“Presume you guys screwed up your Combo too?”
“Anvil Crawler,” they said in unison, with expressions that suggested their attempts had been as pitiful as hers. Pedro looked around uneasily.
“Looks like the machine sent us to a random destination. This definitely isn’t San Miguelito. I know it well. I’ve been there dozens of times. And this place is deserted — there was nobody here to greet us, no group of people guarding the machine like the datafeeds said there would be. It’s all wrong.”
“You’re right,” Nova said, as she read the machine’s location. “We got teleported to a small town in Peru. So what do we do now?”
Burner held up his hand as if to stop her in her tracks. The teleporter was starting back up.
“Listen: the jingle’s playing in reverse. Which means—”
“Someone — or something — is about to teleport here from somewhere else,” Pedro said quietly. They looked at one another in horror before yelling “run!” at the top of their lungs. The top half of the machine completed its rotation before they’d gone ten metres. Three eyes, volleyed to respective rear-view cams, confirmed three worst nightmares. A small army of Huntropellimi spewed out of the machine, brandishing war claws above their heads.
Burner was the first to die. One of the beasts got within range, then whipped its mighty tail over its head, skewering him through his abdomen. Burner and Nova agreed after the event that Pedro’s demise was almost comical. A Huntropellimous charged at full speed until it was right behind him, then cut him down to size, starting at his feet, and working its way upward, like it was chopping a vegetable for a salad.
Nova was grabbed by a claw and swept off her feet. Her attacker chose not to kill her immediately. Instead, it studied her for a few seconds with the collection of eyes that dotted the upper section of its armoured head. Then it used its other claw to slice open her forehead in one calm, vertical action. It inserted tiny pincers into the bleeding hairline fracture and used them to force it wide apart. Then the thing opened its mouth. A stem shot out, enveloped her brain, and sucked it out of her skull in one clean motion.
Back in the room, Burner stared at the wall, mouth hanging open, an expression of shock on his face. The red belt around his profile square flashed three times, and then his avatar performed the one-second boogie that he’d programmed a year beforehand. After that, the square turned dark. He looked at his new number — 9,901,330, the position he’d finished in — let out a little whimper and dropped his head into his hands. Nova’s square was also changing. Her green belt flashed three times before it, and the trim around the license plates on Flynn, Bruno and Hawk all turned red.
At that moment the pizza boy stuck his head round the door. Sensing the depressed atmosphere, he gently popped the boxes onto the table, counted out some change from the note left there for him and slipped back out of the room. The smell must have roused him, because all of a sudden Jono sat bolt upright and said, “Get in my house! Two Mighty Meaties with extra cheese.” He looked at Burner and Nova and rubbed his eyes. “Did I miss anything?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Nova inhaled the bittersweet aroma of the espresso, a treat from the uni shop for having completed her early morning run in time for lectures. She hadn’t set a new personal best — her virtual copy seemed insanely fast these days — but she had finished in a respectable time, creeping into the 96th centile for her age range. Taking a sip, she swilled the thick coffee around her tongue, saturating her taste buds. The coffees she earned in this manner always tasted better than the ordinary ones. She was about to neck the rest in one, like a shot, when she heard a familiar voice.
“Hello, stranger. I haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Charlie, hi, hello. Yes. I mean no. I’ve been around, a dippin’ and a trippin’, livin’ la vida loca.”
Her stomach lurched violently and blood rushed to her cheeks. Why did such nonsense always come out of her mouth? And how was it possible for Charlie to look hotter every time she saw him? Fearful of dropping her espresso, or worse yet, throwing it over his shirt or his face, she put the cup down on the window ledge beside her and hoped he hadn’t noticed her hand shaking.
“I saw you and Burner lose a life to those weird crabby creatures. It was horrible watching your face get hacked open like that. But you’re still in, even if you’re on your last life, right?
Her stomach stepped up a gear. He’d been following her progress in The Game. What did that mean?
“Yeah, I’m a red belt now. Poor old Burner’s out for good. The good news is that there’s only eight million people left in it. Hundreds of thousands are going out every day.”
“That must be exciting, with the Final Million approaching. I know this might sound a little stalky, but I keep watching your highlights reel. I can’t wait to watch you in action again.”
“Wow. I don’t know what to say. I feel like a film star.”
“You are a film star. I was on the edge of my seat as you ran to that teleporter. Shame the animals followed you. I didn’t know they could use teleport machines too.”
“We were supposed to end up somewhere different, where a bunch of other players were grouped together for protection. Turns out someone had attached a TeleTrixis device to the side of the machine. It messed with our journey, but not the animals behind us. They hit the redial button on the keypad, and bingo, there they were. It was such an annoying way to die.”
“You’ve got me hooked. I’ve signed up to play the next Game. Maybe you could come over and scan my body some time?”
“I’d love to. Some time, any time. Count me in.”
The thought of scanning his body made her hand shake again. She slipped it into the back pocket of her cargo pants, clasped tight.
“I still feel awful about what happened at the Karting final. I never got to apologise to you about that. Not properly, anyway. Will you ever be able to forgive me?”
“Oh, that. It’s ancient history. Burner and Jono swore blind that everyone was pushed in the excitement. It wasn’t your fault, you just happened to be the one holding Zhang at the time. I’ve been meaning to apologise to you — for what I said.”
“Poor little Zhang, I can still see the look on his face as he went flying across the room. Well anyway, it sounds like we’re good again.” He smiled at her, and took a breath. “Actually, I’m glad I saw you. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’ve split up with Holly. Going out with her was a huge mistake. I don’t even know what I saw in her. Am I too late to make amends?”
He took Nova’s hand and looked at her. A lock of hair fell across his face, and when he failed to blow it back in place they both giggled. He took a small step closer and bit his lip while he gazed at her. A vision flared through her mind. Theirs would be the perfect union. She’d win Solarversia and pay for an extravagant wedding. Zhang and Flash would look cute in their little pageboy outfits. Computer Sushi would read the blessing. And Holly would spend the day crying into her fishnet stockings.
The vision fuelled the courage she needed to speak again. There were only two items left in the ‘Soul’ section of her Super Nova project: apologising to her parents and this. And if she completed them before the end of the year, Burner would be her servant for the week, rather than the other way round.
“Charlie, I really like you, but there’s something I need to tell you. I lied to you on the day we met. About the sustainable development stuff. I haven’t been to Mozambique. Actually, I didn’t know much about sustainability at all until I met you. I mean, I’ve read loads about it now. But when I saw you on the open day, I was drawn to you and I wanted to go wherever you were going. I was supposed to be attending the Solar Soc meeting with Burner. The truth is that I never did any of the stuff I spoke about. I made it up so you’d like me.”
Her eyes left his and drifted aimlessly until they found the half-drunk espresso shot, the little cup anchoring her gaze. She felt him release h
er hands as he stepped away, leaving behind a surprising coldness.
“You made all that stuff up?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I was going—”
“That’s a bit weird. I don’t know what to say. You made it up to impress me?”
“I wanted to have something to talk about when we all sat round in that semicircle—”
“But we talked about it loads after that, down at the caves and stuff. You lied to me the whole time?”
“It was really stupid, I know. But you were with Holly. And she was in a gold bikini … I just needed something interesting to say. Please, give me—”
But he’d already swept his hair behind his ears, revealing an altogether different expression, one devoid of warmth entirely.
“Look, I need to think about this. I thought I knew who you were. I never would have guessed that you were a liar.”
He pursed his lips, adjusted the bag on his shoulder and walked away. Nova felt numb. That certainly wasn’t supposed to happen. The talk should have cleared the air, like it had done with Jockey. Charlie had made a mistake by choosing Holly, and she had made a mistake by telling a stupid white lie. It was even-stevens, wasn’t it?
“You don’t want to come to a party on New Year’s Eve then?” she whispered under her breath as he left the shop without looking back.
***
Nova loved watching her parents open their Christmas presents. Although she hadn’t received much from them this year — a pair of funky winter gloves and a framed picture of her and Zhang — she’d received the gifts with grace, appreciating the spirit in which they were given.
Her mum tore the last sheet of wrapping paper off her present and ogled the prize within.
“A new blender, love? You shouldn’t have. But actually, it looks great. Our last one’s deader than a dodo.”
“You’ve been very generous this year, love. I don’t know where you found the money. It certainly wasn’t from us. Next year will be different though, once I’ve found work again,” her dad said.
“The money was from my student loan. I put some aside for presents.” She stroked Zhang’s fur and took a deep breath. “I also wanted to tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me over the years. I didn’t appreciate it until going away to uni. You cooked my meals, did my laundry—”
“Don’t forget the dusting, the sweeping, and the free taxi service.”
“All of it, mum, I took it all for granted. I also wanted to say sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused, especially the police stuff earlier in the year. You must have been worried out of your minds.”
Wide-eyed, her dad turned to her mum. “Is this the real Nova in front of us? Perhaps the people at Solarwerks have replaced her with a robot. Are you going to lay a golden egg for your next trick, love?”
Nova’s mum picked up the TV remote and rapped her husband on the knuckles. “Don’t discourage her, Derek. You’re right, sweetheart, we were worried. As for everything we’ve done for you over the years, please remember it all when we’re old and need looking after ourselves. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a certain bird in the kitchen that needs a good stuffing. Derek, go and shove that old blender in the shed, would you?”
Nova shuffled Zhang off her lap and checked her Booners. There were four more alerts from Gogmagog, the software developed by Max and Maurice that had helped to locate the Order’s training camp. Having successfully closed their first round of venture capital funding, the boys had been able to step up development work on it and had released a consumer version the previous week. Nova and Burner had been obvious choices to help test it.
“Hey, Burner, you still there?”
He took a moment to respond.
“Sure am. Just been playing with my Christmas pressies. Jono gave me an awesome drone kit that can fly to a height of 5,000 feet. That’s half the height of Mount Everest. Should keep me out of trouble for a while.”
“I wanted to ask you a quick question about Gogmagog. I keep receiving alerts from it, all flagged with a low priority. The messages contain random photos and text. Any idea what’s going on?”
“Just delete them. It’s only a beta version of the software, so it’s not very good. Go into your settings and turn them off if you like. I’ve changed mine so that I only receive alerts with a ‘critical’ priority, like for kids who have gone missing in the last 24 hours, impending natural disasters, that kind of thing.”
“Makes sense, I’ll do the same. Guess what? I just apologised to mum and dad, which means I’ve completed project Super Nova for the year. You best get your servant’s uniform ready. That includes a black bowtie, by the way. I have very high standards.”
“Er, yeah, about that. Are you sure we agreed to a full week? I think we were drunk when we agreed to that. It doesn’t sound very practical, what with all the uni work we’ve got, and you still in Solarversia. I mean, if you make the Final Million you’ll need to concentrate on that, right? Maybe a day sounds more realistic?”
“Nice try. Anyway, talking about the Final Million, I’ve got to go, I’m about to face Zettanja. Shit is getting seriously real. For those of us still in, anyway.”
“Thanks for the reminder. Good luck in the puzzle, and remember—”
“There Can Be Only One?”
“No. Remember that I’m picking you up at eleven o’clock tomorrow to hit the sales. Jockey needs us to get a whole load of things for New Year’s Eve. I still can’t believe that you volunteered us both to help him set up. I think I prefer the old Nova sometimes.”
She propped the Booners up on her forehead and breathed a harried sigh. Although she’d come a long way, it felt like her journey was only just getting started. An article in that morning’s White Dwarf had informed her that she was one of only three million players left. It sounded impressive, having outlasted ninety-seven million other people, but to secure a place in the Final Million she still had what seemed like an impossible number of tasks to achieve by midnight on New Year’s Eve when the list closed.
Uranus, the planet she’d just landed on after a four-day journey from Earth, was the one causing all of her problems. Its orbit was out of sync with Neptune and Pluto, so it was on the other side of the Solar System. She’d needed to go out there first to face Zettanja before she could head on to those final two planets, but she’d have to go via Earth, to visit one more Wonder of The Industrial World and tick off a bunch of other items.
Her problem was a lack of teleport tokens. She’d amassed enough of them — a little over a thousand — to teleport back to Earth from Uranus. But if she did, what then? Neptune and Pluto were five and six days’ travel time respectively, or the equivalent of 1,250 and 2,000 tokens.
Tokens and time had become the chagrin of players everywhere. Except for the 200,000 or so lucky players who had already made it — completed every last item on their Bucket Lists, visited all nine Grandmasters, and ended up on Pluto as one of the Final Million. And, as she’d discovered in the last few days, the ‘lucky few’ happened to include both Holly and Jools van der Star. Just thinking about it made her want to spit.
Jealous of their achievement, and trying to ignore her likely fate, she grabbed hold of her goggles and prepared for what might be her final few minutes of the Year-Long Game.
***
Flynn skidded perilously close to edge of the icy ravine, Nova only too aware that she’d misjudged the last corner. She was only halfway through her journey to visit Zettanja and was already wondering whether she’d make it. The Umbilicus at the Spaceport on Uranus had led to a localised instance of The Greasy Wrench, stationed within the basement. The only exit from the garage led to an underground path that wound its way downward, into the freezing interior of the planet.
Her initial excitement at seeing Flynn — who had looked cooler than ever, decked out in his winter tyres — had been dampened as soon as she’d started the journey. The thick metal chains on his tyres had helped her gain some tracti
on on the treacherous roads of ice, but the twists and turns had proved to be challenging, regardless.
The last corner had freaked her out. Having just navigated a tricky chicane, she’d come face-to-face with a wall of ice that contained within it the frozen avatars of players who had lost their last life on the journey. Glimpsing the macabre display in her peripheral vision and thinking it was an obstacle to avoid, she’d banked hard left. Flynn’s left rear wheel had slipped off the edge, leaving a panicked Nova to clear the corner on three wheels. Tutting loudly, she resolved to pull herself together. She may have been a Krazy Karting expert, but she wasn’t immune to death.
The final ten minutes of the drive were less eventful, but no less stressful. At least she’d been prepared for the snowballs when they’d arrived, having read about them in the datafeed. Dead players threw them, hoping to earn some last-minute bounty money for knocking out potential winners. In this way, Spiralwerks gave an incentive to players who had gone out to keep interacting in the Gameworld. They were out, but still having fun and winning money.
With Flynn’s wipers on maximum speed and a lot of shifting in her seat to peer round the snowballs that hit her windscreen, Nova managed to cross the finishing line inside Zettanja’s ice cave with seconds to spare. She climbed out of her seat, gave Flynn a pat on the bonnet and prepared to meet her destiny.
In all, 641 people had arrived at the cave this hour to play the puzzle and a mere 192 of them would be leaving with their lives intact. When Zettanja and all around him had dissolved into the ether after his speech, a little girl standing in front of a wall full of doors replaced him. The only thing the girl had said since the puzzle had started was “My name is Lutty. Please help me find my name.” The words echoed through the empty chambers of Nova’s mind, as blank as Spee-Akka’s January canvas.
The doors behind the little girl were arranged in a five by five grid, which was topped by one additional door, sticking out on the top right as if somebody had ordered one too many. Each door was unique, both in size and colour, and Nova couldn’t help but wonder what it all meant. The medium-sized pink door had a large brass knocker in the shape of a gargoyle placed smack in its centre. The oversized yellow door was arched at the top and looked like it could do with a generous lashing of paint. And the green door, which was half the height of the others, was dotted with letterboxes, like it was greedy for mail. The only thing they had in common was the number ‘1’, but she couldn’t think how that related to the girl’s name.
Solarversia: The Year Long Game Page 29