Eventually our lips separate. She looks like she’s dizzy, and I’m sure I probably look the same.
“Wow,” I say.
“Yeah. Wow.” Her eyes are wide. She looks at me and blinks slowly.
Then she punches me on the arm. “Nice job, Trew! You are a
great
kisser! I hope that’s not because you’ve been kissing hundreds of girls back home?”
“Um, no…” I stammer.
“Right answer!” she laughs and gives me a hug. “I’ve never felt anything like that before. Don’t tell me if you have. Let me pretend we have something special in that kiss.”
Quickly I answer her, “I’ve never felt anything like that either. Wow.”
“Yeah, I agree,” she says and grabs my hand again as she starts walking. “So yeah, the Earth is round. I see what you’re getting at.”
My lips are still tingling. Danielle is amazing! I play it cool and try to focus on the conversation. “I guess we just have to keep talking with each other and do what we can to be ready when the time comes to show the world what we know is true.”
“The Internet!” Dani says.
“What about it?”
“We can make a website, or join discussions on groups, and no one will know we’re kids. Let’s get better at finding others like us. There must be some out there.” Danni says.
“That’s a great idea. But let’s not mention our talent. I don’t want the government learning about what we can do and coming to grab us in the middle of the night or something crazy like they show in the movies.”
“I agree.” Danni nods her head. “No need to bring that up. People know about it. They call it Intention, and the Secret, and stuff like that, but most don’t really believe in it. There are lots of other things to discuss.”
“Okay. So we do that, and there’s one more thing I’m going to start learning,” I say.
“What’s that?” Danni asks.
“I’m going to learn how to be a leader.”
Danni laughs at me. “You already are, Trew!”
“Well, I’m going to get really good at it. I see myself on a big stage someday, with thousands of people cheering.”
I expect her to laugh or make fun of me, but Danni looks at me seriously, taps her heart, and says, “Yes. That feels right to me.”
Chapter 30
Brandon was sitting on the balcony of his penthouse suite, enjoying some much needed private time. Private time while Zack was in the Game seemed to last no longer than five minutes, but Brandon was glad to get even that to just sip a drink and look at the magnificent view from the top of the world. Unfortunately, he couldn’t relax, Brandon took this time to quickly recap events unfolding in the Game and prioritize what needed the most attention.
First there was Trew. He was developing well, although ahead of schedule in almost all aspects, thanks to the involvement of Danielle. Trew’s team had everything nicely in hand, though, and the play was precisely on a track they could work with to get him to number one by the end of his play. That could all change by the time Brandon finished his drink, but after thirty years of the Game, that would be no surprise to Brandon.
Secondly, Danielle. She was a wild card in the Game like Brandon had never seen. She played with passion and purpose at everything she chose to do. Trew had spent a lot of credits to achieve the results Danielle was getting with seeming ease. Who would have thought just playing as if life was a game could make one so successful? The floating standings had her in the top 10,000 gamers at the moment; she would come out of the Game very rich if she continued on at this pace. More important to Brandon, she wouldn’t finish in Zack’s number one spot.
Third were the Eternals. They were extremely active since the anniversary events started. Most of them didn’t concern Brandon, but the Eternals floating into the lives of his players certainly did. The biggest concern was Carl, but he seemed intent on another game at the moment. Michelle had reported earlier today that Carl had started his killing spree. He was targeting the old, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, making the deaths look like peaceful passings. No one in the Game was aware of what was happening; the only reports coming in on the news feeds were the increase in mortality from natural causes. It was easy enough to view the truth with Brandon’s resources, but Carl had left Trew’s city, and from the looks of it he would be very busy for some time. Viewers were all buzzing with talk of Eternals, Brandon wondered if that would be the big reveal to celebrate the 30th anniversary…would the existence of Eternals finally be revealed to Tygon?
Fourth was Mainframe. Sylvia was playing some game; either she was moving avatars towards a goal, or just making Brandon believe that she was. She had done this before — pretended to play a game which turned out to be nothing. Still, he had to treat it as serious until it proved to be otherwise.
Fifth, and most important of all, there was —
Brandon’s phone rang. He answered it, and heard the telltale signs of a high tech scrambling system being employed.
Great. Just great.
“Hello, son. I trust things are going well for you on all fronts?”
Brandon gulped back the rest of his 30-year-old Scotch before answering. “Hello, Father. Yes, everything is right on track. Please don’t tell me you’re about to change all of that.”
Brandon’s father chuckled on the other end of the line. “No, I’m not going to change all of it, just one part. I’m afraid it won’t be a little change though. You’re not going to like it, but I’ve been telling you it’s coming for quite a while now.”
Brandon stood up and walked to the edge of his balcony. The wind rippled slightly in his face, but it didn’t help cool him from the sudden sweat that had broken out over his entire body. He could plead, try to bargain. But he knew his father well enough to know that wouldn’t work. Instead he composed himself and spoke clearly and without waver in his voice. “All right, what is it?”
“The girl.” His father said. “You want to spend more time keeping her in the Game. For as long as you can, son.”
“The girl? I don’t understand,” Brandon said.
“Neither do I, Brandon. But she’s the one.”
Brandon covered the phone and swore violently. He put the earpiece back to his head and his father was chuckling.
“Look, son, it doesn’t matter how she finishes in the standings, just that she stays alive in the Game.”
“But she’s reckless!” Brandon protested. “She believes she is actually
in
a game and if she dies in there she just comes back to her real body!”
“Well, she believes correctly,” Brandon’s father said.
“Yes, yes, I know! What I’m saying is she will be difficult to keep alive with that attitude. And there are so many other factors.”
“Sounds challenging, but at least you know. The end is near. Do your best. Time’s running out, boy. When she exits the Game…”
Brandon closed his eyes. “Then Mainframe shuts it all down and the Game ends. Forever.”
Chapter 31
“What would Tygon be like without the Game? Twenty years ago the answer would have been, ‘Tygon will be just fine, thank you.’ Today the answer isn’t something most of us want to seriously consider. Every industry relies on the Game for the majority of its business and prosperity. Does your neighbour rely on the Game for their income? Most would say yes, directly. For those that say no, think about one or two levels removed from your income. Look there and you will find reliance on the Game for financial support. Without the Game, we would soon be in economic ruin. That would lead to a complete collapse of every other industry we rely on. How did this happen? Slowly and comfortably. Governments and individuals,
all
of us happily gave control to Brandon Strayne. If we woke up tomorrow and the Game was no longer online, Tygon would be in chaos.”
Excerpt from “Society Doesn’t Just Want The Game, We Need It.”
Danielle age 16
“How come we don’t live longer?” I look at my computer monitor and ask Trew.
He looks up from his biology book. We’re studying online together, I have a big test tomorrow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, our cells can live a long time. I read about an experiment where they kept chicken heart cells alive for 34 years. They could have kept them living longer, but they stopped the experiment. That’s a long time for a cell to survive — they usually only live a few months before they’re replaced and die, right?”
Trew starts to type on his keyboard. I know he’s doing an Internet search to see if I’m right. “Yeah, I think so.” He says. “Chickens only live, like, three to six years, so that’s pretty incredible.” He stops talking. Yeah, he’s reading something on his screen.
I wait for him to look up. “Why do you do that?” I ask him.
“Do what?” he asks.
“You were just reading about the chicken heart living for 34 years, right?”
He smiles. “Why would you think that?”
I blow the front of my hair upwards from the side of my mouth. “Just tell me if you were or not, Trew.”
He laughs, “Yes, that’s what I was doing. Does that bother you?”
“It bothers me if you do it because you think I’m stupid and want to prove me wrong,” I say.
His smile disappears. “No, Danni, that’s not it at all. I do it because when I hear about something I don’t know about, and it interests me, I ask about thirty questions and want to know all about it.”
I nod. “Yes, that’s certainly true…”
“Well, sometimes I know that’s annoying. So rather than bug you with a bunch of questions while I'm sitting at the computer, I just went to do a quick read on it. I didn’t doubt you. It sounded amazing and I figure the universe wanted me to hear about it, so I go do a quick search and bookmark it to read about later.”
“Okay,” I say. He seems sincere about what he’s saying.
“I’m sorry if it bugs you. I’ll try to stop doing it, okay?” he says.
“No, no. If that’s why you do it, then keep with it. I don’t want us to miss out on some good information because you’re afraid of hurting my feelings. If that’s what you think the universe is doing, then keep with it.”
The universe. That’s how we refer to the big supercomputer running this game we think we’re in. Some people hear us say God, or the Supercomputer, and get freaked out, so we decided to call it ‘the universe.’ It doesn’t really matter what we call it, — we could call it ‘Sylvia’ for all that it really matters — but calling it ‘the universe’ just
feels
right.
Both of us are convinced that the universe is trying to communicate with us. Not a booming voice coming from the sky or anything like that; it seems to be more intuitive and subtle. If you drive down the road looking for green sports cars, you’ll tend to see more green sports cars. You’ll see less of the red or yellow ones, even though they’re still there, because your focus isn’t on them. That’s what we think about messages from the universe. The more we look for them, the more we see.
“Okay, good stuff,” Trew says. “I’m sorry I interrupted your thought. What were you going to say about living longer?”
“Right,” I say. “Well, if a chicken cell can live for that much longer, how come humans die at around 70 to 100 years old? Some experts say if we treated our bodies correctly, it would be possible to easily live twice as long as that, and live those years healthy and fit, not like we do now. People in their 80’s or 90’s aren’t very fit or spry. Most of them aren’t really living a great life at those ages; they’re just alive because medicine can keep their weak old failing bodies going.”
“I think we just treat our bodies too poorly,” Trew says. “We eat, sleep, and drink wrong. We don’t exercise enough. We stress ourselves out with all sorts of mental things. Face it, humans are just a mess. Like George says in his book, if we treated our cars as poorly as we treat our bodies, the car would break down very quickly.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I say. “These bodies are just machines. We should treat them better if we expect them to last longer.”
“Definitely,” Trew nods. “But the bad stuff tastes
sooo
good. It’s so easy to treat our bodies poorly, and we don’t really worry about tomorrow. By the time we do, it’s too late to fix things.”
I look over at the empty pizza box by my computer. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Well, you know what we should do?”
“What?” Trew asks.
“We should really get interested in this biology subject, and also start to learn how the mind works as well. The subconscious is apparently something powerful too.”
“Okay,” Trew agrees. “It will likely help me with my leadership goals anyway.”
“All right, then. Yoga, Eastern medicine and Spirituality, Western medicine and Biology. Exercise and sports of all kinds.”
“And Psychology. Both Western and Eastern. And energy, karma, chakras, that kind of thing?” Trew asks.
“Yes, that sounds good too,” I say. “Let’s do our best to figure out how these machines we’re in work. Tune them up to get the most out of them.”
“Sounds like a lifelong study,” Trew says.
“Yeah, likely,” I say. “But it will help us out, so it’s worth it, right?”
“Absolutely,” Trew says. “When I’m 80 and can still walk around and remember my name and maybe even jog around the block, it’ll have been time well spent all these years learning about the human body.”
“I agree,” I say. “Plus it will be easier on me having you be able to walk instead of having to push your sorry old arse around in a wheelchair.”
We both laugh.
Chapter 32
They are given the name ‘Eternals’ because it’s believed they have been eternally inside the Game, since the beginning. Of course, Game creators and experts deny this. They say it’s impossible for players to be inside the Game that long; players can only be kept in stasis for seven to ten weeks at the maximum before their bodies can no longer handle the forced coma and lack of nutrition. For a player to be an Eternal, they would have to have been in stasis for
—
well, for 30 years! Most agree this is impossible, but I think that it is possible. I agree that children can only survive a coma for that a few weeks, especially when they are doing it many, many times over the course of their playing careers. But I think a full grown adult, who is going in only once or twice, extremely healthy at the start of their Game entry… I think they could survive the Game coma for much, much longer. Here’s another theory: what if someone is in the Game, and their real body dies? Is it possible that their consciousness can stay ‘alive’ inside the Game? Or maybe they are just special Placeholders. There are millions of Placeholders inside the Game. They look and act like most humans, except they aren’t avatars being controlled by players. They are programs
—
millions of computer controlled automatons, doing a pre-programmed task. Placeholders can be schoolteachers, store clerks, manual labourers… they can be
anything
, really. The only way to spot a Placeholder is by viewing it. Many people have laughed when they chose to follow a new player and discovered it was just a Placeholder. What if the Eternals are just elaborate Placeholder programs, designed to perform specific jobs, while staying hidden from viewers like us? I think Eternals exist, and I’m not the only one. I demand to know who they are and what they are up to!