“You killed a Gorger, solo, your first hour into endgame, sis. I looked up the records—it takes most people three weeks to prepare for a Gorger fight, and that’s with a full group.” He stares at his feet, arms sullenly folded across his chest. “Hell, you just soloed a dragon. That’s never been done before, and all I could do was get melted by lava. Why did you even bring me along?”
The lift continues dropping, small bumps and rattles following our descent. Maintenance is supposed to be annual, keep problems from building up. Last inspection date reads five years ago.
“I brought you because we needed a support, and you’re the only person I knew I could trust ingame. Sure, I finished the dragon alone, but I couldn’t have gotten there without everyone else. You’ve seen the bounties on me, yeah? The ones from some of the other ladder players?”
“…Yeah.”
“Then you know why I can’t just grab any rando off the ’Net.” I playfully punch his arm. “Besides, if you hadn’t raised that barrier against the initial flame surge, we all would’ve wiped, and you called the encounter change. Give yourself some credit.”
He rubs his arm, as if I actually hit him, and I try not to sigh at his petulance.
“I guess. I still don’t get why so many people hate you, Ash. What did you do to them?”
This time I do sigh, frustrated. No matter how many times we have this conversation, we keep having it.
“I didn’t do anything to them, bro. I just happen to be better than they are at something they think is important, and I’m a girl. There’re a lot of boardshits out there living shitty lives, and blaming women’s their only escape. Same as it ever was.”
“I never see anything like that.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you don’t want to look,” I snap, the familiar anger rising.
Kiro frowns and turns away, shoulders hunched. The lift judders to a halt, doors sliding open, the right one sticking halfway. I heave it the rest of the way to the side, and enter a narrow hallway, half the overhead lights dead. Kiro slowly steps out beside me, still not talking. I lead us over to an unobtrusive door with no nameplate, and tap in a forty-character code on the numpad lock.
A flight of stairs takes us down to a tiny room, not much more than a closet, and I check the viewscreen showing the main corridor outside. I take a moment to gauge the mood of the crowd—the skyways are usually safe during the day, but not always. A month ago, a group of Hajj were lynched up in Northspire, anger over petro prices and fanatics flaring up again. Of course, the Hajj that got lynched had nothing to do with any of it, but they were wearing the wrong clothes at the wrong time.
On the viewscreen, hundreds of people in cheaply printed clothes rub shoulders with each other, walking under a ceiling painted to look like a noonday sky, communication protocols and privacy filters floating over their heads. Most are wearing tinted glasses over darkened skin—AR, augmented reality lenses, synced to the local ’Net. Those few too poor to afford them carry large tablets, which they occasionally hold up to scan for shop information or directions—computer camera eyes translating an invisible world. Several Shinji tourists in natural fabric outfits pass by in a rare bubble of seclusion, anti-crowd fields nudging away anyone who gets too close with a crackling hiss of static. Privacy masks cover their heads, presenting an alien stare to the outside world; faces with no features; the annexed island returning to isolation after the Water Wars and declining population saw them bloodily absorbed by Han. A gummie Preacher scowls at them, the bright golden cross on his stained white robes glowing from incorporated light diodes, full three-sixty sensor halo ringing his temples recording everything it can, AR emitters blaring the good word while his hands are busy shoving a way through the crowds of people. His scowl deepens at the sight of a chattering group of Hajj, head coverings around their shoulders as legally required in public, but then an eddy in the flow of humanity pulls him around a corner.
I take a closer look at the crowd surrounding Sarah’s back door, scanning for threats. Most are dressed in standard Ditchtown fare: multi-pocketed cargo pants or shorts, thin printed shirts designed to wick away sweat if their business carries them out into the relentless heat of the ocean surrounding us, ubiquitous tacboots shuffling across the linoleum floor. Some carry signs with my name, or pieces of memorabilia, desperately hoping for an autograph, chatting amongst themselves and trading replays of the encounter through their glasses. Others display the guild tags of other top-ladder Gamers, jokingly trash-talking each other in AR space and commiserating over their shared bad luck. A constant thrum of conversation suffuses the air, like waves lapping against building foundations, and above it all, the small bulges of gummie surveillance spheres swivel silently in their shells.
Good. No riots today.
I slip outside and plunge into the torrent, heading away from the fan club, elbowing aside those in my way and getting elbowed in return. Kiro follows, head down, his solid bulk unfazed by the flow of humanity. A couple people give him disgusted looks, and I glare at them. I know why they look at him that way, recognizing the muscular build of a Gamer, and I hate it.
Not everyone’s a fan of the Game. A lot of people, especially here, view us as freaks, wasting our time in a make-believe world, unable to function in the shitty reality we’re all forced to share. Wasting water and calories on unreality when every day’s a struggle for survival under the gummie boot.
Reflexes itch, demanding I wipe those judgmental sneers off their faces, but this is the real, not the Game. I content myself with an extra vicious elbow into the side of one of them as we pass, aiming for his kidney. A gasp and stumble signifies my aim was true. It almost always is, and the cameras don’t care about minor bodily harm, not in this pit. Hell, they only care about murder if it’s someone important doing the dying. Finally, we reach Glassbridge, and the crowds thin out a bit.
I pause, entranced as always by the sights.
Glassbridge was one of the first skyways in Ditchtown, back when people realized the water wasn’t going away, oceans inexorably rising no matter what last-ditch efforts they tried, and it was built for beauty in an increasingly ugly world. Crisscrossing steel beams hold an arched corridor of translucent panels—heavily reinforced polymer—extending from Highrise to the Brown like a fairytale construction. Below, murky blue ocean glitters in the afternoon sun, small whitecaps cresting with the wind and splashing against the submerged lower stories of every building. Gulls and terns swoop and soar around the bridge, driven away from the clear barrier by micropulse emitters. A winged shape dives into the water below, searching for food. Other megaspires, green vertical farms draping their sides, rise in the distance, more whitecaps dotting their bases. Skyways, ugly structures built for function and nothing else, stretch between them like steel spiderwebs. A dirty smudge on the horizon signals the retaining wall separating us from an Enclave, gummie-operated drones keeping their particular dryland fantasy safe and secure. Above, one of the omnipresent ’Net balloons hangs stationary against the puffy clouds, a rocket contrail slowly fading far behind it. Judging from the angle, probably a Han heavy lifter heading for one of their upper hemisphere orbitals.
I wonder what this place looked like before the waters came. Did the people who lived here ever think they’d have to fight the planet itself? Will any of us ever get a chance to stop fighting and just breathe?
The bird pops back up to the surface, gulping something down its throat in jerky motions. Suddenly, water boils beneath it, silvery flashes of scales and teeth, and it’s gone. Tattered scraps of feathers float on the surface.