Starting off level, the spiral eased downward until it was almost perpendicular, making the Earth into a huge record spinning round and round in front of them. Out the spiral’s other end, the tracks stayed vertical, dropping them straight at the Earth and creating another situation where they ought to feel weightless. Ahead of them the tracks twisted into a tangle perhaps a hundred kilometers in diameter, and it felt like they were threading that labyrinth forever, nearing the exit multiple times only to be dragged back on a path toward the entrance again. They weren’t at the center of the universe now; their cosmos was a box in the hands of a fidgety child who turned it over and over in random directions.
The roller coaster escaped the maze at last and entered a straight-line descent, picking up speed again. This stretch lasted a long while; up ahead the tracks blurred into a smooth belt which made it hard to judge their speed. The color above them had turned from black to a light purple that gradually became deep blue; the stars had grown fuzzy, and there was little curvature to the horizon.
Sitting in front, Huahua saw a flame at the tip of their streamlined car that quickly blossomed until it enveloped the entire car; the program clearly had not ignored atmospheric friction. After the flames disappeared, the children found they were above a sea of clouds. The sky above them was a clear blue, shining with sunlight that, in contrast to the stark black-and-white illumination of outer space, seemed to permeate every last wrinkle in their clothes. On the tracks up ahead was another series of loops, climbs, and dips, and the presence of clear reference objects meant that their ride was far more heart-stoppingly crazy than back in space.
During the moments when the roller coaster slid smoothly, the children could see gigantic frames towering up from the ground in the distance, all of them at least ten thousand meters tall, piercing the clouds. Some of them formed right triangles with the ground, while others were shaped like giant doors, as if they were enormous upright compasses and set squares. Huahua asked what they were, and Virtual Citizen 1 replied, “Slides and swings. For little kids to play on.”
Huahua couldn’t imagine what kind of little kid could slide down a ten-thousand-meter slide, much less how they could get such a gigantic swing swinging.
The roller coaster’s final segment was an easy slope that descended toward what the children thought was a grassy plain covered in colorful flowers, but when they finally landed, they realized the plain was actually formed from a huge number of multicolored rubber balls, blown-up versions of the kind you’d find in a ball pit, only here, stretching as far as the eye could see, it had to be called a ball ocean. They slid quite a long ways through this ball ocean before stopping, kicking up balls around them that then clattered back down again in a kaleidoscope of rain. They couldn’t think of who would dive into such a weird ocean, or how they’d get out afterward; they knew from previous experiences of “swimming” in ball pits as younger kids that movement wasn’t easy. Then two giant wheels popped out of the roller coaster, one on each side, churning the balls into motion with a strange gurgling sound. The virtual citizen informed them that the ocean of balls covered nearly a thousand square kilometers.
“It’ll use up all of the rubber in the country. How will we make car tires after that?” Xiaomeng asked, but the virtual citizen didn’t answer, clearly uninterested.
After the roller coaster emerged from the ball ocean, the children were able to observe the giant slide from up close. It was a water slide. Water came rushing down the wide slide from a top that was farther than they could see, as if a river were pouring down from the sky. Imagining himself sliding down that river for ten thousand meters, Huahua felt his entire body tremble with anticipation, and he asked if he could have a ride.
“You’re only out for fun, Huahua. We’ve got serious things to do,” Xiaomeng said as she held him back.
The virtual citizen added, “That’s right. It’s another forty kilometers from here to the lift, and we shouldn’t waste that time. Besides, what’s the point of doing it in a virtual, computer-hosted form? Wait until we’ve built the real thing—that’ll be a thrill!”
Leaving the super water slide, the children saw a huge wide platform, big enough to hold several hundred people, hanging from thick steel cables dropped from above. At first they thought it was an athletic field, but it was only when the virtual citizen informed them that it was the seat of the gigantic swing that they noticed the poles towering skyward a thousand meters away on either side. And then they discovered how the swing would be set in motion: the platform had rocket engines attached to its underside.
Next they visited the bumper car arena. Each car was the size of one of the dump trucks from the adults’ time, each wheel more than two meters tall. The inflatable bumpers on all sides turned them into huge monsters. Thousands upon thousands of them colliding and chasing after each other on a vast plain would kick up enough dust to blot out the sky. It would certainly take guts and a sacrificial spirit to play that game.
The virtual citizen explained, “This is the first development zone for the New Five-Year Plan, and focuses on the construction of huge carnival rides. You still haven’t seen the giant Ferris wheel and Challenger UFO; they’re more than a hundred kilometers away, but on a good day you could see them. Now let’s go to Zone Two, the gaming zone.”
No sooner had he spoken than their environment changed, and they found themselves in a huge city built of tall, oddly shaped buildings, some of them like enormous castles, others wrapped in tangles of pipes or covered in holes like Swiss cheese.
“These are all video game arcades?” Huahua asked.
“No. Each of them is a gaming console.”
“They’re enormous! Then… where are the screens?”
“The idea behind these consoles is new. To play, you’ve got to go inside, where the setting is all holographic or made of actual devices. Each game begins from the console’s bottom floor, and you work your way up until the conclusion at the top floor. You don’t play with a mouse or joystick like you used to, but you’re actually part of the game world and are running around and fighting all the time. Like that castle console: it’s a royal palace, and you’ve got to defeat tons of enemies before you become king. The one with all the holes is a monsters’ den, and you use your laser sword to kill monsters like poison dragons and rescue the princess. Of course, these games are for the little kids. Since they’re so small, they can only run small-scale games.”
“What? These are only small-scale games? How big are the big ones?”
“Large-scale machines don’t have a fixed form. Most of them take up an entire zone.”
The environment changed again, and they found themselves on a broad plain where in the distance formations of ancient foot soldiers were advancing, helmets glittering in the sunlight, their raised spears like a densely planted wheat field. “You see? This is a game of ancient warfare. The players command a robot army ten thousand strong and pit it against another one. There’s also a Western game where you ride a horse into the wilderness armed with your revolver and have all sorts of adventures.”