The Starfighter Invitation

22 grind

To achieve Rank Five I needed to sustain a Pocket large enough to cover my entire Snug. It felt as achievable as scooping out a swimming pool with a single hand, and the training meant genuine work, the kind of thing MMOs had never expected me to do. Compared to magic schools and giant robots, it was hard to look forward to it as fun.

But then Dio showed me the impossibly cool things you can do with shields. My lan shield was weirdly slippy to touch: the kind of sensation you’d expect trying to put two positive ends of a magnet together. Curved lan shields emphasised the slippiness on the outer curve, and decreased it on the inner curve, and once Dio informed me that this could be used as a hoverboard, my practice sessions became a series of hilarious salt-and-sand pratfalls.

Too busy enjoying myself to think of it as work, I kept at it over one, three, then five sessions of training, so that I was able to manage wondrous glides over sandbars and along beaches, until my concentration or energy ran out, or I accidentally zipped over deep water and dunked myself. But even my tendency to splashdown could be overcome with an increase to the size of the lan shield, until it was more a lan boat than a lan skid. Then I was limited only by my strength, and any significant peaks and troughs in the water.

I was far from the only player focusing on lan development, and my Vessan sandbars became dotted with coverall-clad figures letting out occasional shrieks and gasps as they tilted too far, or forgot to maintain their lan. Collision became a strong probability, and for my sixth session Dio decided to move me to a distant sandbar that required crossing an extended patch of deeper water—a trip made doubly daunting by the pre-dawn gloom turning the area into a sketch of shape and sound.

My lan skid looked like a giant blue rose petal, luminous and mostly transparent. I’d learned to form it from the outer rim inward, and to step upward when it reached my feet, concentrating on my posture, since the thing would start sliding in the opposite direction to any tilt.

Rather than shooting off in a straight line, Dio sent me on a course tracing the shallow water between the sandbars, testing my ability to adjust course through minute shifts of weight, while following the route te projected in the half-light. Nerve-racking! Particularly as I built up a fair clip of speed, so that when I reached the deeper water, I shot forward at a great rate, scudding over the minor swell. In hardly any time at all, I could let my skid dissipate as it rode up onto a broad, humped sandbar, and then I had to take a few steps as momentum tried to drop me flat on my face.

"Whew!" I said, going down on my knees instead. "Any faster and this’d be outright dangerous."

[[There are methods to soften landings,]] Dio said, drifting away from ter perch on my shoulder. [[Too advanced for you, just yet. But enough lolling about—I want to measure the size of the Pocket you can create.]]

"You’ve an odd definition of lolling," I said, but climbed to my feet, and went on to fail to complete the shape Dio projected.

"Why not wait until I’d rested after the skidding?" I panted, after te had given me permission to stop trying.

[[Where’s the fun in making it easy?]]

I deactivated my focus and wiped my face, then plumped down on the sand and lay back, gazing up at the lightening sky. Birds were drifting overhead, high and tranquil, and somehow making me feel even sweatier. Still, I was pleased with myself. Not even a full day had passed since the release of DS, and I was further along than I’d expected. Although logging out after every training session, with its sense that everything had happened yesterday, made it feel like I’d been working on ranking forever—or at least a week.

"Do you think I can take the next trial soon?"

[[I’ll decide next session. Perhaps.]]

"How many people have reached Rank Five?"

[[What happened to avoiding spoilers and pretending you were boldly going where no Bio had gone before?]]

"That Snug wafting lightly into the aether rather spoils the illusion."

[[Yes, if you want to bury your head in the sand, perhaps you should try lying face down. And a little over seven thousand.]]

I sighed. While I was still arguably within reach of the leading edge among a few million players, I would still be heading to well-trammelled ground. Or as well-trammelled as a hundred billion stars could be.

Cheered by the reflection that there were more stars than players, I watched until the Snug lifted to a height that made it indistinguishable from the fading stars, then said: "In The Synergis, have you explored every solar system in the galaxy?"

[['Explored', no. Nor even visited, since the heart of the Galactic Core presents certain difficulties for Bios. We have established an inner boundary where travel is considered unsafe.]]

"Do people still go in?"

[[Some. Flirting with the edges. But most of us are too sensible to let our Bios Skip there, since we are then left with the problem of getting out after they’ve been fried or caught in a gravitational wave or what-have-you. Even if the ship is still active, it takes a tremendously long time to navigate out. Those without a ship…well, that is not a fate I would enjoy.]]

Slower than walking pace, over galactic distances. Would a Cycog, abandoned among the stars, drift forever? I decided not to ask, returning to my initial topic.

"Most of the reachable solar systems have been at least visited?"

[[Yes, you are not alone among Bios in wanting to decorate yourself with some tiny form of notability, and so there has been a great deal of first to visit exploration.]] Dio laughed. [[But there is still an enormous amount unexamined in any level of detail. The Synergis is not nearly old enough to have seen all Helannan has to offer.]]

"How old is it?"

[[It’s been twelve hundred of your years since Veronec came to terself, and perhaps a century after that before te allied with Bios. What I consider The Synergis Proper—the structure as it is now—has been in place for six hundred years.]]

"Funny—I always think of space empires as having been around for ten thousand years or something."

[[A long time yet until our sybaritic decline,]] Dio said cheerfully. [[I can hope we will have spread beyond the galactic rim before then. Or perhaps we will be overthrown and cast down by the Bios we grind beneath our heels. I see the polls are leaning toward The Synergis' ruin.]]

"The polls?" I sat up. "You mean on VGame Watch and DreamSpeak and so forth? You can access sites outside the game?"

[[Have I pretended not to know this is a simulation? I’ve been enjoying the theories and debates immensely. Particularly the Pet Life discussions. Shall I get you a collar?]]

I ignored this, regarding Dio thoughtfully. "Have you read the analysis of the game’s uploads and downloads?"

[[And the attempts to dissect the software.]]

"Is the most popular conclusion correct? That big upload as soon as you start the game is some sort of copying process? Copying us?"

[[Do you really think your minds so small?]]

"I think I can carry a few thousand novels in my pocket."

[[If Bio brains were text-only, they might be easier to edit. Rest assured, a full Bio information transfer involves a little more data.]]

"It’s definitely the character creation process that produces the upload, though. If you’re not copying our minds, what are you doing?"

[[In gaming terms, creating a local client. A Construct that allows you to experience The Synergis.]]

I thought about that, a little surprised Dio had actually answered. "Does that mean I’m not me—I just think I am?"

[[Not quite. These virtual Constructs can’t operate without the link to their Bio: they have no motive impulse, and unless the Bio obligingly recalled everything that had ever happened to tem, they would be a painfully incomplete data copy. The GDG cowls don’t have the ability to access anything not on the surface.]]

"And I guess we just have to take your word on it that this isn’t Invasion of the Brain-Snatchers."

[[Your minds hardly seem worth the effort.]]

"Lan-snatchers doesn’t have the same ring."

[[No.]] Dio drifted down to rest on the sand, a dim terrestrial star. [[But I thoroughly enjoy the success of my explanation. Quite large numbers credit the idea that we have denuded the entire galaxy of Bios, and need some more.]]

"Yes, it’s so much more believable that you’re doing this out of concern we might be bored," I said. "What do you think of the reaction to the game? Everything you hoped for?"

[[No more than I expected. Jubilation, fear, heart-warming stories, considerable outrage revolving around sex, and a surfeit of Biblical references. The shift from the gaming world to full public consciousness has been rapid.]]

Dream Speed had hit the blanket coverage by my fifth or sixth logout. Between stories about the significance of virtual bodies for people with disabilities, and the what-about-the-children protests, reporters had not yet fully focused on the debate about how the advance in technology had come about. Every channel filled with non-stop images of The Synergis, and newspapers kept up their end by shouting things like: THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD and THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. People had lived virtual lives for decades, but they had always still been themselves, looking at a screen. The reaction sites had leapt straight to one central point. BE ANYONE, they shouted, interviewing players whose self-images apparently closely matched Angelina Jolie, and Harrison Ford circa Return of the Jedi.

Ryzonart was besieged, of course, and had offered a press conference with their elusive CEO with the air of a scrap of meat tossed to the wolves. They’d also released a whole series of new starter cities as the login numbers climbed, and people fought over the last few cowls in retail stores. All in less than a day.

"Did you read the Reddit Rape Thread?" I asked Dio.

[[Oh, yes. Not unexpected. Our position won’t change.]]

The discussion thread titled "Why can’t we rape NPCs?" had quickly become the most-commented in the Dream Speed subreddit. A poster—not even using a sock-puppet account—had stated that they were glad the game didn’t allow player rape, but that it was unrealistic that not even the NPCs could be sexually assaulted—the poster had tried, and been slapped with a day-long ban "before I even got to do anything much". The first few commenters had pointed out that you couldn’t always tell NPCs from players in Dream Speed, and besides, all major MMOs limited what you could do to NPCs. After that, what seemed like the rest of the internet had fallen onto the thread.

"How effectively are these things controlled in The Synergis? Outside virtual simulations?"

[[We have no perfect system, and since The Synergis is an environment where Bios consent to violent, often lethal Challenges, arguments are repeatedly made to us that Bios should be permitted to inflict different varieties of violence on each other, or on Constructs simulating such acts. But to torture, or to violate, has an intrinsically different impact on victim and assaulter. It is not so easily shrugged off as evenly-matched combat, or even a knife in the back, something that has left you burying yourself in training, avoiding the Challenges altogether.]]

"That’s because I want my spaceship," I said, firmly. "Though I really didn’t like being stabbed either, and it’s weird to think of a knife in the back as something that can be shrugged off. What happens to people—Bios—who break your more serious laws then?"

[[We have yet to discover a deterrent system that is both effective and satisfactory. Currently it involves complete loss of all lux points, all patterns, and all properties barring a first-issue Snug, combined with a period of separation. We vacillate on other measures: those who have not accrued any credit of substance are less concerned about its loss. There are separation planets, but not what you would consider prisons, and sometimes our measures seem inadequate responses. We have considered a pain component, but have not implemented it.]]

"What do you do about repeat offenders, then?"

[[In the early days, we simply killed those Bios who deliberately and repeatedly broke certain foundational laws. Now, we do not kill them, but we do not transfer them to new bodies, either.]]

"Punished with mortality?"

[[A higher degree of it. Fortunately, the majority of Bios like their privileges too much to seriously flout our laws. Have you noticed our weather event? Would you like to race back dramatically before it?]]

I blinked, then looked around at an early morning that had not significantly increased in brightness since I’d flopped to the sand. Before me was pale blue. Behind, a wall of black.

"You could just turn off the storm," I pointed out, not feeling at all up to making a skid. "Virtual worlds don’t have weather events unless they’re told to."

[[True. But lan development is often stimulated by pushing Bios when they’re near their limit, and I want to see if you respond to that.]]

"Dio, you’re a pest."

[Frequently,]] te said. [[You’d better start, if you want to avoid a drenching.]]

"What would happen if I simply stayed here?"

[[I would learn how well you swim.]]

I climbed to my feet, glad I hadn’t taken my shoes off. The sandbars were already looking shrunken, and the water had grown choppier, which meant it would be harder to maintain the lan skid. I could swim, though, and if my skid failed, I would at least be closer to the endless loop of the city.

"The Synergis doesn’t have emergency services?" I asked, even as I started forming my skid. "I can’t call someone to come pick me up?"

[[You could if I weren’t busy poking you with a stick to see you jump. [City Information] will have Constructs you can reach out to, and in complicated situations the city administrator will at least listen to petitions from Bios.]]

I frowned, then said: "I’ll decide how annoyed to be with you later," as the inward growth of the skid reached my feet, and I had to concentrate on maintaining it while stepping up.

The choppy water was the worst, slowing me down and constantly threatening my balance. Maintaining the skid began to hurt, in an achy stretched muscle way, and my steering grew erratic in the increasing wind, so that I ended up well to the left of the entrance into Vessa, and knee-deep in water. It was not a place to give in to an impulse to sit right down.

"Did you really conjure up a storm just to test me, impacting thousands of other players, or was that you being free with the truth again?" I asked, as I turned and began to wade toward the entrance.

[[If I were to be strictly correct, this was already scheduled, and changed only the choice of practice location.]]

A stinging wall of rain reached me, crushing in its intensity, and I had to put my head down and concentrate on not getting blown over. The massive tube of the rollercoaster made it impossible to lose my way, but the wind was trying to wedge me under the lower curve of it.

"Here!"

I barely heard the word. A firm clasp at my wrist followed, and I was pulled forward by a shape looming through the rain. Another matched me on the other side, cutting the impact of the wind, so that I was more or less able to make the last of the distance on my own two feet. A weird plastic sensation, like I’d walked into an invisible balloon, gave way almost before I’d noticed it, and I stumbled as the storm was shut away, replaced by Crowd.

"…saw you coming back—thought you weren’t going to make it!"

"Category 5 for sure."

"…find out how solid this structure is, anyway."

"They did it because those asses in Pyres of Heaven were yapping on how there wasn’t any weather."

"My Cyke said it wanted to test whether I could use my lan in an emergency."

"Yeah, mine too."

No door or shutter had come down over the entrance into the rollercoaster: instead some kind of bubble—invisible except for where the rain hit it—was keeping the wind out. Everyone who’d been out on the sandbars had come in and stopped to watch the storm. The person who had my wrist, a very tall and athletic woman, let go of me and asked me, for the second time I think, if I were okay.

Nodding, I smiled my thanks, mouthed the words to my other rescuer—a man not much taller than me, but built wide—and tried to not too obviously cringe in the direction of the nearest wall.

[[Have you decided how annoyed you are?]] Dio asked, as I succeeded in finding the back edge of the press of gawkers, and made a rapid, if dripping, retreat.

"That will depend on whether you think that demonstrated that I’m ready to take my next Trial." I paused, wiping at my face. "No, wait, it depends on whether you’re going to keep pulling that shit on me. Don’t manufacture crises for me, Dio. I’m not in that much of a hurry."

[[Duly noted,]] Dio murmured.

But without, I took care to observe, making any kind of promise.