Gamerunner

by B. R. Collins

  His lungs are going to burst. He breathes out, in a rush.

  Finally he takes a step forward. The stones are hard under his feet, except for the overgrown bits. He crouches and runs his hand over the moss and it feels like velvet. He pulls at it and it peels slowly away from the ground, the roots ripping softly like very polite Velcro. It comes away in his hand like a green rag. When he drops it, it stays where it is. So does the bare patch. He watches them for ages, waiting for them to melt back to how they were; but they don’t. He stretches an arm out, picks up a fallen leaf and crunches it between his fingers. When he looks at his palm there are little fragments of brown leaf-dust clinging to the skin. He makes a noise that’s half sob, half hiccup.

  A sudden coolness slides over his face, and the quality of the light changes. For a moment he thinks something’s gone wrong. Then, when he looks up, he realises that the sun has dipped a little further, that’s all. Now it’s hidden behind the ragged wall opposite; but if he tilts his chin he can still see it, blinding, impossible and unfamiliar. The sun in the Maze is only a ball of light. Here it’s . . . he can’t describe it. He thinks: I’ve never needed these words before. None of the words I know are good enough.

  The part of his brain that isn’t reeling, dazzled, adds: Wow. An environment that exists in real time. I wonder if it changes with the season . . .

  He shakes his head again. Daed, he thinks. You’re right, this is amazing, this is . . . I don’t believe it. It’s not techno, it’s magic.

  And this is only the demo.

  He gets to his feet. Now the sun is lower, the air is cool, brushing his face with its fingers, making him shiver. He says, ‘Er . . . help. Please.’

  How can I help you?

  It ought to break the spell, but it doesn’t. He says, ‘I’m cold.’

  Would you like to: a) change iTank settings?

  b) learn how to affect the playing environment?

  He chooses the second option.

  Anything you can do in real life, you can do here, too, the iTank says to him. But you also have a few magical powers. Would you like to try them out?

  In the Maze, Rick doesn’t bother with magic, because it’s lame and takes too long. Hardly anyone does — only the weekenders, and the kids, people who can’t be bothered to take it seriously. And they stay in the lowest levels, quibbling with each other and learning spells off by heart when a bit of training would mean they could just fight for real. Magic isn’t worth the trouble.

  But here . . .

  To set something on fire, point at it and imagine it bursting into flame.

  Rick laughs. This is weird, and incredible, and isn’t going to work. He points at the nearest clump of grass and imagines CGI fire exploding out of it. Nothing. It’s too real; it’s like pointing at his bed and expecting that to catch fire.

  Sometimes speaking can help you to concentrate. Try saying, ‘Burn, burn.’ Don’t worry if it takes a few goes. If you concentrate hard enough, it will happen.

  He says, ‘Burn, burn.’

  He says, ‘Catch fire. Go on. Catch fire.’

  He says, ‘Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, I feel really stupid.’

  He says, ‘Burn, baby, burn.’

  His arm is starting to ache at the shoulder. He thinks: Did they really think this was going to work? He shuts his eyes. He imagines what it would be like if it did work. He thinks of a tiny spark running round the edge of a dry blade of grass, smoking, catching light, the first little lick of flame, and then a tiny whoomph as the rest of the clump catches light —

  And he smells smoke, and when he opens his eyes the clump is alight. The flames dance and give out heat. He stares and stares.

  It read my mind, he thinks. It really did. It read my mind. Gods.

  Well done. Now let’s learn how to fly. This could take a little time, so don’t worry if it doesn’t work straight away! First, you need to take up a stable stance, with your feet hip-width apart. For safety reasons, you will not be able to lift off unless your body is balanced and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Now —

  He thinks of flying in the Maze, which is boring, actually. You have to stay upright, and you feel like you’re walking, except that everything moves faster, and you’re three ems up. And you can only do it when you’re a ghost. It’s rubbish.

  He takes a deep breath, makes sure he’s balanced and relaxed. He shuts his eyes and thinks of becoming weightless. He imagines gravity letting go of him, slowly. He thinks about how he’s in control, and free, and how he’s safe here, and he can do anything he wants.

  The air thickens around him, holding him. It’s odd, almost unpleasant. He pushes down with his hands, spreading his fingers, and he feels the resistance like a current, pushing back. His stomach tightens. He can still breathe, but it’s just —

  He opens his eyes.

  And he’s in the air. He’s flying.

  Well, not exactly. To be honest, he’s hovering, only a few ems off the ground — which is just as well, because as soon as he looks down, the disbelief surges and he drops back to earth. It knocks the breath out of him. Or would, if he wasn’t already breathless with excitement. Oh, Daed, he thinks. Oh, Daed. This is so good. This is . . . how did you do this?

  The sun, he thinks. The sky. The smell of things that are alive. Leaves.

  He sits up, a little painfully — although not as painfully as if he’d really fallen two ems, obviously — and wraps his arms round his knees. The tuft of grass is still burning, smoking and giving out heat. He imagines it blazing higher and fiercer, and it does.

  And once all this is linked to the Maze, with the other players . . . Wow.

  The next step, he thinks, will be for it to stop being a game at all. Funny, how they try to make it more and more real until you’re hardly playing any more.

  He shuts his eyes, and listens to the little rustlings of leaves, the gentle whisper of wind through the grass and the ruins. He can still feel the warmth from the fire, dying now, and the last caress of sunlight on his face. On impulse, he runs his finger over the ground and puts it in his mouth. The skin is gritty and tastes of damp and mould. He opens his eyes again and takes in the red radiance of the sky, the glorious sunset that makes him think: rose, ruby, vermilion . . . words he didn’t even know he knew.

  He thinks: Suppose this is the real world, and the other one is just a . . .

  The sky flashes black. Everything flashes black, a sickening negative of itself. The ruins and the trees and the sun go dark and slide sideways and elongate at the corners. Something is screaming at him. His mouth is full of pepper. It hurts. He struggles for breath. Oh gods, oh —

  He gasps, ‘Log out, log out, log out —’

  His blood rushes to his head and away again, as if the tank is rolling over and over. He’s falling. There’s a smell of bitterness, burnt plastic, maybe. He has time to think: Not rain, at least, that’s something.

  Then he’s flat on his stomach, and everything is pale and shining white, and his mouth is empty and sore. But he can smell something burning. He can still smell something burning.

  ‘Open the tank door, please,’ he says. The please surprises him.

  It slides open, immediately. He kneels up and crawls out on his knees, falling forward on to the soft studio floor. He’s shaking and clammy with sweat. Sickness rises and falls with every breath, and the worst thing is it’s coming from his brain, not his stomach. The iTank is flashing red, a red-behind-white glow, like an opal. It says, There has been a malfunction. Please tell Crater about this problem.

  Rick says, ‘Ha.’ It’s half a word, half an exhalation.

  He can see the malfunction. It’s the connection wires, at the back. They’re smoking. As he looks, a gaudy blue and green flame stretches up and rolls its shoulders, then slides forward and starts to lick at the carpet. He watches it for a few seconds before he realises that it’s got anything to do with him.

  He takes off his T-shirt and drops it neatly over the bad connecti
on. After a while the smoke dies. When he lifts the T-shirt away again it’s got a blackened hole in it; but the fire’s gone. The smell of it is still stuck in the back of Rick’s throat. He’s got a headache the size of Ingland.

  Ouch. At least the old tank couldn’t make you ill.

  His knees give way. He drops into a sitting position, leaning against the iTank wall. He wishes it didn’t have that trendy curve in it.

  Daed forgot to check the installation. That’s all. The workpeople weren’t trained, and they didn’t plug it in right. When the wires overheated the tank started to malfunction. Just an accident. It’s OK. No harm done . . .

  He wonders what it would have done to his brain, if he hadn’t logged out.

  He thought he was wondering it idly, in an academic sort of way. But he starts to shiver, and he can’t stop.

  He stays there until the nausea has passed, and then he stands up and sends a message to Daed about the malfunction, and to get the tank rewired.

  There’s no point worrying, he thinks. This is my life, now. This is the only thing I’ve got.

  And later, in the end, he ordered food which he couldn’t eat, and had a shower and went to bed. He told himself nothing terrible had happened. It was only a malfunction.

  And in a way he believed it. Everything went wrong occasionally. It was a fact of life. And the workpeople had said they weren’t trained . . .

  But when he went to sleep, he woke up again and again, sweaty and paralysed, his heart pounding. He’d never been so terrified. He had nightmare after nightmare, relentless and repetitive, full of nothing but sunlight and falling leaves.

  Part 4

  Enjoy the party

  Chapter 20

  Prototype malfunction duly noted. Thank you, Rick. That was all Daed’s message said. Rick waited for a day, another day, a week, but no one came to take the iTank away. No one came to rewire it, either. Or to sort out the burnt patch in the carpet. No one came.

  The only other message he got was the invitation to the launch party. And that wasn’t an invitation; it was an order.

  It was an order; so he followed it. That was what he did, these days. The night of the party advanced on him mercilessly, and he ignored it for as long as he could, until finally he was getting ready to go, putting on the suit Housekeeping sent him, struggling with the cufflinks . . . He cursed, furious, because it was safe to get angry about cufflinks.

  He looked at himself in the mirror, and it was a shock. Not just because of the histro clothes — which would shock anyone, Rick thought, gods, I look like someone from before the world was in colour — but because of the face and the hair and the gaze. He looked years older than he used to. His eyes were purple round the edges.

  He leant forward, bracing himself against the washbasin. The cold porcelain pushed back, like it didn’t want him there. His wrists were shaking.

  Behind him, his alarm went off. The nearest comms panel said, Hello, Rick. It is 1830. Please get ready to leave. Don’t forget your invitation!

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, to shut it up. He looked back at himself, wincing. He felt sick. He didn’t know what was wrong, but something was.

  He shut his eyes. All this week he’d been on the edge of understanding; or that was how it felt. As if every time he spoke to Housekeeping, or heard blurred, excited voices going past his door, or glanced at the fire-eaten hole in his carpet . . . as if every little thing was pushing him towards a conclusion, as if any moment now he was going to understand. He squinted into the dark of his eyelids.

  Nope. Nothing.

  A tired, ironic voice said, over his shoulder, ‘What are you doing, exactly?’

  Rick opened his eyes and looked into the mirror. Somehow he felt faintly surprised that Daed was solid enough to have a reflection. He said, ‘How long have you been in my rooms?’

  ‘You look good,’ Daed said. ‘Just Paz’s type.’

  Rick turned round to look at him. He was dressed up, too, but his face was taut and grey. He looked weird; like a default avatar, before you’d bought a better model. Rick shrugged.

  There was an odd, fractured kind of silence, as though someone had cut the sound. Then Daed said, ‘Have you got a moment?’

  His voice was polite. It made Rick blink and hesitate before he said, ‘A moment . . . ? Er . . . yes.’

  But Daed didn’t seem to have heard. He stared past Rick, into the mirror, while the pause stretched. Rick wanted to say, Is that all you wanted? Ten seconds of silence? But he didn’t dare, quite. He could smell nicotine and ash.

  Finally Daed met his eyes. He still didn’t speak; instead, he took Rick’s elbow and piloted him through the bathroom door, through the archway and along the side of the pool. Rick felt the cold from the tiles seep through his socks.

  ‘Daed, where are —?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Daed said, and opened the door of the hammam. The steam billowed out in a cloud and for a moment Rick could smell eucalyptus and lavender instead of cigarette smoke. Then Daed’s hand was between his shoulders, pushing him forward.

  Rick stumbled and sat. The thick warmth filled his lungs; his face and hair were already dripping. ‘Daed, what — this suit is — what am I supposed — what are you —?’ But he had too many questions to finish any of them.

  ‘Oh, well, I just wanted to ruin your lovely new clothes,’ Daed said, and suddenly his voice was the one Rick knew: mocking, unsympathetic. He looked at Rick and laughed, shortly. ‘My apologies for the indignity, Rick, but this wasn’t an exchange I particularly wanted to share with Security. No hidcams in a hammam,’ he added, when Rick frowned. ‘Far too much trouble to maintain.’

  ‘An exchange?’ For a second Rick thought, madly, that he meant a real exchange, that Daed wanted to sell him something, or buy . . .

  ‘There are a few things I need to tell you.’

  ‘Now? Right now? Look, Daed, why don’t —’

  ‘Yes,’ Daed said, and he took hold of Rick’s wrist, like a handcuff made of finger bones. ‘Right now. Sit still and listen.’

  Rick blinked the water off his eyelashes. He turned his head aside and looked into the fog of steam. He wanted to laugh, because he was in a steam bath, fully dressed, and his party clothes were ruined and Daed had gone mad — or always had been mad, maybe — and if he laughed he could pretend it was only funny, when it was horrible.

  Daed seemed to be waiting for an answer, so Rick swallowed a bulb of phlegm that tasted of eucalyptus and said, ‘OK.’

  A pause. Water ran down the walls.

  ‘Tonight,’ Daed said, ‘is my great triumph. Tonight is the pinnacle of my life’s work.’ His voice was flat. When Rick heard the word triumph he thought of a wall in the Maze where someone had graffitied RED in huge blue letters: you saw the word, but it didn’t mean what it normally did. There ought to have been something he could say, but there wasn’t.

  ‘I need you to promise me something,’ Daed said, so quietly, suddenly, that Rick only heard the consonants. ‘Will you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Promise first,’ Daed said. And laughed, as if he’d made a private joke.

  Rick opened his mouth to say no.

  ‘Promise me.’ Daed’s hand tightened on Rick’s wrist, grinding the bones together. ‘This is important. Trust me.’

  Rick’s tongue pressed against his front teeth, getting ready for the n. The world blurred and dripped. He thought of everything Daed had let happen — Athene, the mirror cell, Perdy — and wanted to chew up the word trust and spit it back at him.

  Daed said, ‘You’re my son, Rick, and I love you. Trust me. Please.’

  Rick blinked. Water rolled down his cheeks and dripped off his chin. He felt it soaking into his collar. When he licked his lips he tasted salt, not eucalyptus. He said, ‘What?’

  Daed gave him a look that could be a smile. Through the fog of steam his face looked half rubbed out. Another minute and he’d have disappeared entirely.

  ‘Light of my life,’ h
e said. ‘Apple of my eye. Of course I love you, Rick. Otherwise I’d have strangled you long ago.’

  Silence. Wet, hot, blind silence. Rick ran his hand over the slick warm tiles, pushing with his fingertips like he was trying to find a handhold. He breathed in, trying to imprint everything on his memory: the smell of the steam and his wet clothes, the feel of water soaking into his collar, Daed’s hand on his wrist . . . Apple of my eye. Rick would’ve thought that was sarcasm, before.

  And he said, ‘Yes, I promise, Daed. Anything. Whatever you say. I promise.’

  Daed breathed out, so long and so deeply it could have been his last breath. The steam danced. He said, ‘The Maze expansion isn’t safe. There’s a malfunction. Promise me you won’t run the Maze until I tell you it’s OK.’

  Rick didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t that. ‘But — the malfunction —’ He coughed and had to swallow. ‘Wait. You haven’t fixed the malfunction?’

  ‘Not the same malfunction. Yours was just the iTank wiring.’

  ‘So —’

  ‘So promise.’ Daed leant forward, so the contours of his face loomed through the steam. ‘It’s not the iTank, it’s the Maze. I’ll get someone to rewire your iTank, there won’t be any problem with that. You can play the demos all you want, any of the solo player games. But not the Maze.’

  ‘There’s a malfunction in the Maze? You’re launching the new expansion while there’s still a malfunction?’

  ‘Please, Rick, it’s rather tiresome to have to repeat everything.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘We’re in a steam room, Rick, let’s not get hung up on the details. Promise me you won’t go into the Maze. It’s important.’

  Rick almost agreed, right then. But he was still struggling to work it out. The Maze wasn’t safe. They were launching it anyway. ‘Does Paz know?’