3

A frothing mob smashed windows and threw homemade petrol bombs. I ran for cover behind a burned-out car and watched a boy destroy a shop window with a cricket bat. His assault rifle hindered him in his looting efforts. Grand Theft Auto?

A Twitter feed sidled past, and I joined the dots: I was in the middle of a news broadcast, not a game. It switched to students protesting on the steps of a university.

“Fees must fall! Fees must Fall!” The crowd chanted as they surged forward. A line of police officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets, scattering the crowd. They responded with a brick. This led to more screams and rubber bullets. Where the fuck (sorry Fikile) was the blue guy?

The handles of journalists sidled past me, again, in case you didn't know where to follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

“It's always the poor who suffer most in these situations,” a shiny journalist said into a camera. Survivors, muddy and bleeding, gathered behind her. “A hurricane has destroyed a small island off the coast of South America,” the shiny journalist reported, not a hair out of place. “A thousand are buried in a mass grave today.”

I thought I was relatively up to speed with current events. I was wrong.

“Ah, there you are," said Blue from a hovering portal behind me.

“Truth, bring you up to speed, did She?” He smiled sunshine back into the bleak domain.

***

The door zipped itself up, and I found myself in a three-dimensional haze of green code, like in The Matrix, the cult classic film of the nineties.

While I had dozens of questions, our surroundings were much more fascinating.

“Java,” I said amidst a flurry of coding languages. “These are games,” I added, spinning around, taking it all in.

“Wait, some of this is Middleware. Some games are for PC, and some are for consoles."

Blue smiled. “Indeed." He said, swiping his hand through the green air. "Let's keep moving. It's not safe here.”

“Are things as bad as that?” I asked.

“In this Realm, I’m afraid so," he said. "Things tend towards intensity during the Coalescence, especially when the First Force shows up.”

“What’s the first force,” asked Will.

“Truth,” said Blue. And there it was. A Presence.

“But the internet isn't only games,” I said, still very involved in semantics.

“Correct,” Blue agreed. “But all of this is just a manifestation that makes it possible for you to understand. A giant metaphor, if you will, that you, Regan, are generating and that you, William, are agreeing to participate in.” Will raised an eyebrow. I heard the cartoony sound it made. Did anyone else?

“Hence the Matrix, the late nineties cult classic, as my frame of reference?”

“Hence the Matrix, the nineties cult classic, as your frame of reference,” Blue nodded. “We are vulnerable here,” he said, drawing a door. I caught a strand of code and followed it.

“This isn't source code,” I noted. Blue smiled. The white of his teeth was surreal against the green vibrating hue around us.

“The dawn of the technological age has made the Nine Known Realms vulnerable.”

Will, had taken on what I was calling, resting confused face. I leaned in towards Blue and whispered. “Hey Blue, maybe Will here can get off at the next stop? I don't think this is his jam.”

"How would you know what my jam is, Regan? Google doesn't know who people actually are, you know." Without hesitation, Will stepped through the door. As I say, I'm not great at reading people, but as Blue made a selection of symbols around the door frame, I could have sworn he showed signs of pride. For Will.

The symbols glowed red. “A firewall!” I said. Blue smiled and nodded towards it, and I stepped through.

***

The walls were translucent with projections that spun endless selfies, babies, dogs, cats, and food. Blue, appeared, and the door vanished with a slight red fizz.

A botanical article glided by, followed by screenshots of terrible dad jokes. “We need to keep moving,” said Blue.

“We’re bouncing through layers of encryption!” Understanding dawned on me.

“Precisely,” Blue confirmed. He closed his eyes and cocked his head, listening. I took a turn around the liminal space. A foodie-fail glided past, and my tummy rumbled. “Is this the Deep Web,” I asked. Blue nodded, but his attention was elsewhere.

“Excuse me," he said a moment later, "while I collect your predecessor, Regan.” He vanished. Without a door. My what now?

Will watched me but pretended not to be by laughing as a toddler with a black permanent marker in hand grinned while her sibling, whom she had drawn all over, cried. I shook my head with disapproval.

“Way too many pictures of babies online.”

Will nodded in agreement but added, “Come on, it’s funny!"

"Is it?" He rolled his eyes and sighed. I was used to this attitude from pretty much everyone. Even Eleanor said I don't have a sense of humour.

"So, we’re hiding where no one will bother looking, and if they do, they will have to sift through a whole bunch of babies, bad ideas, cats, dogs, food, and selfies, before they find us?” Asked Will.

“Exactly,” I said, “and an IP address is...”

“I know what an IP address is,” he interrupted. I didn't have time to acknowledge my surprise because Blue reappeared with a tall, sinewy young man.

“You must be Regan,” the sinewy kid said. He wore a gun-metal grey chainmail hoodie of delicately woven material. The strange light of the domain revealed its nature. It reminded me of my Shadow Sheath. His black skinny jeans were so black they felt like antimatter. His eyes and hair were equally dark, and he had the beginning of a five O clock shadow.

“Seth, Regan, Regan, Seth," announced Blue.

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"Your predecessor,” added Will. He had noticed that then, did he? Blue vanished. Again.

I had an odd feeling then, a deja vu. As if I had experienced this exact moment before.

I turned my almost black eyes to the young man slicing his hands through the atmosphere as he spoke. “You, Regan Grace, are an Arche. It's an ancestral gift, a legacy. You are also the Game Changer. The Game Changer is responsible for ushering in the final Great Remembering.” Seth, my predecessor, finished this sentence and whatever he had been doing with his hands simultaneously. And Blue winked back into existence, causing Will to have his seventeenth conniption of the day.

“Where do you keep coming from, man?”

“You two don’t need a compression algorithm, do you?” I asked Seth and Blue. "Or doors for that matter." Seth grinned and winked at me as a brand-spanking new thought occurred to William Peaceman, and me. His eyes met mine as he asked what I was thinking.

“Why am I here?”

Seth and Blue exchanged glances. “Will," began Seth, "you are Regan’s, Anam Cara’.”

“Chosen by your soul, Regan, during the first six days of your Coalescence,” concluded Blue.

“We’ll get to ‘my coalescence’ in a minute,” I said as I started to feel less excited and more annoyed. “Why, Will?” I demanded.

“We barely even know each other,” he confirmed.

“Your Anam Cara is someone you have bonded with emotionally - heart to heart, as it were,” added Seth. Will and I made eye contact. “That event or moment changes both of you and binds you together,” Seth added. “Forever.”

“Would watching a girl get beaten to a pulp together while someone filmed it and then it went viral do it?” Asked Will.

THE INCIDENT

Mrs Kloppers, the soccer coach, relieved me of my Wearable.

“I'd put this away if I were you, Grace.”

“Ma’am,” I said, “it's after school.”

School: the thing I did to make adults feel important. When adults don't feel important, they say and do extraordinarily stupid things. A lot of people have been doing extraordinarily stupid things of late.

Wearables had barely even landed on the market, and I had one because Eleanor had shares in the company. “This is a bladdy fancy…” The words eluded poor Mrs Kloppers. She turned the small rectangular device around in her fingers. She was right. It was fancy. It was top of the range, and kids at school were still rolling with the last cellular phones to hit the market. You know how it is with tech: it moves quicker than a Twitter feed.

“Thing for a kid,” she finished. It was highly unlikely that Mrs Kloppers had one. Teachers don’t get paid enough. Mrs Koppers got paid very little to deal with quite a lot. That said, I needed this like I needed a hole in the head. I rolled my eyes internally.

“If I may?” I said, swiping at the screen. It landed on the note from my doctor, and the principal permitting me to run my own extracurricular.

There are a handful of things I’m not good at or can’t get good at if I apply myself, but people are not one of them. I threw the Holo up for Mrs Kloppers to see. I was only doing it because I promised Eleanor and Dr Klein (one of the people she pays to deal with me) I would try to make some friends. This was rich coming from her. Eleanor thinks I’m a miniature dog she carries around in her handbag. I had accepted the fact that I was not normal. I wished everyone else would.

“Too smart for us mere mortals, hey?” She eye-balled me one last time, handed me my Wearable, and moved off with the air of a traffic cop who had determined that a bribe was not forthcoming. It was then, at 14h14, that I felt this strange sensation: prickling in the air. A crispness as if I were looking through a camera lens that had just pulled focus. I shrugged it off and tapped the screen on my Wearable to open a notification. And then wished I hadn't.

A boy beat a girl until her bleeding face looked like stewing meat. I recognised the girl when a sweaty, pink boy bumped into me. The jostle caused me to project the Holo, distorting their already contorted faces into macabre screams across the concrete.

“Sorry," he said, shaken. He looked down at the clip playing from my Wearable, now warped across the ground. I closed the holo and focussed back on the small screen. The kid had used a filter that put the punching on repeat, like a cartoon. I watched the pink boy watch the clip and wondered how it was possible for a face that pink, to get even pinker. It could. He winced as the boy landed the punch again and again.

Without taking his eyes off my Wearable, William Peaceman said, “It's weird, right?”

I nodded.

“We shouldn't be seeing this sort of thing, should we?” he said.

I nodded some more.

“Why would you record it?” He kept talking, and I kept nodding.

“It's gross and weird,” he said. I shrugged, and he asked, “Wait, aren't you in her class?”

I nodded.

“Wowzers,” he said. “You really ought to take something for that.”

“For what?” I asked, glancing down at myself.

“For your verbal diarrhoea,” he said, suddenly smiling.

I nodded, seeing his effort. “You made a joke. I get it. It's a little low-brow, but...” I smiled, the ice broken. “It is disturbing,” I agreed.

Mesmerised, we watched the clip again. Then I asked, “Why didn't anyone stop them?” William Peaceman looked away.

***

“Yup, that’ll do it,” said Seth.

“So, when some sort of bio-quantum-engineer-hacker pulled me into the game, he pulled Will in too?”

“Nope,” said Seth. “You did.” There was a moment.

"Due to all the bonding over a beating," said Will, ashen.

“Sorry,” I said. “I mean, I wouldn’t if I’d known… It was going to be you…” I trailed off.

Seth's fingers suddenly flew through the matrix haze. They moved at such speed that I almost missed what was happening to his face and his hands. His skin was aglow and alive with symbols. They writhed and raised, embossed on his skin. I wondered about the rest of his body and felt an unfamiliar sensation.

He worked feverishly, and as he selected a few symbols, they appeared on his face, racing across his cheekbones and into his hairline. They looked like pictures I had seen of the now-extinct tribe from Australia, the Aboriginals. My eyes lit up with recognition of his work.

“Nice firewall!” I complimented. He winked, I was relieved when the door frame glowed red and hid my blushing cheeks. Will was looking at the floor again but surprised me when he said, “So, I'm your sidekick?”

“Sidekick doesn’t quite cover it,” said Seth.

“Where’s your sidekick?” I asked.

“Regan, you are Coalescing, coming together, taking shape,” began Blue…

“Whereas I am coming undone,” concluded Seth. “My Anam Cara is always with me. Trust me, you’ll know soon enough.” Seth stopped talking then and got this terribly haunted look in his eyes.

As if nothing had happened, he ploughed on, “Lesson number one, Game-Changer: for a soul to participate in the Game, it requires an Avatar.” He flashed a grin at me. “Top-notch design on your Shadow Sheath, B T dubs.” He held his hand up. I wasn’t sure what for.

“Regan, never leave a man hanging," said Will, slapping Seth’s palm with his own.

“Bro,” said Seth.

“Bro,’ replied Will.

Seth winked and added, “You gotta have skin in the game, yo!” He stood back, revealing his drawn door. “Your avatar is comprised of five Casings.” He paused and looked me in the eyes as he said earnestly, “Master the Casings, Master the Universe.” He nodded towards the door, and Will, seaming more at ease, stepped through.

***

“Is one of those casings an ‘ego’,” asked Will, surprising me, yet again. Seth raised his hand for a second palm slapping. Blue smiled at them as if he were the father of the sons who had just solved world hunger.

Seth continued, “The ego helps you experience yourself as the physical body. It facilitates the immersive, virtual reality experience of being Human. For Normals, the more you forget that this is a game, the more you can PLAY. The ego helps us forget that we are playing a game, by causing us to identify AS our avatars - our bodies, but it’s time to wake up, everybody! The Kleepoth have breached our firewalls.” He said abruptly. He strode to the other side of the space and drew the outline of yet another door. “We need to get off-grid. Now.” The portal shimmered blue, and Seth ushered us through.

“Can I draw doors then?” I asked. He ruffled my hair in response to my question. He ruffled. My hair. No one ruffled my hair. Will stepped past me through the portal.

He nodded towards Will.“You'll have to help him.” I assumed as much. On the other side, Will’s ethereal body, hovering over himself, game controller in hand, unconscious, squirmed for the same reason.

Seth gave him a reassuring smile. “Don't worry,” he said, “You'll both be stronger after the Assumption.” The door zipped and fizzed, cutting Will off from us. Something caught Seth's attention. He closed his eyes and listened, so I did too. I heard nothing, but I did feel something.

It was like a glass of water on a desk reverberating when the base on a game was too loud. I was the glass, and something inside me was the water. I was trying to hone in on the ‘water’ when Seth said, “This is your stop, Kiddo! Level One, as it were. The firewall is in place...”

“But stay offline,” I finished.

He grinned. “You are going to do greater things than I ever did.”

I nodded instinctively and felt a rush of pleasure despite smarting from ‘kiddo’.

“Do what you can to remove your digital footprint. Wearables, phones, pads, PCs, appliances, and anything that carries your digital signature. Gaming history and scores or stores.”

My face fell.

“You gotta do what you gotta do, kiddo. No respawn.”

I nodded, absolutely gutted.

“They'll use surveillance from everywhere and anywhere. Stay out of sight.”

“I'm hardly a social butterfly, and my IP address is deeply encrypted,” I said sulkily.

“Regan.” His eyes glimmered faintly with blue code. “Cool shirt,” he added. I looked down, and, for the second time in my life, I did not want to unsubscribe from this conversation. I smiled and the blush crept up to my eyeballs. “It’ll all be over in no time at all.” I felt like he was sad about this. “Be safe, Kiddo!” He pushed me through the portal, and the red swish of the firewall sealed the door behind me.

It lingered and then there was nothing.