Андреа Хёст - The Starfighter Invitation

" So scuffed. "

"Am I crying? I keep crying. I’ve never been happier in my life."

" What’s this se, ze, te-hee-hee shit? Social justice warriors have already ruined this game and it hasn’t even officially launched. What a frickin' joke ."

"So, you going for DS Alliance or DS Horde? Though I guess it’s more Empire versus Rebels isn’t it? I’m definitely down for stealing a ship rather than working for these smug-git AIs."

" Talk about a field day for furries ."

" Dream Speed is a good name for it, because it reminds us we’re going to wake up. Nothing we have here is going to make real life any better."

"I don’t give a damn—this is everything I’ve ever wanted."

While I didn’t enjoy the idea of Chocobo trainers, I was still definitely in the glass half-full to overflowing camp. Space had always been an impossible dream for me, and DS was going to give me fantasy space—all the wonder without the astronaut nappies. DS had the potential to give players everything they could ever want—if not in the main game, then in the enormous array of Challenges. Every adventure anyone had ever wanted to live, from the lone wanderer to the rebel with a bow. Every place you’d ever wanted to visit. Every person you wanted to be. For the cost of a cowl, an internet connection, and a monthly fee.

"I’ve never liked stories where the protagonist wakes up and it’s all been a dream," a woman was saying on the large tier I was approaching. "But I embrace consensual dream adventures thoroughly and completely."

"No reservations about the potential for nightmares?" the man with her asked.

"Fewer than I had yesterday. You’ve read the city terms and conditions—I know that because you wouldn’t be allowed out otherwise. Ryzonart has put real thought into risk management. Not that the potential for it all to go horribly wrong isn’t there. We’ll see how good they are at following through."

This was my destination tier, and the voices ones I both recognised and found strange. That Argentinian drawl definitely belonged to Silent, but was it deeper? And I knew Amelia Beerheart’s faint Yorkshire accent well, but not attached to a voice so light and youthful. The speakers themselves could pass for Zorro and a wingless angel, in coveralls.

I didn’t like how my immediate instinct was to doubt and judge. Core Units represented self-image, and it was stupid and hypocritical of me with my longer legs to question whether, out in the world, Silent could be a well-travelled engineering consultant and also a lithe, bronzed young man with a curling, sardonic mouth, or note that Amelia could not be an ethereal teen since she and Tornin were Sprocket’s grandparents.

I’d hesitated on the edge of the tier long enough for them to notice me, and Amelia said: " Corpse Light get-together here! We only need a couple more to officially form the guild."

"They make us meet up in person for that?" I asked, startled.

"Five to start the guild," Amelia said. "And I know that voice. Kaz, isn’t it so? But Leveret now?"

"That’s right. I’ll save Kaz for one of my alts. Um, modals."

"I have yet to decide whether calling alts modals is sheer bad use, or brilliant," Silent said.

"It’s a real word?" I asked, trying to figure out how Amelia had known my Core Unit name.

"It’s used in logic constructions. A modal is a qualification—a possibility."

I found a [Summary] section under [Players] that allowed me to see player information. It didn’t work quite like I was used to in MMOs—instead of names floating above people’s heads, a tiny dot would appear near their shoulder, expanding out when I focused on it to show the same basic information I could see doing a player search.

"Not Silent Assassin?" I said.

"Already taken," Silent said. "Though perhaps I wouldn’t have used it anyway. Wrong fit for the context."

Game names. Some people kept the same one in every MMO, while others were constantly changing. My male characters were usually Kazerin Fel—except for a hobbit called Bumbleproot Cucumberpatch—but my occasional female characters were more variable. I’d not used Leveret before, and there might be another player out there right now cursing me for taking it.

An influx of new arrivals demonstrated that there was going to be a particularly long period of adjustment for this game. Corpse Light had fifty members, though for the past year only a core of twenty had been fully active players. DS had brought back guildies whose forum names I barely recognised, and the majority seemed to have picked a new name for their Core Units, so matching faces to half-recognised voices was a confusing whirl, until Amelia got around to forming the guild, and found a display where she could annotate everyone’s names with aliases.

TALiSON, Khajoura and Balaster had kept their usual names, but DieMortDie had become Vasharda, TazMazter was Malazan, and RemembertheFallen was now voidMaster. And there were even a couple of new recruits, Klinnia and Lady Sirah: real life friends of TALiSON, who I discovered to be a bombshell-curved white woman with rainbow-striped hair.

There were at least three times the number of people I’d been expecting for this guild meet-up, especially given the surprise unlocking of the game. Names quickly blended together, and I was glad to joined Silent and TALiSON for a trip into the interior of the island for some impromptu catering. I had two Consumables rewards to collect, and decided on strawberry smoothies and mixed nuts, while TALiSON picked hot chips, and Silent produced mounds of sweet Japanese dango sticks.

When we returned a new arrival, whose self-image was apparently Geralt of Rivia, suggested that the next person with a reward to collect should bring back beers. But he took a smoothie readily enough, then gave me the to-one-side glance that I’d already recognised as someone reading my virtual information panel.

"Whoa—you’re Kaz? You’re way more Asian than I expected for a Dutch bird."

The words really didn’t fit the baritone growl of the player’s voice, and I didn’t even bother to look at the [Summary] panel before saying: "You know what they say about assumptions, Sprocket."

"Hey, I’m Wraith this time around," he said. "Man, I’m so lucky I got in near the beginning of the rush, before it was taken."

He started to go on, but caught sight of a new arrival gliding onto the terrace in a wheelchair that had taken a detour through the Tron school of design. "Granddad? But—you mean the game couldn’t fix you?"

"If by fix you mean let me totter about on two legs, it does," the baby-faced newcomer said. "But it all involves a lot of concentration. I’ve never learned to walk, so it isn’t automatic for me. Besides, standing wrecks my synchronisation rating. Wheels are my wings, and necessary for my inner speed-demon."

He broke off in turn, catching sight of Amelia, and I moved away in mild embarrassment, because it felt like a movie moment where the music swells and everyone needs to dab their eyes. The people who were Tornin and Amelia had been married for over forty years.

The afternoon was shifting toward evening, and I headed to the nearest balcony to stare at Vessa Major all over again, with added sunset candy stripes. All around me, on the tiers above and below, and in the crowd behind me, I could hear other players pointing out the horizon, the rollercoaster, and the sheer enormous amount of people gathering at the island’s peak. Words, laughter, gasps, and occasional shouts merged into a muted roar that replaced the distant hush of the ocean.

Chest tight, I worked myself away from the balcony, and went sideways along the terrace to where it narrowed, and was more built up with trees and decoratively placed rocks. Climbing up on a large rock, I sat cross-legged and breathed.