Gamers - Amazon Read Free Page A

Zaela pointed her finger at Gabby. "But I get to pick all the games. You promised."
    "Fine," said Gabby. "Let's get going."
    The two girls stepped off the school property and the manicured lawns and animal bushes disappeared. Instead, they were replaced with rolling ads from Tata Motors. The makers of the FunCar owned the available ad space around the school. Once the two girls were off school grounds, they were assaulted by the wallpaper-like ads.
    "Bydaway, your outfit is pretty fragadelic, too," remarked Zaela, as the girls made their way to the nearby FunCar lot. "For a pale and skinny blonde chick, anyway."
    "I put it on random wardrobe generator this morning. I had other things on my mind," said Gabby.
    The FunCar lot was filled with hundreds of bubble shaped cars with four puffy tires. The vehicles were used by any citizen to get from one place to another.
    When Gabby snapped her fingers at a nearby car, its blue exterior was replaced by a white one with skulls. Each skull had a pink bow on it.
    The bubble shield retracted enough for the two girls to climb inside. Once the two girls were strapped in, Gabby commanded the FunCar to take them to the Library Museum.
    "We're going to play Brush Battle," said Zaela.
    Gabby groaned. She really would rather play Geostack or Shared Destruction. Those would actually get them some decent points while they were skipping school, maybe even breaking even for the day. Brush Battle was strictly artistic and barely got more than she got for brushing her teeth in the morning.
    "You promised."
    Gabby nodded. "I did."
    "I need a break from all that score grinding." Zaela paused, a thoughtful and sad expression shading her face. "I wish creativity scored higher in LifeGame."
    "Sorry Z." Another time she might have tried to talk her out of Brush Battle, but she sensed her friend's need and let it go.
    As the game started up, she felt the FunCar lurch forward, and brushes appeared in their hands. The sense-webs in her skin made the brush feel real beneath her fingertips, but she wanted to squeeze it tighter to get a better grip and that screwed up her control of the brush tip.
    The car's bubble disappeared as a surrealistic landscape was painted over their eye-screens, making it appear they were floating through a rounded and droopy landscape of pastel watercolors populated by strange creatures including one with a candy-striped hat.
    Zaela brightened along with the surroundings. "Ohh...Dr. Seuss!"
    "Who?" Gabby had never heard of this Doctor, nor why he would be in an art game, but before she could ask again, a floating canvas appeared before her.
    The object of the game was to pick an object out of the landscape and paint it. Scoring was given for closeness of the reproduction. Zaela's paintings were always spot on. Gabby always thought her own appeared to be different colored blobs with lines sticking out of them.
    By the time they reached the Library Museum, the girls had played Brush Battle three times. When they climbed out of their FunCar, Zaela exclaimed, "I think I got almost five points for that!"
    They'd both gotten over three hundred points for the morning's track hack, but Gabby didn't say anything. She didn't want to ruin Zaela's good mood before they got into the Library.
    The FunCar dropped them off near a colossal stone building without any digital adornment. No ads played across its walls, nor were there any murals or paintings. The Library Museum was like a gray block of stone resting in a vat of rainbow ice cream.
    "Remember, no skins," said Gabby. "You know how Blair gets."
    Zaela huffed. "Not like it matters anyway. The walls interfere with the signals and she doesn't have repeaters. The world gets all fuzzy and out of place in there."
    The girls' outfits disappeared as they entered the Library. Flesh-colored and skin-tight undersuits covered their bodies from thighs to neck. The underclothes ensured that no one could peek underneath their digital skins and see them