Solarversia: The Year Long Game

by Mr Toby Downton

  The rigs were arranged in a circle facing a pole covered in yet more cams, a structure that reminded Nova of a teleport machine. Each rig consisted of an omnidirectional treadmill, three rings — one for each axis within three-dimensional space — and a harness, which secured the player in place. The rigs looked like an attempt to convert Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of Vitruvian Man into a fairground ride. When combined with the haptic bodysuits, the setup had been touted as the penultimate mediated experience, one step away from neural implants.

  A couple of Spiralheads secured Nova’s harness and ran through a series of safety checks. She ummed and ahhed at their questions, captivated by the events going on around her: the drones, the lasers and Mandelbrot’s entourage, there in person, as it were. This is what it had been about all along. This final round, the last ten battling until one remained. Pulling down her visor, she grabbed her shoulder, pictured the tattoo, closed her eyes and thought of her friend. This one’s for you, sister.

  She dialled the Solarversia Constellation on the ceiling of her Corona Cube for the last time. The cube evaporated and she found herself in a stadium of a different kind: the Colosseum in Rome. It had been restored to its former glory, centuries of destruction and neglect repaired at the touch of a button. It may have been a cold, dark February night at the Olympic Stadium, but it was the middle of summer at the Colosseum, and its white marble seating glinted in the midday sun.

  Around its circumference, ten national flags fluttered in the wind, one for each gladiator. Nova glanced around, eager to spot anything that might give her an advantage. Nothing stood out, and that bothered her. The one thing she found to console herself with was that all ten of them had been positioned against the perimeter of the arena, their backs to the wall. At least nobody could attack her from behind.

  She looked down at her attire. Gone was the black bodysuit, in its place a full gladiatorial ensemble. An ocrea was fastened around each of her shins: a metal guard bound in boiled leather that led from her knees to her ankles. Each arm was clad in a manica. The overlapping metal segments that flowed down from her shoulders to her wrists made her arms resemble a pair of frozen waterfalls. A flimsy red skirt held in place by a sword belt, and some shiny golden body armour completed the look. As she looked around, getting a feel for where each of her opponents was located, and wondering where her weapons were, a flourish of trumpets blared.

  People in the crowd pointed at Castalia, a glowing blimp high in the sky, and then at the Colosseum’s Royal Box, which was empty save for a couple of arkwinis standing to attention. They were waiting for the entourage to teleport from the floating palace. Arkwal was the first to appear. Looking majestic in long flowing robes, a laurel wreath upon his head, he took a couple of paces forward, cleared his throat and then, in a most serious tone, said, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I have the honour of presenting His Royal Highness, Emperor Commissaire de Spielen, von Unglai D'Acheera Nakk-oo, Mandelbrot.”

  The Emperor appeared in the centre of the box, his central column as high as the Colosseum itself. He waited for the rest of his entourage to appear in the box, and for the crowd to quieten. One of the arms protruding from his base made a subtle waving movement, a signal for Gorigaroo to strike his gong.

  And with that, the final round of the Year-Long Game began.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Despite the crowd yelling for blood, guts and gore, players barely moved at first. Nova glanced around, unsure what to expect. She was weaponless — they all were — and yet they were expected to fight to the death. Rather than making any rash move, the players inched their way toward the centre of the arena, eyes darting either side of them.

  They came to rest a minute later, still arranged in a circle, five or so metres from the gladiators either side of them. Nova’s pulse raced at the speed of light. There was a pause as the players weighed each other up, working out their options. And then they all seemed to move at once.

  The crowd erupted, freshly energised by the promise of carnage. The Dump Truck, who had been standing directly opposite Nova, charged straight for her, screaming a war cry, cartwheeling her arms madly around her head. Nova steadied herself, held her arms up and blocked one, then both of her opponent’s fists. Sparks flew off their manicas as they connected time after time, the wrists of her real-world bodysuit pulsing in time with every blow.

  The Dump Truck came at her again, mashing her arms together in a pincer movement as if Nova’s head was a nut to be cracked open. Nova waited, unsure how to deal with the unorthodox move, and at the last second, dove to the side, rolling clear of the danger. In the next few minutes they exchanged a series of uncoordinated punches, stray elbows and speculative kicks, shaving points here and there from each other’s health scores. Around them, the other eight had paired off and had settled into similar rhythms.

  Fighting ceased the instant Gorigaroo next sounded his gong. The finalists eyed each other uneasily and then surveyed their own bodies, the ground and the wider arena as they tried to discern what had changed. Matas the Mole was the first to move. He broke into a sudden sprint away from the centre, taking them all by surprise. Nova followed his trajectory to the perimeter wall. Fastened to it was a set of gladiator weaponry: a small circular shield and matching spear. There looked to be one for each player, so she ran to the closest set, desperate to tool up before she was attacked.

  She skidded to a halt by the weapons, her heart pounding. The first time her hand passed through the spear she thought she was seeing things. She was overexcited after all. Perhaps she had misjudged the distance? When it happened a second time she wondered whether she’d missed a Puzzle that needed solving first.

  She literally couldn’t grab it, touch it or in any way interfere with it. Her hand wafted straight through it, as if she, or it, were a ghost. To her relief, the other players looked to be just as frustrated. It was only then that she noticed the name on the plaque next to the items: Captain Moreno. She was standing where the old Mexican guy had started. These were his items — and he was running straight at her.

  She darted to her left and tried to remember where she’d been standing at the start of the round. Everywhere looked the same. They were trapped in a giant sandpit, flanked by a nondescript ten-foot wall. The crowd was no use either; it was a frothing sea of screaming, bobbing heads. On her way to the centre a thought occurred to her — each national flag was different, they were like landmarks. Her own flag had been hoisted directly above her initial position. She slowed to a canter and frantically looked around, searching for the Union Jack. Bingo. She locked on to the weapons underneath and ran like hell.

  With ten metres to go she spied Darth Malaki, the Israeli player, charging for her, his spear aimed at her head. She stopped dead and flailed her arm in his general direction, managing to bat the pointed tip clear from her face with inches to spare. She reached her items and muttered some words of relief as they came away from the wall in her hands, then shrieked as Malaki lunged at her again.

  He was too quick; she barely had hold of her shield. His spear smashed into it, knocking it to the ground. She fell to one knee and swiped her own spear at him. It caught him just above his knee, clear of his protective ocrea. A horizontal red line appeared, thin at first, then thickening. He watched as the blood dripped onto his sandal.

  He sneered at her like a cobra guarding its kill. She cowered, spear in hand, desperately feeling behind her for the lost shield, willing it to fly through the air into her possession. Malaki noticed her shield too, and though they lunged for it at the same time, he made it there first and kicked it away, out of her reach. She pounced after it anyway, and he reacted by thrusting his spear at her body. It connected with her armour, not hard enough to pierce it, but hard enough to knock her onto her back.

  Clambering away from him on her bum and her elbows, she was in a state of sheer panic. He caught up with her, brought a foot down on her chest and pinned her to the ground. While she struggled
to get free, he carefully positioned the tip of his spear in the pit of her neck. His biceps bulged as he grabbed tight, preparing to ram the spear home. Feeling the bodysuit contract against her chest, she wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground.

  Fearing the worst, she caught her breath and then held it as a trumpet blared in the background. The Israeli paused and stared at her with a puzzled expression. Far behind him, on the other side of the arena, she could see the Norwegian flag being lowered. So the trumpet must have heralded Astrid the Unbeatable’s death.

  Suddenly, Malaki spasmed in pain and his chest arched forward. Fingers weakened, his spear dropped limply to the ground before he slumped in a heap next to it. Behind him, Captain Moreno was grinning at her, his spear protruding from Malaki’s back. Another trumpet sounded. Nova looked up to the see the Israeli flag being lowered. She leapt to her feet, scrambled to retrieve her shield and spear, and ran to the centre of the arena, desperate to regain her composure and forge some basic semblance of a plan.

  Moreno approached her, bearing the same mean expression he’d worn all week.

  “First I kill Astrid the Unbeatable. Then the Israeli. Now I kill you.” But before he could raise his weapon, the gong sounded. Parts of the ground deformed in front of her eyes. To her left, a shallow snaking crevice appeared in the arena floor. Hundreds of red-hot coals materialised, filling it to the brim. To her right, a large swathe of ground was now dotted with upturned metal spikes of differing length. Similar patches of ground transformed into potential death traps around the arena.

  She ought to have run from Moreno, but instead the pair of them watched transfixed as Jools van der Star picked up Vera888, the Chinese woman, by her hand and foot. Leaning back slightly, he swung her round in a circle, and then released her at a forty-five degree angle like he was throwing the discus. She sailed through the air and landed in a patch of hot coals.

  Although she got to her feet within seconds, she ran without thinking back toward van der Star, who stood at the side of the pit, his spear at the ready. His first jab was hard enough to knock her to the ground. Again she lunged for him, rather than try to escape the pit from a different direction. This time he landed a hard blow in her ribs through a narrow gap in her armour, sending her to the ground for good.

  Nova snapped back to her predicament. It was time to change up a gear, to go on the offensive. She wanted them to be scared of her. She charged at Captain Moreno, shield braced at her side, spear at the ready. They clashed head on and then pushed one another away. When her shield was lowered, Moreno took a mad swipe at her face. His spear connected with her cheek, nearly taking off her nose. Her visor flashed to give her the bad news: a whopping 20 health points knocked off, down to 75.

  He cackled at his handiwork and then came at her again. She sidestepped his advance, grabbed his arm and pulled him so that he tripped over her leg. He fell, face first, onto the coals and let out a mighty screech. Groaning with pain, he pushed himself up but his legs remained spreadeagled. She grabbed her spear in both hands and rammed it into his crotch as hard as she could. Another trumpet, another flag: another £500,000 in the bank.

  When Gorigaroo struck his gong again a few minutes later, more weapons appeared, fastened to the perimeter wall. Each player was rewarded with a Battle Axe and a larger, heavier rectangular shield. Not wanting to get stuck against the perimeter wall, Nova quickly headed back to the centre of the arena, but was distracted by a zigzag hole in the ground on the way.

  She wondered what it was there for. Barely half a foot wide, it wasn’t as if anyone could have fallen into it, even if they’d tried. And she could have sworn that something inside it was glistening. She shuffled closer and peered into it. The thing that shot out of the hole very nearly took her head off. She leapt back, startled, amazed at her own stupidity.

  Remembering the danger around her, she took stock of her situation. The new weapons were in her hands. Only six players remained. Thirty metres away, Ozwald the Destroyer and van der Star were tumbling around on the floor together, a short distance from a pit of poisonous snakes. Beyond them, Pedey Gonzalez was giving The Dump Truck a hard time, aiming a sortie of Battle Axe combinations at her head.

  Nova paused. Something didn’t feel right. She remembered sparring practice with Burner. What would he have suggested? An image of Matas flashed before her mind. Always watch the quiet ones. Feinting to her left, she twirled around to find that he’d crept up behind her and was now only metres away, charging, spear in one hand, axe in the other.

  Her large shield deflected the blow, but the collision knocked her back a few metres. Again he came at her, ramming her hard with his shoulder before she could take a firm stance. He was quick, she’d give him that. Knocking her backward for a third time in a row, he also took a sly swipe with his Battle Axe, snatching a few points when the blade caught her thigh.

  It was the fourth impact that sent the two of them crashing to the floor and rolling along the ground to end up in each other’s arms. Nova smiled awkwardly, and then grimaced when he headbutted with all his might. She saw him arch his head back to repeat the move and then freeze. Something was wrong. It felt like someone was squeezing the side of her body that she was lying on. She watched as Matas sunk an inch into the ground.

  “Quicksand,” he shouted at her. “We have to get out right now, or else we’ll both die.”

  She flailed madly, ripping herself from his grip, and then pushed hard against him to roll onto her back — and on top of her large shield. Leveraging herself against it, she pulled her limbs free from the pit and clambered back to safe ground. She stood to watch as Matas’ movements became increasingly constricted until at last the sand swallowed him whole. Or else we’ll both die. Nice try, Mole boy.

  The trumpet signalling his death was followed by the gong and then another familiar noise. It was a nasty grating screech that assaulted her ears. Three Obarians roared into the arena, cruising through the air at top speed. Nova switched to the smaller, circular shield. Her time fighting and fleeing these balls of teeth taught her one thing: speed was of the essence.

  The Dump Truck was the first victim of the Obarians. As they swooped toward her, she panicked and ran — the worst possible combination of actions. As she checked over her shoulder to watch their advance, she slipped into a trench of poison ivy. The vines came to life, wrapping themselves around her arms, legs and neck. They seemed to be squeezing the life out of her while simultaneously stretching her out, long and taut. She lay there immobilised, struggling and writhing as much as her torso could manage while her health score trickled to zero.

  Pedey paid the price for her negligence, though to be fair, her eyes couldn’t be everywhere at once. She’d managed to keep all three Obarians in her sight lines, suavely ducking and weaving out of their way, but failed to notice the bookies’ favourite, Ozwald, creep up behind her. He seemed to have a special affinity with the Battle Axe and the crowd were treated to their first beheading. The death was played over and over on the giant screens.

  Van der Star was the third Obarian fatality, a victim of poor luck and even worse timing. As the fanged spheres criss-crossed the arena, he found himself in a position where all three were headed toward him at once, a trifecta of dental danger. As his mutilated body sagged to the ground, minus large chunks of his neck and face, the gong sounded. The Obarians departed the arena, and only Nova and Ozwald were left standing.

  She was struck for a second by how little emotion she felt at watching van der Star’s demise. She’d dreamt about it a number of times, always taking the starring role of the player to land the fatal blow. But right at that moment she didn’t have time to gloat. Ozwald had an iron glare that said he’d never back down. Moving slowly, he never took his eyes off hers. He didn’t laugh or scoff at her; he appeared to respect her as an opponent. Putting away his small shield, he started to swing his Battle Axe, cross-hatching the air in front of him. He increased the speed, faster and faster.


  It made more sense to attack than to defend, but she couldn’t muster the courage. She switched to the larger shield and held it up on her left arm, brandishing the spear in her right. They came together. His axe battered her shield and the crowd went wild. Again and again they clashed, each time more forceful. The swings of his axe were relentless; he was a fighting machine.

  She hated the way he was in control, perpetually keeping her on the back foot, making her retreat from him. With every incursion his confidence grew. It was as if he could smell her fear. He came at her again, harder, faster, stronger. His axe flew through the air, aimed at her neck. She didn’t have time to block it with her shield, and had to make do with her spear. It worked, just. She blocked the blow. But then, with a flick of his wrist, he knocked the spear clean out of her hand and into a patch of barbed wire.

  She switched to her axe and edged backwards carefully until she was out of space. Patches of broken glass and barbed wire were either side of her, behind her a large pit of coals. She was trapped. For the first time in their battle, Ozwald smiled, sensing her unease. And he wasn’t the only one. With their faces plastered across the giant screens, spectators were calling on him to finish her off. Without her spear she felt hopeless. Why hadn’t she spent more time training with a Battle Axe? She needed something unorthodox, something unexpected. Something like the zigzag gap.