Future Games: Anthology Part 1

FUTURE GAMES.

PAULA GURAN.

Preface.

Paula Guran.

Sports and games are an integral part of (as far as I know) every human culture. Our partic.i.p.ation reaches back to the beginnings of humankind. Catching and throwing are utilitarian activities that could not help but rapidly evolve into games. Running, jumping, and fighting are compet.i.tive by nature. Cave paintings depicting hunting, running, and wrestling date back over seventeen thousand years. Our ancestors needed these skills to survive, but it is highly likely that individuals and groups practiced and compared their abilities as well-sport as well as survival.

Less physical, but still challenging, board games are known to have existed since the dawn of recorded history. The Egyptian game of senet was played before 3000 BCE and a five-thousand-year-old backgammon set with dice was discovered at the Shahr-e Sukhteh archeological site in southeastern Iran.

Compet.i.tion and, consequently, winners and losers, are an important part of sport, but not its sole definition. Teams require cooperation. No quarterback can win the game alone and even if a pitcher throws a perfect game, it is due, in part, to great fielding (and someone on the team needs to get a hit to win.) But does the adage "It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game" really apply? Only at a certain level. Winning can mean more than biochemical elation or monetary gain, it can enhance our national, ethnic, or regional pride; it can be used to support or disparage political ideology.

The element of risk also augments the playing-and perhaps the popularity-of a sport. Admittedly, the apparent physical dangers of golf and tennis do not equal those of luge or even skateboarding. Perhaps peril involving severe damage to prestige and pocketbook metaphorically equals the possibility of injury and death.

We often elevate athletes to the status of demi-G.o.ds, but we also are quick to disdain them if they do not produce the miracles we desire. And, although we may worship, we seldom see them as role models for our lives. Often considered exceptional from an early age, talented athletes are rewarded by coaches, parents, schools, and peers. If they avoid injury, make it to the professional level, and perform well, they can gain fame and fortune. But individual super-athletes-indulged for years or granted extraordinary status without the grounding to support it-often ignore society's norms for acceptable behavior. Fans tolerate bad boys (and girls) only to a certain point. They can be s.e.x symbols, but they can't be caught with their pants too far down. They can take chances, but they can't actually gamble. They can be superhuman, but not with the help of performance-enhancing drugs. We love winners, but we expect them to play by the rules-and rules are also integral to any sport or game.

Most of us, however, partic.i.p.ate for the fun of it, for exercise, for camaraderie, for our own personal betterment, for a challenge. We play games because, as one definition shared by both sport and game reminds us, they are pastimes, diversions from the humdrum and not always pleasant aspects of daily life.

For those of us who enjoy sports mostly (or only) as spectators, our appreciation can be on a number of levels: respect, awe, and admiration for fellow humans whose physical and mental skills far exceed ours; a visceral emotional connection to partic.i.p.ants; even the intellectual challenge of statistics and odds. Perhaps it is chiefly because we want to be part of something larger than ourselves, something that makes us feel the impossible is possible, that we can be part of a triumph we could never actually achieve ourselves-even if our partic.i.p.ation is just cheering on the real athletes . . . or sharing vanquishment with honor.

Sports bring us together and, sometimes, divide us, but whether we are couch potatoes, "fantasy" players, weekend warriors, in pursuit of better health, video gamers, rabid fans, talented amateurs, or real athletes, the thought of a future without sports and games is inconceivable. They may change-as they always have-but we can't consider a future without the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, or just the simple pleasure of playing or watching a game.

Science fiction has long explored sports, although I feel there is far more room to do so. Some of our library of science fictional literature concerning sports and games has become dated for a variety of reasons. And, with the fairly recent invention of video and computer gaming, real-world development often outstrips speculation. Today's "reality television" has almost caught up with earlier conjectures, as have "extreme" sports. (Although you might want to note the combination of the two in Jason Stoddard's 2011 novel Winning Mars.) We feel the stories selected for Future Games, however, remain effective and relevant.

Invented and re-imagined sports tend to be featured in film and television more than fiction (sports are far more easily portrayed visually than in text)-including rollerball (from the movies of the same name); pod racing from the Star Wars universe; and pyramid, the premier sport played in the Battlestar Galactica world-but you'll find some excellent examples in this anthology.

Nothing in science fiction literature has yet matched fantasy's quidditch (created by J. K. Rowling in her Harry Potter series) as far as a fully-realized, albeit derivative, sport unless you count Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games, which is really only a dystopic combination of reality games, human hunting, and gladiatorial combat. Interestingly, in both, females compete with males and both were invented by women. One hopes we are beginning to see more stories by and/or about women in sports and games. Future Games offers some fine stories by women or featuring female protagonists, but I would love to see more in the genre.

In the following pages there's a great diversity of fictional explorations of future games and sports. You'll find baseball used as a means of communication with beings from other worlds, football played against remarkably well-suited aliens, ice hockey that defies our meager scope, games that serve as war subst.i.tutes or war itself, virtual games more meaningful than mere leisure play, game shows with far too real risks, sports invented by the technologies or the environments of tomorrow, athletes with minds more powerful than their bodies, players whose uniqueness is used against them . . . and much, much more from sixteen world-champion-level writers.

Let the games begin!

Paula Guran.

September 2012.

Few of us can truly envision what being a great athlete is like. But try to imagine you are involved in a planet-hurling compet.i.tion which requires that, with your right hand, you throw a discus with Olympic skill, while your legs are performing an elaborate ballet movement and with your left hand you are playing a world tennis champion (and winning), and in between racquet strokes you must move a piece to attack a champion chessmaster effectively on a three-dimensional chessboard. If you can imagine doing all that in near simultaneity, then you know something of what it is to be a waverider . . .

Will the Chill.

John Shirley.

"I refuse to speak to him," declared Tondius Will.

"If you don't, there will be no more sponsor," replied Great Senses.

The biocyber computer paused, its wall of lights changed from considering-yellow to a.s.sertion-blue; the programming room's shadows fled before the brighter blue so that the oval chamber resembled the interior of a great turquoise egg.

The ship's computer a.s.serted: "Sports-eyes is serious. No interview, no sponsorship."

"Very well. Let there be an end to it."

"Nonsense. You cannot live without Contest. Mina's death proved that."

Great Senses said, its fifty-by-fifty-meter panel of honeycomb-crystal glowing red for regret amid the blue of a.s.sertion. "You cannot live without Contest and you cannot Contest without a contestship. And this starship is owned by Sports-eyes. And there is the immense cost of the planet-pushcoils to consider . . . "

"I'll find a way to sponsor it myself." But even as he said it, Tondius Will knew it was impossible.

"Sports-eyes has legal access to this ship. If you refuse to speak with the reporter, you'll have to talk to the show's director. And he'll come here personally. And you know how they like to touch you in greeting-on the lips. Latest homeworld fad."

Will the Chill spat in disgust. The self-cleaning walls of the ship absorbed the spittle.

"All right," said Will. "I'll speak to the reporter. But only on the screen. Should I dress? What is the present custom?"

"No need. Nudity is sanctioned."

Will turned and strode to the lift, rode the compression tube to tertiary level, communications. He glimpsed his reflection in the gla.s.s of the communication room's inactive screen. He was golden-skinned, compact but muscular, utterly hairless, his bald scalp gleaming with metal hookup panels-for his physical guidance-rapport with Great Senses and the contestship-set flush with his cranium. His dark-eyed, pensive features, already cold, intensified as he approached the screen. His full lips hardened to thin lines; his hairless brows creased.

A nulgrav cushion darted from a wall niche to uphold him as he sat. The screen flickered alive. The Sports-eyes communications emblem, a s.p.a.ceship shaped like an eye, flashed onto the screen. The sign faded, and Will faced a spindly, nude, gray-haired man with tiny, restive blue eyes and lips that seemed permanently puckered.

The stranger ceremoniously blew Will a kiss. Will merely nodded. The man moved uneasily in his seat; his shoulders bobbed, his thin cheeks ticked, his prominent Adam's apple bounced. "Eric Blue here." He spoke rapidly. "They call me Blue the Glue. This is a guh-reat honor for me, Tondius Will. A very great honor."

Will shrugged.

Blue the Glue pounced on Will the Chill. "Will, it's my understanding that you didn't want to give this interview. Correct?"

Will nodded slightly.

"Well, uh, Will-heh-why is that? Can you be frank? I mean, you're t.i.tleholder for four Contests, you've been a planet-hurlin' waverider for many longuns now. Twice my lifetime. You've earned two replenishings, so you'll live another century at least. Is this the last interview for another century? As far as I know only one other SprtZ NewZ holorag has spoken to you in your entire-"

"What is the pertinence of this?" Will asked sharply. Blue's voice was abundant with hidden meanings. His face was not his face. Will wished he were back on Five, listening to those who spoke with no faces at all.

"It's relevant to your image. And your image is important to your audience-draw. And your audience-draw is dropping off, Will. Though some say you're the best d.a.m.n planet-hurler since Fiessar in 2270. Still, you don't-?"

"I don't caper and j.a.pe for the cameras like Svoboda? I don't brag endlessly on my prowess and gossip about lovers like Browning? I don't soak up publicity like Munger? Is that your complaint?"

"Look, Will, there's a difference between, uh, maintaining dignity-and being cold. And you're cold, man. That's why they call you Will the-"

"There's a difference between being emotive and artistic, Blue."

"Look here, let me put it to you in the plainest terms. I'm a Sports-eyes reporter, my job is public relations-you've failed to give me anything to relate to that public, Will. Sports-eyes stars need audience appeal. They have to be likable characters. They have to be likable-ah-folks. They have to be fellows people can identify with. Not cold and distant automatons-"

"All waveriders are cold and distant, as you put it, Blue," said Will, coldly and distantly. "But most of them pretend they're not, in order to maintain themselves in the public eye. But it is not coldness, not really. Not inside. It is the aura of unflinching and unremitting dedication."

Blue the Glue looked startled. "Well. Now we're making progress. The Philosophical Waverider? Image BoyZ might be able to do something with that."

Will snorted.

"Will, I wonder if you'll be kind enough to examine a holovid I have with me and give me your a.n.a.lysis of it. I'll feed it into your screen, with your permission." Without waiting for permission, Blue punched a b.u.t.ton and the screen was filled with a simplified holoimage of the final weeks (time-lapsed, sped-up to twenty minutes condensed action) of Will's Contest with Opponent Brigg in system GV5498. Two planets approached one another, one brown-black, crescent-edged with silver, its atmosphere swirling turmoil; the other, Will's ma.s.spiece, shining, chrome-blue like the shield of Perseus. Both were approximately Earth-sized and devoid of life, as was customary. Relative to the viewer's plane of perspective, the planets closed obliquely, Brigg's from the lower left-hand corner and Will's from the upper right-hand corner of the rectangular screen.

How diluted the public impression of Contest! Will thought.

The right-hand planet, GV5498 Number Four, showed white pushcoil flares at its equator and southern pole. Atmospheric disturbances and volcanic explosions roiled the contiguous faces of the planets as gravitational fields meshed and struggled.

Involuntarily, Will twitched and flexed his arms as if he were in hookup again, adjusting pushcoils, controlling the tilt, impetus, spin, momentum, and ma.s.s resistance of his ma.s.spiece.

Seconds before impact, as dead seas boiled and ice caps fractured, as continents buckled, the pushcoil on the south polar face toward Will's Opponent flared and forced the pole to swing back, tilting the axis, lobbing the north polar bulge forward, precipitating collision before Opponent expected it.

Opponent's planet took the worst of the collision forces. And after the impact, the o.r.g.a.s.mic rending of two worlds: more of Will's ma.s.spiece remained intact than remained of Opponent's. So Tondius Will won the Contest. And took t.i.tle from Brigg.

The two Sports-eyes contestships, Will's and Brigg's, were glimpsed speeding to safety from the still-exploding bodies- The image vanished, the face of Blue the Glue returned. "Now," said Blue, "why did you fire that pushcoil on your south pole, the face toward Opponent, during the last stage's final-"

"It should be obvious," Will interrupted wearily. "You must have noticed that my ma.s.spiece had a more irregular spherism than Brigg's. There was more ma.s.s in the north polar hemispheres. I applied torque in order to use the club-end of the planet with the greatest force of momentum-this can be useful only in rare instances, and Brigg probably hadn't seen it before. Most impacts are initiated along the equatorial swell."

"I see. Beautiful. Uh, such niceties are too often lost on the Sports-eyes viewer who sees-"

"Niceties! It was the most obvious ploy of the game. Brigg perceived it instantly but too late; he couldn't compensate in time. Niceties! The most important plays of the game are the early stages when ma.s.spieces are moved into place for the final approach to designated impact zone. What is this whole affair to you, Blue? What can you know of the exquisite visions of hookup? You see only very limited aspects of Contest. You observe composite images, you see them in timelapse and you see only brief flashes of the months of preparation. There is no comprehension of the internal artistry requisite-we spend weeks at a time in hookup, a.s.sessing and tasting and physically experiencing every known factor in hundreds of millions of cubic kilometers of s.p.a.ce!" Will was not aware that he was shouting. "What is it to you? A contest between two waveriders hovering off dead planets which they seem to-to shove about by remote control, kicking-kicking!-the planets out of orbit and tossing them at one another-and the piece surviving impact with the greatest ma.s.s determines Winner. That's all it is, to you. You huzzah at the 'flight' of planets, their gargantuan turnings; they seem like colossal bowling b.a.l.l.s in the hands of mites riding tiny specks and you swill your drink and clap your hands when you see the wracking and cracking of impact. You enjoy the sight of planets cracked like eggsh.e.l.ls! Idiots! What do you know of the possession of men by worlds? Can you even for an instant imagine-"

Will stopped. He swallowed, sat back, untensing. Specks of black swarmed his vision.

Blue was grinning.

"I suppose," said Tondius Will ruefully, "that you're proud of yourself now, eh, Blue? You recorded my little tirade, no doubt. You'll crow about it at the SprtZwrtrZ Club. How you got a rise out of Will the Chill." Will's tone was bitter ice.

"It's good to see pa.s.sion in you, Will! Though I have to admit I don't entirely get your meaning. But why are you so tight with your enthusiasm, Will? We can build your ratings if you'll give me more of that. And, really, can't you leak us just a little of your love life?"

"I have no lover: male, female, or bimale. None."

"No? None? Except your ma.s.spieces and playing fields, perhaps. But you had a lover once, didn't you, Tondius?"

Will felt his face growing hard and dark with anger.

Blue spoke rapidly. "Just for the sake of accurate historical perspective, listen, please, and answer my question-a yes or no will do. I have a doc.u.ment here I'd like to read to you. I want to know if what it states is true or false. Is this true? 'In 2649 CE Tondius Will's fourth confrontation with Enphon brought him at last into the public eye and put him in the running for t.i.tle. It was said he had prepared for this Contest for eight years; Enphon's reputation doubtless warranted this, but eight years is unprecedented even for a waverider.

"It is known that at this time Will's lover, Mina Threeface, was not permitted to visit the waverider-he avoided all distractions. For eight years he refused to screen to her for more than a period of ten minutes once a month. The lover of a waverider is best advised to understand his need for utter concentration. Apparently, Mina did not understand. She hovered just out of scanrange in her father's yacht and, minutes before impact, she dove on a sure course for the impact zone between ma.s.spieces, dispatching an emergency transmission to Tondius Will: I've gone to Impact Zone. Avert your ma.s.spiece, lose Contest because you love me. Or I die. His Great Senses dutifully relayed this message to Will. Tondius Will's thoughts can only be conjectured. He had to measure the scope of two loves. He found he could not permit himself to surrender or even stalemate Contest simply to save Mina. She was trapped between impacting planets, she died there and, though Will won Contest, it was this victory that also won him the cognomen Will the Chill-"

"Yes," Will said softly, though inwardly he shook with the effort at self- control. "It's all true. It's true." And he added: "Your heart, Blue-your heart is far more chill than mine will ever be."

Will broke contact and strode to the hookup chambers.

Hookup flushed Will's circulation, winnowing fatigue poisons from his blood, unclouding his brain. Refreshed, he adjusted hookup from yoga to extern. The cushions at his back, the cups gripping his shaven pate, the crowded instrument panel-all seemed to vanish. He closed his eyes and saw the universe.

The senses (but not the mind) of Great Senses were his, now. He scanned first through visible light. He had been orbiting Roche Five for two months; the alien constellations overwheeling the Roche system seemed almost natively familiar. Dominating the right-hand scope of his vision: Five, fifth planet from Roche's Star, bulking half in golden-red light, half in shadow. Five was Will's Contest ma.s.spiece. And patching into a drifting Sports-eyes camera satellite's signal, he could see himself: his contestship soaring above the twilight border, north-south over the face of the Earth-sized planet. The contestship, with its outspread solar panels and the beaked globe at its forward end, resembled a metallic vulture scanning the barren planet face beneath.

Not quite barren, thought Will the Chill. The survey crew was wrong-there's more than desert and ruins down there.

He looked up from Five, and sought for Opponent. Focusing away from visible light, he worked his way down ("down") through infrared's multifarious blaze, down through the longer wavelengths. He sorted through the transmissions of the star itself, discarded background sources, letting frequencies riffle by like an endless deck of cards, each card with its wave-length-identifying signet. He was looking for a Queen of Diamonds. She wasn't transmitting. He worked his way up ("up"), toward shorter wavelengths, and ten thousand hairs split themselves ten thousand times apiece. He skimmed X-rays, and, through hookup's multifaceted neutrino-focused eyes, spotted her, traced her spoor of nuclear radiation-she was using a hydrogen-scoop, fusing, traveling overs.p.a.ce, so Will's Great Senses (constantly monitoring gravwave ripplings) wouldn't notice her change of position. She was far from Three, her own ma.s.spiece.

What was she doing? Then-Will shuddered. A strong probe signal had bounced from his contestship. He felt it again, and again. He waited. It came no more. He traced the signals and found that the source was Opponent's contestship, fusing to travel unnoticed in ordinary s.p.a.ce. Will tied in with Great Senses. "Did you feel that?"

"Someone tasted our defense screens with a probe signal," Great Senses replied, voice particularly mechanical coming through hookup channels. "Who was it?"

"It was Opponent! She's traveling through upper s.p.a.ce so we wouldn't be likely to think the probe came from her . . . no reason for her to a.s.sess us from that direction, surrept.i.tiously. She knew in this stage we'd expect to find her waveriding. What do you think? Is she testing our reflexes or trying to kill us?"

"Three sleeps gone there was a disguised Opponent drone-I recognized it for what it was because it was maneuvering in a pattern for which a Sports-eyes vehicle would have no use. It was probing our defense systems."

"You didn't tell me."

"I was waiting for confirmation of my suspicions. We have it now."

"She plans to kill me."

"That's within the scope of Contest rules. She has the right to kill you. Under certain conditions."

"It's accepted technically, but it's not considered sporting. No one's killed an Opponent for half a thousand Contests."

"Shall we kill her first?"

"No. I shall Contest, and I'll defend myself. She's inexperienced. Luck brought her this far. She's too impulsive to take the t.i.tle."

"But she has innersight. Admittedly she's injudicious, little precision as yet. Her Opponent second to last died in deep s.p.a.ce . . . She admitted nothing. They said it was a leak."

"I didn't know." Will snorted. "So, she's a killer. Let her kill if she can. That's all-I'm going back to scanning-"

"One moment. Do you want me to maintain ship's gravity?"

"Yes. I'll be going planetside. After hookup. I've got to go down to-ah-" He hesitated. Why lie to Great Senses? But he couldn't bring himself to voice the truth. So he said: "I'm going down to inspect the fusion scoops. All that dust-there may be corrosion on the pushcoils. And we'll keep the planet in this...o...b..t for another sleep. Until then, maintain gravity. I want to be gray-adjusted-I might be going planetside fairly often." He broke contact with Great Senses.

But in the programming room the lights of Great Senses went from questioning-green to doubting-orange.

The atmosphere of Five was breathable, but too rarefied to nourish him long. So he wore a respirator. Also, a thermalsuit against the bitter cold, cutting winds. That was all. Unweaponed (against the advice of Great Senses: Opponent skulked nearer), he leaped from the airlock of the lander. He stretched, getting the wieldiness of planetside back into his limbs. He walked a few meters to a large boulder, clambered atop it, and looked about him.

Just below, the double-domed lander squatted on spidery limbs. Beyond the lander, many kilometers across the battered yellow plain, rose the shining column of the nearest pushcoil, the planetmover.

Anemic sunlight glanced from its argent hide, light streaks chasing the shadows of striated dust clouds skating low in the bluegray sky. It was afternoon, but overhead a few stars guttered, visible in thin atmosphere.