Spark - ARC (5 page)

“Not tonight. Big day tomorrow.”

She needed a shower, and some rest. Besides, the parties got old fast. It wasn’t her idea of a fun time, being surrounded by people who either were too tongue-tied to say anything or were doing their best to impress her, and making fools out of themselves in the process. None of it was genuine.

Longing for her friends in Crestview twisted through her. When she got back to her suite, she’d message Jennet and they could share some girl gossip. Maybe she’d even tell Jennet about meeting a cute guy today.

Spark smiled wryly at the thought. Everyone assumed being a star must be wonderful, but she was grateful for any bit of normalcy she could find in her crazy life.

CHAPTER
FOUR

C
lutching his large soda—his second of the morning—Aran showed his badge to the convention center guard in the booth.

“Aran Cole,” he said. “Early appointment with VirtuMax.”

He hoped Spark hadn’t forgotten to put him on the list.

Apparently she hadn’t, because the guard nodded and buzzed him into the eerily quiet convention center. Eight hours ago, the place had been humming with late-night energy and side parties. He and Bix, by virtue of their badges and official volunteer T-shirts, had been able to attend a fair number of gatherings.

At some point during the evening a woman dressed as a robo-enforcer, and her friend, a scantily clad warrior princess with a tongue as sharp as her blade, had hooked up with them. They’d danced to old-school club music; heavy, bone-shaking beats that made the masked and be-sparkled creatures on the temporary dance floor seem as though they were all one big creature. A huge organism, with each fan comprising an individual cell.

Aran had tried a cup of weirdly-glowing blue punch, and hadn’t even finished it. He wasn’t much of a drinker, plus he wanted to be sharp the next morning. Bix got a little wilder, and Aran had to talk him out of going home with the robo-enforcer. As it was, they’d barely made the last train to Bix’s neighborhood. Aran had given him a boost through his bedroom window, then crawled into his own nest in the lightless back garage.

Now, Aran felt himself waking up as he walked between the still booths, making for the section marked off by VirtuMax. That part of the Expo Hall was anything but sleepy, as the techs got ready for the big demo day. They’d cordoned off spaces for lines to snake back and forth, in preparation for the huge influx of eager gamers. Aran couldn’t help feeling smug about his personal invite. Sure, he knew Spark was just being gracious—he was too smart to read anything into it, which was maybe why she’d invited him in the first place—but it still felt good.

He spotted Spark’s bright hair immediately, and veered over to where she was talking with one of the techs, a woman with a serious expression in her brown eyes.

“I agree, fifteen systems aren’t enough,” Spark was saying. “But it’s all we get. I don’t have that much pull with the company, as you know.” She turned to Aran with a smile. “Hi! Glad you made it. Aran, this is Vonda, our lead on the floor today. Vonda, if you have a system ready to go, I’ve got you a tester.”

Vonda nodded. “Over here.”

“Thanks,” Aran said.

He was torn between wanting to talk to Spark and diving into the FullD. Spark’s smile deepened.

“Go ahead. You can tell me what you think after you play.”

“I’ll do that,” Aran said.

He followed Vonda to where a gleaming FullD system sat, humming softly under the bright lights. She handed him a helmet and gloves.

“You know your way around an interface?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Aran slipped on the gloves and flexed his fingers. The fit was good, and the LEDs shone like tiny bits of rainbow. He slid into the chair and pulled the helmet on. Geared up and ready to go.

“Right then,” Vonda said. “Give a yell if you get stuck.”

He lifted one hand in acknowledgement, then turned his attention to the visor screen. The letter
F
, made of golden flame, took up most of his vision. With the flick of his index finger, Aran activated the game.

Moody, mysterious music played through the helmet. Words appeared, glowing and golden across the black background.

WELCOME TO FEYLAND

A VirtuMax Production

Version 1.1

A shiver of excitement ran down Aran’s spine. There was nothing like the thrill of entering a new game for the first time. He hoped Feyland would live up to its hype and pull him into the supposedly brilliant simulation of a fantastical world—and that the holes and cheats wouldn’t be too obvious. Half of the fun of running new content was the game, sure, but the other half was trying to get behind the interface, game the game as it were.

Words scrolled across the screen.

FEYLAND: A wondrous place where adventure awaits. Alone, or with other bold adventurers, seek out glory and riches, or pledge yourself in service to the greater good. This fabled land needs your skills and prowess to avert the dark shadows of the Neverwhere. Do you have the strength to prevail, or will you fail, as so many champions have before? Prove yourself in the epic game of Feyland!

The letters deepened to crimson, then scattered into ashy fragments, whirling away as the music rose. For a split second, a pair of eyes glowed from the shadows. Nice touch, giving the opening sequence just a hint of creepiness.

The screen changed, showing a character-creation interface. He skimmed over the possibilities. Even though he wanted to linger, to carefully read the descriptions of the various classes and their abilities, he didn’t have the time. Right now, his job was to get in-game and start poking at the edges of the programming. The best way to do that was to choose a heavy-combat character in order to minimize time lost to dying.

He scrolled past the lightly armored magic users. He wouldn’t be playing a Spellcaster or Healing Priest this time around. Partway through the medium combat classes, his eye was caught by a jaunty-looking avatar classified as a Saboteur. Aran paused, then shook his head and continued on to the heavily armored melee fighters. The limited choices of Knight, Mercenary, and Warrior seemed boring. He glanced back up at the rapier-wielding character dressed in dark blue and burgundy.

Saboteur, now… wasn’t that his specialty?

Before he could second-guess his impulse, he lifted his finger and chose the character class. The Saboteur expanded to fill his vision.

SABOTEUR: A tricky character, the Saboteur’s loyalties are not always easy to define. Skilled in use of the rapier and knives, this class has a range of stealth and misdirection skills.

Perfect.

Aran quickly modified the basic avatar, giving him a slender build—all the better for sneaking around—and skin a shade darker than his own. Too bad there wasn’t an option to add an indigo streak to his character’s hair.

At the naming prompt, he entered his standard onscreen name of Ebon.

Character complete. Enter game?

It only took a flick of his fingers to signal
yes
, and Aran paused a second to admire the smooth response of the gaming gloves. The real test would be in-game, but so far he had to admit the FullD system impressed him.

A brassy blare of trumpets filled his ears, and the visor screen flared with golden light. For a moment he felt as though he was falling through space, complete with a dizzy, disorienting clutch in his stomach.

He willed his senses to settle, and squeezed his eyes tight. When he opened them again, his character stood in the center of a clearing surrounded by white-barked trees, a summer-blue sky overhead. Velvety mosses cushioned his feet, and he was encircled by a ring of mushrooms, their scarlet caps dotted with white. A narrow path led from the clearing into the trees, their trunks graceful columns, their leaves shimmering silver in the faint breeze.

A breeze he could feel against his cheek. Wondering, Aran tilted his face up. Yes, he really felt the brush of air against his skin. It was almost as if he were standing there in person, instead of his digitally-created avatar. Even though he’d seen the demo last night—and Spark had been great—it hadn’t prepared him for the actual feel of the game. VirtuMax had seriously outdone themselves.

Still, he had work to do. He was a Saboteur, after all. With a wry smile, Aran brought up the keyboard and typed in his most reliable hacker script. About half the games he cracked ran on an old-style operating system with more holes than a pierced-out goth.

No luck this time; the game scene remained unchanged, the graphics a solid wall between him and the programming. Good thing he had more than a few ways to pick apart the bytes.

The minutes ticked by, and each command he entered proved useless. Aran’s chest tightened. This was his one chance to slide behind the programming before the game released, and he was skewing badly toward failure.

Okay, then. Maybe he’d get some insight into what else to try by playing forward. The path through the trees beckoned. Was it the only option?

Aran turned and picked a different part of the woods. He stepped out of the mushroom circle and strode forward—

Only to find himself back in the middle of the ring again. Another try in the opposite direction earned him the same result. VirtuMax had plugged any holes in the opening sequence code. If he had more time he’d try to unravel the edges, but not now.

Senses primed, he left the circle again, this time heading down the path. Fallen leaves softened his footsteps, and dappled light slanted between the trees. It was peaceful, and Aran didn’t trust it one bit.

Still, no creatures leaped out at him with weapons bared, or charged through the underbrush, growling. The forest thinned and he stepped out from under the trees into a green meadow. The path curved, leading toward a storybook cottage; the kind of place where either a kindly woman or a wicked hag lived. Sometimes both, in the same person.

Aran called up his hacker scripts again. When he ran the third one, the air of Feyland rippled, and he glimpsed something behind the pastoral scene. Something glittering and dark.

What the hell was that?

Swallowing back a sudden jab of fear, he tried the code again. Nothing.

Nothing left to do but go farther into the game. Before heading to the cottage, he reviewed his character’s combat skills, memorizing the few moves his Saboteur came equipped with. A couple stabs and slices, a dodge-and-disappear, and a distance knife throw. Hopefully they’d be adequate to deal with whatever creatures he might meet in battle.

A bird swooped overhead, singing. The meadow grasses, scattered with yellow and blue flowers like something out of a famous painting, riffled in the breeze. Still, he couldn’t get that foreboding sense off his shoulders. Something was watching him—and waiting.

“Mr. Cole?” Vonda’s voice sounded over his headset, roughened with static. “How’s it going in there?”

“Good,” Aran said. “It’s an amazing place.”

“You’ve got another twenty minutes to enjoy it before I need you to log off,” she said.

“Right. I’ll finish up. Just let me know when.”

Time was funny in-game, but he was still surprised by how quickly it had gone. His stomach knotted. This was his chance, and so far he had nothing to show for it.
Way to go, mister supreme hacker.

He didn’t have time to waste standing around listening to his own self-doubt. Shutting up the mocking voice, Aran strode forward to the little cottage. Sunlight sparked off its diamond-paned windows and made the whitewashed walls and golden thatch shine brightly.

Something crouched on the front step; a creature that made Aran’s steps slow. As he got closer he saw it was a hunched goblin with sharp teeth, wearing a blood-red cap and stained leather jerkin. The faint scent of rotting flowers wafted to Aran’s nose.

The goblin stood, his clawed fingers clasped about a long-handled axe, his malicious gaze fixed on Aran. Taking a deep breath, Aran drew his knives.

Instead of attacking him, the goblin spoke, his voice rough as old hinges.

“Greetings, mortal,” the creature said.

Aran rolled his weight onto the balls of his feet and considered how to answer. Maybe the goblin was a quest-giver of some kind, though there weren’t many clues. Feyland was surprisingly scarce with the information given out to players. He supposed it was part of the immersive appeal, but most games provided at least a sense of the basics, if not full-on tutorials. This kind of confusing approach wasn’t going to fly with a lot of casual gamers. What had VirtuMax been thinking?

The goblin tapped his ugly fingers, but gave no sign that he was planning to get violent.

“Hello,” Aran said at last, bracing himself.

“Ah! It speaks.” The goblin sneered at him. “What do you seek, Eron the Adventurer?”

A chill gripped the back of Aran’s neck. “What did you call me?”

That was freaky. Sure, maybe he’d misspelled his usual avatar name, keying in Eron instead of Ebon. It still sounded uncomfortably close to his real name. Was Spark playing a practical joke on him?

“You seek to explore beyond the framework of Feyland,” the goblin said, ignoring his question. “We can aid you.”