Spirit In Realtime

By Jeffrey Lee Simons

In 2020 San Diego, Max and her friends live in a wired world where information is a commodity, everyone has a price, and safety is an illusion sold to rubes and noobs. But cyberspace is also an equalizer, allowing Max and her tribe to transcend society’s limits and become who they want to be.

Until now, Max’s biggest hassle was being a 15-year-old girl gamer in a world where that made you a target for misogynistic trolls – or worse. But when Max’s dad, a computer science professor at UCSD, doesn’t come home from work one day, Max finds herself plunged into a world of hackers, international corporate spies and the secretive government agency known as Cyber Command.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffrey Lee Simons
• Release date: Nov 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996289818

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Spirit In Realtime

Jeffrey Lee Simons

© 2015 Jeffrey Lee Simons

Copyright © 2015 by Jeffrey Lee Simons.

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Marrus.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9962898-0-1 (mobi)

ISBN: 978-0-9962898-1-8 (epub)

Acknowledgments

This novel has been a long time coming, and I’d like to thank those who supported me most along the way: Bill Jemas, who helped me focus my initial manuscripts and provided unflagging encouragement; Marrus, my good friend and the artist who did the cover of the book, and whose example as a creator able to make a living doing what she loves kept me from giving up; Adam Blumenfeld, without whom I never would have discovered Ocean Beach, and pelicans; my dad, Larry and my mother, the author Renee Simons, my biggest fan; my sister, best friend and moral touchstone Stacey; my wife Laurel, who is the answer to all of the stars upon which I’ve ever wished; and my daughter, Annaliese, for whom, it turns out, I actually wrote this book.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Fighting Spirit

2. Just a Normal Family

3. Buzzin' in The Hive

4. The Second Worst Day of Her Life

5. Spiritwolf

6. Missing in Action

7. Saturday Morning Surprise

8. And What Does Your Daddy Do?

9. Welcome to the Party, Pal

10. The Getaway

11. Floating with the Clouds

12. The Plan's the Thing

13. Rats and Big Black Cats

14. Wishing on the Stars

15. The Pelican Dance

16. Down on the Farm

17. Planning and Packing

18. Welcome to Seattle

19. The Belly of the Beast

20. When Spirits Come in on the Wind

21. Going Home

22. R&R

Preview: The People Who Don’t Count

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

Fighting Spirit

Max had a major case of cramps this morning, the end of a wicked period, so the last thing she needed was a bunch of macho, little boy bullshit to start her day. Instead of the challenge match she’d been expecting against Whirlwind, she got ambushed in The Alley by Catfish and six of his homies.

They picked the wrong person to mess with today, thought Max, just before she ground them into scrap in seconds and left them looking like loser noobs. She found no joy in her victory: they weren’t much of a challenge, and their ambush prevented her from fighting Whirlwind, which would cost her in the standings.

Now that the bloodbath was over they seemed almost as happy as if they’d won. As usual, they just wanted to hang out and talk about it. That’s how Alley Trash were after a match. They loved to sit around, talking and drinking virtual booze and real Red Bulls, making up war stories, trying to get some face back and prove what big heroes they all were. Maybe even suck up some secrets from a master-blaster like Max—whose handle in The Alley was Spirit.

At least, that’s what they usually did.

This time, though, Catfish had other things in mind and quickly turned the conversation to sex. And not even real sex. Robot fantasy cybersex.

C’mon, Spirit. AppleJack’s got the codes for a new robot porn simsite he said we should check out. You can plug in any hot celebrity and it’s like the real thing. You can even upload pics of hotties you know. He said it’s like the real thing – but with babes you could never hope to nail. We can all go together.

How would either Catfish or AppleJack or any of their tribe know what the real thing is like, thought Max? The closest any of them probably ever got to a live girl was walking in on their sisters in the bathroom by accident.

This was the worst part of pretending to be a guy. Sitting around bragging about video game heroics was a player thing, not a guy thing – it came with the territory. But the sexism was all penis-based. Of course, it would be worse if they knew she was a girl. Then she wouldn’t be their partner in crime – she’d be their crime.

So Max did what she always did then they went off into fantasyland. She had stopped listening to Catfish babbling about cybersex in her headset even before she keyed in her exit animation – an ethereal got-to-run disappearing in a whiff of smoke. Then she yanked the rig off her head in disgust, shut down her computer, and ran to brush her teeth before school.

The Alley was an invitation-only challenge combat zone. Anyone who reached the top five in the standings in any of the currently hot online multiplayer games got invited to The Alley, and they got to bring their avatar with them. The Alley’s operating system balanced out all of the game mechanics of all of the games it pulled winners from, so you could have an elf from WOW2020 fighting a Navy Seal from WETWERK or a gangbanger from ViceWorldOnline fighting each other on a level playing field.

Once you were Alley Trash, you never went back. You were elite. Now that your avatar was in The Alley, you could learn any weapon, fight in any scenario you wanted. Alley matches were broadcast, webcast, podcast, replayed, repeated, analyzed, and mythologized. Alley matches had sponsors. Not that the Trash saw much money. They saw some... it paid better per hour than working at McDonalds or the mall. But the Trash got just a small fraction of the sponsorship dollars. The Alley got it all. One of the rules of The Alley was that The Alley now owned your avatar. In order to play, you had to sign it away. In total, Max had made about $1500 in her three months in The Alley. And The Alley had probably made hundreds of times that in ad revenues on the matches she’d been in.

Not that anybody minded. After a run in The Alley, you could get a major contract with any of the company teams. That was the golden ticket: getting paid to play. Starting salaries for a team player were about the same as the starting salary for an accountant or a media engineer – and you didn’t need a diploma to get it. Throw in a player’s share of sponsorship dollars, however unfair the percentage, and it wasn’t a bad life.

The future was looking pretty bright for a teenager like Max, except for one little thing. She wasn’t who she said she was, and if anyone ever found out, she’d be kicked out of The Alley in a nanosecond.

Max hadn’t meant for it to turn out this way. Just a few months ago — the first time she played Shadows of the Ancient Masters, the samurai/ninja free-for-all — she made an error that had haunted her ever since. She’d heard that the players in SAM treated female avatars badly. They totally got into the whole Samurai thing and treated women like shit. So the majority of girls who played used male avatars. In fact, the joke was that if you ran into a super sexy female ninja, she was probably a guy in realtime, because no girl wanted to put up with crap. Not wanting to deal with any sexist bullshit, Max made Spirit a guy: a lithe, beautiful guy, but a guy. Actually, she thought, he kind of looked like a prettier Flak. Or Flak if he were an elf in The Lord of The Rings. She added a voice filter to the avatar so she’d sound elvish, too – lilting, a bit feminine, ethereal, but definitely one of the Adam’s Apple set.

That very first session she played, she ranked second. That was rare for a noob — Shadows was a brutal game until you got it figured out. As soon as she exited play, Valerie the Valkyrie popped over the debrief screen to invite/welcome Spirit to The Alley. (Nobody ever said no.)

The next day, Max nailed her first match in The Alley. The match was so exciting it ranked 28th on the all-time replay download list. Over the course of a weekend, Max went from being a nobody to being a pop. And Spirit was forever male.

Max was so late she missed Flak at his locker and Melissa at hers, so they didn’t catch up with each other until after homeroom. They had different homerooms, and the classes all had external wireless blocking, so she couldn’t text them to let them know how she’d done.

Melissa was Max’s best friend, and Flak was, well, just Flak. They were waiting for her under the stairs down by the north end, where they always met, anxious to hear how she’d done against Whirlwind.

Aced it, but it was just a bunch of losers, no real challenge, she told them as she walked up to the expectant looks on their faces.

But you said you were meeting that Whirlwind guy, Melissa said, confused. I thought he was good.

I was, he is, but that idiot Catfish must have cut a deal with Whirlwind to set me up.

"So you didn’t fight Whirlwind? Does that count against you?

Yeah, where will that leave you in the standings?

I won’t know exactly ‘til midnight, but the points from fighting with those idiots won’t be much, and missing my match with Whirlwind will cost me more in penalties than I won against them. I could drop a spot or maybe even two. Still, wasting those dweebs did have its moments.

You know, Max, for somebody who hates those guys, you sound like you’re enjoying playing against them, chided Flak.

Flak, I’m enjoying it because I hate them. They’re my favorite victims. They all think they’re the shit, just because they’re Alley Trash. But as any toilet can tell you, there’s lots of different kinds of shit.

Just then, the early bell rang, leaving them exactly one minute to get to class.

Oh man, I almost forgot. Flak, did you get Nicolini’s programming problem solved?

Duh. But you don’t really expect me to explain it in the next forty-five seconds, do you?

Email it to me in class?

Yeah, right, and if we get caught, we’re both on Nicolini’s car washing detail? And we will get caught. He catches everyone. He’s got some kind of spybot that monitors the class network. I’ve caught it trying to crawl up my machine’s ass a couple of times. No way.

Even I got this one, Max, needled Melissa. I guess you should’ve spent a little less time in The Alley and a little more time with your homework.

Bitch. Besides, I wasn’t in The Alley last night. You kept me out all night listening to your drunken whining in The Hive.

You should talk, slut. You couldn’t keep your mouse off that waiter’s ass.

Slut? Look who’s talking? You left with him.

Cybersex doesn’t count, Max. C’mon, we’re late.

The three took off running up the stairs, and if either of the two girls noticed Flak’s wider-than-normal eyes or the flush they’d caused on his face, they kept it to themselves.

Max hated Mr. Nicolini’s Computer Programming class. It was the only class where she wasn’t pulling at least a B.

Given who she was – a major user and the daughter of a computer science professor at UCSD – her grade was a real diss, and Nicolini knew it. He was one of those teachers who seemed to enjoy putting kids down.

Max thought it strange how so many of her teachers were like that. The good ones were really good, always keeping their minds open, not forcing students into pre-determined molds. Unfortunately, there seemed to be far more bad teachers than good ones.

It took Nicolini just five minutes to smell blood and move in for the kill. After scanning the class for attendance, he started asking questions about the homework.

Max sat up in her seat like she didn’t have a care in the world. Whenever she knew the answer, Nicolini never called on her. Max sometimes wondered if teachers came equipped with some perverse radar that told them when kids knew the answers – and when they didn’t. Maybe Flak was right and Nicolini’s spybot was scanning her hard drive to see she’d done the problem.

Spybot or not, Nicolini’s sensors must have been working perfectly today, because they pierced right through Max’s false bravado.

Could you explain the counter subroutine in the homework assignment...? Max could almost hear the radar beeping, ...Miss Redford?

Umm, I didn’t totally finish last night’s homework, Mr. Nicolini, Max replied quietly.

Young lady, you... Nicolini stopped in mid thought. Then, suddenly, turning around, Mister Blumenfeld, may I have Mister Schwartz’s cell phone, please. No, don’t bother trying to clear it... He took the phone away, pressed a few buttons, looked at the clearly obscene image on the screen, squinted, then looked again, shook his head and said, You can both pick this up in the office on your way to detention this afternoon. I believe Principal Silverberg’s car needs a wash.

Then, turning back to Max, Young lady, you continually astound me by how poorly you do in this class. Especially in light of whom your father is, and how often I see you playing computer games in the student lounge.

Max couldn’t resist taking on Nicolini. She knew she’d lose to him – he was the teacher, after all – but Max hated to let somebody just assume she was gonna roll over and take it.

Why should I waste my time programming when I can spend it playing? Actually, Mr. Nicolini, it sounds to me like you’re trying to stifle my cultural diversity. There are people who love to program; they’re good at it. There are people who love to play, and they’re good at that. By forcing players to be programmers, and vice-versa, you’re robbing us of our right to be who we are.

It was one of those snappy answers Max had come up with the last time Nicolini nailed her, but about ten minutes too late to use. This time, she had it locked, loaded and ready to fire.

Nicolini looked surprised. He hadn’t expected her to bite back, let alone with a political correctness argument like she had used, however shoddy her logic may have been. And he knew he had to be careful. No matter how spurious, in the year 2020 any conversation between a teacher and a student that treaded upon either Political Correctness or socio-civil rights could be a career-ender. Nicolini regained his composure and steered the discussion into safer waters.

Young lady, you can play games to your heart’s desire on your own time. But by taking this course, you agreed that you would learn how to program. Did you not?

Well, actually, I didn’t read the course description as carefully as I should have. I don’t believe in documentation – if you need to read the manual to play it, either it’s not a very good game or you’re not a very good player.

Max was starting to enjoy this, the back and forth. The class was egging her on, and she started to get the same kind of rush she’d get in a game she was winning. But unfortunately, Mr. Nicolini had one weapon Max didn’t – he could ignore her.

All right then, who here was able to figure out the counter subroutine? Yes, Miss Stevens?

The battle was over.

Awesome day so far, thought Max. Even when she won, she lost.

Max had study hall sixth period, which she normally spent in the student union. The S.U. was a pretty cool place for a high school, with big couches and overstuffed chairs everywhere. There were a dozen school computers scattered around, for homework, games, whatever, and of course the entire area was a free Wi-Fi zone. No wireless blocking in here. The student union had a New York-style pizza stand, soda and juice machines, and even an honor cart they packed with fresh fruit every day. Take an apple, leave a dollar. Take an orange, leave a dollar. It never ceased to amaze Max how few kids boosted fruit. Maybe there was something to that honor thing after all.

A few years back, after checking out some of the better examples on college campuses, a group of local guidance counselors had sold the San Diego school district on the idea of a student union. If they could make high school interesting enough, they reasoned, kids would rather stay on campus than leave school grounds during their breaks. It worked in college, and it seemed to be working at Wilson. Teachers left the kids alone in the student union, other than making sure that no fights broke out and that nobody was smoking. Wilson High was the test school for the program, and it was working so well that three nearby schools were planning their own student unions.

The Wilson student union was a living map of cliques and tribes, constantly playing out the latest evolutions of social memes that probably existed in the first school back when the courses were Basic Flint Sharpening, Intro to Fire, A.P. Grunting and Elements of Nut and Berry Picking.

Everyone had a tribe, their friends, and everyone belonged to a clique, their home on the social map. Sometimes you hung with your tribe, and sometimes you hung with your clique. There was no guarantee that your tribe would get along with your clique, or the other way around. But it was still better than the old ways that Max’s folks told her about. The old groupings that had been so divisive and even violent – religions, race, gender, sexual preference, use of drugs – just didn’t matter anymore, at least not to Max’s generation.

Max nodded as she walked past The Wrecking Crew, the kids at Wilson who played WOW2020. She used to be tight with all of them; hell, she’d kicked each of their butts more than once and saved their lives more than that, but that was all history since she’d reached The Alley.

Max couldn’t hang with them now – if they knew she was the same Spirit who was running in The Alley, they’d spill her secret. Besides, now that she was Alley Trash, she had less in common with them than before. They were still steeped in the ongoing narrative thread of their world, living and dying and lusting after and fighting for the same things. They were still a team.

Alley Trash like Max were solitary stars, burning bright but alone.

Max cut through the gap in the low semi-circular walls surrounding the indoor fountain area. She could almost feel the super-cooled air wafting off of the clique sitting on and against the walls. They were the Trenders, kids who were on contract to any number of megacorps and ad agencies. They got paid pretty good cred for their taste, much better money than the Lawnmower Men or the Babysitter’s Clubbettes, and all they had to do was live their lives. Some kids, the more jealous ones, dissed them by referring to them as U12BMEs. Then again, if someone wasn’t dissing your clique, it probably wasn’t worth being in anyway.

Then there were the Gabbers. They were under contract too, only not for what they did, but who they knew and how good they were at spreading the word. Gabbers were the friends who always had the latest flash on the coolest club, the hottest shoes, and the best bands. They lived in a weird, symbiotic dance with the Trenders. The Trenders lived it, and then, a few days, weeks or months later, the Gabbers spread it. Again, their detractors had a name for them: The Talking Heads. They were bought and paid for and happy to be that way, collecting bounty on everyone they spread the word to. Most of them were lensed, so that their corporate handlers could play back the interactions to measure interest, engagement and viral spread, but they didn’t mind that either, since that was how they got paid: by how many eyeballs they interfaced with. A gabber named Dave told Max that the term eyeballs had been around forever in advertising, and that it had nothing to do with the lenses, but she didn’t know whether he was just messing with her or not.

On the other side of the union were the BTs –