Page 75 of Tapeworld Induction

She went over to the VR pads. A few were in use by other fighters, their grunts varying in volume depending on the intensity of their moves, but she found an empty one and attached the belt around her waist. She slid the thin visor over her eyes, and the sim booted up.

She was in a white room, and a 3D model of a kickboxer, made up of four hundred thousand tris, appeared in front of her. Shaved head, red handwraps, and matching shorts emblazoned with a name in black letters. Bob. Bob would have looked impressive a couple of decades ago. Now this guy was just the most basic tier of VR.

Bob immediately swung a low kick at her, aiming for her calves.

She raised her leg and blocked the kick with her shin. The belt vibrated, giving her the only haptic feedback she’d get from this basic tech. No localised pain receptors like in ReSports, no spherical treadmill. She swung a hook at Bob’s chin, rotating the top half of her body, the knee following the motion. The kinetic force of the hit pushed Bob to the side, simulated pixel blood splatter flying from his mouth.

It was nothing compared to how the Tapeworld looked and felt. Isaak was right. The Tapeworld wasn’t just virtual reality. It was more like an alternate world, or parallel dimension, when compared to this thing.

Bob sidestepped and threw a kick. Dylan raised her hands but not in time to stop his foot striking her in the face, blurring her vision in the VR.

Fuck!

She kept her hands raised and paced side to side, building her defensive posture. Bob eyed her through his red wraps, coded bloodlust guiding his search for an opening, moving quickly around her. He threw a few jabs, but she blocked them easily. To her surprise, Bob smiled. Sim fighters didn’t usually show emotion.

Closing the distance, he deployed a one-two punch combination. Dylan blocked one but not the other, eating the hook to the face.

“Fucking bastard!” She wiped the sweat off her face, using the motion to mask her next move – she hit him with a powerful left hook followed by a side kick, slamming Bob backwards.

Her stomach growled again, and her first thought this time was a delicious, red, bloody slice of cow side, gently salted and cooked in butter churned that morning.

Fuck… What is wrong with me?

Bob moved closer again, his aggression matching hers. Keeping his arms raised, he tried a couple of kicks to her stomach, one blocked, one successful. It hit her in the waist, the belt’s haptics matching where she was hit for once. He leaned in, confident. Unreserved. Arms down.

She made a low fist and drove upwards into his head with an uppercut, knocking Bob straight to the floor.

As he prepared to get up, Dylan walked over to him and kicked his head. “You like that?” She kept kicking. “You like that, motherfucker?!” And again, and again, each kick causing more blood splatter, Bob’s face more and more damaged. She was about to kick him again when the whole VR simulation turned off. The people in the other VR pads were staring at her.

How embarrassing. What was wrong with her? All this aggression, wanting to eat meat. This wasn’t her. Usually. Was it all because of that boy and his own pent-up aggressive tendencies?

After showering and changing, she thought of putting on a calming podcast on the way home, but those hardly ever worked on her. Her brain wouldn’t shut up that easily. Isaak, his fucked-up boss, the Tapeworld, this meat craving thing all of a sudden… No wonder she’d kicked that VR training dummy’s head in.

She snapped her flip phone open and rang Talia.

Talia answered almost immediately. “Babygirl, talk to me.”

She didn’t want to go into detail over the phone, but said enough to convince Talia that they needed to talk in person, and arranged to meet at Talia’s for lunch.

Getting there required a bus and two changes on the tube. Not a bad journey, with the exception that she needed to use the Central Line. For six decades the air down there had run hot, and today was no different. A little taste of hell before speaking with Talia. Goddess, what would she tell her? A few tears escaped her eyes as she leaned onto the tube door like she always used to, blocking out the loud roars outside the carriage as it sped on.

Talia lived in a flat in a high-rise, one of the last few in the area. Gentrification, investment, laundered money replacing dirty money. That block of flats resisted it all. Plus, it was cheap, so Talia could afford to live there on her own, without flatmates.

She buzzed her up. Her door was ajar, inviting her in. Dylan walked inside, anxious ripples beneath her skin.

“Tal?”

“Dylan, hey!” Talia wrapped her arms around her, and Dylan let herself feel the warmth and tenderness of her best friend. “Come on, sit down. The way you spoke on the phone… What’s wrong? Tell me everything.”

The telly was on, a news programme, covering the latest scandal for Betty Summers’s government. The Greens were no exception when it came to corruption. Talia lowered the volume to the bare minimum. She didn’t like silence at her place – the complete opposite of Dylan’s preferences.

Legs wobbling from the anxiety, Dylan flopped down next to Talia on her teal couch, the texture soft to the touch. It didn’t do much to soothe her. “We had a fight.”

Talia raised her eyebrows. “A fight? So, you’re dating… Your first lover’s tiff.” She smiled but quickly dropped it, noticing Dylan wasn’t joining in.

“We’re not dating. Not really! Every time I think he’s going to make a move, something interrupts us or he stops himself. I don’t know what’s going on in his head. I wish he’d just be honest and tell me…”

“What kind of interruptions are going to stop him from kissing you? I saw how you two looked at each other at Aftershock! And that was a week ago already. I can’t believe you haven’t even kissed yet?”