I started inching my way toward her desk in an effort to surreptitiously throw something over it all, but I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t do it without being obvious, and there were so many toys that if I wanted to take them out of here, it’d take two trips.
My eyes caught the opalescent background sheet Lulu used for her live sessions. It was all rolled up in the corner, a bikini top hanging off it. I started to reach for the sheet but paused. I could see behind the sheet, currently hidden by it, was a cardboard standee of Lulu’s Farm Girl Gigi setup.
“Oliver, your head!” came Mrs.Gonzales’s exclamation, and I wassuddenly grabbed by what seemed like five old ladies all at once. They manhandled me into the chair right next to Lulu as the women clucked over me. I gave Lulu a well-I-tried shrug as I was swarmed. The cut on my forehead was cleaned with warm water and then something stinging was pressed against it.
“Guys,” I began, “it’s okay. It’s just a small—”
“What happened to you?”
“It was one of those things,” Lulu said. “It attacked him and Roger, and he barely got away.”
Multiple gasps filled the room.
And then Mrs.Xalos was demanding that I sit still while Mrs.Gonzales wrapped my head with a bandage she seemingly pulled out of thin air. As I related the story, she wrapped the bandage around my head five or six times like I was getting mummified.
And just as fast as they swarmed me, they all pulled back to examine their handiwork. I shot a nervous glance at the not-yet-commented-on line of sex toys. I sighed. But it seemed my story had distracted them.
Still, less than a minute later, Mrs.Becerra was staring at the bikini top, a frown on her cracked old face. Once the old woman noticed the desk, she was liable to drop dead from a heart attack. Luckily, most everyone’s attention was on the computer as Lulu increased the volume.
On the screen, a 3D-rendered version of the exact same mech I’d just encountered spun in a circle while an announcer shouted. I knew most people on Earth had a smart screen from which they could grab the image and pull it from the display. They could turn and spin the image on their own. Our screen, taken directly from an apartment berth in theHibisco, was over two hundred years old and didn’t have any of that functionality.
The scene showed the mech, which was painted in the red and blue of the Republic flag, marching through a war-torn city while dirty, angry masked men with pulse rifles poured fire at it. Thescene was rendered with the posterization of a cartoon as required by Earth law. Unlike the real version, this mech had a round, spinning Gatling gun. On the screen, the gun spun up and started mowing down all the masked men. A scrolling bar across the top of the screen read:NERTIAA Notice. This is a CGI reenactment. All CGI likenesses are used from the approved likeness database.
“Operation Bounce House! Design your own war machine!”the voice on the screen screeched. “Fight for the Republic! Save humanity! Uproot the filthy insurgents from the safety of your own home!”
The shot changed to show a row of adults sitting in chairs. Each wore a helmet and glasses that I recognized as immersion rigs, technology we didn’t have here, which was why I’d never paid much attention to the ad. There were dozens of ads for games just like this.
The unnecessary banner warning that this was all CGI remained scrolling across the screen.
“Join now, and we’ll throw in a free paint job on your personalized mech. Prizes available to the mercenary teams with the most confirmed evictions and most entertaining builds. Ammo discounts available when purchased in bulk.”
“Evictions,” I said, letting the word roll around in my brain.
“That’s what they’re calling it. An eviction action,” Lulu said.
“Assholes,” I muttered.
Lulu clicked something on her keyboard, and she started scrolling through text news feeds. This interface was wired directly to the control center in the barn, which in turn was connected directly to theForlornsitting abandoned in a stable orbit above us. It bypassed the main satellite. Grandpa Lewis had set it up after the pinhole opened, and Lulu had improved it greatly once the transfer gate opened. The connection was shit, so we normally just used the regular feed, but Lulu still used it to get past certain planetary content filters. It was how she accessed all her off-planet chat rooms, and it was what had allowed her to set up and operate her Real-Friends platform account.
“There’s hardly anything about us,” Lulu said, scanning the news feeds. “All the mentions are related to Apex andOperation Bounce Houseitself, but not us. It says people who paid for the special preview were able to get in early and were dropped into random population centers. They’re talking more about the bugs with the mechs and the latency.” She paused and then looked at us. “The program opens up to the public at midnight GMT, Earth time.”
“When is that?” I asked.
She clicked a few things, waited for a response, and then suddenly the Apex site was up on the screen. It had a countdown.
Seven hours.
Chapter 5
There was a video on the site that had been posted about twelve hours earlier. It was labeled “Target site revealed!” Lulu clicked it and waited for it to load.
The video started. We were greeted with a view of a cube filled with a translucent blue gel. An industrial printing square. A shape started to form inside the gel. A mech. The screen split, and we watched a smiling man sitting in a chair with an immersion rig on his head. We switched to his view. He was directing the design of the mech. He removed the main gun and replaced it with a giant chain saw. On the left side, the chain saw started to form in the industrial gel. He clicked “Upgrade Missiles,” and multiple choices cycled on the screen. He settled on a circular eight-pack missile launcher. He clicked on “Customize,” and a pair of spray-paint canisters appeared in the man’s hands. He started to paint the mech. In the printer, color formed on the machine, mirroring the man’s virtual paint job.
He then clicked “Deploy.”
The gel started to drain away. The split screen returned to a single image focused on the mech. It started to slowly pull out.
“The rumors are true!” a voice intoned as bombastic music began to rise in volume. “We are a go! The negotiations with the terroristshave failed. The innocents have fled to safety! This is not a game. This is real, and it’s happening now. Your chance to defend humanity is here! Our first five-day campaign is here!”
