Lyra looked unconvinced. “Well, why don’t you enlighten us nOObs on how we are to ID the apartments that are off-limits. Do they have a sign on the door, or do we have to jack into a spank game or something?”
“Exactly!” D_Light said. “Yeah, when you’re in a spank game you don’t even see the private doors, but of course those outside the game can see them.” D_Light walked over to a nearby silver plexi apartment door. “So obviously this door exists, right? But let’s say this is the door to a private apartment and I’m jacked into a spank game.”
“You won’t see it. It’ll be skinned as like a wall or something,” Lyra said with a smile.
D_Light touched his finger to his nose to indicate “spot on.”
Master, that gesture is obsolete and 83.6 % likely to incite negative feedback from your peers. Would you like me to demonstrate a more fashionable-
Not now, Smorgeous.
“If you say so,” Djoser said skeptically. “So what? You have to be jacked in and jacked out at the same time to see the real door that doesn’t exist in make-believe?”
“Yes,” D_Light affirmed. “I’ll jack into a spank game, and Smorgeous, my familiar, will ping the locations of those doors that appear in the real world, but do not exist in the game. Those will be the private doors.”
Lyra nodded. “And that’s when I knock on the door and ask them if they’re interested in a once-in-a-lifetime offer for reducing their rent, and all they have to do is open their apartment up to the games.”
“You two are beautiful together,” Djoser said dryly.
D_Light laughed. “Nice. We then grok whoever is at the door.” D_Light took a moment to access Smorgeous and then said, “The family that manages this zone is called Gallant Guild. We’ll just say that we’re representatives of G amp;G.”
“You want me to do door-to-door sales?” Djoser clutched at his chest.
“I’m afraid I can’t do it because I’ll be jacked into the spank game,” D_Light replied apologetically. “It’ll be more efficient if I don’t have to jack in and out.”
Lyra frowned. “That sounds like fun, D, but Djoser and I are not exactly dressed as salespeople.”
D_Light took note that Lyra had just addressed him by his nickname. He liked that. “I’m not exactly sure how salespeople dress, but I think you should at least consider hiding your royal seals. And I recommend you do the talking, Lyra. Once they see you, they’ll believe anything you say. Remember, spankers are mostly men.” He gave Lyra a flirtatious wink.
“Well, well, look at you, D!” exclaimed Lyra, smiling wryly. “Feeling pretty comfortable now, I see.” D_Light smiled bashfully.
“And I will do what?” asked Djoser, who was clearly irritated by the back-and-forth banter between D_Light and Lyra. “Oh, I know, maybe I can do the sales pitch to the gay spankers,” Djoser said sarcastically.
Lyra smiled sweetly. “No, Djoser my dear, as much as I’d enjoy watching you work your charm with the gentlemen of this ghetto, we need you on security detail. Remember, it’s not the spankers we care about, it’s the demon, and if the demon thinks there’s something up, there might be trouble.” Lyra’s expression became serious. “You need to stay alert and keep your hand near your hilt.”
“True, and I’ll be jacked in, so I won’t accurately see what’s going on,” D_Light added.
Djoser glared at D_Light, a slow smile spreading across his face as though he was thinking, Like you would be of any use anyway. “Funny, I thought we brought bodyguards for that very purpose,” he said.
Lyra rolled her eyes. “Look, we’ve all lived under Rule Seven for decades, right? I would hope the three of us could handle one demon.”
D_Light thought about his throwing discs, Djoser’s short curved sword, and Lyra’s unmatched skill with open-hand martial arts fighting styles. Yes, his mother was correct that they had all become resourceful in combat in their own individual ways. From the day they joined House Tesla, this had been a priority.
Djoser looked skeptical. “Yeah, well, demons are not constrained by divine law, so we’re likely to be up against modern weapons. We’d better not get confrontational. Let’s just ID the bastard and call it in.”
CHAPTER 9
Dro-vine is the wood and steel of the present day. Why waste resources and labor to build a house when you can grow one from seed? If you want to get fancy about it, build some synthetic stairs and some basic skeletal framing. The dro-vine will happily grow over your scaffolding; however, don’t expect this plant to do exactly what you planned! Because of its variability, dro-vine is not for the control freak, but rather for those who want a cheap yet comfortable place to live. To grow a house, just find some land and plant one-that is, if this ubiquitous organism hasn’t already colonized the area on its own.
Thanks to hyper-photosynthesis during the growing season, dro-vine goes from seed to a small cocoon large enough to sleep in within two weeks. Within a month, you’ll have yourself a small home, complete with several chambers. What makes dro-vine brilliant is how it naturally forms cavities in itself, which tend to connect with one another.
To make a door from one cavity to another, you simply cut out a rectangular hole in the wall and place a hinged door in the opening. The dro-vine, in an attempt to fill the hole, will grow over the hinges, but it won’t grow over the door itself since such doors are coated with chemi suppression enzymes suspended in a tough polymer. However, if you really want to be lazy, don’t even bother with a door. Just cut an upside down “T” slit (like an old camping tent) and treat the edges of the wound with the suppression enzyme to keep the wound from healing.
Cutting windows is even easier than doors, but why bother? In our minds, SkinWare can adorn the chamber walls, ceiling, and floor with any vista we desire-from faraway canyons, to the ocean, to a rainforest, to the Martian landscape-all in real time (with a little over a three-minute delay in the case of the Mars scenery)…
In summary, I’m afraid that for those of us who enjoy the building games, we had better forget about the mass market and focus our play on the distinctive but often unpredictable tastes of the rich.
D_Light heard the familiar whistling noise as he jacked into NeverWorld. The hallway that connected the apartments of this floor was brightly lit in real life, with subdued shades of green and brown Van Gogh swirls for walls and a bright green mossy floor, but as his nervous system plunged into the game, the light dimmed and the hallway turned to rough-hewn stone. Torches spaced at regular intervals materialized to light the way. In the distance he heard someone screaming. A woman, he thought, being tortured. Or perhaps it was just a lure set by some clever fiend, patiently waiting for a hero to fall for the ruse.
There were the sounds of other creatures too-faint groaning, the occasional snarl, the familiar distant clang of metal against metal signaling combat underway. And there were more ordinary sounds, like the subtle cacophony of dripping water from a thousand sources. This labyrinth, its hallways and chambers filled to the brim with terrors and treasures, was leaky, dank, and in great need of repair.
The smell of rotting flesh-faint, but unpleasant just the same-permeated everything. Olfactory input in NeverWorld was not as sophisticated as auditory or visual, being less important for game play, but the game did have a few scents in its inventory. Unfortunately, most of them were foul. Rotting was particularly popular. The rotten stench of death left by carcasses in the battlefield, the pungent aroma of moldy food abandoned by the long since ambushed caravan, and the ogre’s breath (who lived on an assortment of Soul knew what).