Hard, Soft and Wet. Melanie McGrath

can join them.

      At the cash till, Andromeda, a qualified Virtual Geographic League Briefing Officer, recites the mission plan.

      ‘For nine dollars you’ll be entitled to a mission briefing where you’ll learn about your destination of choice, followed by translocation to a virtual world with a group of other adventurers where your mission will commence. After that there will be a full mission debriefing and a pilot’s log. It’s a total twenty-five minute adventure. From ten to a hundred missions, every tenth mission is free. Take part in three hundred missions and you can become part of the Inner Circle.’

      ‘Which is the bit where I actually play the game?’ I ask, pulling a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet.

      Andromeda looks uncertain.

      ‘You mean the mission?’

      ‘Yeah, which is the mission bit?’

      ‘It’s all an adventure,’ says Andromeda, handing me my ticket and a plasticized paper card. ‘Trust me.’ She advises me to choose a call sign for the mission.

      The line of explorers requiring mission tickets begins to build up behind, forming a vaguely threatening mass.

      ‘Let’s see.’ Andromeda struggles to assist. ‘Variations on death are always popular along with pets’ names. Nexus 14, for example? Zombiewoman? Driller killer?’

      My recent online adventures come to mind.

      ‘How’s about Fish ’n’ Chips?’

      ‘There you go,’ toots Andromeda. ‘We’ll enter you in the log …’ she types a few letters into a PC ‘… as Fish and … Chips.’

      ‘’n’ Chips.’

      ‘Sure, ’n’ Chips. It’ll be about forty minutes. Take a seat in the Explorers’ Lounge and you’ll get to meet some great people. We at VGL believe that one of the most satisfying aspects of interdimensional travel is the people you meet en route.’ Resigned, I hold my hand out for change. Andromeda shakes her head and waggles a finger.

      ‘Nine dollars for the adventure plus a dollar for the one-off pilot’s fee.’

      ‘Which means?’

      ‘You’re now an Associate Member of the Virtual Geographical League. Caveat Emptor!’

      ‘Right.’ I smile, vainly struggling with the creeping canker of disillusionment.

      

      Back at the bar, Dave and Todd are still drinking Martian Coke and bantering over their Mech strategies.

      ‘The software aces at VGL Research Labs changed the rules so a Mech can be damaged if it bumps into a stationary part of the Solaris VII landscape, and not just if it impacts with another Mech. Did you read that in the stats report? Man, it’s gonna change free-for-alls forever,’ says Todd.

      I resume my place at the bar and order a beer, and, remembering the Icon Byte Bar, some Tesla Coil chips and Solarian salsa from ‘The Briefing’ menu.

      ‘Listen,’ says Todd, turning to me, ‘They’ll put you with some other rookies, so you’ll be OK. I mean, you’ll get reduced to rubble a coupla times, but nothing you can’t survive.’

      ‘Want some advice from me?’ adds Jim. ‘Read the Battletech op manual, and when you’re in there aim for the black spots on the other guy’s Mech and don’t forget …’ he pauses to dunk another Tesla Coil chip in salsa ‘… experience is a man’s best teacher.’

      

      Battletech team messages are pinned to a noticeboard in the pool room:

      [TO] DON’T SHOOT

      [FROM] CAPTAIN CRYBABY

      [MESSAGE] WE ACCEPT YOUR 3 ON 3 CHALLENGE ON ONE CONDITION: WE PLAY 2 ON 3. US BEING THE 2. CALL 555 5173 AND ASK FOR JOHN. WE’RE KIDS, BUT YOU’LL STILL GO DOWN IN AGONIZING, MERCILESS FLAMES.

      [TO] BLOOD ANGEL DEMISE

      [FROM] CLAN GHOST TIGER

      [MESSAGE] YUPPIE DEATH

      WE THE MEMBERS OF CLAN GHOST TIGER WISH TO THANK BLOOD ANGEL DEMISE. SUCKS BE TO YOU SLACKERS FOR AN HONOURABLE AND FUN BATTLETECH MINOR LEAGUE TOURNAMENT.

      In the hour or so since I arrived, the Virtual World Explorers’ Lounge has doubled its occupancy. More families, more kids, more packs of teens and more men with shiny heads and brown moustaches lining up obediently for their mission tickets.

      Jim lends me his copy of the Battletech Operations Manual. Byzantine! Thirty-three different types of Mech robot to choose, each one with a specific armoury and a top speed and a heat quotient, four battle arenas drawn out on grids, notes on heat sinks and dissipation units, a stack of tables covering controls and weapons and tips on weapons configuration strategy, light and weather manipulation and heat management, and finally, a list of ten tips for rookies. Totalling forty pages of graphs and tables and handy hints amounting to complete hierarchies of knowledge. It could take a person a couple of months simply to absorb all this stuff.

      Forty-five minutes later, Andromeda calls out my tag, along with six others, belonging to a party of two adults and four kids with handles Stallion, Princess, Animal, Warrior, Wad and Sakan. Stallion, Animal and Wad admit to having played before, but the rest of us are virgins.

      ‘Decided on your terrain and your Mechs yet?’ enquires Balthazar, our Virtual World Mission Briefing Officer.

      ‘Loki5s, Nazca-24,’ pleads Animal.

      ‘Anyone have any other preferences?’

      And with that all six of us are shut into large black pods and left. My night vision’s so bad I’m still attempting to locate the joystick when the action starts and the screen lights up and I find myself rumbling around in the middle of a desert on another planet with a school of marauding robots. My instinct tells me to white out everything I’ve learned in the Battletech Operations Manual and concentrate on pumping the joystick. A spear of green pixel bullets whooshes through the screen towards the horizon and a robot lumbers into view from my right, the radar showing it approaching at full speed with ready guns. The adrenaline rises in my stomach, leaving behind it a faint tang of nausea. The robot is bearing down on me now, firing from machine guns in its arms. Green bullets trailing fiery electric tails begin to whistle past. Ferocious clicks on the joystick get me nowhere. The enemy robot remains undimmed. Making a strategic decision to run away I reverse and bang almost immediately into Animal, who deposits some green pixel bullets into my thorax and reduces me to rubble. An amber alarm throbs through the pod, but seconds later I have magically remorphed as a new Mech stashed high with lasers and am eager to pile back into the action. It’s plain bad luck that Princess reduces me to rubble again before I’ve had the time to engage my spatial co-ordinates and begin firing. The amber alarm begins to throb once more. I remorph stashed with lasers and give all I’ve got to what turns out to be a rock. A few moments later, some intriguing spots begin moving about on the screen’s horizon bar. The radar is blank. A red alarm begins to pulse. For a moment I am confused, then it occurs to me to check my co-ordinates which serve to prove that I have been travelling full speed in reverse for the last four minutes and am currently about ten kilometres from the battle arena. I push down hard on the throttle and head once more for the epicentre of the battle, the black dots on the horizon accreting into fellow Mechs, and I’m suddenly right in the middle of it all, opening my guns and pouring green electronic lead into anything moving. And then the lights come on and two seconds later I’m translocated back to planet earth.

      Seven