Coders

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  But she recalled the basics of a thought exercise called Schrödinger's Cat. Zaela loved to discuss it even though it bored Gabby to tears. The theory went that a cat was in a box with a randomly generated death machine. While the box was closed, no one could know if the cat was dead or alive. Only when someone opened the box was its state of dead or alive known.

  Gabby's eyes had hurt from rolling them so much during that lecture. She kept wanting to tell the teacher, a spindly old prof with wisps of gray hair, a relic from pre-LifeGame days, that you only had to listen for the cat's meow to know if it was alive or not, since cats in boxes usually couldn't shut up.

  The illusionary bridge before her seemed to be the same sort of exercise. Before she had approached the bridge, she'd thought it was real. Just as someone about to open the box might assume the cat was alive, because people just don't generally want to think about dead cats.

  But upon seeing the bridge up close, or opening the box, Gabby had found it was not a bridge, or that the cat was dead. The teacher had gone on to explain all sorts of other concepts like entanglement and quantum states, but Gabby had tuned out, only grabbing the interesting parts that might give her points for LifeGame.

  From her viewpoint, the bridge was both real and not real at the same time. Only through observation did it become not real. Then an idea struck her that seemed both absurd and perfect. An idea that Zaela would love. What if she didn't observe the bridge at all?

  Gabby ran toward the bridge. As she got closer the structure became a floating collection of steps. She put her foot on the first step and closed her eyes. Feeling like a fool about to fall on her face, she took the first step. When her foot hit the second step, she let out a relieved sigh. Anxious to catch up to her friends, she kept taking cautious steps, carefully ensuring that she didn't fall off the staircase to her death. After a tense few minutes, she made it across and opened her eyes. She was on the other side.

  Gabby wasted no time and started sprinting down the stone corridor. The buildings twisted and rotated as well as moved in the four directions, but Gabby was used to moving between the various surfaces easily, so it didn't slow her down. She felt like a bug moving across walls and ceilings.

  It didn't take her long to catch the first glimpse of her friends, or one of the doubles, she wasn't entirely sure. But she saw a Mouse creeping up a wall in the distance. She couldn't see if she had a short sword or guns, so it was hard to tell if it was the real Mouse, but she was in a section Gabby couldn't get to, so she kept quiet and moved on.

  After another twenty minutes, Gabby sensed she was getting closer to the exit. Hopping across a couple of floor to ceiling gaps, Gabby found herself on a wide platform. Looking directly up, far above her, she saw a chrome door in the ceiling. The word 'SPIRE' was printed on it in ominous black lettering.

  Around the exit were four red buttons. Gabby assumed they would have to press them simultaneously to open the door. Now she just needed four of her friends and they could flee the zone.

  Five. They would need five, Gabby realized, when she saw the fifth button. Floating in the middle of the empty space was a cube. On the cube was a red button. One of them would have to get to it somehow and unless the door stayed open permanently, which Gabby somehow doubted, the person on the cube would have a hard time getting to the door.

  A foot scuffed behind her.

  "Gabby, is that you?"

  "Hey, Mouse."

  Mouse walked toward her slowly. Gabby put her hand out.

  "Where are your weapons?"

  Mouse shrugged and kept walking, ignoring Gabby's outturned palm.

  "It was bad, Gabs. I lost them in a fight with the doubles. The double Michael came upon us and I shot him. Now they're both dead."

  Gabby kept her hands by her side, but if Mouse got much closer she would reach for her saber.

  "What about Milton?"

  "He's around here somewhere. We got separated when the double attacked."

  Mouse kept moving closer.

  "Mouse."

  "Yeah, Gabby."

  "If you killed Michael, then why haven't we lost the game?"

  Mouse's face scrunched up. Gabby had to admit, it was a rather cute facial gesture, one entirely believable.

  "What do you mean?"

  Gabby pointed upwards. "The buttons. We need all five of us to escape the zone. If Michael's dead then we lost."

  Gabby pulled the saber and slashed downward in one smooth motion. The short sword sprung from behind Mouse's back to block. Gabby had the edge with her longer weapon. It didn't take her long before she'd knocked the short sword from Mouse's hand. Gabby threw it into the void and it floated to a distant building far beneath them.

  Upon the loss of her weapon, double Mouse sprinted away, disappearing around the side of the building. Gabby sheathed her saber and moved the other direction. She needed to find the other Frags and a way to the buttons.

  Two jumps and a cantilevered wall later, Gabby came face to face with a Michael. Gabby took one look at the deep recesses in his eyes and ran into his arms.

  "I'm so glad you're okay."

  Michael coughed and his lungs rattled in his chest. His hug was weak. Gabby held him at arms length.

  "You look like death." Gabby looked him over. "And where are your weapons?"

  "I can barely carry them, let alone use them." Pain wavered in his eyes. She could see the burden that his worn down body was becoming. Michael eventually patted a bulge on his hip. "I did keep this handgun just in case, though I'm not sure I could hold it up to aim."

  "I'm sorry I got you mixed up in this. You should have stayed at the Blood Farm with your sister." Gabby ran a hand through his hair. She wanted to kiss him, but she'd seen the way he and Mouse had been cuddling in the Boulevard zone.

  Michael put up a pained smile. "It's okay. I wanted to come with you. At least I can do something good before..."

  Gabby nodded and bit her lip. Then she turned away.

  "Where are the others?"

  Michael wheezed and coughed again. Gabby ignored the dried blood on his hand.

  "I saw Mouse and Milton a little bit ago. They're trying to get to the buttons."

  "What about Avony?"

  "They'd talked to her, too. Said she was doing the same."

  "And you're sure it wasn't a double? I just ran off the double Mouse. Threw her sword into the abyss."

  Michael grinned, but even his smile made her sad, as she could see how even a simple face gesture hurt him.

  "Then where were you going?"

  "The cube button."

  "But you won't be able to leave the zone."

  Michael nodded. "We thought the same thing. But I'm useless to you guys. I'm sure the last zone will be even tougher. And if I'm on the cube, maybe the doubles won't get me."

  Gabby didn't have any will to argue with him. So they walked for a bit together. He thought he knew a way he could jump to the cube from a nearby building. The landing would be tough, but he said that he could at least slap the button when he hit.

  The buildings near the exit moved less than anywhere in the zone, so Michael was able to give her directions to where he thought the exit was. Gabby hugged him and went her separate way. She'd wanted to stay, to protect him, but he pointed out she needed to be in position when he reached the cube or it wouldn't work.

  Before long, Gabby found herself approaching the big chrome door, which was now her floor. Mouse and Milton were waiting by their perspective buttons.

  "Oh, Gabs. We're so glad to see you. We were getting worried," said Milton in his high falsetto.

  Mouse spoke up, though it strained Gabby to hear. "We just need Avony now. Michael is moving into position."

  Each button was on a different wall, separated by a couple of meters. Corridors snaked away from them at all angles. The exit was the end of the massive multidimensional moving maze. Gabby was busy looking above her at the floating cube when she caught movement out of the corner of her
eye.

  "Milton, watch out!"

  The double Michael and Milton burst from a hidden pathway and almost impaled the real Milton before he got his sword out. Gabby was intercepted from helping him when her own double blocked her way.

  Pretty quickly, Gabby couldn’t tell who was real and who was a double. She saw Avony appear and join the other fight. Since Gabby was fighting her own double, probably no one knew who to help.

  Above the din of steel on steel, Gabby heard a weak shout. Michael had made it to the cube. He was yelling, "Press the buttons!"

  Double Gabby positioned herself in the way, but real Gabby quickly pushed her back, careful not to injure herself or leave an opening for the other Gabby.

  Once she was near the button she kept looking around to see if the others had gotten to theirs, but she didn't have to when she heard Michael's voice falling upon them.

  "Now! Now! Now!"

  Gabby kicked the button while making a block. The whole zone began to shake. The exit door had opened.

  "Go now!" Michael shouted.

  Gabby tripped up her double and ran to the door. The others met her there. They jumped in and the door closed behind them. Leaving Michael alone with the doubles.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A second meaning of the zone name, Schrödinger's Bridge, came to her as they loaded into the new and hopefully last zone. Except Michael was the cat now and they wouldn't get to know his fate unless they won.

  The other Frags glanced back at the place where the door had been. Now it was only a brick wall. Leaving Michael in the previous zone visibly weighed on them.

  "The Spire." Avony pointed into the distance, dragging them away from their thoughts of Michael. Before them was a war zone, a mess of shattered buildings beneath a haze of black smoke. The rat-a-tat of distant gun fire echoed off the brick walls. A hint of lavender tickled her nose, before it was engulfed by oil and charred stone and burning hair. The battle zone before her was a place only Unthar could love.

  Beyond the buildings, rising above the smoke bellowing from unchecked fires, was the Spire. It rose into the sky like a twisted upraised fist. The air around it vibrated with a sinister pulse.

  Mouse sighed, a remarkable sound for the diminutive girl. The Frags turned to her with questions on their lips.

  Mouse shook her head, a tired gesture made heavy with everything that had happened to them. "I'm so sick of games."

  Everyone knew instantly what she meant. Gabby put a reassuring hand on Mouse's shoulder and gave her a squeeze.

  They weren't sick of games completely. Just the ones others had decided for them. Except for brief moments in the Freelands, they'd been dancing to someone else's music, playing their games, following their rules (even though the rule makers hadn't always followed their own).

  Gabby briefly sympathized with Jaxon and the Double Eaglers. They'd just wanted to be left alone. But ignoring the world didn't work either, as the Crimson Queen had rolled across the border and taken what she wanted.

  Gabby knew that she too wanted to be left alone to do what she wanted, but also work together to make sure they stayed free. A seemingly mutually exclusive thought that would have made Zaela proud.

  The Frags shared grim smiles and checked their assorted weaponry. They just had to traverse a few miles of war-trodden urban terrain and ascend the Spire and they could be done with games, at least for a little while.

  A nearby explosion threw them into a heap, toppling them like dominoes. Gabby put a hand to her ear. She'd been deafened. She struggled to her knees as vertigo rocked her. Blood was on her hand. The others were struggling to stand as well, but it appeared no one had been seriously injured. Only flecks of blood on their faces from the exploded bricks. A section of wall a few meters over had a crater in it where it'd been smooth stone only moments before.

  Gabby felt like what appeared to be little needles sticking into her neck. Then she realized bullets were impacting the wall next to her, spraying her with bits of stone.

  A squad of soldiers in a tight formation was moving around the outside curve of the zone. Flashes of light spit from the ends of their guns. With one ear buzzing from the explosion, the sounds of bullets impacting echoed like rocks being rattled in a tin can.

  "Move out! Move out!" Gabby screamed and squeezed the trigger, scattering the approaching soldiers.

  The Frags reassembled and fell back, relying on their LifeGame training to keep them in formation. And for a brief moment, Gabby considered the oddity that it was, that an eighteen-year-old girl could run in formation while laying down suppressive fire with an assault rifle. What had all those years of LifeGame made her?

  They retreated into a cluster of buildings. Gabby quickly set a tripwire to a claymore between a wall and a pile of rubble. Her fingers danced across the mine, arming it without so much as breathing on the wire. In LifeGame, they'd been forced to perform complex problems to advance each section of the game. Freed from that burden, Gabby realized how skilled she was at the intricacies of warfare.

  Gabby skipped into a hidden cubby, grinning at Avony as she passed. Avony was set up behind a half-destroyed wall. Even if the other squad didn't hit the tripwire, the Frags would jump out of hiding to mow them down.

  Their pursuers did not disappoint and they only had to perform clean up, firing a couple of rounds to put them out of their misery.

  Milton used the end of his rifle to poke a badge on a dead soldier's chest. The emblem had a little whirlwind on it.

  "Dervish Crew. I guess we took the wind out of their sails." Milton looked around to the others. Gabby barely gave him an eye roll for his trouble. She was too busy rubbing her ear which still ached from the explosion. She heard ghost echoes and buzzing from that ear, though it didn't make sense with her surroundings.

  Gabby caught Avony smiling at his joke and raised an eyebrow. Milton shrugged. "I guess it was bad."

  "I wonder how many other teams have made it to the zone," Mouse asked.

  It was a good point and no one had anything to say about it. They left it as a warning to be alert. Besides, the Crimson Queen could have other surprises for them.

  The Frags crept through the buildings in cover formation. There was an urgency to their movements. The other teams could be ascending the Spire at that very moment and they could lose. So they were forced to push through the zone faster than they would have preferred.

  Something about the whole setup bothered Gabby. She wished Zaela was there to help her figure it out. To ask the right questions, to unravel the tangled thread.

  But Zaela wasn't there, so Gabby tried to ask the questions Zaela might ask. In LifeGamer speak, it was called metagaming. To analyze the game based on what you knew about the designer, or the tropes that it relied on, or anything else that could give you an advantage.

  It was only fair since the Crimson Queen had been metagaming her and the Frags. Using knowledge gleaned from the Pain Sticks game or from Zaela, to design tasks that would confound them. But what bothered Gabby, was why play at a game at all? If there was going to be an invasion, why waste precious time and resources creating and directing a game?

  Gabby broke from her thoughts as they waited for a platoon to traverse a street. The soldiers marched with guns at the ready, heads on a swivel, but the Frags were safely tucked into an empty building, peering out the holes in the walls. Gabby kept her good ear turned toward the patrol since her other still hadn't completely regained its hearing. Gabby rubbed her temple to ward off the migraine forming.

  They could have taken the platoon if they'd had more warning. Wired a few explosives and gunned them down in the street, but it would have been a waste of resources. Why fight when you could sneak past? Only a psychopath like Unthar would engage in unnecessary battles.

  That point bothered Gabby. The Crimson Queen seemed like anything but a psychopath. Clearly she possessed a great skill for manipulating reality and attacking people's weaknesses as she had in this grand game of h
ers.

  Gabby admired her skill. The rules of war, which was the oldest game ever devised, dictated that choosing the battleground was the most important choice. The Queen had chosen well, using the Frags' hard-won LifeGame knowledge against them.

  But another tenet was to only fight the battles one had to fight. Just as they had avoided that platoon, a winnable but unnecessary battle.

  Gabby couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something very important. Even when they stopped to eat the last of their supplies, she barely touched her food, instead gnawing on the problem that she knew Zaela would see so clearly.

  A checkpoint blocked further progress through the zone. Gabby and Avony set up sniper shots and took them, one-two, and the two guards dropped like rag dolls. When their companions ran to help them, they felled them as well.

  "They must be debuffed in the head," said Avony. "Never run to where your enemy wants you to go."

  The words hit Gabby right between the eyes.

  "Oh, Mario." Gabby had her hand over her open mouth.

  "What?" Avony asked while the others looked on expectantly.

  "That's what we're doing." Gabby continued when she saw nothing but puzzled glances. "We're going right where the Queen wants us to go."

  Her revelation felt important, but the dumb looks she got in return made her hesitate speaking again.

  "Yeah," said Milton. "That's the point of the game. Climb the Spire." He made little walking motions with his fingers. "Kill the Heart. The End. We win."

  "But..." Gabby opened her mouth but no more words came out. She put a hand to her temple. A flash of migraine burst between her eyes.

  "Are you feeling okay, Gabs?" Avony put a hand on Gabby's arm. "I know this thing has been hard on you. And now that we're getting close to the end and maybe seeing Zaela, you're starting to freak out."

  Mouse tapped her on the shoulder. "We have to get moving before a patrol finds that checkpoint all dead."

  They passed the checkpoint and Gabby found the others giving her nervous glances as if they were expecting her to start raving. The headache stayed distant but ready to return while the ghost noises still played out of her injured ear. It almost sounded like distant sirens.