Nova Project #1 (7 page)

More details have emerged: The Gamerunners will choose leaders, the contestants who'll all be aiming to guide their groups to victory. From the pool of everyone else who passed the testing level, the leaders will be given teams, replacing the artificial companions that aid the normal game. That'll definitely be weird, playing with real people who can argue back and won't blindly follow orders. Then again, more brains will only help.

“I think I've got a good chance,” says Nick. Miguel smiles.
That's probably true, his friend could do really well. “There's one thing I don't get, though. Why are they letting such a wide age range in? Won't anyone younger get their asses kicked by people who've been playing for decades?”

“I've been thinking about that,” says Anna. “You'd think so, but maybe not. First, anyone younger has less biomech, but probably more energy. Plus anyone who's been playing for forever is going to be so used to playing alone. They'll be slowed down by having to figure out how to play with anyone else. It's never exactly been a team sport.”

Anna pretty obviously cares less, entered more because everyone else did, but even she has a light in her eyes as she guesses what the competition could be like.

“And everyone will be watching, you know? You won't want to make a mistake, the 'verse will be full of people laughing at you.”

“No pressure,” says Miguel, voice mild.

“Sometimes pressure makes people do great things,” she counters. “Coal into diamonds, or something.”

“Like you've ever seen a diamond.”

“Manufactured ones, sure.”

“Not the same thing,” he says. Life must've been so different back then, before the earth was pillaged, robbed of every last scrap of value. True, some things can't be destroyed, but they can be hidden away in case of . . . what? Nothing is going to
get better. One day, no matter what the clever Chimera doctors can do now, they'll stop being able to produce lungs that can cope with the air, skin that will last a lifetime under the sun.

And what then? Nothing but androids, maybe. Human brains in jars, or digitized and uploaded to a collective consciousness. That was sort of starting already. Experiments were progressing, largely with the help and expertise of Chimera's doctors. But the androids would eventually break down, there'd be no one to maintain the computer systems, and then . . . nothing.

The end of the world. At least if
world
can be defined by the people on it.

These thoughts have been weirdly comforting since his medical, which he told Nick and Anna went fine. He'd only be delaying the inevitable, so it doesn't matter, right?

“Yoo-hoo,” says Anna, waving her hand in front of his face. “Going to come back from space?”

“If I could go to space, no, I wouldn't come back.” Earth had given up trying to find a planet people could move to long ago. Resources for rockets and the fuel to power them were needed here now. The space race was another history lesson.

“Ha-ha. What were you thinking?”

“Stuff. Nothing important.”

“You know, you're pretty Zen about all this. You were all fired up for this competition, and now it's like you just don't care.”

“I care.” Way, way too much. “I just can't do anything to improve my chances.”

“You okay, man?”

“Totally fine.”

Nick squints at him but doesn't argue.

By some unspoken agreement, they all lie on their backs and watch the sky darken through the glass ceiling. They used to spend whole nights like this when they were little, talking, playing stupid games. Dinnertime passes, Miguel half expecting to hear his mom call the three of them to come eat, but she doesn't, she's at home, and none of them mention food. Especially from Nick, that's unusual. The park doesn't empty like it ordinarily does at dusk. Conversely, it's getting busier, people gathering in groups for the announcement.

When the clock in the corner of his left lens hits ten, Miguel sits up.

“I've gotta go.”

“What?” Anna blinks, curses. “Close window,” she orders her lenses. “I thought we were going to wait together.”

Miguel shrugs. “I'd rather be alone when they don't call my name, okay? Or see how happy you are when they don't.”

The teasing is meaner than he intended, and the hurt in her eyes stings him. “I'm sorry,” he says, taking her hand for a second. Nick looks away and back again, pretending he didn't
move in the first place. “I'd really just rather be on my own. I love you. Both of you.”

He means it. Her concern for him
is
concern, it's never been pity. She makes him laugh. She makes him smarter.

“You too,” she says, rising to give him an awkward hug. “See you tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

He's almost out the door when Nick catches up to him. Fuck. “Mig, you really okay?”

“I really am.”

They'll understand with time.

“You know, it's okay with me.”

“What is?” Nick has the good grace to look puzzled.

“You and her.”

“I don't—”

“You hide it from me, but I see the way you look at her. And the way you look when I touch her. More important, I see the way she looks at you, even though she feels guilty about it. I know her, Nick. And what you want wouldn't matter shit if she didn't want it, too, but she does. What you guys do is up to you, I'm not, like, giving
permission
or anything. You've got to get that from her. But I wouldn't be pissed, okay?”

“Mig—”

“I'll see you tomorrow.” The lie is a little easier the second time.

“Okay, I guess.”

The streets are almost empty now. The Cubes are open to everyone again, but for the first time he can remember, people are choosing not to play. Even those who didn't enter the competition, who have no vested interest in the outcome, are waiting to find out who they're going to be cheering for or booing at over the next two months.

He gets a hoverboard from the nearest station; he can't walk where he's going. Like he told Nick and Anna, he wants to be alone when they broadcast the results.

Hoverboards are programmed to ascend only to a certain height, but it's enough to get him onto the roof of a building near the river. The water's dark, rippling surface looks eerily like a river in the testing level, the one to which he'd sacrificed a teammate. Maybe he shouldn't have done that so easily, readily. Like that's what would have stopped the Gamerunners from choosing him.

He measures his pulse for a minute, two, with his tiny piece of biomech. If Mom and Dad are monitoring, their next breaths will come easier. Doing it has always been soothing anyway, when it should have been terrifying; never knowing if the next one would come, reassured when it did.

He's never been calmer. This is the right place to be. Going home would have made everything more difficult, so it's better this way. A message will be delivered to his parents at a
scheduled time. It doesn't say much more than what he said to Anna and Nick, but that's really all he needs to say.

The minutes tick down. The fragments of light reflecting off the water look like seconds, winking in and out of existence. Like heartbeats. Like people.

Everything is beautiful: the glow, the living city, the strange shapes of the clouds. Religion isn't a common thing anymore, mostly people stopped pleading with the sky when it began spitting acid at them, but maybe this is what it was for, this feeling. This sense of something larger, its purpose to show Miguel how small he is. Small is good. Unimportant is good.

Small means no guilt when he leaves.

Forty-three minutes. It's almost silly to wait, but it feels . . . symmetrical, somehow. Neat, even, as defined as the edges of the nearest Cube a few blocks away behind him. Chimera is the most fun he's ever known, full of adventures he'd never have experienced otherwise. His parents wouldn't have let him climb mountains, swim lakes, run through labyrinthine buildings as fast as he could. But in the game it was okay, it was just Chimera, and who knew? Maybe it would help him earn the heart he needed.

But not now. He can't sit by and watch the competition, or ignore it while he tries to make progress that will suddenly feel slow. Ignoring it would be impossible anyway, it's going to be everywhere.

And if Nick gets in, Miguel will be that much closer to it.

Enough. In a few minutes none of this will matter anymore. His useless heart can finally give up, like it has threatened to do for years. He can rest. Everyone likes it when he rests.

He's ten steps from the edge of the roof, give or take, and he needs all the remaining minutes to drag himself that short distance. Life doesn't give up willingly, he learns. There is no reset button, he won't wake up on the floor of a small room with a message asking him if he wants to try again.

But he's there. He steps up, and his toes curl over the ledge.

B
lake is still deciding. He has one remaining hour in which to pick his candidates, half the chosen ones for the competition. Lucius is elsewhere in the building, surely making those same choices.

Actually Lucius has probably had his chosen since the final medical report came in. That's the kind of man he is. The type to do his homework early so that he can go over it again to make sure he's done it right.

Blake prefers instinct, but his is giving him some trouble right now. Really, he's picked most of his, but he has one spot left to fill and two potentials with which to fill it. One did all the right things on the testing level, the other . . . the other is an interesting case.

He still has time.

At Chimera headquarters he steps onto the private tile in his office that will raise him up to where Lucius chooses
to work. He doesn't warn of his arrival, he never does. What would be the fun in that?

Lucius is used to it. He's difficult to surprise.

“Are you ready?” Lucius asks.

“I will be. You?”

“Of course. I was just reading a book.”

Blake simply shakes his head. Of course he was. Something heartwarming, probably. He'll never understand his friend's taste.

Friend
is the wrong word, but it's close enough.

“I think this will be exciting,” says Lucius. “I'll win, of course.”

“Dream on. No, really, do dream. You've always been so good at it.”

Lucius smiles. “Making them come true has always been more my specialty.”

“Yes, yes, you're a regular saint. I've seen how much you donate to charities from the company accounts. I need to go out for a while. I'll be back in time for the announcement.”

“Make sure you are, or I'll fill the list with everyone I like.”

“You wouldn't.” But Blake isn't
completely
convinced of that. It would go against Lucius's nature, but Lucius hasn't hung around him all this time without picking up a few tricks.

Blake has no plans to speak to either of the people he's going to visit, but much can be learned from observation. The
first is almost boring, easily found from geoloc tags, sitting in a park, holding hands with a girl. He watches them from overhead, staring down through the glass roof. The second is more of a challenge, but tracked down soon enough with Blake's collection of fancy toys. He hasn't updated in hours, which makes it only slightly more difficult. There isn't much Blake can't do when he wants to.

And he's glad he wanted to. Well, well. This is much more interesting. He watches the boy from another rooftop, augmented eyes seeing clearly across the distance. It's evident what the boy intends to do, and it's clear why. His medical exam gave Blake a lot to think about.

Desperation can be a beautiful thing.

True to his word, rare in itself, he is back at headquarters with time to spare, though not much of it. Lucius meets him in the lobby, in front of a wide expanse of touch panels. Together, as the clock ticks midnight, they begin to type. Blake hopes the boy pauses just long enough. He needs only a few seconds.

“Congratulations, Miguel Anderson,” he whispers as his fingers move. “Let's see how far you'll go.”

M
iguel's foot slips as his name flashes across his lenses. His stomach turns over. Scrambling for balance, he falls back, hitting the roof with a painful crash. Pain is good, pain is life. It spreads around his limbs, background noise as he watches the feed, waiting for the punch line. He'd only kept them on for the time.

What if he hadn't kept them on at all? Cold sweat beads on his skin. What had he been about to do?

His name is still there. He's in. Oh . . . my . . . god. But Dr. Spencer had told him he wouldn't be; he doesn't understand.

The answers aren't going to come on this roof. Shakily he stands, distrusting the legs that nearly slipped out from under him on the ledge. This view of the city was nearly the last thing he ever saw. Across it, closer and yet in the unreachable middle distance, his feed fills, messages from Nick, Anna, his parents scattered among names he doesn't recognize. His parents.
Shit. He cancels the scheduled message to them.

Names are still being announced, two hundred of them. All the team leaders. He doesn't pay any attention, there'll be time for that later. Time. He still has some. For now he needs to get off this roof, and the hoverboard has long since gone back to the station it came from. Sometimes he imagines the voice of the Storyteller narrating his actual life.

You are on a roof. There is a door leading to a stairwell.

Thankfully it's unlocked. Jumping had been a good way out, but it wouldn't be a good way down. His lockpicking skills aren't bad, but his tools for it are inside his Chimera cache and can't be summoned into the real world. His mind races in time with his feet, boots ringing on the steps. Dizzy from all the turns, he arrives in an atrium, running, running both toward the unknown and away from it. Toward the adventure of Chimera, away from the horror of what he'd nearly done.

The light turns red. A siren wails, tripped by motion sensors that expected intruders to come in the front door, which is only polite. He swears under his breath, eyes casting around for an exit. He has to get out of here, find out what's going on, get as far as he can from the roof. The sealed doors are glass. His boots, earned in the game but now almost permanently fused to his feet, are capped with steel.

Well, he's sorry.

Glass rains like snowflakes. The alarm cries louder for a few seconds, then stops so abruptly it takes him a second to realize a man is standing at the keypad on the outside, another waiting by a small electric car on the curb.

“Miguel Anderson?”

“Yes?” He's about to be arrested, surely.

But that's not a police car. A stylized
C
adorns the driver's door. And both of their uniforms.

“Please come with us.”

“But—” He turns back, the glass crunching under him.

“We'll take care of it.” The man by the car smiles. “Seriously, don't worry. Congratulations, you're one of the leaders.”

Yeah, but he doesn't know why.

“We're just going to get you home safe,” says the other, finished with his business at the keypad. “I'll stay here, watch this until someone comes to fix it,” he tells his partner. “Get in the car, Mr. Anderson.”

“I—okay.” It might not be a good idea, but it's a better one than staying.

“How did you know where I was? I haven't posted anything. No geoloc tags,” he says as the car moves silently through near-empty streets. The driver shrugs.

“Just following orders.”

Huh. His glasses do have a tracker on them, but it's illegal for anyone to follow without permission from the government
or the users themselves, granted by the act of posting an update. Miguel hasn't posted anything public in hours. So the Gamerunners have permission, or they're not playing by the rules.

Neither would surprise him.

“And you're taking me home? Why? I figured I'd be going to, I don't know, a Cube or something.” As much as he'd thought about it at all. So many things are careening around his brain it's hard to grasp any one of them.

“Just following orders,” the man repeats. So he doesn't know, or won't say.

Again, neither would surprise Miguel. He falls silent, letting reality sink in through the windows.

He's in the competition. He must have done well on his test, impressed them. They think he's good enough to win.

His smile fades a little at the sight of his parents when he steps inside the house. Nick runs from behind them to high-five Miguel, hard enough to sting. Anna stands by the window, her face an unreadable mask.

“I know what you're going to say,” says Miguel, shaking out his hand to get the feeling back. “Mom, Dad, please let me do it. I made it in! This is a great thing!”

“No.” His mother shakes her head. “It's too dangerous. I want to talk to the doctor who gave you your medical and ask what the hell they were thinking.”

Yeah. So does Miguel, but he tries not to let that show on his face.

“Maybe you're getting better,” says Nick. “Maybe they've been wrong all this time.” His hopeful expression is ironically heartbreaking.

No, that's not it. Dr. Spencer told Miguel to say good-bye to his loved ones. Probably imagining a scene much like this, everyone gathered in a living room. He could tell them right now.

Sure.

“Mom, Dad. Please.”

His parents exchange a glance.

“If it gets too dangerous, I'll stop. You know I know my limits. I'm still here, aren't I?”

Tears well in his mother's camera eyes. Oops. His father puts his hand on her shoulder and leans in to whisper something in her ear. Miguel holds his breath and looks at Anna, who looks away. What is her problem? Was she only okay with his entering when she thought he wouldn't get picked?

He turns to Nick instead. It's not Anna's choice.

“Okay.” His mother wipes her eyes, moves to hug him. “We're not going to stop you. You're almost an adult. You've always kind of been one, even when you were little, so serious about everything. So serious about Chimera. And we do understand why. You have to
promise
to stop if it starts being too much.”

“I promise,” Miguel whispers, hardly believing what he's hearing.

“We're worried, son, but . . .” His father trails off, rubbing his face with his hands. “Your life is yours to do what you want with.”

Miguel's stomach turns over again, foot dangling over the ledge. He'd nearly thrown it away.

“This is
awesome,
” says Nick. “Don't worry, you two. He'll be okay. He'll be amazing.”

“So that's it?” Miguel asks, smile growing back to face-stretching proportions. “Time to celebrate?”

Anna turns from the window. “Not quite. Can I talk to you for a second? Alone?”

He nods, leads her to his room, Nick's eyes on his back. To her credit, she waits until he's closed the door before she turns on him, keeping her voice low, simmering with anger. “You coward.”

What? She doesn't know what he'd planned to do on that roof. Does she? Can she read him that well?

“Did it occur to you to maybe break up with me yourself?”

Oh.
Oh.

He breathes deeply. “So many times. I just . . . I couldn't.”

“So you thought you'd get Nick to do it for you?”

“No.” He moves around her, paces as much as the messy floor will allow. “No. I thought I should . . . get out of the way.”
Truer than she'll ever know. He'll never tell her.

“Without asking how I felt about it.”

“I know how you feel about it. I know you, Anna. I know how you feel about him. You think I haven't seen it, and felt like shit every day for being the reason you weren't together?” He faces her again. “You're one of the best people I know, one of the strongest. If I were
any other guy,
you'd have dumped my ass ages ago, and you'd have gone after who you wanted like you go after everything else. Good grades, medical school, chocolate.”

She cracks the tiniest of smiles, but her eyes are wet.

“But I'm not any other guy, and you're too nice. You've never wanted to hurt me.”

“I still don't,” she whispers.

“You won't be. Hey,” he says, reaching for her hand. “Don't think you're easy to give up.”

“Oh, trust me, I don't.”

He laughs quietly. “Good. Like I told him, what you guys do now, or not, is up to you. But I love you both.”

“Me, too.” She squeezes his fingers and drops them, the motion more significant than it should be. “So, the competition. You are going to be careful, right? I may not be your girlfriend anymore, but I'm still your friend, and I will kick your ass if you hurt yourself doing this.”

She doesn't make empty threats. “I'll be careful, promise.
Let's go back out there before my parents wonder what we're doing in here.”

“God, yeah. Your mom loves to make me blush.”

Miguel groans, smiles back once more. His mother catches everything with her camera eyes as he and Anna reenter the living room, knowing glance replaced by confusion as she watches Anna move to Nick's side and lace her fingers with his. Miguel shakes his head a fraction. Leave it. There'll be questions about that sometime soon, but not tonight. Both his parents have apparently decided to fake a celebration they clearly don't feel, and the charade is fine with Miguel. He
is
thrilled, excited, happy. And exhausted. The simulated alcohol handed out in tiny glasses spins his head as it tries to grasp the swing of the evening, from death to a second chance at life.

His ears are ringing. He is in a room filled with people and screens, uniting the Chimera contestants around the world. Three from his city, the highest concentration, the rest scattered across the globe. Another lurch rolls his stomach, the moment he was about to step off the roof, one foot in the air.

Who would they have chosen if he hadn't seen his name just in time?

“Congrats,” says a girl. She has long red hair and a sharp face. Her clothes are Chimera chic: combat pants and a black
vest that shows off toned arms. Pretty, but older than him by several years, and he has to remember she's his rival. Sarah, that's her name.

“You, too,” he says. “Good luck,” he adds because he thinks he should.

“Yeah,” she answers. Apparently she doesn't think the same.

The screens and people all are talking. “Welcome,” says a disembodied voice, and as one they all shut up. Like someone has hit a mute button, it's that immediate.

“You are our successful contestants, our leaders,” says the voice. “You will be playing our brand-new Chimera. Over the next three days we will assign your teams, and you will be given another three days to practice together before the competition starts. We are aware that playing with a group of living people will change the dynamic. Remember, however, that
you
are the leaders. You have been chosen to make the decisions, and they will be important ones. Take charge of your groups.”

The murmuring starts again, but to Miguel it just sounds like more ringing. The voice is like a male version of the Storyteller, cutting through everything, the only thing that makes sense. Everything else is background. He's ready. He wants to play.

You are in a large gray room. Your parents are waiting
outside, quietly freaking out. Your best friend and his girlfriend, who until yesterday was your girlfriend, are with them, awed.

Miguel grins. He hasn't stopped smiling, even through the memory of what he almost did, the late night, the tiredness.

“You will be given equipment on the morning of the official start.” The voice cuts in again. “You will have to learn to use it as you progress. We may be fair, but we are not going to make it simple. This competition has been designed to test you, to challenge you more than Chimera ever has. It is up to you to decide how much you want to reap the rewards we will offer and the lengths to which you will go to earn them.”

Standing in this room, Miguel thinks there is no limit. He doesn't know why they've let him into the competition, but he knows Chimera.

He still wonders why they let him in at all, but now that's just a distraction. He's not going to let his curiosity get in the way of winning.

A uniformed woman, the same stylized Chimera
C
on her pocket, takes his arm, the third time since last night someone has guided him to where he needs to be. In the game he'll be able to make his own choices. She places him in front of a lens, the other two local competitors put into position on either side of him. On 197 screens, close-up shots of other rivals appear, ranging in age from a little younger than Miguel to a few who are about his parents'
age. They'll have experience on their side, but maybe not the energy of youth.

“Meet your competitors,” says the voice. “Congratulations, everyone.”

There's no way to tell how good any of them are without checking two hundred Presences, but they can't beat him. They don't want it as much as he does.

Win, and he gets anything he wants. The Gamerunners' promise.

Win, and he gets to live. What could any of them need that compares?

Maybe one of them needs a new heart, too, or something. Maybe they all do.

Screw it. He can't think about that. He stared into the eyes of death last night, deep and black as if they belonged to a real person, a walking, talking death that was reaching out his hand to claim Miguel for its own.

Their fingers came so close to touching.

Another twist, deep in his belly. Nobody knows what he almost did on that roof, and nobody ever will, but he can use it. He's never wanted to live so much, never wanted so badly to beat anything and anyone that might stand in the way of it.

And he thought he was obsessed with Chimera
before,
but it's not only the game he wants to beat now, it's Dr. Spencer's prediction. His whole life, doctors have been telling him he's
going to die, she had just been the last, and the harshest. This competition was how he would prove them all wrong.