The world is black before the light show. The world comes alive with colors and movement, and soon the black is a spacescape with spaceships zooming into the foreground. They look real, or realistic, Solana has no idea what a real spaceship looks like, but she would imagine they would look something like the ones shooting streams of lasers in her direction. She blocks the lasers with a shield on her left arm and she shoots at the ships before they are close enough to collide into the castle where she stands. She is using a laser gun that can destroy the ships, but it takes a lot of hits, and she decides to make her way to the laser cannon mounted on the slick, metal battlements that surround the balcony where she stands. The cannon is close, but there are five ships firing on her from a distance and she knows that if she can take out the one in the middle of their formation, the explosion will take out at least one other ship and lessen the fire on her.
Solana focuses, squeezes the trigger in her right hand, and a stream of lasers connect with the ship at the center. She’s hitting it, but destroying it takes time, time that she is exposed and taking damage. She knows she won’t be very effective with the laser handgun against all of the attackers, and she has to be careful not to lose her life trying to take out one of them. Eventually, something in the middle ship relents; the ships are far enough away that Solana can’t see clear detail without the aid of a viser that acted as binoculars, and also gauged the power and energy levels of any person or ship she trained it on. It also provides information on the weak points of her enemy so that she could focus her attacks to hasten her victory over them. But her viser is inside her equipment locker, this attack is a complete surprise.
She had been walking the battlements to enjoy the view from the balcony that was mostly dominated by expansive space with an astounding number of stars and planets. The space castle that she occupies is in a large kingdom that seems to rest on clouds; it is a prosperous world that has reached God Level, meaning that the scientific advancements of the inhabitants are such that they can construct habitable environments for themselves in the void of space without stellar proximity requirements. Solana is the chief security officer of the largest castle on the world, which is known as Uqbar, and from the battlements, she can see the hightech cities that surround the castle, which consists of mostly platinum, boxy structures with round edges and black windows that shimmer under the light of an artificial, turquoise star that shines behind Solana’s current position.
When the middle ship explodes, the debris scatters and, after continued steady fire, Solana manages to destroy three ships and she makes it to the mounted cannon that has its own shielding. She takes her time shooting down the remaining ships and it isn’t long before more ships appear.
“Chief!” she hears over her comms, “we need orders, the castle is under attack!”
Solana ignores the voice. It would be much easier if she ordered the guards into formation and on defense, but she is here to distract herself. She wants chaos and she believes that it will settle her mind to fend off the enemy at her gate.
The attack is surprisingly light, though. After she’d manage to mow down a dozen or so ships with the mounted laser cannon, the attack is done.
“Any noise on the lower levels?” she asks into her comm.
“All clear down here boss,” a voice responds.
Solana pouts and she leans over the battlements to see for herself. The city below glistens pristinely as though there had been no attack at all.
“There’s an incoming call, Chief,” the voice comes again over comms. “An outsider would like a word.”
A recording starts on her comm, like someone was supposed to have recorded their name for identification,but there is only a gentle hum for about ten seconds before the familiar voice returns.
“Should I connect the call?”
“No,” Solana says. She knows who it is, or she’s pretty sure and that’s enough to ignore it. Taking the call would only rile her up all over again and apparently there isn’t enough action at the castle today to work out her frustrations.
She decides to go out into the city; there are definitely fighting tournaments she can join and it is better than hoping for hostility at the castle. Before she can leave the battlements, though, there is an explosion in the sky, and she ducks before she realizes that it is just fireworks. The fireworks are beautiful against the blackness of space and eventually the red sparks flash the letters “I LUV U” in that order.
Solana angrily summons her comm display and it appears as a translucent, floating window, hovering just before her face.
“Dictate,” she says and a cursor appears, “All caps, letters I, H, number 8, letter U, send to Bobby.”
The letters and number appeared as she said them and when she said send, an envelope swiped across the screen, leaving it blank.
Mere seconds later, there are more explosions in the distance and Solana knows that they are not fireworks.
“Attention,” she says into her comm, “all levels at alert…”
Before she can finish, an explosion rocks the castle and she loses her footing. She slides across the slick floor of the balcony and collides with the wall of the battlements. She can feel the ground underneath her tipping over. She moves to stand and quickly falls over the battlements, toward the glittering landscape below.
“Engage jets!” she yells and then she is flying. She hovers at a distance from the castle to watch the large section where she’d been standing crumble to the ground. And then she is tumbling through space.
Something has her, she can’t see anything but the view ahead of her, and she can’t direct her movements.
“Status!” she yells, hoping to regain her bearing.
“You have been captured and are now the prisoner of Master Security Officer BOBBY of TLON, world class SUPERHUMAN LEVEL. Standby for upload to TLON servers as player distinction PRISONER. Your resources have been confiscated, please check your inventory for an updated list of items available to you.”
“Fuck!” Solana screams. She is still able to summon her comm screen and it appears before her face. “Video call Bobby, now!”
After a brief pause, a handsome young man appears on the screen with a smirk on his face.
“Look who wants to video conference all of a sudden,” Bobby says smugly.
“Take me back to my base now! Do you know how many points it’s gonna cost to rebuild that castle? The dumbass king did a platinum upgrade because it’s supposed to resist your bullshit, but here we are.”
“Aww,” Bobby says tauntingly, “that’s so fucked up, it’s like I knew about the upgrade and fast tracked the Blockchain mining to dig up a weapon that could overpower it. Bad luck, I guess. But I hear your noble king is balling like Kareem, he should be able to cover it.”
“You know it’s on me because I’m security, you ass. You just blew up my bank and I was saving up to buy an island on Kun Lung. They have furry dragons, Bobby!”
“Again, this is so unfortunate for you, almost as if I were aware of all of that and still did all of this anyway. But, former, though eternal, love of my life, this is not a personal call. My king asked for an audience, and it is a prelude to a declaration of hostilities between our great worlds. We need one more defeat of a God Level world to level up and we’ve been preparing for quite a while to catch you all unaware. I swear, the other inconveniences to you personally are delightful coincidences. You’re almost uploaded. I can’t wait to see you.”
“I hate you, Bobby,” Solana says sincerely. “I really do.”
This makes Bobby laugh maniacally.
Solana pauses the reality and rips the headset from her eyes, angrily tossing them on the bed in her room. Or in the direction where she thinks her bed is. It crashes to the floor and she swears loudly. She orients herself inside of her room, then flops down on her bed. He is annoying, but Solana can’t help but think about him. His face. His jaw.
Inside the virtual reality, Solana arrives at a prison and her avatar mopes in a cell on a preprogrammed loop. Bobby is eager for her return.
PRL Serials 