Science fiction

Futures
A girl invents a game
Rules of engagement. By Ruth Joffre

Rule #2 #1: Wormholes are
off-limits.
Same goes for temporal rifts, time loops,
stellar vortices and all other space-time
distortions that could create pocket dimen-
sions, time bubbles or other means of escap-
ing the exact here and now of the game. This
used to be Rule #2, but I moved it up to Rule
#1 after Strylx-B got eirself stuck on the other
side of a wormhole when e stowed away on a
cargo ship that encountered an electric storm,
forcing it to land and undergo repairs. It took
three whole days to get e back, and by then I
had declared Round 1 over and stricken three
players from the board. Another time, we lost
Niza when an Invisipod™ timer malfunctioned
and trapped her inside a cloaked temporal
distortion field for more than 39 hours while
we completed Round 2 without her. If it hadn’t
been for Niza’s water-reclamation suit, her
ocular membranes would have dehydrated
after hour 13.
Rule #1 #2: Anything within
10,000 kilometres of the station
is fair game.
This includes the Jerix asteroid belt, the
refuelling station, Spaceways 1 through 73
and all taxiing vehicles therein, any spaceship
within that 10,000-kilometre radius, and all
three Keranian moons (but not Keran itself).
Note: this does not include the Keran–Jerix
wormhole, which, although within playable
game radius on our end, terminates some
33,000 light years away in a commercial sec-
tor of the galaxy outside the boundaries of
the playing field. Also note: several players
have cleverly endeavoured to bend this rule
by hovering inside the mouth of the wormhole
in an Invisipod™ or a hidden vessel. However,
that is both inadvisable and extremely dan-
gerous, as wormhole traffic is known to fluc-
tuate wildly and is not strictly regulated (see
also Rule #2 #1). Also also note: those same
clever players have attempted to further bend
ILLUSTRATION BY JACEY
the rules by artificially bending space-time
to generate temporal anomalies within the
spaceship. Again, this is both dangerous and
inadvisable, and also not within the spirit of
the game, so please knock it off. I’m looking
at you, Strylx-B.
Rule #3: Five dings and you’re out.
Simple as that. If a competitor touches you or
the attire on your person, it counts as a ding.
When you accumulate five total dings, you’re
considered out for the round. Note: final
determination of which players proceed to
the next round is based on the order in which
players become ‘out’ — in other words, the last
player standing plus the previous players to be
considered out will proceed from Round 1 to
Round 2, and so on, until only two players take
part in the final round. Here is where the game
is most interesting. One-on-one, players must
be wily, creative and at times gravity-defying
to score a ding without putting themselves at

Nature  |  Published online 21 October 2022  |  nature.com/futures

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Futures
risk. I’ve seen Mrel jump 16 feet into the air and
grab a moving pylon on Loading Dock B5 to
avoid a ding. Once, a pair of Yaxurian shape-
shifters faced off in the final round but could
not land a single ding on each other because
their bodies reshaped themselves to avoid all
touch. Imagine trying to punch someone in
the chest only to find your fist in the centre
of a doughnut hole where their flesh used to
be — not fun. Eventually, the Yaxurians had to
call a stalemate.
Rule #4: Never stay in one place too
long.
Sound advice that has been elevated to the
level of a rule because certain players (you
know who you are!) have been caught gaming
the system by leaving encrypted clues as to the
whereabouts of hidden competitors, result-
ing in mass disqualifications from multiple
players all descending at once on a concealed
individual and dinging everyone at the same
time. It was impressive the first time, Niza, but
that second time was just annoying, and there
won’t be a third.
Rule #5: Weapons are not allowed
and will result in immediate and
permanent player bans.
Exceptions will be made for mobility aids,
wearable devices and/or bodymods that
include built-in self-defence mechanisms, pro-
viding such mechanisms are not weaponized
against competitors outside of self-defence
situations. Thankfully, players have never
attacked each other before, and because I
want to keep it that way, this rule will stand
indef­initely. Do not argue with me about it.
Mandates like this exist for a reason, Mrel.
Rule #6: If you’re ill, send a
hologram in your place.
All holograms should have their corpore-
al-matter function engaged so that other
players can ding them without accidentally
passing through their incorporeal forms. Note:
if this holofeature is not turned on, any passage
through the hologram will still count as a ding.
It will just feel a bit weird, like that time I felt
the pale, luminous spectre of a second heart
beating around my own. For days after, I traced
the outline of it in my mind, noting bumps and
curves in the muscle, an extra valve where my
heart has only one. Whose was it? A girl in stasis
en route to a hospital eight light years away. A
neural link to her pod generated the hologram,
which could explore the station while her
parents’ ship refuelled. She said it was a rare
form of cancer that attacked myocardial
tissues. She didn’t get to play much. We only
had one game. One touch. But sometimes,
once is enough.
Ruth Joffre is the author of the story collection
Night Beast. Her work has appeared or is
forthcoming in Lightspeed, Nightmare,
khōréō, The Florida Review Online, Wigleaf and
elsewhere.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

Ruth Joffre reveals the inspiration behind A girl invents a game.

One of my coping mechanisms during the

pandemic has been buying games. Tabletop
games. Computer games. Any type of game.
I find it soothing, as though I’m buying
myself a moment of happiness. That’s what
games bring: a burst of joy, a new reality
with a different set of rules and, sometimes,
a different cast of characters. Some of my
favourite moments in Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine (another pandemic coping mechanism)
are when Jake and Nog just get to be kids and play on the station. I had that in mind while
writing this story. I think we sometimes forget, when building these vast universes in our
fiction, that this is always happening in the background: kids playing, shouting, skinning their
knees. I wanted to focus on that. Remind myself to have fun.

Nature  |  Published online 21 October 2022  |  nature.com/futures

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