Creaking and crawling

Speaking and sprawling

Green, green, go

 

They had me strapped to the inner wall of my sleep tube while Tim detached and maneuvered my egg away from the docking station. Being inside the tube made me feel like a human burrito, all wrapped up snug. I now knew why so much of my psych eval had been about my ability to cope in claustrophobic environments.

The interior lighting flickered ominously, and the hull creaked as the air pressure stabilized. But what really threw me was the immediate lack of gravity once the egg detached. One second I was pressed against the wall, then a loud “thwomp” later and my arms were floating and I felt like puking. I’d experienced space flight plenty of times before, but this was somehow different. Somehow more raw, more real.

I wore a one piece jumpsuit made for function not fashion. It constantly monitored my vitals, and was bright yellow with the Space Capsule Races candle insignia patch over the left breast pocket. Yellow, they said, because it was the easiest to spot against the canvas of space if my ship, for some reason, broke apart and ejected me. That was a comforting thought.

I could hear voices from a comm on my control system on the other side of the egg. It sounded like Tim communicating with Horizons or Houston or both. They were running down a checklist of procedures as my ship floated further away from the massive satellite city. If I craned my head up—up in this case being the transparent half of my egg—I could see some of the chaotic logistics happening around me.

Eggs were being flown this way and that. I got a full view of Horizons at one point. The floating city filled my entire window. I felt the thrusters click on then off, on off, on off, providing subtle bouts of artificial gravity and faint vibrations in the walls. A few eggs flew past me, too close for comfort, at one point as I sat idle for a few minutes. Then, finally, my trajectory was set and I was redirected towards the escort ship: a massive, spinning ring in the distance.

After about forty minutes, a voice blasted through the speaker inside my sleep tube. Right next to my ear like a damn fog horn.

“Tim to Cobbgoblin.”

The unexpected sound made me jump and nearly shit my nice yellow suit. “Mother fu—Tim? That you? That was really loud.”

“Tim here. Sorry about that. Turning the volume down now. Wanted to let you know your egg has been aligned with the others at the starting line. All your systems are green and they’ve been linked with the escort ship, AKA Mother Hen.”

I stuck a finger in my left ear and wiggled it. “The escort ship’s name is mother hen? That’s fitting.”

“That it is,” said Tim. “By the way, fun fact, Kubo will be tagging along for the ride this season. Instead of hosting from his home studio in NYC.”

That was interesting. Kubo had never flown with the cast before.

“Oh, okay. Great. Why the change?”

“Since the show runners are apparently cutting him loose after this season, they’re letting him celebrate by completing the course for the first time. His last hoo-ra or whatever. It was a logistical nightmare getting all his studio shit—sorry—stuff brought aboard last night but the guy threw a tantrum and, well, you know. It’s Kubo Smith, so …” He let that drift.

Huh. The way Tim explained it, it sounded like Kubo’s retirement wasn’t completely his own idea. It also sounded like our convo wasn’t public facing. Not yet, anyway.

“Cool. Sure. Does that change anything for me?”

“He’ll be able to chat directly with you now, and you him. He also has direct control over Mother Hen, so if for some reason your emergency systems fail, and your redundant systems fail—which they won’t—you can contact him directly as a backup.”

“Gotcha,” I said.

“You’ve ten minutes before the race officially starts,” said Tim. “You’ll know when we’ve punched the button. You’ll feel the kick. The show’s live right now, by the way. Kubo’s introducing everyone to the whole world as we speak. As soon as the light in your sleep tube turns green, you’ll be free to roam about your cabin.”

“How long until I can plug into my VR rig?”

“One cycle. Twenty-four hours.”

“Lame,” I said. Then, “just triple checking, people can’t see me in here unless I go live, right?”

“That’s correct.”

After ten minutes, I did indeed feel the punch. It was almost as if my ship had artificial gravity, but only for a few minutes. When the acceleration cut off, I was back to floating weightless again. And I knew the game was on. Or it would be in exactly twenty-four hours.

When the light turned green, I immediately unstrapped the velcro over my shoulders, and pulled myself into the hollow center of the egg. For a moment, I just floated there, staring out the window. I knew that all one-hundred of us were clustered up in a tight formation headed for Mars. A formation that would change depending on who scored well in the VR sim. But right now all I could see were stars and the endless vastness of space.

I had time to kill, before I started the real killing in the sim. Real being relative and metaphorical here.

I found myself testing out the fitness equipment first after bumping the back of my head into the seat. A good thing I did too, because as soon as I strapped my ass down to the seat with more velcro and locked my rubber soled socks into the pedal straps, a digital panel appeared over the handlebars. It read, VR console/ rig, 0.4% charged.

I’d just assumed the rig came fully charged and was ready to go. But I guess not. I wondered how many of the other players had bothered to check out their exercise equipment as well. How many would be jumping into their rigs at the end of this cycle only to find it dead? That would suck. Well, I knew what I was going to be doing for the next couple hours or so.

Getting sweaty.

After about ninety minutes, my rig’s charge was at 50%. I took a water break before switching to the row boat. The water pressure in the spout was unbelievably fast. Too fast! It came out like a squirt gun and I had to flip around a few times to gobble up all the water balls before they got away.

The rowboat also had the same digital panel showing the VR rig charge status. Another 30 or so minutes of exercise and I was locked in at 100% and ready to go.

Phew! That was a workout. Felt good. Except for my crotch. That was raw as shit.

I figured now was a good time to test out the shower.

I put a piece of electrical tape—I found some handy-dandy tools and materials velcroed to the inside of a drawer—over the camera just to be safe, because if there was one thing I learned from watching previous seasons, it was you just never know.

Satisfied, I got naked.

Tim said since there was no laundry mat inside the egg, the cleaning tube acted as a show and a washing machine. So I was supposed to hold my clothes for the duration. I slipped inside and pulled the hatch—this being the only tube with a hatch—and locked it shut.

Bright white lights flickered on under translucent material that lined the inner wall of the entire cylindrical room. “Room” being a generous word. They made me blink profusely until my eyes adjusted, but once they did I could see tiny black holes in the material all around.

A waterproof panel appeared on the wall and provided me the options of:

• Full Cleansing Cycle
• Half Cleansing Cycle
• Smile for the camera

I froze at that last option. That had to be a joke. I tentatively covered my crotch with one and hand tapped the third option to see what would happen. I knew if I didn’t do it now it would haunt me until I did.

A small text box appeared on the panel that said, “Ha Ha, just messing with you. There’s no camera in here … or is there?” —Tim.

“Tim,” I said. “Can you hear me?”

No response.

“Tim? Tim? Can you see me?” I looked around, but found nothing resembling a camera. Still not completely convinced, I went back to the main menu and clicked Full Cleansing Cycle. “Bastard thinks he’s so funny, tapping into my UI like that.”

A question popped up on the panel: Do you need to defecate or urinate prior to the cleansing cycle? Please say Yes or No.

“No,” I said, wondering what would happen if I had said yes. I’d find out sooner or later.

The text on the panel changed: Please securely strap the oxygen mask around your face.

A hard plastic mask dangled from the hatch door. I slipped it on over my nose and mouth. What happened next was something akin to being tied down in the bed of a truck while it goes through a car wash … during a hurricane.

From all sides, sharp, freezing streams of—was that soap? It smelt like charcoal and ass—hit my skin all at once. It was like being attacked by a swarm of wasps with excellent timing and coordination. After that, water started pouring in, spinning around me, blobs at the speed of light, filling up the tube until it was completely full. Never before had I been more terrified in my entire life.

I tried opening the hatch, pounding on the walls, screaming for help. But I couldn’t get out. Surely, something had gone wrong. The tube was dumping way too much water into this than was sustainable. This couldn’t be right, could it? Of all the cool ways to die in space, drowning was not one of them I had on my list. Thank the heavens my mask was secure and working.

Just before I upgraded to a full fledged panic attack, the pin prick holes started sucking the water out. And as soon as it was all gone, or at least the majority of it was, jets of air burst forth, sporadically blasting me from all sides through the same pin prick holes until I was thoroughly dry and traumatized.

But that’s not even the best part.

After that, the mask started attacking my face. Okay, it was trying to brush my teeth with a kind of water brush and UV light, but it felt like I was being face fucked by an alien. With no prior proper warning either. Whoever designed this unit obviously had efficiency in mind, not comfort.

The whole thing maybe lasted a good ten minutes before the hatch unlocked and opened on its own accord. But that was ten minutes of utter terror I could have done without.

I blame Tim for not warning me. Freaking jerk. He was probably laughing his ass off right now.

I thought long and hard about how well, and for how long, I could manage my own stink after that. I don’t even know where my old jumpsuit went. Probably, it was floating around in space somewhere. Maybe it hit the window of an egg next to me. I could only imagine the look on another player’s face seeing an empty jumpsuit smack right into their windo—oh, there it was, nice and fluffy at the bottom of the shower tube.

After calming down, and tossing on a clean suit, I decided to inspect my computer. I strapped my feet inside the loops and velcroed my heels down.

Good, nice and solid.

When I touched the trackpad, the vertical menu appeared in a window. I just went down the list, clicking on each and seeing what happened.

Engine Status:

A schematic of the egg popped up and I could see seven booster engines blinking green. Green meant good, Tim had said. But duh, I knew that. Some technical information appeared allowing me to diagnose each engine, but they all seemed to be running fine. So I closed this and moved to the next.

Systems Status:

This one had a list of systems inside the ship, including the cleansing cycle system. I learned pretty quickly—to my horror—that the water just used to wash my sweaty ass was now being recycled for use in my drinking tap. And also, the egg had brand new tech that allowed it to absorb ice particles flying past in space. Some advanced sci-fi shit right there.

Live Feed:

I hesitated opening this at first. Then I remembered I had clothes on. When I clicked it, I expected to go live, but instead another window popped up. It was blacked out but I could still see a faint outline of myself. At the bottom of the window there was a button that said, “go live.” I stared really hard for a moment at the window, wondering why my camera wasn’t worki—oh, right. I pulled the tape off the camera and my ugly mug instantly came into view.

My hair, thanks to the air jets, made me look like Joey Tempest, the lead singer of the band Europe from the 1980s. All fluffy and feathered. It even looked lighter than it usually did, but that was probably the interior lighting.

I clicked the window away, deciding against going live at the moment. Maybe later.

Personal Log:

A number of options appeared for me when I clicked this. First and foremost, another recording window appeared. Apparently, this was for my own personal use. Like a video journal. Underneath that, to my surprise, was an option that said: Media. This option opened up an entire library of books, movies, audiobooks, and music to peruse. Now we’re talking. Entertainment. Something to watch and listen to in my down time. I would be back here often.

Group Chat:

A vertical list of all the players names and their call signs—including Mother Hen—appeared under this option. I could select any of these and start a video or group text chat. Pretty cool. I noticed a blinking icon in a different column titled, “conversations.” There was a text message from Stix that included me, Cherry, and Bangaroo.

I clicked on it:

 

Stix: Guys, I just want to reiterate how important it is we stick together during this. Let’s meet inside near the base of the mountain ASAP.

Bangaroo: Suck ass, Stix.

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: Okay, fine, if you don’t kill me I wont kill you. Maybe.

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: Nah, nevermind. Fuck you.

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

Stix: Fuck you, Bangaroo!

Cherry: You guys are retarded, you know that, right?

Stix: Watch your mouth, Cherry, ‘retarded’ isn’t PC. This whole convo is probably live right now. How are you going to get candles if you start offending everyone?

Cherry: You're joking, right?

Bangaroo: Hey Stix …

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

Stix: What?

Bangaroo: You’re fucking retarded. Ha Ha!

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

Stix: Why do you keep sending two lines of ellipsis after every comment?

Bangaroo: What’s an ellipsis?

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

Cherry: Three dots.

Bangaroo: Fuck if I know.

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

CobbGoblin: Hey guys.

Stix: Hey, look who it is. The Goblin. Mr. already famous himself.

CobbGoblin: Just FYI, my rig was at less than 1% when we launched. Might want to do some exercising if you haven’t already.

Banagroo: Say What? For reals? I’m out.

Bangaroo: …

Bangaroo: …

[Bangaroo has left the chat]

CobbGoblin: Oh, and what’s with that shower tube? Felt like a full body, fire hydrant enima in there.

Stix: Yeah, I’m out too. Thanks for the tip, CobGob. See! This is what teammates do. We look out for each other. See you inside!

[Stix has left the chat]

CobbGoblin: Well, Cherry, I guess it’s just you and me now.

[Cherry has left the chat]

CobbGoblin: Or not.

 

I left the chat and opened the personal chat section. There was one notification.

 

Personal Chat:

Cherry: Thanks for the tip.

For a moment I almost sent a terrible joke about my “tip” popping her game “cherry,” or something stupid like that. I couldn’t make it make sense, though, and I didn’t want to come off as … Well, I don’t know. Like a Stix or a Bang. So I just didn’t respond. Not sure we had that kind of relationship yet anyway, where you can say anything stupid and it would be okay on the other end. Maybe one day. We would see.

I moved on down to the next section.

Candle Ranking:

The candle leaderboard was already up, and to my utter astonishment I found my name in third place. No wonder I couldn’t see any other eggs outside my window. I was currently leading 97% of them. This, I’m sure, was due to the stunt I pulled in front of the press that saved Jin Ella’s life. I wondered how long this attention would last. I should probably do something to keep this train going, but what? Going live came to mind but I just wasn’t ready for that. Perhaps after my first session in the sim?

Some quick research about the two ahead of me—I could pull up their profiles—revealed that the girl in second was some aerospace billionaire’s kid. Her name was Nancy , call sign Poundcake. And 1st, Muhammad Al Tajir, call sign Prince, was a distant relative of some small, middle-eastern province leader. Apparently, the whole country-state was pouring candles onto him. Hard to compete with that.

Player Inventory

This section showed my current list of items: coins, codes, cores, and credits, which were zeros all the way dow—wait … that was interesting. I did have something. I had a code.

• Coins: 0
• Codes: 1
  • H520FS123
• Cores: 0
• Credits: 0

How did I already have a code? The game hadn’t even started yet. Did everyone start out with one code? When I hovered my mouse over the nine digits a description box appeared. It read, “Thanks for saving my head. Now let me save yours.”

Oh wow. Was this a gift from Jin Ella?

I clicked on the code and a schematic of the item appeared in another window. A helmet of sorts, almost like a green crown. It showed an animation of a neutral, basic character putting it on. When it was placed on the avatar's head, a green band appeared around his head. His hair grew out, turned a dark forest green, and his ears grew out to point. Very Zelda-like.

And then it hit me. Jin Ella had personally crafted something for me to resemble her idea of what a hob-goblin might look like. Very cool.

Stix would lose his shit if he found out about this. Another unfair advantage I had at the beginning of the game.

“Hey, buddy,” I practiced saying to him. “If you save the literal architect of an entire world, virtual or not, you can wear a crown too.”

I examined the properties:

10% added resistance to blunt trauma.

10% resistances to spells that confuse.

[LOCK]-//Cannot be detached, even after re-spawn.

“Whoa!” I said, with a soft chuckle. Apparently, this code could never be removed even after I died. That was super interesting. I guess I was stuck with the look of a Hob-Goblin for the entire race. Good thing I didn’t mind it.

I was tempted to make a public thank you to Jin Ella, but something told me I should probably keep this a secret. At least for now.

Food/Water Log

This showed how long I had left before I died of thirst or hunger. There was a time stamp from when Tim dropped a food bar during my egg tour.

Oxygen Levels

Like the one above, showed how long I had left before I suffocated. My carbon dioxide (CO2) converter had all systems showing green.

Maintenance

When I clicked this, a button appeared that said “Run.” The description below the button said, “click to perform a ship wide cleansing. You have sixty seconds to lock yourself in the cleansing tube.

“Huh,” I said. After the experience I had in the cleansing tube, I could only imagine the fucking shit storm clicking this would cause. I would have to try it though. Sometime, just not now.

A.I. Settings

When I clicked this, a button appeared. I said, “Initiate.” When I did, a voice popped on.

“Hello, Jack Cobb, AKA Cobbgoblin,” said a female’s voice. She sounded like a southern bell with a heavy bible belt accent. “I will be your voice initiated control interface AKA Vici and will be assisting you during the duration of your flight. Would you like to set up voice recognition now or later?

“Uh, now, I guess?”

“Please say, ‘Hey Vici.’”

“Hey, Vici.”

“Please say, “oh yeah, baby, pull my hair baby! Harder. Harder!”

“What the fu—”

“Just kidding, Jack. That last bit was pre-programed into this setting by Egg Guide [Tim] to tease you. Why would I need to set up voice recognition when you’re the only passenger, Jack? Would you like me to refer to you as Jack or CobbGoblin?

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care,” I said, then laughed to myself. Oh, Tim. Good ‘ol Tim. He’d set up my egg with little pranks and easter eggs to find all over the place.

I pushed the button to talk to Tim. “Goblin to Tim.” I’d been using the abbreviated version of my call sign this morning because it was easier. The show was really into nicknames this season too, and they wanted me to play into that.

“Tim here.”

“So … I just set up my voice recognition with Vici.”

There was a static filled pause, followed by a, “Glad you were able to get that done, Cobbgoblin. FYI, this line is now being monitored by Horizons and Houston control.”

In other words, don’t mention the joke I just played on you.

“Sounds good,” I said. Then I thought of something. “Hey, Tim.”

“Tim here.”

“So, how come I have a call sign but you don’t? Think we need to give you one. No offense but Tim’s a bit boring, don’t you think?”

There was a pause. “I agree. My parents were pretty boring people, I’ll admit.”

“How about …” I let go of the button. There was a static filled pause then I pressed the button and said, “How about Fat Santa?”

Another static pause, then: “A little insulting, but I’ll admit it’s appropriate.”

A window popped up on my center monitor that said [Private Chat-Tim].

 

Tim: As long as you refer to Derek as ‘Santa’s little elf bitch’ when he’s on, I’m good with it.

I laughed out loud.

CobbGoblin: Deal. Sorry, I had to get you back.

Tim: Everyone is already pinging me about it.

CobbGoblin: Ha Ha.

 

I closed the chat.

“So, Vici,” I said. “What can you do, exactly?”

Her voice came through the speakers: “I can diagnose, troubleshoot, initiate commands, dictate speech, and provide guided masturbation. I mean, meditation.”

I blinked.

At this point, I was beginning to think it was just Tim speaking with a woman’s voice. Or at least he’d fucked with the A.I.’s programing so much she was brimming with his personality. This was going to be fun.

“Good to know,” I said. “I’ll get back to you on that last one later on.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” came the voice in a much more sultry tone. Was it more sultry though? Or was that my imagination? Either way, it made me cringe.

Spawn points

This was interesting. A simple graphic of Jin Ella World appeared on my screen in a window to my left, slowly spinning. From what I could deduce, it allowed me to pick and choose where I wanted to appear in the game. That would be super handy! Something new this season.

5Senz Charge

100%

Game Log

Two options popped up:

• Season 87 recap
• Season 88 Introduction [Currently live]

Here we go. I clicked on the currently live option and a video window popped up on my right monitor. It was Kubo Smith talking about how excited it was to be flying for the first time with the cast. He was also introducing the staff aboard with him, which included two medical doctors, and four techs. All of whom were going to be leaving the Space Capsule Races’ employ after this season.

That was it, I thought. Only seven people aboard Mother Hen. If any of us got in trouble out here, that would be the team that could come help us.

The rest of the ship, said Kubo, was completely automated. He explained how, this season, they would be doing something different—something really special—for the home stretch, once they slingshotted around Mars. But it was going to be a surprise. A big surprise.

After that he went down the list again of players. I watched idly for a few minutes, already getting bored. Then I decided I was exhausted from exercising and took a nap in my sleep tube.

“Vici,” I said, strapping into my padded velcro straps. Including the forehead strap to keep my head from bobbing.

“Yes, dear,” said Vici.

Dear? “Don’t let me sleep past the VR deadline, will you?”

“Of course not, Jack.”

I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting off.

I awoke to an alarm blaring and lights flashing red.