commoners might be able to afford such games, they usually view them as pointless and therefore do not initiate them. MetaGames, then, may be viewed as a cultural phenomenon. Indeed, they are firmly entrenched in aristocratic culture. The stakes are extremely high, and the games are taken very seriously, so much so that a winning team becomes a source of pride to its family and the envy of others. Said Grandmother Sillia of the House of Tesla, “Let the plebs play in their dreams. We, the free, have always required light.”
Participating houses ante in the points used to run the MetaGames and reward the victorious. Depending on the quests undertaken, the Divine Authority may also contribute points to the pool, which is perhaps why some call it a “Divine Quest…”
Due to the stipulation that the game use only real components and the fact that there has been a gradual but notable escalation of game intensity over the years, injury and even death are relatively common in MetaGames. Serious injury 15 %, death 4.43 %. Statistics are per game, per person.
D_Light clasped his hands together and smiled as he peered down on the spanker ghetto below. This could be the beginning of something HUGE! D_Light thought to himself. I’m definitely on the nobility track now! I just have to play this right…
In response to his thoughts, Smorgeous overlaid in his mind a dance composition including choral singing and a fast, low bass beat. D_Light silently reveled for a few seconds before ending the song.
The apartment mounds spanned out in front of the team as far as they could see. It had taken nearly two hours for the team to arrive in this part of the world, and so the sun hung low in the sky. The rounded hills were covered with harvester flowers laid out in clusters of reds, pinks, purples, and every other hue imaginable. D_Light knew from sky images that these low-rent residential areas resembled oriental rugs from high above. The slow, dull buzz of countless harvester insects surrounded them as they gathered precious nectar in their tiny mouths. The players were scattered throughout the twisting, crystal white pathways that snaked their way to and between the gently rolling apartment mounds. There were hundreds of them, and by the looks of them, they were mostly spankers. Spankers were easy to spot. Their eyes were always glazed over, and they’d swing their arms at unseen foes, ducking and weaving to avoid invisible dangers. D_Light was only accustomed to being around spankers when he was plugged into a spanker game himself, so he never realized how insane they looked to an outsider-how ridiculous he must look when playing them.
The ghetto was vast and densely populated, and somewhere in these hills or underneath them stalked a demon. It was the team’s task to hunt it down and report it to the Divine Authority. Mother Lyra ran her fingers absently through her long, dark hair as she peered out over the landscape. “How in Soul’s name are we going to find a demon in all of this?”
“The proverbial needle in a haystack,” Djoser said dryly.
Having decided to speak only when it mattered, D_Light said nothing. From the dark looks he got from Djoser, D_Light surmised that the noble, who still questioned the software engineer’s worth, was barely tolerating him. He would reserve his comments for when he was clearly being helpful. Worse than Djoser, however, was Lyra’s bodyguard. In what must have been a cruel joke, Lyra had brought with her Brian, the hulk of a guard who, just the night before, had been threatening him with a mace called “Tiffany.” And based on the glares and obscene gestures Brian gave him when his mistress was not looking (his favorite being the cupping of his crotch), D_Light concluded that the warrior’s opinion of him had not yet softened.
The group’s other bodyguard was also an interesting choice. Since MetaGame rules allowed for one bodyguard per noble, Djoser brought with him a female product who looked to be as much a concubine as a soldier. Why not bring a concubine along for a MetaGame? Mix play with more play, D_Light thought.
The bodyguard’s name was Amanda, and there were several telltale features of this product that placed her in the concubine category. To begin with, there was the way she was dressed, if you could even call it dressing. She wore only the legal bare minimum of clothing, consisting of two strips of fabric, held in place by devil knew what. Her face was classically beautiful, classically concubine, boringly so in D_Light’s opinion. Her hair was contemporary, striped with jet black, blond, and reds, all of which sprang out in tails over her head like the whips off a willow tree. She had large blue eyes, exaggerated as though she had just stepped out of an old-time anime visual feed. So typical.
However, it was her body that hinted that she was along for more than mere amusement. A standard concubine product was typically designed to be a little softer around the edges. Amanda’s curves, on the other hand, were just a little too suppressed, and her muscles were a hair too pronounced. Her body was built for speed, and she appeared to have just enough strength for when she needed to put down versus put out. And then there were the less subtle hints of her formidable abilities: two samurai swords-one short and the other long, a wakizashi and a katana-were tucked into the strap around her waist. Last but not least, Amanda possessed a nice set of vampiric fangs that D_Light had gotten a glimpse of on the rare occasions that she spoke. Of course, the fangs were not for sucking blood, but just another weapon that could be used in a pinch. D_Light had seen archives on the Cloud about products designed with poison-injecting fangs, poison to which the product itself was immune. D_Light wondered if Amanda had that capability, but he knew better than to ask.
Of course, the undisputable sign of a product was tats on their cheeks, and Amanda had none. Apparently, Djoser had paid a little extra to have a servant without the tats. Customers often did this to enhance the illusion that the product was actually human and that the affection they gave their owner was genuine, rather than from the chemical coercion known as “imprinting.” She had even been given a classic human name, Amanda, to aid in this fantasy. Nevertheless, her methodical, mirthless attitude-a constant dearth of emotion so complete that it could only belong to a being designed in a lab for a narrow band of behavior-gave her true identity and purpose away. The dolling up of this toy to try to pass it off as human irritated D_Light, although he had to admit to himself that his annoyance was perhaps just envy, envy because he could not afford one of his own.
“Flip, it could be any of these fools, right?” Djoser’s question was rhetorical, for they all knew that demons did not sport cloven hoofs, horns, or any other fiendish feature to announce themselves. In this way, the word “demon” was a misnomer. Demons were not born, as were the demons of mythology, but rather made — made by the Divine Authority when the subject transgressed divine law, at which point they were “demonized.” Historically, these types were called “criminals” or “fugitives.” Therefore, the demon could be anyone in this ghetto, or anything, as in the case of a product.
Lyra’s ferret-styled familiar, PeePee (the initials for Pretty Princess), stood beside her mistress, grokking everyone in sight. Who knows, maybe we’ll get spectacularly lucky? Maybe the demon is strolling by right now, Lyra thought. Lyra frowned down at the ferret. She was not at all fond of PeePee, but since MetaGame rules prohibited the use of high-powered familiars, she was forced to leave her much preferred lynx at home. Because the ferret was the House Tesla mascot, only this style of familiar was available for loan from their house. Normally, she would have spent the time and points to rent something more fashionable, but the MetaGame invitation had sprung up suddenly, and there had been far more important preperations to attend to. Having to rely on a more primitive familiar did, however, add to her sense of adventure and excitement.
This is going to be fun, she thought. The first quest of the game-to find a demon in a densely populated spanker ghetto-was interesting, challenging, and even held a hint of danger.
Djoser raised his eyebrows and cocked his head slightly while accessing his own house-loaned ferret. “There are four gates to Anywhere,” he announced.
“Where?” Lyra asked, irritation seeping into her voice.
Djoser chuckled. “ Anywhere is the name of this ghetto. Apparently, the plebs who named it thought they had a sense of humor.”
“They’d be wrong,” interjected Brian. As though realizing his mistake, the bodyguard turned away from the conversation and resumed standing at attention near Lyra like a watchdog waiting for an intruder.
Lyra licked her lips impatiently and then spoke quickly. “Okay, so there aren’t enough of us to cover all the gates and effectively search this ghetto, right?”
“Not by my reckoning,” Djoser answered. “I mean, look at this place!” Djoser waved his arm as though to encompass all the spankers, apartment mounds, trees, and flowers before him. “There are 2,834 citizens registered to this ghetto-2,834!” he exclaimed.
