Long hair seemed to be a common interpretation of dressing up for this get-together, and Far was only one of many who had opted for vaguely elven for their clothing. Most of the guild had already arrived, but the private park was far from crowded. Pooling lux points to reserve it had seemed a waste to me at first, but I had to approve the unobtrusive mechanical servitors that glided about with mystery drinks and trays of snacks.
I wandered among spindly, fragile-looking trees admiring fabulous clothing, and matching up more names to faces. I still had my doubts about the complications inherit in a guild shifting from chat and screen interaction to near-enough actual people who might behave very differently in person, but at the moment it was all very pleasant and convivial.
Spotting Imoenne sitting with a thing like a sealed, dimpled tub in the centre of crossed legs, I moved closer to listen to the odd noises it made. She was treating it like a drum, but it produced an otherworldly noise that didn’t remind me of drums.
I knew Arlen would be nearby, and found him with two women in laced-up kirtles with heavy sleeves. I checked their names: Nalia and Maleen, who hadn’t been active in the guild for a couple of years.
Arlen waved to them as they wandered off, and then crossed to me, turning his walk into a strut to display a tunic and tight-trousers look all embroidered white on white.
"Very nice," I said, then added after an appropriate pause: "I don’t recognise Imoenne’s instrument. Is it something from The Synergis?"
"No, an Earth one," Arlen said, flashing his ready smile. "A hang, it is called, and Imoenne is teaching herself how to play. She has long wanted one."
"I’ve never even heard of it," I said, with an embarrassed laugh.
"An idiophone. Music of resonance, rather than of striking."
"Your sister certainly doesn’t sound like she’s never played this before."
"Imoenne, she is a genius," Arlen said, very serious. "I have lost count of what she can play. It is the right sound for this gathering, too. Contemplative, meditative, and yet with an uplift. Music for a Martian dawn."
Silent had strolled up while we spoke and nodded his agreement.
"I didn’t think dawn would be much of an event, given that we’re technically in a crack in the ground with a lid on it, but I can see already that it’s going to be something incredible. Chasma Marineris is more sunken continent than canyon."
"Do you think it ever rains here?" I asked, gazing up at the sky. The lid was a long way away. "Dio?"
[[Yes, when the administrator sets certain environmental controls. For washing purposes, if no other reason. If you want this gathering to end early, just let me know and I’ll tell the administrator the place is looking a little grubby.]]
Dio had responded so that Arlen and Silent could hear tem, and they laughed, but any other response we might have made was forestalled by a new system announcement.
Achievement
First to reach Rank Ten
[Nina Stella]
Awarded Custom Ship (Rank Two)
"Way to go Nina Stella," Silent said, smiling.
"Nina Stella’s an NPC," Wraith shouted out, and we debated that for a while, because it was true enough that there were no verified sightings of DS’s most famous player. She’d sensibly gone anon very early on, and had obviously stayed focused on working on her rank. And now she was the first player in all the virtual world to travel to a new solar system.
"Well, if Nina Stella’s travelling the stars, she’s not here beating us to the System Challenge," Silent said a little later, after various mystery drinks had been consumed, and we were sitting with Far, adjusting to the weird way DS alcohol made you feel drunk and clear-headed at the same time. "Damn, but I want us to be the ones to win. D’you think we’d get a Rank Three Custom Ship? Or any explanation of the difference between ship ranks?"
"I would like a flying palace," I said. "But I don’t think I’d like to try and Skip a flying palace."
Silent laughed. "Good point. But there was a time when I thought it impossible to put a whole Snug in a Pocket, so perhaps palaces will be nothing one day. Besides, I could just park the thing in orbit and live on it when I’m visiting Earth."
"Pay some high-ranked NPC to Skip it for you," Far suggested. "I’ve been playing wide-eyed Enclaver with a few citizens of The Synergis, and it seems pretty common for them to offer Skip services. You just need to save up a lot of lux points."
"Most of The Synergis NPCs I’ve encountered seem very impatient with Enclavers," Silent said.
"I do wide-eyed very well," Far said, waving to TALiSON, returning with a little string bag of the drinking bulbs that we’d spent the morning sampling.
She waved the bag in return, but then scowled—not at Far, but at Silent’s back.
"You’re wearing one of those patches," she said as she reached us. "I hate those patches."
Silent had gone for a retro look, with a bolo tie and a faded brown leather jacket that suited him very well. I shifted, trying to peer at his back, and Silent leaned forward obligingly so I could see a purposefully distressed but still quite clear image of a Snug above Earth.
I flushed, but of course TALiSON couldn’t know that I was the artist.
"My Core Unit is a lie, though," Silent said, mildly. "I’m, what, forty-seven out in the world?"
"You’re not sure?" I asked.
"Had to work it out. The days of proclaiming I’m seven and nine months are long gone."
"This definitely is a lie," TALiSON said, as she sat down, handing me the net of drinking bulbs. “It’s what I looked like twenty years and sixty pounds ago. It’s what the game gave me with to start with. Do you know how cruel that is?”
"Why cruel?" Silent asked.
"Because that makes this body what I think of myself, deep down," TALiSON said, in a little rush. "After years of fat activism, of standing up for the right to exist without the shame, this game tells me that everything I’ve said and done for years out there in the non-virtual is the lie. I didn’t accept myself at all."
Looking puzzled, Silent said: "I didn’t purposefully age myself down—this is how the game started me out, with a little fine-tuning, and it’s not because I don’t accept that I’m plunging toward fifty. Not that I would have hesitated to change myself to whatever I wanted, so long as the synchronisation score stayed viable."
"I sacrificed synchronisation for fantasy me," Far said, his voice shifting to unexpectedly dulcet tones. "Didn’t drop too much."
"Sprocket’s sync is so bad he’s still at skids stage," I said.
Silent nodded. "And he doesn’t care a bit, because looking like his favourite character means more to him. Though he’s extremely curious about how close everyone in the guild has stuck to their non-virtual appearance."
"I don’t think he realises how irritating the no, what are you really game is," I murmured.
Far caught my eye, and gave me a wry, astonishingly beautiful smile. "I took this name for a troll, you know. Nothing like wearing a female toon and having every asshole on the server demanding a play-by-play of my chromosomes. But it also worked to draw a lot of fire from friends where that question means so much, where what are you, really is a knife in the gut, a needle in the spine, every damn time. We’re far from the only ones having a debate about what a Core Unit means. About whether it’s your starting point, or the act of improving synchronisation that counts. Or even defying synchronisation, and making your Self whatever the hell you want it to be. The Cykes, at least, stick to it that Core Units are just a mechanism that impacts your lan use."