City of the Falling Sky (9 page)

Suddenly an old man’s head popped up from the
desk. He had white hair, wispy and sparse on his speckled scalp, a
pair of glasses resting on his large, hairy nose, and he was
dabbing his lips with a tissue.

“
Dear me,” the man
exclaimed, clearing his throat. “Someone’s been through the
mill.”

“
Don’t ask,” Seckry said in
the politest way possible. He didn’t want to seem rude but he was
fed up of thinking about it.

“
It might not be any of my
business but shouldn’t you be in bed trying to heal that black
eye?”

“
I needed some fresh air,”
Seckry protested weakly.

“
I haven’t seen you round
here before. Are you the Sevenstars boy?”

Seckry gulped. “Uh, yeah.”

“
Ahh. A belated happy
birthday to you, my son. Your mother’s a lovely lady. Had a nice
chat with her the other day. She popped in for some advice. Very
curious to know what the trends are in the city these days for a
boy like you. I recommended some Friction credits of course. You’d
be mad to move to the city and not be taken in by the Friction
phenomenon.”

“
You sell the gift cards
here?”

“
Yes, of course. I don’t
doubt you’ll be needing any for a while though, your mother bought
fifty notes worth. You’re a very lucky lad. Have you had a chance
to redeem them yet?”

Seckry groaned internally. He wished he’d
redeemed the card the moment he was given it. Then Snibble would
never have been able to melt it into a pile of burning embers.

“
Not yet,” was all Seckry
said.

“
My name’s Henrei, by the
way,” said the old man, and he stuck out a semi-translucent,
pockmarked hand.

“
Seckry. Nice to meet you,”
said Seckry in return. Henrei’s hand felt cold, bony and slightly
sticky.

“
Your mum in work, is
she?”

“
Yes.”

“
And she thinks you’re all
wrapped up in bed, I bet,” Henrei smiled and raised his white
eyebrows knowingly. He took a bite out of his sandwich and
something red and thick glooped onto the desk.

“
Oops,” he said, and whipped
out a cloth to wipe it up. “Can’t be caught with these.”

“
Sandwiches?” Seckry
asked.

“
The jam,” Henrei replied,
licking a bit off his finger. “Marbery thinks I made myself some
chicken and salad this morning. Supposed to be watching the
cholesterol, you know?”

There was some creaking upstairs and Henrei
cringed.

“
Stay there my love, stay
there a moment,
” he whispered nervously, and scoffed the rest
down.

Seckry laughed.

“
You can’t beat a bit of
jam,” Henrei said defensively.

Seckry glanced around him at two huge,
circular domes which were blinking with blue lights. One of them
had the faded letters FRI ON printed on it.

“
Are those the Friction
pods?” Seckry asked.

“
Indeed they are, my boy,”
Henrei said, striding over to them. “Got a few screws loose, this
left one here, but I’ve masking taped it up. Good as any pods
you’ll find in the city, these are. Been running them for twenty
five years now. Had them when Friction was first invented, I did. I
tell you what, the game looked a lot different back
then.”

Seckry examined the pods. They were made of
fibreglass and it looked as though both of them had begun to melt
at the bottom from the heat of their power supplies. They were
perfect spheres with a hatch each on opposite sides. He opened one
and peered into it.

The pod was empty, but its inner walls were
coated with dark glass. The only blemish in the sphere’s perfection
was an open slot in the base, which was just big enough to hold an
avatar tablet.

“
You want a go?” Henrei
asked.

“
I’d love to,” Seckry said
truthfully, “but I haven’t spent my vouchers yet. I haven’t got an
avatar.”

“
Well, no need to worry,
lad. Most newbies don’t have one. You don’t need an avatar for the
training program, and I wouldn’t advise jumping straight in without
at least getting to grips with the basics. Go on, get
in.”

A smile spread across Seckry’s face. He
thought he’d have to wait ages before he’d be able to have a go of
one of these things. He got inside cautiously. It smelled a bit
sweaty and damp but he didn’t mind.

“
The pod will detect that
you’re a new player and it’ll load up the training program,” Henrei
said. “I’m gonna close the door. It won’t start until I do. Here’s
a reference sheet if you forget any of it. And there’s always an
exit button located on your waist for when you’re ready to quit.”
Henrei stuffed a small, laminated piece of paper into Seckry’s left
pocket and shut the pod hatch with a thud. It seemed as though it
were hanging loose a bit.

Seckry spun his head around. It was strange
being so enclosed.

Before he had time to ponder any more, there
was a burst of colour all around him and some music began playing,
a nice, subtle background piece.

“
Welcome,” said a woman’s
voice. “Just relax while we begin your Friction
experience.”

The voice was soft and soothing, crisp clear
with a Skyfall accent.

“
You will now be lifted into
the centre of the pod.”

Lifted?
Seckry thought. He looked
around, but there was nothing to take a hold of him.

Suddenly, Seckry found that his arms felt a
lot lighter, and they were drifting up towards his head. Then he
realised that his feet were parting with the glass sheen of the
floor.

He was floating.

“
Oh my Gedin!” Seckry said
to himself.

“
Now that you are suspended
in the air, Friction can fully emulate your surroundings. The first
thing we will emulate is a floor.”

There was a flicker of green light and a wire
mesh appeared momentarily beneath him before transforming into a
patch of grass.

Seckry’s weight seemed to come back then, and
he dropped onto it. The amazing thing was that this grass wasn’t
confined to the pod, it seemed to stretch for miles in all
directions. An illusion by the pod, no doubt, but an utterly
convincing one.

He ran his fingers through the grass and it
felt cold and slightly wet and . . . real.

“
There we are,” the voice
said reassuringly. “Now tell me your name.”

“
Seckry,” Seckry said,
unsure of where to aim his voice. It didn’t seem to matter though,
as the woman replied, “Hello Seckry.”

“
Hi,” Seckry said
sheepishly, glancing all around him.

“
Let me tell you a little
bit about Friction before we begin.”

The Friction logo appeared in the sky.

“
Friction was invented
twenty five years ago by design team WePlay, and has since become
the world’s most popular video game. Players from all across the
lands hold annual tournaments and championships in which teams of
Friction players compete to represent their cities’
partitions.”

A montage of video footage was being
projected onto the sky. There were crowds cheering, flags being
waved, and people holding giant cups and jumping in the air in slow
motion.

“
The aim of the game is
variable from match to match, but the most popular Friction format
is the item mode. Players compete to collect items located in an
area of land. A number of different items are usually available to
collect, and many are hidden in hard to find places. Each item is
worth a different amount of Friction points and the player with the
most points at the end of the session wins. Sessions like this can
be combative or non-combative.”

The words ‘training level’ appeared
accompanied by a map.

“
The best way to demonstrate
this is by loading you into the training level and letting you play
a test session.”

There was a flash of white light, and Seckry
found that he was now surrounded by not only the grass, but a whole
environment of beautiful green scenery, the sound of running water,
and the lovely smell of fresh flowers.

“
Welcome to Atoria,”
the voice said. “Atoria is the official home of the Friction
universe and our training session is set in the valley of the
south. Let’s begin by looking at the items available in this
land.”

Objects began appearing in front of Seckry,
floating and spinning slowly in the air.

First a bunch of carrots, then a spoon, then
a coin, an apple, a rock, and finally a shiny, golden harp.

“
These items are all located
in this area and your goal will be to collect them. Once you have
picked up an item, it will be added to your inventory. Are you
ready to begin, Seckry?”

“
Yes,” he
replied.

“
Great. If at any point you
would like to leave the game, just press the exit button on the
left of your body. Now, take your time, and good luck!”

A short, pinging sound signalled the start of
the session.

The first thing Seckry did was look down. His
body was no longer his own, it was that of a wooden training
dummy.

He raised his right hand up to his face and
flexed his fingers. He was amazed at how the little wooden corks
opened and closed.

So this was what it was like to be an
avatar.

The next thing Seckry did was test his
movement. He moved forwards then backwards, strafed left then
right, then spun around on the spot. He couldn’t get over the air.
It felt as though he were actually in a valley. A butterfly flew
past him, and he felt a slight breeze flap his right earlobe. Some
serious programming had gone into this.

The area was beautiful. There was a river
behind him that was running out of a pool to his left, and
splashing spectacularly into it was a small waterfall. To his right
there was a cottage, with smoke coming from its chimney, and
surrounding them were high cliffs and hills.

He was immediately drawn to the pool with the
waterfall. As he got closer to it, the gentle rumble of the water
grew louder and he actually felt the spray of it tickling his
face.

Seckry wondered what would happen if he went
into the pool. He leaned over the bank and saw the reflection of
his avatar. He nudged a little bit closer to see if he could see
anything below the surface and before he knew it, he had slipped
in. He felt the coolness of the water as he went under, but
fortunately he was still able to breathe. At least they’d left
something up to the imagination.

Instead, a blue bar had appeared in the top
right corner of his vision indicating his oxygen levels, and it was
decreasing very quickly. Seckry swam to the surface and bobbed in
the water for a moment while his oxygen restored itself to its full
amount.

He was sure one of the items would be hiding
at the bottom of the pool so he dived down a few times, scanning
the bed before running out of oxygen again and returning to the
surface. After his fourth failed attempt he steered himself to the
bank and clambered out. He’d try the little house instead.

He stood up and shook his arms. He was
drenched. Seckry took a moment to wonder how they were simulating
the feeling of being wet so well. Was he wet in the real world? Had
the pod filled with water?

Luckily the sun was blazing and his wooden
skin seemed to dry a lot quicker than his human skin.

In the house, he was half expecting someone
to be in there to greet him, but he found it empty, with a pan of
water simmering gently on an old hob. To Seckry’s delight, there
was a wooden spoon sitting in it just like the one that had
appeared in front of him earlier. He lifted it out of the water,
and as soon as he did so there was a triumphant
bing
and the
spoon vanished from his hand. A small icon of the spoon then
appeared in the top left corner of his vision, and seemed to be
there continuously, even when he moved his head.

It didn’t take Seckry long after that to find
most of the other items. He found the apple hanging from a tree,
the carrots growing behind the cottage, the coin in the pocket of
some laundry, and the rock near the pool. All that was left for him
to find was the golden harp.

He scoured the whole area for it, and even
dug up a patch of earth that seemed to be slightly raised from the
ground, but there was nothing there, and Seckry plonked himself on
the grass.

He sat and thought about other places the
harp could be hiding but he was completely stumped. The sound of
the waterfall was soothing and it was only then did he realise that
this Friction game had taken his mind far away from the trouble
with Snibble and Natania, and had even made him forget about the
physical pain in his limbs.

After sitting and listening to the water and
the chirruping of the birds in the trees, Seckry decided to leave
the game and head home. He was enjoying it but he knew he should
really be in bed resting his bruises.

As Seckry reached down to press the exit
button located on his waist, he noticed that the small laminated
help sheet that Henrei had stuffed into his pocket was still with
him, in a wooden pouch on his side.

He took it out and examined it. All that was
printed on it were reminders of the basic rules of different types
of gameplay, but at the bottom there was a scrawl of black marker
ink.

Note to self: There’s a cave behind the
waterfall!