Solarversia: The Year Long Game

by Mr Toby Downton

“Hedonism, yeah, it’s a great night. I’ve got a friend in the third year who spins a few tunes at parties. He knows all the DJs and stuff. One of the Hedonism DJs is going to be at a bash by the lake tonight. Bit less formal than a club night.”

  Charlie’s eyes lit up. She was winning. It was time to seal the deal.

  “I was going to head down there soon. Charlie, you need to meet these mates of Jono’s. They’re massively into technology and building gadgets. We could persuade them to create some stuff for Third World villages — developing economies, I mean.”

  “Awesome, I’d love to come down if that’s alright?” He smiled at her and she locked eyes with him. Then he turned on Holly. “What do you think?”

  “Yeah, a lake party,” said Holly in a bored tone of voice. “We can do that for a bit. Then we can go to Hedonism afterwards. But I think my friend will only be able to get the two of us in on the guest list.” She squeezed her face into a false little grimace. “Sorry about that.”

  Nova smiled at her, and Holly smiled back. She’d never been part of a more sarcastic, inauthentic exchange in her life.

  The game was on.

  ***

  The walk down to the lake was awkward. Each Leia vied for the attention of Charlie, who walked between them, enjoying the looks of the passers-by. Nova tried to steer the conversation toward ring-tailed lemurs and technology, while Holly tried to steer it toward clubbing and the season she had spent working as a rep in Ibiza. Whenever Holly spoke, Nova used the time to think how she could win Charlie’s affection, but also worried about the lies she’d told him. She’d never lied like this to anyone; she might have deceived her parents, but the deception had always been “errors of omission” rather than outright porkies.

  A steady, minimalist drumbeat emanated from the bushes and trees ahead. Hoicking her dress up, Nova skipped ahead along the gravel path towards the caves. This was her gig and she was in charge. She pushed past the last few branches of bracken to be greeted by a flashing neon sign that read ‘The Cave Rave’. It was a small gathering of around thirty people. Wireless speakers situated on rocks and suspended from the cave ceiling pounded out techno beats, complemented by crazy dance visuals projected onto the rear wall of the cave by a pair of Booners. In the centre of the stone terrace in front of the cave, a crackling campfire was roasting marshmallows that dangled above it, propped up by sticks from nearby trees.

  Charlie and the Leias sat down a short way back from the fire. Nova cracked open a beer and heard a familiar voice.’

  “Well, I never. If it isn’t a Han sandwich. Made in a deli far, far away, no doubt.”

  Nova waved him over with a smile on her face. It felt like the reinforcements had arrived.

  “This is my friend Burner, from back home. That’s Maidstone, by the way. Burner, meet Charlie. And this is Holly,” she added as a bitter afterthought.

  “Charlie, Holly, a pleasure to meet you,” Burner said while reaching down to shake their hands. “Jono, look who’s here.”

  Jono paused in his ’mallow toasting, looked over and smiled a mad grin. He called over to another couple of guys and headed over to join them. He and Burner were something of a double act, sometimes able to riff off one another for hours at a time. Or more usually, until Nova told them to shut the hell up.

  “Well, well, well. It’s young Nova Negrahnu if I’m not mistaken,” Jono said, doing his version of Burner’s posh old man routine, “Krazy Karting finalist, darts extraordinaire, finder of Travinsky and wearer of the strangest fashions.”

  Nova felt herself blush. “Burner, make him stop, please.”

  “Hey, guys, I’m Jono, nice to meet you all. And this here is Max and Maurice, two of the Solar Soc crew,” Jono said, with a flourish of his hands.

  Charlie turned to Nova. “Karting, darts, Travinsky … I’m intrigued.”

  All eyes were on her. Even Holly’s.

  “I’m a huge fan of Solarversia and I’m doing pretty well. I’m a green belt, so I’ve still got a life left. That’s pretty rare at this stage. Travinsky was the name of a bird at the circus. I won some money when I used my darts skills to help find him.”

  “Blimey,” said Charlie. “Totally rock ’n’ roll.”

  “All pretty standard in my world. You need to remember that I’m a princess,” she said to laughter from everyone but Holly, who was now busy tapping away on her phone. “Krazy Karting is one of the sub-games that takes place within Solarversia. I’m racing in the final in a few weeks time, hoping to take down the hundred grand prize for first place. You should come and watch.”

  “We’ll be there,” said Max and Maurice in unison. Wearing matching jackets, customised with badges displaying their Game numbers, vehicles and catchphrases, they took it in turns to press their buttons, triggering sown-in speakers that spoke the details of their profiles.

  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Nova,” Max said with a wink. “We’re two of your biggest fans. We’re going to be live-blogging the Krazy Karting final for Solar Soc.”

  Nova smiled. Max and Maurice were the creators of Gogmagog, the software she and Burner had used in Project Drone. The police had advised all of them to stay quiet on the matter so that the Holy Order couldn’t connect Nova to her original forum post. She was relieved that the topic hadn’t been mentioned, but she was excited to meet them. Burner had told her that their last few months had been mental; they’d been inundated with offers from venture capitalists since the story about the terrorist training ground broke and were thinking of dropping out of uni to develop the company.

  Max turned to Charlie. “What about you, Solo? Are you still in?”

  “The Game? No, I never got round to signing up in time, unfortunately.”

  “You’re dressed as Han Solo, but you’re actually a Yolo?”

  Charlie turned to Nova with a blank expression on his face.

  “Game lingo. Players are sometimes referred to as ‘Solos’, and non-players as ‘Yolos’, like ‘You Only Live Once’, because you only get one life in the real world.”

  “And what about you, Holly? Do you play?”

  Without looking at him, she casually held out a hand to display a violet-coloured bangle whose outer edge was inscribed with a number.

  “Woah. You’re violet belt with a five-digit player number? That’s even more central than you, Nova. Seriously cool. I don’t think I’ve seen you at Solar Soc before?”

  “No offence, but I went to a taster and it wasn’t for me. I’d rather be playing than talking about playing. Perhaps that’s how I’ve retained my three lives. Us violet belts are even rarer than green belts. There are only a few million of us left in the wild. I see you lost a life to Killanja, Nova. It must have been incredibly annoying to lose a life to the easiest Grandmaster? Perhaps you need to increase your intake of Puzzle practise? A balanced diet isn’t right for everyone.”

  “She’s actually really good at Puzzles.” It was Burner. She knew she could count on him to stick up for her. “The problem was, she got spannered on sambucas the night we finished our A-levels. She didn’t even get to play the Puzzle, she was too busy puking her guts up in the bog at Frag …”

  He tailed off into silence when he finally noticed Nova death-staring him.

  “We all know the saying, I’m sure. A bad Solo blames her Science. Although in this case, it sounds like a bad Solo blaming her sambucas.” When Holly burst into a fit of giggles at her own joke, Nova felt a burning rage surge through her body.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my Science, thanks.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then why do you hide your stats? True Solos show their stats. Everyone knows that. By the way, I noticed that we had someone in common. A certain Jools van der Star.”

  “That’s the guy who nearly stopped Nova from making the Karting final. He’s ranked the best player in the—”

  Sensing the death stare earlier this time, Burner stopped talking, suddenly a lot more interested in the label on his can o
f beer. Heads turned to Nova.

  “You could say that we have something of a rivalry. I was ahead in our heat — by quite some margin — when he got lucky, picked up a Turbo Boost, and smashed me into the side hoardings. I fell back to seventeenth, and it was only my very best driving that got me back into tenth. How is it you know him, Holly?”

  “We’re grid twins. As you probably know, he’s a terrible flirt. Started sexting me the minute I signed up. We’ve become good friends.”

  As the grid became increasingly populated with people leading up to the start of The Game, Spiralwerks had encouraged Solos to get to know one another as part of their ‘social cohesion’ strategy. Rather than segment people by interest like other social networks, Spiralwerks segmented them using maths and geometry, forcing them to interact with those from other countries and social class.

  Your twins were the people reflected in the x-axis, the y-axis and the origin, so that you had a horizontal twin, a vertical twin and a diagonal twin. Together, the four of you were referred to as ‘grid quads’, and any two of you as ‘grid twins’. Nova knew hers, but hadn’t formed friendships with any of them.

  Once Holly had shown Charlie the replay of van der Star smashing Nova into the side hoardings, she stretched her arms in a bored manner and batted her eyelids at him. “We’d better get going if we want to get into Hedonism for free.”

  “Oh, don’t bother with Hedonism,” Burner said. “Marco’s their biggest name and he’s about to play here. Stay — it’ll be awesome.”

  “It’s up to you guys, of course,” Nova said, quickly taking over from Burner before he could ruin his good work. She paused, as if she was thinking all of this through for the first time. “You could see him play here for free, or later on at the club. Though if you did go, you’d have to pay for taxis, and nightclub prices for drinks.”

  As DJ Marco approached the decks to start his set, Jono leapt up and landed in a squatting position in front of them. He pulled a flask of whisky out of one pocket and a joint out of the other.

  “Do you whisky? Do you smoky?” he said, while wiggling each in their faces. “If you come from Maidstone, smoking weed is compulsory. It’s an anagram of ‘I am stoned’ for a start.”

  It was brilliant timing. Charlie, as it turned out, both whiskied and smokied. Hopefully they’d all get stoned and want to stay put by the fire. Better still, Holly wasn’t a big fan of the green stuff. Nova had a smoke, handed the joint to Charlie and then went to retrieve some marshmallows from the production line that Max and Maurice had set in motion.

  “This setup reminds me of the old Burnside barbeques we used to have,” she said, while Burner examined various sticks to find her some that were ready. It was awesome being at Nottingham with him and having Jono and his crowd to help show them the ropes. She pointed at a couple of ’mallows with crisped golden edges and readied her napkin in anticipation. Perhaps she might even feed them to Charlie herself, and have him lick her fingers clean. It would tickle and she’d giggle and provocatively suck them herself. She even had a face lined up to give Holly while the action went down, and practised it quickly while Burner struggled with a ’mallow that looked like it had been roasted beyond repair. But once she returned to their area away from the fire, thoughts of playing licky-tickle soon disappeared. Instead, she found Holly groaning and Charlie massaging the lower section of her back.

  “What’s going on? Why are you—”

  “Holly decided that she did want a couple of drags of the spliff after all. Bad idea.”

  “I don’t feel too good. Everything’s spinning. I think I might be ill.” Her subsequent groan was so dramatic that it bordered on the farcical. “Can you take me back to the house and look after me, Charlie?”

  “Looks like you’re pulling a whitey. Of course I can.”

  Nova looked on, stunned at the turn of events. How had this happened? The deceitful little bitch. She could tell Holly was play-acting from a mile off. Surely Charlie hadn’t fallen for it? They got up together, Charlie steadying her as she wobbled about. He turned and shrugged at Nova.

  “Thanks for the invitation. I guess I’ll see you around.” He wrapped his arm around Holly’s waist and pulled her close to him. “Let’s get you home, eh?” he said, and they turned and walked away.

  “Oh, well,” Burner said. “More ’mallows for us, eh?”

  Nova didn’t answer him. She had gone rather white herself.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Casey was hyperalert as he paddled his kayak through the swamp on the way back to the compound. The rush of adrenaline from the afternoon’s events was still working its way through his body. He divided his attention between Theodore and Brandon in the kayaks ahead, the alligators lining the riverbank, and the man slumped in the seat in front of him.

  He kept expecting two contradictory things to happen and was equally nervous of both. He was half-worried the guy was going to regain consciousness and attempt an escape of some sort, and half-worried that he was going to die. Brandon had cracked his skull hard with the car jack, harder than was called for to Casey’s mind.

  He leaned forward and gently pushed and pulled at the body, trying to right him in his seat again. His name was Elmer Sullivan, and he’d been the target of the day’s mission. Elmer was one of the homeless people that had been accosted by the Order a couple of years back when they’d roamed the ghettos of downtown Los Angeles and rounded up a bunch of vagrants.

  The organisation had presented itself as a medical charity doing research — one that paid a handsome sum to its participants without asking any difficult questions. Drifters like Elmer had queued up to take part once the word had spread. Fifty bucks in exchange for a doctor taking a quick, painless blood sample, and her colleague waving a phone over your body to scan it into their database. For most of the people there that day, it had been Christmas come early.

  By the time the Order had come to use them, to create online accounts at companies like Spiralwerks, most of the individuals they were pretending to be had either died of alcohol poisoning or descended further into that special blend of psychosis that long-term homelessness was so adept at brewing.

  Frances and Wallace hadn’t been totally bullshitting when they said they were taking samples of blood to use in research. No, samples hadn’t been used to find a cure for Alzheimer's. But they had allowed Frances to find genetic matches between the vagrants and the organisation’s own members. Although he didn’t know it yet, Elmer was destined for great things. At least, part of him was.

  Wallace. Just the thought of him sent shooting pains up Casey’s body. He struggled to keep up with the kayak ahead, twisting his body wildly from left to right as he paddled with his only arm, a torrent of thoughts rushing through his mind. A moment of clarity allowed him to appreciate the story about the Magi for what it was — it had given him something to hold onto, a vine thrown to help him climb out of the suicidal depths. A friendly AI that would save mankind. An eternity of suffering if he didn’t heed the call. Comrades at the compound who believed the same thing. He’d been so sure that they were on to something. Not just any thing, but the thing, something good, virtuous and pure.

  It was the same old God he’d loved as a child and lost as a teenager. The same old story in a new technicolour dreamcoat. And it had come with something he desperately needed — a ready-made, pre-packaged family, the one he’d never had. Theodore and Frances were the loving-yet-strict parents. Wallace had been his older brother, the guy who looked out for him and showed him the ropes. His bottom lip quivered as he remembered Wallace begging for mercy before the Medibots caved his skull in.

  With Elmer slumped in the seat in front of him, Casey’s thoughts drifted to his impending mission and what he’d have to endure to achieve it. Certainly his brothers and sisters from the Order regarded him differently these days. Whenever he walked past someone in the compound they would nod in a knowing, reverential manner. It was a telling gesture, an indication that t
hey respected his sacrifice for the greater good. His operation wouldn’t be the only one in the Compound, but it would be the most severe. In some ways he was no longer simply one of the men, but rather a leader among them.

  He knew something for sure: he was shit scared about the operation. He’d endured plenty of sleepless nights, tossing and turning on the stupidly narrow mattress in his bunk, trying to swat skeeters with a hand that wasn’t there. In some ways, the plan Theodore had in mind for him was more frightening than the thought of suicide. It wasn’t as final as death of course, but it was definitive in other ways. It would represent a total loss of identity; an elimination of self. Casey Brown would be no more.

  ***

  She knew that the event would be special given that she was one of only six finalists from the United Kingdom, but it wasn’t until she approached The Commodore, the largest gaming cafe in Nottingham, that Nova realised quite what a momentous occasion the Krazy Karting final was going be.

  As she turned into Shakespeare Street, she saw the huge ‘Good Luck Super Nova 2020!’ banner draped across the front of the cafe. Burner took a photo of her reaction — a hand raised to her cheek as if she had given herself a slow-motion slap. Solar Soc had appointed him and Zhang as the official photographers and videographers and had tasked them with gathering enough quality footage for a short documentary to mark the occasion.

  As she entered The Commodore, a small mob gathered round her, eager for photos and statements before the race began. Burner helped clear a path to her rig, which, she was pleased to note, was located within a cordoned-off area. It was all very different from her visit the previous week when she’d got some quiet practice in like a normal member of the public.

  The place reminded her of Fragging Hell: it had the same overhead monitors displaying gaming results and upcoming matches, the same strip lighting running down the centre of the loud, retro carpets, and the same mild odour of stale sweat, deep-fryers and teen spirit that lingered in every gaming cafe she’d visited.