sense that they don’t bother making them disappear. But the extra kudos for those at the top of the chart, that sucks big monkey ass. With apologies to anyone who likes their simian avatars. It’s just wrong. And like, I’m in the top thousand myself, so I’m not saying this because I’m bitter or anything. It’s just wrong. And I got to thinking how much better things were before kudos, you know, no pressure, just do what you want to do. So I thought of you all. There.’
The pent up rush of words came to a stop.
‘Fabulous, we get to watch your casts again.’
‘Free to members only, right?’
‘Right.’
For a few seconds a blank look came over Sol’s face, while he made changes to his access system. ‘Done. Now, unless I’m mistaken, this looks like a game of strike. That is so old school, it’s awesome. Where do I sign up.’
‘Here Sol, you’re on my team.’ Angel gestured him over. ‘And it’s EV’s shot.’
6. Fashion
As a result of the anger people felt at the new rule changes to the Kudos chart there was a rush of people wanting to join the society, taking them to over a thousand members.
‘It’s good. But it’s still terribly tedious.’
Eternal, Mellow and Angel were sitting by a pond outside of Mellow’s trailer. From time to time a frog on a lily leaf gave a loud croak. The reason for Eternal’s rather negative appraisal of the situation was that his own efforts to compose music had resulted in his realisation that the art form was not going to be mastered without a great deal of dedication.
‘And it’s not really like when Angel and I repopulated the Metaverse,’ he continued, ‘because back then there was nothing else. Right now though, people are having fun. They are partying, viewing one of a thousand live casts and billions of recordings, playing games, wearing new fashions. It’s so slow. We are in the slow lane of the Metaverse.’
The frog croaked and Glitter materialised. The current fashion was for even human avatars to have a thin layer of fur and Glitter’s new body had a spectacular purple spiral of fur running around her from head to toe. Despite himself, Eternal felt envious.
‘Hi guys.’
‘Hey Glitter,’ replied Eternal automatically.
‘Isn’t your land teleport restricted?’ Angel lifted her sunglasses up and turned to Mellow.
‘No.’
‘Perhaps it should be.’
‘Mellow my dear.’ The timbre of Glitter’s voice was set to charming. ‘Would you mind if I looked at your eyes?’
‘Look away, but you can’t have a pair.’
‘So I understand, they are for your society members only.’
‘Correct.’
Angel: What’s she doing here?
Eternal: /Shrug
Eternal and Angels exchanged glances, but neither made a publicly audible communication. A tense silence settled heavily on everyone as Glitter strolled along the display of eyes that Mellow kept in her trailer. Even the frog sounded mournful.
‘Your work is as beautiful as ever Mellow.’ Eventually Glitter came out, holding a pair of classical green eyeballs. ‘Mind if I try them?’
‘Well, there’s hardly any point is there? I can’t see you giving up your number one spot for them.’
‘True. Unless you would take some kudos for them. Make an exception for me and say, a million kudos.’
‘A million?’
‘Think what you could do with that. You and your little community could get a lot of music, spare bodies and clothes with that. Prices are really falling.’
Angel: Was she always this manipulative? How come we never noticed before?
Eternal did not reply, but stored the private message away for later, all his attention was on Mellow and if he had owned an organic heart, he would have stopped it for a moment. It was a strange sensation, being so still, but at the same time with his emotions rushing in circles like a gyroscope, soon to fall down one side or the other, into a state of either despair or triumph. What would Mellow say in response to the offer of a million kudos? Would she abandon the Free From Kudos Society?
‘Glitter, you misjudge me. My position is not open to negotiation, don’t insult me by implying that it might be.’
Eternal: YES!
His avatar gave only a slight smile, but the shout to Angel let her know the true delight that was surging through him as a result of Mellow’s answer. Angel's eyes sparkled with an answering pleasure.
As though she had been expecting this response, Glitter gave a nod or two, looked around at the scene with a slight sneer and disappeared.
‘Mellow, you were awesome. I never think of the right thing to say in such situations.’ It was impossible to hide the relief in his voice. If they had lost Mellow, their oh-so-slowly-growing-community might have disintegrated.
Mellow rubbed her lip thoughtfully. ‘You know what that visit means, right?’
‘What?’ asked Angel for them both.
‘She’s worried about our society. Glitter is worried.’
For a while they pondered this statement and, as it seemed correct, a certain good humour sprang up among them, revealed by nothing more than their tossing pebbles at a can in the pond.
‘Great body though, huh?’ offered Eternal.
‘Absolutely,’ replied Mellow.
Willing: EV, got a moment?
Eternal: Sure, what’s up?
Willing: Take the tag.
The tag brought him to a rather derelict looking bike track. It was slightly sloppy work, whoever had designed it had been lazy about the sand and had simply pasted the same ten yards of landscape all the way around the meandering circuit, so that the same cactus reappeared again and again, along with the same patterns in the dust.
Two bikes, sleek looking racers, were standing on the tarmac and beside them was Willing Joke, in the form of a goblin in black leather armour, with a longsword scabbarded over his back.
‘Ride?’
‘Sure.’
A fabulously deep roar came from the bike as EV kick-started it. Now that was more like it, altogether classy scripting. It moved well too and as he picked up speed Eternal could see how easy it would be to fly right off at the corners, the bikes were powerful.
Willing: How’s the anti-kudos society going?
Eternal: Getting there, we’re probably nearing the critical mass when it won’t feel like a sacrifice any more.
Willing: What have you done with all the kudos you don’t use?
Eternal: What do you mean?
The two of them had begun racing in earnest. It helped to find the right line that decades of competitions had laid down a dark trail of rubber on the road's surface. The goblin, completely ducked down below his windshield, had the advantage though, and it was all Eternal could do to keep in his slipstream.
Willing: You have a lot of kudos still, you just aren’t using it. Say an average of fifty k each. How many members do you have?
Eternal: About a hundred thousand now.
While they took the tricky left and then sharp right before the finishing straight, Willing remained silent, presumably concentrating.
Willing: Sweet. That’s fifty billion. Enough to be number one by a long way. Even Glitter doesn’t have ten billion yet.
Eternal: I suppose. So?
Willing: Give it all to me.
Eternal: And then?
Willing: Then I’ll mess them up.
Grains of sand were a hazard at this speed; if Eternal put his head up over the windshield he risked wrecking his face. But he wasn’t going to ease up, not now he’d learned the route and could anticipate the turns, leaning right over. On the next straight he’d try to overtake.
As for the request, it was interesting. Anyone else and Eternal would dismiss the idea out of hand as being motivated by greed. But Willing Joke was infamous for being concerned with nothing but martial arts and war games. All those involved in big campaigns wanted him on their side as a general. He was, after all, the a
vatar who had defeated the Generals of Bow and Sword at the battle of Wizard’s Ford in the famous campaign of 643 BR.
Pulled by Willing’s slip stream, Eternal revved the bike’s accelerator to maximum and swung past. He was going to make it in time to brake hard and get the line for the corner.
‘Yeeeeee hawwww!’ Eternal roared with delight, loud enough to be heard over the roaring wind and thundering engines.
In the brief moment where the bikes were side by side, Willing turned his head to Eternal and showed his fangs in a wide monstrous grin. With an incredibly swift motion, the goblin drew his sword and sliced EV’s bike in half, just behind his seat. Hanging on to the handlebars, Eternal could see his legs melt as the bike scraped along the tarmac, surrounding him with blue and red sparks. Just a sliver of colour remained in his life bar, which had nearly emptied in those few seconds. Both parts of the bike shot straight off at the corner and left a dark trail across a hundred yards of sand, to where Eternal ended up with half a body, dazed and looking up at a blue sky.
A very pleasant silence was eventually ended by the sound of approaching footsteps. Willing stood over him laughing.
‘Idiot. You could have killed me and I haven’t backed up in a week.’
‘Yeah, that’s what makes it fun though, right.’
Eternal thought about this, then began to chuckle. ‘True.’
‘So, you gonna give me the kudos?’
‘Well, it’s not up to me alone, but I’ll give you mine and ask everyone to do the same.’
‘Excellent.’ Willing licked his thick green lips.
Two months later, Eternal got a call.
Willing: Hey, EV, take the tag, I’ve allocated enough kudos to you that you can attend a meeting of the