Nova stared at the textbook and stifled another yawn with the back of her

hand. She was only three days into her month’s worth of detentions, but already

they were taking their toll. She was getting home late every day, and the constant

exhaustion was impacting her schoolwork and revision. Worse still, it was affecting

her gameplay. Her Booners sounded the Solarversia jingle. Yet another message

from Sushi.

“Either do your homework later, or tell Mrs Woodward to take a hike. We both

know Solarversia is far more important. If you crash out of The Game through

negligence, you’re going to have to wait four whole years for the next one. Your

choice, girlfriend.”

Sushi knew how to push her buttons, that was for sure. Although Spiralwerks

had a host of other games lined up for the intervening period, every Solo knew

that the quadrennial Year-Long Games were the ones that mattered most. Nova

confirmed that her parents were busy watching TV with the volume turned up and

quietly shut her bedroom door.

She crept over to her wardrobe and leafed through her many Solarversiathemed

T-shirts. Although she didn’t truly believe they brought her good luck, she

preferred to wear one while playing. Most of her shirts — like the one she grabbed

and quickly put on — featured creative transformations of her player number.

This shirt displayed the characters Ken and Ryu from the classic arcade game

Street Fighter, facing one another in a sparring pose. Ken, who was standing on

the left, had been drawn with the head of a guy called ‘Duncarelli’, who happened

to be Thailand’s most famous ladyboy — and also number 515 in the Player’s Grid.

Ryu on the other hand, had been replaced by ‘Alexander Lazaar’, a techno DJ from

Detroit, and player number 740.

Most people looked at the T-shirt and saw a couple of guys from a computer

game. Some could even name them. But most Solos knew the characters well

enough to know that they’d been redrawn, and instantly knew the shirt contained

a puzzle to be solved — one whose answer revealed the wearer’s player number.

Solos competed to outdo one another in terms of their creativity, and examples

went viral all the time.

She patted the shirt down, put her headset on, and sent a quick message back

to her friend.

“Twenty minutes max. Then I really do need to get back to my books.”

“That’s the spirit. See you there.”

Nova left her Corona Cube in Staten Island, New York. She’d met Sushi there

the previous day to attend a virtual punk rock concert, and they’d promised to hang

out in the Gameworld for a day or two before going their own ways. Her Route

Planner informed her that the nearest Solarversia Simulator was a two-minute run

from the cube. She locked on.

Like Corona Cubes and Tweels of Fate, Simulators were absolutely everywhere

in the Gameworld. They were in phased zones, but ones that players had basic

control over so that they could train with friends, if they wanted. Simulators were

modelled on old school photo booths, the kind that charged an arm and a leg to

provide you with a strip of passport photos. The small entrance way consisted of a

piece of hanging curtain, below which a round swivel chair could be seen.

Next to the curtain was a control panel that allowed the Solo to program the type

of simulation they wanted to experience. There were four categories of simulation:

Knowledge, Puzzles, Combinations and Combat. Spiralwerks had promised that a

thorough mastery of each would be a prerequisite for success in The Game.

Although there was an element of luck in Solarversia, it only went so far. Good

luck could help in the short term, but it couldn’t be relied on to get you through

the year. Likewise, bad luck could darken your day, but it would never kill you

outright. Skill was a far more important component of a serious gamer’s strategy.

And it could only be acquired in the way it’s always acquired: through lots and lots

of hard work. Mastery of the four categories had come to be known as the Science

of Solarversia or, more simply, the Science.

“Here she is,” Sushi said, hand up for a high five as Nova arrived at the booth.

“Combinations, yeah?”

“What happened to sticking to a balanced diet?”

“Come on, they’re fun.”

In the same way that conscientious governments urged their citizens to

consume their ‘five-a-day’ fruit and veg, Spiralwerks urged their citizens to train

regularly and stick to a balanced simulation diet, where an equal amount of time

was spent on each category, give or take a percentage point. Billboards containing

user generated artwork, much of it parodying government propaganda from the

early 20th century, gently reminded people of the virtue of living a balanced life.

Solos were able to display the number of hours they’d spent training in the

Simulators on their bios, but Nova and Sushi had both opted to keep their stats

private — Nova knew her parents would go ape if they ever knew the amount of

time she’d spent playing. Burner and Jono both showed their stats, hoping that

their ranks within the top 10% would intimidate some people.

Each of the four categories contained tens of thousands of modules within it.

These were the individual simulations, or sims, which lasted anywhere from two

to twenty minutes. There wasn’t nearly enough time in the year for a single person

to complete every single module, so players were forced to pick and choose, an

exercise that had itself become part of the Science, as Solos speculated on the best

order in which to structure their training.

Miniature Tweels of Fate, the size of a large orange, were affixed to the control

panels of Simulator booths and could be spun whenever the player was having

difficulty choosing a module. Sushi typed in their player numbers, restricted the

outcome to Combinations, then rested her finger against one of the Tweel’s little

tentacles and gave it a good spin. When it came to a standstill, the topmost tentacle

squirmed into life, grew several times larger and turned to face the girls.

“The Tweel of Fate has picked Asteroid Shower combinations. There are seven

in total and each one takes two minutes. Remember that a balanced simulation

diet is good for your health. The Science Says So.”

Having delivered its message, the tentacle shrivelled down to its previous

size and the machine loaded the Asteroid Shower simulation. Sims in the

Combinations and Combat categories transformed the booth into a dark grey grid

that stretched in every direction all the way to the horizon, where it met a light grey

sky, unremarkable in its uniformity. The only distinguishing feature of the room

— other than the avatars themselves — was the pleated red curtain, which was

programmed to follow you around so that you could always find the exit.

In multistage modules such as this one, Combinations always increased in

difficulty. The instructions overlaid at the bottom of Nova’s display told her that

‘Asteroid One’ would require four moves. As ever, she’d need to execute them in a

flowing sequence. If she missed a move, performed it in the wrong place or took too

long, she’d flunk out. That didn’t matter in the Simulator; it was what training was

all about. In the Gameworld, however, a flunked Combo could mean the difference

between life and death.

When a large timer appeared in the sky in front of them, counting down from

three, the girls fistbumped and adopted their chosen stances. Nova, who had

climbed onto her bed to perform the Combos, adjusted her Booners one last time.

The electrodes in the skullcap were capable of translating her thoughts into the

kind of movements required within the Gameworld, both in normal play and in

the simulations, but she preferred to act out the combinations for real, whenever

space — and social etiquette — permitted.

The pair of asteroids roared towards them, seeming to grow from the size of

marbles to the size of footballs in the space of about five seconds. Nova dipped

her right shoulder forward, then her left, performed a clockwise rotation of her

hips, and then an anticlockwise rotation. Next to hers, Sushi’s avatar performed

the same sequence of moves in perfect synchronicity. A message flashed in the sky,

confirming two successful combinations, and the sim took control of their avatars

for a split second, making them jump into the air, knees pulled to chests as the icy

comets hurtled past.

“Can I get a woop woop?” Sushi sang, gyrating her hips in a celebratory dance.

Nova looked over her shoulder to see the curtain fluttering in the wind — an

excellent little touch by the module’s designers, she thought.

They cleared the second asteroid — using a seven-move sequence — by ducking

as it whizzed overhead, and the third — that demanded a ten-move sequence —

by diving to the side. When Sushi burst into a celebratory dance this time, Nova

joined in. They’d cleared the fourth, fifth and sixth combinations in similar style,

and Nova readied herself for the last one, a beast at twenty-two moves. Successfully

completing all seven asteroids would win them an additional teleport token.

She shimmied, spun round on the spot, dipped her shoulders, wiggled her hips

and arched her back without trouble. But twelve moves in, when she was required

to transition from a star jump into a caterpillar on the floor, one of her feet missed

the edge of her bed and she tumbled to the ground in a heap. Cursing her stupidity

as she watched the asteroid annihilate her avatar, she suffered a wave of panic —

somebody was coming up the stairs. She snatched the Booners off her head, threw

them on her bed and leapt into her seat.

“Everything OK up here, love? Your father thought he heard something.”

“Everything’s fine, just finishing my homework,” she said, putting as much

effort into shielding the blank page of her notepad from her mum’s view as she did

trying to conceal her panting breath.

“Alright, I’ll let you get on with it.”

It was another little lie and she wasn’t proud of it. But as soon as she heard her

mum go back downstairs, she couldn’t resist having one last quick peek. After all,

Sushi would be wondering what happened to her. She found her friend standing

back outside the booth, retrieving her printout. Nova loved little touches like

that. Although training time was automatically added to your bio, booths spat out

printed receipts.

Nova explained her mishap to Sushi and grabbed her receipt. Fourteen more

minutes, taking her up to a total of 47 hours for the year, one month into The

Game. Not bad for someone revising for their A-levels. A teleport token would have

been good though. She crumpled the receipt up and chucked it at the nearest patch

of grass. The ground into which it dissolved immediately sprouted a new flower.

Her headset dinged as a company donated ten pence to a charity supporting

sustainable horticulture.

“What’s next?”

“Combat, obviously, now we’ve got those combos out the way. You’ll need to

bring your A-game though, no slipping off the bed like a doofus.”

Nova smiled uneasily. There was no way she could resist another quick sim.

Why couldn’t all of life be as fun as Solarversia?

****************************************************

Full book available on Amazon here:

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Chapter 11 coming soon!