A blue-and-gold butterfly hovered beside the fountain. Martin turned towards the sudden shouts of excitement and saw a whole swarm of them peeling off the courtyard’s wall. Someone had splashed the wall, and unlike the change that had been wrought on the ground, this appeared to be self-sustaining; as the tiles of the mosaic became the scales of butterfly wings, their neighbours needed no extra dose of water to follow in their wake.
Javeed was open-mouthed with astonishment now; his face looked as if it had been pushed beyond the already overblown exemplar he’d given Omar. The walls of the courtyard disappeared beneath a tornado of butterflies that stretched up into the air; a few were flying across the grass, but the swarm as a whole kept its distance, preventing the spectacle from becoming oppressive. The children were shouting and squealing, but nobody seemed frightened. Martin went and stood beside Javeed and they watched in silence as the vortex of change ate its way through the walls of the courtyard and began devouring the surrounding maze. He looked up, afraid that the insects might block out the sky, but the funnel was broadening as it grew, the butterflies dispersing as they ascended.
As the maze disintegrated, the grass of the courtyard spread out to take its place; like a swarm of locusts in reverse the butterflies were transforming the once barren ground into lush greenery. But even more strikingly, the advancing horde left something intact: people. Apparently not everyone had managed to reach the courtyard, and now the stragglers were being liberated from the confusion of the maze. Martin saw one group of children leaping into the air, trying to catch the blue-and-golden insects.
When the butterflies reached the edges of the maze they flew off across the rocky desert, leaving behind nothing but an octagonal oasis centred on the fountain.
As calm descended, Martin could hear his heart pounding. He felt elated, but he was drained as well. He turned to Javeed. ‘You okay, pesaram?’
Javeed beamed at him. ‘That was fantastic! I want to do it again!’
Some of the children around them were already disappearing, literally fading into transparency as they departed. Martin said, ‘Not today.’
‘But we can come back tomorrow?’
‘Not tomorrow.’
‘We have to come back!’ Javeed was horrified, as if Martin had shown him this glimpse of paradise only to slam the gates shut.
‘Don’t get upset, I didn’t say never.’
‘When?’
‘Soon.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Give me time to think about it.’
They headed back towards the dome. Martin knew they didn’t need to return the way they’d come in order to exit from the game, but he was reluctant to yank them out of the experience abruptly.
As they walked across the grass, he spotted a man and a boy walking a few metres away to their left; the man raised a hand and called out in English, ‘Hi! How’s it going?’
‘Hi.’ Martin stopped and waited for them to approach. ‘I was beginning to think I was the only adult here.’
‘Me too.’ The man’s icon had blue eyes and brown hair; he sounded like a native English speaker, but Martin couldn’t place his accent.
‘I’m Martin, this is my son Javeed. This is our first time in Zendegi.’
The man said, ‘I’m Luke. This is Hassan.’
Martin didn’t offer his hand; maybe when he’d had more experience with the gloves the subtleties of the process wouldn’t seem too daunting for a casual gesture. He turned to the boy. ‘Salaam, Hassan. Chetori?’
‘Salaam agha,’ Hassan replied shyly.
‘Zendegi is great,’ Luke said, ‘but we’re always famished afterwards.’
‘Yeah, you can’t fault it for a lack of exercise,’ Martin replied.
‘What you need is a snack that’s nutritious,’ Luke enthused, ‘and fun to eat!’
Martin stared at him. What were the odds that another man with a Western name and an Iranian son would be playing the same game at the same time? ‘You’re not actually a person, are you?’ he said.
Luke gazed back with a frozen smile, betraying no hint of offence. ‘I used to think that kebab-o-licious goodness could only come in a real kebab-’
Martin pointed his thumb to the ground, and found himself back in his castle. He flipped up the goggles’ screens and saw the sphere opening up around him. Within seconds he could see Javeed for real.
‘You okay?’
Javeed nodded, but said nothing. His posture had a hint of reserve that Martin knew was his punishment for failing to set a firm date for their return.
Martin left the gloves and goggles on the counter beside the desktop and they went downstairs. Omar was dealing with a customer, but Farshid was free and Javeed immediately began bombarding him with every detail of their experience. Martin stood and listened, feeling flat and a little disoriented; it was like coming out of a movie into daylight, or stepping off a plane from somewhere bright and exotic to face the same old mundane sights again.
Omar joined them. ‘What did you think?’
‘It was good.’ Martin gave him a shorter version than Javeed’s, which was still in progress. ‘I guess when you pay for it, you don’t have to put up with the walking advertisements?’
‘Yeah. You can get a discount if you let them bug you, but it’s your choice.’
Martin laughed. ‘That’s a relief. It will be good to go back and be certain that everyone around us is real.’
Omar’s smile became equivocal.
Martin said, ‘What? Why can’t I be sure of that?’
‘It’s not just ads,’ Omar explained. ‘They put in Proxies for fun as well. With some of the games there aren’t enough real people playing, so they need to make up the numbers to keep it from getting boring. Or sometimes there are characters nobody wants to be – roles that are needed, but aren’t very interesting.’
‘Okay.’ It made sense that some role-playing games would be padded out with grunts and cannon fodder, but Martin had never imagined that half the exuberant children splashing water onto stone in the labyrinth’s courtyard could have been the same: software extras inserted to bolster the mood. ‘Won’t that get confusing, though? What if Javeed thinks he’s making a new friend?’
Omar shook his head impatiently. ‘You can always get Zendegi to tag the Proxies if you want to. But why spoil the fun? Maybe Javeed will play football in a stadium with twenty thousand people watching. Maybe you and twenty others will be real. Does he need to know which ones? When you take him to a movie, do you sit there pointing out which characters are real human extras and which ones are CGI?’
‘Hmm.’ Martin could see the logic of it, but he still wasn’t entirely happy.
Javeed had reached his third iteration of refinements and corrections in his story to Farshid. Martin put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bas, pesaram. Say thanks to Uncle Omar, then come and help me make lunch.’
Martin drove into the city with Javeed guarding the meal they’d cooked. Mahnoosh closed the shop and they sat on the floor in the back room, eating. Or rather, Martin ate and Mahnoosh tried to as Javeed regaled her nonstop with stories of Zendegi. By the time Martin had to go and re-open the shop, Javeed’s plate had barely been touched.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mahnoosh said. ‘I’ll reheat it at home.’
Martin kissed them both good-bye. Javeed stood passively when Martin embraced him; if he’d been sulking he would have squirmed away, but this was his subtle freeze-out, where he declined to reciprocate affection, but also eschewed overt signs of hostility.
People of the Book was open until nine; Martin didn’t mind the first few hours, but the evenings dragged. He’d given up hoping that they’d ever be able to afford an assistant to take the night shifts; the rent on the shop kept going up, and while their sales weren’t falling, the numbers were flat. The only way to increase revenue would be to put up prices, and a cyber-ketab – with ten complimentary bestsellers pre-loaded – already cost less than five hardbacks.