I gave her a confused look. “But then wouldn’t that mean that anyone could have figured out it was me? The guys chasing after me could have done the same thing.”
Angela nodded pensively. “Assuming they compared the poster shot with every photo in the school database. Summaries of student profiles are available to students and staff. However, it’s more than likely they never considered you were a boy, so they probably only checked the female student profiles.”
In an unpleasant way, her theory did make sense, and because of it my self-esteem plunged. I was so convincing as a girl, even when not cross-playing, that the guys never considered the possibility that I was a male student of Telos Academy. Yet, if Angela had surmised correctly, it demonstrated Valjean’s determination to learn Silver Blue’s identity. The question I couldn’t answer was why?
“As I was asking,” Angela said. “What kind of reception can Ronin expect come Monday morning?”
Felicia’s lips twisted into weird shapes as she mulled it over. “I guess we won’t know until Monday. Then again, it might not be a problem. You know what I’m saying?”
Angela’s eyes widened slightly before relaxing back to normal. “Perhaps….”
I was puzzled so I asked, “What do you mean?”
Felicia stiffened for a heartbeat then broke into her cartoon grin. “Well, you could end up hit by a bus or car and then it’s adios amiga—I mean amigo.”
I stared at her in shocked disbelief. “Thanks. I really needed to hear that.”
“Look, it may be that nothing happens. You show up on Monday to a warm round of applause.”
I placed my food wrappings and empty drink container on the tray. “Oh yeah, that’s really gonna happen.” I rose from the chair and picked up my tray. “If you’ll excuse me, I have places to be.”
“Wait—!” Felicia stood up quickly. “What if you show up in a female uniform?”
I froze. “What?”
“That way you can arrive at the school incognito. No one will know it’s you. You can slip into the school unnoticed.”
Felicia’s flights of fancy were beginning to disturb me. “How the Hell am I going to get past roll call?”
Angela had palmed her forehead. “How do you even think this stuff up?” she asked her friend. “Try to think before you speak.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Forget it. I’ll just take a leave of absence until it all blows over.”
“What if it doesn’t?” Angela asked.
“Then I’ll change my identity and transfer to another school”—I stared at Felicia—“not as a girl.”
She grinned at me sheepishly but it still looked cartoonish.
Walking over to a refuse bin, I cleared away my tray, then placed it on the stack of trays waiting to be cleaned. With that, I made my way to the stairs leading down to the first floor where the more expensive games were located. I noticed the girls hurrying after me, though Shirohime pointedly lagged behind, and I found myself growing irritated. She was a beauty, the kind that made my knees weak when I gazed upon her, but I was having trouble getting past her personality issues.
If she doesn’t want to be here, why doesn’t she just leave?
There is a saying that to be ignorant is to be delusion. I was ignorant of what Shirohime was like as a person, thus in that regard my image of her was a delusion, and now that delusion was being torn down by Shirohime. Compounding my state of disappointment, I had come to the gaming arcade hoping to escape reality, and for a brief while I’d done so, but now the gravity of my situation was weighing down upon me, and so I decided to flee it once more by escaping into a holo-virtual environment.
The first person shooter I loved to dominate was unoccupied, though a great many of the other booths had crowds of students from Telos Academy surrounding them, eyes eagerly watching holovid screens displaying the game progress for those outside the booths. I suspected on good authority the game I enjoyed wasn’t as popular due to its disturbingly graphic and realistic content. So I was eager to enjoy it as much as possible, for as long as possible, before the Arcade operators chose to remove it from their lineup.
Apparently, some players – and probably their parents too – had complained, and after a few students with weaker stomachs had succumbed to the game’s overpowering nature and tossed their cookies, a big warning sign was erected at the entrance to the game’s holo-booth that was shaped like a mini planetarium about four meters in diameter at the base. In addition to the warning, a security console stood on a pedestal beside the sign, requiring a prospective gamer to present identity and sign an electronic waver before being allowed to enter the locked booth.
Looking at the slowly rotating holovid screen projected above the booth, I saw that only a handful of new scores had been set since the last time I played it, but someone had recently bested my record by the slimmest of margins.
White Princess? Who’s the White Princess?
Then I remembered the girls in the crowd referring to the White Princess as holding the highest score.
Was it the same White Princess? Was she making it a habit of setting high scores at each of the games?
“Necropolis?” Felicia questioned as she read the name on the overhead banner. “What kind of game is this?”
“A zombie apocalypse,” Angela explained. “See. There’s a mature content warning on it. Expect lots of blood and gore. Adults must be supervised at all times.”
“Huh? Adults?” Felicia sounded perplexed, then asked, “You’re going to play a zombie game right after eating?”
I didn’t see a problem with that, and after deciding to mull the matter of the White Princess another time, I walked to the pedestal outside the booth serving as an entry scanner, and gave Felicia a casual shrug. “Sure, why not?”
“You must have a really strong stomach.”
“It’s only a game,” I murmured under my breath.
Angela pointed out. “It says there, ‘Playing not advised after a meal’. That sounds like fair warning to me.”
I sighed as I stood before the pedestal, and threw the girls a look over a shoulder. “Why are you following me?”
Felicia made an ‘oh’ shape with her mouth and cupped a fist. “We thought you might want to try out the Princess Royale.”
“Huh…?” I glanced at Shirohime who was suddenly regarding me with interest. Caught a little off guard by her gaze, I blushed and blurted out, “No. Only girls play that.”
Shirohime’s expression darkened. She snorted softly and muttered, “Well, you’re halfway there.”
“What?” I whirled on her but she turned away, but not before making a show of tossing her hair then folding her arms under her magnificent bust.
Angela sighed and shook her head faintly, but Felicia quickly stepped forward. “So, are you any good at this?”
I stopped glaring at Shirohime and turned my attention on Felicia. “Are you kidding me? I set the highest score—I mean I had the highest score. Somebody beat me recently.”
Again, Shirohime snorted but continued to look away.
I turned back to her. “Hey, do you need to blow your nose or something?”
Shirohime slowly faced me. “Excuse me?”
“Well you’re snorting like a bull, so I was wondering if you had some sort of allergy.”
“I have no allergies, thank you very much.”
I held onto the moment before stating, “You should be glad Mat doesn’t know what you’re really like.”
Shirohime’s eyes widened. “Huh?”
I could almost hear the gong ringing out in her head, while my heart plummeted down to my feet as reality once more disappointed me. Yet, somehow I succeeded in masking my feelings behind a sagely nod. “If you think I’m going to put in a good word for you, think again. Not happening. Not a chance on this side of a purple moon.”
She unfolded her arms, and stared at me in shock. Though her mouth moved, nothing came out.
“Oh, and more thing,” I pointed
at a finger at her chest. “Thanks for the pillow ride.”
“Why you little pervert!” She stormed toward me, but Felicia and Angela intervened by grabbing onto her and holding her back. “Unhand me,” she demanded.
Felicia sounded disenchanted. “I told you to be on your best behavior.”
Angela added, “You really should have looked at the bigger picture.”
“I told you he was a pervert,” Shirohime complained. “And my breasts are not pillows!”
I listened to them as I entered my Ar Telica citizen code, before swiping my phone over the scanner.
They may not be pillows but they certainly are soft.
I signed the legal waver that said I wouldn’t sue the Arcade’s operators in the event I was mentally scarred by the game. In other words, I participating knowing that it contained mature content that could easily offend impressionable young minds. If ten years from now I turned into a deranged serial killer, I couldn’t hold the Arcade operators or the game company responsible for my actions.
Swiping my phone one more time over the scanner to pay the game’s admission price, I waited for the dome shaped booth to unlock and open. Having played the game before, I knew what to expect and strode into the darkness within full of confidence I rarely expressed in real life. Also, I was trying not to appear obvious as I fled from an angry Class Rep.
“I’m going to be waiting for you,” Shirohime promised.
“Yeah, yeah,” I replied with a dismissive wave over my shoulder. “I’ll tell Mat your beauty is only skin deep.”
“Hey, I happen to be a sweet, kind, and generous girl.”
I turned around and pillowed my head on my hands. “Yeah, real generous.”
“Gah—I swear I’m going to kick your butt—!”
The door closed, shutting out the outside world and enveloping me in quiet solitude.
I dropped my carry-bag to the floor, and my body sagged as I bent over and grabbed my knees. “Gods, I’m never looking at a pretty girl the same way again.” After a moment, I reconsidered and raised a finger. “Except for Mercedes.”
Straightening slowly, I looked around me, then turned to the ‘back’ of the large and spacious domed interior of the booth, where a pedestal stood with two electronic light-guns holstered to either side of it.
“Here we go…,” I mumbled under my breath.
Reaching down to pick up my bag, something unexpected happened.
“Prepare for translocation.”
I straightened sharply and looked up at the ceiling. “What?”
“Translocation imminent.”
Turning quickly, I looked at the black walls in confusion as this had never happened before.
“Brace for immediate Translocation.”
I stretched my arms wide. “Brace? How the Hell do I brace—?”
Without warning, I felt the ground underfoot heave and I was abruptly knocked to the floor.
It was an experience akin to the saying ‘having the rug swept out from under you’.
I landed on hands and knees, and gulped as my innards surged when a disorienting wave of weightlessness washed over me. For several seconds I had no sense of orientation. If I had not continued to feel the floor of the booth beneath me, I would have believed I was floating in a black, weightless void. Once more without warning a violent shove knocked me down to my stomach and the wind was crushed out of me.
I lay on the floor for several heartbeats before pushing myself up to my knees. Shaking my head a little as the gyroscope of my inner ear began working again, I looked around me and saw that the darkness had given way to an afternoon scenery that I found disturbingly familiar yet wholly unexpected.
Rising slowly to my feet, I turned about in a full circle, and regarded my surroundings.
My first impression was that the booth’s holo-fields were fully active and I was now fully immersed in the game environment. Necropolis was the kind of shooting game that employed holo-fields rather than virtual reality gear, which was one reason why I enjoyed it more as it felt more real to me. It went so far as to simulate wind using hidden ventilators and effect-fields, so I wasn’t surprised to feel a gentle breeze caress my face and hair. However, as I continued sweeping my gaze over scenery, I began to have second doubts.
By all accounts, I was standing in a plaza in the midst of an abandoned city, one that uncannily resembled Ar Telica so much that I felt a sense of panic when I recognized this place as the plaza running through the entertainment complex housing the Arcade. However, there was not a single person in sight, and the eerie stillness that enveloped me had wondering if this was really a holovid projection complemented with effect-fields and other sensory equipment.
Everything looked a little too real, and my panic morphed into dread when I failed to spot anything remotely like the control pedestal with holstered lightguns.
I decided against calling out, and instead took off my school blazer, dumping it on the ground, then loosened my tie and rolled up my sleeves. Picking up my carry-bag, I slung its straps diagonally across my body, then swept my gaze over the plaza once more. Catching sight of an information kiosk, one that also existed in the real plaza, I hurried over to it and was shocked to see a pedestal behind it with two large lightguns hanging off it.
At sight of the weapons, my heart jumped for joy while the rest of me sagged in relief.
After giving myself a few moments to steady my emotions, I quickly unholstered the weapons from the pedestal. Hefting them in both hands, I noticed they were longer and heavier than the lightguns I was familiar with, and the battery pack disguised as a magazine was double the size I remembered it. Yet despite this they possessed sling straps and extendable stocks, both of which I’d made use of in the past. Differences aside, having them in my possession alleviated some of the fear miring my thoughts, and I breathed a lot easier until a loud crash announced the shattering of a shop front window somewhere behind me.
I spun around in time to see the first of the zombies crawl out into the plaza.
It was a young woman wearing a chic outfit, more or less the kind you’d expect on an attractive girl out on a date or just shopping with her friends. She crawled on the ground for a short distance, then stopped and looked up in my direction.
As I stared at her, my body tingled with unease that melded into the dread weighing down my limbs. But when the creature rose to her feet and began staggering toward me, my gamer instincts slipped into gear and I began thinking more clearly. Quickly checking the charge on the lightguns, I slung one of them across my back, and used both hands to carry the other. I may have referred to them as ‘guns’ but truthfully they were around thirty inches long so two hands were better than one.
Since the guns fired photon rounds, stepping into a balanced shooting stance might seem pointless to people. After all, everyone knows that photons don’t weigh very much. Nonetheless, I felt better and more confident when standing in the ready position, and with both hands on the lightgun, I took aim at the unfortunate soul crawling toward me.
My finger was already pressing down on the trigger when I suddenly hesitated.
Something felt off.
Watching the creature stagger toward me, I studied it intently as I struggled to wrap my mind around the discrepancy between the game I was experiencing now and the game as I remembered it. It wasn’t just the stage loading or the weapons that were dramatically different, nor was it the breeze I could feeling blowing past me. It was the scent of something rotten in the air. Even if I could rationalize everything else my senses were experiencing, I couldn’t explain the scent of death that tainted the air.
A sudden tension gripped my arms as I aimed at the creature approaching me on unsteady legs and feet, hunched over as it struggled for balanced. However, I was running out of time and distance so I took steady aim and fired the lightgun.
I was accustomed to the muzzle flash, a nice touch of added realism courtesy of a holo-emitter fitted to the lightgun, b
ut the mild recoil surprised me more than the sight of a simulated bullet – an explosive tipped holo-round – flying out of the barrel and striking the zombie woman roughly thirty feet away. A piece of her scalp was blown off, and she stumbled to her knees, but after a short while she picked herself back up. When her gaze meet mine, a cold shiver ran through my body.
Her eyes looked alive and real, so much so that my doubts about the veracity of this being a simulation began to swell like a tsunami, and I took an unsteady step back. The rational part of my mind attributed the shift in my surroundings as the game system employing holo-fields and effect-fields to simulate the effect of retreating a step. But the not-so-rational part of me was beginning to clamor that what I was experiencing was indeed real. This wasn’t the inside of the gaming booth but an actual plaza, and the pitiful creature in front of me wasn’t a holographic image but an actual zombie.
The young woman, her neck torn and bloodied, reached out for me as though pleading with me to end her existence and give her peace. Silently, she mouthed words that I couldn’t hear…and didn’t want to hear.
My mouth dry, I aimed the light-gun, centered the targeting beam on the zombie’s forehead, and squeezed the trigger. Again the gun kicked – my rational self explaining it was simulated by an effect field – but this time my aim was true.
The front of the undead woman’s skull exploded as the very real mini bullet struck home and detonated. But it wasn’t enough to bring her down. I fired a second shot, no longer thinking the bullets were holographic, and watched another part of her head blow apart. Her body collapsed to the ground and shuddered one last time before it stopped moving.
I noticed I was holding my breath, part of me afraid that she would begin moving again. But after a few seconds of silence and stillness, I inhaled deeply, feeling my lungs hurt a little as yet another shiver ran through me.
This isn’t a game.
The proof was lying on the plaza no farther than ten meters away from me.
The dead zombie wasn’t fading away or derezzing into light particles. It remained where it fell, dark red blood dribbling out of the perforated skull and other wounds on her body.
Gun Princess Royale: Awakening the Princess, Book One Page 7
