The Starfighter Invitation

38 lux

"Insta-celebrity looks rough," my father said.

I leaned forward so I could see the TV from the kitchen. A repeat of a doorstop interview of a mid-fifties white Texan man whose online identity, Redeemer, had been part of the first group to unlock the System Challenge. Whatever pride he felt at the achievement was hidden by his shellshocked survey of the crowd outside his home.

"My Cycog told me it’s common practice to keep your focus active the entire time you’re in a lan Challenge, and my group decided to do that. Not that we think anyone’s been watching our Challenges. This guy was recognised because he’s been using the same player name since EverQuest, though, not from his aged-down Core Unit."

"So I shouldn’t expect reporters if you get to the System Challenge before it’s beaten?"

"I never link my player names with my real one," I said. "I can’t guarantee there’s not enough threads out there that someone with a lot of time couldn’t put a trail together, but I’d hope that by the time they did, The Synergis would have moved on to the next sensation. Maybe someone will reach Rank Ten and distract them with new planets."

Privately, I was more focused on completing the gauntlet series without dying, so that I could ask Dio prying questions with potentially truthful answers. Getting some straight talk from my alien overlord felt like it might be more of an achievement than anything anyone else was doing in the game.

I hadn’t spoken a word about the bet to my guild or parents. I felt like that would fail some hidden test, as if Dio was an ancient and powerful fairy who had disguised terself solely to ask for my last crust of bread.

"I have news." My mother arrived with an escort of wet wind, shedding layers of clothing in a move reminiscent of a great dane shaking off a rain shower. "Your Oma has been playing Dream Speed."

"Seriously?" I came out of the kitchen with two mugs topped with stroopwafel. "Does she like it?"

"Well, you know your Oma: she’s not one to gush. Her character is called Skaði, and we’re going to meet up in-game, so I’ll see how she’s managing, maybe help her out with some Challenges if she’s having trouble. Are you heading back in soon?"

"Just for a while. My guild is having another get-together, this time on Mars."

I ducked back into the kitchen for my own mug, sadly lacking in caramel wafer since gluten still hated me out in the world. But I would make that up with a cinnamon roll when I logged back in: Dream Speed was changing my relationship with food.

"Not racing for the first?" my father asked.

"It’s research of a sort. We’re going to watch the first attempt at the System Challenge, though my party’s only going to log off again after that, since there’s a couple of real-world commitments that get in the way of us continuing our gauntlet straight away. By the time we complete the gateway series, we’ll have seen enough other attempts to hopefully be able to give it a good shot."

My mother smiled at me. "Once all this initial rush is over, and we have reached appropriate ranks, shall we leave competition and guilds behind, and just travel together a while?"

"Sure. Maybe we can get one of those multi-snug ships."

Though would that mean travelling with Oma as a passenger, sternly disapproving everything I did? A short while, perhaps.

Logging back in, I turned over the vague possibility that Dream Speed would somehow transform into a bonding experience with my Oma. Perhaps she’d appreciate my gaming expertise now, if not my stubbornly independent design career.

Or perhaps not. I knew my Oma.

Low Martian gravity doubled the adjustment period between bodies, and I kept bounding and surging when all I was trying to do was walk to the nearest transport. I slowed down, since there was no need to rush to this meet-up.

Almost my whole guild had managed to reach planet-skipping rank, and everyone else able to log on had hitched rides with other guildies so we could watch the Martian dawn together. The meet-up was a private park the guild have been able to book a couple of hundred kilometres from the entrance to The Heart of Mars Challenge—which wasn’t far at all given the enormity of Chasma Marineris—and TALiSON had been very keen on a dressy get-together, so I spent the short trip looking through potential apparel rewards, and cosmetic options.

No need to go back to my Snug for a shower, a change of clothes, or to spend hours on hair and makeup. Instead, I simply walked into the nearest vat of Soup, and walked right out again, refreshed, wearing a blue and black dress with a tight bodice and long flowing sleeves and skirt. My eyes were intricately kohled, and I’d added a tracery of vines and flowers all over my face and throat.

"Is that as instantaneous as it feels, Dio?" I asked silently.

[[Soup has a stasis effect, so do not ever rely on your perception of time. But for small adjustments such as that, it is closer to moments than minutes.]]

I nodded and walked on. Flowing, flippy skirts are fascinating in low gravity. They swish with a curious lassitude, the ends flirt out and almost seem to hang before they drop.

[[Are you dancing?]]

"Performing a serious scientific experiment," I said with dignity. "What kind of dancing is in the future? Are there spectacular zero-G ballets?"

[[Any way you Bios can fling yourselves about, you can be sure there is at least a small group dedicated to doing so. The Ves-vesan system is a particular centre of performative movement, if that takes your interest.]]

"I need to start a list."

Dio promptly reeled off a series of names—the places te liked most of all in the galaxy—and a little list made itself for me, without any need for me to write it down.

[[I’ll annotate details later, so you can decide where you want to go first.]]

"You pick," I said, comfortably. "Well, out of those that are nearest, I guess."

Dio didn’t answer, but produced what I assumed was the Cycog equivalent of humming, and out of the eerie series of notes I recognised Swan Lake. I let myself continue my scientific experiment, and could not remember a time before now that I didn’t feel ridiculous wearing such a feminine dress.

"Kaz? Oh, I love the face paint. Or is it a tattoo?"

TALiSON had opted for a Gothic princess look, black lace emphasising her pale skin, and tumbling streams of deep crimson hair providing their own opportunities for physics experiments.

"I think most of their makeup options are actually tattoos. Or, no, that’s the wrong word. It’s not ink injections, it’s skin that happens to be green and blue and white, rather than your usual flesh tone." I reached up to rub my chin. "I tried washing my eyeliner off the other day, and didn’t make any inroads. I eventually found where it shows whether a cosmetic pattern is for a physical change, or actual cosmetics, and I still haven’t decided which one I prefer."

"And either way, all those years I’ve spent perfecting shadowing have completely gone to waste." TALiSON brushed lush red curls behind one ear.

"Easier to give yourself cheekbones than paint them in, anyway," Far said, strolling up. He’d opted for a The Lord of the Rings elf style outfit. The result was positively ethereal, and contrasted immensely with his familiar aged-cynic voice. "Like my braids?" he added, twirling to display intricate knot-work.

Long hair seemed to be a common interpretation of dressing up for this get-together, and Far was only one of many who had opted for vaguely elven for their clothing. Most of the guild had already arrived, but the private park was far from crowded. Pooling lux points to reserve it had seemed a waste to me at first, but I had to approve the unobtrusive mechanical servitors that glided about with mystery drinks and trays of snacks.

I wandered among spindly, fragile-looking trees admiring fabulous clothing, and matching up more names to faces. I still had my doubts about the complications inherit in a guild shifting from chat and screen interaction to near-enough actual people who might behave very differently in person, but at the moment it was all very pleasant and convivial.

Spotting Imoenne sitting with a thing like a sealed, dimpled tub in the centre of crossed legs, I moved closer to listen to the odd noises it made. She was treating it like a drum, but it produced an otherworldly noise that didn’t remind me of drums.

I knew Arlen would be nearby, and found him with two women in laced-up kirtles with heavy sleeves. I checked their names: Nalia and Maleen, who hadn’t been active in the guild for a couple of years.

Arlen waved to them as they wandered off, and then crossed to me, turning his walk into a strut to display a tunic and tight-trousers look all embroidered white on white.

"Very nice," I said, then added after an appropriate pause: "I don’t recognise Imoenne’s instrument. Is it something from The Synergis?"

"No, an Earth one," Arlen said, flashing his ready smile. "A hang, it is called, and Imoenne is teaching herself how to play. She has long wanted one."

"I’ve never even heard of it," I said, with an embarrassed laugh.

"An idiophone. Music of resonance, rather than of striking."

"Your sister certainly doesn’t sound like she’s never played this before."

"Imoenne, she is a genius," Arlen said, very serious. "I have lost count of what she can play. It is the right sound for this gathering, too. Contemplative, meditative, and yet with an uplift. Music for a Martian dawn."

Silent had strolled up while we spoke and nodded his agreement.

"I didn’t think dawn would be much of an event, given that we’re technically in a crack in the ground with a lid on it, but I can see already that it’s going to be something incredible. Chasma Marineris is more sunken continent than canyon."

"Do you think it ever rains here?" I asked, gazing up at the sky. The lid was a long way away. "Dio?"

[[Yes, when the administrator sets certain environmental controls. For washing purposes, if no other reason. If you want this gathering to end early, just let me know and I’ll tell the administrator the place is looking a little grubby.]]

Dio had responded so that Arlen and Silent could hear tem, and they laughed, but any other response we might have made was forestalled by a new system announcement.

"Way to go Nina Stella," Silent said, smiling.

"Nina Stella’s an NPC," Wraith shouted out, and we debated that for a while, because it was true enough that there were no verified sightings of DS’s most famous player. She’d sensibly gone anon very early on, and had obviously stayed focused on working on her rank. And now she was the first player in all the virtual world to travel to a new solar system.

"Well, if Nina Stella’s travelling the stars, she’s not here beating us to the System Challenge," Silent said a little later, after various mystery drinks had been consumed, and we were sitting with Far, adjusting to the weird way DS alcohol made you feel drunk and clear-headed at the same time. "Damn, but I want us to be the ones to win. D’you think we’d get a Rank Three Custom Ship? Or any explanation of the difference between ship ranks?"

"I would like a flying palace," I said. "But I don’t think I’d like to try and Skip a flying palace."

Silent laughed. "Good point. But there was a time when I thought it impossible to put a whole Snug in a Pocket, so perhaps palaces will be nothing one day. Besides, I could just park the thing in orbit and live on it when I’m visiting Earth."

"Pay some high-ranked NPC to Skip it for you," Far suggested. "I’ve been playing wide-eyed Enclaver with a few citizens of The Synergis, and it seems pretty common for them to offer Skip services. You just need to save up a lot of lux points."

"Most of The Synergis NPCs I’ve encountered seem very impatient with Enclavers," Silent said.

"I do wide-eyed very well," Far said, waving to TALiSON, returning with a little string bag of the drinking bulbs that we’d spent the morning sampling.

She waved the bag in return, but then scowled—not at Far, but at Silent’s back.

"You’re wearing one of those patches," she said as she reached us. "I hate those patches."

Silent had gone for a retro look, with a bolo tie and a faded brown leather jacket that suited him very well. I shifted, trying to peer at his back, and Silent leaned forward obligingly so I could see a purposefully distressed but still quite clear image of a Snug above Earth.

I flushed, but of course TALiSON couldn’t know that I was the artist.

"My Core Unit is a lie, though," Silent said, mildly. "I’m, what, forty-seven out in the world?"

"You’re not sure?" I asked.

"Had to work it out. The days of proclaiming I’m seven and nine months are long gone."

"This definitely is a lie," TALiSON said, as she sat down, handing me the net of drinking bulbs. “It’s what I looked like twenty years and sixty pounds ago. It’s what the game gave me with to start with. Do you know how cruel that is?”

"Why cruel?" Silent asked.

"Because that makes this body what I think of myself, deep down," TALiSON said, in a little rush. "After years of fat activism, of standing up for the right to exist without the shame, this game tells me that everything I’ve said and done for years out there in the non-virtual is the lie. I didn’t accept myself at all."

Looking puzzled, Silent said: "I didn’t purposefully age myself down—this is how the game started me out, with a little fine-tuning, and it’s not because I don’t accept that I’m plunging toward fifty. Not that I would have hesitated to change myself to whatever I wanted, so long as the synchronisation score stayed viable."

"I sacrificed synchronisation for fantasy me," Far said, his voice shifting to unexpectedly dulcet tones. "Didn’t drop too much."

"Sprocket’s sync is so bad he’s still at skids stage," I said.

Silent nodded. "And he doesn’t care a bit, because looking like his favourite character means more to him. Though he’s extremely curious about how close everyone in the guild has stuck to their non-virtual appearance."

"I don’t think he realises how irritating the no, what are you really game is," I murmured.

Far caught my eye, and gave me a wry, astonishingly beautiful smile. "I took this name for a troll, you know. Nothing like wearing a female toon and having every asshole on the server demanding a play-by-play of my chromosomes. But it also worked to draw a lot of fire from friends where that question means so much, where what are you, really is a knife in the gut, a needle in the spine, every damn time. We’re far from the only ones having a debate about what a Core Unit means. About whether it’s your starting point, or the act of improving synchronisation that counts. Or even defying synchronisation, and making your Self whatever the hell you want it to be. The Cykes, at least, stick to it that Core Units are just a mechanism that impacts your lan use."

"They never suggest that you have to play the hand genetics dealt you," Silent agreed. "Any more than they force real-world diabetics to keep giving themselves in-game insulin shots. The body here is fashion. An outfit you put on, or a tool to beat particular Challenges."

"And yet everything," Far added, in a lower tone.

"The Cycogs are also the ones that focused everything around the concept of Core Unit," I pointed out. "We wouldn’t even be having this discussion if they hadn’t used self-image as a starting point. Which, even if Cycogs and lan are somehow real, isn’t something they needed to put in a virtual simulation. It’s something they chose to include."

"You’re right," TALiSON agreed. "And my avatar choices don’t bother me when I’m playing things like Veil. It’s only when I’m socialising with real people wearing my so-called self-image, or I see that damn patch."

"We don’t even know if a true self is something that’s an issue in the future." I said. "Dio, what’s it like to grow up as a Bio of The Synergis? Uh, as an average Type Three?"

I expected Dio to drop down from the drifts of light above, and experienced a mild shock when te surfaced from the toe of my boot. Riding along? Resting?

[[Most Bios raise their offspring on crèche worlds,]] te said. [[Primarily because infant lan is negligible, and crèche worlds have many more safety precautions, along with educational facilities and peers for socialisation. Type Threes usually cannot safely transfer between modals until their teens, at which point they’re permitted to experiment with different forms, if they wish. Occasionally Bios choose to never live in anything but their own original shape, and even of the majority that try a number of changes, perhaps eighty percent retain something similar to their initial appearance for their Core.]]

"So there are worlds that are almost all kids at school and their parents?" TALiSON asked. "Are classes broken down into the good-looking kids, the athletic kids, and the lo…the unpopular ones? Or are all Synergis children born good-looking?"

[[It’s rare that genetic traits that are strongly outside averages are maintained. Otherwise, approximately a third of Type Threes use trait selection rather than the random combinations of unassisted conception. Random combination remains the most common, however, in part due to a belief that individuality is an adjunct to strong lan development. If you were all bland reproductions of some Golden Mean of agreed beauty, would you have a lesser sense of self?]]

"What about race?" Silent asked. "I’ve noticed that all the NPCs I’ve seen so far have been darker-skinned."

[[That is partly fashion. Race, in the informal construct of the term, has been subsumed by sub-species, although there are still some regional distinctions among pure Type Threes that correlate well enough to your major continental variants. Statistically, hm, the average Type Three has a light brown skin, wavy brown-black hair, and dark brown eyes. They are raised in neutral expression on a crèche world, primarily in this quadrant or Elorha Quadrant.]]

"Neutral expression?" Far said. "We talking reproductive sets? Or lack thereof?"

[[Yes. That was a variation that came from Kua-roa, the most advanced of the Type Three Enclaves. They went through several phases of violence based on strict notions of gender roles, suffered a near-extinction event, and chose to mandate a neutral state as a result. Kua-roans reproduce entirely through assisted conception and gestation, entering affection-based partnerships rather than sexual ones, and leave to The Synergis if they wish to sample other expressions. We observed that neutral early development seemed to remove some of the factors that undermine lan progress in Type Threes—and several of the other Bio species—and encouraged the practice generally. It’s voluntary in The Synergis, but at this stage approximately seventy percent of Type Threes are born neutral. Perhaps ten percent remain so, while almost half of the whole eventually use neutral as a base, but shift between one or more of the other potential expressions to experiment with strengthening their lan, or for recreational or partnership purposes.]]

"Is this a genetic level neutrality?" I asked. "Or are you just controlling, um, suppressing the expression of the chromosomes?"

[[For the majority it’s genetic, but some choose a surface adjustment. We leave that up to the parent, since our preference is to influence trends, rather than waste time pressuring individuals.]]

We digested this reminder of Chocobo status, then I sighed, and snagged one of the drinking bulbs from TALiSON’s net.

"So the main thing you’re saying is that we’re all just potential engine parts, and no-one cares what we started off like, or plays the no, what are you really? game?"

[[To a certain degree, the precise opposite,]] Dio replied. [[Because it is such a prestigious thing to be high lan, there is immense interest in the genetics and development of anyone nearing triple digit rank. And Bios maintain all manner of factional division, and will care passionately about the most unexpected things. But to change your Core Unit for personal preference, or to strengthen your synchronisation, or to optimise for other forms of Challenges, are all unremarkable things.]]

"But since we weren’t raised in The Synergis, we’re still probably going to feel a little conflicted," I said, firmly. "Oh, Nova made it." I waved, and added to TALiSON and Far: "Our fifth for the gauntlet series. We’re trying to show her that we’re the kind of guild she’d want to join."

"Pity we’re all so thoroughly drunk, then," TALiSON said. "I wasn’t expecting to wait this long to watch the System Challenge."

Nova had ditched the magical girl outfit for a blue and white chignon and a dress of two pieces of sheer cloth-of-gold artfully pinned along shoulders and arms to produce something that on me would probably resemble a homemade poncho, and on Nova somehow became a vaguely Grecian piece of elegance.

"I didn’t think I’d make it back here in time," she said, sitting down near me. "Getting down from space takes a while."

"Putting in zero-G practice?" Silent asked, handing her a drinking bulb.

"It sounds like we’ll need it."

TALiSON blinked at her. "Is that a tiny cat on your shoulder? Does this game give pet rewards?"

"My Cycog," Nova said, with a sideways glance. "Temi."

The teacup-sized cat—black with a four-pointed star on its forehead—blinked at us with eyes that glowed the same luminous white as the mote hovering above my foot.

"It feels wrong to squee over our alien overlords," I said. "But that’s a very cute synth, Temi."

[[Thank you.]]

Dio said something in the wibbling notes of the Cybercognate, and Temi responded by leaping to the ground, curling into a black ball, and rising out of the synth to float off into the crowd above.

"That’s the only language they don’t auto-translate," Nova remarked. "I wonder if it’s possible to learn."

Far moved his foot toward the black ball, then drew it back. "It’s probably rude to pick aliens up, or the shells they leave behind. If I get drunker, make sure I don’t step on it."

"They’re apparently very sturdy," Nova said, lifting her drinking bulb and sniffing the built-in straw. "What is this?"

"It’s called thousand fruit punch," TALiSON explained. "Every bulb is different."

There was something different about Nova beyond the clothes, and it took me a full minute of consideration to decide that she wasn’t just dressed older: she had physically changed to a twentyish version of herself, rather than the mid-teens look that had gone with her magical girl homage. I’d already known she was older, because the game didn’t flag her age, but found the differences more disconcerting than if she’d turned up in an entirely unfamiliar body.

"We were discussing my jacket" Silent said, taking it off and turning it to rest across his knees. My carefully non-specific humanoid figure looked down at Earth, the declaration of the lie blazoned above the image. "Do you think it’s cruel to have a Core Unit concept in DS?"

Nova lifted her eyebrows, but then paused to consider the question.

"I can see how many people might find it so. Ryzonart claims they’ve crafted the game to avoid harming its players, so there must be a reason to include the whole concept."

"The simplest being the alien recruitment program," Silent said.

"Which in turn makes it unlikely this game is being run by Cycogs from the future," Nova said. "They’d surely have more than enough Bios to work with there. Then."

"Lost spaceship, burgeoning galactic war, or they developed recently on Earth and are pretending not to?" Far moved his foot closer to the empty synth once again.

"I agree about the goal being recruitment," Silent said. "But while we know they care about something they say impacts lan strength, we don’t know if the part about being cossetted Skip engines is true. I don’t think we’re any closer to working out what exactly we’re being recruited for. What do you think are the chances of there really being a Starfighter Invitation, Nova?"

"It’s the wrong sort of game," she said.

"You mean, not shooting? If we stick with the theory that they’re recruiting lan pilots, we don’t need to worry about shooting."

"No, I mean it’s an MMO," Nova replied.

Silent frowned, then straightened. "I see. Setting this up as multiplayer on this scale is a huge resource cost. If they just wanted to recruit lan pilots, single player would be the way to go."

Far sighed. "No theory makes sense, all of them sound reasonable."

"I think we’ve been listening to different theories," I said.

[g] Stream’s finally starting people.

[g] Hope you’re all still conscious.

I rechecked the [View Lan Challenges] list, and found that [The Wreck] had been pinned to the top. I followed the link, and settled back, eyes half-closed, to experience television in my head.