After everything that had happened, all the fear and stress and sadness and misery, walking into the hotel suite felt like it was the least real part of the Game so far. Milletson led them down a corridor and opened two grand doors with a flourish. Beyond was a large central area with couches and chairs scattered about. There was a bookshelf full of books and old pictures of pastoral scenes on the wall. A large dining table sat at one end. All of the objects looked like they had come from Earth. Six doors stood open to six bedrooms, and each door was neatly labeled with the name of its intended occupant on a small copper plate. In each room there was a four-poster bed and open floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on an immaculate garden. Translucent under-curtains wafted in the warm breeze. There was an aura of luxurious peacefulness and tranquility that was entirely at odds with their actual situation.
‘Perhaps you would like to clean up,’ Milletson said, ‘and then dinner can be served. Just ring the bell when you are ready. Also, you’ll notice an additional clock has been added to your overlay -- all guests are restricted to eight hours of Plaza usage in every twenty-four-hour period, as I’m sure you’ll understand.’
He bowed and left the room. Neb had forgotten all about the Game clock. There were sixty-two hours remaining. Underneath was the hotel stay clock, which was counting down from 7h 44m.
Mallory was looking around, taking everything in. ‘I kind of want to fuck this place up,’ he said. Neb knew just what he meant. The hotel seemed a mockery, like a bully pretending to be your friend just to layer on even worse humiliations when your guard was down.
‘Get cleaned up,’ Buzz ordered. ‘Back out here in ten. We need to debrief and eat, then we’ll get some rest.’
Everyone dispersed into the rooms. Neb shut the door and leaned his head against it, and tried to remember the last time he had been in a room by himself. He couldn’t. It had been some time in his old life, before the mission had officially started. Back when he was still living with Edith. Back when… But he didn’t want to think of any of that right now. He opened his eyes and looked around. Hanging neatly from the door of the wardrobe was a brand-new version of the exact uniform he was wearing. Attached to it was a note: With our compliments. The politeness again just highlighted the terrible strangeness of it all, another hint of the brutal endoskeleton behind this luxurious, opulent exterior.
He went into the bathroom. Everything that could be made out of marble was made out of marble. The size of it felt obscene after the cramped heads of all the ships and stations he had been to. He stripped off his filthy, torn uniform and let it fall to the floor, got the shower going after some experimentation with the knobs, stepped under the intense flow of hot water, and cried. Deep sobs shook his body but he was utterly silent. He was caught off guard by the intensity of it. Then he stopped crying as if turning off a faucet, finished his shower, and got dressed in the new uniform. The sounds of the zips and buttons were loud in the quiet room.
He still had a few minutes remaining. His inventory worked exactly the same way at the hotel as it did out in the world, other than the fact he couldn’t access any weapons. But he could take out the triggerless gun without issue. He sat down on the edge of the bed and turned the artifact over in his hands, feeling the cool heft of it. It seemed to be made of metal, but there was something not quite metallic about it. He traced his fingers over the designs on the handle, turning the three little dials. They moved from setting to setting with small, satisfying vibrations, like inaudible clicks.
The dials were labeled with small Main symbols, combinations of complex arcs and curves that Neb often thought looked more machine-generated than organic creations. He turned through each setting of the dials, but the artifact seemed completely inert. He suspected it was out of charge.
Then it suddenly came to life with a bright glow on either side. He yelped and dropped it heavily on the ground.
‘You okay in there Doc?’ Gray called from the living room. ‘It’s almost debrief time.’
‘Yeah, just, uh, stubbed my toe,’ he answered through the closed door.
He looked down at the artifact on the floor. As well as the glow, there was now an opening very like the chamber for a round on a normal pistol. So it was a gun, then. Or was it? He frowned. There was room only for one large round. And his inventory still did not count it as a weapon. When he reversed the last turn of the dial he had made, the light switched off and the chamber closed, melding so perfectly with the rest of the artifact that it was visually undetectable. So he had found an on/off switch of sorts, if nothing else.
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‘Doc what the fuck, we’re waiting!’ Buzz yelled from outside.
Neb slipped the artifact under his pillow and made sure his face was set into a half-apologetic grimace. He had never felt such curiosity in his life, but it would have to wait.
He stepped out of the bedroom and saw everyone was already gathered around the long table. They all looked fresh and clean in their new uniforms. Ver was sitting at the head of the table. Neb slipped into his seat under a scowl from Buzz.
‘Sorry,’ he murmured.
‘You know you can do that in front of us, Doc,’ Mallory said to him, to smirks from the others. ‘We don’t judge.’
Neb kept his eyes down and didn’t answer. He had learned many times that responding just made it worse.
Buzz rang the bell for dinner to be served, and they ate quickly and quietly. The food was simple but exceptionally good, and they were all extremely hungry. Once it was done and the staff had cleared everything away and left the room, Ver looked to Buzz, who nodded.
‘Okay then,’ Ver said. ‘You’ve done quite well, all things considered. But as they say, what got you here will not get you there.’ He smiled his thin smile and looked around at them. ‘It’s time for you to learn to play the Game properly.’
‘Hurry the fuck up,’ Meathead said.
Ver gestured at the table control controls and a dataset appeared from the central projector. The team numbers were:
Buzz 2,771 Level 2
Meathead 2,905 Level 2
Mallory 2,560 Level 2
Gray 2,300 Level 2
Anna 3,004 Level 2
Neb 3,150 Level 2
It took them a while to make sense of it. But then Mallory said: ‘What the everloving fuck -- the Doc has more points than any of us?’
‘The good Doctor solved the puzzle of the Banker’s house,’ Ver said in answer. ‘That gave him a little boost. But in fact all of you are doing comparatively well. Every one of you has reached Level Two. Your collective action to take out so many lowcrawlers at once also bumped you up.’
‘The grenade,’ Mallory said to Neb. ‘You knew it would help us.’
‘I guessed,’ Neb said. ‘Could have been wrong.’
‘Levels are fine,’ Buzz interrupted, speaking to Ver. ‘But we need weapons and ammo. Where do we get those?
‘We’re getting to that, commander. But I assure that your levels are more critical than traditional weapons, even if it doesn’t yet seem that way. Please direct your attention to your skill trees.’ He gestured, and from the table projector a tree of skills and abilities appeared beside the level numbers.
‘Right now, your capabilities reflect what the Game believes to be your pre-existing skills, experience and inclinations,’ Ver continued. ‘But those things come from your past, the way you used to be. The Game is like a new life, and with new life comes new opportunities.’
Ver moved his hands and the display changed to highlight the four strands of the skill tree. They were ‘Perception’, ‘Agility’, ‘INtelligence’ and ‘Strength’. The first two letters of ‘intelligence’ were capitalized, and Neb wondered why until he suddenly saw the connection.
‘PAINS?’ he said to Ver with raised eyebrows.
Ver smiled, something more genuine than his usual expression. ‘The Main are not entirely without humor,’ he answered. ‘These are the base ingredients that you have to work with. For certain skills, there are interrelationships and requirements amongst them. You must choose your path wisely.’
‘What does any of it even mean, though?’ Neb asked. ‘What does it mean in reality to increase our intelligence? You would need to completely rewire our minds, change who we are.’
‘Remember you are in an augmented reality here, Doctor,’ Ver answered. ‘A base reality over which the Main have near-perfect control. Thoughts and impulses can be introduced to you quite easily, I can assure you. But don’t worry -- they will be clearly identifiable as outside influences. The identity of the core individual is sacrosanct in Main culture, a fundamental right. Anyway, my friends. The Game clock never stops. I suggest you choose your paths.’