“Hey, Scotia. How you doing?”
“Yeah, not so bad.” She paused, realising that for the first time in a week, she actually felt pretty good. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Listen, you’ve got every right to be annoyed with me, mad even. I know that sending a couple of messages was pathetic — I should have come to see you. It’s just that I’m really crap with the whole death thing. Never know what to say. End up talking bollocks and making it worse. Which means I didn’t visit, and that was wrong. If you want me to come over right now, I’m there.”
She smiled, touched by the very un-Burner-ish outburst.
“I’m not annoyed with you at all. I haven’t really felt like seeing anyone, including you.”
“Well, that’s good to know. What’s up?”
“It’s Sushi. She’s back. Kind of. You ever heard of an app called Soul Surfer? We signed up for it, years ago. I’d forgotten all about it until a few hours ago when I received a message from her.”
“Woah, spooky shit. What was it like?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t seen her yet. But the message made me realise I should be doing something about her death rather than wallowing in self-pity.” She swallowed back some tears. “It’s the Holy Order. I want to help find them. Sandbox: give Burner view access of the room.”
His floating 2D avatar disappeared and was replaced by his 3D avatar, now standing next to hers in the cube. They did their usual fist bump before he started glancing around at the reams and reams of data that now adorned the walls. She started explaining her train of thought — why she’d grouped certain results together but ignored others — and didn’t stop talking until several minutes later when, suddenly out of breath, she glared at him, impatient to kick off whatever master plan they would end up devising together.
“Wait a second, mate. Sushi died and that’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. If you died, I don’t know what I’d do. Grieving, and wanting to do something to remember her by — even wanting to avenge her death — that all sounds normal. But doing something to find the loonies behind all of this? Trying to hunt them down when the FBI, with their billions in funding, haven’t managed to. Are you sure? With all due respect, it sounds a bit crazy.”
A feeling of anger flared inside her. She watched it from a distance, knowing that she had no right to be angry with him. If anything, he’d just spoken sense. She went and stood directly in front of him and wished that they were doing this in person so that she could use her puppy-dog eyes on him. Instead she’d have to convey her desperation through her voice.
“You’re right, I’m being ridiculous. There’s a vanishingly small chance that we’d be able to find something the big guys missed. But they do miss stuff. And not just rarely either, but all the time. History’s full of examples of regular people like us spotting some random pattern or detail and going on to solve a crime or figure out a mystery that’s eluded the experts for decades. And besides, this is Sushi we’re talking about here. If I do nothing, then I’ve failed her. And if there’s one person who might be able to help find something the FBI have missed, it’s my old mate Burner.”
“What exactly did you have in mind?”
“The kind of geeky stuff you’re always going on about. You’re into AI and data and drones and stuff. I don’t know what I have in mind. I was hoping you’d come up with something. Like, look at all the symbols in the manifesto. Those are kind of like the logos of the Holy Order — their calling cards. Maybe they’re out there in the world somewhere. These drones you’re always going on about — like the one you built — they can fly to places we can’t.”
“So you’re suggesting that we feed the contents of the manifesto, and any associated metadata, into a program, upload it into a bunch of drones, have them scour areas of interest looking for locations — hideouts, safe houses, that kind of thing — while they upload footage into the cloud for analysis? At which point we analyse the results, iterate the program and repeat the process until we find something.”
By now he was pacing up and down the cube, one hand on his chin, the other wagging a finger while he spoke. Nova realised that it was good, after all, that he wasn’t there to see her grinning at him.
“Jono knows people,” he continued. “There’s a couple of guys in his year who have been working on this semantic analysis idea. Bloody clever, they are. They’re about to drop out of uni to start a company. We could approach them, help them test their program, be guinea pigs. It’d be an amazing case study if we pulled it off.” He paused and looked at her, suddenly aware of how the conversation was going. “You’re right, it’s a ridiculous idea — a million to one shot. And if we hire a bunch of drones, that could cost hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds, you know that?”
“Seeing as there is a chance — however small — do you think you could look into for me? I can give you access to edit this room. You can speak to Jono’s mates, get their take on it. Just get me a rough estimate of the cost. I’ll find the money, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“OK. Let’s give it a try. We’ll need a name. What about ‘Project Drone’?”
“Project Drone,” Nova repeated. “I like it.”
“You need to do me a favour in return. Don’t get your hopes up, alright?”
Once Burner had left the room she punched the air and performed a couple of pirouettes. This felt good, however crazy it was. She was actually doing something. A feeling she’d constantly had over the last few days came back to her — the urge to tell Sushi what she was up to. And now she could. She left The Sandbox, returned to Soul Surfer, ticked the box to accept the terms and conditions and found herself sitting on a bench next to her friend on a hill overlooking Seattle.
“Hey, Nova, how are you?”
Sushi’s long blonde hair was tied in bun, leaving a wisp of hair to fall either side of her ears, the way she usually wore it. Her green eyes — which Nova thought sparkled more than usual — were complemented by the opal necklace she wore on top of her black turtleneck sweater. She looked every bit as sweet and beautiful as she had the last time they’d talked. Nova took her hand and they sat for a while in silence. Suddenly her need to talk was gone. She had questions to ask, but now wasn’t the time. She wanted her old friend back, the real one. She would give anything for that. But the next best thing wasn’t so bad after all.
Chapter Sixteen
Arty readjusted the knot in his tie and tried to remember the last time he’d worn a suit. It was long enough in the past that he couldn’t accurately recall, and still it felt too soon. He grimaced at his reflection and tried to flatten his curls into submission.
As usual, Hannah looked great. Her dress clung here and flowed there and brought out the colour of her eyes. In the mirror, they looked like a couple off to a wedding. The thought tugged at him — they looked suited. Except she was way out of his league, he told himself for the thousandth time. His hair wouldn’t behave, he was hot and uncomfortable — if he could just loosen the knot, then maybe he’d be able to relax.
“Stop fidgeting, your tie looks fine,” Hannah said and playfully smacked at his hands.
“I think it’s blocking my airway,” he said, and began to breathe fiercely through his nose. God, she smelled great too, like coconut and vanilla.
“You’re worse than a wee lad sometimes, Arty. If you can speak, you can breathe.”
The security guard at the front desk called out to get their attention and gave them the thumbs-up: the guests were here and being cleared by security. Penelope Lockhart, the Mayor of London, was here on an official visit.
“What, she’s here? Already? Christ, I’m not ready for this. Hannah, you’ll do the talking, yeah? You’re good at this stuff. I mean, you’re the Head of Comms, for God’s sake, it’s your job, right?”
“Of course I will. If you’ll let me.”
Arty had a habit of overcompensating for his shyness with a neurotic verbosity.
“What are you so worried about? It’ll be good press for us. We’ll get some photos of you shaking hands with Penelope, she’ll watch the film, we’ll do the fly-by, and hey, presto, Spiralwerks is a super-fun company again.”
“I hope so. We really need it.”
“Just … don’t even mention the terrorists.”
“Definitely. I won’t.”
He took one last look in the mirror, flattened his palm against his hair and yanked at the tie again. Behind him, Hannah rolled her eyes and said, “We’re ready, thanks, Eva,” to the girl behind reception who kicked off the animated display. The walls and staircases of the large circular lobby transformed into a lush green jungle scene.
Arty held his hands aloft, walked towards the guests and with a sudden flush of confidence announced, “Madam Mayor, welcome to the jungle!”
The newly assembled group ascended in the lift through bushes and trees, rustling the leaves they brushed past. The cries of howler monkeys rang out, as if from a distance, and a majestic parrot soared right by their heads. The lift came to rest on the sixth floor, overlooking a vast jungle canopy to the sound of a Tarzan yell, which made the Mayor jump and burst into a fit of giggles.
“What a wonderful place it must be to work,” she said.
“We Spiralheads like it,” said Hannah. She proceeded to give the group the ‘executive tour’ of the sixth floor, which admitted guests into the large meeting rooms, showed them around the various departmental workspaces to meet hand-selected enthusiastic members of staff and ended in the screening room. Today, plush cinema seats had been laid out facing the floor-to-ceiling screens. Most of the seats were already taken, populated by a noisy gaggle of Solos who had won tickets through one of the recent quests. Hannah showed the mayor and her entourage to the seats reserved for them while Arty took his place at the lectern at the front of the room and cleared his throat.
“Thank you for joining us for the first screening of Welcome to Solarversia: Earth and Beyond. This documentary tells the story of everything that’s happened since The Game commenced eight weeks ago. We’re especially proud to show this today to such an illustrious audience and we’d like to thank you all for your dedication and support. Madam Mayor, I know you don’t play yourself, but you mentioned that your sons do. They would recognise the events you’re about to see.”
“They do play, and I must say, they’re rather jealous that I’m here today. In a job like mine, that doesn’t happen very often.”
“Without further ado,” Arty said, relieved that he’d be able to take his seat in a moment, “welcome to Solarversia.”
The lights in the room dimmed and the high-res screens came to life, showing the word ‘Solarversia’. The camera zoomed towards the ‘O’, which revealed a bird’s-eye view of the Olympic Stadium on the night of the opening ceremony, where thousands of people were cheering in the stands to the sound of drums and whistles. Lasers fired into the night sky while people on floats screamed and danced. Then a deep-voiced American man began to narrate over the images.
“It all started with a chimp in a suit and a strange-looking palace floating high above the ocean.”
The screen was filled with the sight of Gorigaroo bouncing and swinging as he traversed the length of Castalia’s Magisterial Chamber, the vines rustling, his breath heavy and exuberant. Then suddenly the rear wall exploded with an almighty bang that sprayed rubble and dust everywhere.
“An Emperor from a far-off galaxy …”
Although he knew the game as well as anyone could, there was something extraordinary about seeing it all flowing together like this. Arty listened, enchanted, to the hundred-mouthed choir singing from the bubbling totem pole and felt a jolt of surprise — as though it was new to him — when on the other side of the room, the wall crumbled and the grid lit up.
“ … And a hundred million people, from every country on Earth, taking up the invitation to explore Solarversia.”
The camera spanned the chamber, then zoomed out, slowly at first, moving through the roof and away from the palace, speeding up as it travelled into the sky until it was able to take in the whole planet, which now filled the screen. Lines sprouted from a miniscule dot in the ocean, then branched and branched again. Earth started rotating and the Solarversia theme tune kicked in, backed by a techno beat. Icons representing the major quests flashed up over the cities they happened in. At first the Earth was bathed in a violet light, but every time an Earth Force Field icon flashed on screen, the colour flickered out to a ruby red afterglow.
“ … And then, after six weeks of gameplay, the world of Solarversia changed forever. Nothing will be the same again …”
The camera panned to Giza, Egypt. Thousands of players were taking selfies in front of the Great Sphinx, the peak of a pyramid visible behind them. The sky was dark and moody, and far away, a ball of lightning was streaking across the darkness like a meteor. And then suddenly it was hurtling toward Giza at great speed, roaring towards the Great Pyramid. All the players in the vicinity adopted the brace position or cowered in fear.
Just when it looked likely to crash into the north face of the structure, the lightning ball slowed. It was not tearing through the sky any more so much as drifting, and now, at this slower pace, its shape was revealed. It wasn’t a meteor at all, but a young man, strapped into waxen wings covered with feathers. Lightly, and with grace, he landed on the pyramid, unraveled the parchment in his hands and began to read.
“I, Icarus, man of air as well as earth, hereby invite you to help locate and unlock the tenth and final Earth Force Field switch, hidden somewhere in Giza …”
A population counter for Giza appeared in the top right of the screen, ticking up rapidly as Solos flocked there from teleport machines around the world. Players at the top of the Pyramid ran to the edge of the precipice and waved at the players below like wild men on acid. The camera swooped away from them to catch a glimpse of the thousands of players pulling on ropes attached to a harness around the Great Sphinx, which edged forward, a millimetre at a time, revealing a mammoth stone tablet engraved with strange-looking symbols.
Hundreds of players darted across the thin line at the base of the pyramid and began to climb, pausing frequently to swipe rapidly through their datafeeds, stopping to compare the hieroglyphs that appeared on the steps to the attempts to decode them that are flocking in. Players typed messages into keypads set into the stones and watched in horror as the screens returned big red crosses, and the steps they were standing on flipped ninety degrees, flinging them back down the pyramid.
The film cut to a shot of Ludi Bioski, tinkering at his Orbitini in the palace, bringing a pot of colourless liquid to the boil, tapping its surface and setting it on fire, moving glass beads along his abacus. The large screen at the front of his contraption displayed a new Event Card: a flaming bird’s nest.
Back in Giza, the eyes of the Great Sphinx heated up, turning redder and redder until, with sparks of light and emissions of smoke, they shot out laser beams which ignited fires wherever they hit. Birds from miles around were attracted to the fires and flew straight into them as if sucked in by a powerful current. Flying out of the fires came phoenixes, clutching blazing rocks in their talons. They circled the pyramid, flinging the fireballs at the players still attempting to match the right code to the right brick.
Suddenly, every brick on the East face spun as one, sending players tumbling down the pyramid. All except a young Chinese man, Johnny Wong, who had made a correct match. He’d typed in the hieroglyphs that translated as information about the Great Pyramid itself: that it was constructed using 2.3 million blocks, weighs an estimated 5.9 million tonnes, and that it was the tallest man-made object for 3.8 thousand years. As he tapped the deciphered message into the right stone, it vanished. Johnny dived into the gap as a flaming rock blazed toward him from above, missing him by inches.
The sun shone into the passage, reflecting off the sandstone like gold. According to the map
on his screen, this was the Grand Gallery, a long passageway that sloped up to the burial chambers. Johnny followed the map on his screen to arrive in the King’s Chamber where the Pharaoh himself was enthroned, wearing a blue and gold striped headdress and clutching a walking stick whose grip had been fashioned like a cobra flaring its hood.
To the left of the King was the tenth and final Earth Force Field switch. It was a scale model of the Great Pyramid itself, but enclosed within a transparent Force Field. In front of the pyramid, outside the Force Field, was a floating keypad waiting for instructions. Johnny Wong kneeled before the King, who leaned forward ever so slightly before addressing him.
“Welcome, player number 55,211,801. I am Pharaoh Khufu, the man who commissioned this pyramid. I was rather fond of games myself. I’m sure that if I were still alive, I would be playing Solarversia with you. Which brings us to the ultimate part of this quest. If I was alive today, and playing the game, what would my grid number be?”
Yet another counter appeared at the top of the screen, showing the number of players who had made it this far in the quest — over two thousand and counting. Above the floating keypad Johnny saw that he had three attempts at guessing the number. He watched for a few seconds as other players, in their own phased instances of the pyramid, used all three of their tries, and were flung to the base of the pyramid and barred from re-entry.
“But how could Johnny know what number King Khufu would be? Did he really have to make a one in a hundred million guess? No. Johnny knew that knowledge itself is power.”
A string of Google search results flitted past the screen as Johnny frantically hunted for clues about the Pharaoh. One page displayed an image of the ‘Ivory figurine of Khufu’, along with a description that claimed it was the only three-dimensional artwork of the king to have survived intact through to the modern day. The sculpture was held by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, its inventory number JE 36143. Johnny stepped forward and tapped the numbers in. His finger hadn’t left the ‘3’ when the Force Field flickered and then disappeared for good, leaving in its wake the exposed model pyramid whose tip was now glowing. Not wanting to waste a single second, Johnny stepped forward and slammed his hand down hard.
Solarversia: The Year Long Game Page 12