. Shoot him, cut his arm off and use it to escape. Shut up. I don’t mean it. I don’t know where those thoughts are coming from. The target. Shoot the target, not dear, beloved Father.

Casey smiled weakly at Theodore. Forming the hand into a fist, he clenched it five times in quick succession. His middle knuckle popped open and a red dot appeared on the concrete ground. He pointed the appendage at the target and used his other hand to steady it, keeping the dot hovering around the bullseye as best he could.

It was no good. His nerves were shot to pieces and his arm was all over the place. Even with the steadying influence of his other hand, the dot rarely stayed in one place for longer than a split second. Using every last ounce of concentration and willpower, he fired the dart, knowing immediately that it was way off centre. A distant thwack could be heard as the dart struck the chipboard. When he looked at the monitor zoomed in on the target, he was amazed to find that he’d nearly hit the bullseye.

“Self-directing darts. I wouldn’t risk something as important as this on a nervous wreck like you. Inner ring. It’s a start. But I don’t want you to stop until you’re hitting the bullseye every time. Remember: we’re only going to get one shot at this. You’ve got seventy-two hours until your flight. I’ll leave you to it.”

Behind them a small convoy of ’bots glided along the corridor, carrying a range of computer parts between them. Theodore walked a few paces away from the shooting range and then stopped without turning around.

“Oh, Casey, there was one other thing.”

“Y-y-yes, Father?”

A bolt of electricity shot through Casey’s skull. Lasting only a fraction of a second, it was far less severe than the shock he received at the Epicenter. Still, it was enough to send him to his knees, where he remained, hands clutched to his chest, a look of desperate self-pity on his face.

“I’m sorry, Elmer, but I thought we agreed that Casey was dead. Let’s not fail because of some silly little oversight. If
I
can remember your new name,
you
can too.”

My name’s Elmer Sullivan and I’m the property of the Holy Order
. Casey repeated it over and over. It would be his new mantra for the day.

***

Nova was aware of the celebrations going on around her, but was too numb to join them. Instead she stood still, arms by her sides, as she tried to allow the news to sink in. From the hundred million people who had started the year,
she’d made the final ten
. It didn’t seem possible — amazing things like this didn’t happen to ordinary people like her.

It was the evening of Saturday 20th February 2021, and the Grand Room at the Trumpton Hotel had just burst into life. It was a frothing sea of moving people and flash photography as the crowd jostled to get a look at the prize specimens on stage. The penultimate round was called Sixty Second Solicitation and had required the final hundred, including three Solos from the UK, to make a minute-long video to persuade people to vote for them.

Pundits had declared that success would arise from a careful blend of psychology and popularity as players worked out how to endear themselves to the voting masses, those 99,999,900 players who had already gone out. Where the Show and Tell round had required them to present an object, this round had required them to present themselves.

After securing her place in the final hundred the previous weekend, she and the ninety-nine other semi-finalists had been transported from around the world to the plush Trumpton Hotel in Mayfair, London, where they were shown to their rooms and kept away from the press. The bombshell had been dropped after breakfast the next morning: they had two days in which to record their videos in one of the special booths located around the perimeter of the Grand Room.