Андреа Хёст - The Starfighter Invitation

[[You would need to have another Core Unit created. Those who have sufficient points to spend often keep a copy Core Unit in storage, either in their Snug or in a body bank. No particular modal is critical: the important factor is the smooth transfer of lan. Lan cannot persist for more than a few minutes outside a Bio environment, and while memories can be backed up, if the lan is lost the Bio’s spark is gone.]]

"So permadeath is possible, but only in certain circumstances?" I didn’t want to show that these explanations had left me only more confused, and so reverted to the list I’d been scrolling. "Do you have any preferences over which of these I do?"

[[The non-lan Challenges? None at all. From my point of view they’re just filler to keep you Bios occupied between lan training.]]

"So no-one takes suppression modal Challenges seriously in The Synergis?"

[[Oh, there are many of enormous prestige. Event Challenges requiring high reputation or considerable point expenditure to enter. And, of course, for those Bios who struggle to rise in lan rankings, they assume a greater importance. There are those of us who take an interest as well—particularly those who enjoy Challenge design—but we naturally choose to focus more excitement on lan Challenges, since that’s what we want you Bios to do.]]

"Keeping that blatant manipulation right out in the open, huh?"

[[Too much hiding of intentions, and Bios inevitably come up with far worse theories. Not that being open stops them. But, no, I’m obfuscating a little. I will be pleased if you do well in prestige Challenges. I will preen and parade you before my rivals. But for now, whatever. Enjoy yourself.]]

I rolled my eyes, glanced at the Challenge currently displayed, and figured it would do as well as any other.

[Request]

As before, an arrow appeared to guide my way, though this time it looked to be heading out of my Snug. When I reached the door, a detailed Code of Conduct popped up, and I had to read it before the door would open. Nothing particularly surprising: no grabbing or attacking outside Challenges, no exposure of genitals in public areas, no transmission of speech excessively pejorative, or intended to distress , which was nicely vague. Penalties starting with warnings and leading all the way up to account cancellation.

"Does suspension mean being kicked out of DS for a while?"

[[No, hung up in a cage in a public place,]] Dio said, drifting along behind me.

I really can’t tell when Dio is joking. "Hung up in a cage? Really?"

[[With your Link access cut off, since most Bios seem to find boredom worse than being pegged out on display. Length of punishment determined by the city’s administrator, but more to the point, you receive a red mark. The ranking trials and some of the more prestigious Challenges can’t be undertaken with active red marks.]]

"You can get them erased?"

[[Only converted to grey marks. Avoid gaining any. A Bio with a large accrual of grey marks is of diminished value.]]

An [Open] command popped up in my HUD. I activated it, and watched the door’s previously flat surface divide into petal-like segments, then smoothly retract. I hadn’t even been able to see the shape of them before they’d opened. Beyond was a small room and another hexagonal door.

"Airlock," I said, pleased with this reminder that this was a spaceship just waiting to happen.

Triggering the outer door, I stepped into a city that was arguably one massive corridor. The cavernous space outside my Snug was the inside of a giant tube. I stood on a curving white walkway looking over an indoor park—trees, grass, paving and a fountain—to a set of four walkways on the opposite side of the tube. Above arced what I almost took to be a ceiling aquarium, but the torpedo shapes that flashed beyond a semi-transparent blue screen were not very fish-like.

The view across to the topmost walkway opposite mine gave me an explanation, as one of the torpedo shapes dropped down from the ceiling and settled by a platform, then lifted away, leaving behind a person dressed exactly like me.

Everyone was dressed exactly like me: newbie gear taken to the extreme of sameness. The only variation was the occasional person who’d chosen the Magneto-Gwen look over the ear piece. They were, most of them, acting just like me, too: emerging from their Snug airlocks and gaping.

Beside them, all of them, were tiny balls of light.

To my left, a tall man spoke in Japanese, asking who took care of maintenance if no-one had to work. As I glanced at him, the man paused, then spoke again as he walked tentatively onto a hexagonal shape near the outer edge of the walkway. The hexagon stayed in place, but a blue shimmer rose up, taking the man with it, his arms shooting out for balance as he vanished toward the walkway above mine.

"Dio," I said. "When you talk to me, am I the only person who can hear you?"

[[Unless I choose otherwise.]]

"If I think at you, can you hear it?"

[[Thinking, no. Directed thought, yes. Your [Communications] menu has a number of options on how to handle conversation over the Link. Worried about sharing your opinions too freely?]]

" I suppose that would depend on how easy you are to offend ," I responded, trying out my [Directed Thought] option, which was basically just a private voice channel…except sparing me the necessity of actually speaking.

Which was no little thing.

Dio made clear my success by responding with [[Not at all,]] and my attention fell down a rabbit hole of functional telepathy, and sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, and where Dream Speed sat with Clarke’s Laws.

With my thoughts so distracted, it was fortunate I’d seen the function of the hexagon-lift before my guiding arrow led me to it. Staggering off the thing two levels up, I was wondering if the easy replacement of bodies had led to a lack of simple safety measures like hand railings when I nearly collided with someone.

"Sorry!" I said, and then almost stumbled a second time. That was a reaction to a face: high cheekbones, incredible brown eyes, precisely cut lips. Physical beauty on a scale I’d never before personally encountered.

He sidestepped and gave me an apologetic grimace before continuing on along the walkway. Even at an increasing distance he stood out spectacularly because, unlike every other person I’d seen so far, he wasn’t wearing a green-grey jumpsuit. Instead, the man was dressed in unrelieved white made doubly brilliant by the darkness of his skin. Two strips of cloth, about five inches in width and ending with triangular in-cuts, snapped back from his shoulders like horizontal pennants, and on his head he wore what I could best describe as a futuristic ceramic crown.

" NPC? " I thought to Dio.

[[Just so,]] Dio replied, bobbing lazily above my head.

He’d been so real! Which was a stupid thing to think in a virtual world. And, after all, I’d been having a conversation with, presumably, a non-player character ever since I’d logged in. The Cycogs would have to all be NPCs for there to be one for every player, and NPC’s usually had limited conversation. There was no way Ryzonart could have enough employees to handle so much clearly non-scripted chat, so it had to be the game itself I was talking to, capable of producing people indistinguishable from…people.

I took a breath, and shelved for the thousandth time the question of whether Dream Speed could really involve true AI. That meltdown could wait.

The hexagon-lift had taken me up above the ceiling of blue to a transport level, and I followed my arrow to a marked waiting area. Within a count of ten a white, pill-shaped object—rather like my Snug except only large enough to fit a handful of people—glided to a stop, an opening melting into existence along one side.