MetaGame

by Sam Landstrom

  “Because you earn reduced rent if you allow public access,” D_Light answered. “And believe me, if you’re spending all your time spanking, you need to keep your expenses down.”

  Lyra snapped her fingers. “Right, but a demon would not elect for that. A demon would want privacy.”

  “That’s my expectation,” confirmed D_Light, “but that brings up a good question. How is a demon able to pay for anything at all? Their status is illegal, so they can’t play the Game of Life, earn points, or spend them.”

  Lyra brought in a sharp breath. “Oh, I researched that. Demons typically use what are called ‘proxies.’ A proxy is a player with an account who conducts transactions on the part of the demon. Demons usually pay the proxy with hard currency-you know, sideliner money.”

  “Sounds like a dangerous profession,” Amanda purred, her long canines flashing as the words slipped out. It was disquieting to hear Djoser’s bodyguard speak, mainly because D_Light had only heard her speak once or twice thus far. Indeed, he had nearly forgotten she was there.

  “But lucrative, no doubt,” added Djoser, who wrapped his arm around Amanda’s waist; she arched her back subtly to accommodate him. The nobleman then looked over at D_Light and spoke to him directly. “Okay, so if we find a female living in a private flat, there’s a good chance she’s a demon. Or maybe we should be looking in the bushes. Why would a demon want to pay rent anyway?”

  Just then, a bleary-eyed man in a grass-stained skinsuit jogged up the hill toward Lyra.

  “Yo, Amber, you here for the PartyMiiix?” he asked.

  In a flash, Brian, with a snarl on his face, was between Lyra and the man.

  “Um, yeah, I guess not,” the spanker muttered and then trotted back down.

  D_Light took another look around. Like most residential areas, this ghetto appeared to have perfectly manicured landscaping with little in the way of underbrush. “I doubt there is enough natural cover here to hide for very long,” he answered. “Most everyone’s living in these mounds.” He pointed at one of the towering grassy hills. “You can bet all that real estate under there is inhabited.”

  “Who says the demon lives here?” asked Lyra. “Maybe it’s just passing through. Don’t make any assumptions unless you have good reason for it.”

  D_Light nodded thoughtfully. “Could just be passing through. That would be easier yet. Check this. Since a demon doesn’t have an account, it’s not going to be plugged into a game. Look around you. Pretty much everyone’s jacked in. If we see someone walking around normally-”

  “Especially a woman,” Djoser interjected.

  “Yes, especially a woman,” D_Light said. “But I’d bet the demon is living here. Soul, this would be a clever place to hide! Everyone’s jacked in, so who would notice you? Who would even see you? You could hide right out in the open. To someone who wants to get lost, someone who’s not a spanker, living here is like living in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Nowhere, officially known as Anywhere,” Lyra quipped.

  “What did I tell you all? MetaGames are the best!”

  Djoser sighed. “Nevertheless, if the demon is just passing through, then we had better get looking real fast.”

  Djoser tugged on one of the numerous tails of hair sprouting from Amanda’s head. “You, my dear, are the fastest of us all. Why don’t you have a quick look around?”

  Amanda gave a curt nod and then sprinted off without uttering a word. The product did not have a familiar and so would have to rely on her mind interface chip to grok those she saw. The additional processing power of a familiar would be more efficient, but since Amanda now knew the profile of the prime suspects, she could focus her processing power on just those who were of particular interest.

  Watching the genetically engineered product running off, Lyra asked, “Should we worry that she might tip off the demon?” The noblewoman looked noticeably vexed.

  Djoser shrugged. “Look around-lots of people are running toward or away from Soul knows what. It’s like everyone is narced out in a wrong way. Nah, she’ll fit right in.”

  “Everyone is running for their virtual lives, eh?” Lyra stared at D_Light for a moment until he realized that she was talking to him, at which point he smiled awkwardly and nodded.

  Wanting to cover as much territory as possible in the least amount of time, Lyra then ordered Brian to take leave of her and assist Amanda in the search for possible suspects. Brian was quick to protest, insisting it was unsafe to leave the two nobles completely unprotected, but Lyra assured him that they would be fine in his absence. Hesitantly, the dutiful bodyguard set out to the streets, holding his trusted mace, Tiffany, firmly at his side.

  “So, with the hired help doing their little ad hoc search, what does that leave for us to do?” asked Djoser, his voice sounding bored.

  “I’ll show you,” D_Light called back over his shoulder as he jogged down the hill. The others followed, somewhat reluctantly, into the entrance of the nearest apartment mound.

  “My bet is that the demon is holed up somewhere in these mounds,” D_Light said.

  “What do you propose we do, advisor?” Djoser asked.

  “Knock on the doors and give a sales pitch? There must be a thousand apartments in this ghetto!”

  “More apartments than we could know,” Lyra said as she pressed her hand against the soft, fuzzy dro-vine wall. “These mounds are living things. The walls, the floors-everything’s alive.”

  “Yeah, D, this whole ghetto is constantly shifting its halls and chambers around. My guess is the whole complex has gone feral, so forget about a rational floor plan,” Djoser said.

  “And I can’t even call up a nanosite map! What kind of backwater is this?” Lyra asked as she stared down at her familiar.

  “Anywhere’s like anywhere else-there’s nanosites covering everything and everyone, but spankers usually opt out of allowing their community maps to go public. Remember, this isn’t just a place to live, it’s one big gaming labyrinth. Having a real-time map would spoil the fun.”

  “Sounds great so far,” Djoser said sarcastically as he bounced a few times on the spongy floor. “So let’s cut to the master plan here.”

  “You mentioned going door to door with a fake sales pitch? Yeah, that might work, except I don’t mean to knock on every door. Remember what I said about a demon opting for a private apartment? I recommend we just check the doors that are off-limits to the spank games. That’ll narrow it down a whole lot…and as far as mapping goes, we’re just going to have to explore manually and let our familiars keep track of where we’ve been.”

  Lyra looked unconvinced. “Well, why don’t you enlighten us nOObs on how we are to ID the apartments that are off-limits. Do they have a sign on the door, or do we have to jack into a spank game or something?”

  “Exactly!” D_Light said. “Yeah, when you’re in a spank game you don’t even see the private doors, but of course those outside the game can see them.” D_Light walked over to a nearby silver plexi apartment door. “So obviously this door exists, right? But let’s say this is the door to a private apartment and I’m jacked into a spank game.”

  “You won’t see it. It’ll be skinned as like a wall or something,” Lyra said with a smile.

  D_Light touched his finger to his nose to indicate “spot on.”

  Master, that gesture is obsolete and 83.6 % likely to incite negative feedback from your peers. Would you like me to demonstrate a more fashionable-

  Not now, Smorgeous.

  “If you say so,” Djoser said skeptically. “So what? You have to be jacked in and jacked out at the same time to see the real door that doesn’t exist in make-believe?”

  “Yes,” D_Light affirmed. “I’ll jack into a spank game, and Smorgeous, my familiar, will ping the locations of those doors that appear in the real world, but do not exist in the game. Those will be the private doors.”

  Lyra nodded. “And that’s when I knock on the door and ask them if they’re interest
ed in a once-in-a-lifetime offer for reducing their rent, and all they have to do is open their apartment up to the games.”

  “You two are beautiful together,” Djoser said dryly.

  D_Light laughed. “Nice. We then grok whoever is at the door.” D_Light took a moment to access Smorgeous and then said, “The family that manages this zone is called Gallant Guild. We’ll just say that we’re representatives of G amp;G.”

  “You want me to do door-to-door sales?” Djoser clutched at his chest.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do it because I’ll be jacked into the spank game,” D_Light replied apologetically. “It’ll be more efficient if I don’t have to jack in and out.”

  Lyra frowned. “That sounds like fun, D, but Djoser and I are not exactly dressed as salespeople.”

  D_Light took note that Lyra had just addressed him by his nickname. He liked that. “I’m not exactly sure how salespeople dress, but I think you should at least consider hiding your royal seals. And I recommend you do the talking, Lyra. Once they see you, they’ll believe anything you say. Remember, spankers are mostly men.” He gave Lyra a flirtatious wink.

  “Well, well, look at you, D!” exclaimed Lyra, smiling wryly. “Feeling pretty comfortable now, I see.” D_Light smiled bashfully.

  “And I will do what?” asked Djoser, who was clearly irritated by the back-and-forth banter between D_Light and Lyra. “Oh, I know, maybe I can do the sales pitch to the gay spankers,” Djoser said sarcastically.

  Lyra smiled sweetly. “No, Djoser my dear, as much as I’d enjoy watching you work your charm with the gentlemen of this ghetto, we need you on security detail. Remember, it’s not the spankers we care about, it’s the demon, and if the demon thinks there’s something up, there might be trouble.” Lyra’s expression became serious. “You need to stay alert and keep your hand near your hilt.”

  “True, and I’ll be jacked in, so I won’t accurately see what’s going on,” D_Light added.

  Djoser glared at D_Light, a slow smile spreading across his face as though he was thinking, Like you would be of any use anyway. “Funny, I thought we brought bodyguards for that very purpose,” he said.

  Lyra rolled her eyes. “Look, we’ve all lived under Rule Seven for decades, right? I would hope the three of us could handle one demon.”

  D_Light thought about his throwing discs, Djoser’s short curved sword, and Lyra’s unmatched skill with open-hand martial arts fighting styles. Yes, his mother was correct that they had all become resourceful in combat in their own individual ways. From the day they joined House Tesla, this had been a priority.

  Djoser looked skeptical. “Yeah, well, demons are not constrained by divine law, so we’re likely to be up against modern weapons. We’d better not get confrontational. Let’s just ID the bastard and call it in.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Dro-vine is the wood and steel of the present day. Why waste resources and labor to build a house when you can grow one from seed? If you want to get fancy about it, build some synthetic stairs and some basic skeletal framing. The dro-vine will happily grow over your scaffolding; however, don’t expect this plant to do exactly what you planned! Because of its variability, dro-vine is not for the control freak, but rather for those who want a cheap yet comfortable place to live. To grow a house, just find some land and plant one-that is, if this ubiquitous organism hasn’t already colonized the area on its own.

  Thanks to hyper-photosynthesis during the growing season, dro-vine goes from seed to a small cocoon large enough to sleep in within two weeks. Within a month, you’ll have yourself a small home, complete with several chambers. What makes dro-vine brilliant is how it naturally forms cavities in itself, which tend to connect with one another.

  To make a door from one cavity to another, you simply cut out a rectangular hole in the wall and place a hinged door in the opening. The dro-vine, in an attempt to fill the hole, will grow over the hinges, but it won’t grow over the door itself since such doors are coated with chemi suppression enzymes suspended in a tough polymer. However, if you really want to be lazy, don’t even bother with a door. Just cut an upside down “T” slit (like an old camping tent) and treat the edges of the wound with the suppression enzyme to keep the wound from healing.

  Cutting windows is even easier than doors, but why bother? In our minds, SkinWare can adorn the chamber walls, ceiling, and floor with any vista we desire-from faraway canyons, to the ocean, to a rainforest, to the Martian landscape-all in real time (with a little over a three-minute delay in the case of the Mars scenery)…

  In summary, I’m afraid that for those of us who enjoy the building games, we had better forget about the mass market and focus our play on the distinctive but often unpredictable tastes of the rich.

  — Excerpt from “The New Builder’s Game,” presented by Might_E1

  D_Light heard the familiar whistling noise as he jacked into NeverWorld. The hallway that connected the apartments of this floor was brightly lit in real life, with subdued shades of green and brown Van Gogh swirls for walls and a bright green mossy floor, but as his nervous system plunged into the game, the light dimmed and the hallway turned to rough-hewn stone. Torches spaced at regular intervals materialized to light the way. In the distance he heard someone screaming. A woman, he thought, being tortured. Or perhaps it was just a lure set by some clever fiend, patiently waiting for a hero to fall for the ruse.

  There were the sounds of other creatures too-faint groaning, the occasional snarl, the familiar distant clang of metal against metal signaling combat underway. And there were more ordinary sounds, like the subtle cacophony of dripping water from a thousand sources. This labyrinth, its hallways and chambers filled to the brim with terrors and treasures, was leaky, dank, and in great need of repair.

  The smell of rotting flesh-faint, but unpleasant just the same-permeated everything. Olfactory input in NeverWorld was not as sophisticated as auditory or visual, being less important for game play, but the game did have a few scents in its inventory. Unfortunately, most of them were foul. Rotting was particularly popular. The rotten stench of death left by carcasses in the battlefield, the pungent aroma of moldy food abandoned by the long since ambushed caravan, and the ogre’s breath (who lived on an assortment of Soul knew what).

  D_Light had barely acclimated to his surroundings when the sound of heavy footsteps caught his attention. They were close by and growing louder. Without hesitation, he summoned an invisibility spell. Waving one hand while tracing a symbol in the air with the other, he murmured an arcane phrase. As his spell completed, D_Light was relieved to discover that he could no longer see his own hand. That was a good thing, as he sometimes made mistakes, especially when rushed.

  The spell took effect none too soon, for only a few seconds later, a lumbering beast of a creature turned the corner and headed in his direction. A maltoc, as the creature was called, resembled a man only in its general shape, having two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. This was fitting, given that maltocs were human before their corruption by Salem, the son of Pheobah, the Dark Queen. But the maltoc’s general shape and size was the end of the similarities between these nasties and men. Bristling, greasy hair covered mounds of muscles and other more irregular and freakish lumps. Through the amorphous face peered beady, pink eyes, which glistened slightly in the torchlight of the hall. Around the eyes were crimson red sockets that excreted thin trickles of blood down its wrinkly face-a face that most closely resembled raw hamburger. The creature did not breathe as it stalked, for it had no nose or mouth; only its footfalls betrayed its passing. Maltocs, incidentally, were only lesser devils, but nonetheless, they were not something to be trifled with.

  Having played NeverWorld for countless hours in the past, D_Light’s gaming habits were nearly hardwired. He had to fight the urge to blast this nasty in the back as it passed by him. “Nasties” was the term spankers used for computer-generated enemies in the game, and destroying them was one way to get points in NeverWorld and build up t
he power of the character one played. He had to remind himself of his purpose here-he was not here for treasure or glory in battle, but to look for doors or the absence thereof. For D_Light, this was a sort of agony, akin to sending a gambler into a casino just to count men with brown hair. It was a numbingly mundane task in an exciting world.

  Two ghosts stood nearby, one to his left and another just behind. They looked like human-shaped jellyfish with only the very edges of their bodies highlighted by thin, translucent lines, while the fill of the form was nearly transparent. D_Light supposed the ghosts to be Lyra and Djoser, but he could not ascertain which was which because NeverWorld rarely skinned objects or people as they looked in the real world. In fact, one could never predict how the game’s artificial intelligence would skin non-game objects and creatures. From the game’s perspective, it was only important to make clear who was a spanker and who was not. Skinning non-spankers as benign ghosts enabled those submerged in the game to identify the non-players without losing the continuity of the game.

  Both ghosts had the appearance of being men. One was an old man with an unrelenting crooked smile, wearing only wisps of rags. The other was younger, although D_Light could barely tell because the man’s face-his entire head, actually-was split down the middle to the root of the nose, much like a log of wood cleaved on the edge by an ax. This ghost was naked, and one of his arms twitched.

  No sooner had D_Light focused in on the ghosts than a pop-up sign appeared over each one declaring, “Not in play. Do not interact with this agent.” It really was an incredible use of space, when D_Light thought about it. All of these alternate dimensions occupying the same physical area, dimensions facilitated by software. Consequently, NeverWorld was not the only game available in this ghetto. There was Mission Flipp’n Ridiculous (a spy game), Samurai on Top (a samurai death match), Golden Age (a twenty-first-century war game), Grokstania (a social networking game), and several other less popular options. One would think that with so many people playing so many different games it would be chaos, but unless two spankers were in the same game, they were skinned as a “sideliner prop” to one another-just like the two ghosts appeared to D_Light.