Solarversia: The Year Long Game

by Mr Toby Downton

  A loud noise reverberated through the building, shaking the lights in their fittings and causing a security alarm to blare into life. Casey and Wallace stopped what they were doing and exchanged an intense, wide-eyed look. Wallace threw his zippo onto the table and made a dash for the door. Casey hurriedly threw the bundles of cash into the safe and raced after him. People were streaming out of the Workshop, covered in blood, coughing and falling about the place, trying to avoid the glass from the blown-out windows.

  A thick, acrid taste peppered the air in the Workshop. Ivan, a mechanical engineer, was unconscious on the floor, bleeding profusely from his midsection. Brandon, one of Father Theodore’s lieutenants, was there with him. He’d taken his shirt off and was using it to try to stem the rush of blood. He glanced up at Casey with a look of fear on his face.

  “Come and help me apply more pressure to this wound. Wallace, check everyone else is alright. Where’s Mother with the first aid kit? Fuck, this is bad.”

  His thick, muscular frame was tense, his forearms bulging as he pressed down hard on a tattered shirt that was already saturated with the wounded man’s blood. Those who hadn’t fled outside seemed rooted to their spots, their faces ashen, their ears still ringing, staring at the scene in front of them, unable to process what had just happened. Casey handed his T-shirt to Brandon and the two of them did their best to tend to the injured man, trying to ignore the sight and smell of the gaping wound in his gut.

  Wallace looked after the others, checking them for injuries, speaking firm, quiet words like a wartime nurse. When the hubbub died down, he pulled off his shirt and handed it to Brandon. Almost at once the shirt was red through. Casey readjusted his position to better cradle Ivan’s limp head. The guy was out for the count; his head was lolling and the blood kept on coming. Casey had to look away, scared he might faint in front of everyone. His gaze settled on the doorway as Mother Frances bowled into the Workshop. Beside her stood the man Casey had been yearning to see. Father Theodore. The Grand Wizard of the Holy Order.

  Casey froze. The Order was highly secretive, the identities of its members unknown outside the organisation. His induction had taken the best part of six months, in chat rooms and virtual worlds, each side using pseudonyms and computer-generated avatars. When he’d first met Frances online, she’d used the handle ‘Zoro’. It was only once the Order had completed its background checks that he’d even been given a chance at the initiation, knowing full well that success in the ordeal would mean he could never leave its ranks.

  Until this moment he’d not set eyes on Father Theodore, the Order’s founder, spiritual leader and Übermensch. All Casey knew about him were the stories, passed on by Wallace during their day trips down the river, and the rumours that flew round the compound day and night.

  He looked just like Wallace had described. He had a tight crop of short grey hair that contrasted sharply against his dark brown eyes, and his long, manicured beard grew to a tip that was secured tight in place with three little bands. But it was Theodore’s right arm that drew Casey’s attention longest. Supposedly containing a quantum supercomputer within its confines, the bionic arm was coated in a thin layer of black Kevlar and dotted with different coloured LEDs that flashed on and off in a sequence that made it look like they were communicating with one another.

  Frances stood by his side clutching what looked like an army issue medical kit. Casey wondered why she hadn’t sprung into action — hadn’t Wallace mentioned that she was one of the top surgeons in the entire country? Instead, she waited patiently, occasionally glancing between Ivan and Theodore like she had all the time in the world.

  The room went quiet as the old man surveyed the scene impassively. When he finally spoke he did so with an unmistakable tone of authority.

  “Is somebody going to tell me what happened? Or shall we stand here in silence until Ivan has bled right the way out?”

  “My instructions were crystal clear, Father, ask anyone.” Brandon’s voice trembled as he spoke. “I’ve handled explosives for twenty-five years without a single incident. Ivan did exactly what I told people not to do. The canisters are fragile and need to be handled with care. If you drop them on the bench like that—”

  “Other than Ivan, who else is hurt?”

  A woman removed the bandage she had been pressing against her neck. A small piece of shrapnel protruded from a long, narrow gash.

  “I was lucky, Father. I was standing behind Ivan when it happened. He took the brunt of the explosion. If it had happened two seconds later, I might not …”

  She went silent, averted her eyes, and reapplied the bandage.

  “We have to get him to a hospital right now,” Wallace said.

  Theodore twizzled his beard with his bionic fingers and laughed. “Hospital.” He repeated it like the punchline of a joke he’d enjoyed.

  “But Father, he’ll die.”

  “But Father,” he mimicked. The lights on his arms stopped flashing as if they too, were hanging on his every word. “You questioning my judgement, Wallace? You suggesting that folk round here take their orders from you rather than me?”

  Wallace gulped. “Father, you know I would never question your judgement. It’s just that—”

  “It’s just that what? You think we should jeopardise everything we’ve worked for?”

  “No, Father. I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn, and that was wrong. Please forgive—”

  With the smallest gesture of his hand, Theodore restored silence to the room. He raised his arms in front of him and gestured in mid-air. The coloured LEDs blinked into action again. Half a minute later, two of the Medibots that Casey had seen in the Lockup rolled into the room carrying a gurney.

  So the stories Casey had heard were true. The computer in Theodore’s arm was wirelessly connected to a series of electrodes implanted inside his skull. The setup allowed him to directly interface with the networked components of the Order — to communicate and control its robots and machines.

  Another small gesture from Theodore — a flick of his head — was signal enough for Brandon and Wallace to give up their care of Ivan. They stood and backed away. Casey felt Father’s gaze come to rest on his face. He dropped Ivan’s head more quickly than felt right and got up to join Wallace.

  The ’bots aligned themselves next to Ivan, uncollapsed the gurney, and with a swiftness that belied their mechanical natures, scooped him off the floor and placed him onto it. One ’bot stood by Ivan’s feet, the other by his head. But instead of wheeling Ivan off to the sickbay, the ’bots took hold of his head and his feet, and with their articulated fingers, began to twist. Casey’s wonder quickly soured. Ivan’s head was yanked sharply one way, then the other. The chilling sound of splintering vertebrae echoed round the room. Next to him, Casey felt Wallace flinch.

  The grid of lights on Theodore’s arm continued to flicker as he turned his attention back to the people in the Workshop. “What comrade Wallace forgot,” he said, loading the word ‘comrade’ with irony, “is that my view of the world — and my understanding of it — is far superior to his. I don’t kill one of my own children on a whim. The second I arrived I had the Medibots scan Ivan’s life signs and communicate the findings to me. Not even Frances could have saved him. There was no way he could have lived longer, neither as a human, nor like me, one who has transcended the human condition. Ivan was a good man. He was the seventeenth member to join the Order and his contributions to us were valuable. He joined us for the same reason you all did — because he was called. He discovered a truth so powerful, so compelling, that his old life no longer made sense. But in the blink of an eye, and through his own carelessness, he became a liability that needed to be dealt with. The ’bots will take his body to the incinerator.”

  Casey swallowed hard and bowed his head, obscuring the solemn expression on his face. Theodore squared his shoulders and looked at each of his followers in turn.

  “Remember that it was never going to be easy. Nor should it be. T
rials like this are sent to test our faith, to show that it is strong and pure. If in doubt, remember the pain and suffering that awaits those who fail the Magi. This changes nothing. Is everyone clear about that?”

  In silence, everyone but Ivan nodded.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nova stood outside Fragging Hell and made herself repeat the words over and over: “I’m only here to pick up my prize, I’m only here to pick up my prize.” It was a Friday afternoon and Mr McGillycuddy had let her out of detention thirty minutes early. Fragging Hell was on the way home from school — in one of those roundabout kind of ways — and she’d been meaning to pick up her darts prize for weeks now. She straightened her shoulders, brushed her hair behind her ears and entered the cafe.

  She marched along the strip of fluorescent lighting towards the bar and tried not to pay any attention to the whoops of delight that emanated from the gaming rigs on either side. As she neared the bar, Jockey came out from the backroom and, seeing her, swooned in mock horror.

  “Nova. Returned from the dead. You haven’t been in for weeks.”

  “I know. I’ve missed this place. In fact, I miss everything in the world. I’ve been buried in revision.”

  “So you haven’t been playing?”

  “Yeah, I have. Just doing the bare minimum to keep up with the April Bucket List.”

  “So, what do you make of teleporting?”

  “Teleporting? You mean the quest got completed? We can teleport now?”

  “Wow, Miss Negrahnu, you are seriously out of the loop. Sit down and plug in, you’ve got to give this a go. The trick is remembering to dial round the ‘T’ the right way.”

  “No, Jockey, I can’t. I’m here to pick up my prize. Then I need to get back to my books.”

  He looked genuinely nonplussed for a moment.

  “Your prize? Oh, your darts prize. Only two months late. Yeah, it should be around here somewhere.” He winked, ducked into the backroom and returned half a minute later with a shoebox-sized package and a celebratory smile. It was an Electropet Arkwini action figure dressed like an astronaut. Nova scanned the side of the box.

  The action figure spoke in the same high-pitched voice as the arkwinis in The Game and came with his own little detachable helmet and space capsule. A playmate for Zhang. Nova grinned. Mission accomplished. Now all she had to do was stuff the arkwini in her bag and leave the cafe. Even she could do that.

  But before she could move, a message pinged in from Sushi: “Have you seen the portrait? Funniest. Thing. Ever.”

  “What portrait? What are you talking about?”

  “Remember Spee-Akka Dey Bollarkoo, the woman who flew into the Magisterial Chamber on a carpet? She’s finished March’s monthly portrait. And you’re in it.”

  “No frigging way. You’re having me on.”

  “No, for real. Go and check for yourself. And Banjax has finally arrived at Castalia, you’ll need to tick him off April’s Bucket List anyway.”

  That settled it. There was no way she was going straight home to spend another Friday night hunched over a pile of boring textbooks. She’d worked hard all week and deserved a gaming break now and then. She’d even read an article recently that claimed a lot of high-level executives played casual computer games during work hours to help them chill out. She should try to find the article again — it would be good ammunition next time her parents had a go at her. She found a free space, stowed her bag under the table and logged on.

  The Corona Cube was a sight for sore eyes. In her inventory, the twenty-five teleport tokens she had won for getting so close to the EFF switch were now lit up, ready to use when the time was right. The Castalian constellation on the black ceiling of her cube was pulsing and glowing, indicating a new arrival at the Emperor’s palace. She reached for the stars, and the side of the Corona Cube that led back into the Magisterial Chamber turned transparent.

  ***

  Nova stepped out of her profile square, fell to the marble floor of the chamber and looked around. Emperor Mandelbrot remained in the centre of the room. His central totem pole still reached up to the ceiling, though most of the mouths around its circumference had now melted away. Blobs of purple mess still oozed off the edge of his circular dais, while an assortment of limbs and other body parts looked like they were trying to poke their way out of his base.

  She turned around to study the Player’s Grid on the north wall. It already looked different, only seven weeks after the start of The Game. On the evening of the opening ceremony, all hundred million profile squares had flickered into life. Every square had a coloured border that represented the number of lives the player had left. Mimicking the way Force Fields progressed through the colours of the rainbow as they got weaker, borders were coloured violet at first, representing three lives, changed to green when a player lost their first life, and then turned red when they only had one left.

  Supposedly influenced by the tradition in martial arts, Solos referred to the borders as ‘belts’. Some people went as far as reflecting their current status in the real world, wearing belts, bracelets or armbands of the appropriate colour. Belt colours were also visible on player vehicles, appearing as the trim that surrounded the license plates.

  When players lost their third and final life, their squares went dark, extinguished like candles in the wind. One hundred thousand squares had already gone dark, creating patches of shadow here and there in the giant grid. In that way, the grid performed an important function as the scoreboard of The Game, informing players about the current state of the competition. It wasn’t uncommon for people to watch the grid like it was a giant TV, and it had become so popular that Spiralwerks had arranged for huge screens to display it in public for the duration of the year.

  As Nova looked at the grid, her datafeed flickered into action, highlighting the locations of her friends and the various people she’d interacted with. Having signed up to Solarversia early on, she and Sushi had obtained fairly low, central numbers that they’d always been happy with. She’d longed to win a number in the Golden Grid, the ten-by-ten section reserved by Spiralwerks for a series of promotional competitions leading up to the start of The Game, but then, so had several million other people.

  One such competition had required artists to create a ‘wanted’ poster for Banjax — the creature she was here to visit — in the style of an old Barnum & Bailey poster. Spiralwerks had even offered the poster’s £50,000 reward for real to anyone who acquired a live specimen of a dodectopus, a bounty that had gone unpaid. A later competition had offered a Golden Grid square to the person who submitted the best photo of the winning poster.

  Nova had been gutted that her own entry — of the poster printed onto material and hoisted from her school’s flag pole — hadn’t won, and even more gutted at the week’s worth of detentions she’d received. As Burner had pointed out at the time, she might well have killed herself getting the flag in position, given that the pole was on the roof, and she had kicked loose a number of tiles that had had to be replaced.

  Standing in the chamber, Nova witnessed several dozen profile squares turn dark over the course of five minutes and watched the replays of all the relevant deaths. Then she headed to the far side of the chamber to investigate an enormous painting that took up a full third of the south wall. It was the first artwork by Spee-Akka Dey Bollarkoo, or “Flower Face” as Burner had taken to calling her, and had been painted in the style of Hieronymus Bosch, a Dutch Renaissance artist famed for the fantastic imagery of his large triptychs, landscapes inhabited by outlandish objects and beings.

  The centre of the painting featured the Emperor himself, floating in space, holding aloft his unfurled fist, where Arkwal perched, telescope in hand. Gorigaroo appeared halfway up the totem pole, using the Emperor’s mouths as foot and handholds. With his free hand he was stretching towards Castalia, which looked like a balloon floating just out of reach.

  Plenty of players had been immortalised too. The first person to lan
d on Alpha Island, the first Solos to acquire various vehicles, and the winners of some of the quests, depicted in their moments of triumph. Some deaths had been recorded too — she could make out a half-eaten avatar, smoking and blackened, hanging from the mouth of a lavadile.

  In the bottom left-hand corner were two buildings she recognised. Standing atop the taller one was Pedey Gonzalez, triumphantly pushing the Force Field switch into its off position, circled by aeroplanes and helicopters. Nova zoomed in and saw, with a mixture of pride and shame, that Sushi was right: her moment in the sun had also been preserved. There she was, desperately reaching for the switch, her shadow stuck to the building by the stupid plunger.

  She felt a fresh pang of pain as she remembered how close she got to pressing the switch herself. A hundred big ones had been within her reach. She’d even dreamt about it a couple of times, dreams in which she’d been the one to trigger the switch, only to wake up as poor as ever. There was nothing she could do about it now. Nothing except train harder. She shared the image on her feed, however much it pained her to do so, knowing that she might as well tick an item off the Bucket List while she was here.

  Her concentration was broken when she heard the faint whooshing sound of ruffled vines. Gorigaroo’s gong was unmanned — he’d be swinging around overhead somewhere. In the southeast corner of the chamber she spied Ludi Bioski interacting with his strange machine, the Orbitini, which stood waist-high to an average man, spanned ten metres in length and was a metre wide.

  The array of its components was mind-boggling. Everywhere you looked there were spinning wheels, switches, tuners, sliders, dials, gauges, buttons, handles, zips and keyboards. And then there were the parts of it that seemed to have come from a chemical lab: vials of liquid, linked to one another via a series of twisting pipes, and pots and pans that bubbled away, emitting a thick brown smoke that wafted into the massive chamber.