Ash takes my hand as we reach the soccer pitch next to the club, really just a scrap of dirt that the community housing committee cleared for development, so uneven that the ball catches on clods and goes wide or random. It’s good practice for the kids, Ash says; when they get to play on a real field, they’ll have the advantage. We’re trying to get it permanently instated, which requires more funding, more waiting, more neo-colonial cocks, no doubt.
He fiddles with the ring on my finger. ‘Do you really have to wear that?’
‘Don’t start with that now, please,’ I say.
‘But all the time?’
‘And what am I gonna do when Home Affairs comes knocking? And interrogates me on why I’m not wearing my wedding ring?’
Ash snorts. ‘In light of all the other transgressions? The heady whirlwind of the entire week-long romance before you got married? Or that she lives in a totally different part of the city? Or, you know, that minor detail about you not being female-inclined? I’m just saying.’
‘Then you don’t need to be uptight about it. Jesus, Ash. She’s a fucking refugee. Have some compassion.’
The club smells decidedly funky, like too many sweaty kids have simply dumped their gear post-game in a pile, which turns out to be exactly the case. Ash starts plucking up the shirts and pants to take to the laundry vat just down the way. The place is looking more rundown than usual, the Kaiser Chiefs poster curling at the edges from the damp seeping through from the DIY-rigged shower next door. It’s been like that for eight months already. We’ve applied for additional funding to get a real one, after the uniforms, after we get Streets Back back on schedule.
I go into our room to find Zuko playing video games on my machine, when he knows full well it’s only available for homework, and besides, I’m supposed to be meeting skyward* online.
‘Uh-uh, bro. Off. On the pitch. You can round up some of your playmates and practise for a couple of hours.’
‘What about the thing?’ Zukes asks, because he’s tagging along tonight. Ashraf doesn’t like me to involve him in the extra-mural, being a minor, but between the soccer and our ‘special projects’, I keep him distracted, off the streets, out of the kind of trouble I got into at his age.
‘Don’t sweat it,’ I tell him. ‘We got plenty time. We’re only leaving here at nine-thirty. So hit the field already.’
‘What?’ Ashraf freezes mid-scoop, sweaty crumpled shirts dangling from his arms. ‘We’re not still going?’
‘Chill, baby. Toby’s got a friend who is going to sort it one time. I’m not going to let a disconnect stop me. It’ll be smooth sailing. Promise.’
‘After that stunt at Stones, you’re still counting on Toby?’ Ashraf is about to get majorly wound up, but then he slices his eyes meaningfully in Zuko’s direction. ‘I’m gonna do the laundry. We can talk later,’ he says.
But it’s good for the kid to know what’s on the level and in the open. You can’t hide shit behind closed doors.
It’s better that Ashraf is off to do the laundry. He takes it as a personal affront that I spend so much time in Pluslife. ‘Our life not good enough for you?’
But before skyward*, we were Disney channel, strictly kid’s stuff. We gotta step it up if we want to be taken seriously. I plug in the headphones, ignoring the huffiness in the background as Ash slams the door behind him, connect to the Plus server and I’m gone.
Skyward* is waiting for me in Monomotapa, which is what I call my house in Avalon. With
59.3 million registered users, it’s one of world’s favourite virtual escapes, which makes it easier to blend in unnoticed.
Despite the Euro-traditional name, Avalon is Asia-centric, so the game world is six to eight hours ahead and more than half the population don’t speak English, which suits me perfectly. What’s the point of escaping to Plus if the world is too close to the one you just left? And besides, you can make an okay living, earning Avalon guinees (guineveres, current exchange G7.26 to the ZAR) teaching other residents English.
skyward*’s avatar is looking uglier than usual, a stubby obese woman with a lumpy bald head and features on the wrong side of a mix of Asian and black. He says it’s so people underestimate him, because even in game space everyone wants to be skinny and beautiful. I couldn’t be bothered with the customising, I just uploaded a photograph and skinned it direct to my avatar. It’s more honest.
I spent more time on doing up my place. It’s pretty humble, designed to be bio-friendly, all recyclable materials, solar panels on the ceiling, a wind farm in the garden. Not that you need to generate energy in-world, but it’s the principle. It’s a shining example to throw into contrast the kind of excesses the neighbourhood attracts, which is why I chose this location specifically.
It’s a recreation of the LA hills, which pulls in celeb wannabes by the dumpload, all avatared to resemble their current favourites, living or deceased, the Cary Grants and Tupacs and Gwyneths and Engelica Ks. The fankids go totally overboard, doing all this research online, re-creating every detail, right down to the brand of soy milk their celebrity keeps in the fridge or the mosaic tiling in the bathroom or the guest lists for their parties. Sometimes there’s more than one celeb clone in the neighbourhood, and then they get into this bullshit competitive crap about who’s keeping it more real. It’s a symptom of everything that’s wrong with our culture.
I click the conversation window, and immediately, skyward* throws up a personal firewall that locks us into private chat.
>>skyward*: hey.
>> 10: Sup in the Dam, my man? Listen, I’m thinking of calling it off, I got watchlisted today.
>> skyward*: you’re gonna have to be more careful. come on, we should take a walk.
>>10: Yeah. Okay.
It’s dead quiet this time, past midnight in Japan, so only the most devout of players are online, and I don’t know why skyward* is antsy about eavesdroppers, especially in my home. But I’m not gonna take issue if he wants to play it noir. Avalon LA lends itself to that. We step outside my domicile and walk down the driveway into the night, which is far brighter than realworld, every star visible, every orbit hotel and satellite.
We set off into the wilderness around the apartments, modelled on an idealised movie versioning of Mulholland Drive, so no gated communities, no Mexican labour riots, and there are even virtual coyotes, although I have yet to see one. Some of them are people too, playing out an entirely different kind of alternalife, which I can relate to far more than the celeb clones.
We head up towards a hill, the one furthest from the civilisation, which sometimes means the pixels drop off the page. Gamespace maintenance doesn’t pay that much attention to the uninhabited areas, not in a freeworld, anyhow. If we were on premium subscription base, we might have justification to complain.
skyward* picks up the conversation only when we reach the top, looking down on the lights glittering in the dark. There are several parties happening in the valley tonight, no doubt careful re-creations of the real deal, thumping bass drifting up. I pull up my private settings, toggle the ambient audio to lock out the human-generated, so the incessant doefdoef vanishes immediately, leaving us with the sound of crickets and wind in the grass. Not that the grass is actually stirring – too much render time for my connection speed to handle.
There’s a flickering on the horizon, and at first I think it’s some bug in the software, but as it spreads, multi-coloured, I figure that someone has hacked the sky. It’s doing a northern lights thing. And that’s the beauty of Pluslife. That here you can actually have an influence on the world.