Chapter OneThe Canoe

As the sun sank over the tree-lined horizon it occurred to Soph that she was no longer a child.

Atom kissed her on the neck and pulled her in closer with his arm. It was strange how they had come so close so abruptly, and stranger still that they had not figured it out earlier. She had carried feelings for him for a long time, but the complicated rivalry of being raised like siblings had kept them folded up and put away. She had never considered that he might have the same thing folded up somewhere too.

She couldn't get it into words. Atom's arm around her said all of it anyway. It felt like a dam had gone and the valley between them had filled up in an afternoon. There was nothing left to hold back.

They were both exceptional kids who valued quickness of wit and mind, but they were also very different. Where Atom was headstrong and loud, Soph was patient and careful. If he skipped a grade he would brag about it, and then be surprised to find her sitting next to him the following semester. Most of the children in their quiet coastal town did not begrudge intelligence or ambition and the two of them were treated well by their peers, though from a distance. Their friendship was singular and impenetrable, even when they were giving each other a hard time.

They had graduated from high school together a month before they came to the lake, both fifteen. Having gone through the lower grades at such speed they had escaped ever having to attend a dance or a party or any other high school function of significance. Graduation wasn't a ceremony Soph cared much about. For the last two years Max had driven them to the community college twice a week for courses. Receiving a slip of paper to stilted fanfare was a gentle unburdening at best.

In the picturesque sunset, floating on the lake, school was terribly far away. After an eternity of exploring each other's eyes and mouths they had given in to nightfall and rowed to shore. Atom lashed the skiff to the dock and now they sat at the edge of the water, watching the light go. It was the end of the old and the beginning of the new.

"Here, I got you something." Atom produced a small, smooth stone and put it in Soph's hand. "It's a canoe."

They had played this game the first day they met. She could still see his face at the height of her own.

"It's a zebra," he had said, and handed her a smooth gray stone. She took it and examined it.

"No, it's not." Stupid boy. She handed it back to him.

"Thank you." He handed it back to her. "Here. It's a river."

"It's an ocean." What was the game?

He shook his head, and she gave the stone back to him.

"Thank you. It's an ocean." He handed the stone back to her.

"Thank you, it's a canoe," Soph said.

He put it in his pocket. "Yes, it's a canoe. What's your name?"

"Sophia. What's yours?"

"Atom Blaster."

He had discovered Asimov and renamed himself. His given name was Adam Lee, but his father, Richard, called him whatever he wanted, and his teachers eventually gave up. Even now he signed things Atom B.

Soph had tried to follow Atom's lead and force the name Arwen upon the world, fancying herself a character from Tolkien, but she wasn't as stubborn as Atom in her insistence and so it never stuck. Her mother Maxine, who everyone called Max, had named her Sophia after her own grandmother, and after wisdom, in that order. Only her parents ever used the whole thing. To everyone else she was Soph.

He had once told her she had the nose of a princess. She had kept that, though she was fairly sure princesses were not supposed to have crooked noses. It was one of the few compliments he hadn't spoiled by explaining.

When Max called, they walked toward the house holding hands. The path was marked by large, flat stones. Soph stepped right, left, then shuffled so she could begin the next pair with her left. Atom usually imitated her. Tonight he slowed down to keep beside her.

At the porch they let go. Soph wanted to follow him into his room. They had shared a bed often enough as children, but she stopped outside her own door and said goodnight.

She lay in her own bed with the window open and listened to the wolves. On the other side of the wall, she was fairly sure, Atom wasn't sleeping either.

Soph rolled over on her side to see Atom standing in the doorway. Her mouth was dry and the light was painful. She'd never had a hangover. Atom, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaffected by the events of the night before.

"Are you awake yet?" He grinned. "Come on, something really cool just came in from the office!"

"What time is it?"

"Ten. Come on."

"I hate you."

"I know. Come on."

Richard had built the house over a small natural cavern and taken the idea of a man cave seriously. Bison and handprints covered the rock walls. Mannequins stood on the concrete floor wearing generations of Second Skin, the haptic suit everyone called the G-Suit. The oldest wore arm pieces Richard had printed himself. Soph's mother had helped turn those into something people would pay to put on. Between the mannequins, a worktable trailed power strips across the floor.

"Morning, sunshine." Max beamed as Soph came down the stairs. She held a silver helmet, a shock of cables growing out of the top of it like hair.

Soph grunted, still groggy. Atom was right behind her, goading her along.

"Okay, she's awake. So what's the new toy?" asked Atom.

"It's a dense array EEG neuroimager," said Max. "It reads brainwaves and turns them into actions. This is just a prototype, but it's still pretty cool. Do you want to try it?"

"Soph does," Atom chimed in. "That thing looks dangerous."

Soph punched him in the arm. "How chivalrous."

"We're only using the reader today. Sit down and I'll hook you in," Max said.

A set of Second Sight LX3s rested on the chair that Max was pointing at. The LX3s weren't available to the public for a couple more weeks– getting the latest frames was definitely one of the perks of being family. Soph put them on as Max placed the skullcap on her head and adjusted the chinstrap.

"Okay, this part might feel a little strange." Max pressed a button and the helmet made a clicking sound. Soph felt tiny needles jabbing her temples and the back of her neck. She winced.

"Does that feel okay?" asked Max, with her finger still on the release.

"Yeah. It's a little weird. I don't mind."

"Just let me know if it's too much for you and I'll unhook you. I'm going to run the calibration program. Just do what it tells you."

Red text appeared in front of her and she did as it instructed.

Look to the right, then back to center. Think of the color red. Raise your eyebrows. Think of the color blue. Stick your tongue out. Look to the left, then back to center. Think of a word. Now think of the word blue. Smile. Breathe in and out through your nose. Frown. Think of the letters of the alphabet as they are displayed. Raise your right hand. Now your left. Good, now repeat the numbers on the screen. Think of the color yellow. Breathe in and out through your mouth...

Another five long minutes of absurd instructions, through most of which Atom snickered. Then, a ding. Calibration complete.

Now Soph was in the same place in the room where she had been, but the room was empty. She looked down at her hands– they were covered by thick leather gloves. "What do I do?"

"Try getting out of the chair without actually standing up," Max said.

Soph thought of the words stand up. Nothing happened. She tried to imagine it, like someone trying to levitate by imagining themselves floating in the air. Still, nothing. Atom snickered more.

"It's based on motor control," said Max. "It takes a lot of getting used to, and more calibration would be helpful, but I didn't want to bore you with the two-hour test. It's subtle, like you're moving your legs but not enough to actually move."

Soph focused on her legs and tried to feel what it would be like to get up. She leaned forward a little, almost imperceptibly, then engaged her leg muscles as though she were about to stand. And suddenly she was standing in the virtual world and sitting in the real one.

"Whoa, this feels so strange!"

"We can see you on the monitor. Try walking forward," Max said.

She thought of what it would be like to walk forward. First one leg, then the other. She tensed her muscles and her character moved forward.

"Now turn around."

Soph imagined herself turning around, and she turned.

"This is so different! Are we in The World?" By The World Soph meant Altered World, the game that was the heart and soul of Solenoid Experiential Games.

"Yes, although you're in a sandbox environment. We haven't quite worked out player interaction yet."

"So what else can it do? Just walking around and stuff?" asked Atom.

"Actually, it can do a lot. EEG has been around for a long time, the real work is in the software. The calibration algorithm is far more accurate than anything else out there, and we can read biofeedback very precisely."

"Can it turn our thoughts into words?" asked Atom.

"That would take a lot more calibration, but yes," replied Max. "You can train the software to learn words that you visualize. It would be gibberish at first, but as it learns you would be able to communicate in complete sentences. It's always learning and recalibrating, so as you communicate with other players it will make the connection between your brain and speech outputs."

"I don't get it. I mean, what makes The World so different from other games is that you are there, physically. Wouldn't it be weird if you were playing with someone and you took off your frames and they weren't really there?" asked Atom.

Richard had come down the stairs without either of them hearing him. He put his hand on Max's shoulder. "Yes, we're still trying to work out the details for it. I don't know how we're going to market it yet, but it's one hell of a piece of tech." He looked at the girl in the chair, sitting perfectly still with her hands in her lap, and at the girl on the monitor, walking in circles around an empty room. "I've always said heaven was going to be the ultimate video game. We just haven't worked out the controls."

"Yeah," said Soph, from inside the helmet. "Atom, you've got to try this. It's pretty cool."

"Fine. Get out of the chair."

"I'm trying. How do I sit down?"

Max sent them outside after they had both learned to walk without getting up. Richard's cave had the only computer in the house, and there was barely a bar of cell reception unless you stood on the right rock. At home they could disappear into separate screens for an evening. Here, in July, they had three weeks to fill together.

They spent their last week swimming, making out in the skiff, and lying in the hammocks on the side of the house, reading books and talking about the future. Soph was secretly afraid that she had made a terrible mistake, and yet Atom assuaged her fear by continuing to kiss her neck and rub her back and hold her hand under the table when the parents weren't looking. He didn't talk about it. He all but danced around it. But he never failed in his affections.

On the last night she found the stone in the pocket of her shorts and turned it over and over until it was warm.

I'll love you forever, Adam Lee.

Even with your stupid name.