New Eden Royale

by Deck Davis

  Soon, the students gathered in front of me. Most of them had the pale skin that was common among the Perlshaw people, given how cold it was. The only exception was a couple of brothers, the Harx twins, who were tanned from a recent sojourn to the artificial sun and beaches in the south coast.

  “Good fighting today guys,” I told them. “You all have weakness that you need to shore up, but I’ll work on those with you one-on-one. Tonight, spend a little time watching back your battle feed, but do it on double speed so that it doesn’t take up all your evening. No point thinking about VBR day and night. Live a little. Be teenagers.”

  “I’m going to the Thirsty Rat tonight,” said Felicia, a girl with mousy hair. “I reckon I can trick Ivor into serving me.”

  “You know it,” said Roger Harx, next to her.

  “Any questions before we end the lesson?” I asked.

  “Hey, Mr. Wollenstein,” said Renn, a black kid who was the most promising in the class, and who I was planning on giving my abermorph avatar to one day. “Where did you get the map from? It’s awesome.”

  I smiled. “That one is called Drift Dunes. My dad designed it.”

  This brought a chorus of amazement and excited chatter. A dozen questions were fired my way but class was over, and I had something I wanted to do.

  “Okay,” I said. “Everyone get the hell out of here. Go live in the real world a little.”

  With the class dismissed, I left the newly-renovated VBR studio and went out onto the hill of Perlshaw. The breeze slapped my cheeks, but I didn’t mind it. In fact, I was beginning to enjoy the feeling. I didn’t consider my day complete unless a gale force wind had shaken me around a little.

  Ahead of me, a bunch of tourists struggled down the hill. The wind was blowing upwards, making it a fight against the elements. These people, wherever they were from, evidently weren’t used to such a battle against nature. Of course, people travelled to Perlshaw from all over these days; Kinohelm, Sootstein, and even from Lushen, which was way out west. Everyone had heard of the Perlshaw library, given that Eddie wouldn’t stop talking about it in our post-VBR interviews, and everyone wanted to see it.

  When a tour company had first contacted the town to try and make a deal, I had thought that Elder Arin would tell them to get lost. The old man was so protective of the trove of books beneath the hill, that it seemed crazy to think he’d let strangers get close to them. I soon found out that I was wrong.

  “The books don’t belong to me,” he told me. “Knowledge doesn’t have a master. People have a right to see them, Harry. Like the old museums. We have enough bits to make everything secure now, and when that’s done we will open the iron doors to the public.”

  After four months of construction, the book archive had been changed completely. The spiral staircase that seemed to lead endlessly into the depths of the hill had been supplemented by a hydro-powered lift. Down below, the light system had been updated, a cafeteria was fitted, and the books were now guarded by a non-intrusive system that let people get close to them but prevented theft and damage. Caverns were widened, walls were strengthened against damage and decay, and a temperature-control unit was fitted. All in all, the Perlshaw archive was transformed.

  “Hey ho, Har!” said a voice.

  Eddie was approaching from the direction of the Thirsty Rat. He looked a little worse-for-wear judging by the way he swayed when he walked. He swerved this way and that over the cobbled streets, each step making him stray closer to a slip.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking all day?” I said.

  He grinned. “It’s my day off. And besides, they won’t stop buying me drinks! It’s been half a year, and they won’t shut up about the battle. ‘Course, I’m not complaining.”

  “I bet Tina will be, though.”

  “I’m taking her to Kinohelm next weekend. So…she’s pretty happy.”

  After we got back from New Eden, Eddie had spent a solid week partying. Fueled by his immense sense of glory and a never-ending supply of free drinks, he’d drunk and danced and laughed until he was running on fumes. I had started to worry about him a little. Then, just like that, on the eight-day post-battle, Eddie left his house before the sun even crept out of its hiding place. He went to Elder Arin’s home, where he told the elder about his grand plans. “They came to me after my twelfth pint of Mulgoon’s Blue Moon,” he told the elder.

  From that day on, Eddie was the Perlshaw tourist board. Just him, an assistant, and an office with an old-fashioned fireplace that chuffed smoke out from the chimney. Since Eddie had decided that he didn’t want to fight in VBRs anymore (“My heart just isn’t in it,” he said), it was now his job to boost the town’s income. He used his blues eyes, he used his charisma, and he used his never-fading smile to get people to the town and bring in an influx of bits.

  I was pleased to see how good he was at it. He was professional, dedicated, and inventive, always coming up with ways to attract visitors. Between the swelling tourist numbers and the new VBR teams that would be in place before long, Perlshaw was going to be a rich town indeed.

  Not only had he found a calling, but Eddie had also manned-up and apologized to Tina, the girl he had dumped before Eden. It was only when she rebuked him that Eddie realized how much he liked her, and he spent a month trying every trick in the book to woo her. After a while, his pearly-white smile won over her worries and doubts.

  “Fancy a quick pint of Mulgoon’s Blue?” asked Eddie.

  I nodded. “Sure thing. Need to see Dyl first, and then I’ll be there.”

  “Tell him I said hi. I like the kid.”

  Just as I’d promised myself earlier, when the Eden VBR was done, I had brought Dylan to Perlshaw. I’d intended for it to be a mini-break for him. Aft the bottom of Perlshaw, there was a secure field where a local farmer, Percy Jennings, let his own wolfhounds roam with wild abandon. We brought Bennie, Retch, and the others with us and let them wander, watching as they ran at each other and growled and wrestled.

  Dylan had the time of his life here. He spent his days with Percy, who was a veteran when it came to raising wolfhounds, and his nights with me, Eddie and Wolfy. We’d go have dinner at Elder Arin’s house, and we’d end our evenings in the Thirsty Rat. It was a simple way of life, but it was full of laughter.

  At the end of a fortnight, Dylan and I extended our stay for an extra week. Then, at the end of that week, we decided that there was no point extending anything. Instead, we were going to stop calling our time in Perlshaw a vacation and live here instead.

  “You know,” I told Dylan, “Elder Arin offered me a job training VBR fighters for their team. I could get you a place, if I took it.”

  Dylan looked me in the eyes. “I was thinking, Har, that I might not train my avatar anymore. I might do it for fun, but not…”

  “You don’t want to be a fighter anymore?” I asked.

  “Percy Jennings asked me to take over looking after his hounds. He’s getting old. He’s like you, Har. He rescues them. He’s offered me a full-time job.”

  I grinned. “Go for it, Dyl. Guess we’ve both got a reason to stay in Perlshaw now.”

  “What about the ranch?” he asked.

  “Arin gave me my cut of the VBR bits,” I said. “I’ve got enough to fix the prot-generator, so I’ll do that, but I’ve been thinking. That place is too big for me and you. We were rattling around in there like peas in a can. A home like that…it deserves a family living in it. I guess I’ll find some family who needs a home, and we’ll sell it to them cheap. The ranch needs a big old family in it, one who’ll love it.”

  Since then, Dylan and I have settled into Perlshaw life as though we’d always lived there. Now, with my VBR class finished for the day, I decided to go take a few minutes relaxing in my favorite spot.

  I walked up the hill. My calf muscles didn’t burn half as much as they used to walking up the slope; I was getting used to it. I passed the Thirsty Rat tavern and noticed that the window was open.
Beyond it, I saw a gel-screen on the wall. On it, was a familiar face.

  It was Overseer Lucas on the gel-screen. Only, he wasn’t Overseer Lucas anymore. His title was gone. His sneer had disappeared. Now, thanks to his corruption, he was back to being plain old Lucas. Snippets of sound swirled out from the gel screen and through the square window, where the wind caught it and brought it to my ears.

  …And as the final day of the Overseers’ Enquiry ends, a decision has been made. Lucas Helm, formerly third overseer of New Eden, has been stripped of his ranks, and will no longer…

  I tuned it out and carried on walking. As I neared the top of the hill, close to Elder Arin’s house and the domed-stone building that housed the book archives, I saw Wolfy walking toward me.

  He was wearing his construction clothes, which were a dirty t-shirt that was once white but was now covered in sweat and dirt, and jeans made from sturdy denim. As well as his work clothes he wore a tired look on his face, but it wasn’t a weary one. Instead, it was the right kind of tired, the one you earned from hours of hard graft. Wolfy had taken a job on one of the book archive construction crews, and he loved every second of it.

  “Hey, Harry!” he said. As I got closer, he pulled me into a bear hug, almost squeezing the life out of me. I couldn’t give back even half of what I got.

  When we separated, I asked him, “How’s your dad?”

  “Right as rain,” he said, giving me a beaming smile.

  “Good to hear it.”

  “You coming to the Rat?”

  “I’ll be right there, buddy.”

  “Say,” said Wolfy. “You know Glora’s gone out east?”

  I nodded. “Guess we won’t be seeing her again. The new Expanse Charter is going on an expedition.”

  “I think by the time she gets back, Arin will have cooled off a little.”

  “Maybe we all will have. I mean, I get why she did what she did…I just wished she hadn’t done it.”

  “You and me both, brother. Oh, and guess what?”

  “What?” I said.

  “Rynk’s in town. He and Arin are best buds. I can’t believe it. The old man has Rynk going all over the country tracking down books for him.”

  “Glad to know Rynk’s unique talents are being put to good use,” I said. “He’s the kind of guy I’d rather have working on my side, than against me. At least we can keep an eye on him here.”

  “I hear that. See ya at the Rat later,” said Wolfy. With another breath-sapping bear hug, he was off.

  With that, I was alone again. Although, as I reached the peak of the hill and looked down on the town of Perlshaw below me, I didn’t feel alone. For the longest time, loneliness had been my thing. Even with Dylan at the ranch, I had always felt the absence of my family. Now, though, I had a new family. A dysfunctional one, maybe, but a family. Eddie, Wolfy, Arin and the rest would never replace the people I’d lost, but at least I had people now. I looked down at the glowing lights of Perlshaw, and I knew I had a home.

  As the afternoon sun started to set and pave way for the oncoming night, I sat on the bench at the very peak of Perlshaw hill. There, a few words came back to me.

  “Me, you, and everything and everyone you ever knew will be gone someday. The best you can do is try and outrun the wave of death long enough to leave something lasting behind.”

  That was what Elder Arin had said to me once. I hadn’t understood it at the time, but now I did. When I looked at the town, when I heard a chorus of laughter drifting from the Thirsty Rat, when I heard a draft rattle the iron doors of the book archive, I knew that Arin was right.

  I felt something now. It was something that I had thought would never come, something unexpected; I felt content. Content that, when my life ran its course, when the cosmic waves of death finally crashed over me, I would have left something lasting behind.

  The End

  Thank you for reading New Eden Royale! I hope you enjoyed it.

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  Thanks for reading!

  Deck

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