First 5 Pages January Workshop - Scott

Name: Rachel Scott
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Science Fiction
Title: Virtuality

The girl’s hand, lithe and strong, grazed over the flames of a fire but was not burned. Her green eyes seemed electric like the storm outside as its steel-drum beat of rain assaulted the windows of SimTech. Despite this terrible San Francisco weather, I barely noticed the people in the lobby gathered on the comfortable side of the glass. They watched the streams of water flow by like news ticker tapes. They were uninteresting. It was the girl who captured my attention, those strange eyes taunting me with a silent, Didn’t know a few pixels would alter the course of your existence, did you, Nate Walker?

That’s what I imagined she’d say, if she were real. The silver silk of her dress and her icy blonde hair fluttered in the fire that appeared to consume the giant vertical screen she was projected on. The reflective surface mirrored the downpour, shadows of droplets falling in straight rows like calculations. There would be a lot of numbers forming her on that screen. No flesh and blood, just heartless binary.

The image zoomed to frame her eyes, and words appeared beneath them. Cognitus is born. It was just a video game she advertised, but it was the most important product the mega-genius Wesley Sims had ever developed because of the artificial intelligence that powered it. Sims never did anything that wasn’t revolutionary. Even standing here, in his stark glass and steel powerhouse, intimidated me. I was just a student who would never have scored an invitation to test the game if I weren’t the son of Sims’ right-hand man, Hal Walker.

A rush of January wind cloaked me as the tall doors swung open. One of the chrome handles banged something from the force. It was definitely Min, barely on time as usual. I waited for her from my spot below the girl. The ad for the game. The clunk of Min’s worn motorcycle boots paused near the front desk, and she apparently got tangled in the security badge the guard would have handed her. She swore in Korean about it before darting over to me.

“Is that a spark of humanity in your baby blues, Nathaniel?” Min-Ji Kim flung one arm over my shoulders, which was dumb, because she was a lot shorter than me and it made her stand on her toes.

“Never. And don’t call me Nathaniel.” I glanced at my friend, trying to raise one eyebrow in the condescending way only she could managed. Min’s black hair was shiny as it fell over glasses which were clearly new and so thick they were ridiculous.

“Not my fault Nate should be short for something. It’s unnatural. Like someone named Bill who’s just Bill and not William.”

“There are plenty of guys named just Bill.”

“That doesn’t prove my point.” She gave up her awkward position to cross her arms.

Min had near-perfect vision in her scary black eyes, so the glasses were just for show. Probably a girl thing. She smelled normal at least, like coconuts, though it seemed strong here in this sterile building.

“By the way…” I turned fully towards her. “Your glasses are stupid, and your hair is super shiny. It’s mismatched.”

Min stuck out her tongue. “The glasses are a dare that’ll get me twenty bucks from Chauncey, which I want because his name is Chauncey. The hair is because I bathe in Crisco and faerie blood.”

“They look like hipster glasses. Or Waldo, maybe. Where’s Waldo. Where’s Min…it should be a comic.”

She punched me in the arm. “Don’t call me Min! It’s my version of Nathaniel.”

“But your name is Min! We’ve been through this before.”

“It’s Min-Ji. You’re the only person I let get away with plain Min.”

“You’re not letting me get away with it,” I whispered like it was a secret.

“Idiot.”

“Yes, that is what Nate is short for.” I was phasing out though, fixating on the screen again, and Min followed my gaze.

“If that’s an example of the graphics, this is nuts.”

I thought I nodded. Probably. It’d be just ten more minutes, or fifteen, before I saw the game for myself, the world behind the windows of the silver girl’s unnerving eyes. It was hard not knowing exactly when so I could count down and occupy myself with the quantification of seconds. I blew air through my mostly-closed lips to make that weird purring-bubbling sound of time-wastage.

My father would meet us soon. Maybe there’d been no real conversation between us since my mother’s death seven years ago, and maybe our relationship was beyond repair, but still…Hal didn’t have to arrange for me and Min to be the first game testers who weren’t SimTech employees. I never asked him for it, even though I’d been stalking news of the project for months. This was pure magic, this techno adventure heralded by the clipped march of expensive dress shoes announcing my father’s arrival, right on schedule.

“Good, you’re here.” Hal checked his watch after the fact. Weirdo.

Min answered, because she could talk to Hal freely, unlike me. “Yep, responsible testers we are. So responsible, so adult.”

Hal smiled at her. Everyone always smiled at her. “Course you are. You won’t have much time in the game, I’m afraid, but since this wasn’t a planned session, it was the best I could do.” He spun back the way he entered and took a few sharp steps.

I cleared my throat. I’d spoken less than ten sentences to Hal this month, so I could spare one. “Thanks.”

He faltered, but recovered quickly and didn’t glance back. “It’s nothing. I know how much you like this sort of thing.”

I brushed one set of fingers through my hair, flooded by the urgency of new. This game was the first break I’d felt in my fog of dullness, in such a long time. I couldn’t shake it. Maybe it was depression. Or lack of complex carbohydrates. There was only silence then as we followed Hal across the lobby. I stole one last look at the girl before we got whisked away in a glass elevator like Willy Wonka.