Lyra’s ferret-styled familiar, PeePee (the initials for Pretty Princess), stood beside her mistress, grokking everyone in sight. Who knows, maybe we’ll get spectacularly lucky? Maybe the demon is strolling by right now, Lyra thought. Lyra frowned down at the ferret. She was not at all fond of PeePee, but since MetaGame rules prohibited the use of high-powered familiars, she was forced to leave her much preferred lynx at home. Because the ferret was the House Tesla mascot, only this style of familiar was available for loan from their house. Normally, she would have spent the time and points to rent something more fashionable, but the MetaGame invitation had sprung up suddenly, and there had been far more important preperations to attend to. Having to rely on a more primitive familiar did, however, add to her sense of adventure and excitement.
This is going to be fun, she thought. The first quest of the game-to find a demon in a densely populated spanker ghetto-was interesting, challenging, and even held a hint of danger.
Djoser raised his eyebrows and cocked his head slightly while accessing his own house-loaned ferret. “There are four gates to Anywhere,” he announced.
“Where?” Lyra asked, irritation seeping into her voice.
Djoser chuckled. “ Anywhere is the name of this ghetto. Apparently, the plebs who named it thought they had a sense of humor.”
“They’d be wrong,” interjected Brian. As though realizing his mistake, the bodyguard turned away from the conversation and resumed standing at attention near Lyra like a watchdog waiting for an intruder.
Lyra licked her lips impatiently and then spoke quickly. “Okay, so there aren’t enough of us to cover all the gates and effectively search this ghetto, right?”
“Not by my reckoning,” Djoser answered. “I mean, look at this place!” Djoser waved his arm as though to encompass all the spankers, apartment mounds, trees, and flowers before him. “There are 2,834 citizens registered to this ghetto-2,834!” he exclaimed.
This is it, D_Light thought. This was his first challenge of the most important game he had yet played. He remembered Minister A_Dude’s words from the MetaGame blessing earlier that morning. The minister had taken each member of the team aside to impart a few words before they set off on their crusade. “Deeeelight,” he chuckled with his large, toothy grin. “You’ve been called! ” D_Light had flinched as the word boomed against the stone arches and walls of the cathedral. “This ain’t your usual grind, boy. This…this is a game close to the Heavenly Soul. No rules, understand? You gotta set that mind free and make your family proud.”
It puzzled D_Light that the game presumably knew the location of a demon, or at least the general area to look. After all, demons were wanted by the Divine Authority, and therefore it was a sin to know the whereabouts of one and not report it. But as the minister said, “No rules, understand?” Anything goes now, he reminded himself.
The two noble-borns stared blankly at one another for what seemed an eternity. Finally, Djoser took a deep breath and let out all the air with a big whooshing sound. “Standing here is wasting time and hemorrhaging points. We need a plan, and it better not suck!”
CHAPTER 8
It is wrongheaded to think of medicine in terms of “fixing” or “repair.” Treating our bodies like old-time automobiles whose parts wear out is a primitive paradigm. Cloning organs as though they were spare parts or injecting nanobots to fix tissue were stopgap measures for previous generations, but in the long run, that’s an uphill battle. Rather than growing old and trying to piece us back together as we fall apart, is it not more desirable to simply remain young? Using the divine wisdom of the OverSoul to instill youth at the cellular level, we now “heal thyself.” Aging is a disease, no more, no less, and once you cure it, everything else falls in line.
“Well, there’s always the brute force method,” Djoser said with a certain resignation in his voice. “We split up, canvass the area, grok everyone in sight, and hope we get lucky.”
The team had wandered away from the gate of the spanker ghetto. They were debating how to find the demon-the quest objective-but had not yet settled on a plan. The air was beginning to cool as the blurry orange glow of the summer sun faded. Despite the coming of nightfall, the harvester insects did not slacken their humming activity; their bulbous bodies bobbed under their bloated masses, and the bee-derived products resembled small balls of yarn as they went about their business.
Lyra shook her head skeptically. “I don’t think there are enough of us to do it the brute force way, Djoser. According to the maps, it’s a good-sized area. Besides, it’s getting dark. Is it likely that the demon will just be roaming around? For what purpose?”
“Why do demons do anything?” asked Djoser with a shrug. “We don’t have any idea who or what we’re dealing with here, so I’d rather take a long shot than just stand around while our time bleeds out. Soul, if anyone’s got a better idea, let’s hear it.”
Djoser had given D_Light as much of an opener as he could hope for, so D_Light cleared his throat and swallowed hard in preparation to speak. Thanks to a cocktail of focusers and a mild sedative delivered with precision by Smorgeous, D_Light did not even feel the slightest twinge of nervousness when he finally spoke up. “If I may,” he interjected, “the two of you are nobility, so you may not know as much as I do about how we plebs live in these spanker zones.”
Djoser’s eyebrows lifted as he regarded D_Light with a slightly mocking expression. He gave Lyra a quick smirk and then returned his attention back to D_Light. “By all means, avatar artist,” he said. “Earn your keep as our advisor.”
D_Light gave a humble smile and nodded. “Spanker ghettos attract a specific type of person, and so we ought to be able to take advantage of that fact.”
D_Light paused for a moment. He had everyone’s attention, even Brian’s, who did not try to mask the look of contempt on his face. D_Light did his best to ignore the mixed reception. “Perhaps we can think in terms of process of elimination. Let me run it down for you. A ghetto like this is zoned for spankers and spanker games. That means that anyone living in this area is assumed to be hard-core-that is, into the most intense and addictive entertainment games out there.”
Lyra nodded affirmatively. “Indeed, and I think it’s safe to assume our little demon isn’t a spanker. I mean, how would he or she even get an account to jack in?”
D_Light became excited as he realized his idea might get traction. “Right! Spankers have their own culture. Soul, they even have their own way of speaking-and we can use that, starting with the word ‘him.’ I can tell you right off the bat that most spank games are aimed at men. We’re talking about violence and sex. All those guys you see around us swinging imaginary swords, cradling invisible guns, and dry humping the lawn-they’re playing those sorts of games.” In a grand gesture, D_Light swung his arms about, urging everyone to take a look around them in order to fortify his point.
Concerned that he may have offended the nobles with his coarse talk and flamboyant body language, D_Light looked at his present company for signs of disapproval. To his delight, there were none.
Lyra clapped her hands once and spoke with authority. “Okay, so for the kind of games played in this ghetto, any woman we see is worth taking a second look at.”
“Consider it done,” replied Djoser with an impish grin. He put his hand on Lyra’s shoulder in mock tenderness.