Lily watched him as he spoke. Her face was rendered just like her real face. This was the default. She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. She grinned weakly and said, “I think you look better here.”
D_Light smiled back, relieved that she was now adjusting. “Yeah, people tend to. Okay, I’m going to have to cast some spells now. They’re not real, just part of the game. These will help protect us.”
“Protect us from what?” Lily peered back over her shoulder.
“Just from the stuff in the game. You know, monsters and such. They can’t hurt you in real life, but if you die in the game, you get kicked out for a while, and we don’t want that. We want to blend in, remember? And the best way to do that is to stay in the game.”
He wondered if, perhaps, he should have jacked her into a game with less violence and horror elements than NeverWorld. Maybe a social networking game like Grokstania would have been a better introduction to spanker games. In such a game they could walk around bowing, complimenting, flirting, or otherwise trying to make friends and influence people in a palace, garden, or some other visually rich and romantic setting. But D_Light was sure Grokstania was not popular in this spanker ghetto, and they needed to follow the crowd. Plus, in order to escape, he planned to do a lot of running. Grockstania was a game of subtlety and witty banter, not a game of hell-bent sprinting.
D_Light spent about a third of his manna on protection spells. He could have gone invisible like he had done earlier, but he decided against it. To blend in, they needed to appear to be like any other spanker, and most spankers fought monsters-they didn’t try to avoid them. You got more points and treasure that way. Besides, they couldn’t sneak around very well with this nOOb clanking about in that armor.
D_Light began making his incantations. Lily remained quiet as a mouse. He was grateful that the girl seemed to know when to shut up. She did, however, look at him oddly during his spell castings, but he could hardly blame her for that.
Done with his spells, D_Light turned to Lily to give instructions. “Okay, try to stay behind me as much as you can, but don’t run unless I run. Stay close. Oh, and if you have to, go ahead and swing that.” D_Light pointed at the long sword in the sheath hanging from her belt. Lily took the sword out and gave it a good swing.
D_Light flinched. “Uh, yeah, like that. But don’t swing so close to me, right?” Lily responded by turning her back to him and swinging some more.
“Um, sure, you can cover my back, okay?” D_Light was mildly surprised she took to the virtual sword so quickly since the touch sensory input for spank games was not very advanced. No doubt she could feel only the slightest weight and pressure on her hand as she gripped the weapon.
“You can practice as we go,” D_Light said. He then took a deep breath and trotted off down the dark, dank hallway.
CHAPTER 13
Jacob’s sensors picked up the unusual heat signature right before the BB gun exploded. This warning, despite being only a fraction of a second before the event, gave Jacob enough time to evade much of the blast. Nevertheless, he was engulfed in superheated flames and sprayed with a fine sheet of molten metal that fused into his nanofiber-constructed shell.
Many of his systems were knocked out. Of course, his most important ones were redundant, particularly his sensory and communication systems. Jacob reallocated his available power to his scanners to take a good “look” at the scene and, upon taking this final snapshot, uploaded the data to a secure location in the Cloud.
After completing these momentary tasks, he shut down. Somewhere hardwired on a chip at the center of his body, sheathed in layers of additional armor, was his most primitive programming. It was here that his emergency shutoff routine was housed. An angel that had withstood massive injury but was still operational was a potential liability, an unknown quantity. Such a complex machine was difficult enough to test when it was fully operational, much less when it was damaged. A compromised angel that incorrectly processed input could be a lethal instrument, and so its designers had enough foresight to give their creation less than a second of life, enough time to “phone home,” before it went to sleep.
Bitch, we would be so made, stompin’ into Rudy’s with matching Moon Booties™! Katria sent the blink with as much enthusiasm as she could summon.
I dunno, I think we might look like a couple of nOOblet showoffs. Example, I watched this archive of one fool wearing those booties that thought he was the meow, but ended up pinging his brother in the head as he jumped over ’im, OffDaLeash responded.
Katria did not bother to assimilate the archive. She was well aware of the dangers of using the gravity-defying boots. In her own experience of using them, she had sprained her ankle several times already and nearly brained herself when she nicked the ceiling in her apartment. All of that was beside the point. If she could convince OffDaLeash, her sister and longtime friend, to buy a pair, she would get herself a handsome shot of points from OwnYoAss™.
Katria decided to drop it. She knew OffDaLeash hated it when she tried to milk her. She was old-fashioned that way. Any scene player knew that a conversation could be more than just fun; it could be profitable. Yeah, I guess Moon Booties™ can freak some players, she replied. Next time you’re at my pad you can try ’em on though. Speaking of, it’s been a while since we hung. What are you playing tonight?
Oh, I have to patch up some hard feelings between a few locals, but then I was thinking of taking a real break, said OffDaLeash.
Who? asked Katria.
Who what?
Who all needs to kiss up? Anyone interesting? Katria asked.
You know I’m not at liberty to say. OffDaLeash’s thought signature was amused, but Katria knew her sister was not kidding.
OffDaLeash practically specialized in mediator games, which was a good choice in a family as competitive and yet interdependent as theirs. Pretty much any family, even the hippie ones, always generated a good supply of emotional flare-ups and long-held grudges.
Issues like that were often not handled well by computer agents; rather, they required a human touch. OffDaLeash had that down since she could be as practical and objective as AI, but she also brought the empathy and social graces needed for a good long-term outcome. And the points! When it came to rev time, her clients showered her with them. Even when they remained pissed off at each other, which was most of the time, they did not take it out on her.
As such, Katria did not blame her longtime friend for refusing to spill on her clients. After all, her reputation was part and parcel of her livelihood. Still, she was no fun when Katria was in the mood for some good smack talk.
You need to play something that we can at least gab about, Katria said, followed with a Whinicon™ featuring a bawling baby in an old-fashioned diaper.
You should talk, Sis! OffDaLeash flashed back. You with your high-security shenanigans. When’s the last time you talked about your grind?
True, Katria admitted. I guess neither of us is much in a conversation. Ya know, since we can’t talk about what we do, maybe we should just make stuff up.
Sure, why don’t you start by telling me if you and Jerkle are fast-tracking, or what? OffDaLeash sent this with a howling, humping puppy emoticon.
His name is Dirk! And as far as our intimacy status, I’ll say — Katria dropped the blink with her friend, midsentence. There was some serious shit going down in her game.