Nova handed her jacket to Burner, took a deep breath, and patted her T-shirt

  down. Slightly faded due to the countless times she’d worn it, the T-shirt displayed

  the slogan SOLOS FTW. The word ‘Solo’ had been appropriated by fanatical players

  of Solarversia to describe themselves. Similar to the word ‘solar’, it also played on

  The Game’s tagline, There Can Be Only One. The second word, ‘FTW’, was the old

  internet acronym ‘For the Win’. The phrase communicated the common belief that

  while it was theoretically possible for anyone to win, it would most likely be a Solo,

  someone dedicated to studying the Gameworld and all it entailed.

  The deluxe chairs were positioned on pneumatic arms capable of tilting thirty

  degrees in any direction. Joysticks were situated at the end of each armrest, and

  the footrest had pedals that made avatars run, jump, roll and drive. Nova climbed

  into the chair and flipped down the built-in headset, which had a technical spec

  that could induce drooling in the most hardened of gamers. In front of each chair

  was an industrial fan, which activated at pertinent moments.

  She entered Solarversia for the second time. The Corona Cube was unchanged,

  though the resolution of the headset, which was even better than her new Booners,

  made the plasma effect on the walls look more real, and more mesmerising. She

  had to make a conscious effort to turn her attention to the constellations on the

  ceiling. As her finger touched the last star, the plasma walls turned transparent to

  reveal the very spot on Alpha Island she had left the previous night.

  She exited the cube and checked the map. In order to properly explore the world,

  she’d need her vehicles, starting with Flynn. Cars were stored at the garage, on the

  other side of the Forest of Fun, just over a minute away at her current running

  speed of one percent. In other words, a snail’s pace. As soon as she completed

  some more quests her speed would shoot up. In the meantime she ambled toward

  the forest, her chair rocking in time as she moved. It sure beat sitting on the sofa

  at home.

  Around her thousands of avatars were headed in the same direction, running,

  shouting and jostling for position. Some of them, like her, were using their Normal

  Avatars, the ones created by scanning the real-world head and body of the player

  with a camera. Nova had updated hers several times since her final sleepover at

  Sushi’s, most recently in December, after a rigorous month-long exercise regime.

  The Normal Avatar transformed into the player’s Super Avatar as the year

  progressed. The player didn’t need to do anything to make the transformation

  happen — it occurred automatically, through a series of indistinguishable changes

  that were applied each day they were still in The Game.

  Nova hadn’t done anything too radical with her Super Avatar. She’d added a

  couple of inches to her height, toned up here and there, and performed a spot of

  minor plastic surgery on her avatar’s neck and nose, but it was nothing compared

  to the people who would transform into cats, dogs, and all manner of weird and

  wonderful beings if they lived long enough.

  Bobbing alongside the Normal Avatars were a smattering of Generic Avatars,

  ones players could switch on to hide their everyday appearance. These avatars,

  whose male and female versions had come to be known as ‘Marty’ and ‘Smarty’,

  looked like plastic Duplo figures, and were identical to one another.

  Players were constantly speculating as to which celebrities were masquerading

  as Marties and Smarties, although they were also used by people who didn’t want

  to have to confront the realities of their body in their moments of escape, and also

  by people who simply fancied being anonymous for a while.

  Nova pulled down the stats feed in her visor to check the latest figures. More

  than ten million people had now left Castalia and were somewhere within the

  confines of Solarversia. A guy from Chile appeared beside her as she ran and held

  out his hand for a high-five. “Hey, Nova, we’re both in ring 359.” Staring at his

  head for half a second caused his profile square to appear hovering above him, a

  feature that players could turn off and on at will. Scanning its contents, she saw

  that he was right: his grid shortcode was S359, meaning his square was located in

  the Spades quadrant in the top right of the Player’s Grid.

  The high-five unlocked one of the items on her March Bucket List, a feature

  created by Spiralwerks to help ensure that The Game was fair. Each month had

  an associated list of actions players needed to perform. A life was automatically

  lost if the list wasn’t completed by the end of the month. It deterred people from

  spending the whole year hiding out in their Corona Cube. Any Bucket items ticked

  off on the Leap Day automatically rolled into the March list.

  When she made it to the forest, her headset chimed again: another item ticked

  off the Bucket List. Despite the crowd of avatars, there was an eerie quiet in the

  woods, punctuated by the snapping of twigs, the rustling of trees in the wind, and

  the occasional sound of laughter. The leaves on the trees contained jokes that had

  been submitted by players.

  She looked skyward, held out her palm, and caught one as it floated toward the

  ground. “I organised a threesome last night. There were a couple of no-shows, but I

  still had fun.”The ‘ta dum tss’ sound of a rimshot went off as she read the last word.

  She shared the joke on her feed, resulting in another tick on the Bucket List, and

  four additional points on her speed. All too easy.

  She brushed past the last couple of ferns and found herself in a clearing. A

  large tyre, which bore the words ‘The Greasy Wrench’ around its circumference,

  was propped against three stacked cars. Behind it was a multistorey garage

  made of thousands of square bays, where cars were being jacked-up, spraypainted

  or waxed by a multitude of arkwinis. According to her datafeed, nearly

  sixteen thousand players were currently collecting their rides. That was a lot of

  grease.

  An arkwini in dirty overalls and a matching cap waddled up to her. Speaking

  in a high-pitched voice, he said, “Hello, Nova, you must be here to collect Flynn.

  Follow me, please.” He bowed, and then toddled off without waiting for a reply.

  She caught up with him and joined him in a battered metal cage attached to the

  side of the building.

  “Your player number, please,” he said, motioning toward a sturdy black box

  affixed to the front on the cage. As she went to punch in her digits, a disembodied

  voice chanted, “We really wanna see those fingers!”

  She had Catchphrases switched on, which meant that specific movements,

  actions and behaviours were greeted by recorded phrases that The Game’s

  algorithms deemed relevant. Players could provide feedback on catchphrases, add

  them to their favourites or select them to sound at given moments. In this way they

  acted like an in-Game user-generated commentary. She punched her digits in and

  the cage shuddered into motion, climbing the side of the building. She leaned over

  the side to look down on Alpha Island, shaped like a capital ‘A’.

  The track she’d raced in the Karting heats traced the shoreline. She could see

  the roundabout where she’d pulled off the Wall of Death stunt, the Fire Demon’s

  Obstacle Course, and the Forest of Fun. Above her, Castalia floated high in the

  sky. As far as her brain was concerned, she was here, in Solarversia, rather than a

  gaming cafe in the real world, a concept the VR geeks referred to as Presence, the

  illusion that a mediated experience was real. Whatever you called it, she was fully

  immersed and loving it.

  The cage slowed to a halt beside a bay that matched her player number. She

  smiled at the gleaming car within, one she’d spent many hours customising.

  Although she’d used him for the Karting heats before The Game had even begun,

  and raced in him regularly, it was still exciting to officially collect him like this.

  “Good to see you, Flynn, old buddy, this time for real. Kind of real, anyway.”

  She held out a hand and stroked his bonnet. Flynn was a dune buggy. A bare

  chassis exposed his motor, lots of wiring and some fat suspension. The flaming

  artwork that adorned each side proclaimed Doors Are for Bores. Holding onto the

  chassis, she swung herself into the driving seat and gripped the steering wheel

  tight, impatient to get going already. The arkwini toddled up to her, clipboard in

  hand.

  “A few things before you get on your way. Speed. Although you only start

  with one point, for every ten miles you drive without incident, you’ll gain a point.

  Navigation. Once on the road it’s impossible to get lost, just consult your Route

  Planner. The exit. You’ve been credited with a Turbo Boost. Use it.” He kicked the

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  front tyre and inspected the chassis. “OK, you’re good to go.”

  As she grabbed the twin joysticks, a stereophonic collection of voices chanted,

  “Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!”

  Flynn growled into life. The wall in front of her swung down to create a ramp

  and the turbo boost icon started flashing. Accelerating from nought to sixty in half

  a second, she hit the ramp at speed, cruised through the air and landed on the open

  road of Alpha Island, calling “Yeeee-ha!” In Fragging Hell, the fan blasted her with

  air.

  Within a few seconds the Route Planner menu appeared in her headset,

  exactly like the arkwini had said it would. She could input how much time she had

  available, and which Bucket List items she wanted to tick off. It would combine

  that information with her current speed score, and the items she owned, to suggest

  some optimal routes. She chose a route through Lotus Bay, the town that ran along

  the eastern edge of the island.

  The seafront was lined with hundreds of exhibitions and mini-quests, enough

  entertainment for the entire year. The first exhibit on the route, Conga World, was

  dedicated to creating the world’s longest virtual conga line. It was a hectic flurry of

  confusing movement as members swerved one way, then the other, kicking their

  legs out to their sides as they congaed along the coast, their hovering profile squares

  jigging along in time. The exhibition’s datafeed was being constantly updated itself

  as new players joined the end, and others, somewhere in the middle, dropped out.

  As she viewed Conga World’s billboard, the exhibition’s starting point and

  virtual homepage, it updated to display information relevant to her. It told her that

  GoodGert from Namibia — player 23,154,832, who held the record for longest time

  at the front of the line — was only seventeen squares from her on the Player’s Grid.

  The Russian guy who had just this second joined the back of the line? Only ten

  squares from Burner. It was a small world, the Solarverse; a frothing sea of happy

  coincidences and shared relationships.

  Nova joined the line and tried to look as cool as possible while doing such an

  inherently stupid dance. When she left the line she was rewarded with topped-up

  speed and her first teleport token. Hearing the dinging sounds that accompanied

  these updates reminded her of the joy she used to feel as a young child, dropping

  coins into her piggy bank. Further progress. Sweet.

  Instead of rushing to do something else straight away, she took a moment to

  take everything in. There was activity anywhere she cared to look, a sea of pulsing,

  throbbing motion so intense it felt quite dizzying. Even the ground she stood on

  — an object so dull and lifeless in the real world — was animated in a way that

  made it look like it possessed consciousness. The tessellated hexagons changed

  colour as she trod on them, and, as her datafeed now informed her, had also been

  programmed to react to certain commands.

  She dragged her foot along like she was collecting autumn leaves and watched

  a wave of colour fan out from under her until it met hues flowing in the opposite

  direction, kicked, scuffed or punted by another player. The colours collided,

  rebounding and fracturing into a dozen new streams, giving rise to a chorus of

  chimes and jingles.

  As she stared at the ground in awe, wishing pavements were like it for real, the

  datafeed informed her about several dozen variations of hopscotch that could be

  played, as well as a rumour — which had gone viral two hours ago — that certain

  combinations unlocked prizes. She found a list of patterns that were affiliated with

  charities and picked one.

  Tapping out the sequence unlocked a red cross and sounded a jingle — the

  company sponsoring the pattern had just donated ten pence to the British Red

  Cross. There were thousands of partnerships like it across the Gameworld, and

  exercises varied in complexity. Small tasks like that one were usually linked to

  minor monetary contributions, but she’d heard of other ventures that required a

  lot more commitment.

  A short way in front of her, a couple were gazing upwards, pointing and smiling.

  The sky was violet, rather than blue, and cast a surreal, diffuse glow over the land.

  Following their line of sight, she quickly spotted what they were looking at — giant

  puffs of white cloud, shaped like faces. Far beyond them, numerous aircraft —

  miniscule from her vantage point on the ground — performed aerobatics, looping,

  rolling and spinning.

  “Did you get your plane yet?” the guy called out to her.

  “I only got my car a short while ago,” she said with a proud nod in Flynn’s

  direction.

  “You’ll need to do fifty miles without crashing before you can collect your boat

  from Dockingtons. Once you have your boat, you’ll be able to cruise to Tristan da

  Cunha to collect your plane. If you can complete the flying sequences, you can

  make a cloud in the shape of your face. The one that drifts furthest wins a prize!”

  Nova smiled. She thought of herself as a Solarversia expert, yet the world was so

  large and complex that she learned something new about it all the time. She focused

  on the exhibitions around her again and plumped for one she’d heard lots about:

  the Tweel of Fate. As she crossed its boundary, the players around her disappeared.

  It was a phased zone; numerous people could inhabit it simultaneously, but it

  would appear to them that they were there alone.

  Like Corona Cubes and Teleport Machines, Tweels of Fate were everywhere.

  They were modelled on Banjax the Dodectopus, and looked like the kind of

  roundabout you might find in a children’s playground.

  Nova grabbed hold of the tentacle nearest to her — which, rather than tapering

  to a point, ended in a bulbous sphere — and gave it a big push.

  The Tweel spun round its axis for ten seconds or so, then came to a shuddering

  rest. The turquoise tentacle that landed closest to her began to squirm and writhe,

  like it been rudely awoken, and then looked up at her. Its spherical end, which had

  the face of a wizened old man, opened its puckered mouth and spoke.

  “Your fate for today is to receive three teleport tokens. Use them wisely.” The

  tokens registered immediately in her headset, while the tentacle lowered its face

  and solidified once more. It wasn’t a bad outcome for her very first twist of fate .

  Pleased with her progress, and keen not to use too much of her birthday credit

  in one go, she volleyed an eye back to Fragging Hell and glanced around until she

  spotted Burner back in the main room hunkering over a plate of a chips and a

  burger. Realising that she was pretty hungry too, she located the nearest Corona

  Cube, logged out, and sauntered over to join him.

  “I picked up Flynn, a handful of speed points and four teleport tokens. Pretty

  good, huh?”

  “Still miles behind me then. Not that a mere mortal like yourself should ever

  compare themselves to the Master of the Solarverse.”

  “Whatever; it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” she said, trying hard to feign

  nonchalance. “How’s your revision going, anyway?”

  “Maths and further maths should be alright. I could probably do computer

  studies with my hands tied behind my back. Electronics is awesome — did I tell

  you, Jono’s asked me to send him the aerial drone I built for my coursework,

  reckons his professor wants to take a look? Physics, on the other hand. Don’t talk

  to me about bloody physics. What about you?”

  “Let’s just say I’m doing enough to get a place at Hull. Nottingham’s looking

  unlikely. Sometimes I wish I was a total geek like you. Although revision’s a bit

  overrated, don’t you think?”

  A better poker player than Burner would have spotted her bluff a mile off — the

  brush of the hair behind her ears, the lack of eye contact, and the try-hard laugh.

  She hadn’t even opened her books.

  ****************************************************

  Full book available on Amazon here:

  I'm on Twitter here:

  https://twitter.com/tobydownton

  and Facebook here:

  https://www.facebook.com/solarversia

  Chapter 7 coming soon!