Chapter 13

That evening, Antaska and M. Hoyvil, with Potat in his pocket, passed through the wide, high entrance to the game room. They walked part of the way across the curved foyer that led to the various parts of the big room. Dim lighting made it impossible for Antaska to see its far walls. Round tables, each softly lit by a blue light focused down from a point on the ceiling, were scattered about one section of the room.

Verdantes of various sizes and Earth humans sat at the tables sipping from drink tubes of many colors. Some played card or board games. Behind the small round tables, more humanoids stood at larger rectangular tables playing games Antaska didn’t recognize. Turning to face the center of the room, she saw an empty dance floor with a spot-lit bar counter and bar stools placed far behind it.

Antaska turned again and looked to her other side. She peered into a much more dimly lit area and froze in shock.

“What is that?” she gasped.

It was a vision that could have been right out of one of the Earth-made horror movies about aliens. These movies were still popular after many thousands of years, although the Verdantes had attempted to persuade the humans not to watch them.

Earth humans were eager to adopt most of the helpful information and technological advances that the Verdantes provided, but in the case of movie viewing, the warning message had the opposite of the desired effect. The forbidden nature of the movies only increased their popularity. Curiosity kicked in, and almost everyone, including Antaska, wanted to know what they were being warned about.

In one common movie theme, a more powerful alien race captured humans and stored them in some vast facility. The stored humans believed they were still living their lives, but they were actually in a dream state enclosed in eggs or other containers. Often, tubes were attached to them to suck out their mental or physical energy.

Now, Antaska was horrified to be faced with a similar scene directly in front of her. Hanging from the ceiling from harnesses were more than a dozen humanoids covered from head to toe in a tight casing. Its shiny black material glowed out eerily from dark shadows that enveloped the area. There were no eye openings in the black encasements. Sensors stuck out all over the heads and other parts of the bodies, attached to wires that led to the ceiling high above the floaters.

Most disturbingly of all, the humanoids weren’t making full movements, but the muscles of their arms, legs and bodies were twitching. They twitched like Potat did when she was dreaming and thought she was running or jumping. Mixed in between the occupied suits were many empty ones that seemed to be waiting hungrily to encase and feed on their next victims. Antaska didn’t know the real purpose of these suits. But she thought these humanoids must be in a dream state, experiencing some kind of illusory reality.

Antaska instinctively backed away from M. Hoyvil. Reflexively, he lifted and waved the six fingers of his hands in a gesture protesting his innocence. But she didn’t understand Verdante sign language, and she backed away even more.

Could the energy taken from these humans be what they use to power the ship? Antaska wondered creatively.

When M. Hoyvil saw Antaska’s reaction, he felt as if he had suddenly developed the supposed mind-reading powers of Master Mytaar. Hoping to reassure her, he spoke out loud.

“It’s not what you think! These are virtual reality suits, and these people are playing games in them. They aren’t trapped in there. There’s a virtual control function that lets them get out of the suits whenever they want to. If you look closer, you’ll see that it’s not just Earthlings in the suits. There are just as many Verdante adolescents, if not more. If these suits were for capturing humans, why would we put our own people in them? Not that we would ever do that, of course.”

M. Hoyvil kept his eyes on Antaska while he was speaking. He was relieved to see that she looked calmer. But with his sharper-than-human eyesight, even in the dark room, he also noticed a red color changing her tan skin to a deep copper shade.

She must be embarrassed, M. Hoyvil thought.

“I should have warned you about this, but I didn’t know you’d watched those Earth alien movies. Actually, the truth is that I was preoccupied with thinking about a lot of other things,” M. Hoyvil admitted. “I should have remembered Potat’s extreme reaction when I brought her in here last night. I felt something poking into my shoulder, and when I looked over, she had grown to twice her size. Her fur was sticking straight up, and her back was curled up too. But once she realized it was harmless, she got interested. She tried to slap and claw at the players. I had to take her away before she messed up someone’s game.”

Antaska looked up at Potat. She sat on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder calmly washing her white paws, clearly taking no interest in the discussion. Then, something new happened among the silent and barely moving hanging black figures. Two of them lowered to the ground. Their black casings opened. One released a male Verdante of about M. Hoyvil’s size. The other released an Earth human male who Antaska recognized from her gym class. They walked over to M. Hoyvil and Antaska.

The two Verdantes stood staring silently at each other, and Antaska heard whispering, but she ignored it. The male human spoke to Antaska. He was about her height with brown curly hair and large dark-brown eyes.

“Hi, I’m Pablo. I’ve seen you in gym class,” he said.

A reddish flush appeared on his face, and he looked down at the floor. Antaska felt a sudden stab of embarrassment.

Is he thinking about what’s going on in gym class with me and Eegor and Tilde? Antaska wondered. But it’s not that different than how people acted on Earth. We were taught not to get into exclusive relationships. So no one would have cared who I flirted with.

“But this isn’t Earth,” the tiny voice in her head said again.

This time it seemed to come from close by. From up on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder. Antaska looked up to see Potat staring down at her.

Antaska shook her head.

No. I’m not hearing voices, she told herself. But I’m starting to think that voice might be right. This situation with Eegor and Tilde isn’t like anything from Earth. It seems to be out of control, and it might be dangerous. And it’s embarrassing. From now on, I’m going to make it clear to everyone in that class that I’m not interested in Eegor, Antaska decided.

Pablo stood waiting. Antaska realized she had been just standing there thinking.

“Hi. I’m Antaska,” she said in a friendly tone. “What happens in those suits you were just in? I thought for sure when I first saw them that they were some kind of energy-draining device, but I guess I was wrong about that.”

Pablo’s face lit up with enthusiasm.

“Oh, they are fantastic!” he said. “You move around, and it’s like you’re really there but you’re not, and you can’t get hurt. You can do all kinds of things like skiing on a high mountain, white water rafting, or horseback riding. You can even going on a mission as a character in an adventure story.”

“Wow! Really?” said Antaska.

“Yeah,” said Pablo. “There’s thousands of sports and games in there. All kinds of things people used to do on Earth before the apocalypse and all kinds of strange alien things too. I didn’t try those yet, but I’m going to. And I’m going to try some of the ancient Earth-style fighting and martial arts programs, maybe even against some aliens.”

“That sounds great! I’d like to try it too,” said Antaska.

She looked up at M. Hoyvil. He had stopped staring at the other Verdante and was now looking her way. A plan was forming in her mind. Maybe she could learn some new defensive and fighting moves from the virtual suits to help her fight back against Tilde. Even without the psychic abilities of Master Mytaar, she was sure that more encounters with the two trainers were in her future.

“Pablo was just telling me about the virtual suits. Can I try one of the martial arts games?” Antaska asked M. Hoyvil.

“Sure. I’ll show you how to set up the programming,” M. Hoyvil said.

He bowed a goodbye to his friend and to Pablo. The other alien and Pablo bowed to M. Hoyvil and Antaska.

“See you tomorrow in class,” Pablo said to Antaska.

“See you then,” she said. “Thanks for telling me about the suits.”

Antaska and M. Hoyvil turned away and walked into the darkness of the virtual reality area. M. Hoyvil still carried Potat up on his shoulder. They stopped in front of an empty human-sized suit, and Antaska reached out a hand to feel its material. It was soft and smooth, almost skin-like, and it felt very light when she lifted it.

“This suit is made from bioengineered smart fabric,” M. Hoyvil explained. “To put it on, you pull the hood part over your head. The rest of it will shrink and expand to fit itself to cover all of your body. It covers your mouth and nose, but you won’t have a problem breathing because the material allows air to pass though.”

Antaska felt a little nervous about that part, but she was still interested.

“Once you’re inside, a screen appears with instructions for you to select and start a game,” M. Hoyvil continued. “It tells you to push buttons. When you do, and when you make other movements in the games, you’ll feel like you’re moving. But you’ll really only be twitching like all these people around us.”

Antaska looked around again at the humanoids hanging nearby in their suits. Close up, the twitching looked even more creepy, but now she knew why they were doing it.

“If you’re playing a fighting game, when you get hit or kicked, the suit will press the contact spot, so you feel the blow, but it won’t hurt,” said M. Hoyvil. “If your opponent scores a certain amount of hits on you first, your avatar—you in the game—will die. Then the game is over, and it asks if you want to play again. Or else, if you score more hits, then your opponent dies, and the game is over.”

Antaska didn’t think that was going to happen today, but it could happen someday. She looked around at the humanoids who were completely encased in material that seemed to have a mind of its own. Antaska started to feel claustrophobic.

“How do I get out if I want to stop playing?” she asked.

“You can stop playing between games, and there’s a virtual button you’ll see in there that will let you stop any time you want,” said M. Hoyvil. “If you keep going, it’s set to stop after an hour and let you out so you don’t end up staying in longer than you realize. It’s easy to lose track of time in there. It can actually be very addictive if you don’t watch out.”

M. Hoyvil sounded like someone who might have had personal experience with this problem in the past.

“Mew!” said Potat from up on M. Hoyvil’s shoulder.

She bent her body to peer down and wink her golden eyes at Antaska. Then she watched with alert interest.

“No swatting at her when she’s in the suit,” M. Hoyvil told her sternly. “That’s bad.”

Potat answered with a small sniffing sound.

“I guess I’m ready to start,” said Antaska with determination.

She stepped under the floating suit and placed the hood over the top of her head. The soft material began to slowly compress itself tight against her hair and skin. It produced a creepy, tingly suction feeling that started at her scalp and spread from there.

Antaska resisted the urge to pull the suit off as it covered her first her eyes, then nose, then mouth. Panicked by the covering of her air holes, she drew in a big breath and noticed that it was still easy to breathe. With that realization, Antaska relaxed and didn’t mind the weird feel of the suit as much while she waited for the rest of it to encase her.

After what seemed like a long time but was really about a minute, the encasement was complete. Antaska no longer felt the tingly touch of the suit. In fact, she could no longer feel the suit at all.

She found herself standing on a hard, shiny black floor in a vast room. There was nothing in sight except for an enormous pale dome that encased the flooring and towered high above her head. A bright orange sky was partially visible through the opaque dome.

From nowhere, words written in the galactic humanoid language appeared in the air in front of her. A title and directions topped a long alphabetical list of general categories that seemed to go down into invisible depths.

“What type of game would you like to play? Press to select a category. Point to scroll down and see more categories.”

Antaska didn’t see martial arts, so she pointed to the bottom of the list. The spot she pointed to rose up to her eye level. When she moved her hand to point, it looked and felt just like moving her hand always did. It seemed hard to believe that she wasn’t actually moving. The list had scrolled to show the “M” section, but she still didn’t see martial arts, so she scrolled the list back up to look for fighting. She found it and pressed it with a finger.

The printed characters that made up the list stretched sideways and flew away, and another long list of subcategories appeared. Antaska wasn’t familiar with most types of fighting and didn’t recognize any of the names, so she randomly picked one. She pressed the words that said, “ancient Earth kick boxing.” More words appeared.

“What level would you like? Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, or Very Advanced?” That decision was easy. Antaska touched the word “Beginning” without hesitation.

Instantly, Antaska’s surroundings shifted queasily from the domed room to a primitive outdoor setting. She recognized it from historical photos as somewhere on ancient Earth before the apocalypse.

Antaska stood in one corner of a square area, barefoot on hard-packed dirt enclosed by crude ropes. These were tied to wooden posts stuck into the ground at a distance of about twenty feet apart.

An Earth male whose genetic composition was strongly if not fully ancient Earth Asian stood in the opposite corner. He was muscular but lean and wore white baggy pants that reached just above his knees, but he wore no shirt or shoes. More humans of clear Asian genetic makeup stood on all sides of the rope looking at Antaska and her opponent. They gestured effusively and spoke loudly in a language she couldn’t understand.

Antaska looked down at herself. She also wore white baggy pants and a loose white tunic. The bone structure and skin coloring of her hands and feet were not her own.

Am I Asian too? she wondered.

But there was no way for her to see her own face.

Antaska looked up to see two distinct graphic images floating in each corner of her vision. On one side, her name floated in the air over a row of green-lit bars in between the words “health” and “fatality.” On the other side, the name “Chan” floated over a similar graphic.

A third small graphic image floated right in front of her. The round red button said “STOP GAME.” It moved when Antaska did so that it was always within close reach.

Looking straight up, Antaska saw puffy clouds floating across an endless expanse of clear blue sky. The familiar Earth sun, slightly smaller at a million years younger, shined down bright from almost straight up above her head. A warm, gentle breeze softly ruffled her hair and clothes and caressed her shin. Looking beyond the spectators to one side of the ring, Antaska saw tall, snow-capped mountains in the far distance.

In the nearer distance, a small village of straw huts and dirt roads was next to long curving rows of bright green rice paddies that climbed the side of a mountain. For the first time since she had left Earth, Antaska felt a nostalgic longing for her home planet—confusingly, not for the Earth she had known but for the Earth that had been lost so long ago.

From nowhere, a gong sounded, “Booonngg!!”

Then a voice shouted in the modern humanoid language, “Round one, fight!”

Chan walked toward Antaska with a fierce expression on his face.

It’s just a game, it’s just a game, she repeated to herself.

Antaska fought against the overwhelming realism, which threatened to make her forget that this was only a simulation. She stepped a few cautious feet forward to meet the other fighter. He began to bob and weave, and Antaska began to make the bobbing and weaving motions she had learned in gym class.

Chan moved in closer with shuffling, sliding movements she wasn’t familiar with. He suddenly jumped up in the air toward her. Antaska expected a kick, but instead, he thrust his right leg out behind him and threw a punch that landed on her chest.

The crowd roared loud, with a mix of boos and cheers, and Chan smiled.

Another loud sound, “Ding!” came again from nowhere, and one of the green lights on Antaska’s health bar turned red.

Antaska’s first thought was: Why did he punch me? I thought this was kickboxing!

Then she noticed with appreciation that unlike in gym class, even though she had felt the punch, it didn’t hurt. Antaska faced Chan again with the increased confidence that came from knowing she wouldn’t be hurt in this fight.

They both bobbed and weaved, and Antaska attempted one of the kicks she’d practiced in class. Chan easily evaded her kick as he twirled his body around and landed his own kick on the side of her head.

“Ding!” The bell sounded again, accompanied by more noise from the crowd and another of Antaska’s green bars turning red.

Chan said something that could have been a joke in the incomprehensible language, and the crowd laughed loudly.

The fight continued in the same way, with Antaska receiving kicks and punches but not landing a single blow. Finally, she had only one green bar remaining. Chan lunged up. He threw a leg over her head and then brought it around to smack against her neck.

Without feeling any pain, Antaska fell to the floor and lay there unable to move.

“Fatality! Chan wins Round one!” said the voice to the unanimous cheering of the crowd.

The broad-smiling Chan raised up his arms and shook them in an unmistakable gesture of victory.

The loud gong sounded again, “Booonngg!!”

Antaska found herself instantly back up on her feet in her corner of the ring without having moved there.

“Round two, fight!” The next fight started.

Antaska tried harder and began to anticipate some of the kicks and punches. She fought through round two and then round three. The time between Chan’s successful blows on her increased somewhat, but she still couldn’t get past his defenses.

After her avatar’s death in the third round, Antaska found herself standing back in the domed room where she had first entered the game. More words appeared in the air in front of her.

“Would you like to play again?”

“Would you like to play another game?”

“Would you like to stop playing?”

Like many first-time virtual reality gamers, Antaska had been hooked by her first experience. Thinking I’ll keep going until I land at least one strike, she pressed the words to keep playing the same game.

As the game went on, Antaska wasn’t aware of how much time passed. She improved her ability to evade Chan’s punches and kicks. She got very close to hitting him, and even touched him, but she wasn’t able to make even one of his green lights turn red.

Players didn’t get tired in the virtual world, and Antaska kept going, determined to achieve her goal before quitting the game. But suddenly, in the middle of a round two, she was transported from the fight back to the game entrance room.

“Your time is up,” said the voice from nowhere.

Antaska felt the creepy, tingly suit on her body again as it began to peel open starting at her toes.

“No!” she cried out loud.

Antaska thought she heard M. Hoyvil chuckle telepathically from somewhere nearby. She heard Potat hiss, and she thought she heard a tiny whispered laugh. But her mind was still focused on the game, and she ignored those sounds.

“I wasn’t done!” Antaska complained when the suit finally released her completely. “I was getting better. I know I could have hit Chan if I played just a few more rounds.”

She looked up at M. Hoyvil. The corners of his eyes twitched as if he was trying to hold them down.

What does that facial expression mean? Antaska wondered.

“You can do that next time, but it’s been an hour, and it’s not a good idea to stay in there for too long,” said M. Hoyvil. “And remember, we were planning to go to the space viewing lounge next. Do you still want to go?”

Antaska was surprised that so much time had passed. It had seemed like only a few minutes at the most.

“I guess I got really involved in that game,” she said. “It seemed so real. I felt like I could stay in there forever. But I definitely want to see the space viewing lounge now. Let’s go!”