Solarversia: The Year Long Game

by Mr Toby Downton

  She took a deep breath and mentally steadied herself. It was torture not knowing how Arty was progressing. She needed to stay alive and she needed a plan. As she cycled through her inventory, searching for any item that might be of use, she noticed a white baton floating her way. When it got closer she realised that it was one of the spaceships that had been docked on the ISS. It flew past Banjax’s head, near enough that she was able to catch the pointed nose end.

  “I already gave you my final answer. Here’s something else you can shove up your ass.”

  She flipped the spacecraft in the air, caught hold of its elongated frame, pulled her leg into her body to draw Banjax closer, then swiped at him like a madwoman. He held his tentacles up to protect his head so their spherical ends drooped around him like a bunch of old daffodils clutched tight by the stems. Nova took aim and swiped straight through the centre of the bunch with the nose of the spaceship. Banjax released her from his grip and recoiled in horror. They both watched as the turquoise balloons floated off into space, trailing lines of slimy white pus behind them.

  Banjax lowered his decapitated tentacles and smiled straight at her. A malevolent laugh escaped him. Then the raw, severed ends of his tentacles swelled. A new sphere was forming on each. They grew and grew, like balloons being blown, and then suddenly sprouted into pairs, like cells dividing. Two brand new spheres leered from each arm.

  He swivelled them round so each faced Nova. In every tentacle, another version of Sushi’s head appeared. Her twenty-four faces pulled horrible, deformed expressions. Her friend was screaming in agony, howling in terror, convulsing in the depths of grief, all at the same time. One head turned to its neighbour and threw up a putrid green mess into its mouth.

  Nova froze, unable to turn away from the spectacle in front of her. Theodore’s voice had changed again, as if he had mixed nine parts Banjax to one part Sushi. Whatever he, she or it was saying, Nova couldn’t hear. Her body wanted to shut itself down, to escape the writhing horror that approached her.

  She brought her hand up to her face, wanting to pull her visor free of her head. She had had all she could take of Theodore’s game, had reached the end of the line. With less than a minute left on the clock, it didn’t matter anyway. She was defeated; he had won.

  As her hand moved closer to her face she saw that she was still holding the spacecraft. Inside it, through one of the windows, there was movement, two arkwinis frantically waving their arms. They weren’t wearing their usual little spacesuits. Instead, they were clothed like Burner and Charlie. She managed a weak smile and wondered whether she was dreaming or dying. Then she realised, these weren’t arkwinis in her friends’ clothes. It was them, it was the guys.

  Each of them held up a large white card. Charlie, standing on the left, held a card displaying a vertical line. Burner, standing on the right, held a card displaying a circle. A vertical line and a circle. They kept pointing, first at their cards, then at her. She was the number ten? Was Burner trying to communicate with her using binary? She stared at the two of them. What on Earth were they talking about? Maybe they weren’t talking about something on Earth. Nova was in deep space. Orbiting Jupiter to be precise. One of Jupiter’s moons was called Io. I-O! Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that it was headed her way.

  She tapped her thrusters to rotate her body slightly and then, just as Banjax was about to reach her, she spun on the spot, steadied herself and with all her might, booted the moon straight at him. It struck the centre of his body and kept moving, unimpeded. With Banjax’s great body sprawled around its surface, the moon spiralled ever faster towards the great gas giant.

  The explosion, as Banjax struck Jupiter’s Red Spot, was the most beautiful thing she had ever witnessed. Io was a crucible, an aggregation of volcanoes — the most geologically active object in the Solar System. As the moon collided with its planet, each volcano began to erupt. Megatons of fiery molten lava spewed onto the beast, pummelling him with an endless, boiling ocean of fire.

  And then Banjax’s body seemed to warp, distorting horribly into a swirling nothingness at the heart of the Great Red Spot. He was being sucked into the cyclone. First his head elongated and was pulled in, and then each of his tentacles, drawn together as if they were being clutched by a great hand intent on squeezing the life out of them. Bobbing on their tips were the twenty-four demonic Sushi heads. Nova watched in horror as they stretched and narrowed and disappeared into the darkness.

  And then there was stillness. Nova glanced at the countdown timer in her display. It had stopped at twelve seconds.

  The madness had finally come to an end.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Nova was shaking so much that it took three security guards to help her out of her rig. The real world was even more surreal than the virtual. There was so much to take in, her senses felt like they were under assault. Dozens of drones hovered overhead, their lenses zooming in and out to get shots of the Solarversia Grand Champion.

  Footage of the final few seconds of the fight against Theodore played on the giant screens around the stadium. Lasers danced in time to thudding electro beats. Even the towering Electropet characters seemed to nod their heads and gyrate their limbs in time to the tune. She barely noticed the bitter February breeze as it whipped through the arena, the medics checking her over, or the attendant who helped her into a Spiralwerks jacket.

  One of the guards said something to her, words she was unable to process. She looked at him blankly until he pointed to the stands. Artica Kronkite, illuminated by a large spotlight, was leading her parents, Burner and Charlie to the arena. They ran across the track to a fresh eruption of applause. She hugged them in turn, and then as one. Tears rolled down her cheeks, though she wasn’t aware of laughing or crying. Finally she turned to Arty. He signalled to someone in the stands. The drones backed away from them before he joined their group huddle.

  “You did it, champ. You enabled us to crack the password. It was a verse from the manifesto with exactly 144 characters.”

  “One four four? That’s twelve by twelve … of course.”

  “Once we got into the program we uncoupled the bombs from the puzzles, but we didn’t want to pull the plug in case Theodore had programmed something we’d missed. MI6 asked that we leave you playing until we’d either gone through every line of code, or you’d defeated Banjax. That’s when your friends had their brainwave.”

  “I remembered the Red Spot on Jupiter, and Charlie wondered if you might be able to use one of its moons to send him there.”

  Charlie, more excited than she’d ever seen him, piped up. “We weren’t sure how to communicate with you given that Theodore had cut the comms link. The gaming team reckoned it would take a few minutes to re-establish it, and we didn’t know what would happen if we tried to interrupt you in the real world. I thought about the Arkwini astronaut that you keep on your shelf at uni, the one you won in the darts. I asked if we might be able to use the arkwinis to help us.”

  “Then I remembered our tour of Castalia. The Underdome’s got that special teleporter, the one with the bare signpost that allows arkwinis to teleport absolutely anywhere. Total and utter genius,” Burner said with a huge smile.

  Arty patted the boys on the back and then looked at Nova with a sombre expression. “I’m afraid I don’t know what happens now. The end of The Game was supposed to lead into the award ceremony, and the victory parade from there, but Theodore’s attack has totally thrown us. MI6 won’t let anyone leave until they’re a hundred percent sure the stadium’s safe, and most of my staff are pretty shaken. What about you, Nova, do you feel up to the prize ceremony? You’d have a pretty good excuse if you wanted to go and lie down instead.”

  Nova raised her eyebrows at him. “I haven’t been flung halfway across the galaxy to go and lie down somewhere. I’ve been dreaming of this moment for years — please don’t change anything on my behalf.”

  Arty nodded, turned away, and spoke into his earpiece, “Cue the ceremo
ny.” In the centre of the arena two large semi-circular sections of track rose a few inches off the ground and moved apart to reveal a hole, out of which rose an Electropet Emperor Mandelbrot. A winners’ podium was pushed alongside the Emperor’s dais to where Nova, Ozwald and Jools van der Star were led.

  The crowd cheered as the screens displayed the highlights for each of them in turn, culminating in van der Star being ruthlessly torn apart by the Obarians, and Ozwald getting bisected by the Huntropellimous. Nova watched her highlights reel in awe. Her initial game of Paper, Scissors, Stone seemed like a lifetime ago. She watched herself just missing out on the Earth Force Field trigger in Bouncy Baltimore, and her success throwing the twig twogs to lure Travinsky back to his musical tree.

  She saw the chase through the department store and the ride she and Burner had hitched with Pedro on his Winged Beauties. She watched spellbound until finally, she saw herself floating in space, her legs entangled with Banjax’s tentacles, Sushi’s numerous heads haunting her every move.

  Theodore’s offer echoed through her mind. The knowledge that she’d been given an opportunity to resurrect her friend — and turned it down — felt like a weight, crushing her soul. She wouldn’t have accepted his offer in a million years, but her refusal left her feeling empty inside. Did she have the energy to start over with Sushi, she wondered? A shiver went down her spine as she watched the beast spin towards the Red Spot, where he was devoured by lava from a hundred volcanoes.

  The crowd quietened as Arty projected his voice into the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not quite sure how to … the events of this evening … things should be different.” Looking like he might break down and cry, he stopped talking and took a few moments to pull himself together. “As you all now know, the events of this evening turned out to be very different to the ones we had planned. A certain group of individuals, for reasons that don’t make sense to the average person, felt compelled to endanger the lives of countless people around the world. The courage and tenacity displayed by my colleagues tonight meant that crisis was averted. From the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank everyone at Spiralwerks. You fared so well under pressure, it will never be forgotten. I’d also like to thank the many security guards and agents who unfalteringly risked their lives for others. And to you, the people in the crowd — here at the stadium and around the world — thank you for coming together to solve the challenges that were thrown at us. One of those affected tonight, perhaps the most courageous of them all, told me she wanted the prize ceremony to go ahead regardless of what happened here tonight, and for people to celebrate the end of The Game, as it deserves to be celebrated. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for your Grand Champion, the one, the only, Super Nova 2020."

  With the crowd going wild around them, Arty presented each of the three winners with their prizes. Nova leaned forward so that he could place a flowery lei around her neck and then shook the hands of Ozwald and Jools. Van der Star pursed his lips and nodded his head at her. It was enough. She nodded back, and turned her attention back to Arty.

  “Here’s your cheque. That’s a pound for every ten people you beat,” he said with a wink. Holding the oversized cheque above her head, she showed it off to the crowd. There were wolf whistles, whoops and loud applause. She bowed self-consciously a few times, felt herself blush a little and was pleased to see that attention had turned to Electropet Arkwal, now lumbering towards her. Arkwal leaned down and placed a long, rectangular box onto the table in front of the podium. Inside were nine intricately patterned spheres. Arty picked the closest sphere and held it out in front of her.

  “Each globe represents one of the planets in the Solar System. You can program your own command later, but for now your catchphrase works. You just need to say it out loud.”

  She leaned forward and said “Supernova’s a Blast.” Suddenly she didn’t hate her catchphrase anymore. It was true — she had blasted it. A small hole appeared at the top of the sphere, out of which a hologram was projected. It was the Killanja, Mercury’s Grandmaster, wearing his white robes, rotating in the space above the sphere.

  Memories from the Planetary Puzzles came flooding back: the way she’d pole vaulted away from Jumping Jacks restaurant to escape the flood, the time she found the little figurine whistling in the stockroom cupboard. Already, the spheres were among her favourite things ever.

  In front of her, Arkwal lurched into action. He placed his telescope onto a couple of gooey hands that had risen out of Emperor Mandelbrot’s base. The wide end of the ’scope beamed a projection onto the giant screen in the north stand of the stadium. A strange-looking man came into view and addressed the crowd.

  “Greetings, Super Nova 2020! Congratulations on winning the first Year-Long Game. My name is Mandelbrot. You’re seeing me as I once existed, tens of thousands of years ago, before I evolved. There’s a long-established tradition within the Intergalactic Gaming Commission that says the second Year-Long Game always takes place in Nakk-oo’s solar system. The Game that commences in 2024 will be far more complex than the one you just played, and as Grand Champion, you’ll help to design it. So, player number one, congratulations on your win. But please understand, that as far as you and humankind are concerned, the Year-Long Game has only just begun.”

  During the walk to the float for the victory lap of the stadium, Nova’s mind went into overdrive. She had a thousand ideas for games — but the knowledge that the next one was to take place on Nakk-oo had thrown her. Also, her new number felt weird. It was the most coveted spot in the Player’s Grid, worth millions in sponsorship alone. Yet it represented another significant change in her relationship with Sushi. They’d no longer be grid buddies, snuggling up together in ring 359.

  Not only would she be leaving Sushi behind, she suddenly realised, but her new position also meant that she’d be diagonally across from The Beanstalker. She only hoped she wasn’t in too many number groups with Holly. The thought didn’t bear thinking about. At her side, Burner spoke at a million miles per hour, while Charlie, who seemed as overwhelmed as her, lent her an arm for support. Her parents couldn’t stop beaming at them both.

  Once they were aboard, the float lurched forward to begin its slow circuit on the outermost ring of the stadium. The giant screens displayed February’s completed portrait. Right in the centre, wearing her gladiator outfit, was Nova, surrounded by smaller portraits of the other finalists. Loud popping sounds emanated from the stands as balls of confetti and glitter were fired into the air to rain down on her. Lasers lit up the sky and fireworks banged and whizzed above their heads. Beside Nova, Burner kept bowing to people as if he was Grand Champion. Her mum had taken to waving like the Queen.

  Her dad leaned in, wearing the headset that Zhang had placed onto his head. “These things can be rather fun once you’ve worked out how to use them. Wherever I look, there’s a sea of information. It’s like it’s always been there, but was invisible until now. I can zoom in to someone and see the messages they’re sending. Multicoloured words are flying from one side of the stadium to the other. I can see lyrics radiating from the speakers and tell whether objects are hot or cold. I feel as if my brain’s had an upgrade.”

  Nova squeezed his hand and left him to his augmented paradise. She loved that he was finally getting a glimpse into her world. She already knew what she’d do with some of the winnings — buy her parents headsets of their own. The best ones money could buy. Perhaps they might even play the next Game? It would be so cool for the three of them to play together; it would be a family activity that would bring them closer.

  It felt like a perfect moment. She contemplated the concept while she waved at the crowd. Were perfect moments even possible? Had anyone in the history of mankind ever experienced one? Did this qualify? She’d worked with friends, family, and millions of strangers from around the world to foil a major terrorist attack, and she’d been crowned Grand Champion of Solarversia, ahead of a hundred million other people.

  Yet, she re
alised, even this moment was imperfect. Her Solarversia Sister wasn’t there celebrating with her, and never would be, not in person. Now that would have been perfection itself.

  ***

  Casey Brown didn’t know what to think. He knew his brain function was pretty far from what would be described as normal. It stopped being that a long time ago. But it still processed thoughts, just like it’d always done. And right now, he kept having the same one: why didn’t he shock me just then?

  He was six rows back from the running track at the Olympic Stadium in London for the Solarversia closing ceremony, where the winner’s float had just started its victory lap. It would have been a great seat in normal circumstances, would have cost top dollar for sure. Packed to its full capacity of eighty thousand, the place was buzzing. People were having the time of their life. Casey wondered whether he was the only person experiencing something closer to a nightmare.

  He’d woken up yesterday morning in a self-driving car on the way to Dallas/Fort Worth airport, just like Father had said he would. He’d received a remotely administered electric shock every hour, just like Father had said he would. The flight, the transfer, the check-in at the hotel — everything had gone to plan.

  The old man seemed to have found a sweet spot regarding the intensity of the hourly shocks. They reminded Casey of the Chinese burns that characterised recess at elementary school — they were painful enough to remind him that he didn't want to experience another one, painful enough for him to plead for it to stop.

  Forty-five minutes into each hour he’d be nonchalant. I can take it, he'd think, give me your worst. The second it started he’d beg for it to end, for it not to intensify. He wished he was stronger. Take it like a man, he'd will himself through gritted teeth. Take it like a warrior. But it was no good. He was no longer a warrior, not of the Magi, not of anyone or anything. He was no longer his own man. He was nothing more than a slave to the Order.