THE GAME

It started as a way to make change. The year was 2045, and people were finally jaded enough by federal legislation to abolish voting in the usual way. Instead, decision making fell to the people. Whichever side of a decision had the most bodies behind it was the way the country went, and thanks to The Game, every American had a voice.

The Game had been instituted 4 years before, recently enough for 8th grader Cece Watson to remember what life used to be like. While Cece’s mother used to scold if Cece jumped on her VR right after school, her mother now got an hour's head start in The Game thanks to a decision to shorten the workday so that adults could play more. As fun as unlimited screen time was, Cece missed her mother’s scolding. She missed her mother’s anything. They rarely ate together now, or even talked. Her mom was too busy researching decisions and which rooms to join.

Jonas: Cece, power up and let’s do this thing!

Cece smiled as the text from Jonas appeared on her watch. She was lucky that he wanted her for his raid team, as he was quickly becoming the most influential leader in their age group. Cece had never been popular in school, but The Game was a place where even losers could be powerful. 

“Hi, Cece!”

Cece jumped. She hadn’t realized she’d stopped to read the text right in front of Mrs. Mawd’s fence. Even with the limited in-person contact that people had, Mrs. Mawd was a known oddity in Cece’s neighborhood. Not only did she not participate in The Games, but she spent her days gardening and would actually talk to anyone who passed by (which is why Cece usually made a note to run past her house – especially on important Game days like today when time was of the essence).

“Uh, hi, Mrs. Mawd.” Cece spoke in her most hurried monotone to suggest that she needed to be elsewhere. As usual, the woman did not take the hint. 

“How was school today?”

“It was fine.”

“What are you studying these days?”

Jonas: yo carbon copy, check-in.

 “Look, Mrs. Mawd, I’m so sorry, but I really have to go.”

 “Another Game today? I see. Well, when you finish, come help me garden. It might make you feel better.”

“Like I said, I’m fine.” Cece snapped, but she caught the elderly woman’s gaze and noticed how clear her eyes were. They reminded her of old days, before everyone’s vision became clouded with too much time in their visors. Why couldn’t her mom be like Mrs. Mawd? Cece softened as the fragrance of honeysuckle and azalea reached her on the afternoon breeze.

“Thank you, Mrs. Mawd. Another time. I really do have to go.”

Mrs. Mawd nodded and returned to mulching the beds. Cece ran down the street.

Cece burst through the door, glanced at her mother (already visored up and pawing the air in the living room), and bolted upstairs. 

Jonas: where. ARE. you??

Cece: sorry! just got home. Suiting up

Dumping her backpack onto her bed, Cece snatched her visor from the dresser and adjusted its strap behind her head. With the flick of a switch, the black screen of the visor broke into a million stars as words formulated onto the screen. 

Welcome, Cece!  Which room would you like to play today?

Cece pulled on her haptic gloves and gestured to scroll through the options. The “rooms” were essentially battle arenas where decisions took place. New rooms appeared each day, and each room had a theme. 

Music Room... Paint Room... Cece looked for the room where Jonas’s team planned to meet. Finally, she found it - the Sticker Room. The Sticker Room was hosting a trivial argument today (what color to paint the barricades around the Washington Monument) but Cece was pretty sure Jonas had other reasons for meeting there. She pressed her gloved fingers to an airlock and the room’s boundaries materialized before her. She felt a rush of wind and found herself standing on a skyscraper.

Cece peered over the edge, looking at a skyline that resembled New York, and listened to the sounds below. She wasn’t afraid of falling (she was in a VR after all), but she wanted to hide from the other players until she saw the lay of the land. Instead of pedestrians and usual city traffic, swarms of citizens in jumpsuits prowled the streets. Each carried a weapon that looked something like the laser tag guns Cece and her friends used in the time before The Game. Instead of laser beams, colorful stickers came out of the barrel. 

Which side are we on again? Oh, that’s right.

Cece flipped the safety on her gun from purple to pink, and fired. A stream of magenta-colored stickers shot from the gun and plastered themselves on the adjacent buildings. Below her, every sidewalk, stop sign, and street was covered in bright purple and pink - sometimes changing hue as opposing teams took new territory. An alarm sounded, alerting Cece that there was one hour left in the playing day. The last hour of The Game was the most important because whichever option dominated the room at the end of it won the decision. 

Cece felt a group of shadows land around her and looked up to see Jonas and the rest of the raid team scowling at her. 

“You’re late.”

Cece flushed. “Sorry, Jonas.”

“What were you doing - study group again? What have I told you?”

Cece held her tongue. For some reason, she didn’t want to tell Jonas about her neighbor and the reason for the hold up.

That seemed to be the right answer for Jonas, who took her silence for submission. He smiled. “Just remember, the real action is happening right here, right now. And all under this guy.” He pointed his thumbs at himself.   “You’re forgiven for today, Carbon. I’m a benevolent guy.” The team applauded.

And you can’t afford to lose your winning streak, Cece thought. She was the best shot in the group, and everyone knew it.   

Jonas quieted the group, “I’ve come up with a brilliant mission for us today.”

“I knew we weren’t here for pink or purple!” someone shouted. Everyone looked at Jonas expectantly. 

“You’re right.” Jonas smiled. “Today, you’re gonna take the subway under my brilliant command.”

Taking the subway would not be easy (government referees made sure that citizens upheld “appropriate use” in each room), but Cece noted many reasons to risk it. Everyone knew that the refs used the subway to travel between rooms; if Jonas could secure a car, he could reach multiple rooms during this last hour, and possibly secure more wins.

Per usual, Jonas had a well-thought-out plan that was probably contrived by his sidekick, Roddy (although Roddy never got the credit). The team would drop to the nearest station and blast the area with stickers to avoid being seen.  Jonas and Cece would board the next train while the rest of the team slathered its windows. If they accomplished this, Cece and Jonas would ride the train to the String Room where Jonas hoped to secure a second win.

Jonas gave the team some parting words. “Remember, only fire with pink - we can’t let purple take advantage. And, when we win, attribute the victory to me. Now, let’s go!”

The team flared their parachutes and jumped.

The plan worked perfectly. In spite of Jonas’s success, Cece felt surprised. There had been little surveillance near the subway even though the team’s sticker flurry hadn’t quite blocked her and Jonas from the sight of the other players. Even so, riding the subway was a rush in itself, and Cece couldn’t help feeling proud of the team’s skill.

 When they passed the border into the String Room, her gun’s safety changed. Instead of showing sticker colors, it showed yarn colors: maroon and teal. They got off at a station and emerged into a square that, this time, looked something like the Place de l’Etoile. They fired their weapons, covering the square’s arch in a tangle of maroon that Spiderman would covet. A few minutes later, a buzzer sounded and Cece and Jonas high-fived their victory. They had just helped ensure that Chick-Fil-A would serve only red Jell-O.

* * *

Cece sighed as she took an evening walk. Like most of her neighbors, Cece usually stayed indoors to research the next day’s decisions, but tonight she needed to clear her head. As happy as she was about her win, something was off. It was almost as if the government wanted Jonas to win. What would Jonas do when he reached the top of the leader boards? What was the point?  She’d noticed that the government took months to execute any of the decisions, and sometimes never implemented them at all.

She found herself at Mrs. Mawd’s fence almost without thinking about it. Sure enough, Mrs. Mawd was still at work. 

“Alright. What can I do?”

Mrs. Mawd looked up, smiled, and gave her a trowel.

They didn’t talk for the first hour or so. Cece thought long and hard about the bulbs - how they would rest in the ground, dormant until the time came for them to grow. She envied their freedom - how they didn’t have to shout or dominate in order to grow, how they could take root in the open air.

“Mrs. Mawd,” Cece broke the silence. “Why don’t you play The Game? Don’t you care about making change?

Mrs. Mawd continued packing soil over a bulb. “I care about change, Cece, at least about real change. But surely you’ve noticed how little actually results from the games? Look over there.” She nodded her head to the mountains in the distance. “See those clouds?”

“Yeah. So? It’s rained almost every day for the last few years.”

“Exactly. And we never used to get such storms around here. And those aren’t even normal clouds – don’t you see, they have a reddish tint. Those clouds started with the creation of The Game.”

Cece stared. She’d noticed the tint before but had attributed it to the time of day: sunset. But the sky was so overcast tonight that pink clouds did not make sense. 

 Mrs. Mawd continued, “Each week, they grow darker, and the winds grow fiercer. People are starting to feel the wind even inside their homes, but they take no notice of it.”

Cece remembered how she felt the wind on the skyscraper even though she wasn’t wearing a haptic suit. “Because they are in The Game?”

“Exactly.” Mrs. Mawd paused, weighing her words. “I think the government knows that something is wrong with the world and is trying to hide it from us. Those clouds are carrying dust, and who knows what else. I think The Game is a trap - to distract us from the real issues at hand. Just look at this flower.” 

Mrs. Mawd pulled a daisy from the ground. “‘Daisy’ isn’t this flower - it’s just its name. A true “daisy” is the sum of its parts - stem, leaves, petals - and its needs: water, sunlight, oxygen. The Game makes people think they are doing something by arguing about names instead of meeting actual needs. It gives a false sense of control because, instead of confronting reality, we can take sides behind whether or not applesauce or canned sweet potatoes are better for babies.”

“And the creepy rain-dust clouds grow ever nearer,” Cece replied. She was starting to get it.

Mrs. Mawd placed her spade behind her and stared silently at a primrose in the dirt. “I care about change as much as you do. But I think I make the most change right here - growing things and talking to young people like you. Who knows - maybe one day you’ll trap them back.”

* * *

Jonas: get in here NOW

Cece: On my way

It was Saturday, so Cece and the others could be in The Game all day. Cece’s mother had gone to play The Game at her sister’s, so the house was even more quiet than usual. Before her mother had left, Cece had stopped her at the door to try to give her a hug and a flower that Mrs. Mawd had given her from the garden; but the hug was stiff, and the flower fell onto the pavement as her mother hurriedly entered the car. 

Maybe I’ll stop The Game early so I can do some more gardening today.

She looked out of her window and saw the clouds were nearer. And this time they carried wind funnels - not just rain and a reddish tint.

Maybe you’ll trap them back. Cece remembered Mrs. Mawd’s words.

With fresh enthusiasm, she switched on her visor, breezed through the opening screen, and entered the Music Room. 

Rather than a cityscape, the Music Room materialized as a grand opera house, complete with a stage, orchestra, and curtains. Throughout the theater, instrument noises blared at top volume while monitors on the walls recorded which options sounded most frequently. It was like Cece’s elementary school band practice on steroids, but she couldn’t cover her ears without dropping her weapon. Players had three options today - trumpet, drums, or viola. Cece moved her toggle to trumpet. 

She found Jonas backstage pouring over what looked like music scores. As Cece drew closer, she realized that the sheets were maps. Jonas (probably Roddy) had marked the location of each monitor, as well as platforms nearby that were just the size to hold a teenager. By landing a team member on each platform, Jonas’s group could dominate the monitors with their instrument sounds.

But none of that mattered. 

“Jonas - I need to talk to you.”

“Not now. I’m composing a new song called ‘Jonas is the Man.’” He smiled at his own wit. “Write that down as the name of this new plan, Roddy.”

“The Game is a trap!”

Jonas glared at Cece. “Not funny. I can’t waste a minute without risking a loss.”

“But Jonas - “

“You’re trying to distract me? Nice try, Cece, but tell whoever else you’re working for to go and shove it.”

Fine, shove it. Cece thought. Jonas’s refusal to listen to her was proof that Mrs. Mawd’s words were true. She’d get no help from Jonas, nor from her teammates. They were too far gone. They turned away from her after seeing how Jonas brushed her off. If only she could get them to see what they were really up against.

Cece felt the wind buffet her again, but this time knew it had nothing to do with The Game or with her memories of school rejections. The storm was coming, and it would not stop.

And that’s when Cece saw it - a cord plugged into an outlet behind one of the music stands. It was an old-style outlet, completely out of character with the game.

Every flower has a root - even this game must have wires somewhere. 

Cece approached the outlet slowly, removing her haptic gloves. She clasped the cord and felt that it had substance, even though she knew she had no such cord in the bedroom where she played. The Game had its loopholes - the subway was one, and this was, perhaps, another. Perhaps it was The Game's red button.

She pulled at the cord with all her might. It broke free, and the world dissolved.

For a minute, all the rooms vanished. The screen of each visor was filled with one image - that of the coming storm. The red clouds swirled, accented by sinister, green streaks of lightning. For a moment, the eyes of all the players cleared with a single emotion: horror.

Cece was the only player who didn’t freeze with fear. “Come on, we have to go! We can escape!” she cried to those around her.

 But, as quickly as the sun can vanish behind a cloud, the peoples’ eyes glazed over again. VR screens flickered, the rooms rematerialized, and game play continued. Cece was on her own.

Yanking off her visor, Cece found herself in her room with swirling clouds coming toward her window at an alarming rate. She ran down the stairs and outside into the street. Mrs. Mawd was in her garden, but she stopped planting when Cece ran past.

“Run, Cece - to the next town! They may believe you there.”

Cece met the woman’s eyes, pleading for her to come, but Mrs. Mawd shook her head and pointed at her aging body.

“I can no longer run. This is your game now; you can make change.”

Cece felt tears clouding her sight, but also soothing the strain of her screen-dried eyes. Mrs. Mawd returned to planting as a piercing rain began to fall. Setting her gaze on the mountains ahead, Cece pounded the pavement as clouds and wind overtook her.

END