Free Gamers' Rebellion by George Ivanoff Page A

the rebel leader,’ Robbie explained further.
    Zyra glanced at him. He was hairless again. After seeing him in the Game, it struck her just how weird his appearance was in the real world. He was standing by the dispenser, an empty syringe still in his hand. It occurred to Zyra that he must have injected the nanobot solution into his own eyeball. The thought made her shudder.
    Robbie caught her staring at him and blushed. He quickly turned his attention to the wall of tech. Zyra wondered if robot clones were supposed to blush.
    ‘How did they get the tech to do that?’ Robert wondered.
    ‘A good question,’ said Robbie, taking a glass of water from the dispenser and passing it to Zyra.
    Zyra took a sip of water and ran her unexpected Game experience through her mind.
    ‘It felt different,’ she finally said, ‘being in the Game just then. I can’t put it into words, but it felt different from when I was living in the Game.’
    ‘Of course,’ said Robert, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. ‘You are no longer a Game entity. And you can never truly go back. You are now a player. It’s very different.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘A Game entity who is now a player. Bravo.’
    Zyra took another mouthful of water and considered this information. She sniffed, her nose feeling a little dribbly, and wiped at it with her hand. She was shocked to see a smear of green on her hand.
    ‘A side effect of the injection,’ said Robbie. ‘There is a connection between the nasal cavity and the nasolacrimal duct in the eye. Excess liquid drains from –’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, fine,’ interrupted Zyra. ‘I don’t need the details.’ She then turned her attention back to Robert. ‘Mel mentioned kids. She said I should find out what happens to them. And you play as a child version of yourself. What is it about the Game and children?’
    Robert stared long and hard at Robbie, then turned his attention back to Zyra.
    ‘Imagination! Playfulness! Creativity! Resourcefulness! The ability to adapt to new situations!’ After the rapid-fire list, he paused. ‘All these things converge in young people. Not too young, because then there is a lack of focus. Not too old either, when they start to question too much and realise responsibility. It’s a difficult age to pinpoint. And it varies from child to child. For me it is twelve. That’s how old Bobby is in the Game. For others it could be ten, or fifteen, or maybe even as old as seventeen. It depends on the individual. For some it can last years. Others have a much shorter period of usefulness.’
    ‘Usefulness?’ Zyra stood up, unease filtering into her movements. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Ah.’ Robert’s chair glided around so that he was facing the tech wall, away from Zyra. ‘Usefulness is in the eye of the beholder. I found children useful in programming the Game. I scanned the brains of many children when creating the Game structure. Once it was there, I connected myself to the matrix and probed my own memories, accessed my twelve-year-old self. I used him – me – to shape the Game.’ There was a long pause. ‘And, of course, the Designers now use children to maintain the integrity of the environments.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘It means that there are children – dozens of them – connected to the Game, keeping the environments from collapsing.’
    ‘I still don’t get it,’ said Zyra. ‘How?’
    ‘Perhaps it would best for you to see for yourself.’ Robert’s chair spun around so he could again look at Zyra. ‘Robbie.’
    Robbie slid open the door and stepped through it. ‘I’ll take you.’
    Zyra drank the rest of her water and followed him.
    ‘You won’t like it,’ Robert called after her.
    Zyra paused in the doorway, not turning back to look at him. As she followed Robbie, she thought she heard Robert say, ‘I don’t like it, either.’
    ***

    Zyra’s eyes were wide with horror. Her mouth hung open and she tried