Lily watched the humans as they performed their peculiar ritual. Three of them, D_Light included, were arranged in a circle. They did not speak, but instead made hand gestures and occasionally laughed, winked, nodded, or tapped their feet. Lily knew all the real communication was telepathic. Nevertheless, she thought they looked silly in their silent speech. They reminded her of children playing a strange game of their own invention, rather than the masters of the universe that humans fancied themselves to be.
There were two others near the circle, but facing outward, ever so watchful. The pair was bristling with weapons. The male one looked at Lily only intermittently while scanning the rest of the surroundings, but the female allowed her gaze to linger on her as though probing.
Lily reminded herself that she had to be insane to remain with this pack of eccentric “players,” as they called themselves. If he were alive, Todget would be horrified and perhaps profoundly disappointed to know she was putting such trust in the enemy-perhaps the very ones who were responsible for his death. It was then that Lily had to admit to herself that her trust was not founded in a genuine hope for safety, as D_Light would have her believe, but out of simple curiosity…and something else. Intuition?
It was customary to have an intermission between each quest in a MetaGame. This allowed players to rest and regroup between challenges. Also, it was thought that this pause gave time for the next quest to be chosen for them by the artificial intelligence software or whatever was running the MetaGame. D_Light had been a little afraid that the others would turn him in during the intermission. After all, the quest did not say that those of the party who became “demonized” had to remain in the party. However, he hoped that this was inferred. Besides, had he not proven himself a valuable asset? Still, moving forward with a demon in the party was bound to be problematic. The others might be demonized as well for aiding and abetting him. They were taking a big chance, and so it came as no surprise to D_Light that when the party reunited, the topic of who stayed and who went immediately came up. D_Light, Lyra, and Djoser opened a conference blink.
Djoser began. It’s one thing to bring you back into the party, but her? I mean no offense, D_Light, in case you’ve taken a liking to that girl, but she’s an additional risk. Besides, you cannot add a member to the party. It is against the rules. Djoser crossed his arms to signal that the conversation was over.
Lyra smiled smugly. Actually, read the rule again. Lyra then shared a text visual of the rule to which she was referring.
MetaGame Rule #11: You may lose a member of your party at any time for any reason, including death or incapacitation, without being dropped from the game. You may not replace or add another member to the party unless doing so directly accomplishes a quest.
Well? Lyra threw up her arms. D_Light became a demon because he helped this girl, Lily, right? Because he took Lily with him-because she joined him-he became a demon, and becoming a demon was the quest. Her addition to the party was a natural byproduct of the game.
D_Light added, A rather ingenious way to add a member to the party, if I may say so myself. D_Light patted himself on the shoulder and grinned. He preferred to let the rest of them think he had planned it all out this way. Djoser looked mildly amused, but his smile seemed to suggest, “Don’t push it.”
Fine, and what does this girl bring to the table? Djoser asked while raising his eyebrows.
D_Light anticipated this question and answered without hesitation. She’s in good shape. She can run like hell. She seems to be able to defend herself pretty well. She adapted to the spanker world really fast, so I think she’s got a good head on her shoulders. Most importantly, she’s been a demon for a while and never got caught. She’s bound to know a few tricks to keep us free and clear.
Lyra frowned. I thought you helped her escape. D_Light had briefed the others on the events earlier that morning while they journeyed to their rendezvous location.
Yeah, I don’t think she knows much about the Game, D_Light said. She needed someone like me who could log her into a spank game so she could blend in. But she knows how to live outside the Game, and that’s something none of us really know, right?
What is her deal anyway? Djoser asked. Is she a sideliner or something? Maybe a product? There’s something off about her.
D_Light knew what Djoser meant. She doesn’t have the markings of a product. So, yeah, my best guess is she’s a sideliner, but she hasn’t said anything.
Have you asked her? Djoser asked.
Of course, replied D_Light, but I think she’s been a demon for a while, so she’s learned to not blather.
Lyra nodded and took a deep breath. We don’t have time to explore her life history right now. We need to get going before the Authority catches up. We can learn more about her on the road. If something doesn’t jive, we ditch her, no problem. Besides, if at the end of this game we can’t fix her demon status, you know…
We can turn her in for the bounty, Djoser said with a satisfied smirk on his face.
Lyra shrugged. For the record, you said it, not me.
“Okay, enough of this,” Lyra said out loud. She walked quickly up to Lily. “So, little demon, would you like to join us?” She extended a hand as though she expected Lily to kiss it.
Lily did not. Instead, she inspected Lyra’s hand as though measuring the character of the stranger based on her finger length. “I don’t see why-”
Lyra cut her off. “Thanks to our association with you, we are all demons and now share the bond of being pursued. If we work together, we have the best chance of eluding our hunters. You have been a demon for a while, right? Surely you can help us.”
Lily returned an uncertain look.
Lyra laughed. “Look, let me start off by helping you. I have a present.” Lyra fumbled about in her travel pack for a moment and pulled out a shimmering one-piece skinsuit.
“This was supposed to be a spare, but you look like you’re about my size.” Lyra’s voice betrayed a hint of disappointment at this observation. “Put it on. I already have a pattern for you to wear that will disguise your face and hair, and best of all, you’ll look fabulous!”
Lily smiled and graciously accepted the garment. She quickly found the hidden zipper in the back, looked inside the suit as though expecting to find it lined with scorpions, and then smiled and curtsied to Lyra. “Excuse me while I change,” she said, running off to conceal herself behind a solid clump of foliage.
Djoser leaned over to Amanda and quietly said, “Looks like she has seen a skinsuit before. Maybe she’s not such a primitive after all.”
Amanda did not smile at her master’s joke, but that was not surprising to D_Light, who doubted the product had any sense of humor at all.
Lyra sighed as she watched Lily retreat. She then tugged at something on the back of her collar. With this, Lyra’s head and face briefly shimmered and then transformed. Her long hair shortened into a jet-black bob, her face rounded, the corners of her eyes narrowed, and her lips thinned. She now appeared to be from the Japanese bloodline. The device that disguised her head and face was called a veil, which consisted of countless nanotubes of fiber optic wires so thin as to be individually invisible; however, collectively they created an ever so subtle shimmering appearance when not activated. The glass tubes were highly flexible, but they held the shape of petals curving up from the collar of her skinsuit, encasing her head like a closed tulip. With a veil on, one could project an illusion of just about any face and head imaginable-or at least whatever an illusionist could program.
Lyra’s clothing changed also. She now wore a loose-fitting silken blouse and pants. The microspeakers embedded in her skinsuit did an excellent job of simulating the sound of swishing fabric as she walked. Lyra smiled, showing fangs similar to Amanda’s, and then she twisted and crouched down into a traditional kung fu fighting stance. “Who wants some?” she asked.
Djoser applauded and called out, “I think I just pissed myself!”
Amanda watched Lyra intently and ran her real fangs over her lower lip.
A pretty woman appearing to be of Middle Eastern descent emerged from behind the trees. She wore a shawl that would have been a traditional Muslim shawl had it not been streaked with a seemingly infinite number of colors that pulsed and shifted. The shawl was semitransparent, making visible a hint of her well-fitting skinsuit beneath it.
Lyra smiled at her. “You look perfect, Lily. PeePee, show her how she looks.” Lyra’s ferret familiar dutifully opened its jaws and projected a hologram of Lily so she could see herself.
D_Light had forgotten that Lily had no familiar of her own and therefore had no way of seeing what she looked like to other people. He took it for granted that he could see how he looked anytime by having Smorgeous view him from the familiar’s perspective and send him the video feed. This was so routine, in fact, that D_Light never even had to tell his familiar to do it. D_Light would just have to wonder how he looked, and there he was.
Lily looked pleased with her appearance as she hopped about in a circle while watching herself. The motion did not cause any distortion in her image. The veil did a good job of compensating for gravity and movement. High-quality veils never distorted, except with the most violent motion.
D_Light looked over to see that Djoser had engaged his suit now. He resembled an ancient Victorian era gentleman, complete with a tall top hat. His face had changed from a man of roughly Indian descent to one of a darker African ancestry.
“You guys want to blend in, right? Why not choose a more common look?” D_Light was referring to the pandectic racial features of most contemporaries-skin that was a very dark tan, almost black, with relatively angular facial features close to that of a Caucasian.
“What’s the use of playing a game if you can’t have some fun?” Lyra shrugged. “Oh, we did some shopping on the way here and got you a veil too.”
D_Light laughed. “Let me guess, a greased-up albino in a G-string.” Not that it mattered. D_Light knew he could just select a design of his own choosing from his virtual closet.
Lyra walked around and up behind D_Light, whispering near his ear, “Close.” She unsnapped his collar and replaced it with the one embedded with a veil.
D_Light almost thought he could hear a low whistle as the nanothreads overhead scanned his face. With the momentary scanning complete, D_Light became a little girl. More precisely, he was a six foot one inch girl with the infantile facial features of a child no older than three. He wore a pink leotard, a large bow in his long blond hair, and frilly pink dancing shoes. D_Light chuckled as Djoser nearly busted a gut laughing.
Lyra frowned. “Oh, not funny! Not funny at all! Okay, I’ll change you fast before this is imprinted upon my psyche.”
Presently, D_Light’s body and face blurred and focused back in, displaying a Victorian like Djoser.
“I say, spot on!” D_Light did his best to mimic a British accent to accompany his new look. The country of England, like most countries, no longer had any real identity, but the accent still belonged to a few and, more importantly, remained part of entertainment culture.
“So now that we all look fabulous, where shall we go?” Lyra asked with enthusiasm. “We don’t have a quest yet, but our handsome couple here,” she said, pointing one index finger at Lily and the other at D_Light, “is surely being chased down by Soul knows what.”
D_Light nodded and added, “They’ll be using sniffer bots to find us. That’s what was chasing us at the spanker ghetto.”
“Righty-o! No one will be able to ID us with an image grok, but we’re still vulnerable to sniffers,” Djoser said with his own poor imitation of a British accent.
“Actually, not all scanners scan visual appearances, you know, not all scan light,” Lyra said. “Some use seismographic scanning, which draws our physical features and contours. The light illusion created by the suits we’re wearing will not fool these types of scanners.” Lyra smiled and added, “I did my research on my way here.”
“Sure, but these disguises will still fool people just using famscans,” D_Light said.
Lily furrowed her eyebrows slightly and said, “I must confess that I do not follow all of this discourse, but might I make a suggestion?”
Everyone turned to regard Lily; even the familiars fixed their cold eyes on her.
Upon gaining their attention, she said, “I would often go for walks at night, but as a precaution I would go for a swim before returning home. A scent cannot easily be followed through the water. The lake I swim in is only a few miles from here.”
No one answered her. Rather, they opened a conference blink with one another, again leaving Lily out. Despite some hesitation by members of the party regarding swimming in a cold and possibly dangerous lake, it was finally decided that going anywhere was better than staying put to be hunted down.
At last, Lyra said out loud, “Thank you, Lily. Let’s have a look at your lake.”
They followed a path covered by gold-colored fungi that offered excellent traction; it yielded enough to make walking comfortable, but not so much as to be extra work. Brian, skinned as a retro wrestler complete with evil leather mask, strutted ahead of the others, vigilantly grokking everything in sight. Djoser and Amanda lagged in the back, Amanda deftly massaging Djoser’s shoulder as they walked. Lyra was in the middle, apparently lost in thought. D_Light walked beside Lily, mesmerized by the undulating colors of her shawl. “You said you didn’t understand what we were saying earlier?” D_Light asked her quietly.
“Very little,” she nearly whispered. “What is a famscan?”
“Do you know anything-”
D_Light was startled by a nectar bat, the size of an eagle, flapping by on its leathery wings. I’m a jumpy newbie demon, he thought. Gotta get used to it.
Lily raised her eyebrows at him, and he quickly tried again. “Do you know anything about familiars?” He nodded toward his cat as it prowled just ahead of them.
“Some. I have used one before,” Lily answered.
“A famscan is an optical scanner familiars use to see light similar to a human, which can then be fed into its master’s mind. The reason these are bad for us is because of grokking.”
Quizzically, Lily looked over at him again. D_Light smiled and said, “Right. So, grokking is something strangers do to each other all the time. Let’s say you see someone you think is interesting.” D_Light winked at her. “The first thing most people do is discreetly have their familiar take a visual of the person with its famscan. Then they search the social registries to find the person’s profile. From there you can find out all kinds of stuff about the person.”
“How intrusive!” Lily recoiled. “But, well, maybe not,” she said thoughtfully. “Those profiles are voluntary, right?”
“Yes, and people love to blab on and on about themselves, so most players don’t mind being grokked,” he replied. “And why should they? No one’s finding out anything you’re not volunteering, and chances are that info is going to be pretty idealized.” He chuckled. “There’s always stuff on people in the Cloud besides their profile-stuff that might not be so flattering.”
Lily grinned. “Hmm, it still sounds a little creepy.”
“Not at all, once you get used to it,” D_Light assured her. “In fact, most players love it. For example, there are a lot of public places with the sole purpose of being seen and seeing what there is to see. These places are called grokstas. A groksta could be in an outdoor setting, like a traditional park, or indoors, like at a club. Of course, to most players the entire world is a groksta.”
They had passed by dozens of people on the trail. Most of them had familiars. Lily wondered if any of them had grokked her.
“Actually,” D_Light said, hesitating for a moment, “I have to confess that the first thing I did when I saw you was give you a grok.”
Lily rolled her eyes up at him. “I was wearing my cloak, was I not? You couldn’t ‘get a visual.’”
“No, no, your hood was off. You were under that tree just staring up into the branches.” D_Light hoped he was not blushing. Meanwhile, Brian had slowed down ahead and was cocking his head sideways as though attempting to listen in. D_Light slowed his own pace to widen the gap.
They were quiet for a moment. Then D_Light said, “But you weren’t in the register. In fact, there was nothing at all on you in the Cloud. You’re a demon-I know that now-but you didn’t come up as one when I grokked you.”
Lily was not eager to talk about why this would be, or anything else about herself, so she employed the strategy of harvesting information from D_Light at a furious rate. She had an endless array of questions that she fired off in rapid succession, and each answer prompted additional questions. As they spoke they watched the birds and bats gliding on the air currents high above. The two were so absorbed in this interview that when they finally reached the lake, they nearly tripped headlong into it.