Nova Project #1 Read Online Free PDF

a real life. Running around, earning all the enhancements he wants instead of unnecessary surgeries being too dangerous to risk. He could even try to be the first person to beat the game completely.
    The soles of his shoes brush the tops of the trees, the leaves rustling realistically enough to pretend they’re growing, living things. He’s never seen any of the few remaining forests; in this city, as in all of them so far as he knows, trees are merely glorified pixels.
    Nice, though. Something to look at. He’s not sure whether caring that things look pretty is the best use of the government’s time, but then he checks himself in a mirror before he leaves the house, so maybe he can’t judge.
    The hoverboard loses height by inches, a familiar rooftop sliding into view like the next cutscreen. By the time it stopsoutside his house he just has to point his toes to touch solid ground. Cargo delivered, the hoverboard whizzes off to plant itself back at its hub for recharging as the lock on the front door responds to the touch of Miguel’s artificial finger. The finger is useful, but he got it because his parents insisted. He would’ve gone for something else, an eye camera possibly, but they’d said that if he was going to play, he needed to keep track of his heart rate and not just guess. Every time he measures, it’s transmitted to them, too.
    â€œMom? Dad?”
    No answer. Either asleep, out together, or in a Cube. Neither takes it as seriously anymore as Miguel does now, but there’s still a tiny wasp-sting of envy that they’re both further on in the game than he is. That they’ve been playing longer, the game having been introduced to their generation, is kind of a weak excuse. He’s looked back in their Presences, they both were great players when they were younger. But now . . .
    His dad sometimes goes for a walk in his slippers and often comments on news articles online, for god’s sake. Anyone who does that should be beatable at a video game.
    More out of laziness than electricity conservation, he feels his way to his room in the dark. There a faint glow from his computers illuminates a mess. Clothes, most of them earned in the game, cover the floor more thoroughly than the unseen carpet underneath. Sprawling on an unmade bed, he blinksto activate his feed again and reads a random selection of messages, everyone talking, guessing, debating what the Gamerunners have planned and how they’ll choose the teams. Everyone certain he or she will be picked.
    â€œGood luck,” he whispers into the darkness, unsure if he’s saying it to them or himself. It’s a little more than ten hours until the Gamerunners deliver their next updates, and while he’d like to stay up to count down the minutes, the day has taken its toll. He sends out an update to his friends, as if any of them care that he’s falling asleep, and folds the glasses away.
    Seen from overhead, Anna, Nick, and Miguel form a triangle on the not quite natural green of the grass, Nick’s hair an especially incongruous splash. The roof over the park lets in the kindness of sunlight with none of its cruelty, glinting off composite leaves, plants, flowers that change and die with the seasons outside. There’s some cool software behind that, but again it feels pointless, the focus wrong.
    All around the three of them, people are gathered in similar groups, talking and reading their feeds at once, a festival of multitasking. Miguel can’t hear them, but he can guess. The subject is the same everywhere.
    â€œIt’s like one of those personality tests,” says Anna. “I took one online once.”
    â€œDid it say you’re a pain in the ass?” asks Nick. “Ow.”
    Anna rubs her elbow. “You have bony ribs. Eat a cheese-burger.”
    â€œThat’s not very ecoconscious of you.”
    â€œYou two.” Miguel shakes his head. He could say more,