2

MAIDEN

“Is this a hidden level,” I demanded, fascinated by how real my body and the t-shirt seemed. Is the game accessing the camera on my PC, I wondered. A familiar weird prickly sensation came over me.

The edges of the wooden boat seemed superimposed on the black ink of the lake. I smelled a lit match and rotting eggs. The blood and guts in Dragon's Dominion may be very life-like, but you certainly couldn't smell it. Unnerving much. Losing my balance caused the boat to rock. I felt it rock. A wave of nausea punched me in the guts as a squeal filled the air and ended in a gulf of flames. The atmosphere reeked, and was that burning hair? I confirmed my smouldering hair. The ends of my plaits glittered orange and red, like the fibres of a novelty lamp. The heat intensified in waves, and I heard it before I saw it: the squeal peeled through the air: a dragon circled the boat.

“Well, it is Dragon's Dominion,” I said, shrugging off the insanity.

I eyed the circling beast as a roar rocked the lake. Another burst of flames erupted from its jowls. The orange fire met with the black lake and exploded, causing the boat to rock violently. The dragon circled ceaselessly. I patted my smouldering hair between my palms as the searing heat pressed against me like a man on a bus. I wasn't one for expletives, and Fikile wouldn’t tolerate it, but I felt circumstances demanded, “What the fuck?”

The entire body of liquid erupted beneath the boat. I was ugly sweating my way into a now sopping-wet conversation I might want to unsubscribe from. I didn't know how long a real wooden boat would last on an actual lake of fire so I took a deep breath and pretended I could word that sum. I called it calculating the severity of things. It calmed me a little, but the focus was elusive because of the disgusting stench.

“Seriously," I retched. "What is that stink?”

“The Kleepoth,” rasped the Faceless Ferryman. One rotting corpse after another reared their ugly heads from the burning black. Skin dripped off the bone as empty eye sockets found me.

“Crapuh,” I said. An electric storm blistered the sky. “Ah jeez,” I sighed, making myself small - a practice I was familiar with online and off. Rotting fingers curled over the sides of the boat. Ash and tiny sports cars (cars?!) rained from the bruised clouds, landing with globs and gloops in the broiling black mud. Someone shouted in an orange car next to me, but I didn't miss the unmistakable powering up of a device.

A holo appeared in the hands of The Faceless Ferryman. He scrolled frantically before spotting the yelling boy climbing out of the window of the now-sinking and burning orange car. He scrolled faster as he yelled, “There's only supposed to be one! The girl!”

I brightened, sensing his panic. With an adrenaline surge, I kicked the head clear off a corpse as it heaved itself into the boat! The abomination was headless but not hindered. “Hey!” I yelled over at the boy, “Hey you!” William Peaceman, to be exact. He twisted, looking over his shoulder as he hurled himself onto the roof of the car he was escaping from. Yelping, I assumed due to contact with the searing heat of burning metal, the ginger boy went pinker than he already was. He was precisely the pink of a piglet.

“Oh, hey!” He yelled back, grinning and waving, casual AF.

“I ain't got no room here for two kids,” spat the Faceless-Ferryman! “You's is supposed to have taken her already!"

The dragon circled closer and growled, “You, little man, will do as you're told!” The dragon breathed a semi-circle of fire into the jaundiced air and snarled, “Finish all of it!”

“This is my damn domain! And this was not the deal!” The Faceless Ferryman waved his fist in the stink-filled air. I paused from the heated exchange as I kicked another headless corpse squarely in the chest. It glooped into the burning oil and sank.

My victory was short-lived. They closed in on me, seeming to multiply by the second. “This wasn't the deal!" The Faceless Ferryman gestured wildly towards William Peaceman. "Do you have any idea how complicated the compression algorithm is for one human consciousness plus meat sack, let alone two?”

“You forget your place, little man.” A gulf of flames enveloped what was now not a Faceless-Ferryman, but a flaming one. His screams rang through the smoke and ash as he flailed around the rapidly sinking and burning boat. Another blast of flames fanned around us. William yelped like a puppy as he hopped from foot to foot on the roof of the rapidly sinking car. The smoking dragon dipped a wing as it boomed, “Finish it!”

His gargantuan throat and bulbous-belly doubled as it decimated anything in its path. Several smaller dragons winked into existence to finish the job. The head honcho beat his wings languidly as it growled, “Coders. Think they can code their way out of anything.” It left a trail of flames, black smoke, and a blaze of slate grey dragons when it winked out of existence.

A compression algorithm for human matter and consciousness? Beam me up, Scotty! Fascinating and incredible! It took shape in my mind. I’d designed several apps and started a game, but to compress and import a human being? I vacillated between fear and fascination in my strange circumstances as I inched back into my cosy boat by the fire.

William Peaceman, and his almost submerged car, were surrounded. Burning eye sockets boring into him. I closed my eyes and went back to my beautiful algorithm. I wanted to have a head full of beautiful code when I died. “Regan, stop working on that algorithm, please.”

I blinked. Sapphire eyes emitting a contradictory warmth looked into me.

“Are you sure you want to play this game?” The stranger standing in my boat-grave asked. He had indigo hair swept back from a calm brow, tied into a loose pony holding back curls threatening to escape. I felt like a Viking. Maybe I was already dead, and this was Valhalla?

Time wasn’t moving the way it should. Ash drifted onto his face. Each flake took a thousand years to glide down and find peace on his broad shoulders. The blue man had a smile of sunshine. “This is a game of such veracity, Regan Grace, it will change you.”

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“I've played...” I stopped. His sapphire eyes twinkled. How was it possible to perceive so many hues of blue? He could have been fifteen. He could have been fifty. He smiled, and I felt it in my bones. “I play games over my age restriction all the time." I tried again. "I'm part of the Master Race,” I was smug, but it didn’t matter because he didn't mean Dragon's Dominion or anything else.

“It's the violence of the mind that we must guard against, Regan Grace," he confirmed. The sunshine left his smile as he asked again. “Are you sure you want to play this game?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want to play.” His grin broke a thousand laws of nature. The blue man raised a hand to the melting corpses, and they sank back into the burning black. Hollow eye sockets stayed just above the smouldering black surface, focussed intently on us, as code flashed in the cavernous sockets. One by one, they winked away.

The blue man stepped out of the boat and stood on the burning mass. Orange flames licked at his grey-toe shoes. Eleanor made fun of people who wore them. A blue flash zigzagged along the edge and met midnight blue trousers. A tailored jacket with the same flash motif on the high collar clothed the column of blue power. He reached out his hand, turned the palm up, and beckoned to the pink boy, who was now, to be fair, quite red. “Shall we retire to more hospitable accommodations?” He smiled as he drew a shimmering door-shaped portal with his right index finger. “After you.”

***

“How do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you, Regan.”

“Oh my God,” said William Peaceman, taking in his surroundings. “Now I’m in her bedroom,” he muttered, perplexed. The blue man and I exchanged glances. I wasn’t very good at reading people on the best of days.

“Hey Blue, I assume you are going to explain.”

William panted and sweated profusely. “This is the weirdest dream I've ever had, man,” he mumbled as he touched my Star Wars posters and then my bed. The blue man patted his shoulder kindly, “Will, I assure you, this is no dream.”

“Regan. Regan Grace. Grade six A." I thought it might help to introduce myself. "And you are William Peaceman, Grade seven B, Captain of the under thirteen soccer team and eldest brother to three younger female siblings.” William blinked. I forged on, “Your Mother is a Child Psychologist who refers to her children as 'her ginger biscuits' and your father is a professor in Anthropology at the university. Your favourite game is Rocket League. Cars and Soccer.” A penny dropped inside my brain. “Is that what you were playing when the game kidnapped you?”

William’s jaw had slackened as he nodded. “Rocket League, yes…” He stared at me. “How?”

Now my cheeks flushed as I admitted, “Online. Isn't that how you get to know a person?” I asked. They stared at me.

“Just because everyone does something, doesn’t mean you should,” said William Peaceman. “Says my dad,” he added.

“Not the best way to get to know people then?” The blue man and the red boy shook their heads. I was not convinced that either of them knew anything about interpersonal skills. “And you, Blue?” I asked, desperate to get the attention off me. “Ow!” I suddenly squealed, rubbing my arm. William had pinched me. “For goodness sake,” I yelled, “You're supposed to pinch yourself!” I said, pinching him right back!

“Ow!” he squealed.

“See? Such a cliche!” I said, still rubbing my pinched forearm. I strode over to my double bed and bounced on it, thinking this might demonstrate my point. William had been eyeing my R2D2 and my Millennium Falcon models. He was very impressed. I could tell.

“This is, in fact,” said the Blue Man, “another domain I created to cloak our movements.” He smiled the sunshine smile, making me feel like everything was going to be okay even though alarm bells were ringing in every corner of my brain.

“Go on.” I wandered back into my favourite corner of my mind and recalled my beautiful code. “Tell me more about this compression algorithm for humans.” I sighed dreamily.

“What's a compression algorithm for humans, and do I want to know?” asked William.

“While I approve of your enquiring minds, perhaps it would be more economical if we, what’s the expression? Walked and talked?”

The blue man swiped his hand through the air, drawing a door again. The space became opaque and shimmered. “William, a compression algorithm is a mathematical language that explains to a computer that the information needs to be smaller to get from one computer to another without losing any important bits when it comes out on the other side.” Blue gestured towards the portal. “Shall we?”

William put his hand through the doorway. It disappeared. “I'm guessing that would be a hand. Or a leg,” he asked.

The blue man nodded, “Or a memory or personality trait. Any information about your personhood. It’s all information.”

William pulled his hand back. It was still there. He sighed with relief. “So, we are online right now? We are in it?” Asked William.

“Indeed,” said the blue man.

“Cool,” William and I agreed. He grinned and said, “My friends call me, Will.”

I blinked. “My mother calls me Regan.” Will nodded as if I’d missed something, which was highly unlikely.

“Shall we?” The blue man gestured towards the portal again. Will glanced around my online bedroom with uncertainty. The blue man whispered, “William, I assure you, this is not that sort of dream.” I had no idea what that sort of dream was.

I stepped through.