by Terry Schott
Chapter 7
It was days before Alexandra Montoyas heard the news. She had spent the last year in public school; there wasn’t much time to watch the news.
Since walking away from the Game, life had become a nightmare from which Alexandra couldn’t seem to wake up.
Alexandra, or Alex, as her friends called her, was always a fairly normal and unremarkable child. For the first few years of her career she’d been a very mediocre player in the Game. Each play was a struggle just to earn enough points to be able to buy her way into the next playing session.
Life for Alex had changed when a few well spent credits — her last credits — placed her life close to some high ranked players in the Game. Purchased serendipity and good luck resulted in her game avatar marrying the number 400 ranked player. That marriage led to her giving birth to the number 1209 ranked player, who played extremely well, finishing his play ranked 642 thanks in large part to Alex’s parenting. That was enough to do two things; finish her play with extra credits to spend on further upgrades, and allow her to continue playing the Game. It also earned her some attention. She began to attract fans.
Every player dreamed of building a fan following. Fans talked about your virtual lives in the Game. They started fan clubs and discussion boards to talk about your plays and how it affected other Gamers. Fans made you into a celebrity, with status. Wealthy fans bought your virtual life experiences or “plays,” plugging into their own virtual reality simulators (simplified models that allowed only a portion of the experience, but still very real entertainment) so that they could experience some of your life in the Game as you had lived it. Fans recommended you to their friends, who soon became fans as well. The real key to becoming wealthy after you turned 18 was in gaining fans who would continue to spend money on your past lives, which would keep money rolling into your bank account long after you left the Game.
At the age of 15, Alex had found herself becoming a Gaming superstar. She was soon offered a Patronage, and with that backing, the next two years were an incredible climb up the standings of players. Moving from a ranking of around 922 million to one of the top million players in the world (ranking 849,000 was still burned into her mind as one incredibly happy day!), Alex had become a popular player to follow.
Then Alex had met Zack. They began to move in the same circles, running into each other more frequently as Alex climbed the social ladder. Soon they became friends and, not long after that, the friendship blossomed into romance. They were the talk of the airwaves, two popular and successful celebrities dating; just what fans craved.
Alex had it all; fame, fortune and the adoration of millions. Zack was an amazing boyfriend, and she woke up happy each day that her life was going so well. She felt as if nothing could go wrong!
Then one decision and some very bad luck took it all away.
Alex and Zack had come up with an exciting plan, deciding to carry their relationship into the Game. It had been done many times throughout the history of the Game, but when the press got word of Alex and Zack’s plan, fans everywhere became excited to see how it would turn out. Pre-orders for their next incarnations started to pour in. The world became obsessed with what would happen when Alex and Zack’s avatars hooked up in the Game. Would they fall in love and be happy? Would they miss each other and live two houses apart their whole lives, never knowing who the other was inside the Game and missing out on big chances to advance in standing? Would they marry and fall out of love, maybe having affairs and becoming miserable in their virtual lives because of each other? The possibilities were endless and everyone had their own opinion on how it would turn out. No matter what happened, everyone agreed it would be an incredible story to watch.
Alex and Zack spent weeks coming up with their strategy. What credits to spend on which aspects of their next Game lives to try and ensure they would end up together?
Zack had no trouble spending credits, as a top player his supply seemed endless, but Alex soon found that the Game demanded a lot of precious credits for such an aggressive plan. By the time everything was in place, she had spent everything she had on this adventure. She was nervous about it, but her patron and Zack’s assured her that the rewards were worth the risk.
The young couple bought the best help and direction that money could provide to help them outline their next ‘lives’ properly. The strategy was for them to be born and grow up in the same town together. In their early twenties, they would fall in love and have an incredible life together. Living a life in the Game with Zack would guarantee large profits for her in Game credits. It would be an exciting adventure with only a slim chance of failure. Everyone agreed, Alex was wise to spend all her points for this opportunity. The statistical odds of only a .02% chance for complete failure virtually guaranteed that even if lots of things went off track during her play, she would still earn a fortune in credits. Her hope was that by the end of this play she would either become a top 100 ranked player or, at the very least, do well and still gain a wealth of Game credits to keep her going.
With much excitement and fanfare, Alex and Zack entered the Game. The whole world was watching, planning for a great show, but immediately the worst happened, and what had seemed like the best career move quickly turned into a devastating mistake.
Alexandra’s entire career as a Gamer came crashing to an end when, ten minutes after entering the game, she opened her eyes, not in the Game, but in the white room. The extremely slight .02% chance of failure had occurred, and the virtual life that she had spent everything on to experience ended prematurely as her avatar died during childbirth.
A very low ranked player had spent all of his credits to become a doctor and positioned himself to deliver Alex’s avatar in the Game. Just delivering a top ranked player like this would seriously raise his overall ranking. The player should never have been a doctor, and lack of Game experience combined with not spending nearly enough credits on luck —something every experienced player knew was necessary when playing a doctor in the Game — resulted in labour complications and the baby —Alex — had died.
In the blink of an eye, faster than you can snap your fingers, Alex was ruined. Suddenly she found herself in the worst position a Gamer can imagine — not having enough credits to buy admission back into the Game. She’d spent everything she had; even re-entering the Game as an insect or a small plant was too expensive for her. She was now an ex-player without enough credits to even buy herself admission into a public school. She had become one of the poor.
Alex had only considered life without the Game once, years ago when she’d spent all her points to gamble for a better play. The Game had helped her then, and life had become a dream. Now the Game appeared to have turned its back on her. It was Game Over.
Immediately after leaving the white building, a messenger had greeted her to deliver her first blow — a message from her Patron announcing that she was exercising her escape clause in their agreement. This meant Alex didn’t have a place to live or food to eat. Now, like all non-Gaming children over the age of 14 who possessed no credits, she was a ward of the State. This meant she would be required to live in a compound where she would be fed and clothed, trained to be a labourer and then discharged at age 18 to live out her life as the lowest and poorest of society.
By the time Zack finished his Game, weeks had passed and Alex was gone, invisible to the world and the wealthy. He never found her; Alex was certain he hadn’t even bothered to look. Everyone knew what happened when a kid could no longer buy their way into the Game; any chance for a good life was over. This was a society that valued the winners — losers were quickly forgotten. It was best for everyone to accept the reality and move on with their lives.
That had been almost a year ago; a miserable year for Alex, full of pain, heartache and sorrow.
Public school turned out to be slavery. Alex was quickly transported to a dirty, smelly building and handed filthy, grubby clothes. Orientation for new students revealed that �
��school’ was actually a life spent from sun up to sundown doing the dirtiest work society had to offer — taking away garbage, cleaning the sewer systems, sweeping away the incredible amounts of refuse created by the wealthy.
The jobs that didn’t involve filth and stench were even worse; moving and lifting heavy refuse, learning how to fix the broken and thrown away machinery from the wealthy regions. All the junk had to go somewhere, and the school where Alex was sent to took care of most of it. Large, hot factories that melted down old steel and plastic to be sent back to other schools as raw material for constructing new toys for the rich is where many students found themselves. Each day was spent lifting heavy objects, doing backbreaking work, and toiling in filthy conditions to keep the city functioning for the wealthy. Her other concerns consisted of scrambling for enough food to keep her strength and avoiding the gangs of violent workers that would band together to bully the weaker individuals into doing the worst of the work while they kept the best food for themselves and worked very little.
At first Alex had wanted to die, but she quickly learned that no one would let her. She was still a celebrity, but now her fans were the poor. Poor fans didn’t look up to their celebrities, they mocked and hurt them. Most of the workers, the Caste, as they were called, had failed out of the Game. The one thing that seemed to help them forget their own loss and misery was revelling in the loss and misery of others. The higher one rose in the Game, the happier the Caste were when they fell, and the more miserably they treated the fallen one.
The area that Alex was transferred to contained many fallen, but none who had fallen so far as her. She was instantly the lowest of the low. Not just a fallen, it became her title: “Fallen.”
This meant Alex was the most hated person in her school.
“Move over, Fallen. Real workers coming through. You had enough food before you got here, Fallen, we’ll just take your dinner tonight. Sleep in another corner, Fallen. My luck’s already bad enough. People close to you get beaten. Fallen can do that job, the worst work for the worst luck.” This was how the others tormented her. The kind ones just taunted her, others hunted her down and beat her, took her food, and did whatever they could think of to hurt her if they caught her off guard.
Late at night, with rats for company, she would drop to the ground wherever she could find an out of the way spot and try to sleep. Her body would be exhausted enough most nights, but sleep, when it would come, never lasted long enough to allow her to rest. Thought was the enemy if you were Caste, although most of them seemed to think very little.
Alex — “Fallen” — thought way too much. Most of the time her thoughts were occupied by The Game and the lie that it was; a lie that everyone had bought into. Working in the sewers and bowels of the city, it was plain to see that the Game hadn’t improved peoples’ lives as promised. The rich were still rich, the poor were still poor. Nothing could change that, she thought to herself miserably.