Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Two years ago, Harry’d been on the cover of Seventeen magazine. His skin had been sprayed bronze so that the blond hairs all over his body were like threads of silver. Throughout his adolescence, he had always looked three years older than he actually was, and the pages had been torn out and stuck to the backs of doors in the girls’ locker room, biro-ed with hearts and names, and moustaches. Then there were the girls who arched their backs for him behind the iron walls of the sports shed as he pushed his fingers under the waistbands of their netball skirts. Juno had never understood the attraction.

Harry jolted upright as Juno touched the disinfectant to the torn skin on his lower lip. Opened his eyes and sucked air through gritted teeth.

‘Does it hurt?’ she asked. Harry nodded.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad it hurts.’

SHE FOUND JESSE A couple of hours later in the games room. She tried not to shudder at the sight of him. He was still in the Christmas jumper he’d worn the day before, only patches of blood matted the wool at his collar. His lip was purple and swollen like a plum. Behind the translucent display on his goggles she could see that one of his corneas was bleeding, and his eyes had a wild insomniac glint in them.

‘Jesse,’ she said, ‘you look terrible.’ Her heart filled with tenderness for him.

‘Not now,’ he said, with a frown of concentration.

‘This is what you’ve been doing?’ Juno said, incredulous. ‘Playing a game?’ Coagulated blood flaked at his knuckles and the fists in which he held the controller were swollen. The computer whined and the words GAME OVER appeared on the screen.

‘You distracted me,’ Jesse said, pulling off his VR goggles and tossing them aside in fury.

‘You look—’

‘Stop looking at me, then,’ Jesse snapped.

‘Have you been doing this all night?’ she asked, pointing to the simulator.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ Jesse gritted his teeth. When Juno realized that he wasn’t going to tell her, she knelt down in front of him. ‘Will you let me help you?’

‘How?’

‘I’m a medic.’ She indicated her first aid kit.

‘I need to keep trying,’ Jesse said, picking up the controller again. She watched him in silent concentration: he was stuck on the eighth level, a twin player where he was co-piloting with a virtual commander. They kept losing control of the ship, running out of fuel before they entered interstellar space.

Juno watched him quietly for a while, although she suspected that her presence was making him even more self-conscious, unsteady and faltering, constantly pushing the wrong buttons.

‘You know something,’ said Juno, after two more failed attempts. ‘Once my piano teacher told me—’

‘You can play piano?’ Jesse asked, rubbing at the marks carved into his face by the tight edge of his VR goggles.

‘Well… now, I can only play “Chopsticks” and “Clair de Lune”. But back when I used to play, my piano teacher said—have you ever heard of painting by numbers?’ Jesse shook his head. ‘It’s a canvas with numbers for the colour of the paint. Kind of like colouring-in.’ She rolled her eyes and waved a hand. ‘Well, anyway. He said that my piano playing was like “painting by numbers” – I was playing the notes in the right order and the right way but with no overarching understanding of the piece that I was playing.’

Jesse frowned in confusion.

‘Well, maybe you’re doing that here.’ She nodded at the simulator screen.

‘Piloting by numbers?’ Jesse smiled.

Juno shrugged. ‘I mean, maybe think of the commander as your dance partner. Be more intuitive. Don’t fixate on your manoeuvres, or on pressing the right combination of buttons at the same time. Let the computer lead, and keep your eyes on the goal.’

‘Maybe.’ Jesse rubbed his wrists, which were clearly sore from clutching the controller, and started the simulation again. This time, he let the commander lead and executed complementary manoeuvres. At first she thought Jesse was responding too slowly, but soon he relaxed and began to move more fluidly in response to the duck and shudder of the shuttle. Juno watched his ship flying on the screen, the shuttle gliding smoothly as a kite, dodging asteroids and slicing through interstellar space. By the time he was halfway through the level Jesse had sustained very little damage. She had been right. It was like a dance, and she could see that some part of his body had begun to finally understand the underlying logic of the game. The clock on the corner counted down the seconds. Five… four… three…

Jesse had almost made it to the goal – Tau Centauri. Two… sweat began to bead at the back of his neck and his arms trembled… one… Juno watched as Jesse let out a roar of triumph, and collapsed back in his seat.

‘Level completed,’ said the computer.

His score materialized on the screen. 185,342.

‘Is that good?’ Juno asked.

‘It’s better than Harry’s,’ he said. And she saw that he was smiling. ‘I’m going to play his game. And I’m going to win.’