The Starfighter Invitation

14 maps

The mint-chill of Soup hit me, and I gasped. Then I stepped forward, blinking at my return to the futuristic city of Vessa, and a brief appearance of the full overlay of my HUD, before it reduced to an unobtrusive graphic, followed by system messages.

I activated [Tier 1 Consumable Pattern], and was treated to a dizzying array of menus full of food and drink. After hours of gameplay, I was hungry and thirsty, but not painfully so, and put off any hasty decisions when I remembered I already had a few entries in my [Consumables] menu.

Looking around, I spotted a parklike area in the middle of all the Challenge entrances, and wandered over in search of a seat. Decorative planting concealed nooks filled by tables and chairs, some occupied by people eating. No sign of any food vendors.

Shrugging, I found a seat and checked my [Consumables] menu, which contained three thrilling entries: [Complete Meal: Animal Protein], [Complete Meal: No Animal Protein], and [Water]. I prodded the [Complete Meal: No Animal Protein] option to see if said meal would sci-magically appear on the table in front of me, but received an arrow instead. This led to an unobtrusive kiosk tucked among the plants, which, when I approached, popped up with an option to [Collect]. A hatch opened to reveal a flattish rectangular container of waxy cardboard shaped around its contents, a little like an airplane meal. I added [Water] to my order, and then returned to my nook to eat and browse.

[Complete Meal: No Animal Protein] was a nice mix of crunchy salad, a warm patty of some sort of legume, not-quite-hummus, and fruit segments.

I dissected the patty cautiously, wondering whether to risk it, and then found I could review an ingredients list for the pattern. While I ate, I browsed the reward menu briefly, then turned my attention to the [Players] menu, finding a [Search] command.

Following the link to Amelia gave me her details.

Amelia being in a Challenge apparently meant she wouldn’t immediately see a [Message], but I could email her, and so sent a brief note to let her know what game name I was using. Then I opened the [Location] menu.

I started right at the top, to see how The Synergis mapped out the Milky Way. Or whatever Dio had called it. Helannan. A top-down diagram popped up, with the spiralling disk of the Milky Way divided evenly into four, which is how it’s done on Star Trek, although The Synergis' quadrant division didn’t seem to run through Earth’s system. Instead, a blinking dot was visible in the top-right quarter.

The quadrant was labelled "Carolun Quadrant, [Aldezageden]", and I followed the link to Aldezageden, wondering if that was the current name for Earth, or the Sol system.

Looking at [Lineage] took me down a rabbit-hole of what must be all the Cycogs that had combined, divided, and been absorbed to eventually become Aldezageden, who I guessed was one of the larger Cycogs. There was no picture.

A quick visit to [System] and [Planet] gave me the names I expected, along with the name of an administrator, [Arefiel], for both the system and the planet. I’d guess that Earth, drowned or not, was still the most populous planet in the Sol system, and the logical base for the System Administrator.

Earth’s ruler.

I wondered how Cycogs chose their names—the names Bios could pronounce. Arefiel sounded like the name of an angel, but the mouthful of Aldezageden would better suit a planet, or a drug.

It took a little while to figure out where to look myself up, and then follow the link to my handler.

Dio lacked a lineage, perhaps because te wasn’t important enough. I shrugged, then I tried out my [Directed Thought] option.

"Are you lurking, Dio, or off with your perversions?"

[[Perversions.]] Dio’s voice was as clearly present as it had been when te had been in the same room as me.

I was definitely having trouble remembering new sets of pronouns, though it helped that I couldn’t really pick male or female for the voice Dio used to talk to me.

"What counts as perverse to a Cybercognate?"

[[Not much, in truth. We have rules, but little in the way of taboos. There are certain things the majority of us are uncomfortable with, but those tend to be cruelties, rather than anything that would usually fall into the definition of perverse.]]

I’d gone back to [Locations] and opened up the [City] option, discovering that Vessa’s Administrator was [Fevelen], and that the city was south of the equator, at roughly the latitude of Brazil—though it was a little hard to judge with a map showing most of the world as water.

"Is it possible to overlay the undrowned Earth so I can match up the continents?"

[[Gain Rank Five.]]

"Bah," I said aloud, as I zoomed in to the blinking dot and discovered that I was in the northern section of a miles-long uneven oval: the rollercoaster of Vessa. There were dozens of islands studded along its length, the largest of which, Vessa Major, was a ten kilometre-wide crescent.

Following my [Ship] link showed it to be just a little south of my current location, and produced a handy direction arrow along with a bare bit of information.

"How do I name my snug?"

[[Gain Rank Five.]]

"Double-bah. Well, speaking of Rank, I’m ready to work on my lan skills. Are there rubbish bins, or some other appropriate thing to do with leftovers?"

[[Return to any vending point.]]

"Where it’ll be…what? Reduced to component atoms, and then reconstituted as someone’s breakfast?"

[That is one way to describe it. Not everything is returned to Soup, but most disposable objects are converted, not kept.]

Returning my tray to the hatch I’d collected it from, I tried to decide whether my fruit and veg had tasted off, or had been oddly textured due to being generated however The Synergis managed to create objects. Though it was all virtual, which made it rather a moot point.

Catching a platform up to the transport pods, I looked out over all the Challenge entrances. There were more people about than when I’d first arrived, almost all accompanied only by a glowing mote, talking animatedly to it as they stared, ate, or walked into the shimmer of one of the Challenge entrances. Doors and hatches,

"Dio. Are…are our modals dissolved when we put them in Soup?"

[[Occasionally, if there is a space issue. If you had a dozen modals, and had not obtained expanded storage, you would need to prioritise Core Units and Core Alternates over suppression modals.]]

"Core Alternates?"

[[Modals with cosmetic differences, but internal congruence. Bio Core Units are not simply familiar shapes wrapped around containers of memory and lan. You’re each a very individual synaptic and chemical environment. Virtual Challenges give only a partial experience of body transfer, since your memories and reactions are still driven by your Core environment. When you transfer to a non-Core modal unit, your memories are contained within a Link—which often gives a sharper recall of recent events, and either a loss or sharpening of older memories. Some Bios feel the difference very distinctly, particularly if the chemical mix is unfamiliar.]]

"All those hormones," I mused. "So if you had Type One Diabetes, you could just transfer to a modal that could produce insulin?"

[[Most Bios have balance issues addressed before they’re mature enough to transfer modals.]]

"There’s an age limit?"

[[For Type Threes, fifteen of your planetary years. Virtual experiences are permitted much earlier, but we’ve determined that for a strong development of lan, a firm sense of self must first be established.]]

"Type Three is Earth human?" But before Dio could answer, I bounced off on a tangent. "Did you see the details of that Challenge I played?"

[[Your door-opening attempts were splendidly ineffectual.]]

"Was that fiction or Synergis history?"

[[No cats, to my knowledge, have ever troubled themselves to such an extent.]] The Link brought me Dio’s brief splutter of strange laughter. [[The Challenge wasn’t based on Synergis history, no. Did you enjoy it?]]

"Totally different from what I expected," I admitted. "But, yes, I did, even though I wasn’t sure I was doing what was expected. Why was it so…so instructionless? And what would have happened if I’d just ignored the captured humans and gone hunting rabbits?"

[[Catching a rabbit would also count as a successful conclusion, although the reward would be smaller. If you look at the Challenge categories, you’ll see Challenges marked Variable Goals. These present evolving goals dependent on your actions. Challenges with specific goals often state the goal in their description.]]

I’d successfully followed my latest arrow all the way back to where I’d started, even figuring out how to open the door, and walked into the tube of my main cabin. A distinct feeling of homecoming seemed excessive for such a short acquaintance.

Succeeding in figuring out how to pull my boots off, I plopped into the nearest seat, and looked around.

"Is this my Snug, or our Snug?"

[[Yours. If I passed you off to a city administrator for being too dull or lazy, you would keep the Snug. Since you’re my Bio, however, I have full access to the Snug’s systems. Think of me as your navigator. While Bios can Skip without any assistance, they’re terrible at aiming, and so when you start travelling, I will be pointing the way.]]

I wondered how much impact that would have on Dream Speed’s apparent alternate goal of stealing a ship and returning to my enclave. But perhaps Cycogs exaggerated how much they were needed for navigation. It wouldn’t do to take everything Dio said at face value.

In either case, I needed to get stronger just to get a functioning ship. The question of which star would be my destination could come later.

"Right," I said. "Let’s get me Rank One now."

There was no accompanying system-wide announcement, but I hadn’t expected that. It was hours since the first player had ranked, and if the game had announced everyone since, it would have been a constant blare.

"How many people have reached Rank One, Dio?" I asked, sinking down to the floor, my back propped against the nearest bench as I panted. Making the blue mist fill in the shapes Dio projected had taken a lot of energy. But I’d done it!

[[Twenty-seven thousand, four hundred and fifty-seven, including you.]]

"And I’ve been playing for, what, just over ten hours? Which means it’s only been two hours and a bit in the real world since the game was unlocked?"

[[There’s clock commands in your [Status] menu if you feel a need for details.]]

I eyed the glowing mote that was not real, but technically was in charge of Leveret.

"I didn’t expect that time differential thing to pan out. It shouldn’t work. I mean, I always accepted the way guided dream games seem to go on for much longer than the time spent asleep because dreams are vague things, and perceptions can be distorted. But this is…how many people have managed to log on in the few hours this thing has been up?"

[[A little over two million.]]

Since it was the weekend, and people had been hanging out for the preload, the figure didn’t completely surprise me, but it was still an impressive achievement for a non-franchise game that had unlocked four days early, without any kind of announcement, and in the teeth of press that had concluded the game was a blatant hoax. Two brief demos and the sheer possibility of true VR had turned this into an Event game launch.

And those numbers were going to be nothing, once players started confirming that DS was everything we could want it to be, and more. I shivered a little as I considered a world of effortless virtual body-hopping—for those that could afford a GDG cowl and a subscription.

But I tend toward scepticism, and even sitting there in the game talking to my own personal improbability, I couldn’t quite accept what was happening.

"The perception of extended time is one thing," I said. "But people’s minds aren’t recordings you can fast forward. How is it possible to have two million people all thinking at five times the rate they usually do?"

[[You’ve never heard of overclocking? I hope you’re sitting somewhere cool, out there in the real world. Running wetware like yours at this pace means overheating is inevitable.]]

"Because GDG cowls have suddenly gained the ability to overclock human brains?"

[[The transmission pulse of those cowls could do some interesting things, with a few tweaks. But, yes, you’re right, it’s nothing to do with the cowls. It’s because Dream Speed is being run on quantum computers. You’ll notice that logging in and out involves a distinct transition as you uncouple from the quantum field.]]

Dio’s tone told me just how seriously I should take this suggestion, but I still said: "A quantum computer is just a computer that uses non-binary logic. They’re not time-distorting magic boxes."

[[Perhaps you really have been in here for ten hours?]]

"I’m fairly sure that little fact would have spread through the players by now."

My tone was dismissive, but I checked my email anyway, and saw that Amelia had replied to arrange a guild meet-up. No dramatic warnings accompanied her brief note.

I shook my head at Dio as te floated about the centre of my Snug. "Does it cause any conflict for you, to be discussing the real world? Will you melt down into an existential crisis?"

[[No, I’m perfectly happy to indulge your fantasies of this existence outside The Synergis.]]

Dio really was failing to match any of my AI expectations. But then, Cycogs weren’t technically AI. It was more likely I was having a conversation with a person pretending to be a floating mote of light. But that explanation only worked if you discounted the millions of conversations apparently underway right now.

[[I’ve remembered the correct reason,]] Dio continued. [[The time difference comes about because your mind has been transported to the far future. The game allows players to travel to The Synergis in spirit, if not body, and when you log out the game transfers you back, only a short time after you left.]]

"That seems…exceedingly unlikely. Why bother?"

[[Perhaps The Synergis ran out of Bios? Yes, yes. In an unfortunate toffee manufacturing accident, all our Bios died or ran away, so we’re importing a new set who don’t know how scared they should be. Yes, I like that one. I think I’ll spread it about.]]

"Toffee manufacturing, huh? So you’re recruiting for the sugar mines?"

A burst of Dio’s synthesiser-laughter was the only response, and I couldn’t help but smile in return. Dio—whatever was behind that ball of light—was at least fun to talk to.

"I guess you must have time travel, to be here running the game. Does The Synergis use it a lot?"

[[No. We’re a little afraid of it, really.]]

That sounded sincere, but given Dio’s previous string of lies, I decided to count the answer as maybe.

Recovered from the ranking trial—at least enough to stand—I went to explore my wet room. I’m not sure I was more disappointed or relieved that there was no sign of suction tubes, or much of anything in a room that reminded me of a Styrofoam packing container—moulded with various ridges and ledges, but otherwise empty.

Considerable poking about, and some useful [Activate] commands popping into my HUD, allowed me to identify a ledge as a sink, and a big end bench as a toilet, both of them designed to be thoroughly sealed after use, trapping any liquids inside. The rear of the entry door was a sort of closet where you could hang clothes to prevent them getting wet.

I took care of my revolting expulsions and then tried out the shower, just to see what happened. There were a lot of settings, and I puzzled my way to producing a sudden soapy mist, followed by a cleansing fog of increasing intensity, and then gusts of warm air that dried both me and any moisture that hadn’t drained away. Designed to encourage water conservation, though I was glad to see there were proper shower options.

"Dio," I said, emerging only partially dressed. "Are there any ships that have echoing-large bathrooms with an entire wall that is a window onto the stars, where Bios can have soak-in-the-water types of baths while enjoying the view?"

[[Yes.]]

"What rank would I need to be to get one of those?" I asked, sitting to pull my boots on, and then activating a location link in Amelia’s email. A map of Vessa filled my internal view, with the large crescent shape of the main island highlighted, with a blinking dot obscuring one of the south-facing points. I told my Link to lead the way, and headed for the exit.

[[That would involve more than rank,]] Dio was saying. [[But you’d likely accrue sufficient means by the eighties. Much earlier if you are travelling on someone else’s ship, of course.]]

I liked the idea of it being my own ship much more. "But there’s no guarantee that I’ll ever get to Rank Eighty, right?"

[[Less than ten percent of Bios rise above the seventies,]] Dio told me as we left my snug and an arrow led me back to the pods.

"And how many get near, what was the top rank, a hundred and something?" I asked, after boarding.

[[With one outlier, the maximums achieved are all in the one-thirties. There are fewer than fifty Bios at that strength.]]

It was difficult to adjust to the idea of an MMO that had no guarantee that you’d reach the max level. "Do I have any chance of getting there?"

[[Impossible to predict. Exiting the galaxy would be a far more attainable goal if we could reliably manage the development of our Bios. Some of you improve quickly initially, but then plateau. Others take decades to achieve the first dozen ranks, and then sprout rapidly. And some steadily march forward. While a strong self-image is usually a good indication, even that has exceptions, and so we cannot check off a set of traits and say this Bio is worth my time.]]

"What about powerful families? Is being good with lan something you can inherit?"

Dio, bobbing near the ceiling of the pod, flickered through a green spectrum. Irritation? Boredom? Cycog shrugging?

[[High-ranking Bios do like to cross-match with each other, but the results are not consistent. On a species level, Type Ones have a higher mean than you Type Threes, and there are several species mixes that trend higher than any unmodified Type.]]

"Earth humans are Type Threes? Are Cycogs Type Ones?"

[[Cybercognates aren’t Bios.]]

And so weren’t included in the numbering system. The idea sat uncomfortably on me, even though Dio had been telling me all along that the galaxy belonged to Cycogs, and people—Bios—were very close to pet status in The Synergis partnership.

"You could be Type Zeros," I suggested, and wasn’t sure what to make of the way Dio’s light briefly dimmed.

[[No, the system is not for us,]] te said. [[Besides, Bios pre-date Cybercognates by millennia. It wouldn’t make sense for us to be zero.]]

The pod began to slow, so I put off an exploration of types for later. And wondered if there was a useful Cycog body language guide somewhere, so I could better read what Dio was—and wasn’t—telling me.

A sea of grey-green coveralls spilled from the rollercoaster: thousands upon thousands of players, too many of whom were stopping to gape, blocking the way of even more new arrivals. I hadn’t expected nearly so many people, and moved to turn around, but the crowd swept me forward when I tried to stop short. In danger of an elbow in the face, I ducked through the too-tight press, keeping my eyes down to follow a herringbone brick ramp until it brought me out of the general press, to a clear spot next to a balustrade. Then, with something firm to hold onto, I breathed a while before I took my turn to gape.

The island of Vessa Major was a crescent moon, horns facing south. The western reach of the crescent was made up of a mosaic of small buildings, seating areas, grass and paving, transitioning in the far distance to a trailing comet of sand. To the east, the land climbed in terraces to a slender lighthouse lifting from the sheer cliff of the point. That’s a bit of straightforward orientation, and doesn’t begin to capture looking out over a ten kilometre curve. Improbably regular, breathtakingly vast.

The pearly ribbon of the rollercoaster rose only partially out of the ocean at the centre point, and travelled like a submerged sea serpent on a curving north-south route through the body of the island before vanishing beneath the waves once again. Only the top quarter of the rail was visible, leaving the highly sculptured view unobstructed.

"Is the whole thing artificial, Dio?" I asked over the Link.

[[There is a core structure that has been expanded.]]

"Into one massive resort," I said. "And it’s festival time. Or end-of-school celebrations."

A fever-pitch of excitement, a sense of release, definitely permeated the swelling crowd. Some players were in groups, but most were alone, but for a bobbing mote in luminous attendance on a partly-audible conversation, shining human faces frequently turning up to address their personal partner-overlord.

There was a weird dissonance between the fairy lantern appearance of the Cycogs and the prosaic coveralls of the crowd, all in the same shade. A rare few wore something else—coveralls in different colours, jeans, dresses—but these were likely early quest rewards, and I couldn’t spot anyone who was clearly an NPC.

What do people do when presented with their self-image and the ability to adjust it? Give themselves six packs, it seemed, and carve every inch of extra fat from their bodies. Or, no, that wasn’t true. I saw a lot of different body types in the crowd, made less distinct by the loose-fitting coveralls. But the majority had definitely gone the same route as I had, and run their sliders toward peak fitness. And almost everyone was young in a way that definitely didn’t fit gamer demographics. I spotted more than a couple of non-human Bios also wearing the starter outfit, but wasn’t sure if they were alien NPCs or humans who pictured themselves clawed, furred and fanged.

"Self-image is a complicated thing to use as the basis for your primary skill set. Great for some, but what happens to players who have really really horrible self-images? DS forces them to make a choice between living that image, or suffering a massive penalty to gameplay."

[[Those who synchronise with a Core Unit they do not want to use are usually able to modify it over time. Or they can choose any appearance and, after determined practice, they become familiar with a new image, and it no longer impedes them as significantly.]]

"Why make that decision necessary at all?"

[[Lan works as lan works.]]

That was a non-answer, but an in-game character probably couldn’t explain the game’s design decisions anyway. Shrugging, I turned my attention to my guiding arrow, and how it expected me to get to the meeting point up at that lighthouse.

It was tempting to just start jogging—away from the crowd and along the curve of the crescent. I felt springy, full of energy, in a way that I hadn’t since the last track meet of high school. Jogging five k’s up a slope would handily get me away from this press, while nicely putting off the guild get-together a little longer.

I’d had a couple of months to decide whether or not to attend any meet-ups, and had been okay with the idea, but Core Units had added an unexpected twist to the decision. Corpse Light was a long-standing guild, with some players who had known each other for decades. People I had spoken with daily or at least weekly for years, but had never met in person. To them I was Kaz, who graduated last year from a course never fully described, but something to do with computers.

The crowd ahead thinned a little, and I took the chance to follow my arrow to a ramp downward, and then a transport pod which was a little over half-full. Getting away from the glut at the entrance would make this easier.

But if anything, the upper reaches of the island were even more crowded than the rollercoaster exit. Half the server seemed to have decided to meet here.

The sensible thing to do would be turn around. The guild meeting wasn’t necessary, was a thing I’d decided to go to out of courtesy and a general affection for the guild leaders. Could I do this? The terraces would help, surely, preventing the experience from the endless press you’d get in the middle of a concert crowd, or anything totally impossible like that.

Determinedly, I kept my focus on the guiding arrow as I threaded my way through the crowd toward the terraced drop-off of the inner curve of the crescent, where I again found a balustrade to clutch while staring at vast blue ocean, a sky edging toward sunset, the pearly ribbon of the rollercoaster twisting over sandbars, and a whole lot of Down.

The lighthouse was still perhaps a hundred feet above, but Amelia’s meet-up point was somewhere below, among countless tiers of tropical garden. A thousand picnic spots blurred before me, all vivid greens and splashes of bright flowers, with grey and brown notes for handy rocks for sitting, and lighter notes for table and benches, with ramps leading down and up. All dotted with flitting birds, and simply seething with coverall-clad people.

And that was only the surface of Vessa Major. I didn’t even notice the doors, at first. Only when a cry of "Beer and wings!" rose up behind me, and I turned to see a group of people emerging from a door that led into the tiered cliff. Laden with trays of food and drink, they offered snacks to everyone in their path.

Curious, and looking for some breathing room, I headed for the door, and found a mostly-empty indoor atrium, with just a group around a line of hatches that must lead to a vast vat of Soup. The group swelled and ebbed as people carried off plates handed over by a pair of boys repeatedly requesting what I guessed they’d selected as a consumables reward.

"Is there any limit to how much they can ask for, Dio?"

[[Technically, yes. It’s rare any Bio reaches it with this kind of small-serving outlet.]]

"So any reward you get, you can just make endless copies of it?"

[[Patterns usually come with instance restrictions. No limit to how many times you can create them, but a limit to how many you personally can have in existence at the same time. There’s no real reason to limit Tier 1 food rewards. Prestige items will allow you only one copy at a time. Very rarely, you will encounter single-use patterns.]]

The map in my HUD had changed to a floor level diagram, showing all sorts of rooms inside the island, and for a while I ignored the arrow pointing back the way I’d come, and wandered around the much emptier interior, all the way to the outer curve of the crescent, which was dotted not with tiers, but with countless garden balconies. These, Dio informed me, connected to private suites that could only be accessed as Challenge rewards.

I’d found a way to view the different layers of the island’s internal levels, and little icons for wet rooms and Soup outlets and Challenge entrances. The place was massive. Not quite beyond belief, but definitely impressive. And this was just the starter level. Earth.

"Are there alien megastructures, Dio? Dyson Spheres? Ring worlds? Death Stars?"

[[Yes.]]

I looked up at my personal alien overlord. "Yes to which? Is this going to be one of those reach Rank Ten before I stop taunting you with ambiguities things?"

[[Yes,]] Dio said, and laughed.