Fun day with Ilria (2)

"I can't believe you've never been in one of these before," Ilrica laughed, dragging him inside of the arcade. "They have these all over Central."

"But don't you need a link to Central in order to play these?"

"Not all of them," she said as she pulled him past rows and rows of flashing shiny machines of every shape and description. Some were spheres of energy with a player floating within. Others were circular couches where several people would sit with their backs facing one another, the hardware plugged into their necks.

Still others took place in large rooms like a racquetball court, but filled with water. Players swam and dodged about, playing something that looked to Gerald like a cross between underwater polo and the Danger Room from X-Men.

The booth Ilrica brought him to was a small, featureless room. She snapped her fingers and a podium grew up from the floor. She cycled through a few dozen options before finding the one she was looking for.

"Oh, I knew I remembered seeing this. This one has some human games on it."

"Really?" he asked, brightening up.

Ilrica tapped the glowing rune and the podium reformed itself into a table with a short net running across the center. A paddle appeared in each of their hands.

"Ping Pong?" Gerald said, a little disappointed.

Suddenly, the floor and walls dropped away around them, and they found themselves standing at the center of an enormous rocky valley. Natural stone columns rose up from the canyon floor like a checkerboard, while the table sat on a raised mesa. Platforms of rock floated lazily about, occasionally colliding into one another.

"Looks like the game designers took a few liberties," Ilrica said as she crouched down, spinning the paddle in her hand. "You get first serve."

A chime went off and a small glowing ball fell down from the sky above. It didn't seem at all like they were in a room. The cool breeze, the warm sunlight. It really felt like they were back on Earth. An Earth crossed with Super Mario Bros, but for Gerald that was close enough.

Gerald tossed up the ball and swung at it, but it disappeared the second it touched his paddle. A buzzer indicated a foul.

"What did I do wrong?" Gerald wondered, looking around.

Ilrica snickered and pointed to the rules hovering in the air written in standard. "You can only hit the ball after touching a glowing rock."

Gerald looked over and realized that the rock platforms and columns would flash randomly. Currently the only one illuminated was far away from him.

He looked back at her, deflated.

Ilrica patted her knees and whistled at him. "Come on, boy, you can do it!'

"Stop treating me like a pet," he shouted as he ran and jumped, barely catching the edge of a platform with his fingertips. The strong muscles in his arms and back flexed as he effortlessly hefted himself up, then jumped again, catching the glowing rock as it floated away.

"Hey, not bad. At this rate we'll be done by next week." she teased.

A new ball fell down into his hand. He double-checked to make sure his rock was still glowing, and served the ball. It bounced off the table and the rocks on her side switched position. She waited until the last possible second, then vanished. She reappeared on top of the glowing column in one corner of the valley, then shifted again, appearing right in front of the ball and whacking it with such force that it scratched the paint as it hit the table.

Gerald's rocks shifted, and a column below him began to glow. He jumped down to a lower platform, and then another, but by the time he reached the glowing pillar, the buzzer had already gone off as the ball fell down to the canyon floor below.

"You realize I can't bend time or fly like you can?"

She spun her paddle as a new ball fell into her grip. "So what? I'm supposed to stand in a hole just because you don't like me looking down at you?"

She stood sideways against a glowing pillar, then jumped up and horizontally across her side of the valley, serving the ball with a spinning curve. Gerald ran and leapt, tapping a glowing rock above him with his hand, then landed on a column and sprinted with all his might, but the ball was still a dozen yards away when it passed him.

Ilrica threw up her arms. "Woo hoo! One to zero. Faolan takes the lead!"

Ilrica touched a platform, then disappeared. He found her again just as she served from the far end of the valley. Gerald dashed from column to column, trying to keep his balance, and swung his paddle. The ball disappeared as it made contact, and a buzzer went off. Gerald stood up and saw that the only glowing platform had been three stories above him.

"Two to zero. I like this game," she praised.

"This isn't a game," he said, catching his breath. "Real games have a level playing field. This is just you kicking my teeth in."

She laughed as she leapt down and balanced on top of a glowing column with one foot. "A level playing field?"

"Yes, it means that..."

"I know what it means, I just don't understand why you humans are so caught up in it. I mean, think about it. Where do you find a level playing field in nature anywhere?"

Before he could answer, she leapt high in the air and served the ball. It bounced off the table and sailed past him long before he could get to his platform two stories beneath.

"Three to zero." Ilrica tapped her translator and a window of a hawk appeared in front of her. "When a Drazon drives down at 400 clicks to snatch up a field-nauss off the prairie, is that a level playing field? You humans have this concept of fairness and it just doesn't exist. It never has."

She served the ball again. This time, Gerald made it to a glowing column in time, but the ball sailed past him at the far end of the valley. "Four to zero," she cheered.

"You're right," he admitted. "Life is not fair, but it is also not fun. That is why we make games. They are supposed to be fun."

She grinned, showing off her ivory fangs. "It's fun for the hunter."

She fell upwards and flipped upside down, touching the bottom of a glowing rock, then served the ball. Gerald ran with all his might, touching a glowing column, and threw his paddle up at the ball as it sailed over him. Amazingly, the paddle hit the ball, but only managed to knock it away, never even coming close to the table.

"Hey, nice one," she praised as the buzzer went off. "I like how you keep trying."

Gerald ran over and recovered his paddle. "I never give up."

"That's the spirit!" she praised, leaping sideways, and hitting the ball so hard it looked like it would shatter.