Solarversia: The Year Long Game (3 page)

The stadium erupted with sound and light as the holographic jetpack roared into life, firing a wild array of sparks down at the podium. He looked skyward, saluted the crowd and blasted off into the heavens. Nova flicked her visor back down. Every gamer knew that flying was far more enjoyable when you were totally immersed. The top of her display transformed into a dashboard that displayed a whole host of counters and instruments, including the distances from various landmarks: the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid of Giza, and their destination, Castalia, the flying palace.

She stuck her arms out in front of her and tilted left and then right, mimicking Arkwal’s motions as she followed him through a virtually rendered night sky. Headsets like hers used voice and thought commands combined with special audiovisual processing to move her avatar around in the virtual world. When she held her hands out in front of her, the camera on her headset translated her movements into the virtual world in real time. Digital natives like Nova, Burner and Sushi could move around in the virtual world as adeptly as they could in the real, running, jumping and fighting their way through whatever game makers threw at them.

She accelerated to a speed that blurred her surroundings beyond recognition, leaving the figure of Arkwal as the one thing that remained in focus. Before long, she watched as he deployed a giant parachute, slowed to cruising speed, and then ejected the device. It fluttered away, a new passenger on the South Atlantic trade wind express. A short way ahead of them a floating palace was coming into view.

***

Arkwal hit Castalia at such a high speed that he smashed straight through its north face, showering bricks, debris and dust everywhere. He skidded along the marble floor of the Magisterial Chamber for fifty metres or more, and then slowed to a halt. He picked himself up and brushed himself down, and stopped for a few seconds to examine his elbows, which had taken the brunt of his crash landing.

The Chamber was an enormous cube, the length of a football pitch in every direction. Hanging from the ceiling were thousands of multicoloured vines of varying length, some of which were swaying from side to side, following the recent disturbance. Still coated in a smattering of dust, Arkwal took his position in the centre of the room. With his arms outstretched above his head, he yelled, “Ladies and gentlemen, here’s Gorigaroo, master of the gong.”

Far away on the other side of the chamber, a figure with the head and powerful upper body of a gorilla and the abdomen and mighty hind legs of a kangaroo could be seen, swinging from vine to vine. As he reached the southwest corner of the chamber, he let go, landed briefly on the marble floor and bounced up again, high into the mess of tangled creepers overhead.

Finally he came to rest beside a golden gong suspended by several of the vines. He pulled a wooden club out of his pouch, leaned back, and then struck the gong with immense force. When the sound waves reached Arkwal, they troubled the floor around him, causing the patterned marble to vibrate.

He bent his knees, leapt up to the closest vine, swung away from the pulsating ground, let go to perform a somersault, and landed at the edge of what was now a circular hole in the centre of the room. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the time has come for me to introduce His Royal Highness, Emperor Commissaire de Spielen, von Unglai D'Acheera Nakk-oo, Mandelbrot!”

Slowly, something rose through the hole in the floor: an amorphous blob perched upon a circular dais. As it passed into the room, the blob began to bubble and shake. Suddenly an enormous fist protruded from the jelly. It unfurled slowly, and Arkwal hopped into its palm and sat himself down. He flicked his wrist to extend his telescope and rested it between the thumb and index finger of the giant hand.

The telescope faced the north wall of the Magisterial Chamber, the facade of which was already in the final stages of repair, being reclad in marble by a team of diligent arkwinis. Satisfied that the work was being done to the highest standard, Arkwal nodded his approval.

Meanwhile the amorphous gloop continued its metamorphosis. Other body shapes appeared, each one made of the same gooey substance, which looked mauve from one angle, purple from the next. The centre of the circle bubbled with the greatest intensity and rose fast, at first resembling a volcano and then, as it reached towards the ceiling of the room, a totem pole.

Hundreds of mouths burst into view up and down the length of the pole, each formed in its own peculiar way. One contained dozens of teeth pointed at vulgar angles and several tongues, which took it in turns to lick one another. Another contained only a tongue, as long as a hockey stick, that whipped in and out of surrounding mouths, as if it was scared of being bitten if it stayed in place too long.

A small but perfectly formed set of lips near the top of the pole started to sing. It was an anthem of sorts, sung in the sweetest soprano, and its chant began to spread down the pole like a Mexican wave, with mouth after mouth joining in harmony. The lower the mouth, the deeper its voice. As the mouths sang and their anthem reached its crescendo, the newly repaired north wall of the chamber began to crumble, revealing behind it a grid of millions of tiny squares, bathed in a warm violet light.

“I’m happy to announce that the Player’s Grid is in place,” said Arkwal, now standing in the middle of the giant fist, his arms extended above his head in a triumphant gesture. “The Year-Long Game can begin. Emperor Mandelbrot has asked me to wish each of you the very best of luck and would like to remind you that There Can Be Only One!”

Chapter Four

“Take me to my square,” Nova said. She flew across the Magisterial Chamber, leaving Arkwal and the Emperor behind, and zoomed in to her square in the bottom left of the grid. Like most players, she’d fretted about her player number for months before making her final choice. The number determined the position of the square within the grid — which quadrant it was in, and how central it was.

To make things interesting in the lead-up to the start of The Game, Spiralwerks had gamified the entire number choosing process. Released in batches, most had been available for free and were distributed on a first come, first served basis. Other ‘cooler’ numbers — the low ones, round ones, primes and so on — were sold, auctioned or offered as prizes in a multitude of promotional games.

As a result, securing a good number had become something of a sporting pastime. Although numbers had no direct bearing on how well the player would perform in Solarversia, the unspoken agreement was that the lower numbers — those closest to the centre — were the coolest. At least, that’s where most A-list celebrities had ended up.

The dilemma people faced was whether to lock in a number early, and risk missing out on a better one, or to wait, and risk having to choose an even higher one when all the central ones went to other people anyway.

As well as wanting to be fairly central, Nova and Sushi had wanted to be next to one another within the grid. They’d spent ages debating the merits of various numbers, and arguing about who was going to be odd, and who was going to be even. In the end they settled for squares in the bottom left quadrant: Nova chose 515,740 and Sushi, one space to her left, chose 515,739. Numbers were semi-permanent. They lasted until a player crashed out of The Game for good — at which point their finishing position became their new number.

Now, finally, after years of waiting, Nova hovered in front of her profile square for real. Although she’d seen it a thousand times — had dreamt about it on several occasions — it still excited her beyond words to see it on the wall of the Magisterial Chamber. Squares had a mystical quality about them; they were gateways to another world that made the normal one look terribly trite.

Her number was plastered across the top of the square like it was the most important fact about her. On the left-hand side beneath it was a picture of her avatar’s head, and beneath that her avatar name, nationality, catchphrase and shortcode. The task of choosing a name and a catchphrase had caused her so much trouble she came close to quitting before The Game even started. She ended up with ‘Super Nova 2020’ and ‘Supernova’s a Blast!’, a lame pun that she regretted immediately.

The system of shortcodes had been devised by Spiralwerks to help players visualise each other’s locations in the grid more easily. Each quadrant had been named after a suit in a pack of cards — the lower left quadrant was designated ‘C’ for Clubs. In addition, each concentric ring of numbers was itself numbered. The number one square in the centre of the grid was ring one. The numbers round it — two to nine — comprised ring two, and so on. Nova’s number, 515,740, was in ring 359, giving her the shortcode of C359.

As well as appearing in profile squares, shortcodes were also the license plate numbers on each of a player's three vehicles: their car, boat and plane. There had been thousands of models to choose from, and millions of ways to customise them. Nova adored her vehicles — she’d modified them to look like something from the set of Tron — and loved the way they glistened and rotated in 3D on the left-hand side of her profile square.

As she approached her square it turned transparent to reveal a cubic room with walls made of swirling yellow plasma, and a floor and ceiling as black as the night. This was her Corona Cube, the place that she would start in the world of Solarversia whenever she logged on from that moment forward, and her exit point whenever she wanted to log out.

The black ceiling displayed two constellations: portals to parts of Solarversia. One was named ‘Castalia’ and led back the way she had come, into the Magisterial Chamber of the flying palace. The other was named ‘Solarversia’ and led to the Gameworld, which was modelled on the Solar System. Nova looked up to the Solarversia constellation and traced her finger over its constituent stars.

As she touched the last one a harmonious jingle sounded, and three objects, recognised by people the world over, appeared floating in the centre of the room: a rock, some paper and a pair of scissors.

A datafeed appeared in her display, informing her that she’d been matched against player number 38,043,551, JoLem from Poland. She was about to find out whether of hours of strategising were going to pay off. A fifteen second countdown began. Those who let it count down to zero would automatically forfeit the game. "Paper," she announced, annoyed by the doubt she could hear in her voice.

She winced as the result flashed on the screen: “Scissors beats paper. Winner: JoLem.” Losing players were matched against each other after a twenty second delay. It took her five attempts in total, winning with scissors, against the paper of a Chinese player. She took her headset off, twitched her nose like a rabbit, and swept her long hair behind her ears.

"Finally. Thought I was going to be here all night."

“Told you scissors would win. Mum does know best occasionally.”

Nova bit her tongue. Annoyingly, her mum had suggested scissors earlier in the evening, but there no point arguing about it now. She replaced the headset to find that her victory had caused the floor she was standing on to give way. She fell into a winding tunnel, illuminated by the occasional spotlight, until eventually she popped out of the end, her arms and legs flailing as she fell two storeys to a crash pad on the ground. Her headset flashed a message: "Welcome to Alpha Island. Population 543,286.”

Looking up, she noticed hundreds of entwined tubes like the one she’d emerged from. Castalia seemed to have grown player-spitting dreadlocks. As she glanced around, datafeeds were overlaid on the objects she looked at. Castalia was revealed to be floating a kilometre overhead, and was still populated with several million people. When she looked at another player, a feed appeared above their head, displaying their profile information. She only needed to glance at a building or a landmark in the distance to be told how far away it was, and how long it would take her to reach it.

For now, she wanted to get her bearings. Players seemed to be heading in the same direction — toward a signpost. She stared at it and said "Lock on to target: Run." The signpost was taller than a triple-decker bus and surrounded by scores of other players who were either babbling to each other about the various destinations, or taking selfies in front of it. Nailed to the post at head height was a sign that said ‘Out of Order’.

“How can a signpost be out of order? Are the directions wrong?” her mum asked.

“Nope. Signposts double as teleport machines, except they won’t start working until the Teleport Quest has been completed. It’s the machine that’s out of order, not the signs.”

She tried to find a destination whose name she recognised. The Forest of Fun — 1 km, Conga World — 5 km, The Travelling Circus of Nakk-oo — 3,213 km. The closest location, only a hundred metres away, was the Fire Demon's Obstacle Course. She locked on.

***

Nova had completed the Blazing Balls and the Scorching Skyscraper obstacles without incident. Now she stood motionless, eyes locked with a Luminous Lavadile. She exhaled slowly and edged forward. Still no movement from the beast. It opened its mouth and emitted a long, deep growl. Another step, this one bigger. Her eyes darted from the lavadile to the side of the fire pit it guarded. Could she make it?

Three or so metres to go. Flames licked the side of the beast’s head and she could have sworn it just moved toward her. This was it. No more time for pussyfooting. She stepped onto her right foot and launched herself forward as far as possible. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the thing make its move. She landed on the bank inches from the molten lava and scrambled up the side as fast as she could. Behind her she heard a whooshing sound and then a snap.

She rolled onto her back and saw that the powerful jaws had clamped round her left foot. A glistening globule of molten lava trickled down one of its teeth and landed on her leg. It made a gentle hiss as it burned through the fabric of her trousers.
Damn thing, get off already.
Her health score, displayed in the top right of her visor, ticked down a second time. The snap of the jaw had cost her eight points, the globule a further five. She was already down to 87 health points and The Game had only just begun.