EleMental: A First-person Shooter

Chapter 4: 'Come to Virtualitee and see for yourself'

Chapter 4: ‘Come to Virtualitee and see for yourself’

Before Willis could stop him, Zeb twisted awkwardly in his seat, making the safety bar whine. ‘What on earth?’ he said. ‘You!’

Willis followed Zeb’s startled gaze and stared directly into the impenetrable sunglasses and face of the man from the Plush holo-ad. The man from Virtualitee, grey, bald, and shrouded in a long, black overcoat. The safety bar had not come down around him, yet he sat relaxed and casual, unaffected by the sudden drops and sideways lurches of the speeding tram.

And there was something else. Something that Willis had considered a fault in the holo-ad and the placard that had mysteriously vanished, yet now he witnessed it again. Like the holo-ad, like the placard, the man shifted in and out of focus.

The man turned to Willis and spoke. ‘There’s no need for feckless frolicking at the Floating Baths.’

‘Pardon?’

He grinned. ‘Come to Virtualitee. Come and get your freebie jeebies.’

Willis swallowed, a muddle of confusion and fear rising in him. ‘How did you get there? I thought we were in the back seat.’

The man leant forward. ‘If you’re in the back seat, then where am I? In the boot?’

Willis wondered how the man could see anything through the solid black lenses of his glasses.

‘Do you want your freebie or not?’ the man asked.

‘No!’ said Willis at the same time Zeb said, ‘Yes!’

Zeb turned to Willis. ‘We can at least hear him out.’

The man smiled at Zeb and extended his arm, two skeletal fingers and a thumb pinched together as if he held something. ‘My card,’ he said. But Willis could see only air.

Zeb slowly brought his hand up.

‘Zeb? What are you doing?’ Willis asked.

Zeb paused and looked at him. ‘It’s just a card.’

Willis stiffened. ‘I can’t see one.’

Zeb knitted his eyebrows and stared at the man’s fingers. ‘I can. Sort of.’

‘You can?’ The man sounded pleased. ‘Good.’ But when Zeb didn’t move, he added: ‘Are you going to take it or not?’

Zeb reached forward, a look of concentration on his face. Instead of grasping at the air before the man’s fingers, where Willis could see no card, Zeb touched his fingertips. The man jerked away, clutching his fingers and hissing and spitting. Zeb too pulled away with a jolt. He rubbed his own hand. ‘I couldn’t see the card well enough.’

‘So you thought you’d assault me? Your hands. They were warm and … solid. Still too much a part of reality for my taste.’ He spoke his last words in disgust.

Willis watched the man rock from side to side, bent over and nursing his fingers. Under his clasping hand, his skin appeared to be moving, bubbling and shifting. He looked up at Zeb and a smile formed on his pallid face. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘no pain, no game.’

‘Gain,’ Willis corrected.

Zeb didn’t pay them any attention. He held something small and square. The card. Willis could see it now. Zeb was examining it closely.

‘What does this entitle us to?’ asked Zeb. He looked at the man. ‘I’m only interested in first-person shooters. Horrocore ones.’

‘Horrocore!’ The man let go of his injured fingers and Willis noticed his grey skin was smooth once more. ‘What a coincidence, that’s my specialty. Well, it is now, anyway.’