Stan jolted out of the game and said, "Yes?"

The door unlocked on its own. Only one person in the Community had a key to everybody's room. Stan stuffed the Talisman pad under his pillow before the door opened, and stood up from his desk.

"Baron" Hal, the manager of this idyllic work camp, stood there with a cheerful look. He wore the latest fashionable clothes, in a Chinese style that made him look like a royal official. "Hi there, Sam."

"Stan."

"Stan. You're missing the sing-along."

"I have less than zero interest in that."

The Baron said, "You've missed a couple of events in a row. Something wrong?"

Back in the game, the bear had probably gotten mad at him for going AFK and spoiling the story. Why did Stan care more about that than about pleasing this real person who would dictate what schools he could go to next year, and whether Stan could get a weekend pass, and whether he'd be considered a good citizen in general?

"I just want to do some things on my own."

"That's fine, but you also need to show some cooperation. You shouldn't just do your work and then retreat to your room."

Stan had generally kept his head down and worked. The sing-alongs and drum circles and movie nights didn't interest him; they were just slightly more grown-up versions of the events at his three public schools, which had been mandatory. "I'll do those if I feel like it. What do you mean I need to?"

The supervisor looked confused. "If you're not participating, you won't have a good score. I don't make the rules."

Stan laughed at him. Of course there were numbers measuring exactly what an imaginary magic potion did; that was how computer games worked. What idiot had decided to quantify real people that way? "I don't care about your numbers. I'm going to accomplish things by standards I care about."

"Your evaluation here might not seem important to you, but that's how the world works. You're always going to be reporting to a boss, and you'll always have obligations to society to fit in and chip in." The Baron put a hand on Stan's shoulder and said, "Son --"

Stan shook the hand off him and said, "You are not my father! Never say that!"

The man stepped back, looking stricken. "I see you've got some issues to work on. That's... What is that?" He pointed to the corner of the Talisman pad.

Fire flowed through Stan's veins. "None of your business."

Hal reached past him and grabbed the game pad. "Why are you hiding a computer? Oh, heh! I was a teenager myself, once." The screen had gone dark, letting him imagine Stan was looking at porn instead of doing something incriminating like owning an unapproved computer.

Stan was embarrassed without having done anything to deserve it. Even so, he could take advantage of that. "Mind leaving me alone?"

Hal gave the machine a second look. "Wait a minute." He pulled out his phone and took a picture so that it'd identify what he was looking at, then frowned at the screen. "One of those? You're not supposed to have that."

"I bought it and I'm not hurting anybody. Leave me alone."

"You're hurting yourself. Stan, no boy is an island. The things you have are only 'yours' with the understanding that sometimes, people who know better might need to take them, for everyone's good." As he lectured Stan, the supervisor took the Talisman and held it under one arm.

Stan clenched his fists. "You're no better than a thief. I worked hard for that."

Hal looked regretful, but said, "I don't make the rules. No unlicensed computers in the Community. Let this be a lesson to you, and an incentive to get more involved in doing social things with real people." Hal looked down at the Talisman and added with his first note of anger, "Not interacting with some false paradise for greedy Nazis who want us all to starve and die."

#

Stan sat alone in his room, stunned. He'd been robbed! Who the hell was Supervisor Hal to tell him he couldn't own things? If the bastard could walk up and steal a toy just because it hadn't been designed to spy on its user, what couldn't he do?

Stan paced and fumed. He'd been in the middle of a conversation in the game too, and learning something. He'd been cut off from a possible friend.

Now, how was he going to play again?

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Stan left his room and went to the dormitory's computer center, since he didn't own a machine of his own anymore. Six old desktops sat there under the gaze of security cameras. It was late and the door's sensors had already registered his presence, so he was probably being dinged another point for being anti-social. He sat on a creaky chair and began research.

The top three search results for Thousand Tales were about the callousness and other sins of its corporation and residents. Result #4 was something about them doing charity work and #5 was back to negative. Stan's generation had grown up with people hired to "guide public opinion" by arranging headlines just so, and there were even volunteer "opinion shapers" on the Community's forum, so he knew better than to trust any news at face value.

The moment of hysterical hate from Hal made Stan curious. He'd never heard such an outburst from the man before. Stan looked up the director's profile, but didn't see anything about him having family who'd uploaded or something. He did have links, though, to sites about the evils of the game and several new uploading organizations that were competing with it. It took Stan five minutes to set up a search bot and discover that Hal's sister was working in an uploading clinic in the Free States.

Stan sat back in his chair, glancing at a bunch of article summaries about how "escaping from your obligations, into a game" was the most evil thing anyone could do. The entire concept of entering Thousand Tales meant rejecting the idea that we all belong to society, and anyone who worked to help the greedy rich (or anyone else, as the price fell) upload was stealing people away from where they belonged. The critics' tone ranged from reasonable scholarly arguments with some actual decent points, to all-caps raving. And Hal's sister was involved? Stan thought, I may not have much power with you, Hal, but I see where you're coming from, and I could stick a knife in your heart by reminding you.

Emotional leverage wasn't going to get Stan's game back though. According to the articles, Thousand Tales had once been not only allowed but encouraged in some of the Youth Communities, as a way of monitoring kids and figuring out which ones were troublemakers. The partnership had mostly soured when it turned out that the game, if anything, created more of them. Not the "goes on a murder rampage" kind -- it had spotted some loonies and soothed them -- but the "asks questions and starts protests" type.

Stan visited the main Thousand Tales Web site, but unsurprisingly it was blocked along with the wiki and another fan site. No installing the game on here, then. He could play Liege's Banner or a couple of other popular games that didn't stir controversy. He sighed; maybe it was time to switch games, or take up a different hobby?

No, damn it. I earned that computer, I earned that in-game money, and for whatever they're worth, they're mine.

He just wasn't sure how to enforce that. For the moment, he applied for a permit to leave the Community tomorrow, before his score could drop too low to qualify him. But the machine buzzed at him; he'd fallen too far already. Stan cursed.

An e-mail had arrived from an unknown name at Thousand Tales' domain. It just said, "You all right?", with a carrot icon.

Davis! Stan leaned forward in his seat and typed furiously, telling his imaginary friend about why the Talisman had suddenly been snatched away. "Why do you care?"

A reply came a minute later. "You're a player of the game. We look out for each other. It's that or trust in somebody like your 'Baron' to fix all your troubles, which has its own cost. Want me to try to arrange a free VR session in San Diego? That's our nearest in-person gaming center."

"That's a couple hours away from me, and I haven't got permission to leave."

Davis wrote: "*Whistle* So it's true they've got you folks locked up and doing farm work? I was a touch upset when I found out I was designed from a stereotype, and what it meant in the historical context, but I thought the world had outgrown that. If history's any guide, you'd be best off trying for a cushy, brainy sort of job. Make yourself the friendliest and most useful of the Baron's boys, and maybe you'll have opportunities."

Friendly, to the man who'd stolen his property? Stan glared at the screen. It was surreal getting advice from somebunny who didn't even exist, who'd probably been created in the last two years. Stan counted to ten to calm down. "Like what? Suddenly getting rich and uploading?"

"Probably not. But count your blessings. Sounds like you're a healthy young human and you've got plenty of time on your hands and a good head on your shoulders, in a country less screwed up than most. Go use what you've got. As hard as we're marketing this uploading thing, most of us know you don't need it to be happy."

Stan sighed and sent one last message before logging out for the night. "Tell the Norwood people I'm sorry to drop out on them. I was having fun."

#

After a fitful night's sleep, Stan had a perverse idea. At every opportunity he studied the rules and history of the Social Credit System.

It had evolved from credit scores that tracked things like payment of bills, and a Chinese system. The Chinese version involved monitoring "disharmonious" actions like buying unhealthy food, associating with other people who had low scores, playing video games too much, and saying mean things about the government. There'd also been a global fad of adding game-like rules to fitness programs and hobbies. Today, many countries had some kind of SCS. With a score in the "A" range or the bizarrely named, exalted "S" rank, he could not only get a low-interest student loan but expedite government paperwork and qualify for other public benefits. As a student doing his national service years, the SCS applied to his privileges within the Community too.

His score included stats for Health (exercise, diet), Contribution (work, education) and Participation (social events, media use). For Community residents ten percent of each category was under the supervisor's arbitrary judgment, which was in theory balanced against the danger of his supervisor getting complaints. There was a rumor that a few Community leaders had been busted for using the ten percent to get favors from their residents. The system was a sort of cross between what well-meaning parents might design to encourage young children to do their chores, and one of those "edutainment" games he could get points for playing.

Hal had claimed Stan was hurting himself by not following the rules, and that much was true. But were they good rules? Stan had been raised without any real standard to compare them to. No father, no church, few friends. He just knew he'd had his stuff taken away by a guy calling the Tales people evil murderers, which was nuts. There was a crack in the system. Nothing so dramatic as Hal twirling his mustache and whipping people, but obnoxious enough for Stan to see that obedience wasn't necessarily going to make him a Good Citizen.

Where there was a crack in the system, there was opportunity.