Gamers - Amazon

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  She shook her head trying to dislodge the faulty thinking. Something about a switch tickled her thoughts. Maybe it wasn't direct logic but a form of fuzzy logic like Pavelka's or Lukasiewicz's?

  Gabby pounded the table in frustration, knocking two of the balls on to the floor. She picked them up and reached to start putting them onto the table when she stared at the six remaining.

  The scale wasn't an on and off switch. It had another mode called equal when the two sides were perfectly in balance. Gabby smiled. She knew how to measure it in two.

  By placing three on each side and two on the table, she could use the balanced nature of the three balls to determine if the two held the heaviest ball.

  She wanted to put the balls onto the table, but she took a calming breath. She'd been denied entrance to the Black Gate many times before for rushing through her decision. She had to be sure that there wasn't a loophole.

  Gabby decided to replay the instructions once more before she tried her solution.

  The announcer's voice returned to her ears, played through the cochlear implants: "...tonight's challenge is to find out which puzzle ball weighs more using the scales the least amount of times. When you have completed the task, hit the red button!"

  She played it again, hearing the verbal trap the second time around. When she turned to face the shadowy wall, the announcer's voice returned, this time not a playback and began counting down.

  "Only sixty more seconds to decide! Hurry contestants!"

  She saw the boy on the other side starting to put his white balls onto the scale, so she started shouting and waving her hands. The shadow boy hesitated with four balls in his cupped hands.

  The countdown was just passing fifty. Gabby stared at the wall and decided to take a chance. She stepped through the wall into the shadow room. The boy and the room were still shadowy, but the scales and balls were now clearly visible. She sighed in relief.

  The announcer had said "which puzzle ball," which indicated that only one ball in the two rooms was heavier. The designers were either leaving it up to luck or had planned a forced alliance.

  Gabby grabbed the other four balls and walked back through the wall. The shadow boy followed her.

  With less than thirty seconds left, she thought hard about a solution for sixteen balls. When it got down to twenty seconds, she decided on the most obvious solution and put eight balls on each side.

  When the scales tilted to the left, she pulled off those eight balls and then split them into the three piles of three, three and two. After placing the threes on the scale and finding the heavier side, she did the same but with twos.

  She only had a few seconds left as she put the last ball on the scale. The scales did not tip, meaning the ball left on the table was the heaviest.

  Gabby grabbed the shadow boy's hand and together they hit the red button. The countdown ended at two seconds and the entrance room disappeared.

  When their projections appeared inside the dimly lit bar, their hands were still grasped together. Their hands weren't really together, as they were in two totally separate places, but the sense-webs in their skin made it feel like they were holding hands.

  Gabby immediately pulled away and as the boy mumbled thanks, she realized she was staring into a pair of eyes the color of ice-chips.

  When the boy realized who she was, he glanced around the room once, and then grabbed her hand, pulling her toward a dark corner.

  Gabby would have yanked her hand away from him had it not been for the frenzied glance he'd given the rest of the bar, as if he expected a horde of zombies to come crashing down on them.

  When they reached a darkened hollow in the strange confines of the Black Gate, the boy, the one she hadn't been sure she'd seen in her school hallway, gave one long look at the other patrons of the bar.

  "Did he see you?" he said.

  Gabby scrunched up her face. "Who?"

  The boy put his face up close to hers. A certain maddening sheen had glazed across his eyes. "Did he see you? You have to be sure. Did the Coder see you?"

  "What? I don't--"

  Gabby tried to complete her sentence, but the boy, seeing something over her shoulder grabbed her by the back of the head and jammed his lips against hers.

  Chapter Six

  Gabby had only gotten in the Black Gate once before. It'd taken her four hours to solve the problem and once she had, it had been time to leave. Her aunt Beatrice had been getting remarried that day.

  She'd only had enough time to circle through the rooms, trying not to be so obvious that she had no idea where she was going.

  The curved windows on the walls had revealed hazy blue water a few dozen feet below the surface of some ocean. The bar had been a tall spiral, like a conch shell set on end, and she had gone levels up until an invisible wall stopped her from going further.

  The people in the bar had been difficult to see as if a shadow lay permanently across their faces. So Gabby had eventually wandered back to the entrance and exited the bar. She hadn't needed to use the physical door, she could have dropped connection from anywhere in the bar, but hadn't wanted to violate some unknown rule and not be allowed back.

  This time, the experience was radically different. Instead of leisurely strolling through the atmospheric space, she'd been dragged off to a corner and set upon by a boy she'd only seen once, as a fleeting projection in her school hallway.

  While he did have mind-numbingly blue eyes, flecked through with a white so piercing bright it made her head swim, she hardly wanted him to make such a bold advance. She wasn't a stranger to kissing, but she wanted to give him permission first.

  Gabby struggled against his hand, which was stranger still, since it was only their projections smashing lips together, and they experienced it remotely through their sense-webs. The nano-sized sensors in her lips transferred a surprising amount of feeling.

  She should have been able to slip her head free, but his projection had a tight grip on hers. She was beginning to wonder if this was a come-on when he let her head loose.

  Gabby hit him in the chest with both fists. "What gave you the right to do that?"

  The boy ignored her and continued to check over her shoulder. Gabby started to spin around when he grabbed her shoulder.

  "Don't draw attention," he said.

  "Look, err...you," she forced out. "I don't even know your name and you violated my projection."

  "Michael," he said, still focused on the patrons in the bar.

  Gabby's hands were icy and her knees shook back in her room. "You didn't even have the talents to get in here. Gawd," she said. "I should so send you out of here with a major DoT on your ass."

  That seemed to get his attention and he scrunched up his face. "What? I would debuff you so fast and...." Michael stopped, shook his head, and continued. "I'm sorry I kissed you like that. It was the only thing I could think of when the Coder looked this way."

  Gabby had never heard the term Coder before, though she could guess. "Coder? What the hell is a Coder? You sure it wasn't just a hacker?"

  "Not a hacker," he said.

  He paused and she gave him her best get-on-with-it look.

  "They're the ones that code your reality."

  "They made LifeGame?" she asked.

  Michael glanced around the room and grabbed her hand. When she flinched away, he shrugged and took a seat in a nearby booth. Gabby followed, but not before really taking in the Black Gate for the first time.

  The gloom at first seemed like one of those lame smoky bars she got stuck in playing historical games, but then she realized far off to her left floated a strange blue-green marble. The marble, she quickly realized, was Earth. Their projections were now walking through an augmented bar covered in a see-through dome.

  Circling around the bar at a considerable distance was the rough profile of a rocky gray ridgeline. The Black Gate resided in the center of a huge crater on the moon.

  The view was so fantastic that she completel
y forgot about Michael, the Coder, and why she'd come in the first place.

  "Yeah," said Michael, startling her. "I could totally camp this place since they took over a set of moon base sensors."

  "It's so Mario," she whispered, still awed by the surroundings.

  Michael cleared his throat and when Gabby turned, she found herself staring directly into his eyes. She wasn't sure about Michael the person, but she could totally camp his eyes.

  "Look." Michael seemed uncomfortable under her gaze, so she stopped trying to memorize what his eyes looked like. "I came here to find you and I think so did that Coder."

  "You still haven't explained what a Coder is."

  Michael huffed and ran his hand through his messy black hair. "I so have. They code your reality. Don't you get that?"

  "Actually, no. It's like you're trying to describe a word using the same word," she said.

  Michael grew annoyed and wrinkled up his face at her, and she realized then that he wasn't much older than she was.

  "It's not like LifeGame," he explained. "Except it is. They do code that stuff, but they also code everything else. The trees. The lawn. Everything you see."

  It was Gabby's turn to be annoyed. "You mean he works for the companies that make personal reality products? Why would one of those guys be looking for me?"

  Michael hit the table and the patrons at a nearby table gave them an annoyed look. Michael lowered his voice. "No. Not that stuff, but everything else. They make everything you see into a lie."

  "Do they have anything to do with the LGIE?" she asked.

  His face brightened up. "Yes. The LIE are Coders, too."

  "You mean LGIE," she said, putting extra emphasis on the G.

  "Why would you add the G? LifeGame is one word. They're a lie," he said.

  Gabby shook her head. "None of this is making sense. You're not explaining anything. Can you at least explain why you're looking for me?"

  Michael suddenly crouched down, and Gabby followed his lead. He glanced to their right, using only his eyes. Through the crowd in the center of the bar, Gabby saw a man with a long white ponytail, pale skin, and a dark, hungry sword strapped to his back. At second glance, she realized he was not much older than University years.

  "The Coder?" she whispered.

  "Yeah."

  "Total retro-fantasy fetish," said Michael.

  The pale Coder wandered back around the other way.

  "I need to get out of here before he sees me," said Michael.

  Gabby checked to see if the Coder had come back. "What can he do?"

  "Nothing here," said Michael. "But if the Coders know we tried to contact you, then they'll be watching you."

  "But they do know," she said. "The LGIE wants to go through my files to see what you've done to them."

  Michael's face erupted in worry. He put his hand over her wrist. "You're not going to let them are you?"

  "I'm not, but my parents might," she said. "If they do then I'm sunk. I've been exploiting LifeGame for years to help my friend stay above rank. I'd turn you guys in if I thought they'd let me off easy."

  "Before you do that. Let us show you something. It's important, trust me," he said.

  "Why should I trust you? For all I know, you're a bunch of liars just like you say the LGIE is." Gabby pulled her arm away.

  Michael leaned forward, staring into her eyes. Her stomach flipped a little when he unblinkingly kept his gaze locked with hers.

  "If you want to turn us in after we show you what we know, I'll totally understand. But let us explain first," he said.

  Gabby didn't answer and kept her arms crossed.

  "If you want to meet me and the rest of the Frags in person, make an excuse for being gone for about a half a day, and take a FunCar to Eastoria. When the FunCar starts moving, play the game Monkey Island," said Michael. "We'll take it from there."

  Michael's instructions made no sense, but Gabby nodded anyway.

  His projection disappeared, leaving Gabby alone in the booth. Gabby checked around the room and cursed under her breath. She'd gotten into the Black Gate once again and wouldn't have time to meet the other hackers.

  Gabby sighed and released her connection.

  Chapter Seven

  Gabby got out of bed while the sun was still just a faint glow on the horizon. She cringed as she checked her LifeScore, dull gray and still the same number as yesterday.

  Calling up the latest ranking sunk her mood even more. There were thirty girls left vying for fifteen slots at Blizzard. The Evil Dolls were comfortably ahead, taking up six of the top fifteen ranks. They must have found a way to grind points yesterday after school.

  Gabby was only a few ranks above the line and now Zaela was below. Gabby sighed, thinking about how far they would be behind if it hadn't been for her track game exploit.

  When she checked the boy's rankings, she smiled when she saw Dario's number in the top five. He'd be okay.

  Gabby was about to go through her typical morning routine--making the bed, brushing her teeth and fixing a nutritious breakfast--which doing so would earn her a handful of points. But the problem with the Frags couldn't wait, so she headed straight downstairs, throwing a drink, a sandwich, and a bag of cookies in her backpack for the ride.

  A message explaining that she was at Zaela's would suffice for her parents. She left Zaela a note just in case and used a location exploit that would make it look like she was at her best friend's house if they checked a map. It would give her a two-day window.

  As for the points, she decided she would figure a way to catch up on the ride to Eastoria.

  The morning air chilled her. She'd forgotten that it was getting to be late autumn, the normal winter advertisements hadn't kicked in to let her know she needed to dress warmer. She didn't want to risk going back in and getting more clothes, so she jogged to the FunCar lot to keep warm, rubbing her crossed arms the whole way.

  While jogging, she considered playing a few games of Particle Physics to earn points, but she just couldn't muster the energy.

  Normally, Gabby could grind points at any time of the day or night. Playing games longer than the other students to keep at the head of the rankings. But the uncertainty with the Frags and the LGIE had sapped her.

  Stepping off the ad-ridden sidewalk onto the FunCar lot made her think. The FunCars shimmered as they changed colors, making the lot look like a technicolor dance floor.

  The only other person getting into a FunCar at this time of the morning could barely be seen above the cars. Gabby took the nearest, hitting the warmers as soon as the bubble closed.

  "Eastoria," she told the FunCar.

  She could have sent it through her neural actuator, but the silence unnerved her.

  The vehicle lurched forward and veered off the main road not long after it left town. The road she was on would wind toward the mountains to the east. She had only vaguely heard of Eastoria.

  After checking a map to see it would be a few hours until she arrived, Gabby called up Monkey Island. A strange flat screen appeared with the title "Monkey Island" across the top, a big cartoonish skull in the middle and a cast of cheesy pirate-themed people along the bottom.

  Gabby groaned. No one used pirates as their game theme anymore.

  She poked her hand through the floating screen, remembering that people used to view content on boxes. It was so retro.

  She wasn't familiar with Monkey Island, but she knew games. Gabby activated it and worked through the game play. It required her to touch parts of the screen to interact with people and objects. Her character, the moronically named Guybrush Threepwood, wanted to be a pirate.

  Gabby couldn't figure out what the game was supposed to be teaching her. She might have well been randomly touching the screen to play it: chasing gulls away to steal fish, buying a shovel, and acquiring breath mints.

  Then she remembered that games, back in the early previous century, weren't made for learning. They were designed as amusements to wa
ste time.

  Gabby wondered if she'd made a mistake agreeing to meet the Frags. For all she knew, they could be major weirdos. Though, Michael had been nice to look at. He couldn't be all that bad and he'd been in the Black Gate before.

  She considered exiting the game and heading back home. She could really use the day to grind her LifeScore and maybe she could get the LGIE to overlook her indiscretions for information about the Frags.

  She hadn't touched the game screen in a little while, her hand hovering as she was lost in thought, and the screen moved on its own.

  The foppish main character, Guybrush, turned to her and tapped his foot.

  To her surprise, Guybrush spoke, and not in the voice she imagined in her head, but in a whiny sarcastic one: "Not having second thoughts are you?"

  Gabby recoiled away from the screen and into her plush chair.

  "No." She paused. "Michael?" As soon as she asked she knew it wasn't him, but it was the only Frag name she knew.

  "Nah. He's busy sleeping off a long night with Celia," said Guybrush.

  Jealousy stirred her heart, but she couldn't figure out why. She barely knew the boy and their kiss had only been a ruse to hide from the pale Coder. Gabby tentatively touched her lips with her fingers.

  The character Guybrush was standing with his arms crossed, staring at her impatiently.

  "You there?"

  Gabby nodded.

  "Good. Now if you still want to meet us, rub this lamp--" He held out a genie lamp. "--three times."

  She shook her head. "Why would I have to do something lame like that? Why can't I just tell you I'm ready to go?"

  Guybrush shrugged. "Them's the rules. Just be glad we didn't use Leisure Suit Larry like I wanted to."

  "Okay, fine."

  A horrible grin appeared on Guybrush's face and the cartoonish character stuck the genie lamp into his pants. Guybrush now sported an obscene bulge.

  "Hey! Wait a second," she said.

  Guybrush had a deep frown on his face and wasn't moving. He seemed to have reverted to his previous game state. Though when she looked closely she thought the eyes moved slightly.