by Eric Smith
AARON: Oh.
AARON: I really don’t have the words right now.
D1V: Try!
AARON: I mean. I might be crying.
AARON: I can’t even get my parents to support this passion of mine like this.
AARON: This is.
AARON: What do I say? What do I do?
D1V: Here’s what you do. Ready?
AARON: Yeah.
D1V: You put it on.
D1V: See you soon.
AARON:
D1V:
14
AARON
I put my phone down and stare at the open box on my bed.
It’s an Oculus.
Not some old one, either, like one I’d maybe find in a neighbor’s trash can or on Craigslist in a few years. And even then, I can’t imagine someone tossing one, though I suppose people thought the same thing about computers before they became as accessible as they are.
Nope, it’s the model that came out just this past fall. I remember seeing the ads everywhere over the holidays, promoting it as the season’s hottest gift.
Well, hottest gift that cost like $600.
The commercials were like those ads where a loving partner surprises their spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend with a Mercedes-Benz with that red bow on top. I see them every single year. No one can ever name a single person who could afford to do something like that, and you immediately hate the people in the ad. Same with the Oculus. No way were my parents dropping that kind of cash on a gift, even though they certainly have it. Not when it might encourage my unfortunate “hobby.”
But now I have one.
Here’s what you do. Ready?
You put it on.
See you soon.
D1V’s latest messages to me float into my head, and I feel myself get flushed. And the hearts in the chat.
People send hearts all the time, though; it doesn’t mean anything. Right?
Right.
I take the Oculus over to my PC and pull out the cables, then breathe in sharply. I stare at my monster of a desktop and then look back down at the VR headset.
“If I turn you around,” I say, glaring at the tower, “and you don’t have the ports to hook this up, we are going to have a problem.”
I reach over the back of the desktop and pull it around.
“Don’t screw this up for us,” I urge the machine.
By some miracle, my tower has the right port for the VR headset. Whether or not it’ll be fast enough, powerful enough, to run the software and showcase the graphics inside...that’s another story altogether. I already have to reduce Reclaim the Sun’s graphic settings in order for it to play smoothly, and things like shadows and other small particle effects are off.
I’ll be lucky if I can even take a few steps in this thing.
But I’m gonna try.
* * *
It takes a solid half hour for the software to load up on my desktop, and another half hour for the software update to download for Reclaim the Sun so I can actually use the VR headset with it.
But I’m finally ready.
I take a deep breath, sit down at my computer with the headset on, and enter the game.
The world of Reclaim the Sun warps into view on the headset, big and sprawling, the open universe in front of me, swallowing me up. It takes me a second to realize I’m in my ship, and I have to look down to see my controls. I can also see my hands on the screen, and as I move the VR controls in my actual hands, I watch the virtual ones move in front of me.
This is awesome.
I’m fussing around with the hand controls, getting an idea of how to navigate everything, like the menus and inventory, when a transmission window pops up. It looks the same way it usually does on the monitor, only it’s floating in front of me, and I feel as though I could maybe reach out and grab it.
So I do, pressing the open button.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION
D1V: Meet me here.
D1V HAS SENT COORDINATES TO ALPHA 3.8, PLANET KERRIGAN, IN THE QUADRANT SETI ALPHA-EIGHT. DO YOU WISH TO JUMP?
[YES] [NO]
I move to fix my hair, and then laugh at myself, because what the hell am I doing? One, I can’t really do anything to it with this headset on. And two, I’m not actually going to see her in person.
I hit yes, and gasp as stars and planets go rocketing by me, the cinematic in place for warping an absolutely stunning thing to watch while wearing VR. The colors blast by in streaks along the edges of my ship’s cockpit, like multicolored crashes of lightning. After a few moments, it slows down, the wild lines and colors fading until blackness once again swallows the screen, and a small blue planet comes into focus.
There’s a little ship floating nearby.
I move to click on it to see if it’s D1V and feel my mouse go clattering off my desk before I remember I’ve got this headset on and VR controllers strapped to my hands. This is going to take some getting used to. I raise my hand up and reach out, the virtual version of me pointing a finger at D1V’s ship, selecting it.
The Cedere Nescio.
It’s her.
INCOMING TRANSMISSION
D1V: Hey, turn your headset on.
D1V HAS SENT YOU A CHANNEL INVITE.
DO YOU WISH TO ACCEPT?
[YES] [NO]
I hit yes and navigate my way over to the menu, turning on my headset so I can actually hear her talking.
“Hello? Helloooooooooo,” I hear D1V’s voice say in my ear, and I smile. I’ve heard her speak so many times in her videos and in the chats in game, but now, in stereo in this amazing device, it feels different somehow. It’s the same, but... I can’t explain it. She’s closer, in some strange way.
“Hi. Yes, I’m here,” I say.
“Finally!” she exclaims.
“What uh, is this place?” I ask, peering at the planet below.
“Just one of the many places me and the Armada have discovered,” she says, and I can almost hear the shrug in her voice. “We’ve got some supply drops here we like to keep stocked up, but there aren’t any resources worth mining here. Nothing that can help with upgrades, at least. Place to hang out mostly, it’s sort of our big chatroom planet. No one in the Armada tells anyone outside about it.”
“A safe haven?”
“Pretty much!” she says. “Let’s—”
“Hey, wait, D1V, this headset, I have to thank—”
“Go!” she shouts, interrupting any attempt to thank her, something I suspect she does on purpose. Her little ship takes off toward the surface, and I push mine along after hers.
Reclaim the Sun: Chat Application
D1V: Hey, you around? Me and Aaron are exploring a bit.
D1V: I sent him that old headset, it’ll probably be funny watching him flail around.
BEKS: Hey.
BEKS: Can’t today, busy.
D1V: Okay! Maybe we can do a stream tomorrow, you and me.
BEKS: Yeah maybe.
D1V: You okay?
D1V: Beks?
BEKS: Yeah, no, it’s fine. Sorry, school stuff.
D1V: Gotcha.
15
DIVYA
Aaron’s ship comes into view and starts its landing sequence. Staring up at it from the planet’s surface, I can tell he’s had it painted since we last explored together—black and silver. The upgrades are still there, and for some reason this pulls a smile out of me. He isn’t running and gunning around anymore with his pals, but instead, he’s making the effort to take care of what he has.
Seems like I’m a good influence.
I can’t help but feel like Rebekah would approve. She’s always so good at reeling me in when it comes to recording. Keeping me on a schedule, making sure I’m putting my everything into each stream.
Exploring with us.
I’m having a hard time reaching her lately, both in and out of the game. After everything that happened, she’s been pulling back more and more. Going quiet, not answering messages, never around online.
I don’t know what else to do, so here I am, pouring myself into a virtual world that’s supposed to be less complicated than the real one. But when I look up at this boy’s spaceship...
I realize it isn’t.
I fight the scowl on my face, at the fact that a landing ship in a digital landscape is currently tugging at my heartstrings. There’s a flutter in my stomach as Aaron nears the ground. He has a VR headset on. That I sent him. Things are different now; I’ve changed the dynamic of...whatever this is, and now we can see each other. Kinda. At least, the representations we show of one another, these digital facsimiles of who we really are.
But there’s clearly so much of him, right here, on his virtual sleeve. He just puts it all out there.
“What are your plans now?” I ask. “Now that they’ve fired you and all that.”
“It’s not so much the fact that they fired me, as it is he did. I thought we were friends,” Aaron returns. His ship nestles down on the ground, letting out a soft hiss. The cockpit opens up and he hops out, and I have to stifle a laugh. His avatar is staring around everywhere. His head looks up to the sky, he spins around in a circle, clearly taking it all in. And I get it. Rocking a VR headset in a game like this—there’s just so much to check out.
I clear my throat and he stops, spinning toward me.
“Oh. Hey,” he says with a little laugh. He walks in my direction, his movements still a little wonky, likely having a hard time getting the hang of the joysticks. “Whatever, though. I’m bummed I wasted so much time, but I’d rather not work with someone who’d rather align themselves with all this trolling nonsense, just to make money.”
“It’s just a win-win all around. I stop streaming, they win. Video game companies stay silent, they win. Sucks.”
“Yeah,” Aaron agrees.
There’s a quiet beat between us, and my heart flutters. I’m almost mad at myself for it, because...well, I’m staring at a generic video game avatar of someone. This isn’t him.
But at the same time, it is.
“Hey, D1V, look,” he starts, taking a few more steps toward me. His shoulders and head take up the frame now in my headset, and he tilts his head, looking at me, the headset responding to whatever he’s doing on that side. It doesn’t respond to every little movement—like, he can’t hug me, the world isn’t quite to the level of Ready Player One just yet—but tiny gestures like head movements and lifting your arms and waving your hands? That stuff registers.
“I can’t thank you enough,” he says. “For this.”
“It’s no problem,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat.
“No, but really. This means something to me. My family... They aren’t the most supportive of this. My love of this.” He gestures at the whole of what’s around him. “And then...my dad...” He’s stammering, and I hear him take a loud breath.
“What is it?”
“Well, he’s been hiding this game on the desktop in the office. In my mom’s practice. I don’t know why—it’s just some old game, it’s not like I’d judge him for it or something.” He clears his throat. “Though maybe my mom would. Maybe that’s the problem, why it’s happening.”
“Why what’s—” I start.
“He’s cheating on her,” Aaron says, his voice a bit softer now. His tone makes my breath catch in my throat. He sounds so...wounded. “I think. I found this letter. A whole folder full of documents that I haven’t gotten to peek at yet. But that one letter? It’s him confessing his feelings for someone else.” His avatar shakes his head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh God, Aaron,” I breathe. “I’m so, so sorry. I’ve...been there. With my dad, and all that. When he left. I know it’s not easy.”
“Yeah.” His voice sounds so dejected, and I’m not sure what else to say. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a sprawling lake, not too far from where we’ve landed. Maybe a little exploring will help take his mind off things.
“Come on,” I say, heading toward the lake.
Kerrigan is a gorgeous little planet, one of the first ones I claimed with my Armada. The resources here aren’t really worth anything, and what is here—things like wood, water, stone—everyone mostly leaves alone, so we can have this lovely landscape to just hang out in and wander. A home base. I named it after the iconic Zerg-Terran badass that is Kerrigan in the StarCraft series, her rage unforgiving and her love unrelenting. I’ve been telling Rebekah that I hope Christie Golden is at GamesCon this year, so I can gush about my love of her StarCraft novelizations.
When we reach the water, I glance over at Aaron, his gaze focused out across the horizon.
“Alright, I have a silly question,” I start, studying his avatar’s face.
“Okay?”
“What’s with the scar there?”
He laughs. “Oh. I, um, I got really into Lost one summer?” I hear the grin in his voice as he talks. “The entire series was on Netflix, and I had this really awful case of food poisoning from some takeout my mom had brought home, and playing games was just giving me a headache, so...”
“Netflix and ill?” I ask, immediately hating myself for the pun.
“Exactly.” His avatar looks out at the water and then back at me again. “My dad watched almost every episode with me, even though him and my mom had already watched it when it first aired. He’d seen it all, and still hung out. The scar on my avatar is just me being John Locke in my own little way.”
“I’m, um, not totally sure who that is.” I suck air through my teeth. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You ever listen to Moneen? Or like, emo or punk at all?”
“Um.” I think about it for a minute. I feel like these are things we skipped, in whatever this is that’s happening between us. The quirky get-to-know-you questions, like what kind of music do you like or what you binge-watched last on Netflix. Where do you want to go to college, or favorite colors, movies, foods. All replaced with wandering virtual planets and cataloging alien life for points.
Yet whatever I’m wrestling with in my chest here—it feels real enough, even without all the details.
Maybe we can learn those later.
God, what is happening?
“No, I... I don’t think so?” I say at last. “I’m more of a pop person, I guess?”
“They have this song,” he continues. “‘Don’t Ever Tell Locke What He Can’t Do.’ It’s kind of like a personal anthem for me.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard—”
“‘You trying to say we can’t?!’” he sings, loudly, terribly off key. “‘Yes I caaaaaaan! You can’t have all that you want? YES I CAAAAAAAAN!’”
I bust out laughing and can’t stop.
“What? You don’t like my singing?” he asks. “Are you...trying to say I can’t sing?”
“No!” I manage through the laughter. “I’d never—”
“Because ‘YES I CAAAAAAAAAN!’” he belts out again, prompting another fit of giggles. Once I’ve composed myself again, he adds, “Maybe I can take you record shopping someday.”
I feel my heartbeat go mad.
“Their album The Red Tree is so good,” he gushes. “And that song—whenever I hear it, I feel like I can do anything. With or without the support from my family, from the game company... Hey, wait, I have an idea!” I hear him fussing with something in the background, and his avatar goes a little bonkers, moving around this way and that, I’m guessing from him putting down the headset and the controllers. The sound of roaring guitars and an intense drumbeat suddenly rings through my ears, in the headset, and I see his
character straighten back out again.
Record shopping.
In real life.
“I figure we can listen to them together while we’re exploring. Maybe after a song, you can put on something you like, and—”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to meet up.” I feel the words rushing out of me, even as I try to hold them back. He’s sharing all this...personal stuff. He just keeps going. Way more personal than what we’ve dug into before in chats.
He wants to go record shopping. In person. I think about the used-record stores around Jersey City and Hoboken, their bins large and full of eager vinyl folders peeking over the top, primed for rummaging. I imagine our hands, making quick work of flipping through records together...and I have to shake the image away.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be,” I whisper.
The song stops.
There’s a beat, a pause in the air. I can hear the water lapping on the giant lake, the sounds of randomly generated creatures in the distance. The digital wind. I’ve ruined whatever moment this is—this was. But I’m just not ready yet.
Because none of this is real.
But maybe I want it to be.
Because some part of this, whatever is happening between us, is real.
And maybe I want it to be.
“That’s okay,” Aaron says, taking a step forward.
“Are you sure?” I ask, staring at him.
“I don’t need to see you, to see you,” he says, standing right in front of me. “I see you. I see all of you. With or without a headset.”
For a moment, I wish there wasn’t this digital space between us. An entire state. That I could reach out through the cables and data and code and grab the hands I see right there. The hands of this strange, quirky boy from a chat room and a video game. Who sings for me, even though I’d really rather he not.
But I can’t.
There’s a stinging in my eyes and the back of my throat, and it’s not just some wave of sadness. There’s this anger mixed with it, for the fear that’s been pressed into me. From the Vox Populi, the trolls, the people who harassed Rebekah and attacked my mom. I want to push past it, but it’s part of me. Like Rebekah said, I’ll carry it forever now, even though I don’t want to.