Alex and Zack spent weeks coming up with their strategy. What credits to spend on which aspects of their next Game lives to try and ensure they would end up together?
Zack had no trouble spending credits, as a top player his supply seemed endless, but Alex soon found that the Game demanded a lot of precious credits for such an aggressive plan. By the time everything was in place, she had spent everything she had on this adventure. She was nervous about it, but her patron and Zack’s assured her that the rewards were worth the risk.
The young couple bought the best help and direction that money could provide to help them outline their next ‘lives’ properly. The strategy was for them to be born and grow up in the same town together. In their early twenties, they would fall in love and have an incredible life together. Living a life in the Game with Zack would guarantee large profits for her in Game credits. It would be an exciting adventure with only a slim chance of failure. Everyone agreed, Alex was wise to spend all her points for this opportunity. The statistical odds of only a .02% chance for complete failure virtually guaranteed that even if lots of things went off track during her play, she would still earn a fortune in credits. Her hope was that by the end of this play she would either become a top 100 ranked player or, at the very least, do well and still gain a wealth of Game credits to keep her going.
With much excitement and fanfare, Alex and Zack entered the Game. The whole world was watching, planning for a great show, but immediately the worst happened, and what had seemed like the best career move quickly turned into a devastating mistake.
Alexandra’s entire career as a Gamer came crashing to an end when, ten minutes after entering the game, she opened her eyes, not in the Game, but in the white room. The extremely slight .02% chance of failure had occurred, and the virtual life that she had spent everything on to experience ended prematurely as her avatar died during childbirth.
A very low ranked player had spent all of his credits to become a doctor and positioned himself to deliver Alex’s avatar in the Game. Just delivering a top ranked player like this would seriously raise his overall ranking. The player should never have been a doctor, and lack of Game experience combined with not spending nearly enough credits on luck — something every experienced player knew was necessary when playing a doctor in the Game — resulted in labour complications and the baby — Alex — had died.
In the blink of an eye, faster than you can snap your fingers, Alex was ruined. Suddenly she found herself in the worst position a Gamer can imagine — not having enough credits to buy admission back into the Game. She’d spent everything she had; even re-entering the Game as an insect or a small plant was too expensive for her. She was now an ex-player without enough credits to even buy herself admission into a public school. She had become one of the poor.
Alex had only considered life without the Game once, years ago when she’d spent all her points to gamble for a better play. The Game had helped her then, and life had become a dream. Now the Game appeared to have turned its back on her. It was Game Over.
Immediately after leaving the white building, a messenger had greeted her to deliver her first blow — a message from her Patron announcing that she was exercising her escape clause in their agreement. This meant Alex didn’t have a place to live or food to eat. Now, like all non-Gaming children over the age of 14 who possessed no credits, she was a ward of the State. This meant she would be required to live in a compound where she would be fed and clothed, trained to be a labourer and then discharged at age 18 to live out her life as the lowest and poorest of society.
By the time Zack finished his Game, weeks had passed and Alex was gone, invisible to the world and the wealthy. He never found her; Alex was certain he hadn’t even bothered to look. Everyone knew what happened when a kid could no longer buy their way into the Game; any chance for a good life was over. This was a society that valued the winners — losers were quickly forgotten. It was best for everyone to accept the reality and move on with their lives.
That had been almost a year ago; a miserable year for Alex, full of pain, heartache and sorrow.
Public school turned out to be slavery. Alex was quickly transported to a dirty, smelly building and handed filthy, grubby clothes. Orientation for new students revealed that ‘school’ was actually a life spent from sun up to sundown doing the dirtiest work society had to offer — taking away garbage, cleaning the sewer systems, sweeping away the incredible amounts of refuse created by the wealthy.
The jobs that didn’t involve filth and stench were even worse; moving and lifting heavy refuse, learning how to fix the broken and thrown away machinery from the wealthy regions. All the junk had to go somewhere, and the school where Alex was sent to took care of most of it. Large, hot factories that melted down old steel and plastic to be sent back to other schools as raw material for constructing new toys for the rich is where many students found themselves. Each day was spent lifting heavy objects, doing backbreaking work, and toiling in filthy conditions to keep the city functioning for the wealthy. Her other concerns consisted of scrambling for enough food to keep her strength and avoiding the gangs of violent workers that would band together to bully the weaker individuals into doing the worst of the work while they kept the best food for themselves and worked very little.
At first Alex had wanted to die, but she quickly learned that no one would let her. She was still a celebrity, but now her fans were the poor. Poor fans didn’t look up to their celebrities, they mocked and hurt them. Most of the workers, the Caste, as they were called, had failed out of the Game. The one thing that seemed to help them forget their own loss and misery was revelling in the loss and misery of others. The higher one rose in the Game, the happier the Caste were when they fell, and the more miserably they treated the fallen one.
The area that Alex was transferred to contained many fallen, but none who had fallen so far as her. She was instantly the lowest of the low. Not just
a
fallen, it became her title: “Fallen.”
This meant Alex was the most hated person in her school.
“Move over, Fallen. Real workers coming through. You had enough food before you got here, Fallen, we’ll just take your dinner tonight. Sleep in another corner, Fallen. My luck’s already bad enough. People close to you get beaten. Fallen can do that job, the worst work for the worst luck.” This was how the others tormented her. The kind ones just taunted her, others hunted her down and beat her, took her food, and did whatever they could think of to hurt her if they caught her off guard.
Late at night, with rats for company, she would drop to the ground whereever she could find an out of the way spot and try to sleep. Her body would be exhausted enough most nights, but sleep, when it would come, never lasted long enough to allow her to rest. Thought was the enemy if you were Caste, although most of them seemed to think very little.
Alex — “Fallen” — thought
way
too much. Most of the time her thoughts were occupied by The Game and the lie that it was; a lie that everyone had bought into. Working in the sewers and bowels of the city, it was plain to see that the Game hadn’t improved peoples’ lives as promised. The rich were still rich, the poor were still poor.
Nothing could change that
, she thought to herself miserably.
Chapter 8
Two days after the announcement, Alex reported in to the school base. Days would go by between checking in; they didn’t care where you were, as long as the work they assigned got done. Alex spent as little time as she could in the school. It was the most dangerous place for her to be since the gangs hung around there and got you coming out. She learned this the hard way, when early on she’d been beaten badly and hospitalized. After that, she kept visits to a minimum and tried to get in and out quickly.
Alex shuffled through the front entrance, her eyes on the floor with her focus centred on getting into her class to collect her new job order and then getting out before anyone could cause her harm. She hadn’t gone more than ten feet when Principal Williams, a short, greasy haired, angry looking man in a dirty mismatched suit called to her in his strained nasal voice.
“Alexandra Montoyas! Get into my office
now
!”
Alex froze, then quickly turned and walked towards the principal’s office. The Toad, as he was disdainfully called by the students and teachers alike, didn’t like to be kept waiting. Alex knew he was silently counting as she approached, and would deliver at least one blow to the back of a student’s head if they weren’t running to get into his office. She was counting too, and she knew she would get at least two swats, but she couldn’t bring herself to run. This little freak wasn’t going to scare her.
Alex walked past the Toad, bracing for the hits to the back of her head as she did so, but when they didn’t come, she looked up with concern. The only thing worse than getting hit by the Toad was
not
getting hit by the Toad. That meant she was walking into a room with important people already present. Alex quickly noticed three individuals inside the Toad’s office. Two of them were elite security officers, the large, muscular dark suited men who provided security to the wealthy. Bodies standing still and erect like stone statues, their eyes lazily swept over Alex, quickly dismissed her as a non-threat, and continued to scan their surroundings, ever vigilant for an opportunity to spring into action. Alex dismissed them as quickly as they did her, and her lips pressed into a thin line of disgust as she noticed the third person sitting behind the principal’s desk.
A beautiful woman sat smiling confidently from the Toad’s desk, everything about her exuding confidence, power, and beauty. It was clear from the energy in the room that this woman was in charge, and very comfortable to have it that way. Dark green eyes beamed above a perfect white smile. She stood with arms outstretched and walked around the desk to envelop Alex into a fierce, warm embrace. Alex’s arms remained stiffly at her sides as she endured the hug. Her eyes were full of hatred and her teeth were clenched as she bore the woman’s apparent affection. The woman was oblivious to Alex’s lack of response, or more likely she simply didn’t care. After she had hugged Alex close for a few seconds, she affectionately broke away to gently hold Alex at arms’ length by her shoulders, inspecting her from head to toe critically.
“Alex, my dear, it’s so good to see you again,” the woman said happily. “I must say that all things considered, you are in great shape.”
Alex felt her face flush in rage. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the statement. She decided to squeeze back the tears and laugh. “You can’t be serious, Lilith. I look like garbage! I smell
worse
than garbage. I haven’t eaten properly for months, and I’ll likely be dead soon. This is a
horrible
existence, and any gratitude I had for you as a Patron before is quickly fading away. Have you come here to gloat, or just bask in my pain and suffering? I thought we had more than just a business arrangement, Lilith. I thought we were
friends
.”
Lilith’s face went from joy to hurt instantly. She removed her hands from Alex’s shoulders, slowly ran her hands down her blouse to straighten it, then calmly walked back around to the Toad’s chair and sat down. When she looked at Alex, her eyes were calm and professional, but the hurt was still present. Alex remained standing until Lilith waved for her to take a seat.
Minutes passed in silence and Alex slowly calmed herself. There was air conditioning in here, she thought. At least she could sit and enjoy a break from the sweltering heat and backbreaking work that her life had become. Lilith couldn’t hurt her anymore. Or could she?
Her eyes must have betrayed her thinking. “Relax, Alex.” She said. “I’m not here to hurt you, or to take pleasure from your misery.” Lilith sighed and leaned backwards in her chair. “Listen, kiddo, I know it sucks to be here. Honestly I do. But before I tell you why I'm here, I want to set the record straight on a couple of things, if you’ll hear me out?”
Alex was angry. This woman had helped her so much, treated her lovingly while she was a high ranked player. Then, once she was no longer on top, Lilith had simply abandoned her. But Alex controlled her emotions, pressed her lips together tightly, and with hot tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, she nodded sharply for Lilith to continue talking.
“I’ve been a Game patron for over 12 years. I’ve sponsored over a hundred players, and most of them have gone on to make both me and themselves a good amount of money when they turned 18. I’ve also lost some, like I lost you, and it always breaks my heart when it happens.”
Alex said nothing.
“You know the rules are clear, Alex, even outside of the Game. When a student can no longer afford to enter the game, and they possess less than a certain amount of credits, they must immediately report to a government run public school where they are to remain until they are 18 and graduate.”
“Government run public school.” Alex spit the words out with a bitter laugh.
“I know,” Lilith smiled wryly. “It’s a joke. Slave pens is more accurate, and let me tell you, when I found out about the way the government schools are now being run I did the best I could to change it. You’re a little young to remember, but I tried to run for government office and my entire platform was to change the government-run schools. Thankfully, before I could ruin my life, and most likely lose it, a very powerful friend caught wind of my intentions and talked me out of what I was planning. If I had tried to change this system I know they would have killed me.”
Alex looked up, searching Lilith’s eyes to see if she was lying. She saw only the truth, and sadness in Lilith’s face.
“So I fought the only way I knew how. I began to sponsor Gamers, to try and help as many as I could to keep them out of here.”