by Kris Schnee
"Got work in the morning?"
"Yes, we're --" We're not all independently wealthy, he would've said, but that would be some bad party diplomacy. "Is there a way to reschedule?"
Alaya laughed bitterly. "I'm free all day until I can find a job."
"Oh! I... I'm sorry. I'm just a Community kid. Excuse me a minute."
He walked to a corner of the workshop and hit the help button. "Hey, Ludo? I've got a scheduling problem. Can I talk with you face to face?"
The fantasy world glassed over and the AI popped up to speak aloud. "Good evening, Stan. How are you doing?"
"I'm supposed to work in the morning, but maybe I can get out of it. Would I be disappointing you if I skipped out on this latest quest?"
The caped man paused, looking surprised. "I didn't set this one up; you did."
"But to get a raft I need that widget, so I need to meet a local AI, so I need to travel, so I need items..."
"You also need sleep and work, right? Don't let my game wreck your regular life."
"You're not just interested in how I play, then?"
"We play both worlds. A whole lot of culture takes place in imagination-land, more than humans like to admit. But you need to take care of yourself out there first."
Stan groused, "Your uploaders don't have to."
"The less self-absorbed ones know that if all my servers get seized by governments or blown up by terrorists, they're dead no matter what magic powers they have within Talespace. So they're not just on permanent vacation; they're working in your world in various ways to protect theirs."
He winced. And they were trapped in there except where they could go outside using robots. "I think I just felt a little sorry for them."
"Anyway," said Ludo, "People in the workshop are waiting on you."
"Oh! I'd better talk with them."
The conversation window closed. Stan said to the seafarers, "Sorry, but this trip doesn't work with my schedule. I should get to bed soon."
"Ugh, fine," said Alaya. "See you."
Stan considered the ingots he had yet to work. He began melting one while making a mold of packed sand for the buckles. "I can make flat things by pouring metal into a hole of the right shape, but how do I make something that's 3D on both sides, like a round hammer head?"
The party's smith grunted. "Want a hint? Sandwich. Two pipes."
Stan's eyes widened. "Oh, one mold atop another! And I'd pour in the metal. But why a second pipe?"
"For air to escape. Congrats; it took real smiths a long time to figure that out."
Stan expected a quest to pop up, telling him to use this technique for a reward, but none came. Still, he wanted to try!
His Slab was beeping at him to tell him to go to sleep. He glanced at it and glared. He'd started getting dinged on his Health score for not getting eight hours a night, even though he didn't need eight. He thanked the smith and finished crafting the metal bits for the backpack. The leather-worker took them and soon delivered a nice-looking piece of work. [Crafting result: Leather Pack. "A team effort."]
"This is mine now, right?" asked Stan.
"Sure. Get me those hides later if you get a chance."
"I will! Thanks."
He signed out from the game, but lingered at the title screen. He had ideas stuck in his head, too many crafting projects begging to be worked on. He said, "Ludo, I can't sleep. Is there some kind of... non-interactive game I can just listen to?"
"You mean a story?"
"Yeah." He flopped down on the bed.
Ludo took a deep breath and said, "In a hole in the ground there lived a creature called a hobbit. Not a dirty, muddy hole, but a comfortable one where he was happy..."
Stan drifted off to sleep before long and dreamed of adventures.
7. Playing in the Dirt
Stan spent the next few days working hard during the day and smithing by night. He managed to put one mold atop another and use holes in the top to pour metal in, then break his whole box open and pull out a fancy knife blade. He got a reward at that point: [You now know enough to begin making bronze and other copper alloys!] The real bonus, though, was in knowing how to do something complicated like that with his own virtual hands. If the Community had the right equipment he'd have been able to do the same thing in the real world, even. The players who just used the puzzle-based crafting system were missing out.
With his magic he was able to stretch his metal supply. Sometimes an entire ingot poofed out of existence, but on average his spells gave him around 20% more material to work with. He tried multiplying it again but just got a message that read [These poor copper atoms are abused enough already!] In reaction he went back out to that copper mine and found only slim pickings, a small amount of ore and a lizard to kill. No kobolds; the game was pushing him to move on.
Although it was fun to test the limits of his magic and skill, it was even better to know he was making stuff that was worth more than an equal pile of copper coins. With his woodworking he turned the blade into a proper knife with a handle, and learned to make a ship's wheel for somebody who was building a boat instead of the usual junky raft. Then he got to watch some of the assembly process for when they put together a bunch of other parts, and to learn. He hadn't known what a "keel" was, for instance, but the builders explained and let him contribute some basic shaping work.
"What are you going to do with this thing when it's done?" he asked.
One of the builders said, "She. We're planning to find an island nobody's seen yet, and maybe start our own town."
"There proably aren't many undiscovered islands near here."
Another would-be explorer shrugged. "We just have to go farther. We'll never run out."
Stan said, "Then won't everybody be able to say the same thing, that they found a new island too?"
"Sure. But who cares if other people have their own? This one will be ours."
Stan walked away when his part of the work was done, daydreaming about an island of his own.
Afterward he changed the public note for his character, from "Woodworker for Hire" to something broader. He checked his stats and saw:
[Stan Cooper
PRIVATE INFO
Account type: Standard
Mind: Tier-III
Body: Human
Main Skills: Woodworking, Inspect, Smithing, Merchant, Club
Talents: Pack Man
Shamanic Magic 1: Growth, Metal
Save Point: Crown & Tail Pub
PUBLIC INFO
Note: I make things!
Class: None]
He'd lost Dodge from his top five and Club was teetering. Maybe it was time to switch weapons at last. He spent a work shift daydreaming and listening to encyclopedia articles about smithing and weapons and armor and ships, how guns worked, how welding worked. Maybe he could get permission to take a welding class at the community college in El Centro.
One evening he excitedly traded two copper bangles for a little block of pale tin metal, then forged his first bronze. It worked basically like copper as he poured it into a mold. He used a stone peg inside the mold, to make it form with a hole through the metal so he wouldn't need to drill one. Once it cooled he mounted the new hammer head on a stick with a carefully shaped handle where it'd deliberately get stuck in place. Finally he had his first decent weapon! [Crafting result: Bronze Hammer. "Everything looks like a nail."]
It did, kind of! He wanted to do some pounding. Rather than risk losing the hammer right away, he joined up with a couple of newbies doing the cave on island East-2. Their raft was so crude that he didn't even need the Inspect skill to tell him it wouldn't last.
When he pointed that out, the group's leader said, "Yeah, this one's junk, but why make a better one if we can't keep it?"
He got them to take some extra wood along so he could make repairs for the return trip. They got back to Central Island (barely, after some wading) with some junky items that the gang called "vendor trash". Bits of shell and
monster teeth, berries and bones and low-level herbs. "I want some of this stuff as my share," Stan said. The others were taking the handful of copper pieces they'd found and the junky bone swords and battered wooden shields from the skeletons they'd fought.
"Sure, but why?" asked the group's rogue, who'd had fun laying traps and backstabbing enemies while Stan mostly hung back and collected stuff. (Stan had gotten in a few decent hammer blows but took major wounds, too.)
Stan said, "I've met some alchemists and other crafters who'll pay a bit more than market price for the right thing at the right time." It had helped to hang out at the workshop more often than at the hilltop market, though he'd spent some happy time wandering there too and seeing what people bought and sold.
He was climbing the ladder, building up his skills and making a few trips as a hanger-on with other groups. The pack-rat job gave him a steady supply of minor items for little effort and introduced him to islands North-1 and South-1, nothing too special. South-1 didn't even have an underground dungeon so much as a small ruin full of interesting stones. Stan enjoyed the trips anyway and learned more about finding his way around the Isles. He'd get to the distant South-10 sometime. It was more important to feel like he was making progress.
* * *
The morning of the charity event in Mexico came. Stan had requested the day off and the request squeaked through the SCS despite a warning about his score. It was a surprisingly cool day, which suited Stan fine for construction work. He'd woken up without his alarm just as the sun peeked over the mountains. He wasn't allowed to grab breakfast on his own before the official breakfast hours, so he waited. Ms. Parker would be along soon.
A few minutes later, his Slab beeped. He reached out to turn off the alarm, but it was actually an appointment reminder. [Event: Blood Drive and Picnic. Starting in 30 minutes.]
There was a knock on the door. Stan opened it and found Mina there smiling. "You ready for some bloodshed?"
He laughed, but said, "I didn't sign up for that. Did you put me on the list?"
"It was opt-out. You're in unless you clicked the box to say no. We got seventy percent participation!"
He was a little dazed by the thought. "Give me a bit."
She nodded and left to wake some other people. Stan sat back down on the bed. How had he missed that? He'd been so caught up in his game that he'd forgotten, and had clicked right past a calendar notice yesterday along with several reminders for boring events he didn't want to do. He had no desire to get jabbed with more needles than medically necessary, even for a good cause. What really nettled him was the opt-out feature, which had said "Can we take your blood? Your answer's Yes unless you say No in a specific approved way." Mina was lucky that sex didn't work like that! But apparently the Community did, now.
Stan threw open his door again and spotted Mina at the end of the hall. "I don't want to do this."
"Aww, are you sure? It doesn't hurt much; I just don't look. And there's food afterward. A legitimate medical reason to prescribe cookies!"
"I've got something else planned."
"Suit yourself," she said, pouting. Stan wanted to change his mind, but no. She left to get ready for the trip.
Stan shook his head and grabbed his hat and a water bottle. He stuffed his Talisman into his back pocket too, to make sure he didn't miss any messages from Ms. Parker. He poked a few buttons on the Slab to make it clear he wasn't going, so he wouldn't be missed.
The Slab buzzed angrily. [Canceling an event on short notice has decreased your Participation. Your overall rank has fallen to C-. All off-Community privileges have been canceled until your statistics improve!] There was a little sad-face icon to help sympathize with this cascade of doom. A trombone sound played.
Stan stared at the screen. This inanimate object and its software were telling him he was forbidden to leave the area, because he hadn't earned enough points in an obedience-themed game he never signed up for. He fumed, I shouldn't be getting dinged on my score when I'm doing my best to be useful! Baron Hal was the guy to see about this; he could make an exception for today so Stan could get off-campus. Stan walked out to head for the admin building, where the overseer was probably still getting ready.
Stan was outside in the warming early morning, surrounded by the Community that was just waking up for another day of service. Along the way, the Slab in his hands beeped again. [Recommended event: Remedial Participation Tutorial. Click here to learn about having fun and fitting in! Reward: 1 point of Participation credit.]
There was a strand of hope, then. He could push the button, sit through a little interactive lecture, and maybe eke his way back up to C by one point. Except that he was actually not one point below C rank, but 1.3 points below. Even assuming he didn't need to re-submit his travel request, his fate depended on the SCS's policy about rounding fractions.
Stan hurled the Slab into the dirt, saying, "Damn you and your numbers!"
He marched back east past the dormitory. There were many Communities like his, but this one stood at the outskirts where the farms gave up and there was only desert and rock. In a daze, he crossed the edge of green. The sun poured into his skin, then flickered as he went farther and briefly put the mountains between it and him. The air here was dusty and restless. The invisible world of radio and Internet and GPS was all around him along with the world of rules and score-systems. Scraggly plants stuck up from the sand before giving way to nothing but dunes and the edge of the mountain range. The names around here -- Cibola, Castle Dome Landing, Fortuna Foothills -- made him daydream. He thought of treasure-hunting and cowboys and of the Mexican border just to the south, an arbitrary line on a map. The myths and rules and invisible energies here were just as important to how people lived as the things he could see and touch. Right now, those things felt like a spider's web pulling him back to his Community.
What if, he thought. What if some of the rules are stupid, and I don't want to play?
He walked farther east toward the sun, feeling wind from the mountains blow through his clothes. Sure he'd be yanked back at some point, but for now, it was nice to be... away. To be in danger from whatever drug gangs or other snakes were out here today, trusting in his own eyes to spot them and his own feet to carry him to safety. He saw none out here right now, which made him feel like a king of the land. He crouched and picked up a handful of sand. Sand was silicon, right? As the sun blazed down and sweat began to stand out on his forehead, Stan saw the desert wrapped in a new set of fantasies. It was wasteland now, but it could be a glittering landscape of solar panels, server farms, air-conditioned greenhouses and mountain tunnels, humming with games no one had thought of yet. Nothing was really useless.
Stan laughed into the wind. He was ticked off and seeing things. He did have obligations, but it was up to him which ones should be binding. He took out his Talisman and fiddled with it to get a signal from some ranger outpost nearby, then said, "Ludo, change of plans. Can you please have Ms. Parker pick me up a bit east of where I live?"
* * *
The old lady crabbed at him about having to drive even a little farther. "What were you doing out there?"
"Thinking." The car was a beat-up thing that required Ms. Parker to keep her hands ready to take the wheel if the autopilot got into trouble. "About why we don't cover the desert with solar panels."
Parker scoffed. "Too much work."
"No, really. Is that all?"
The lady drove in silence for a minute. "I never got to see the Earth from orbit myself, but seeing it in the sims made me a conservationist, not a preservationist. See, some of the early eco-fanatics who said 'can we please stop dumping poison in the river' cared about it mostly because they liked being in nature, and having it be useful, not so much nature itself. Your Teddy Roosevelt types would probably not mind glassing over a big chunk of desert for power, so long as they didn't wreck the whole place and it was sustainable. That's conservation. Your John Muir types, though, wanted to protect nature for its own
sake. That's preservation. The second group's mostly won out in the US, since before the secession crisis. So that's why."
"So it's about some bunch of short-sighted idiots who don't care about having enough electricity?"
Parker laughed. "No. They're not wrong. They just see nature differently, as something that might be better off without people fouling it up. 'We belong to the earth' they say. If that's how you see it, other things follow logically."
Stan looked out at the passing farms and pictured them blotted out of existence like a stain, along with all the people, returning the land to its natural desert state. All because of people playing by a different set of rules and assumptions. Or was this land all naturally green before humans arrived? "The Salton Sea north of us. Is that our fault?"
"Yes and no. It's a nasty, stinking pond now due to some bad engineering, but it's been something like that off and on since before even the Indians got here. It might turn out better than natural if the cleanup goes well."
"I think I want to play more in that space world now, and see the way an astronaut does."
Parker smiled. "A nice view is one of the perks. Look alive; here's the border."
There was a road checkpoint. Although people could pretty much come and go, the town of Mexicali was weirdly split along an invisible east-west line with only a few paved road connections. Everything on the south side had a sort of aura of decay about it, with faded paint and roofs made of corrugated steel, more trash in the street, more windows boarded up or barred. Here, at one of the checkpoints, there was just an automated guard-box and retractable barrier in the way. It buzzed at them to present their IDs. Something obscene was spraypainted in Spanish on the box.
A few routine questions later and the little AI in there was satisfied that Stan and Parker had permission to leave US soil. They drove onward and Parker took control of the wheel to make up for the autopilot's trouble on the bumpy road. "They can't do asphalt right," Parker groused.
So far, the playground was only a dirt lot where a few piles of cinder-block rubble still stood from the strip mall that had been here. Parker pulled into a lot across the street where other cars and a bus had just arrived. A man was unloading wheelbarrows and shovels from the bus.