Divided

by Evangeline Anderson

  “Oh, well, together means all three of you.” The avatar spoke carefully to the dark twin, as though Truth was a slightly slow child. “You’ll find that most tasks in the Mindscape require a three part effort. That is why none of you may enter alone. Do you see?”

  Truth was beginning to look really pissed so Becca jumped in quickly.

  “Okay, we get that we have to work together,” she said. “But can we please get back to my question—do we have to be completely naked?” She was down to her bra and panties now and not looking forward to climbing into a tank of cold slime.

  “You must,” the avatar replied. “If you are not, your interface with the nutrient slime will be incomplete. Imagine waking up in another reality and finding you had left parts of yourself behind—it would not be pleasant, would it?”

  “No…” Becca bit her lip. “No, I…I guess not.”

  “Are you embarrassed, mi’now?” Far asked. “Would you rather Truth and I turned and looked the other way?”

  “I…I guess I shouldn’t be after…um…” Becca cleared her throat, her cheeks heating. “After the other night. But yeah, I’m still kind of shy.”

  Truth snorted derisively. “Shy? You were anything but shy during our last encounter.”

  “I don’t remember you complaining,” Becca said, stung by his contempt. “Until afterwards, that was, when you starting feeling guilty and decided you didn’t want anything to do with me or Far again.”

  “It wasn’t that I felt guilty so much as betrayed,” Truth growled. “When I found that Far had been violating my privacy—”

  “Oh, please!” Becca snapped. She was getting sick and tired of the dark twin’s attitude. “So the man did a little digging into your background. You’re his long lost twin brother—he has a right to be curious. And did it ever occur to you that if you’d just be a little more open with him, he never would have felt the need to dig in the first place?”

  “My past is my own business,” Truth snarled. “And furthermore—”

  “Oh dear, oh dear—what’s this? Are the three of you not in harmony with each other?” Vashtar’s avatar looked at them anxiously. “Such quarrelling and anger does not bode well for your chances of success within the Mindscape. Your OneMind must be unified in order to project correctly.”

  “Our what must be what in order to what?” Becca asked blankly.

  The avatar made a dismissive gesture. “You will learn during the tutorial. But I must confess I am concerned about sending a quarreling triumvirate into the Mindscape.”

  “Simply a disagreement,” Far said smoothly. “I’m sure even a society as advanced as yours was had them as well.”

  “Well…yes.” The avatar still looked doubtful. “I hope you can mend the rift between you or you will never find Vashtar. Only a true and whole triumvirate can find the way to wisdom.”

  Becca took a deep breath. “All right. I’m sorry I snapped at you, Truth,” she said to the dark twin. “I felt really judged by you just now and it made me defensive.”

  “I must offer apologies as well,” Truth replied stiffly. “And please forgive me if you felt in any way censured. That was not my intention. I only meant that you have, ah…” He cleared his throat. “A beautiful body. You have no need to be ashamed of it. Still, I will turn the other way if it makes you feel better.” He suited actions to words by turning the other direction to put his broad back to Becca.

  “I will turn around as well.” Far turned and even the avatar faced away.

  Becca was left to shiver her way out of her bra and panties. When she was finished, she stood there naked with one arm plastered across her breasts and the other hand modestly covering her sex.

  “All right,” she said at last. “I…I guess I’m ready. Should I go first?”

  “You must all three go at once.” The avatar made a gesture and three identical sets of metal steps suddenly unrolled themselves from the lips of each tank and extended to the ground. “Go up, climb into the tanks and lower yourselves into the slime,” he instructed. “With your first deep breath, you will be sucked into the Mindscape.”

  That didn’t sound very good to Becca but she didn’t see what else she could do. Taking a deep breath, she placed her foot on the first, freezing metal rung of the tiny ladder and began to climb. On either side of her, Truth and Far did the same.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t hesitate and don’t think about it, Becca instructed herself when she reached the edge of the tank. Not letting herself chicken out, she threw a leg over the side and lowered herself into the cold slime.

  Mother of God, that’s freezing! It was like getting into a bath of icy, half set Jell-O. Gritting her teeth, she slid her other leg in, aware that Truth and Far were doing the same thing on either side of her. Neither one was complaining about the temperature although Becca knew they had to feel it as much as she did.

  “Good, good,” she heard the avatar say behind them. “Now, just lie down in your tanks and let the slime close over your head. Then inhale.”

  It was one of the hardest things Becca had ever done but somehow she made herself follow instructions. Shivering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering, she lay down in the horrible chilly slime and let it enfold her. She tried to float but she could feel the viscous stuff sucking her down.

  “Oh!” she moaned softly as it closed over first the top of her head and then her eyes, which were tightly shut. “This is aw—”

  But when she opened her mouth to say “awful,” the reddish-pink slime rushed in, almost as though it had been looking for an opening. Becca choked and gasped, her body rebelling against the invader.

  No, this isn’t right. I can’t do this! I have to get up—have to get out of here!

  She sat straight up, clawing for the slick, glass edge of the tank…

  Only to find she was no longer in the tank at all.

  * * * * *

  “Where am I? What is this?”

  Becca looked around herself in confusion. She was surrounded by a featureless gray mist and she appeared to be sitting on a broad, flat platform. When she shifted, it gave gently under her and then sprang back into position.

  “What is this thing?” she muttered. “A really huge mattress?”

  “It appears to be some kind of sleeping platform,” Truth said, from her right side.

  Becca gasped. “Oh! I didn’t see you there.”

  “I wasn’t here a moment ago. I was trying to breathe that damn slime.” He still sounded irritated. “Where is Far?”

  “I don’t know.” Becca looked down on the thing they were sitting on again and noticed that it now had little padded pockets in it, just like her gel-foam mattress back on the Mother Ship. “Oh,” she said, surprised. “Look—it’s changed! It’s more…mattress-y now.”

  “What’s this?” Far was suddenly on her left side. “Why are we sitting on a bed?”

  “There you are, Brother,” Truth growled. “As to that, we have no idea.”

  “It is a large one, at least,” Far murmured, looking around. “The headboard is most intricately carved.”

  “The what?” Becca craned her neck around to see an elaborately carved wooden headboard at the head of the bed. “Hey—it changed again! It’s even more bed-like now. But where are the sheets and pillows? Where are the blankets?” she asked, looking around. She was still naked—they all were, she couldn’t help noticing—and there wasn’t a thing to cover up with. Which was a problem in more than one way—she was still very cold. Pulling her knees up to her chin, she wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. “How—”

  “Welcome, happy triumvirate!” A feminine voice spoke out of nowhere, making Becca jump.

  “Who said that? Who are you?” Truth demanded as they all looked around for the source of the voice. “Show yourself!”

  “Doubtless during your year long tutorial, you have learned all you need to in order to successfully navigate the Mindscape,” the voice continued blithely.

&
nbsp; “What—a year? The Orthanxians had a whole year to learn how to get around in here and we get a fifteen minute lecture from a stupid avatar?” Becca demanded.

  “This is ridiculous,” Truth growled. He stood up abruptly, making the mattress shake, and put his hands on his hips. “We demand that you take us to Vashtar immediately,” he announced in a stern, commanding tone which was only slightly ruined, in Becca’s estimation, by his complete lack of clothes.

  “Here in the beginning staging area, we wish to remind you of just a few details of your new existence,” the disembodied voice went on.

  It reminded Becca of the detached, artificially happy voice the guides on some of the rides at Disney World used. Or maybe a bored airline hostess. Either way, it was creepy to hear it speaking out of the misty gray nothingness which surrounded the bed.

  “I think it’s some kind of recording, Brother,” Far said, looking up at the indignant Truth. “Best sit down and hear what it has to say. We need all the information we can get if we’re to complete this mission.”

  Grumbling, Truth settled down on the mattress again. Becca was glad—it had been really hard to ignore how big and extremely naked he was when he was standing there, looming over her.

  “As you no doubt know, anything is available here to you in the Mindscape, providing you access it correctly,” the voice continued. “Please remember the importance of the triumvirate OneMind at all times or your projections may not meet all expectations.”

  “OneMind? What in the Seven Hells is that?” Truth muttered.

  “Vashtar’s avatar said something about it, remember?” Far said.

  “He said something about projections too, didn’t he?” Becca asked. She wished the creepy airline hostess voice would go into greater detail about how to get some clothes to wear or at least where to get a blanket. She was really freezing. Was it actually getting colder in here? It certainly felt like it. Becca shivered and hugged herself tighter.

  “Please feel free to stay here in the staging area and practice your projections until you feel confident enough to leave and establish a new reality for yourselves,” the voice said smoothly. “The success of your projections will be monitored. If you fail to produce livable implements and environments after a reasonable amount of time, you will be guided through a few OneMind tutorials.”

  “That’s what we need—tutorials,” Far murmured.

  “Please do not interpret such training exercises as a censure to your triumvirate,” the voice went on. “Any pain, emotional, physical, or mental that you may experience during such sessions, is purely unintentional and should be short in duration.”

  “Wait a minute—pain?” Becca frowned. “Maybe we’d better skip the tutorials after all.”

  “If we can,” Truth said darkly. “We have no idea what we’re doing here, let alone how to navigate in this bizarre reality.”

  “Enjoy your new existence in the Mindscape,” the voice said. “Monitoring begins now.”

  Then it went quiet and didn’t speak again.

  “Now what do we do?” Becca rubbed her arms, trying to keep warm.

  “Now we go looking for Vashtar.” Truth got off the bed and started off into the gray mist.

  “Brother, wait,” Far said urgently. “We have no idea where he is.”

  “We’ll never find him if we don’t look,” Truth growled. “I’m going, you can follow me or not.”

  Far and Becca looked at each other and sighed.

  “All right, wait—we’re coming,” Far said. He helped Becca off the bed and they joined Truth in the mist.

  Becca was between the two brothers as usual and her first impulse was to cover herself. But the gray mist was so thick she could scarcely see either Far or Truth so they probably couldn’t see much of her either. In fact, she realized, after they had been walking aimlessly for a moment, she couldn’t see either brother at all. She reached out to one side, where the light twin should be, but her hand felt nothing but chilly mist. Reaching for Truth left her empty handed as well.

  “Far?” she called, her heart suddenly freezing in her chest. “Truth? Where are you?”

  “Here, Becca,” called a deep voice she recognized as Far’s. But it sounded like it was coming from a long distance away. After a moment, Truth answered too but he sounded even further away.

  “Stop walking—both of you,” Becca demanded. “Don’t go a step further—let me find you.” She called for Far again and he answered. Becca followed the sound of his voice which was far off to her left—much further than he should have been able to get from her in a few steps. She groped forward like a person in a dark closet until, at last, to her relief, she found his hand.

  “Mi’now?” He looked concerned. “What’s happening? How did you get so far away?”

  “I don’t know but Truth is twice as far and he’s not patient. We have to find him before he gets lost for…” Becca swallowed hard. “For good.”

  She and Far retraced her steps, both of them calling for the dark twin as they went. At first they couldn’t hear his replies at all, though they both shouted until they were hoarse. Finally, Becca heard Truth’s answering shout.

  “Stay there! We’ll come to you,” she yelled. Keeping a firm grip on Far’s hand, she waded back through the mist (was it her imagination or was the damn stuff getting thicker?) until she could hear the dark twin more clearly. Still it seemed to take hours of calling and groping through the dense grayness until she finally found a large, male hand and grabbed it.

  At last, Truth came into view.

  “Oh, Truth!” Becca hadn’t realized how worried she’d been until she finally had both her men back. She threw an arm around the dark twin, not caring that they were both naked, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Here you are! I was so worried!” she whispered in his ear.

  “I was too.” Truth shifted uncomfortably and Becca realized her naked breasts, the nipples made into hard little points by the ever present cold, were pressed against his bare, muscular chest.

  “Sorry,” she said, drawing back but keeping one hand on his arm. She was still holding onto Far with the other. Not taking any more chances! she told herself.

  “Where have the two of you been?” Truth demanded, sounding shaken. “I couldn’t find either of you.”

  “The mist divided us somehow,” Becca answered, shivering. “And it only took a few steps to do it. What if we’d gotten lost forever? Wandering around endlessly, never finding each other again?” The thought made her so upset that she had to blink back tears.

  “It’s all right, mi’now,” Far said gently, squeezing her arm. “We’re all together now.”

  “And that’s how we’re going to stay. From now on, we hold hands everywhere we go in this freaky place!”

  She halfway expected Truth to object but their narrow escape must have upset him as much as it had Becca because he allowed her to take his right hand and the three of them continued into the mist together.

  But they had only walked a few steps when they found themselves standing in front of the bare bed where they had started.

  “What in the Seven Hells?” Truth said angrily. “How did we end up back here?”

  “I don’t know.” Far sighed and sat on the edge of the mattress. “But I don’t think Vashtar is going to be as simple to find as we thought.”

  “And I don’t think we’re going to find him by walking, either,” Becca said, sitting beside him. She shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “It’s so cold in here. I thought we were supposed to be able to make it warm.”

  “Have you tried that?” Far asked. “Remember the avatar said we could have anything we wanted while in the Mindscape. Imagine yourself warm and see what happens.”

  Becca tried it. Closing her eyes, she pictured herself standing in front of a roaring fire, the warm blaze heating her from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet. After a moment she opened her eyes.

  “N-nothing,” she whispered, h
er teeth chattering. If anything, it seemed even colder than it had been when they’d been wandering in the mist. She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking with cold.

  “Mi’now?” Far looked really concerned. He put an arm around her shoulders and Becca leaned into his warmth—but it wasn’t enough. It felt like an icy wind was blowing right at her, and there was no way to escape it.

  Truth looked worried now as well but instead of putting his arm around her on the other side, he stood up on the bed again.

  “What are you doing?” Far demanded, looking up at his brother in exasperation.

  “Rebecca is freezing to death and Vashtar is nowhere to be found. I think we have been tricked—it’s time to get out of the slime.” Looking up into the gray mist, he roared, “Exit!”

  Nothing happened.

  “Truth, I don’t think—” Far began quietly.

  “Leave!” Truth shouted, ignoring his brother. “Doorway! Out!”

  “It’s not going to work—not that way,” Far said impatiently.

  “What the hell?” Truth sounded both bewildered and angry as he finally sank down onto the bare mattress again. “Then how is it going to work? Are we stuck?”

  “I h-hope n-n-not.” Becca’s teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak. There was no doubt this time—it was definitely getting colder. In fact, she could see her breath come out like steam when she talked.

  “Stop wasting your breath and help me warm our lady,” Far demanded, glaring at his twin.

  Truth frowned. “I…cannot. She is not my lady. Not anymore.”

  “Because you’re mad at me, you’ll let Becca freeze?” Far asked in a low, dangerous voice. “I can’t warm her up by myself, Truth—look at her!”

  Indeed, Becca was so cold now that she couldn’t even speak. She simply pressed close to Far’s side and kept her body in a tight knot, trying to conserve body heat. But it was cold…so cold. Her whole body felt numb. She began to wonder if you could get frostbite in a wholly imaginary realm.