Gamer 1 - Skotopia: A Gamelit novel for science fiction action fans

by Rodzil LaBraun

  "Really?" my mother replied excitedly.

  "Yeah, she's by my side a lot during our social visits. We're getting amazingly comfortable with each other," I said as I blushed.

  "Did you kiss her?" Coral asked with a shocked look on her face.

  I had no plans to discuss what physical activity that Memphis and I had already engaged in. I certainly wasn't going to reveal that she might be planning to sleep in my bed tonight. But I had to say enough to let my mother know that I may have already found the sweet girl that she had hoped for me.

  "We're holding hands," I told my sister. Then to my mom, "We're getting along really well, mom. I do like her a lot."

  My mother smiled so much it looked like she just might shed tears again. "Oh Boone, I'm so happy for you. Hopefully, you two can take care of each other wherever you are going."

  "Time's up!" the guard announced with a loud voice.

  "We have nine minutes left," my father complained.

  The second guard stepped into the room and said, "That time is for your goodbyes. This room must be vacated by all people before the clock reads zero. Use that time wisely. Boone will be learning about his future over the next couple days. The topic ban is for everyone's protection."

  What in the world did he mean by that? Protection from what?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I must have been the last one of our team to return from the family visit because my door to the common room opened just a minute later. I hesitated to go out there as I contemplated what my mother and father were trying to say to me. Why did they not want me to play in the new league?

  Over the last couple days, I was really starting to feel liked I belonged on this team. In a way that I never fit in before in all my life. Kind of a nerdy guy, my circle of friends was always small. And it never consisted of girls, especially not the beautiful and confident kind that my Skotopia team boasted.

  I wanted to take my dad's warning to heart. Investigate to see what secrets were hidden behind this opportunity. Delay as long as I could before committing to it. But on the other hand, I couldn't imagine letting Memphis and the other girls down by refusing to go with them. It was a real dilemma.

  "What are you doing in here?" Memphis asked as she stepped into my quarters from the social room. She was bare foot, as usual, and wearing a pair of shorts and t-shirt meant for exercise. I could see choosing to leave them on for a social visit due to the comfort, though we had assigned clothing for the occasion. But she was now stepping into my private space which was previously off limits. While half dressed!

  I shook that thought from my mind and focused on what I should say to her. I didn't want to come off as overly critical and dampen the great mood the team had before our family visits.

  There was only one comfortable chair in my living area, and my bottom was currently in it. My lack of response caused the beautiful brunette to walk right up and sit down on the arm of my chair.

  "What's going on?" she asked with concern in her voice. "Did something happen to your family?"

  "No," I answered as I reached for her offered hand. "I mean yes, sort of. It was just kind of weird, you know?"

  "It was great for me," she replied. "I hadn't seen them for over a year. And the way I was performing before you arrived, I wasn't sure that I'd ever spend time with them again the rest of my life. But you were with your family right up until last week. How was it weird?"

  "My dad," I answered, still trying to figure out how to word it. "My mom, too. They seemed worried about this new league. Did your parents say anything like that?"

  "No," she said as she casually slid her bare skinned leg over my knee. "In fact, they were really proud of me. Of all of us, really."

  We sat quietly for a moment as I tried to decide whether to say more about it or move on to another topic, perhaps bringing up the subject of her entering my room. Honestly, though, I worried that it would escalate to the topic of her spending the night there, too. I wasn't prepared to talk about that just yet.

  "Did you happen to mention anything about me to your parents?" she asked timidly.

  "Sure. I didn't share a lot of details, but I told them how that you and I are getting really close." I tried to maintain eye contact with her despite my shyness. "My mom in particular was really happy to hear it. I guess every mother wants their son to find a nice girl."

  Memphis' face exploded with happiness. She slid off the arm of my chair and right into my lap. One arm went around my neck as she pulled my cheek to her mouth for big kiss.

  "You told her that I'm a nice girl?" she asked teasingly.

  "Did you tell your parents about me?"

  "Are you kidding?" she laughed. "I couldn't stop talking about you. I think my dad was getting uncomfortable with it after a while, but my mom just kept asking me questions about you."

  "What kind of questions?"

  Then I heard the smack of a hand against the door frame. We both looked over to see Zaya's smiling face gawking at us.

  "What are you two lovebirds doing in here?"

  "Nothing," I replied instantly, shifting uncomfortably under her gaze.

  "Yet," Memphis said with a naughty grin.

  "Well put it off until later," Zaya told us. "We just got some information that you are going to want to see."

  Memphis leapt from my lap and reached back for my hand. Awkwardly in tow, I let her guide me into the social area where Zaya was joining Rhese at our team table. The surface was illuminated with graphics.

  "What did we find out?" my girl asked. She seemed to be swinging those hips a little wider. There was more bounce to her step, too. Hearing me confirm my feelings for her, even taking pride in my relationship enough to tell my parents, had a huge effect on her mood.

  The other two girls were dressed in their typical common room garb, as was I. No one made a comment about Memphis choosing to join us in her exercise clothes. With the freedom that we were starting to receive I could see us changing things up a bit. There was, however, a stability in the daily schedule that I had established over the last few days. I wouldn’t want to stray too far from it.

  "A lot," our elated team captain answered. "But not everything."

  We all got situated as Rhese manipulated the menu system on her corner of the table to organize the data in the order she wanted to present it to us. I could see her bubbling over with enthusiasm.

  "First, the hookups," she said as the table screen changed to show thick body armor that resembled an assembly robot from the factory levels. Beside it was an image of Rhese lying on her back in her uniform to use for scale. The suit would add significant height and width to her form. "We each get a suit that looks like this. It opens up automatically for us to slide in. All the sensors are already in place, so we only need to seal it up to be ready to play."

  "Seal it up?" I asked, feeling a little claustrophobic.

  "Yeah," she answered without acknowledging the squeak in my voice. "Like a spacesuit. Once we have it on, we'll immediately be able to see inside the game. No more periods of darkness or drug induced brain fog. This is the latest technology in gaming."

  "Will all of them look like that?" Zaya asked.

  "No, they won't. There will be some adjustments for individual height and shape of our bodies. But we'll also be able to customize the unit's appearance. Most of those will translate over onto our avatar in the game, too. Then as we play, we'll gain all kinds of additional armor panels and attachable weapons for our avatar. The appearance of these suits is supposed to make us feel more connected to our game world."

  "Attachable?"

  Rhese nodded with uncontrollable excitement. It was contagious, too. All of us had grown up dreaming of playing in Skotopia. This new league appeared to be taking it to a whole new level.

  "We'll have a holster for a pistol on each leg, and slots to hold two rifles on our back. Some of those may have to be earned, though. It would make sense. Ammo packs attach to the front of the torso. On top of t
hat we'll be able to earn attachable weapons for each arm and shoulder. We could eventually walk into battle with eight guns!"

  "No bows or knives?" Zaya asked. I had a flashback of her dominating with the longbow in our qualifying match. Her elegant form with the string pulled back while sprinting could be a great logo image.

  "It doesn't look like it. We should have the same style of weapons for every game."

  That would actually be immensely helpful with individual player progression. Earning dozens of weapons that couldn’t be used in every mission was going to be frustrating for me in Skotopia. Even with my skills climbing I would have been weak on the weapon side going into games for a while to come.

  "What about the maps?" our star player asked. "Any word on those yet?"

  "Yes," Rhese paused with her eyes big and mouth open, trying to drag out the suspense. "There will only be one map. We'll be playing to control the same territories over time. It is unclear at this point if one game's progress will translate over to the next."

  When she tapped the menu to bring up the new map I had so many questions. First of all, there were starting points for each of the four teams in the different corners of the massive square. Were we to compete against all three other teams in every game?

  There were sniping towers symmetrically placed so as not to provide an advantage for any one team. And a large structure in the middle surrounded by water. Would that be the focus for all our games? Would it be a timed control scoring system like our qualifying match against the Black Vipers?

  The starting point was more than just a dot on the map. Each team had their own large building. Would we need to defend our base in some of the games? Attack the other teams sometimes? There had to be some variety for viewing pleasure, if not for our enjoyment. How many different scenarios could we run using just the one battlefield layout?

  Rhese did not have those answers. Nothing about mission types had been revealed yet. I wasn’t sure if the slow and steady stream of information about what we were walking into was meant to be a tease or not. Doctors may have prescribed how much we could handle at a time, or we might be receiving the news at the same pace as the viewers. It could all be for building up interest in the four-team league startup.

  "What about our new home?" Memphis asked. "Will we really be able to roam freely?"

  "I believe so," Rhese answered as she fingered the panel to bring up the next display. I was expecting a floor plan. Maybe something similar to my parents’ place. Instead, a list of amenities popped up.

  Four private quarters, one for each of us. That was to be expected. Two toilets and two showers. We would have to take turns. That was kind of weird for non-relatives, but not a problem. My home before this had just two shower stalls to accommodate a family of five.

  There would be a large kitchen where we could prepare many exotic foods by hand, if we wanted. The presentation made a point of sharing with us that our diet would expand tenfold. Along with it would be a variety of cooking and food prep apparatus to provide the best end product for each nutrient source.

  A team lounging area was listed as a larger space than our entire social room. Then a dining section where we would eat together regularly. Total square meters dedicated to our new home already would place us as some of the richest people on the station.

  Additionally, we would have a variety of recreation and exercise opportunities with a space that was only listed in size. The area was more than double the whole rest of the home! How can that be? What was the space used for before this? Did they have to close down a factory or warehouse to accommodate the players in this new venture? Or had an addition been built onto our spinning station in orbit around Athlios? Depending on its location there could be a variance in gravity, too.

  Growing up on a space station, wealth was measured primarily by size and quality of living space. Our new home suggested that we would be treated like kings and queens! No wonder only four teams could be chosen.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  "What do we do now?" Zaya asked. "If there isn't going to be any more news today. We've already studied everything that they provided. No mandatory exercise. And we don't have to go back to our own quarters."

  "We could cuddle on the couch," Memphis suggested slyly.

  "All of us?" Zaya asked. "Are you planning on sharing your boyfriend or do Rhese and I have to couple up?"

  "Ew!" Rhese replied instantly with a joking tone.

  "I'm not sharing Boone with anybody," Memphis said as she rounded the table to slide in on the bench beside me. I had to push right up against Zaya's nicely toned body to give her room. My girlfriend’s maneuver was a bit counterproductive in that way.

  "Sorry," I muttered to our star player.

  "This works for me," Zaya answered as she draped her arm over my shoulder and placed her cheek against mine. She grinned defiantly at Memphis.

  "No!" my girl responded in feigned shock. "Let's go to the couch, Boone. Or your room."

  "My room?" I asked timidly.

  "Come on, you two," Rhese pleaded. "Can't you wait until later for that stuff? Let's play a game together."

  Memphis relented but insisted that she sit on my side of the table with me. Zaya had to move to my girl’s normal seat on Rhese's side.

  They pulled up a strategy game with castles, catapults and chariots. We were all able to build up our own civilizations independently and simultaneously. No waiting to take your turn, but construction and resource gathering took a while. There was plenty of down time to check out what the other players were doing.

  Memphis expanded her territory toward me in hopes of an alliance. I of course couldn't resist. I was even prepared to share my resources with her until Rhese had a fit and said that we were ruining the game.

  My girl liked to make her compound nice and neat, upgrading structures to make them prettier. She didn't focus much on defenses or growing an army. Except archers. She kept researching as fast as she could any kind of improvements which included crossbows. In that regard she was ahead of the rest of us, but they were her only defense.

  The game slowed down for a while as we kept sharing comments about our last mission versus the Black Vipers. I complimented Rhese on her aggression at the beginning the game. I genuinely believed that even though she got taken out early, her actions had set us up for success. Zaya was also quite instrumental to our victory, both from the archer tower and the ground. When I told her so, her sincere appreciation was almost flirty.

  Memphis got jealous. I tried to tell her how much I appreciated her performance in the game, but there was no doubt at it. She was by far our weakest player in the challenge. Talking about it anymore was just making things worst. So, I brought our focus back to the medieval civilization table game.

  I built a tall stone wall around my growing city with large watchtowers. Zaya and Rhese were doing the same thing, but they were a little behind me in their build. They did acquire tons more resources than me, though. Since they were more experienced at this particular game, I suspected that my lack of storehouses would be my downfall eventually.

  I extended my wall to protect Memphis's pretty city. Then I sent troops to guard her borders as well. She showed her appreciation with several touches and a couple kisses on the cheek. I could see that our two opponents were finding my shy behavior humorous. Honestly, I was hoping Memphis would help contribute more to the cause. She had a huge forest on her side of the map that she barely touched. Our alliance could grow much stronger if she would tap into that lumber source.

  When Rhese and Zaya stopped warring against each other to focus on me, I knew things weren't going to go well. I had gone overboard trying to win Memphis' affection and set myself up for failure.

  I was disappointed in my actions, but I tried not to show it. I had always been an incredibly competitive player in strategy games. My girl's heavy reliance on me for protection almost felt like betrayal. It was challenging not to let it show.

  I launc
hed a desperate attack on the other girls' combined forces with truly little chance of success. At least it would end the game faster and I could stop being upset with Memphis unnecessarily. Luckily, she never caught on to my immature emotional state. I was fairly sure that she was writing it off to intense focus on the competition.

  Rhese and Zaya celebrated their victory, but I could see by the look in their eyes that they knew what had happened. They then pulled up a two-player game and told us to give them some space to play. Memphis was more than happy to retreat to the sofa with me.

  If this was a glimpse of how we would be spending our days in the future, I would need to make some adjustments. To my temperament first and foremost. How I communicated with my girlfriend during the recreational activity was nearly as important. I absolutely loved four player strategy games. I planned to be more effective in the next one.