Read Space Case for Free Online Page B

much as I do. His life here is almost exactly the same as it was back on earth: He spends as much time as possible jacked in and never goes outdoors.
    Roddy was so fixated on his game he had no idea I’d entered the room. He was jerking about wildly, arms extended, his index fingers twitching like worms on a fishhook. That meant he was probably playing a war game, blasting away with virtual guns.
    I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Roddy, how are you doing?”
    â€œI’m in the middle of a raid here,” he said curtly. “Jack in if you want to talk.”
    I sighed. This is one of the problems with veeyars: They find talking in the virtual world more comfortable than doing it face-to-face. Still, I didn’t feel like waiting around for Roddy to finish his game; knowing him, that could have taken days.
    There were plenty of hologoggles and sensogloves stored on a rack on the wall. I slipped some on, sat onthe InflatiCube beside Roddy, and jacked in to his interface. With a whoosh the dull gray walls of the rec room vanished, and I suddenly found myself in one of the most startlingly beautiful landscapes I’d ever seen. I was standing in a meadow full of wildflowers by a pristine, blindingly blue lake, with verdant forest on one side and snowcapped mountains on the other. Six separate waterfalls spilled into the lake, each more breathtaking than the last.
    Roddy had no doubt combed through thousands of potential earthscapes to find one this stunning—and then selected it to wage a war in. His enemies were some sort of gelatinous pink alien creatures. Although they all had guns, they didn’t appear very menacing. Roddy had probably set the game controls to a beginner level, preferring easy victory to stiff competition. The aliens had stubby little flippers instead of hands, which meant they could barely even hold their weapons, let alone fire them. Meanwhile Roddy was blowing them away with ease. Each time he hit one, it burst into a shower of pink goo, like someone had detonated a bowl of strawberry Jell-O.
    Roddy had heavily modified his avatar as well. While the actual Roddy is flabby, uncoordinated, and not particularly handsome, virtual Roddy was built like an Olympic decathlete, with movie-star looks and bulging muscles. Thiswas common for veeyars. Several other avatars were fighting alongside Roddy, representing people back on earth who were also playing. The men all appeared equally Olympian, while all the women looked like professional swimsuit models.
    I materialized right in the thick of things, at Roddy’s side. Since I’d never bothered to modify my avatar, it looked exactly like me. In real life I’m three inches taller than Roddy. Here I looked like a dwarf beside him. His avatar’s biceps were bigger than my head. My gun, some kind of bizarre machine gun–bazooka combo, was half the size that I was. I didn’t have a clue how to fire it. But then I didn’t have any desire to play pretend war anyhow.
    â€œWhat are we fighting here?” I asked. “Angry pudding?”
    Roddy frowned. “Don’t be fooled by the appearance of the Gogolaks,” he warned. “What they lack in agility they make up for in cunning and guile. Plus, one bite from them makes your brain dissolve into sludge.” With that he blasted three into smithereens. Their defense didn’t seem particularly cunning to me. After the first got blown away, the other two simply froze and gibbered in terror, allowing Roddy to pick them off effortlessly.
    â€œWe’re not supposed to be using the ComLinks,” I warned.
    â€œDon’t tell me you bought that ‘we have to leave themopen for emergencies’ garbage. Want to know what the real story is?”
    Before I could answer, Roddy told me anyhow. Roddy is prone to rants. He’s a smart kid; unfortunately, he likes everyone else to know how smart he is. “NASA is freaking out about Holtz