MetaGame

by Sam Landstrom

  “Sweeeet™, you didn’t crash out and flake our date!” she exclaimed. “You get extra points for that!” Fael reached over and scratched the back of his head like a good dog. D_Light threw out a half-cocked smile as he caught a whiff of her inviting perfume, an exotic blend of sandalwood and ardonna flower. However, he was quickly distracted by an ad forwarded to him by Fael that stated, “You need some R amp;R at Defraggers Spa and Luxury Resort™.” The ad included a construct video of Fael, sporting a skimpy bathing suit, beckoning to follow her as she bounced toward an immense, white sand beach.

  “So, what was the game?” Fael nonchalantly slid her fingers down the side of his face, playfully bouncing her hand off one of his wide shoulders and then returning her hand to her side.

  “Oh, it was a free-for-all. Four teams with three days to slap down as many points as possible in any way we could think.”

  Fael raised her eyebrows with apparent interest. D_Light continued with a tone of sarcastic smugness. “Yeah, your man here made all the difference. It was a cheap move, but I punched together some avatars that scored enough to win us the game. As a matter of fact, it was your mistress who paid the most for one of them.”

  “Mother Lyra bought one of your avatars?” Fael hopped and clasped her hands together like a happy toddler on her second birthday. “Small world!” she exclaimed.

  D_Light noticed that Fael often summoned a great deal of enthusiasm for the smallest things. But he supposed it was better than dates he’d had with players whose weary souls could barely summon a smile for anything.

  “Small world?” replied D_Light. “Not really. The game was closed to everyone outside the castle. There are only a couple thousand people here. But yeah, I suppose it’s an interesting coincidence.”

  “Perv me, I’m getting soft just listening to this shit!” someone in the congregation shouted. More laughter.

  My Soul, this is embarrassing! D_Light had never taken pride in his small talk skills, but normally his failures were more private. He had to wonder if anyone in his family would date him after this.

  Not missing a beat, Fael did a little skip, seemingly unconsciously. “I guess my mistress has good taste then. What avatar did she buy?”

  D_Light lowered his voice and muffled his answer. “Oh, it was a creature, a monster really. Part seagull and part-”

  Fael interrupted. “You didn’t! You created SeaGuy™?” She raised both hands to her mouth and gasped with disbelief.

  “You know my work then?” D_Light’s voice was elated.

  “Oh, my mistress has been parading that monstrosity through her chambers for the past two days!” Fael’s eyes widened, and she clasped D_Light’s shoulders and shook him violently. She then pushed him back with mock disgust. “It’s disturbing, really! I mean, the seagull’s head…its beak is constantly dripping with blood, its eyes are demonic green. Its voice-its voice is straight from hell!” Fael laughed.

  “Yep, that’s why I knew someone would bid high for it. It’s got local appeal.” D_Light did a quick little dance consisting of a few slides of his feet coordinated with the tilting of his head. This was a shortened version of what he liked to call his “victory jig.”

  “Living on the ocean, we do have our share of flying rats.” Fael paused, pursed her chiseled lips, and then punched him hard in the shoulder. “D_Light, you’re sick! Flip, I ought to resubmit for another date right now!”

  “But we won,” D_Light reiterated, resisting the temptation to rub his now throbbing shoulder. Fael was as strong as she was beautiful.

  She nodded. “Anyway, what are you doing grinding away on productive work? I thought you engineers were all hopelessly addicted to spank games.” Fael put her hand on her chest, which she puffed out imperiously. “Personally, I don’t need spank games. I’m a handmaiden of the royal court, so I have plenty of palace intrigue to amuse me.”

  D_Light nodded. “Oh, I’m plenty addicted, but I know how to control myself-er, at least a little. I try to play just enough to keep in shape and to unwind, but it’s really easy to go overboard.” D_Light raised his eyebrows as though he was about to give the girl an education. “Take my friend C. He just got off an eight-day binge. Even the peps weren’t helping. He was actually starting to hallucinate! And you say I’m sick?”

  “Yeah, domination baby!” D_Light recognized his friend C’s voice in the distance.

  “Sure, I already called you sick, and I meant it,” Fael replied with a playful smirk.

  “Yeah, I am sick,” continued D_Light, “because I actually felt jealous of poor C. Jealous he had all that time to spank while I was grinding. If I let myself, I’d be there too, letting it suck me up. And then what? Spank games don’t pay out enough, and I’d end up getting demoted a level.” D_Light shook his head and looked to the side.

  “And then you’d be in an even worse dating pool than you are now,” teased Fael, sticking out her tongue at him in a lighthearted manner.

  Fael strolled ahead, bouncing slightly as she walked. “Seriously though, present company excluded, if the dating pool was any worse, I think I’d have to frag myself.”

  D_Light laughed genuinely. “So true! I’ve been on nothing but stinkers lately. You know, the dating program should be pretty good. I know one of the lead software engineers-a sister of ours, actually-and she’s a good player, a real high scorer. I think she’s even nobility bound.”

  Fael turned around and walked backwards, facing him while she talked. “Sometimes I wish they’d just let us choose, you know?”

  “Sure, but you earn more points if you play MatchMaker™,” D_Light reminded her. “Besides, it’s not about whose company you prefer, it’s about what’s best for you. Humans are notoriously stupid when it comes to knowing what’s best for them in regard to the opposite sex.”

  Fael pouted. “Hmm, well, you need to ask your software engineer friend how she knows what’s best for me, unless her program is trying to teach me the lesson of futility. In that case, tell her-”

  Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by an ear-piercing wail of sirens. Instinctively, D_Light spun around quickly and took a brief but thorough look at the other players in the hall. Presently, there were only the two marketers nearby. Both men had turned to face Fael and D_Light. Their eyes were wide, and the color had already drained from their frightened faces. Fear was good. That was safe. The shrieking siren died down after only a few seconds and was then replaced by a low, rhythmic pulse. Over the audio a sharp female voice intoned, “House Rule Number Seven is now in effect. All house players are now available for termination.”

  “Oh, Flip_It™!” Fael squeaked nervously. “Guess the hunt is on.”

  Back in the cathedral, the excitement was palpable. A male member of the congregation shouted, “Game on, bitches!” This was accompanied by cheers.

  “I say we sit this one out,” suggested D_Light to his date.

  Fael looked over with sarcastic coyness and replied, “Your place or mine then?”

  Whistles and catcalls erupted from the congregation.

  “I’m closer, I think. Follow me.” D_Light waved for her to follow, and Fael eagerly complied.

  As was usual during Number Seven, the SkinWare soon shut down. Without a skin showing you the way, the castle was pitch black at night. To mitigate this, white-burning torches placed evenly along the walls flared up with a glow that, under other circumstances, might have been romantic.

  D_Light led the way running, not at a full sprint, but certainly faster than a jog. Others were running too, some of them in a panic, like frightened rabbits, making them tempting targets. As he came across other players in the hallway, he presented his hands to them, palms up, and they did the same. Each made a point of making eye contact and nodding in a reassuring fashion while skirting around one another.

  Up the spiral staircase they scrambled. D_Light hated winding stairs, as they limited visibility to only a few steps ahead-a likely ambush point to be sure. Perhaps
there was a flake waiting on the steps, blade raised. He quickly erased the thought from his mind and focused his attention on the task at hand.

  Strategically, he kept to the outer wall, almost flat against it. He wanted to move quickly, but he did not want to run headlong into the wrong player. With a quick thought, he ordered Smorgeous to go up ahead. It was against the rules to use familiars as scouts while Rule Seven was in effect, but he had always worried about this staircase. Hopefully, his little cheat would go unnoticed.

  D_Light twisted slightly, bumping into Fael’s familiar, a tan and white creature stylized as a fox. The familiar looked up at him with its big, pale, dispassionate blue eyes. It was constantly shifting its attention all around, its head swiveling unnaturally, like a cannon in a turret. A few steps below stood Fael. D_Light smiled down at her and touched his index finger to his lips to indicate quiet. She smiled back, or at least that’s what he thought. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking and it was really nothing more than a twitching of the corners of her mouth.

  They waited there for only a second, and he took that brief moment to find the key to his chamber and clasp it in his sweaty palm. Distantly, echoing through the stone corridors, there was shouting and screaming. Smorgeous gave the all clear, prompting D_Light to whisper with a hiss, “Okay, run!”

  D_Light bounded up the steps as fast as he could, momentarily catching up to his familiar. The door to his chamber was near the top of the stairs. Across from his door on the hallway wall hung a painting of a lone, jagged rock under siege by savage green ocean waves. D_Light had used his door countless times before, but since so many of the castle halls and doors looked alike, the memorable painting offered a welcome confirmation that he was indeed at the right door. Soft, glowing light filtered through a nearby window. The moon, perhaps. He did not have time to look or care, as he was intent on the lock. Jamming the key in the hole, he opened the portal. He turned his head just before throwing himself in, and as he did so, he saw something that made his blood turn to ice.

  The torches played tricks with light, for sure, but D_Light thought he saw something down at the end of the hall-something hideous that moved fast from one wall to the next with inhuman speed. He stifled an unmanly yelp and pulled Fael into the chamber with him.

  The door slammed shut, and the two stood motionless, breathing hard. As they caught their breath, with the sturdy door between them and whatever was on the outside, the weary duo soon found themselves at ease enough to laugh. The familiars made no noise, but merely watched, taking it all in.

  Fael rested her hand on her heaving chest. Her smooth forehead glistened slightly with sweat. Eyes wide, jaw dropped, she asked, “Did you see that thing?”

  “What, down the hall?” D_Light inquired.

  “Yeah, just as you opened the door, I saw what I…I think it was a man. Or not a man,” she whispered between breaths.

  D_Light nodded. “I thought I saw something, but just barely,” he said with uncertainly.

  Fael blinked hard, rubbed her eyes, and said, “I just saw the face, er, mask. It looked like a lion or something truly ghastly! I just got a glimpse, but it was enough.”

  D_Light chuckled. “If you’re trying to get me in the mood by scaring me, well, you don’t need to.”

  With that, she grabbed his stomach lightly and squeezed. “Hey, you’re the ghastly beast, D_Light. I’m serious about the lion. I’m a very serious girl. You’ll see.” D_Light, a bit ticklish, recoiled from her menacing fingers and smiled wryly.

  “Yeah, serious is the first word that comes to mind when thinking of you.” D_Light took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, still recovering from the frantic race to his dwelling.

  “Okay, so it was a mask? How do you know it was a man?”

  “’Cause it had the body of a man, kinda fat too.” She poked at him again.

  D_Light parried her poke and lunged at her flank with two fingers. “Okay, so there’s a fat guy running around my hallway with a lion mask on?”

  Fael gave a strong confirming nod and replied, “Yeah, pretty hot, huh? Maybe I should invite him in?” She made a mock motion for the door, giggling like a child.

  “This sucks!” yelled someone from the congregation. “Get it on, already!” yelled another.

  “Yeah, now we’re having fun! I’ve always thought that getting hunted in my own home would be a great icebreaker with the ladies-just never had the opportunity to test my theory until tonight!” Without thinking, D_Light put his left hand up on the door as though he meant to block her exit.

  “Well, your theory might be correct.” She squealed and slapped his hand as he managed to prod her in the ribs with a finger from his right hand.

  It was about then that D_Light realized that he probably hadn’t looked all that cool running around like a frightened rabbit out there while Number Seven was in effect. Worse was the absolute silliness of this poking and prodding dance between himself and Fael; obviously, his techniques of wooing the ladies had not changed since he was a young boy. Soul, I really should take some time to come up with some new moves, he thought while redirecting his attention back to the subject at hand.

  “So, I s’pose the mask is meant to frighten the wits out of anyone he gets the jump on,” mused D_Light as he made a mock lunge at his date, abandoning his earlier notion that his physical flirtations were lame.

  “Sure, when you turn your back to run, it’s easy to get a knife stuck in it,” replied Fael, retreating from D_Light’s tickling fingers. She sank down into a spongy moss chair that conformed perfectly to her body. Fael, a forty-eight-year-old woman with the body and skin of someone less than half her age, suddenly looked even younger as she slouched back and casually draped a long, lean leg over the arm of the chair. D_Light felt something stir in him, and while reveling in the feeling, he nearly failed to notice that the luscious creature was again speaking to him.

  “Truly, anyone who actually participates in Seven is already a bit dodgy, but someone who uses a mask, actually employs props? Now that’s downright sick!” She crinkled her face in disgust and relaxed back into the chair.

  “With the psychos out there, I guess we’re just stuck in my room for…a whole hour.”

  Wow, that wasn’t very subtle, D_Light thought.

  Fael laughed. “Yes, your rather…er, depressing room.” Fael surveyed the chamber with her dark, sculpted eyebrows raised high. “You know, I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but your room could use a little color, don’t you think? I mean, I know you want to keep that naturally drafty castle look and all, but um, I don’t know, maybe a little artwork?”

  D_Light forced a mock smile-lips pursed tightly-and gave Fael a look to indicate that he was indeed listening, but not particularly pleased with what he was hearing. He liked his minimalist surroundings. He had all the essentials-two chairs, a desk, a table, and a bed. As a bonus, he even had a few plants to make the room smell nice and provide nectar snacks.

  “And yes,” Fael continued, “I think our only option is to hide. After all, I left my sword in my chamber. I realize plebs get rowdy at comedies sometimes, but when I left my chamber this evening I didn’t expect I’d have to shed any blood!”

  D_Light took another decisive step toward her. Now standing between her spread legs, looking down at the woman sprawled out on his favorite chair, D_Light took the opportunity to thoroughly check her out once again. Nope, she certainly wasn’t carrying a sword. Not a lot she could be carrying at all, he thought.

  There was a moment of silence in the archive. A congregation member yelled out, “Go, Deee!” There was more whistling, but the cathedral quickly grew silent. No one wanted to miss what seemed to be imminent.

  CHAPTER 3

  Why are spank games, games of entertainment, required by divine law to include physical activity? Why can’t we play spank games lying still in our beds as past generations?

  Sloth is a sin for a reason. Inactivity has a price. Although modern medicine is cap
able of keeping anyone fit regardless of their activity level, it costs more to keep the slothful healthy than it does to keep the active man so. Thus, the sideliner can opt for lazy virtual reality spank games, but those of us in the Game, we have to play by the rules.

  — Excerpt from “The Rules: A Life Primer”

  “Rule Seven is beastly, don’t you think?” asked Fael. “I mean, I have heard the reasons-that it provides an outlet for aggression, that is helps bring in new blood, provides incentive for players to be more civil to one another, but…I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, on that last point, SirRuthless-I don’t know if you knew him-got fragged about a year ago?” D_Light asked.

  Fael looked at him blankly, so D_Light continued. “Anyway, he was a real bastard to everyone, and so when the opportunity came, he got fragged. You think twice before you disrespect a player in this house ’cause you could find yourself on the wrong side of a knife after the bell rings.”

  Fael’s eyes flipped up momentarily, often a sign of communing with one’s familiar. “Oh yes, I did know SirRuthless. You know, he wasn’t so bad. I saw the archive of his fragging. They ganged up on him. It was terrible!”

  D_Light scoffed, “Sure, I bet he was a real pussycat to you. No handmaiden of Mother Lyra is going to get disrespect.”

  Another from the congregation, possibly C, shouted, “NOOb, get on with it!” The exclamation was followed by laughter throughout the congregation.

  Fael’s voice was sober. “Ha, you’d be surprised. Anyway, I don’t buy any of those reasons for Number Seven.”

  “Just entertainment, eh?” D_Light smirked.

  Fael nodded. “Something like that.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed momentarily as though she had just remembered a troubling thought. Then, without warning, she all but flung herself out of the deep-cushioned seat and turned her attention to the chamber again. Ivory flames licked out from torches in each corner. Flickering light and shadows battled for supremacy on the rough-hewn walls. There was a single window nearby, and she walked over to it. “My, you have a view-of the ocean, no less! You must be a pretty good boy around here.” Her voice sounded like it was meant to be a purr, but there was stickiness beneath it.