Gestation

by John Gold

  “How did you bring all them here?”

  “My cart is out back.”

  Hela starts laughing louder and louder, finally grabbing her stomach with one hand and the desk with the other. Finally, she replies.

  “So, some kid got to the middle of Hashan Desert alone? And he killed thousands of monsters, hauling them back in a cart?”

  “That’s what my second question is about, and I have an offer, too. If you agree, I’ll give you a present. I have a lot of loot that needs to be identified…a lot.” Hela stops laughing and glances at the door leading to the back courtyard. “You’d probably like to boost your identification skill, right? When we’re done, you can keep one item…absolutely anything!”

  “Deal! We’ll count your monsters at the same time.”

  “Okay, but let’s do it tomorrow. For now, I need to make sure my cart is safe until the morning. We’ll get started then.”

  I had to run from the desert to Sural itself. After getting some rest, eating, and getting ready for a double day, I log into the game.

  We sit there for nearly 24 hours, going through and identifying everything I have. Hela jumps for joy when her identification skill hits 750. I’ve never seen a happier girl.

  I’m already starting to get a good picture of the local people and the players. I like people like Hela much more than others. She’s open and kind…and beautiful.

  Once we have finished identifying everything, the girl picks some stylish epic boots and I head off.

  It wasn’t “death goes to the auction.” I’m just a simple village boy hauling a cart loaded with sacks. People laugh at me and offer to give me a horse, though I decline. A horse would die if I asked it to pull this much weight! If those idiots knew that what I have in these bags is worth a million gold, they’d shut up.

  I spend the rest of the day putting up lots, setting minimum prices, and figuring out the auction. Then, I go back to sleep. I don’t have much time left.

  The next morning, I drop by the local caliph’s palace. My reputation in the caliphate is up to esteem, so I can buy property or open a shop as soon as I get full access in the game. Just a couple of months left! In a word, the government would like me to stay in the city for a while, maybe even forever. My fantastic reward puts me in a good mood, too. I was way off on the number of monsters I’d killed. There were almost fifty-five hundred, and I got a thousand gold each for the heads of the raid bosses. I walk away fifty-eight thousand gold heavier, though that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to what I need. My main income will be from the loot.

  I have about thirty hours until trade closes. There are just twenty-five days left until my probation with the Hunters starts, and I need to get home, too. I wouldn’t use a portal even if I could—they only work within continents and log player movement. Guild hunters out looking for criminals and other serious organizations are all that use them. I have at least one god on my list of enemies, and I’m not interested in leaving tracks someone could use to find me.

  I need Hela. She probably knows about the city.

  “Hi, Miss Hela.”

  “Hey, Sagie, what’s new? Need something else identified?”

  “Sorry, I don’t have any new boots yet.” I pull my red bucket hat off my head and look at the floor guiltily. The girl laughs. “I’m looking for information about a city, and nobody in Sural will tell me anything about it. With my reputation, too!”

  “What’s the city?”

  “Zirda.”

  Hela looks at me as if I just made a mess.

  “If I didn’t know you so well, I’d think you were a bandit. Zirda is in Ovidius, a long way from human and dwarf lands.”

  Ovidius is the continent that’s south-west on my map. It’s also home to Imir and my village, which means that I’m going to have to cross all of Congul and most of the next continent…on foot.

  “Why a bandit?”

  Hela started frowning the second she heard the name Zirda.

  “That’s where convicts and prisoners run off to. Your killers, too, trying to avoid the long reach of the law. It’s No Man’s Land. A huge area of lawlessness. Now, do you understand what other people thought when you asked them about Zirda and how to get there?”

  “Got it, thanks for explaining. Could you show me where it is?” I pull out my map.

  “It’s around here, though I don’t know where exactly. But I’m getting tired of your surprises! Where did you get a map like this?”

  I put it away and look at her triumphantly.

  “I traded a black pearl the size of my fist for it. Okay, time to run—maybe, we’ll see each other again.” Hela just stands there, her mouth agape.

  Homeward bound.

  I slip on six red master rings and set off at a speed of forty kilometers an hour. I’m not getting tired, but that isn’t fast enough. Even though a pet is the only thing that would solve my problem, there isn’t much sense getting one.

  My path lies through woods, fields, mountains, and even the sea. But nobody stops me. I’m on my way home. I see castles and cities, people and other creatures. When I run through an elf forest regardless of the fact that it’s forbidden it’s my perception that saves me from the traps and ambushes they set. I’ve been running away my whole life, so I’m able to get away from them and escape their dominion. It’s a small piece of the Golden Forest marked on my map as a gray spot.

  I run through areas populated with orcs and trolls. Suddenly, enormous steppes pop up, and trees are fewer and farther between. Next is a rocky wasteland with one mountain range following the other.

  In a small town in the middle of the continent, I stop by the auction and pick up my money. The amount totals 22.5 million gold. A quarter of it comes from two full sets of plate armor I got from the raid bosses, while the third dropped a pair of swords that went for two million.

  The first thing I do is convert it all into real-world credits and send it to Malcolm to found the orphanage with. For the last three months, Vaalsie has been calling me to ask why I haven’t taken the tests for my basic education, and I’ve been completely refusing to work with him. He’s just Eliza’s lackey. I’m getting transferred in two weeks, which will be the end of my problems. I’ll slip right out from under his nose with a month and a half left before my fourteenth birthday.

  The very southern tip of Congul is home to the port city Nikat. It’s protected from the land side by a tall castle wall, and from the sea side by a fort armed with powerful weapons.

  I get to it at night and run smack into the closed gate. It’s quarantined, so they aren’t even letting people in during the day, though I don’t want to run all the way around. Diseases don’t scare me.

  City walls are nothing compared to the holes in Hell, so I quickly get in through the fortifications and take off running toward the port. The guards notice me when I leap down from the wall, and they set off after me. A few of them are just as fast as I am, though I leap off a pier and dash across the water just before they catch me.

  It’s a long time after midnight. As soon as I get to the nearest island, I find a spot in a tree and fall asleep. It’s been fifty hours since I last rested. I need a break!

  Two-thirds of my journey is in the past, and I’m on an island between Congul and Ovidius. Whales, sea monsters, warships, and fishing boats far out at sea surround me, and I enjoy taking a moment to look around. By the evening of the second day, I arrive in Ovidius and decide to stop for more rest. I climb up into a tree and nearly jump out of my skin when I see a monkey staring at me in shock. It even shares its food with me before dashing off to the next tree over. The locals’ Level 50 means nothing to me, and they aren’t aggressive at all. I log out of the game.

  When I log back in, I find myself on a small island in the open water. A tornado whirls nearby, kicking up the water, and large waves crash against the shore. I must have been swept out to sea during the storm. That’s an interesting effect to keep in mind.

  I have t
o run through the poor weather, though it just cheers me up. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time, in fact. I get to the first cities by the evening, and the people there take no notice of me. Good, nobody’s looking for me after breaking into Nikat and running from the guards. Although, nobody knows who I am there.

  On the outskirts of Imir, I find traces of recent battles. The forest has been burned to the ground in places, though I’m still overjoyed to be running through familiar terrain. War, destruction, villages, and the smell of the woods and water all make me feel like I’m home.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  There were three people in the office, and the mood was all business. The girl was trying to convince her two bosses of how important it was to increase her financing.

  “Alfred, you’ve seen the results! The kids have no problem adapting to the groups at their orphanages, fights and other deviant behavior have dropped precipitously, and all I want to do is boost the number of game centers.”

  “I get it. You want to expand your program, but what’s the point of that? We think it’s the game itself having that effect, and not your project with the animals.”

  Eliza frowned.

  “My proposal includes reports on the analysis we did of two focus groups. There’s a clear difference in behavior for problem kids—one group lives ordinary lives, while I still have to keep an eye on the other.

  The men glanced at each other and nodded.

  “Good enough—we’re in.”

  “What was the farce for then?”

  “We needed to make sure you were following logic, and not your emotions and motherly instincts.”

  That kind of thing said to a student was insulting, but there was a degree of truth to it.

  “Understood. No offense.”

  “We’ll increase the project’s budget, and we’ll open five new zoos in Project Chrysalis. Send us your list of people for the project and the estimated expenses as soon as they’re ready.”

  The pair got up and left the office, while Eliza collapsed wearily into her chair. The happy smile on her face made her awfully beautiful. She’d chosen a career in science and turned her back on the idea of having her own children, so she didn’t have any. The project helped her meet her need to care for someone. Eliza understood that perfectly well, though she was able to control her emotions and desires. Talking with men was always about numbers and facts, and that’s what she’d given them.

  “Miss Donovan, Anji Ganet is online and would like to meet.” Moro had politely waited until the end of the conversation before giving Eliza the news.

  “What a day! Tomorrow, aliens are going to get in touch and tell me I’m supposed to save the world.”

  “Miss Donovan, your sarcasm is unseemly. Patients almost never ask for contact themselves.”

  “I know…it’s just been a tough day. Connect Ganet to my room.”

  “Okay.”

  Eliza laid back in her capsule and entered the virtual space, always happy to spend some time in her childhood room.

  Anji was standing in the center. The boy looked happy, almost like a normal child. He pointed at his ear.

  “No, nobody’s listening.”

  “Hi, Miss Donovan.”

  “Finally, you’re talking. And you’re practically bursting with happiness.”

  “You’re right. I’m in a good mood, and I have decided to talk with you. You wanted to know why I don’t talk with the other kids, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you already know.”

  “Sure. You don’t want to talk with people who aren’t as smart as you. I saw the fight in the center and know why it happened. Do you think that will make you happy? You don’t have anyone.”

  “You seriously overestimate my need to talk with people, Miss Donovan. I think most people are idiots who just want to humiliate anyone who’s better than them. They think they can break my will if they’re stronger or come at me in a group…but they’re wrong.”

  “Not everyone is like that, Anji. There have been some people who’ve treated you well.”

  “Yes, and you tried to use that against me. I appreciate the lesson and won’t let that be a weakness again.”

  Eliza tensed up, wondering where the conversation was going.

  “You’re a smart boy, and you know that not talking is slowing down your psychological development. Your emotional intellect coefficient is far behind the curve, but you’re still young. We can fix that.”

  “Talking… I’ve only ever had two people I considered friends. I feel too guilty to talk with one now, and the other stripped me of a normal childhood and tried to kill me. With friends like that, what do I need talking for?”

  “You’re exaggerating. Not all people are that bad.”

  “I know, Miss Donovan. There are others, too. But I don’t want…I’m not going to make that mistake. I’d rather stay a child than become an adult like her.”

  Eliza could have said that she saw Rachel, but she didn’t. The boy needed to forget about that incident and move on.

  “You decide for yourself who you’re going to be. You don’t have to be like her; you’re you. Don’t close the world out just because of people like that.”

  “Those are just words, Miss Donovan. Goodbye.”

  “Wait! There’s a zoo in Denev, a city in Radaam. Stop by when you think you need to.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Anji left the personal virtual space. Moro, who had said nothing the whole time, piped up.

  “Congratulations, Miss Donovan. The boy talked! Would you like me to add that to his file?”

  “No point. We didn’t solve the problem; we just found a temporary improvement. Something’s off about him, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anji has already showed us that he always has a reason for everything he does. I don’t think he just missed me, so he probably agreed to talk because of his youth and inexperience. People like that act when they feel like they’re in control.”

  Moro and Eliza left the virtual space without saying anything else. There was a lot of work ahead thanks to the new zoos, and the girl had already put everything having to do with Anji on the back burner. All she had were ideas, though something was definitely going on.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  My mood is great. Malcom told me that he bought the building and will have the equipment delivered in a week, and then it’ll be a couple of days finding the staff and getting them set up. In ten days, I’ll submit a transfer request, and I’ll be sitting in a shuttle on my way to Arpa in two weeks. The list of orphans has already been confirmed.

  I get to Imir in the depths of night. There are players running around everywhere, mostly new ones killing poor rabbits while their stronger friends cover them. I have to laugh. It’s a starter location, so the gates are always open, which is why life goes on around the clock.

  Throwing on my cloak of death to make sure nobody can see my face, I dash through the city and glance over at the square. Teurus’ main temple, of which I have the fondest memories, is still there. I don’t have any business there, however, so I follow my heart and head home.

  The journey that used to take an hour takes just ten minutes, and I stop in front of…my house?

  But it isn’t there. In front of me is just a pile of ash. The walls are scorched, the windows have no glass in them, the fence is a pile of charred wood, and the fire hasn’t spared anything inside. My room is there, as is my burnt bed. So is the table where father and I ate mama’s soup. In red, on the front foundation of the house, there’s a message: Killer! Death to killers!

  They’re…no, that can’t be. I know who can answer my questions.

  The blacksmith’s home isn’t far from ours. Rachel definitely isn’t here, but her dad will tell me what I need to know.

  Breaking into the house is easy enough. I use telekinesis to slip the bolt out of the lock and sneak in. I’m here to get answers, and I’d be perfectly happy to kill if
that will help me get them. I’m wearing my death outfit—all I’m missing is a scythe.

  “Get up, blacksmith, your time has come!”

  What could be more fun than hearing that bastard howling wildly?

  “Ah-h-h!”

  The shroud of darkness and my skeleton hands touch the blacksmith’s face.

  “Ready? I can take your wife, too.”

  “Why don’t you just take her?”

  Setting people up apparently runs in the family.

  “No, just you. There’s a hole full of boiling blood and devils with pitchforks waiting to punish you for your sins. Get up.” I extend a bony hand.

  His wife wakes up and runs out screaming, having heard exactly what her husband said. The blacksmith quivers.

  “Two years ago, you had a daughter named Rachel and a neighbor who was a fisherman. What happened to them?”

  The blacksmith, sobbing and sighing, tells me the part of the story that I couldn’t know.

  “The fisherman had a son named Sagie who killed one of Teurus’ priests and ran. They couldn’t find him,” the blacksmith says, stopping to wipe his nose. “According to our laws, parents are responsible for their children, so they took them. I don’t know anything else, I swear!” He starts praying right there in the bed.

  “Where’s your daughter?”

  I feel an unimaginable rage. By some miracle, I don’t kill him. I need information.

  “She disappeared right around that time, and we thought the slut had probably run off with the kid.”

  “Why didn’t anyone suspect that your daughter was the one who killed the priest?”

  The blacksmith thinks to himself and realizes what I’m getting at. His daughter isn’t there, meaning that he could be taken.

  “They found a wooden dagger in the pool of the priest’s blood. When they started roughing up the slums looking for information, they found out that there were two wanderers Sagie apparently boasted to a week before the murder. He said he could rob the temple. When the guards came for Sagie, Camelia was the only one home. They showed her the dagger and asked if it belonged to her son. Arman was out fishing. When she said it did, they took her away and grabbed him when he got back.”