Game Over
“Online... Connected... Game Running...”
Danny entered the code he had downloaded, selected an
avatar, and started to play.
The dragon had long ceased to be fearsome. Its faded golden
flanks were chipped and scratched, and the wooden flames from its nostrils all
but knocked off by numerous collisions with the safety barrier. As roller coasters
went, this should have been a health and safety hazard. Many modern rides were
ten times as scary, taking their riders virtually into the stratosphere, upside
down, and with centrifugal forces only astronauts experienced. The modest
height of this track was reassuring and promised a trauma free trip, even if the
dire state of its maintenance threatened sudden death.
The roller coaster belonged to Jacob’s Amazing Funfair,
which was full of rickety rides and side stalls inviting sharpshooters to try
their luck using rifles with misaligned sites, or knock down coconuts with
wooden balls hard enough to fracture the skull of an elephant. Small wonder it
had not appeared before. It was probably trying to avoid the authorities who
would close it down as a danger to public health.
Howie, Donnie, Sabrina and Annie were horribly fascinated.
No travelling funfair had ever dared pitch its rides on this marshy meadow
before.
The young adults decided to try shooting the rotating ducks
first. Tokens were handed to the stall holder who promptly stepped out of line
of fire further than was necessary. Sabrina was the most competitive, and
furious that the ducks swerved aside when she knew full well that her pellets
should have hit them.
Frustration soon set in, so the friends decided to try the
ancient swingboats. When they took their seats they wobbled unnervingly and as
soon as Donnie and Annie tugged the ropes their boats took off as though trying
to loop the loop. The scary experience jolted forward the inexplicable thought
that they been here before. But that was impossible... surely?
As soon as the attendant stopped the boats with the braking
ropes, the friends leapt out. Sabrina was predictably annoyed at having her
hair mussed. She was not experiencing the same feeling of déjà vu, but
reluctantly followed the others to the roundabout of horses with manic looks in
their eyes.
The ride should have been safe enough for infants, with mounts
that only gently dipped and rose at a moderate speed, so they climbed aboard.
As soon as they did so the eyes of the prancing horses lit up and the
roundabout spun so fast the companions were thrown off onto the sodden grass.
The others only just managed to persuade Sabrina not to
storm off.
As they plunged down the first dip the companions screeched
with the obligatory euphoria, which immediately turned to terror when the
buckled track reared up and pointed them heavenwards. They were shot into the
sky, clinging desperately to the safety bars of the dragon car as they entered
Earth’s orbit.
It was then Sabrina disappeared.
Danny’s screen flashed triumphantly and announced ‘GAME OVER’
as the program announced that its creator it had defeated the user.
“This game is rubbish!” he groaned. “What a waste of time.
Whoever wrote it really needs to get a life.”
As the dragon roller coaster carriage continued in its orbit
Howie, Donnie and Annie gazed at the radiant planet below everything flooded
back.
Now they knew what they were doing there.
“We made it then!” Howie should not have sounded so
surprised.
“It was inevitable someone would play it eventually,” Annie
said.
“Just as well they never reached the coconut shy and won – our
minds could have been wiped.”
Donnie hardly dare believe what Howie had just said. “You
have to be joking? Writing this software is one thing, but sodding around with
our brains is another.”
“I’m sure there wasn’t any danger of that,” Annie tried to
persuade herself.
“And how do we get back? You did include an escape hatch -
didn’t you?”
“The electrodes should have cut out when the game ended. I
don’t understand how we got trapped here.” There was an edge of panic in
Howie’s voice.
“You designed the interactive program so we could enter it.
You tell us why they didn’t.”
“I knew it wasn’t a good idea to upload that demo. We should
have listened to Sonnie.”
“You know she would have stopped us.”
“Wish she had,” whimpered Annie.
“You knew that as soon as some kid decided to play it we
risked being up stuck here!” raged Donnie.
“Bet he was really pissed off.”
Xing, known as Sunny, returned from lunch to see her three
young techs sitting stock still and staring blankly at their monitors. She had
only been gone for an hour, yet during that time they had managed to send their
minds to some electronic la-la land. This was the trouble with giving kids with
too much talent for their own good a free rein. They would have been safer in
GCHQ who could provide better supervision than her agency.
Sunny could have pulled the electrodes from their tousled
heads and hoped for the best, or just terminated the program. Neither option
was a good idea. There was only one thing for it.
She picked up the spare headset, attached the electrodes to
her head and entered the program. Reality took a nose dive and dropped her into
the dilapidated roller coaster carriage from Jacob’s Amazing Funfair. It was
immediately obvious that Howie, Donnie and Annie were having anything but fun.
This had to be Howie’s work: a mind that hovered between elation, hallucination
and depths of despair. After this he was definitely seeing that therapist.
The techs had hardly dared hope their superior would try to
rescue them, but there she was, perched on the dragon’s head in the carriage
orbiting the Earth.
“Okay, you’ve all proved what smartarses you are. Next time
remember where you put the exit code.”
They all turned to Howie. He looked uncomfortable.
“You can remember where it is, can’t you?”
The young tech fidgeted uneasily. “It’s like this, you
see...”
“Oh, for pity’s sake!” exclaimed Annie. “The dork’s
forgotten.”
“I bet Alan Turing never had this problem,” agreed Donnie.
“Alan Turing didn’t have to work with twits like him.”
“I know it’s somewhere in this carriage,” Howie
prevaricated.
“If we ever manage to get back, you’re relegated to writing
software for local government schemes to save frogs,” Sunny promised. “That
equipment belongs in the hands of neuroscientists, not inept adolescents.”
The young people muttered various subdued, “Sorrys”, “Won’t
happen agains”, and “We’ll sort it...” promises.
“I know!” Howie suddenly recalled. “Pull the dragon’s
beard!”
Without a word, Sunny reached out of the carriage and yanked
the decaying wood.
Panic set in as they hurtled towards the Earth. Once they
had crashed back to reality they snatch off the electrodes glued to their
heads.
Silence ensued for some time. The screensavers on their
monitors kicked in and they watched bubbles and morphing boxes through
monstrous headaches.
Only Howie could have asked after that experience. “Think we
should patent it, boss?”