Chapter 16
No one expected the Game to attract much of an audience. A virtual reality simulation where kids played in a world exactly like our own? Who would want to watch people waking up every day and going to a boring job, scraping out a regular life of monotony and boredom?
Psychology experts, however, predicted that regular people would become obsessed with the Game, and they were right. Viewer statistics and preferences are easily tracked, and the facts they show are amazing.
Viewers love to watch it all. Not just the happy moments and the exciting, large events; they are there for the pain and misery as well. For example, a recent event was just viewed, with record numbers tuning in to observe the final moments of Joanna, a 42-year-old Earth woman. Her life had been sad, frustrating, and unremarkable. At the age of 42, she’d given up all hope and bought enough heroin to end her depressing life. As thoughts of despair and sadness overwhelmingly filled her mind, she inserted the needle and ended her avatar’s life. A small, seemingly insignificant event, yet record audience numbers tuned in to experience it.
If you can watch someone else’s life and be drawn into it, you can escape your own for a time. Fans sum it up with the popular phrase… 'The Game is Life.'
Danielle, 8 years old.
“Ready?” I look over and my three friends are bent down with their hands on the line we’ve drawn in the dirt. Tommy, Cindy, and Mike all look at me and smile. They can’t beat me, but they sure look like they want to try.
I yell “Go!!!!” and then I’m running. I know they’re going to stay on the street. They must know I’m jumping over the hood of that car, and I do! Now Cindy and Mike are a bit behind us. Tommy’s ahead, but that’s fine, Tommy always starts strong, then tries to take a swing at me as he loses speed and I pass him.
The light ahead is red. Cars are zooming along in front of us and I smile. I hope Tommy stays with me, but as I sprint even faster into the speeding traffic I hear him skid to a stop, yelling for me to stop too, but I won’t. It’s a game, and I play to win.
I make it to the other side pretty easily; only one car comes close to hitting me, but he slams on the brakes and honks his horn. I just smile and wave. Usually this is the point where I stop and turn around to bow and wave, but I want to try out something new, so I put my head down and just keep running towards the garbage dumpster up ahead.
We saw Tommy’s older brother and his friends climbing up buildings, doing back flips, and all other sorts of fun stuff. They called it parkour (I think that’s what they called it — I don’t really know, but it looked cool!) so I’m gonna try it.
I get close to the garbage bin and jump as hard as I can. I thud right into it — ow! — but I manage to get my hands onto the top of the bin and I start to kick my legs fast, struggling to climb to the top. I grunt, I moan, I kick, I climb until finally I’m on top of it! Very cool, I’m parkouring! I look around for something else to climb, and there it is! A fire escape that I might just barely be able to reach. I go for it, and I make it. I keep looking for stuff to climb, and by the time the others catch up I’m halfway up the outside of the building, sitting on a window ledge swinging my legs with a grin on my face.
“What are you doing up there, goofball?” Cindy asks, smiling. Of all the girls I know, Cindy is the coolest. We spend all our time together.
“I’m parkouring! Like Jim and his friends were,” I say, proud of myself. I enjoy being the first in our group to do stuff.
“Jim and his friends are idiots,” Tommy says. “My mom says one of them are going to kill themselves doing it.”
I shrug. “Everyone dies, Tommy. If they did a cool stunt while dying… that would be awesome!”
Tommy rolled his eyes. This was common talk from me; they were getting used to it. “Just come on and let’s go. Mom gave me money for ice cream. I’ll buy for all of us.”
I stand up and dust my hands off. “Ok, be right down. I was just waiting for you all to catch up and watch this.”
“Watch what?” Mike asks cautiously.
“My back flip to the ground.”
The three of them don’t seem happy. “Um, Danielle… that’s a bit high to be back flipping from.”
I laugh at them. Cowards! “It’s fine. Just wait a minute and I’ll be ready to go.” I turn my back to them and put my hands above my head. I’m silently counting to three, ‘cause I always jump after three, when I hear an adult voice from below.
“I bet you can do it, no problem, Danni.” I frown. The voice is deep and has some kind of accent. Spanish, I think it’s called. My Aunt Vi dated a Spanish man and he sounded like that.
I quickly look to see who has joined my friends below and there's a dark-skinned man with black hair pulled back into a ponytail smiling up at me. He looks nice and friendly. I wave. He waves back.
“Do me a favour, Danni; first try should be from just a bit lower. Why don’t you show us how you can climb back down to the dumpster and do the back flip from there?”
I shrug and start to jump towards the dumpster, landing here, jumping from there, grabbing onto that, until I’m standing back on the dumpster lid. “Are you sure?” I ask the man. “This doesn’t seem very hard. It’s barely off the ground…”
I turn my back and just flip; I already counted when I was up higher. I tuck my legs in and start to swing — I’ve done back flips before, just from the ground and on the trampoline. I stick my feet out and land just right, but the pavement is hard and I start to stumble. Is that traffic I’m falling towards? Ah, crap, I can’t stop. Hope the cars see me.
But just as I’m about to fall onto the street, a hand catches me. It’s a strong hand and I know there’s no way I’m going to be hurt while it’s holding me. Of course it’s the Spanish man. We both smile at the same time.
“Perfect, Danni. That was all you,” he says. He looks proud of me.
“No one calls me Danni,” I say, “But I like it.”
“I’m glad. My name is Raphael. You be sure to stay safe, Danni. Have a great day.” He walks away.
I watch him go, then head over to join my friends. Parkouring and ice cream… it’s a good day.