The Game Players of Slaithwaite

By Denis Hellewell

Wolf spiders chasing clowns in the heather, rats running in the maze, townboys gaming at the museum, Americans invading Nant Saras. It was like living in an early Spielberg movie one of the classics, Harry Potter and the Temple of Doom or the Mattress perhaps? Not that any of us ever saw ourselves as a hero. It''s a long time since we saw one of those films, even though they play endlessly on the net. Everything is on the net, all the facts and fictions. Like that rubbish about Napoleon, inventing corned beef, the trouble that got us into. What did we know? We were just kids from the academy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 6, 2006
• ISBN: 9781467000178

Denis Hellewell

A professional Yorkshire man Denis has been forced to give up the life of the layabout in order to support a wife and small business. Now living in Wiltshire he spends his spare time playing with his toys and telling tall tales. Denis thinks of himself as a bit of wit. Hes only half right.

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© 2005 Denis Hellewell. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/30/05

ISBN: 1-4208-8327-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-0017-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Beginnings

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

About the Author

Beginnings

It had been like living in a Spielberg movie. An early classic, Harry Potter and the Temple of Doom or the Mattress? Not that any of us ever saw ourselves as a hero. I guess we were more Scooby Doo. It’s a long time since I saw one of those films, even though they play endlessly on the net. Everything is on the net, all the facts and fictions. Like that rubbish about Napoleon, inventing corned beef, the trouble that got us into.

I flicked on my pooter, it’s an antique, a comfortable friend, Polly gave it to me on my 18th. All this new stuff is far too complicated for an oldie like me. The screen unrolled and I sat gazing out across the moor as the sea fret rolled in over the coast at Rochdale.

It was all Drom’s fault. Well it was when it wasn’t Mum leaving her mess all over the place and expecting us to clean up. I should go visit Mum soon. The games Drom used to play, let’s see what’s so important it’s been kept so secret all these years. All this ‘do not touch! Only read after my death!’ Drom could be such an ass.

It all started when Libya won the World Cup. This was the first of a series of unpredictable events that led to the Football Wars. The news flashed up on millions of pooter screens. Television news limped along behind, providing comment from all the usual suspects, ageing football pundits and politicians. In Brazil, disbelief filled all the news channels. Libya had played like the great Brazilian teams of old. Mutterings began on-street corners; maybe it was one of the great Brazilian teams, or at least clones. The rumours spread, well, like rumours on the Internet. Brazil formally asked for the return of the clones. Libya refused. Brazil invaded. It was the wind that fanned the flames of war. Countries lashed out at one another, determined to repay old debts. Large corporations made hostile moves on competitors. It was when nuclear missiles rained down on the Spanish football clubs that things got out of hand.

Who would have guessed that some of the clubs in Europe had become so rich and powerful that they had begun to rival the big corporations, secretly building up economic and military power? The Football Wars were over in minutes. They devastated the world. Countries would never be so important again. The big global corporations survived abandoning the devastated areas and following the money.

The second unpredictable event was the publication of Winstanly’s readable time theory. Readable time was a revelation. Combining with VR technology, it transformed the entertainment industry. Who wanted to see Hollywood films when real-life was more impressive than Rocky or Die-Hard? Watching the SAS in action in Afghanistan was more immediate, more real and the stunts were better. Who wanted to see a film when you could look back in time and watch what really happened? When WilCon introduced VR technology that actually placed you in the theatre of war, every form of entertainment other than games died.

After the first corporate wars when WilCon eventually repulsed the genetically modified clone warriors, the famous GlobeNet Clowns, they moved their R&D facility to the moors above Slaithwaite. Focusing in the early years on defences against GlobeNet, WilCon built up their own force of genetically modified defences and corporate warriors, ‘The Faculty’.

With the two corporations equally matched, Winstanly began to search for a way of breaking the deadlock. He adopted an idea from history, when the club scouts used to scour the land looking for the most gifted and talented children, and invite them to their academies of excellence.

Winstanly took this thinking further. As he and Einstein had proved, people have their original ideas and do their best work before they are twenty. With Collins’ help and encouragement, he built the Slaithwaite Academy around the WilCon R&D complex, adopted the role of headmaster and made his top aides teachers at the school. The really clever part was the tough entrance requirements and high school fees; soon the best and the brightest were clamouring to have their children educated there. Even the GlobeNet executives felt the pressure and sent their children to Slaithwaite Academy.

Chapter One

The Football Wars had left many changes on the face of the earth. Now approaching the golden jubilee of the outbreak of peace …

What are you doing? Dev stretched lazily and gazed at the day.

Studying the Football Wars, Using the interruption as an excuse (history isn’t the most interesting subject,) I closed my pooter and joined the others in admiring the day. The mist had lifted off the moor, the afternoon sun finally burning off the cloud. For the moors above Slaithwaite it was unusually warm. Dev sat up in the heather and took a sip of beer.

A light westerly breeze was blowing in from the coast, almost promising a pleasant evening in May. On evenings like this, we had sat out here and waited for the end of term. If you closed your eyes and lay back you could almost feel summer coming. The problem, it was 22 September and the new term had just started.

The evening sun was slanting away to the west. By shading my eyes and looking down across the moor, I could almost see the coastal cargo boats carrying vegetables down from the plantations in the Orkneys to the docks at Rochdale. Beyond that, the Welsh Islands, where the big ocean fishing boats and kelp clippers transferred cargo bound for the canneries at Carlisle.

Tootall waved his glass lazily, Any chance of a refill?

Tootall got his school name during a growth spurt and when he had started to grow into his feet. Everyone agreed he was just too tall. Now almost fifteen he had discovered beer. Left alone he would happily drink until it came out of his ears.

Dev fixed him with a look she had inherited from Mum. You’re not turning into a town boy as well, are you?

I shot Dev a glance of warning. True, he may be a little too fond of beer, but that was the worst insult you could give someone from the school.

Tootall let the insult go by. He looked puzzled As well as what?

We sipped our beer. In the lengthening silence, you could hear the drone of the patrolling guncopters and the shouts of the Faculty patrols as they moved through the heather.

Tootall looked at us uncomfortably What?

Polly took the bait and placed both feet in his mouth. Why is it that every time a long-legged blonde appears, you turn into a gibbering wreck?

Over the summer, Tootall had begun to point like a hound, eyes on stalks, whenever he saw a creamy skinned blonde.

Me? I don’t. He protested, helping himself to another refill from the keg. Where did we get this?

This was another characteristic that he had been developing recently. If you don’t want to answer the question, change the subject.

Dev looked rebellious and then allowed it. That’s John Smiths, that is. It’s ‘coptered in from Tadcaster, really nice. It was laying around on the moor.

I choked, spraying beer everywhere. How could she be so calm? The problems we’d had over that. How Dev had talked her way out of it, I’d never know. I thought you said that one was empty.

Even Tootall was looking at her with despair. This was a new term, a new beginning. Hadn’t she promised to turn over a new leaf this year?

The one I was caught with and gave back was empty. This one’s still half full.

She’d had two kegs? What had she been playing at? I made a mental note to discuss this later.

Tootall’s mind had wandered off again as he gazed at the keg. It’s half-empty.

Dev threw the dregs of her beer at him.

Half-empty, half full, what’s the difference?

Tootall scrambled out of the way, looked menacingly at his glass, glared at Dev, shrugged and took a long drink. The sound of the guncopters grew louder as the Faculty moved in our direction fanning out into a search pattern across the moor.

Ah. said Polly that’s the debate isn’t it?

Polly is the bright younger brother, the little kid who tags along. Sometimes being so bright s as to be dazzling, sometimes like this one, incredibly dull.

Tootall, if that was a water barrel, what would it be? He was away again. Given a chance, everything became a philosophical debate. Don’t you just hate it when some bright kid gets hold of a new idea and then beats it to death?

Tootall looked at Polly, sometimes I think Tootall has the patience of a saint. Half full.

Polly had the bit between his teeth. He wasn’t going to let this go easily. I scowled at Tootall. Why was he encouraging the kid?

But as it’s a beer barrel you think of it as half-empty. Why?

This was being telegraphed a mile off. Tootall was winding him up.

I don’t want the water.

I did a double take. Dev hid her head in her hands. This was turning into another of those difficult conversations, like the ones that made my head, hurt.

What are you talking about? I had to ask. Sometimes I can be so stupid.

Polly pounced Optimism and pessimism.

I shouldn’t have asked. The others were beginning to giggle. Ok, you got me. Now I’m really confused.

Polly was warming to the subject It’s simple Drom. If you think the glass is half-empty, you’re a pessimist, and if you think the glass is half full you’re an optimist.

Why were we listening to this drivel? You’d never believe that on another day Polly would be so bright he would be asked to help the teams in R&D. A pooter wizard, he often talks like a pooter. On this occasion he was talking like a prat.

Anyway, what do you mean a town boy? Tootall took pity on me and changed the subject. Town boys were gangs from the town’s Asian communities. The members were all boys who dropped out of school the first chance they had.

A town boy as opposed to a gentleman from the academy, explained Dev, You know well they run in gangs, chase girls, and get drunk.

It crossed my mind the Town boys’ getting drunk was perhaps why they never caught the girls.

I don’t drink too much. This is only my third glass. Tootall was feeling harassed and becoming defensive.

A wicked grin flashed across Dev’s face as she noticed his ears begin to glow, a sure sign he was getting embarrassed. Dev paused, ready to pounce, and then she let the guided missile go. Tootall, do you think girls like boys who giggle uncontrollably and don’t know what to do or say?

Polly expertly fielded Tootall’s glass before he could launch it at Dev and then homed in himself. He must do. It’s the way he normally reacts.

The ears blazed red as embarrassment flowed through Tootall’s lanky body. He fell back on the well-worn tactic. Hey look, there’s something on the lake.

Very good, the distraction worked. There was always something on the lake. It was one of the main trading highways, part of the inland waterways that criss-crossed the reduced land mass of England.

We humoured him and looked at where the finger pointed. The heat haze lying over Scamadam made seeing anything against the sun difficult. Gradually out of the mist, the tall funnels of the weekly Steam packet began to appear and the noise of the great wheel pushing it along began to drift in on the breeze.

It’s the Manchester City.

After the Football Wars, the paddle-steamers appeared as the new means of public transport. When the Sheffield Steam Packet Company established itself, it had named its boats after the football clubs which hadn’t survived. The Manchester City and Manchester United were common sights on the Scamadam water as they made their weekly runs to Preston.

Want to see if we have any letters? I asked. Dev glanced at the sky, No, it looks too good an evening to waste. Let’s just stay here and enjoy the quiet.

Dev loved letters. They were so much more fun than emails, more private and personal somehow. Love emails had never really caught on. We looked at one another and then at Dev. So much for promises. We had been back in school a week and already the signs were that she was playing games that had set us on course for trouble.

Just who are we avoiding and why? I asked.

Dev looked guilty, No one.

A sure sign of trouble ahead. I wracked my brains. What had she done?

Polly was stroking his pooter, checking the Manchester City’s manifest. He leapt up and, taking a farseer out of his pocket, trained it on the boat. Hey Drom, isn’t that your Dad down there?

I took the farseer and stared down at the dock. It was Dad all right. There was no mistaking the shock of white hair, olive complexion and immaculate suit. He was very stylish, always dressed in the height of corporate executive fashion. Not that he was or ever planned to be one. He was far too proud of the museum’s independence ever to give it up to one of the warring factions. What was he doing here? I looked sharply at Dev who had gone pale, What have you done?

She shrugged, a guilty as hell shrug, face turning pale. Nothing much. He shouldn’t have noticed yet.

It was always the same with Dev. Act first, repent later. Usually I did enough repenting for both of us. I went for a tone of voice loaded with imperatives

What have you done?

She looked crestfallen and sly all at the same time.

I rented out his boat. I thought he was abroad in Wales and wouldn’t be back for a week.

His boat, his new boat, Dad’s pride and joy. I should have thought she would have learned by now, about men and their toys. How could she have forgotten the incident with Dad’s ‘copter?

His boat? You idiot, who did you rent it to?

She was recovering fast. I could see it written in her face, panic forgotten, after all Devious Drake was indestructible, a pocket battleship, hell on wheels, this little setback wasn’t going to be a problem.

The landlord at the Nant Sara’s.

Arun, she’d rented Dad’s boat to Arun. No one let Arun have a boat. He was lethal.

They should have taken his licence away years ago. That’s what they normally did to his boats. Take them away, in pieces if they could find them. Dev was hopping from foot to foot, building up courage for the coming confrontation.

Why?

I had a cash flow problem. Polly and me, we’re working on a project.

Tootall and I looked at each other. This was a real omen of doom. A bell tolled tunelessly away in the distance, I shuddered, a real omen or only one of the drowned churches responding to the tides. The whites of Tootall’s eyes were thrown into stark relief by the blackness of his face. His eyes could get very big when he was worried. The apprehension in his face echoed the leaden sinking feeling that gripped my stomach. Dev and Polly working on a project together. Dev’s ideas and Polly’s brain, this could be dangerous and would certainly mean trouble for someone I hoped it wasn’t me. It was nearly always me. Useless asking Dev, she wouldn’t talk, but Polly now was a different matter.

Tootall took Polly warmly by the scruff of the neck. What project?

Polly looked guilty. Dev was frantically shaking her head. Tootall shook Polly lightly.

We’re working on a way to hack the VR machine. Polly squeaked.

That stopped us dead. Tootall and I exchanged worried glances. Why would anyone want to do that? What had they seen that we hadn’t?

Tootall let Polly go, What on earth for?

Polly looked up from where he was sprawled on the floor.

I don’t know. Because we can, I guess.

I cast a despairing glance across the moor. The Faculty had flushed something. A hue and cry was in progress. The wolf spiders were out in force. The Jack Russells barked as they picked up the scent. I dragged my gaze back to Dev. The sinking feeling in my stomach felt like an elevator going down. As I used to tell Mum when we were small, Dev had made my stomach go shy.

Why would we want to hack the VR?

Dev was flying now. Nothing was going to worry her. She was up and running ready to take on the world. Whatever had happened it wasn’t her fault.

So we can do what we like without having to follow the actions of the character we are playing.

That was an interesting thought. Gain independence from the target reality and do our own thing. Dev was crazy. That sounded dangerous.

Can we? There I went again, in like Flynn, really stupid. How long was I going to regret this for?

Dev gestured to Polly, eyes fixed on the road, watching Dad walking towards us, swagger stick flicking from side to side. How Dad dressed so well and looked so cool in this heat was beyond me. Over in the distance the wolf spiders had treed something. The sound of sporadic gunfire drifted on the breeze.

Polly pulled a pooter from his shirt pocket, shook it open with a flick of the wrist and unzipped it. The screen and the keyboard opened like a flower. He stroked the touch pad. There has been one recorded instance, The Joanne Liddell affair.

The information from the pooter projected into the air on a