Eve Fiction

The temptation is strong. I’ve always had a habit of, er, forming habits, but it’s worse now that my sense of purpose is diminished. Smoking, drinking, and various drugs have taken a piece of me over the years. Still do. The enforced idleness of the pod doesn’t help: one of the reasons I spend less time in space now than ever.

The pod brings with it its own vices. Not exclusive to the capsule, it has to be said, but the tech inside my head and inside this goo-filled shell offer an unprecedented experience. I guess a lot of people have fucked a virtual whore at some point in their lives - even some of those uptight Amarrian assholes. Try it with your pod interface though, with its state of the art sensory stimulation routines, and you’re in for the fuck of a lifetime. Impetus even do a range of famous capsuleers these days, so if there’s someone that takes your fancy…

I’m supposed to be meeting Saphi here. Escort job through low sec so she can get the last of our stuff out of that Thukker shithole and we can leave the Mandate and Providence behind us forever. I’m bored, and I’m tempted to let my guard down and play a game while I wait. I’m in high sec, so the risk is low, right? I mean, Saphi’s not even online yet. Typical woman: making me wait.

Fuck it.

I fire up Builder XV. People laugh at me when I tell them that this is the game I play most often. It’s based on ancient games handed down from the dawn of computing and has been adapted for the pod OS as a spatial awareness training aid. To say that it lacks frills is an understatement. Compared with the awesome capabilities of the hardware and some of the magnificent environments that have been created just to have a conversation with someone, Builder is laughable. It’s also damnably addictive.

The initial disorientation is immense. The developers did not have any consideration for human niceties when they created the game, and this is partly why it’s useful as a training aide for pilots and zero-G operators. The game opens with utter blackness. Not the slightest concession to the need for a floor or some way of knowing which way is up. There is no sensory deprivation to match the utter void of having all of your senses in the hands of this artificial non-place. You can see nothing, hear nothing, and smell nothing. What you feel is often nausea, and what you taste, unless you have a knack for this (as all successful pod pilots will) is your own vomit on its way out, swiftly followed by pod goo on its way to choking you. Nice, huh?

Eventually, and there’s no reason for the long delay other than to fuck with you, the Builder logo is displayed and the interface appears. That helps steady things a little, but the void remains. Even licensed pilots can struggle until they improve their spatial awareness skills.

Of course, sharpening spatial awareness is what this thing is all about. The game is simple. You have to build a tower out of 3D blocks of varying shapes and sizes. The blocks appear randomly and fall out of what you have to think of as the sky. As you complete a layer, it disappears. You can move the blocks around as they fall - the manipulation exercises the parts of the brain you use to control your ship in space. If you fail to create complete layers that disappear, your tower becomes unmanageably tall so that you can’t see what’s going on at the top. Somewhere up there, outside of visual range is some kind of invisible ceiling. When you hit it, it’s game over. The final complication is that the blocks start falling faster the more layers you clear.

Childishly simple, I know, but it can be insanely addictive. I’ve been hooked since my days as a rookie at Pator Tech School. The game mode I normally play is called Ultra. The aim is to clear as many layers as possible in three minutes. This is much better than the standard Marathon mode (stay alive for as long as possible) - the hard 3-minute limit helps to stop it sucking up half your day. In fact, I use a game or two (or three or four) of Ultra as a performance measure. If I get a reasonable score, I know I’m in good enough shape to get out there and pilot a ship. A dismal score means that I’m not mentally fit enough to pilot a ship at all, especially into combat with a crew onboard.

Marathon has its place though. If I’m idling somewhere for a while, it’s perfect to kill some time. I choose Marathon and after a shaky start, I’m totally absorbed in building my layers of primary coloured blocks. Today, I’m on fire, if I do say it myself. I once set myself an impossibly high record when I was camped in a station by CVA goons, and I’ve never got close to beating it since. Today, though, today might just be the day. Everything is falling into place for me and I can almost feel my neurons firing in perfectly tuned harmonies.

I’m close to Builder nirvana when I get the annoying sensation of something slapping the back of my head. Something out in the real world is demanding my attention. I practically scream with frustration. Sure, I can save my game, but it’s so hard to get back into a game when you come in cold, and there’s no guarantee you’ll hit that same sweet spot of form again. I can’t ignore this sensation though - it’s irritating for a reason. Could even be that I’m being locked by an enemy ship.

Camera drone feeds fade into view and piloting interfaces snap into place. The Cheetah is still cloaked and no threats are visible. The source of the irritant is an open comms channel invoked by Saphi.

“Hey Saphi.”

“At last! What the hell is wrong with you Wanoah?”

“Nothing. I’m okay. Let’s go?”

“Yeah, let’s get this over with. Place gives me the creeps.”

Low sec transition and routing into the Thukker station was routine: no hostiles spotted. I sit 150 klicks out from the station while Saphi takes care of business, loading up the Mammoth with the collected detritus of the last couple of years staging out of Hasateem and 9UY. I see one CVA pilot in Local: feels strange to be technically neutral now.

Saphi signals that she’s clear for departure, and I get moving. There’s only one system that needs to be scouted and I do it mechanically, my mind still on my perfect Builder game. Gomati is deserted, but as I’m about to jump out, several new pilots appear on the local channel. I recognise them as pilots from Universal Warriors: ex-Ushra’Khan and current ISS members. Good guys. “Gomati’s clear, Saphi.”

“Roger. See you in Aporulie.”

I think about stopping to chat with my former brothers in arms, but opt instead to jump out and hit the AP. Maybe I can just get back into my Builder game while Aura takes me home. Pretty irresponsible, but I need to make the most of this run of form.

Fuck it. Blackness surrounds me and I fight the familiar nausea.

And I’m still in the zone, I still have it, I am the god of Builder. I’m the Daddy. Yeah. As my ship takes me home, I take the laurels as I set myself a new personal best. I feel elated. Then I feel a slight sting of shame as I realise that I feel happier in this moment than I have done for months. What does that say about me?

Still, I do feel good. Lack of pod time has really made me feel rusty when it comes to piloting, and I’ve been starting to feel, well, old at times. I’ve just proved to myself that I still have some of the raw skills, though, and that does feel good. Maybe with some practice, I could even take people on in an interceptor again. Maybe.

My good mood carries me all the way to the new corporation offices, and once there, I get some kafak brewing and settle in to wait for Saphi to arrive. A lot of our stuff has been put on the market or reprocessed, so I need her to start getting the factories churning out ammo and drones so we can get things rolling.

Incredibly, Saphi’s late again. Actually, as I come to think of it, this is kinda weird. Despite my ‘typical woman’ jibe before, Saphi is hardly ever late. She is the model of efficiency and punctuality as a rule: the stable planet that I erratically orbit around.

When she does show, I can see straight away that something’s wrong. She says nothing as she helps herself to kafak and sits down. She doesn’t make eye contact.

“Hey. Saph. What’s up?” I move to sit opposite her, my mood pricked and deflating steadily.

“Gomati’s clear, huh?”

“W-what?”

“You said Gomati was clear.”

“It was clear.”

“What is it, Wan? The blue pills again? Alcohol?”

“Look, Saphi, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“They ganked me. I was in a fucking Mammoth. Solo. They ganked me and I didn’t stand a chance.”

“Who did? Shit. Who did this?”

“It was those UWAR guys, Wan. Can you believe that?”

I couldn’t believe it. “Motherfuckers. We go back, man. They’re supposed to be the brothers! Shit. Fucking blood traitor motherfuckers.”

Of course, I was in a covert ops frigate at the time, so there was nothing I could have done to intervene, but all the same, I felt guilty for cruising back on autopilot and playing a game while Saphi was getting her ship shot out from under her. She’s not a combat pilot by any stretch of the imagination, and losing people like that was bound to hit her hard.

To be honest, Saphi’s ship was mostly filled with junk. Some of it had sentimental value, though. Some of it had been carted from station to station ever since I first graduated from the PTS: tags and DNA that I hoped would have a use one day. The only real financial losses were the blueprints. Originals and copies had all been destroyed in the explosion and with them our self-sufficiency as a team. So it goes.

Saphi is crying. It’s like a slap in the face for me. She’s a tough girl, just like her sister was, and she rarely became overemotional. Guilt surges through me. I had been fretting over stuff I’d lost; forgetting that the Mammoth had a crew - people I know, knew, and its passengers included the entirety of our remaining ground personnel. Sometimes I wonder what I have become.

I moved next to Saphi and gathered her up in a bear hug. “It’s okay Saphi. It’s okay.” I smoothed her hair away from her face.

“Is it? Is it, Wan?”

“Yeah. You’ll see. We’re home at least,” The words seemed hollow to me, at least as hollow as the feeling in my stomach at the prospect of starting over here in the Fed, “Yeah. Home.”