Spinward: An Artificial Dream State Novel Read online

  Looking at her new body, this could be me, she thought, if I went running everyday like I keep telling myself I should, stop eating all those tasty carbohydrate based snack foods, cut out the cider and wine and join a gym. She let out a sigh. So anything else we need to change she wondered while looking at her new body’s reflection, oh yes, hair, let’s get styled.

  Spinning though the forty available hairstyles proved a little disappointing, nothing really great, guess they hide the really good one in the cash shop she tutted. It took her longer than expected to narrow down the choice down, but it came to a short list of Medium bob three, Short spiky six and Long wavy four, she tried them with various colours.

  Long was wild in red and the Medium bob was dangerous looking, but, oh, we’re going to be in space aren’t we, what happens in zero gravity, or in a space suit helmet, long hair will get everywhere, short and spikey it is, but what colour? Not my natural mousy brown, so blonde perhaps? No not platinum, darker, dirtier, but with some highlights, yes I think we have it.

  Su squinted and got the game HUD to come up, the real time display blinking away in the corner.

  Arggg its half past one already, better hurry up. Eyes, erm yes light yellow green, goes with the hair, makeup, just a touch and I think we’re done. She hit the confirm icon.

  ‘Body deviation level twenty two percent are, please go back or confirm choice. Note Snow Storm Entertainment will not be held liable for any discomfort this level of deviation incurs,’ warned the voice.

  ‘Twenty two percent are you serious, it’s a fifteen at most,’ replied Su with a frown. She tapped the confirm icon rather harder this time.

  ‘Appearance in game can be changed by certain NPC merchants and players with the correct skills, but be warned an internal currency change may be made for these services,’ informed the voice. ‘Please confirm again to go to the next stage of character creation.’

  I’m going to wear out this confirm button in a minute thought Su.

  ‘Please choose character name, enter a First Name, a Last Name and a Nickname. First Name Last Name combinations must be unique and please refrain from profanity or recognised trademarks,’ the voice explained.

  ‘Oh dear, and I so wanted to be called CocaCola Cuntbiscuit,’ Su replied with just a slight amount of sarcasm.

  She racked her brains for a name, why was this always the hardest bit about character creation she wondered? Her first three attempts got rejected, three of them because they were already taken, the fourth was simply not allowed but she couldn’t see why.

  Fifth attempt. First Name : Callisto Last Name : Hudson Nickname: Cal

  ‘Name accepted,’ boomed the voice. ‘Please note names cannot be changed in game unless a rename token is purchased from the Snow Storm Store. Press confirm to continue.’

  Click, again.

  ‘Welcome to Spinward Callisto Hudson.’ The voice almost sounded happy this time. ‘Please allocate your initial thirty points to base attributes.’

  So what have we got, Su went through the attributes in her head. Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Stamina, Charisma, Intelligence, all usual suspects then, but what no Wisdom? Suppose we haven’t got manna or clerics in the space so not required. Strength, well its zapping people with laser guns not whacking them with swords so not really necessary, though it’s likely to affect your carry weight limits isn’t it, so can’t have it rock bottom, so erm 4. Agility and dexterity two separate stats, that’s confusing, guess I need both for dogging and shooting, 7 each. Stamina, required running around? Does it determine hit points, are there even hit points? Erm 7 then. Charisma, Oh who needs that it’s only for vendors and NPCs anyway, 2 and Intelligence, ah this affects maximum number of skills, want this high, 9 and that’s, oh 36 points. Damm, erm well AGL, DEX and STA back to 6 and INT to 8, no still 32, STR down to 3, so one more point to loose, erm, Stamina down to 5. Not a Min Max build but very INT and DEX based, super smart Cal will just have to shoot first.

  ‘Please be aware that base attributes can be increased or decrease in game permanently or temporarily though items and training. If you are happy with you initial allocation pleases press confirm.’

  I’m getting bored of this confirm button, click.

  ‘Cal please select your starting faction.’

  Three versions of her appeared, the first was wearing a buttoned up, almost Napoleonic style, military dress uniform and stood to attention, a subtitle “The Grand Duchy of Sagittarius” floated in front of it. The second in a rather severe but oddly asymmetric looking charcoal business suit clutched a tablet and glared at her. The subtitle read “Canopus Co-prosperity Sphere” and the third, in a baggy jumpsuit and a tool belt, stood rather workmanlike and was titled “The Carina Free Federation”.

  So who to choose, uptight fancy uniforms who want to invade everyone, money mad suits who want to own everything or those freedom, well as long as you are human, loving salt of the earth underdogs… Su pondered. Oh lets go with the federation of whatsit underdogs, lesser of three evils I guess, plus if the Devs are going to favour one faction, this is going to be the one isn’t it. Outfit looks comfier too. She reached out and tapped the third image.

  ‘Starter faction Carina Free Federation selected, please note the chosen starter faction only affects starting location, alliances to all other factions can be built in game. Please press confirm to continue.’

  Click, again. After which the three doppelgangers faded out and a chair slid into view.

  ‘Starter faction selected, please prepare to enter the world of Spinward,’ informed the voice.

  ‘What no class selection, or skill allocation, just straight in?’ Su replied a little confused.

  ‘Question not understood, please prepare to enter the world of Spinward.’

  ‘Uh? Erm so just sit in the chain then.’

  ‘Yes, please sit in the chair.’

  She was really getting a bit narked with the voice. Moving over to the all-important chair, which actually it looked more like a slightly worn out airline seat. Memories of a rather disastrous Hen weekend trip to Prague on Easy-Jet suddenly came to mind as she settled in.

  ‘What th….’ The rest of the words never came out, Su eyes closed and she fell into blackness.

  Chapter 2: Game On

  Cal opened her eyes suddenly and sat up with a start, only to be stopped by a seatbelt across her lap. She was still in the airline seat, but now appeared to now be on medium sized airliner with several rows of them, about half were filled. Looking down she found she was now wearing a slightly baggy light grey jumpsuit festooned with large pockets, something heavy was in the forearm one. Looking around she could see about half the people on the plane were wearing in similar jumpsuits, new players like me she guessed. A rather excited young man sitting two seats away turned to her and gave her the thumbs up.

  ‘This is incredible, wow it’s all so real, it’s amazing, I’m Tod by the way, what’s your name, where are you from,’ Tod blathered but before Cal could answer a voice came over the PA.

  ‘This is your Captain speaking, we have achieved are orbital trajectory and are now on final approach to Upsilon Carinae Gateway Station and will be docking in approximately four minutes,’ announced an American accented female voice. ‘Please remain seated with your seatbelt on until we have docked, but in the meantime, please enjoy the view.’

  The roof of the cabin shimmered for a second before going transparent, everyone looked up and gasped.

  ‘Oh wow,’ exclaimed Cal, ‘it’s not plane, it’s a spaceship.’

  Even Tod shut up and looked up in awe. Above them hung blue green planet, half in darkness, half in light with white clouds rolling across continents. Rising over planet were two suns.

  ‘That’s U Carinae A and B.’ Tod had recovered his voice. ‘And that must be Upsilon Carinae four below, it’s the only one in the habitable belt, I think they call it New Dakota’. His further attempts to impress Cal with more of his astronomical knowledge got cut short by the Captain who had left the PA on.

  ‘Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control this is NDA Shuttle twelve niner four on approach Cleep.’

  ‘Shuttle twelve niner four this is Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control we have you on active. Please come to one two seven dash forty five and reduce velocity to one twenty for approach to docking bay one four Cleep’

  ‘That’s a roger Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control, coming round to one two seven dash forty five and reducing velocity to one twenty Cleep.’

  The NASA like Qunidar tones are a nice touch thought Cal. As the shuttle rolled around to its new heading a new sight came into view, which again garnered several more gasps.

  Upsilon Carinae Gateway station was huge, over two kilometres long Cal guessed. The top was a large flattened dome like structure in an off white colour with lights shinning from a thousand windows. It sat on top a long spine, giving a sort of mushroom like appearance. The spine seemed more industrial, being mostly grey and full of docking ports and booms, pods, pipes, structures and unidentifiable greebles. Ships large and small surrounded the station, flittering about like fireflies with blinking red and green navigational lights. Quite the starter location thought Cal.

  ‘Final approach looks good Shuttle twelve niner four Cleep.’

  ‘Confirm Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control, we are in the slot five by five Cleep.’

  A twin line of blue holographic landing lights stretched out from the lower station guiding the shuttle towards a huge double doorway which was slowly opening. It looked like they wouldn’t open fast enough, but the scale was deceiving, and the shuttle glided through the docking bay doors with tens of meters to spare, before coming to a rest hovering over a landing pad inside the cavernous docking bay. Slightly over complex und
ercarriage unfolded from belly of the streamlined shuttle as is slowly descended onto the pad. It landed with the tiniest of bumps.

  Cal felt the little landing bump and odd twinge, like gravity disappeared for a second and then the whole shuttle did a little wobble as the undercarriage took its weight. Artificial gravity stuff Cal assumed, but still quite a smooth landing, Ryanair isn’t that good.

  ‘Welcome to Upsilon Carinae Gateway Station,’ announced the Captain. ‘Thank you for flying New Dakota Aerospace and please remember to take all your personal items when you leave.’

  The seatbelt light went off and Cal’s lap belt clicked open and retracted itself into the seat. Another chime sounded behind her and another voice, probably a machine’s, sounded out. ‘Pressure levels equalised and atmosphere verified, please stand away from the opening hatch’. With a hiss then a whirr a thick walled hatch slid out and moved away.

  Most of the passengers just got up and shuffled towards the exit, the grey jumpsuited players were less sure, most were still in their seats looking around. Cal wasn’t one of them and followed the more confident passengers, NPC’s she assumed, into the station. The other players followed her lead. The hatch led into a glass walled jet bridge with flashing yellow signs directing the passengers to the arrival area.

  From the windows, Cal could see the bay was huge, easily four hundred meters across and fifty high, a whole indoor airport. Several craft, some sleek and aerodynamic, other boxy and lumpy, sat on pads while space suited workers, trucks and robots fussed around them, connecting and disconnecting fuelling hoses and loading and unloading cargo while others did maintenance and kicked tires. So when do I get my space ship wondered Cal, hope there’s not some awful month long grind for one.

  The jet bridge led into a very basic arrival lounge with worn plastic seats and a couple of vending machines in the corner.

  ‘Wow, it’s like Gatwick in space,’ said one of the grey suited players. Cal agreed.

  ‘Erm, new starters over here please,’ announced a balding man with a scruffy little beard holding a tablet from the corner of the room. ‘Yeah you lot in the grey, get your asses over here, I don’t want to have to shout.’

  The bored looking functionary tapped his tablet as the players started to shuffle over to his position. ‘Hustle people, look this is the only orientation you are going to get, so get over here and listen up.’

  He waited another few more seconds for the stragglers to gather before starting his speech.

  ‘Right here we go. This is the seventh time I’ve had to do this briefing today and there are two more shuttles on approach, so I’m going to keep it quick.

  Welcome new workers, that’s you guys in the grey by the way, to Carinae Gateway Station. You’re a bunch of unskilled nobodies from the boonies who have somehow managed to scrape together enough credit to get yourselves on a shuttle going up the well and are here to make your fortune here in the big black. I’m Administrator Johansson and am the lucky person whose job it is to start you on your way.

  The good news is we’ve got plenty of work. You know the history of this place, got hit hard in the AI wars, that caused a lot of damage and lot of people died and it’s taken a lot of work to get it back to where we are today. But we aren’t quite all the way there yet, so that’s why we need you guys cause we can’t trust the machines anymore. The best work is for people with in demand skills and you guys don’t have them, but you can train if you have the credit and to get that credit you can find manual work. The docks need people, as do the clean-up crews working on the damaged sections and the Commercial deck always needs couriers and fabricators. Also the arboretum people need some help with the managing the green and sorting out its little pest problems and of course for those with slightly more open minds and fluid morals, the Red deck always needs willing people for this and that. So get to work, get some credits, get some gear and get some training.

  You’ve all been allocated accommodation, work clothes, an implanted ID chip and a pad hooked up to the local network. Yeah the accommodation isn’t up to much, those greys aren’t exactly stylish and the pads are really old ones, but all of that can be fixed with credits. Your personal accommodation details and the station guide book have been forwarded to your pads.’

  Some of the audience looked a bit blank.

  ‘Your pads, you know those dark green plastic rectangular things you were given before you boarded the shuttle that fit into the forearm pocket of you jumpsuit. What, were you all asleep or something when they were being handed out?’

  That actually got a few laughs.

  ‘Anyway, that’s it losers,’ cough, ‘workers, go get to work, turbo lifts to all decks are that way.’ And with that he dismissed the small crowd.

  Oh that’ what that lump is. Cal unzipped her forearm pocket and pulled out a small cheap looking pad.

  What, even Gran would think this thing primitive, it’s like some sort of turn of the century stone age PDA, we are in the far future and the consumer electronics are worse than they are now?

  Cal thought about it for sec, on the other hand, well, it’s probably easier to simulate and sort of traditional in a way, nobody had anything like an iPhone on the Starship Discovery did they. So where’s my room then?

  The menus were rather awkward to navigate, but after a few taps her tablet it coughed up a location - Room 17-04, Accommodation deck seven and it drew a primitive map which Cal followed to the appropriate Turbo lift.

  So what makes them Turbo?

  Turbo lifts appeared to work just like regular lifts, it took less than half minute to get from the hanger to Accommodation deck seven. Elevator music was still there in the far future and a tinny tune accompanied Cal for the whole journey.

  What is that tune, I know it, it’s it’s, Oh gawd, “I lost my heart to a Starship Trooper” isn’t it. Now I’ll have that as an ear worm for days. Cal part blamed and part thanked her Grandparents for imparting on her more knowledge about 1970s, 1980s and 1990s pop music than anyone of her generation really ought to have.

  The lift door swished open and Cal stepped into Accommodation deck seven and immediately regretted it. Deck seven seemed to closely resemble a rather dodgy sink estate, it looked in a right state of disrepair. Lights flickered, water, well she hoped is was water, dripped from pipes, graffiti was everywhere and Cal swore she just saw a rat. The admin guy was right about the accommodation not being up to much.

  A few other jumpsuited new players were wandering around, most were around consulting there pads and looking a little nervous, though one appeared to have a hand gun and was moving rather more purposefully, he’s got the right idea Cal thought.

  She decided to find her room quickly as two rather dodgy looking characters in a dark corner seemed to have noticed her. She hurried along looking for section 17. Two corridors and a flight of stairs later she found the door for section 17 and tapped in 04 on the worn keypad while nervously looking over her shoulder. A rather long two seconds later the panel bleeped and the door opened with a hiss. All the doors seemed to hiss.

  The room wasn’t quite as bad as it was on the outside, though it was possibly smaller than her one in Hastings. No windows and not a proper door, so Cal assumed it was probably instanced.

  So what have we got, single bed and one pillow, wardrobe, shower, desk, all the essentials. But it wasn’t somewhere she planned to spend much time in. Sitting on the desk was a simple black one strap rucksack and a green box wrapped up in gold ribbon.

  Ah my starter gear, finally.

  Inside the rucksack Cal found “Brown Casual Pants”, size small, “Blue Casual Top”, size small, two “HiNRG” food bars, a small repair kit and a mini med kit with eight charges.

  What no rusty short sword then?

  The lack of even a basic weapon disappointed her and casual “Pants” description grated. She squinted and got her game HUD up and eye flicked to the Settings menu to change the language options. “British English”, that’s better. Now when she examined the clothes this description came up on her HUD.