Spark - ARC

by Anthea Sharp

  “I agree, fifteen systems aren’t enough,” Spark was saying. “But it’s all we get. I don’t have that much pull with the company, as you know.” She turned to Aran with a smile. “Hi! Glad you made it. Aran, this is Vonda, our lead on the floor today. Vonda, if you have a system ready to go, I’ve got you a tester.”

  Vonda nodded. “Over here.”

  “Thanks,” Aran said.

  He was torn between wanting to talk to Spark and diving into the FullD. Spark’s smile deepened.

  “Go ahead. You can tell me what you think after you play.”

  “I’ll do that,” Aran said.

  He followed Vonda to where a gleaming FullD system sat, humming softly under the bright lights. She handed him a helmet and gloves.

  “You know your way around an interface?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Aran slipped on the gloves and flexed his fingers. The fit was good, and the LEDs shone like tiny bits of rainbow. He slid into the chair and pulled the helmet on. Geared up and ready to go.

  “Right then,” Vonda said. “Give a yell if you get stuck.”

  He lifted one hand in acknowledgement, then turned his attention to the visor screen. The letter F, made of golden flame, took up most of his vision. With the flick of his index finger, Aran activated the game.

  Moody, mysterious music played through the helmet. Words appeared, glowing and golden across the black background.

  WELCOME TO FEYLAND

  A VirtuMax Production

  Version 1.1

  A shiver of excitement ran down Aran’s spine. There was nothing like the thrill of entering a new game for the first time. He hoped Feyland would live up to its hype and pull him into the supposedly brilliant simulation of a fantastical world—and that the holes and cheats wouldn’t be too obvious. Half of the fun of running new content was the game, sure, but the other half was trying to get behind the interface, game the game as it were.

  Words scrolled across the screen.

  FEYLAND: A wondrous place where adventure awaits. Alone, or with other bold adventurers, seek out glory and riches, or pledge yourself in service to the greater good. This fabled land needs your skills and prowess to avert the dark shadows of the Neverwhere. Do you have the strength to prevail, or will you fail, as so many champions have before? Prove yourself in the epic game of Feyland!

  The letters deepened to crimson, then scattered into ashy fragments, whirling away as the music rose. For a split second, a pair of eyes glowed from the shadows. Nice touch, giving the opening sequence just a hint of creepiness.

  The screen changed, showing a character-creation interface. He skimmed over the possibilities. Even though he wanted to linger, to carefully read the descriptions of the various classes and their abilities, he didn’t have the time. Right now, his job was to get in-game and start poking at the edges of the programming. The best way to do that was to choose a heavy-combat character in order to minimize time lost to dying.

  He scrolled past the lightly armored magic users. He wouldn’t be playing a Spellcaster or Healing Priest this time around. Partway through the medium combat classes, his eye was caught by a jaunty-looking avatar classified as a Saboteur. Aran paused, then shook his head and continued on to the heavily armored melee fighters. The limited choices of Knight, Mercenary, and Warrior seemed boring. He glanced back up at the rapier-wielding character dressed in dark blue and burgundy.

  Saboteur, now… wasn’t that his specialty?

  Before he could second-guess his impulse, he lifted his finger and chose the character class. The Saboteur expanded to fill his vision.

  SABOTEUR: A tricky character, the Saboteur’s loyalties are not always easy to define. Skilled in use of the rapier and knives, this class has a range of stealth and misdirection skills.

  Perfect.

  Aran quickly modified the basic avatar, giving him a slender build—all the better for sneaking around—and skin a shade darker than his own. Too bad there wasn’t an option to add an indigo streak to his character’s hair.

  At the naming prompt, he entered his standard onscreen name of Ebon.

  Character complete. Enter game?

  It only took a flick of his fingers to signal yes, and Aran paused a second to admire the smooth response of the gaming gloves. The real test would be in-game, but so far he had to admit the FullD system impressed him.

  A brassy blare of trumpets filled his ears, and the visor screen flared with golden light. For a moment he felt as though he was falling through space, complete with a dizzy, disorienting clutch in his stomach.

  He willed his senses to settle, and squeezed his eyes tight. When he opened them again, his character stood in the center of a clearing surrounded by white-barked trees, a summer-blue sky overhead. Velvety mosses cushioned his feet, and he was encircled by a ring of mushrooms, their scarlet caps dotted with white. A narrow path led from the clearing into the trees, their trunks graceful columns, their leaves shimmering silver in the faint breeze.

  A breeze he could feel against his cheek. Wondering, Aran tilted his face up. Yes, he really felt the brush of air against his skin. It was almost as if he were standing there in person, instead of his digitally-created avatar. Even though he’d seen the demo last night—and Spark had been great—it hadn’t prepared him for the actual feel of the game. VirtuMax had seriously outdone themselves.

  Still, he had work to do. He was a Saboteur, after all. With a wry smile, Aran brought up the keyboard and typed in his most reliable hacker script. About half the games he cracked ran on an old-style operating system with more holes than a pierced-out goth.

  No luck this time; the game scene remained unchanged, the graphics a solid wall between him and the programming. Good thing he had more than a few ways to pick apart the bytes.

  The minutes ticked by, and each command he entered proved useless. Aran’s chest tightened. This was his one chance to slide behind the programming before the game released, and he was skewing badly toward failure.

  Okay, then. Maybe he’d get some insight into what else to try by playing forward. The path through the trees beckoned. Was it the only option?

  Aran turned and picked a different part of the woods. He stepped out of the mushroom circle and strode forward—

  Only to find himself back in the middle of the ring again. Another try in the opposite direction earned him the same result. VirtuMax had plugged any holes in the opening sequence code. If he had more time he’d try to unravel the edges, but not now.

  Senses primed, he left the circle again, this time heading down the path. Fallen leaves softened his footsteps, and dappled light slanted between the trees. It was peaceful, and Aran didn’t trust it one bit.

  Still, no creatures leaped out at him with weapons bared, or charged through the underbrush, growling. The forest thinned and he stepped out from under the trees into a green meadow. The path curved, leading toward a storybook cottage; the kind of place where either a kindly woman or a wicked hag lived. Sometimes both, in the same person.

  Aran called up his hacker scripts again. When he ran the third one, the air of Feyland rippled, and he glimpsed something behind the pastoral scene. Something glittering and dark.

  What the hell was that?

  Swallowing back a sudden jab of fear, he tried the code again. Nothing.

  Nothing left to do but go farther into the game. Before heading to the cottage, he reviewed his character’s combat skills, memorizing the few moves his Saboteur came equipped with. A couple stabs and slices, a dodge-and-disappear, and a distance knife throw. Hopefully they’d be adequate to deal with whatever creatures he might meet in battle.

  A bird swooped overhead, singing. The meadow grasses, scattered with yellow and blue flowers like something out of a famous painting, riffled in the breeze. Still, he couldn’t get that foreboding sense off his shoulders. Something was watching him—and waiting.

  “Mr. Cole?” Vonda’s voice sounded over his headset, roughened with stati
c. “How’s it going in there?”

  “Good,” Aran said. “It’s an amazing place.”

  “You’ve got another twenty minutes to enjoy it before I need you to log off,” she said.

  “Right. I’ll finish up. Just let me know when.”

  Time was funny in-game, but he was still surprised by how quickly it had gone. His stomach knotted. This was his chance, and so far he had nothing to show for it. Way to go, mister supreme hacker.

  He didn’t have time to waste standing around listening to his own self-doubt. Shutting up the mocking voice, Aran strode forward to the little cottage. Sunlight sparked off its diamond-paned windows and made the whitewashed walls and golden thatch shine brightly.

  Something crouched on the front step; a creature that made Aran’s steps slow. As he got closer he saw it was a hunched goblin with sharp teeth, wearing a blood-red cap and stained leather jerkin. The faint scent of rotting flowers wafted to Aran’s nose.

  The goblin stood, his clawed fingers clasped about a long-handled axe, his malicious gaze fixed on Aran. Taking a deep breath, Aran drew his knives.

  Instead of attacking him, the goblin spoke, his voice rough as old hinges.

  “Greetings, mortal,” the creature said.

  Aran rolled his weight onto the balls of his feet and considered how to answer. Maybe the goblin was a quest-giver of some kind, though there weren’t many clues. Feyland was surprisingly scarce with the information given out to players. He supposed it was part of the immersive appeal, but most games provided at least a sense of the basics, if not full-on tutorials. This kind of confusing approach wasn’t going to fly with a lot of casual gamers. What had VirtuMax been thinking?

  The goblin tapped his ugly fingers, but gave no sign that he was planning to get violent.

  “Hello,” Aran said at last, bracing himself.

  “Ah! It speaks.” The goblin sneered at him. “What do you seek, Eron the Adventurer?”

  A chill gripped the back of Aran’s neck. “What did you call me?”

  That was freaky. Sure, maybe he’d misspelled his usual avatar name, keying in Eron instead of Ebon. It still sounded uncomfortably close to his real name. Was Spark playing a practical joke on him?

  “You seek to explore beyond the framework of Feyland,” the goblin said, ignoring his question. “We can aid you.”

  Aran blinked. The conversation had just gone completely surreal. He was not having a chat with a character in-game about how to hack the game. No way.

  “Aren’t you supposed to give me a quest or something?” he asked.

  “I offer you a way into the Realm. Into the world that lies beyond this one.” The goblin waved his clawed hand at the cottage and peaceful meadow. “Do you accept?”

  The wind stilled, the singing of birds muted. Aran’s heartbeat sounded loud in his ears. For some reason, the question felt way more important than a simple step in a game.

  “I do,” he said. The words rang out like the clang of bells, hanging in the air, and he flinched.

  “Good.” The goblin bared his sharp teeth. “At the dark of the moon we will come and show you the way. Be ready, mortal. Midnight approaches.”

  Before Aran could say anything, the goblin disappeared. The wind went back to ruffling the grasses, and birds chirped merrily at the edge of the forest. Lungs tight, Aran made himself take a deep breath. That had been the weirdest gameplay he’d ever experienced.

  And he still hadn’t cracked a single line of Feyland’s code.

  Desperation edging his thoughts, he called up the keyboard interface and entered every possible hack he could think of. Nothing—not even that weird flicker he’d gotten earlier. It was as if the game was built on some kind of entirely new operating system, configured in ways he couldn’t quite grasp.

  “Ready to come out?” Vonda asked, her voice still broken by static.

  Not at all, but what else could he do?

  Fingers heavy, he gave the command to log out of Feyland. That same golden light flared, making his stomach twist. Then his ordinary senses returned. He was sitting in the FullD sim chair, the hubbub of the Expo Hall rising as the convention-goers flooded in.

  He pulled off the helmet and stood. A wave of dizziness hit him, and he grabbed the back of the sim chair to steady himself. The fluorescent lights were too bright, and he squinted against the glare.

  A long line of people waited to try the gaming systems. Spark stood by the main VirtuMax table, holding a stack of glossy images: promo pics of herself, simming. Seeing that he was off the system, she set them down and came over.

  “What did you think of Feyland?” she asked.

  “It was… really different.” He shook his head, trying to clear it.

  Her dark blue eyes fixed intently on him. “How so?”

  “The immersion was amazing. I felt like I was actually there, you know?”

  “I know. What else?”

  He dropped his gaze to the dull beige carpet, avoiding her scrutiny. No way was he going to confess he’d spent his time in-game attempting to hack behind the interface.

  “Um. Unexpected creatures.” Total understatement.

  “Did you get to any questlines?”

  “Hey.” He glanced back up. “I need to check in at the volunteer center. And you have about a million autographs to sign.”

  She looked at the waiting autograph seekers, then back to him. “I’d like to talk with you more, though. Lunch?”

  He blinked. Spark Jaxley was inviting him to lunch?

  “Sure.”

  “Great.” Her mouth quirked up into a smile. “Come up to the VirtuMax VIP suite. Number 504. I’ll tell my guys to let you in.”

  “Yo, Spark! Time to get to work,” Vonda called, waving toward the table.

  Fans were stacked up ten deep already, the ones in front giving Aran bitterly envious looks. He could practically hear them wondering who this guy was, taking up their idol’s attention and keeping her from the essential task of signing her name and making small talk with them.

  “I have to go,” Spark said. “See you later.”

  Wonderful. He’d be stepping into the heart of VirtuMax security, carrying secrets that could get him in serious trouble. Watching Spark swing her magenta hair back and sit down at the table, Aran found that he couldn’t wait.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sweet music played through the shadowed meadows and shivered through the silver-leaved oaks of the Dark Realm. Perched upon her tangled throne, the Dark Queen smiled.

  The nixie combing her hair beside a moonlit stream paused, then bared her rows of sharp, serrated teeth. The wisps in the brackish swamps danced and swirled, leaving blue streaks of luminescence in the air. Moths with sightless eyes on pale wings fluttered helplessly, trapped in sticky, black-stranded webs.

  “Well done, Codcadden,” the queen said to the redcap goblin hunched in a bow before her. “When the moon shutters her face to the mortal world, you will fetch this human who has freely agreed to enter the realm.”

  “My lady,” the goblin said. “How shall we bring him hither?”

  “Send me.” The Huntsman lifted his horned head. “My hunt has brought many a mortal across that boundary, and my hounds grow restless.”

  “No,” the queen said. “I do not want him to arrive fickle-minded and wits-wandering from riding with the Wild Hunt. Three goblins and the Enchanted Sack shall do. After all, the mortal is willing.”

  “As my lady wishes.”

  The Huntsman returned to his vigil, his red-eyed hounds curling about him. The goblin before the throne bowed even lower, until his nose brushed the silken mosses.

  “Go,” the queen said. “Be assured of my favor. Your clan is welcome at the feasting tonight.”

  The goblin departed, not daring to glance at his ruler’s face. The queen’s moods were fickle of late, and the wrong tilt of the head or set of the mouth could send her into a rage. Perhaps, he thought, this new mortal could set things aright.

>   In the shadows behind the throne, the court musicians played softly. The music quieted as a weary-faced man stilled his guitar and stepped up beside the queen.

  “My lady,” he said. “Are you indeed set upon this course?”

  “Bard Thomas.” The look she turned on him was full of frost and midnight. “Do you think to barter for yet another mortal’s life? Your human ways grow tiresome, and I begin to regret our bargain.”

  “Forgive me. I shall not speak of it again.”

  He made her a deep bow, then backed away, returning the sweet notes of his guitar to the music weaving about the court. The feasting tables were laid, platters heaped with delicacies for the ethereal and hideous denizens of the Dark Court to dine upon. Tall candelabras lined the tables, their flames unearthly still despite the night breeze. Gossamer-winged faerie maids laughed and danced, while black-haired creatures growled and slavered from the shadows.

  The Dark Queen surveyed her court, then let her awareness expand to the very edge of her realm. On one side she was bounded by brightness, on the other, the newly rebuilt boundary between the Realm of Faerie and the human world.

  Rebuilt, yes, but not without chinks in that obdurate wall. Her passage through might be barred for the moment, but soon enough she would hold the mortal key.

  ***

  Two hours later, Spark’s hand cramped and ached from signing autographs. She’d known it would, but she still refused to use a stamp, or pre-printed photos. Sure, VirtuMax had made her their spokesmodel, but the fans were way more important to her than the company. It was important to keep the whole fame thing as real as possible—for everyone involved.

  Rubbing her palm with her left thumb, she let her security guys do their job and escort her with minimal drama out of the Expo Hall. Once they reached the corridor outside, she realized how incredibly noisy it had been on the floor. Her ears still hummed from the aftermath.

  She sighed, and Burt gave her a sympathetic glance.

  “Two more days, Miss Jaxley.”