Look deeper, go higher

Retire, don’t expire

Pop, Pop, Fire

 

The auditorium lights faded back on and we were left to converse with ourselves until a woman named Sandy stepped up on stage and told us we were to be escorted to the next part of orientation: The hanger, where we could get acquainted with our own personal craft.

The launch was tomorrow morning, we all knew, so it was nice to get a preview of the tiny home we’d be living in for the duration of the game before we were literally locked inside it and thrust into deep space.

“Well that was … informative,” said Kelly, as we all stood up.

I stretched. “It’s been a morning, that’s for sure.”

We followed the line of people through an open door near the base of the stage. Kelly and I naturally stuck together, more or less because we didn’t know anyone else.

A security guard scanned our irises as we passed through the door and into what was obviously an employee-only hallway. Teal colored, it was completely void of delight, unlike the decorated hallways in the casino we had to pass through to get here.

We made our way, in relative silence save for a few jests about security, through a maze of these boring hallways, down a flight of stairs, and finally to another door where our irises were scanned again.

When this door opened, my jaw dropped. What I walked into was the biggest ship hanger I’d ever seen. The room was so big I almost passed out from vertigo.

“Holy moly,” said Kelly, looking back and forth.

“Holy shit is right,” I said.

On the far side of the hanger, against the wall, were countless tinted windows, each the size of a three story house displaying countless stars and the edge of the earth. On the outside of each window, we could see an XG-88 Egg mounted to a docking station, right there on the other side of the window. There were sealed iris shaped doorways below each window, which had to be the entrances to each egg.

Sandy, our new tour guide, led our group past parked ships and ship parts scattered around the hangar, which we had to navigate around to get to where we needed to go. Sounds of engineers, robots, and automated machines performing general maintenance on random craft provided the background ambiance. And the oily smell of a garage permeated the air.

“Alright everyone,” said Sandy, the way a school teacher would gather a class. “Gather around now. Over here! Leave the shiny things alone please. Hey, you, don’t touch that.”

Sandy Cain was a middle aged twig of a woman with bright red lips, stunning blue eyes, and the biggest breasts I’d ever seen. Not being crude, just stating facts. She had a harsh Russian accent. Hungarian maybe, and a face as solid as chiseled stone. I squinted for a moment at her dark hairline, wondering if that perfectly cut, jaw length hairdo was a wig. It had to be a wig. She seemed like the kind of woman that would have no problem getting a room full of sexist men to do what she wanted. So handling a group of young people like us was a cakewalk for her.

“Okay then. Now, you each have a number, yes? See your tags.” She looked at her watch then up at us. “You have thirty-five minutes to explore your craft. There's an “egg guide” at each docking station to assist you, answer any questions you may have. Show you the insides. Be back in this spot in front of docking station fifty on time, yes?” She eyed the boy who she yelled at a minute ago. “I have your understanding, yes?”

A general consensus of agreement followed.

“Any questions?” said Sandy.

“Yeah! What are you doing later tonight?” came a male voice. A female voice followed that up with an ouh-ouh, which was followed by a general snicker.

Sandy’s eye roll was visible, even from the back of the crowd, which is where Kelly and I stood.

“Nothing with you,” said Sandy, as she put her phone to her ear and waved us away.

“Well, looks like I’m this way,” said Kelly, nodding to the right, where the numbers above each docking station went up.

“Yeah, see you around then,” I said.

We shared an awkward moment that ended in an even more awkward handshake. And that was that.

I’ll admit, I watched her walk away. But only for a moment. No amount of ass could keep me from spending as much time as I could checking out my egg, no matter how attractive.

I followed the numbers down from fifty, watching others meet their egg guides and pop into their docking stations. I heard two boys talking as they walked past me.

“So, instead of players they should call us sperms,” said the boy.

“I don’t get it,” said the other, scratching his head.

“Eggs, bro,” exclaimed the first, with an annoyed exasperation one could only have explaining a joke no one got. “We’re all slipping into eggs. Like sperms do, man.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s gross, amigo. Why you so perverted, huh?”

When I got to number 33, I found a happy looking fellow with a long scraggly beard and a belly as round as an oversized beach ball. He looked like he could be Santa’s nephew. A nephew who worked in the grimy section of the toyshop. He offered me an oil stained hand and I shook it with no hesitation, happy to make his acquaintance.

“Oi, the name’s Tim. Good to meetcha,” he said, all bubbly and jolly. Just like Santa.

I smiled. “Yeah, you too. I’m Jack.”

“Come on, I’ll show you ‘round.”

Tim, waddling like a penguin in overalls, made his way to the iris door with me in tow. He grabbed the badge around my neck, pulled me closer to a panel, and scanned it. Then he scanned his own badge. Then he pushed the back of my head even closer to the panel and a red bar scanned my eyes. There was a gentle beeping noise, a light turned green, then the iris opened with a swish and a click.

“Lots of scanning going on here,” I said.

“Security, man,” said Tim, turning.

Through a short tunnel, filled with wires and plastic coverings, I could see the inside of my egg. My new home away from home for the next year or so. A moment of dread filled me for just a moment as I stepped inside. The thought of being alone, but not really alone, for that long was a difficult feeling to comprehend or express. So I kept the feeling to myself.

“Here she is,” said Tim.

“Much roomier than what I thought it would be,” I said, looking around. “Very nice.”

“Like a tiny, luxury home. Yeah.”

The interior lighting was mostly hundreds of tiny LED lights, and there was a faint smell of plastic and metal in the air. Almost like a fresh car but more industrial.

“Over here are your three function tubes,” said Tim. “One for sleeping, one for cleaning yourself and going to the bathroom, and one for gameplay.”

“Right. Nice.”

There was gravity, currently, thanks to the satellite city’s generous rotation, but I could tell this egg was built to function in zero G. So, the “floor” we were standing on was actually a curved ceiling and above us was the exercise equipment. I got a strange, ominous feeling as I peered into the three horizontal tubes, like I was staring down into three empty coffin slots at a morgue. Each one was just big enough around to fit a full grown human.

“And here’s your control console,” said Tim, pointing to three monitors on the other side of the egg against a curved wall. He demonstrated how easy it was to maneuver the mount with a keyboard and trackpad. There was no seat but there were straps for feet.

I peered in closer at the middle monitor. Just below it was undoubtedly a camera.

“Ah, so there are cameras in here,” I said.

“Yeah, sure is,” said Tim. “You can video call other players when you’re not inside the VR rig. Or you can just text them with your comms app. Either way. You can live stream to the audience, too, on Earth! Anyone who wants to watch you can tune in. It’ll be about a nine minute delay, but it’s a new feature that everyone’s going to love, I think.”

“Huh,” I said. “That is new.”

Tim turned on the computer by pressing a button on the keyboard. The screens went white then a window appeared on the center monitor.

“Need your fingerprint,” said Tim.

“Right,” I said, then placed my finger on the same button he used to turn on the computer. After a second, the window disappeared. Lines of white code populated another window and began to run through, initiating its sequence. Finally, a third window popped up with information I could access.

“Oh, here we go,” I said.

XG-88 - [Jack Cobb] Call sign: UNDETERMINED

• Engine Status
• Systems Status
• Live Feed
• Personal Log
• Group Chat
• Personal Chat
• Candle Ranking
• Player Inventory
• Food/Water Log
• Oxygen Levels
• Maintenance
• A.I. Settings
• Game Log
• Spawn points
• 5Senz Battery

Tim slapped my hands away. “Sorry, can’t touch. Not supposed to let you check out the goods just yet. Might give you an unfair advantage.”

“How?” I said.

Tim shrugged. “I don’t know. They just tell us not to let you in yet.”

“Okay.”

“But I do have to assign you a call sign,” said Tim, typing something into another window.

“Call sign?”

“One word. Something that people will recognize as you. Like a nickname.”

In previous seasons they didn’t have call signs. Anytime players were referenced, their names were used.

“Is this something that will just be internal, or will it be public facing?”

Tim shrugged again. “Not sure. I think it’s for the public. People like nicknames.”

“Sure. Uh, well, I have a buddy back home that calls me the ‘Cobbgoblin’ because, you know, my name is Cobb, with two b’s, and it’s like Hobgob—oh, okay, I guess we’re using that then.”

Tim had already typed in Cobbgoblin and submitted it into the system before I finished my explanation. “Works for me,” he said.

I looked to my right and peered out of the massive window that indeed looked like a giant contact lens. I could see the backend of another egg not far away. There were seven engine holes facing me, but besides that the ship was perfectly egg-shaped.

“Here’s your food dispenser,” said Tim, pointing to a long cylindrical tube about as thick as my arm. It wound its way around the center interior of the egg and terminated at two spouts where the dome window met the metal seal. “This one is purified water,” he said, tapping the spout on the left. “And this one is your food dispenser.” The spout on the right had a much wider opening. “You push this button and it gives you your twenty-four hour ration.” He pushed the button and a brown block popped out. He caught it and handed it to me. “Like a candy bar.”

I looked at it, cringed, then took a bite. “Ew,” I said. “Tastes like shit.”

Tim snorted a laugh as he started inspecting the upside down exercise bike. “I don’t cook the stuff, kid, I just pack it in here. Trust me, there’s enough vitamins, minerals, and calories in that single bite to get you through a whole day. And don’t worry about running out. There’s about five years worth of that … shit packed into this machine. You’ll survive.”

“I guess it’s worth eating for ten million, right?” I said.

Tim looked at me, wide-eyed. “Ten mil, aye? That the prize money? That’s twice as much as last season.”

I cringed, wondering if I’d just given away a show secret. But whatever. We were launching tomorrow so I didn’t care that much anymore.

Tim tested the handle pull string on the row boat machine, pulling it out and letting it wind back up. “They told you how the exercise equipment charges the—”

“The VR rig and console? Yeah, they mentioned that,” I said.

“Well, by the looks of you, I don’t see that being too much of a problem,” said Tim. “You’re as fit as I am fat.”

We both snorted a laugh at that. It was then I decided I really like Tim and his self deprecating humor. Tim was a good guy.

“What’s that over there?” I said. “An emergency button?”

“Ah, yes, that’s next on my list,” said Tim, walking over to the big red button on the wall. He lifted the plastic, transparent covering and pointed at it. “This, Mr. Cobbgoblin, is what you push if something goes wrong. Like, really wrong. Like, ‘I have to leave the game’ wrong. You’ve got a button on your VR rig as well in case something happens while you’re in session.” He motioned over to the three tubes for emphasis. “If you’re incapable of pushing a button, you can always ask Vici for help.”

“Who’s Vici?”

“Your ship’s A.I. actually, if something bad does happen, you won’t even need to inform her. She’ll be constantly tracking your vitals. Also, we’ll have an escort ship following the cluster of eggs throughout the entire course. It’s armed with a highly focused, laser weapons system to trash any space debris that’s unlucky enough to be floating anywhere near the course. It also contains a med bay for emergencies. You lose oxygen. You break your skull somehow. You start shitting copious amounts of blood—whatever it is, you can slam this baby at any time and that escort ship will swallow you up and take you out of the game. Got it?”

“Just like in all the other seasons. Yep. Got it.”

“Yeah. This season, though, the escort is mostly controlled by and A.I. Med bay too, but there will be one or two medical personnel. Maybe. Okay. Anyway, you’ll figure out the rest. You're familiar with how to work a VR rig, right?”

“Oh yeah. Have one at home. However, I’ve never used a 5Senz. It looks really nice.”

“Oh boy, you just wait,” said Tim. “We tested them out when we installed them. And all I can say is wowzers. I was literally in a different place. So real.”

“Nice,” I said. “You mean you can access Jin Ella right now?”

“No. Just the training environment. Anyway, you good? Supposed to send you back after I got your fingerprint and call sign in.”

I looked around for a minute, taking it all in. “My schedule says we launch tomorrow morning? You’ll be here for that?”

“I will. I’ll actually be controlling your craft until your systems hook up with the escort ship.

“Oh, so then I should be extra nice to you then, yeah? Maybe you give me a head start?”

Tim laughed, holding his big, round belly. Totally just like Santa Clause. “I like you kid, but I like my job more.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“But if it’s any consolation, I’ll be giving you my first candle.” He gave me a wink. “Oh, and, if you need to communicate with Horizons while you’re out there, I’ll be the voice on the other end. Unless I’m asleep, then it will be Derek. Derek’s a prick, though, so I hope you have emergencies during my shift for your sake.”

We shared another laugh.

“Good to know,” I said. “See you here tomorrow morning then?”

“You bet your tight, little ass I’ll be here, Cobbgobin.”

 

— — —

 

A wall of aluminum, mobile barriers and serious looking security guards stood in front of a mob of paparazzi and press. Despite the conference room being pretty big, it was overflowing out the back doors.

The producers had originally carved out time on the agenda for a press conference, but they hadn’t planned for this many people. It was supposed to be an exclusive event for top tier news outlets and influencers but the paparazzi was a force of nature in its own right, replacing organization with barley controlled chaos.

Much like the auditorium we were in earlier that day, this room had an elevated stage at one end of it. But instead of stadium seating, the rest of the conference room was flat.

They had us come out on stage and sit on five rows of bleachers in order from number 1 to 100. Twenty on each row, with number 1 on the bottom left corner and 100 at the top. That put me near the edge on the second to bottom row.

A rectangle table for five, adorned with a white silk cloth, was set up adjacent to our bleachers. Mics and steaming coffee mugs were placed in front of each seat by stage hands just before the three executive producers walked into the room and sat down, including our friend Sandy.

All the while, cameras were flashing and people were shouldering and thrusting to get the best place and pics of the players. I now knew why one of the questions they asked us during our pre-med evaluations had to do with conditions regarding epilepsy.

One of the executives, Joe Brown, leaned forward, tapped his mic. “Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming. We want to apologize. Our fabulous host, Kubo Smith, was supposed to be here to lead tonight’s event, but we’ve been informed that he’s fallen ill. So I’ll be … doing my best to replace him. Even though I’m nowhere near as charismatic. Eh, eh, eh.”

That, I can confirm, was an understatement. In fact, Joe Brown was so unremarkably dull that I could feel the energy in the room start to drain as soon as he started talking. Even his name was boring. I looked to my left at number 32, a dude about my same height and build named Garret. We both shrugged. Kubo had been just fine earlier that day. What happened?

Just then, an elderly Japanese lady appeared stage right and took her seat at the table. I Immediately recognized her, and so did the press. Camera flashes went wild, and shouts of, “there she is,” and “There’s Jin Ella,” blended together.

“Ah, here she is,” said Joe. “Welcome to the stage, this season’s lead architect, Jin Ella Liaow.”

Jin Ella nodded curtly with a tight lip smile at the flashing lights as she waddled to her seat. Each producer—first Sandy, then Joe, then a big guy named Tom—gave her a hug in turn.

“She’s awesome, right?” said Garret.

I peered back out into the crowd and something caught my eye. A man—maybe Japanese—was standing at the aluminum barrier against the wall. There was something strange about him. He had no camera, no phone—nothing. While the rest of the crow undulated around him, he stood perfectly still, his gaze locked on Jin Ella. And he didn’t look happy to see her either.

“Hey, look at that guy,” I whispered to Garret.

“What?”

“Down there, in the front corner.”

“What about him?”

“He looks … I don’t know. Out of place. Looks pissed.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s mad that Kubo's not here?”

“Hmm,” I said, as boring Joe started explaining how the press conference would go. Each member of the press with a golden ticket would be able to come through the barrier one by one and ask one question, starting with the lady with the green hair and curly-cues. But before all that, we were going to play a video introducing each member of the cast.

The lights went really dark and the screens, one on each side of the stage, illuminated. Theatrical music filled the room and the players’ faces popped up, one after the other in rapid succession from 1 to 100. Their names appeared below with about two seconds of screen time each, just enough to wink or smile, give a thumbs up or flip the bird before snapping to the next face.

As the video came on, I kept my eyes on the weird, scowling guy, only looking away once to catch my own face appearing on the screen. I watched myself give a casual salute and smile, then I looked back at the crowd.

Scowling guy wore a long trench coat and seemed to be doing something underneath it. Not sketchy at all, right? By the time we got to Kelly’s face on the screen, he’d sneakily maneuvered the corner barrier away from himself at a slight angle, just enough to slip through at the corner of the room, right behind a security guard.

I grabbed Garret’s shoulder as the man walked towards the stage. I stood up when I saw him pull something out from under his coat, something white and plastic looking. Something with a handle and a barrel.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” I said, stepping down between the players on the first row, shoving them aside.

I heard a player say, “The hell you doing, man?”

As the ninety-ninth face popped up on the screen, I was shouting, “Get that guy, he’s got a gun!”

And then—I don’t know why I did it; instinct maybe—I jumped off the stage in an attempt to body slam the scowling man. Just as the lights came back on there was a muted POP, and I felt something graze my side the instant before I collided with him.

 

— — —

 

After all the drama that followed the attempted assassination on Jin Ella Liaow, which included ravenous attempts by the press to interview the kid who jumped the shooter, and three hours of medical and police intervention, I was ready to party.

And when I say ‘party,” I meant four of us ended up hanging out in a hotel room ordering room service. The five security guards outside our hotel room, and the three inside the room with us, had no interest in partying with us. They also refused to let us order alcoholic beverages.

Lame.

By the way, turns out the scowling man was a disgruntled employee of Zow-Wow Software. Figures. He’d somehow managed to secure a press pass and disguise a plastic, 3D printed pistol as camera equipment.

“Dude, it’s not fair. You’re totally famous now,” said Sam Lee, number 99, callsign Stix. He was an asian boy with long black hair and one blue eye. The other was brown.

“It’s true,” said Toby Green, number 11, callsign Bangeroo. Toby looked like a younger version of Kubo Smith: thin, lanky, and just as chocolate. “How’d you even see that guy with the lights down?”

“I don’t know, man?” I said, smiling, nursing my head with an ice pack with one hand, sipping on a Coke with the other. The concussion was the worst of my injuries. Much worse than the tiny scratch I’d sustained on my side from the plastic projectile. A projectile that blew a hole in the backdrop two inches left of Jin Ella’s ear. “I guess I just … saw it happening and … took action.”

I was a lame response, sure, but it was an honest one. It was truly one of those ‘act now, think later’ moments that ended up working out okay for me.

“Well, fuck you for that, Goblin,” said Sam, “But listen, we all—us four—have to team up inside the sim, okay? We need allies. I think we all mesh well, I think we’ll make a good team. What do you think?”

“I think you can suck my egg,” said Toby. “I’m killing your ass every chance I get.”

“Nah, you can’t think like that, man. We have to work strategically.”

“You can work strategically, dog. I’ll work on winning that ten mil.”

I listened to Toby and Sam bicker and exchange witty banter, but my eyes were on Kelly. She sat in the corner on a comfy chair, watching me back. I kept rolling my eyes at our two new friends, and she kept smiling, swiveling her chair this way and that with her feet up on the coffee table. Her new call sign was cherry, witch I thought very appropriate given her complexion.

The security guards were staunch about us not drinking alcohol, but by the way her eyelids drooped and the way she kept licking her lips, I could have sworn she found a way to spike that ‘lemonade’ in her hand.

It was at the moment when Stix called Banageroo a fuckeroo, and Bangaroo called Stix and bag of dicks, that I realized that tonight would be the last chance I’d get in probably a year to have any physical contact with anyone.

“You know, tonight’s the last chance any of us will get at having any physical contact with anyone,” I said, literally voicing my very thoughts.

Toby, who had a hand around Sam’s neck in a taunting manner, and Sam who was trying to knee Toby in the crotch, both froze and looked at me.

Kelly blinked at me, raised her eyebrows.

Toby and Sam let go of each other. Sam scratched his head. Toby pursed his lips.

I shrugged, and for a moment we all just kind of looked at each other with blank expressions on our faces.

Then Toby said: “So, what, we all gonna have a foursome now or something?”

Kelly burst out laughing, spitting her drink on the hotel window, just as the Earth was slowly coming back into view.