My own group had been twenty-first to unlock the System Challenge, which is the first time I’ve been so high on a leaderboard for any large game. As Dio had pointed out, I’d lucked into a very strong team. Hopefully they’d all log back in in time to make the next departure of the transport ship to The Wreck, which was a limitation we hadn’t factored in when deciding on our meet up. Our additional delay meant there were now more than forty teams qualified, and more than half had already checked in for the transport, which only departed every twenty game hours. And the next departure was nearly half a game hour before our meet-up time.
I wanted to be on that ship. Beating the System Challenge, coming first in a big way, hadn’t felt real to me until I could sit and watch the chance for it tick away.
To stop myself fretting, I asked Dio for directions to the quietest eating area on the station, and sat nursing a drink while working at the design for my custom suppression modal. I didn’t want to create Kazerin again: the memory of that knife in the back was still too sharp. But having now experienced a few different bodies, I couldn’t decide what I wanted as an alt. The fantasy beauty I’d first designed? Or someone that didn’t resemble me in any way? The discovery of a randomise button kept me mesmerised, but did not take me any further.
Silent>> You near the transport? We’re nearly ready to sign on.
>>Silent: I’m a couple of levels down. Couldn’t get a seat anywhere near the big dock.
Silent>> Yeah, it’s quite the circus. Meet up by the green line elevator?
A group invite came with a handy directional indicator for Silent’s current location. Glancing at the departure schedule, I didn’t head up immediately, taking the time to visit the nearest bathroom, and then working on my breathing, timing each inhalation so that at least part of my attention was devoted to measured rhythm. By the time I was ready to go up, we had the full group in party, and had completed the registration for the System Challenge.
The big dock was one of only two servicing large ships on the whole station, and was positioned at the very top, in a low gravity zone. Light gravity and the swarming crowd put me in immediate danger of a foot to the face, as people were popcorning up and down in order to see something toward the centre of the large, circular space.
I tucked myself hastily against the wall, and then blinked as a series of shimmering force fields rose, and people began to move away from the elevators. I wouldn’t have understood the sudden orderly arrangement if not for the multiple comments directed toward the inevitable drifting motes above them.
"Not sure I care about stupid demerit points."
"But the rest of my guild’s in the other direction."
"How do I get through to the ship with these force fields in the way?"
"Following arrows is getting so automatic to me that I’m in danger of doing it out in the real world."
Sticking to the wall, I made myself follow my own arrow, finding Arlen and Imoenne first, distinctive even with their faces hidden by sculptured inky curves. The only person in the group who hadn’t activated their focus was Silent, and he did so as soon as he spotted me.
"Let’s head right in," Nova said. "We almost missed this."
"No thanks to our Cycogs, who didn’t bother to mention departure times," I commented, then hoped that my voice didn’t sound as weird to everyone else as it did to me. I needed more space.
[[With a System Challenge, never count on extra help,]] Dio replied.
"So long as you don’t actively sabotage, I guess," I sent back.
Two people walked through the newly-formed shield instead of being directed away from them, the shield creating a gap and then reforming around them. We followed them into the clear circular space in the centre of the room, and then up a spiral ramp that led to a ceiling hatch.
"I guess we stand on these ridges?" said one of the two ahead of us, bouncing upward. They disappeared through the hatch, and Arlen and Imoenne, at head of our group, were quick behind them. The ramp took me right up to the ceiling, and halfway into the vertical cylinder of a room beyond, well provided with handholds, and notches in the walls that could work as ladders.
"It’s the airlocks that always get me," said one of the two strangers ahead of us, as the hatch below us rotated shut, and there was the faintest whine of equalising pressure. "More than anything else, the airlocks make the whole idea of outer space seem real."
"Going on a spacewalk didn’t do that?" asked the speaker’s companion.
"It’s something about how weighty the doors are," the first replied. "The EVA suits are so light they don’t seem possible, and the Snugs are pottery or something ridiculous, but the airlock doors feel like serious business."
The inner hatch slid open just then, and we climbed effortlessly upward into another airlock, this one squarer than the first.
"Allowing for post-Singularity magic science, everything reads as possible except when they suspend players," Silent put in. "They drop the illusion there, in favour of making a point."
"Magic science is the right word for it," the first stranger said, wryly. "I swallowed the tech as a possibility, up to the soul space travel."
"If it’s magic science, then all aboard the Hogwarts Express," said the second, and pushed upward as the innermost hatch opened.
The transport ship, named Delina, did have some faint resemblance to a train, for most of the entry level was divided into compartments—though no train featured such wide and comfortably moulded seating, with leg and head support, and safety straps. We followed our arrows into one of the few remaining empty compartments, and settled in, the door closing behind us.
"Good," Nova said, deactivating her focus. "The stream won’t start until we get there, so this will give us a chance to talk strategy. I take it everyone’s watched the attempts of the handful who’ve gone before us?"
These had not been as spectacular as the first unfortunate team. A half dozen groups, making cautious forays over the curving surface of The Wreck, searching for a hatch but failing to identify anything. They’d run short of air, and retired to a small satellite station that could be used as a staging ground in the absence of the Delina. Most had taken a rest break, and then returned to poke about the edges of the rift in The Wreck’s side, carefully venturing a level or two downward, and then exploring sideways, only to be defeated by a lack of any through-corridors.
Arlen, however, was more interested in Nova’s appearance than a planning session. "Is it that you can change the age of your Core Unit?" he asked, for Nova was wearing the older version of herself, and a simple jumpsuit rather than the magical girl outfit.
"This is my Core Unit. I was using an alt for the gateway series." Her attention flicked to her Cycog, perched on her shoulder. "Is there no way to suppress names in the live streams? I was hoping our group could fly under the radar."
Silent, with the faintest of wry smiles at our confusion, said: "Check out her info. She’s set to party-visible."
Nina Stella
[Artemis]
Rank: 10
Status: Online
Accepting: [Email] [Messages](friends only)
Location: [Delina]
I stared, and then laughed.
"Pick a number between one and ten," I said to her.
Nova-Nina gave me her usual dry smile. "I did think it a lucky number for you. Although this ridiculous notoriety might prove me the wrong choice after all."