They half expected Hardin and his crew to ambush them on their way out of the cavern. It wasn’t unheard of. Poachers would wait for a group to come out of a dungeon, surprise them, and take the winnings. It was a nasty bit of business, and poachers were universally despised. Hardin was no poacher, but he had killed the horses.
They retraced their steps and found their mounts butchered. Trix’s booby traps had been disarmed and the illusion dispelled. The animals laid in bloody ribbons, cut to pieces by Hardin and his crew. Entrails lay in cold sticky ropes on the stony ground. Fat carrion flies buzzed around the horses’ lolling tongues and staring eyes.
Mercer turned his head aside and spat.
“Sons of bitches,” Trix said.
“The hell are we supposed to do now?” Drake wanted to know.
Mercer tucked his thumbs in his belt and stared down at the grisly tapestry. He had really liked that horse. It was a good animal. It was hardworking and didn’t spook easily. A shame to see it slaughtered. He hitched a breath. “I guess we walk.”
“It’s gotta be ten miles to the nearest town,” Drake said.
“More like twelve,” Mercer told him.
Trix raked a hand through her blonde locks. “Nothing for it.”
Mercer nodded. He and Trix started down the incline toward the hard-packed trail that would lead them out of the Deep Wood and across a rolling green countryside dotted with stands of oak and ash, known as the Longmile, to the village of Arsenal. Drake remained where he stood, frowning down at the mauled bodies. He looked up when a wolf’s howl pierced the twilight, gave himself a shake, and started after Mercer and Trix.
It was a long walk, made longer still by the fact that all three were bone weary, foot sore and hungry. Add to that pissed off. Drake spent the first three or four miles describing, in detail, what he would do to Hardin and his crew the next time they met. Mercer marched along in silence and let the angry diatribe wash over him. By the time they left the wood for the countryside, Drake had fallen into sullen silence. Stars winked in the black vault of the sky and a large yellow moon rose in the east, casting a pale glow over the dark landscape. The road, a pair of well-worn wagon ruts lit by the light of the moon, wound through farmland and along a small hill, down into a dell and out again. They could see the light of distant farms, like fireflies in the night. Drake suggested they knock on a few doors and beg shelter for the night, but Mercer shook his head. Homesteaders were a careful lot even in the daytime. At night, they tended to drive strangers away at the point of a sword. Most of them spent their days eking a living from the land, working the soil and selling the crop. It was a hard life, but still better than what they had in the Real.
The night was half spent by the time they spotted the lights of Arsenal. They trudged the last mile with hanging heads and shuffling boots. Mercer was thinking longingly of hot food and cold beer. Trix mentioned a hot bath, and Drake said, “My arches are killing me.”
Arsenal was less a town and more a walled fort surrounded by farms. A pair of gate guards challenged them as they approached the arched opening. There were a dozen businesses inside the wall, along with two or three inns and a pretty good whorehouse. Archers patrolled the wall and torches flickered in brackets. They could hear the sound of music and laughter through the opening.
“Just looking for food and beds,” Trix told them.
“Our mounts got killed,” Drake added.
“Don’t cause trouble,” one of the men grumbled.
The other eyed Mercer. He lifted a flickering torch, squinted in the dark, and said, “Are you Mercer?”
He nodded.
“I heard about you,” the guard said. “Is it true you’ve never died?”
“Not yet anyway,” Mercer told him as they passed through the open gate. They made their way along a narrow boulevard lined with mostly shuttered businesses and Mercer heard the other say, “That’s no big deal. I never died either.”
“You ain’t never been in a fight,” his partner said.
Trix sidled up next to him. “You’re famous.”
“Swell,” Mercer said.
They spotted a shingle with “The Rowdy Goat” etched in the weathered board. A drunken chorus came from the open door and lights burned in the windows. They decided one inn was as good as another and filed into the common room in search of the innkeep.
Chapter Nine
Allison Bowers sat huddled on one end of the sofa, her shoes off and a limp tissue clutched in one pale hand. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her nose was raw from all the times she had blown it. The television was on, but she wasn’t really watching. A cook was showing how to fillet a salmon for the grill. Her apartment gave the impression of someone who had just enough at the end of the month to pay the rent and keep the lights on. The refrigerator was empty except for an old bottle of mustard and leftover packets of wasabi sauce. The sofa was secondhand. Stuffing poked through in places. A battle-scarred coffee table filled most of the cramped space between the couch and TV. Water stains dotted the ceiling in overlapping patterns. The bedroom wasn’t much better. A collection of sad looking teddy bears huddled on the bed and panties littered the floor. There was a rising smell that came up through the floorboard in a bathroom the size of a postage stamp that had made Allison gag at first. Now she hardly noticed it.
She stared at the image on the television screen without seeing and wondered how she was going to pay the rent. A stack of overdue bills stared at her from the coffee table. Her phone provider was threatening to disconnect her service and her car payment was in default. She wiped snot from her nose, picked up a mug of stone-cold tea, and sipped. It was mostly water by now. She had refilled three times, unwilling to use another tea bag.
She held the mug in both hands while tears spilled silently down her cheeks. Outside. the sun rode across the sky and faded into the west. The light inside Allison’s shabby little apartment slowly changed, first to the warm orange hues of late afternoon, then to the deep shadows of twilight. She still hadn’t figured out what to do. She could go to the landlord, explain her situation, and ask for more time, but that wouldn’t fix anything, only delay the inevitable. Her internet was already cut off. Her phone would be next. How would she find a job without net access? Even if she pounded the pavement, how would she apply? Nobody took paper applications anymore. A fresh wave of tears hitched at her chest and threatened to send her spiraling down into the black oblivion of despair that had been nipping at her heels all afternoon.
She put down the cold mug and went into the bathroom. The sunflowers on the shower curtain had been gaily colored yellows and browns once. Now they were a drab, washed-out dun color with mold creeping slowly up the plastic curtain. Allison reached into the shower stall, twisted the knob for the hot, and then unbuttoned her blouse. Steam had fogged up the bathroom by the time she stripped out of her clothes. Cotton panties and a mismatched A cup bra went onto the cheap linoleum. Allison stepped under the steaming spray and let the water wash over her naked body.
“You’ll find another job tomorrow,” she told the empty bathroom. “Or the next day. Something will turn up.”
But her heart wasn’t buying it. She crouched down in the floor of the tub and cried until the water ran cold. Then she climbed out, toweled off, and collected her soiled clothes. She sniffed. They weren’t too bad. She’d probably need them for interviews. She carried them into the bedroom, hung the damp towel on the back of the door, and put the clothes back on hangars. As she did, her fingers felt the crumpled napkin in the pocket of her blazer. She took it out, unfolded it, and stared at the string of numbers.
Ten million in ByteCoin would solve all her problems. Hell, ten million would change her life. Too bad she didn’t play the Savage Realms. She started to wad the napkin up, intending to throw it in the trash, and put it on the nightstand instead. She needed a job and a reliable source of income to pay the bills. The stupid napkin with its puzzle and the promise of ten million dollars was j
ust that, a promise not worth the napkin she had scribbled it on.
She whacked at the light switch, threw herself naked onto the bed, and lay there in the dark, fighting back tears. Ten minutes later, she reached over, picked up her phone, and typed Savage Realms into a search bar.
Breath the fresh air! Feel the wind in your hair and the surf between your toes!
The Savage Realms, the advertisements claimed, was a real-world immersive experience unlike any other. The video promised her adventure and excitement in a new world full of new friends with the chance to make real money then encouraged her to find the nearest gaming station.
She scrolled through articles from news sources, detailing this new and unprecedented MMOVR. Allison soon figured out that meant “Massively Multiplayer Online Virtual Reality.” It wasn’t just a game, Allison learned, it was a whole new reality where people, it seemed, were living out their lives inside a computer. Users could grow crops and mine precious metal, which were converted into ByteCoin. The game had given rise to a ballooning industry of games centered around the creation of crypto-currency where players could create digital wealth. The game company, of course, took 1 percent of any wealth created, but Allison found articles about millionaires who had amassed their fortune inside the Savage Realms. She also found articles about digital prostitution, underground gaming centers, gang violence, rape, and players who had their brains turned to mush after dying too many times inside the virtual reality world. Apparently, the claim that Savage Realms wasn’t just a game, it was a whole new reality, were more than simple hyperbole. Allison fell asleep sometime after midnight with the phone still in her hand.
Chapter Ten
The Rowdy Goat lived up to its name. Lanterns hung from exposed beams, surrounded by sluggish halos of pipe tobacco. Drunken sharecroppers and sporting women crowded the common room. The working girls were dressed in brightly colored gowns with plunging necklines and short skirts. The long bar was covered in sticky beer and knife scars. A handful of wobbly tables cluttered the space. The floor sagged and groaned under Mercer’s weight. He signaled the barman and tossed a few coin on the countertop.
A crowd had gathered around an arm wrestling competition. Mercer thought he recognized one of the men from a campaign into the Wild Wastes. His name was Saith, or Shaft, or something. The crowd placed their bets and then the two men strained until veins stood out in their arms and necks. Their faces turned beet red as the crowd cheered. Saith’s (or was it Shaft?) arm bent slowly and inexorably toward the tabletop. His lips peeled back, and he let out a strangled cry, but it was too late. His opponent pinned his hand down, leapt to his feet, and pumped his fists in the air. Saith knocked the table aside, threw himself at the other man, and they both went to the ground in a tangle of flailing arms and legs.
The bartender, a fat man with a bald head and bushy grey sideburns, took out a whistle and gave a long blow. The shrill blast brought a pair of city guards. They elbowed people out of their way and used billy clubs on the struggling men. The whole time that was going on, a dart competition was taking place. The group never even looked around to see what the commotion was about. Mercer watched the pair of bloodied arm wrestlers dragged outside and then turned his attention back to the bar. The bartender pulled a flagon of foamy beer, banged it down on the countertop in front of Mercer, and warned him to stay out of trouble before scooping up the coin.
Drake paid for a drink, sipped the foam off the top, and wiped his mouth. “Think Hardin and his boys are in town?”
“Probably,” Mercer said. He drank the head off his beer and felt the warm glow in his belly. It was hard to believe that it wasn’t real. It wasn’t even something he consciously thought of, just something he instinctually knew, the way he knew the color of his hair. The beer, the bar, the smell of piss and stale hops, none of it was real, but try telling that to his senses.
“Want to ask around?” Drake said.
Mercer shook his head.
“They killed our horses,” Drake pointed out.
“No good will come of it,” Mercer told him.
Drake shook his head, took his beer, and walked over to a card game.
Trix sidled up next to Mercer. She put her back to the bar, propped her elbows up on the counter, stuck her chest out, and said, “Want to bunk with me tonight? Save on ByteCoin?”
Mercer glanced over his shoulder at Drake, who was looking in their direction and turned his head away just as fast. Their little group had developed a complicated love triangle. Drake was in love with Trix, Trix was in love with Mercer, and Mercer liked the sex but had no interest in a relationship. Not with Trix anyway. He turned back to the bar, picked up his mug, and said, “Maybe not a good idea.”
“You got someone in the Real?” Trix asked.
Mercer shook his head. “No. Nothing like that.”
Trix turned toward him and the distance between them shrank. “You like it as much as I do, Merc, so give me one good reason why not.”
“He’s sitting at the card table staring at us,” Mercer said.
“I said a good reason.”
“He likes you, Trix.”
She leaned in and dropped her voice. He could barely hear over the sound of the crowd. “And I like you.” She dropped her voice to a husky whisper. “I like having my legs wrapped around you. Feeling you inside me.”
Trix gave a playful smile and darted her tongue over her lips.
Mercer snorted. It was a cheap trick, but it had the desired effect. He felt himself stiffen and said, “You’re the devil.”
She grinned. “You have no idea.”
Chapter Eleven
Allison came awake in the early morning. The clock beside the bed said it was 4:35. She didn’t know what woke her. One moment she was dead to the world, the next she was wide awake with her heart trying to punch a hole through her chest. At first, she thought it might have been a nightmare. She tried to remember what she had been dreaming, but the images danced just out of reach. She grasped at snatches of memory. Had she been dreaming she was back at work? Begging Ratcheck for her job? Whatever it had been, it wasn’t pleasant. The covers were half off. She kicked them the rest of the way off and sat up in bed. She needed to pee. She could try to hold it until morning, but it would keep waking her so best to get it over with.
Through the window, Allison heard the beep-beep-beep she normally associated with garbage trucks, construction vehicles, and commercial forklifts. Only it was too early for the garbage man. He came on Tuesdays anyway. Allison’s stomach clenched, and all at once she knew what had woken her.
She scrambled across the bed and parted the blinds. A wrecker was backing up to her beat-up Chevrolet. Orange emergency lights flashed off the line of cars in the lot.
“Sugar!”
Allison launched herself off the bed. She had on boring cotton panties and took a second to wrap herself in a lime-green housecoat with frayed hems before hurrying outside into the chill air. She raced downstairs with the coattails of the robe flapping around her bare legs.
“Wait!” she cried as the tow truck driver climbed down out of his cab. “Wait, please.”
He had a stub of cigar clamped between yellow teeth. A bulging gut sagged from a stained white T-shirt over baggy denims. “Whadya want lady?”
“Please don’t tow me,” Allison said. “I know I’m behind. I’ll pay, just give me more time.”
The driver rolled the stub of cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Not up to me, doll. Take it up with the dealer. I just tow ‘em.”
He circled the truck and started hooking the connections to the back of her Chevrolet. Allison followed in her bare feet. Her robe worked its way open without her knowing. “Please,” she said. “I lost my job. How am I supposed to find work if I don’t have a car to go to interviews? I need a car so I can work so I can pay for the car.”
He had his back to her, and Allison could see his crack as he worked. “Should have thought of that before,” h
e told her.
“Give me another week,” Allison begged. “I’ll come up with the money. I promise. Just don’t tow me.”
He straightened up, dusted his hands, and then stopped, staring at the strip of visible flesh between her breasts. His eyebrows went up. He scratched stubble on his cheeks. “Maybe we can work something out.”
Allison glanced down. Her robe had fallen open. The sash hung loose, and her cotton panties were orange in the tow truck’s light. She gathered the material and clutched it tight, all the way up to her chin. Her brows pinched. “Pig!”
“Have it your way, lady.” He shrugged, climbed back into the cab, and shifted the wrecker into drive.
“Filthy, despicable man,” Allison called through the open driver’s-side window.
The tow truck lurched forward, and Allison had to scramble backwards. She watched her Chevrolet pulled out of the parking space, down the lane to the turn off. The brake lights flashed briefly, the driver made a left, and then her car was gone.
Silent tears tracked down her cheeks. She climbed the steps to her apartment, still clutching her robe, and let herself inside. She wondered how many of the neighbors had seen the spectacle in the parking lot, then realized that was the least of her worries. Sobs hitched up from her chest. She threw the door shut with a bang, put her back against it, and slid down to the ground.
Chapter Twelve
Sex with Trix was always a marathon. She had an insatiable appetite and if you finished before her, she had no trouble finishing herself. Afterwards, Mercer and Trix lay awake, lathered in sweat and breathing heavy. He stared up at the dark ceiling, one hand behind his head. Trix lay on her side with one arm draped across his chest. The thin cotton sheet stopped at her thighs, showing the curve of her bottom. Her fingers traced the lines of his chest. “Got another round in you?”
The Savage Realms Page 4
