by Mark C. Wade
But then it all ended, and Quillen untied Henry gently. It never ceased to amaze Henry how quickly he could turn it on and off.
Quillen tried one last line of the roleplay. “I guess that will do for now, but I better not catch you packing that much wood again.”
The intensity of the experience with that horrible line caused Henry to burst out laughing. Tears rolled down his cheeks as all the tautness ran out of his muscles.
Quillen’s face dropped with concern. He said, “Hey, I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”
He moved in and kissed and Henry.
Henry said, “No. It was excellent.”
Quillen stripped down to his undershirt and boxers and slid into bed with Henry. He said, “Well, I’m going to stay to make sure if that’s okay.”
“That’s more than okay.”
They slept soundly through the night until a ray of morning light struck Henry awake.
Quillen’s large arms held him with such security, such warmth. It was hard to believe this was the same beast who had just done all of that.
Henry shifted back into the large, muscular body. He wished he could just merge right into it.
Why had it taken this to make Henry realize the truth?
Quillen had always been there for him. He’d comforted Henry with no complaints or expectations after Marie left him.
The thugs he’d been investigating kidnapped her to make Henry stop. It was an easy decision for her. The years they’d been together were not enough to overcome the threat of that happening again.
Henry didn’t blame her. And that’s when he swore off relationships forever.
Quillen had even stayed hopeful in the years of Henry’s descent into a pathetic slob—continually sending him jobs to get him on his feet again.
Henry had ignored it all, and somehow, he had a second chance at a real life.
A tear trickled down Henry’s cheek. He was not a softy that felt gratitude, but something inside him felt it so deeply for Quillen that it hurt.
Quillen shifted, and he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Henry rolled over to look at Quillen. He asked, “What do you see in me? Why didn’t you ever give up? You’re perfect with that perfect body and high-status job. I’m a miserable slob. I have a…” Henry looked to his stomach, remembering that night at the Glistening Baboon, “…a beer belly.”
Quillen laughed softly. “Henry, I like your body if you couldn’t tell. To me, you’re the one who’s perfect. I’m the neurotic mess. You make me a better person. I was just trying to do the same for you.”
“Quillen…”
Henry’s thought was cut off with Quillen’s soft kiss. They held each other until the night caressed them to sleep.
Morning came, and Henry expected the same old story. Quillen would pull away with the light of day to sober him.
But this time Quillen sensed the movement and gripped him tightly.
Henry asked, “What about breakfast in bed?”
Quillen grabbed his device by the bed. “Shit. I have a meeting.”
Henry wanted to know what any of this meant. A shift seemed to have happened. Quillen was somehow already most of the way back in uniform, and Henry decided to not spoil it. Watching that body move always drove him wild.
Quillen’s eyes were serious now, and Henry loved that even more.
He said, “Henry, none of this changes what I said before. I’m not giving you leeway. Work is work. What we have is personal. The rules say there must be a clear divide. I won’t hesitate to take action if you mess with the case.”
Henry let out an aroused grunt as he thought about Quillen taking disciplinary action against him, again.
Quillen continued, “You work for Nyissa for goodness sake.” He blanched and shook his head. “If the ethics board ever got wind of this.”
Ah, rules again. That was all Quillen cared about.
Henry said, “I know.”
Quillen retorted, “Then stopped smirking like that!”
Henry couldn’t help it. Quillen gave a quick goodbye kiss and was out the door.
Chapter 12
Henry couldn’t believe he was already headed back to the convention center. He was not a sporting event type of person, and so he felt none of the excitement or enthusiasm of the rest of the crowd. It didn’t help that this time he had to wait in line as the people streamed into the giant domed building.
Henry worked his way through the crowds, down to the front row. The stadium had probably been originally built for large sporting events like football games. This meant the center area was larger than a football field.
It was gigantic, but it was also necessary for this gathering.
This whole concept sort of crept Henry out. Fifty pods were lined up along the Astroturf, and giant screens had been put up in the end zones. Henry couldn’t believe he was going to watch people go into those pods, and then some form of the competition would be projected onto the screen.
It was one thing to go into a virtual reality game on your own. It was super creepy to think that these people would be practically unconscious, lying there in front of a gigantic crowd while they competed in the game.
Henry also didn’t understand the appeal of doing this live when everyone could watch remotely from their homes. The screen would be a boring substitute for being in the world itself, and it wasn’t like the contestants could hear their cheers.
Henry settled onto the hard metal seat. The person next to him grumbled, and Henry was about to give them a piece of his mind when he saw who it was.
Lukas, the podcaster, had noticed him first.
Lukas said, “I didn’t think I would be seeing you again anytime soon.”
“Yeah, I can’t say I’m thrilled to see you, either.”
“So, I guess you were telling the truth. I don’t think you can get a seat in this section without some sort of special privileges, and you certainly aren’t press covering the game.”
Henry said, “Well, at least I have someone to ask questions to if I get confused at some point.”
Lukas nodded but then added, “Don’t interfere with me if I’m in the middle of dictation. It’s my job to cover this. I’m not sure what you think you’re gonna learn here.”
The lights dimmed, and an exultant brass melody began to play. Henry thought it might have been a rip-off of the Olympic theme.
The competitors streamed into the stadium. For a second, Henry almost believed these were real athletes coming onto the field for competition. They wore loose-fitting tracksuits, just like a team about to warm up for serious physical activity.
But then he noticed how out of shape they were. The illusion was gone.
The fifty competitors in this round were a solid mix of races and genders. Henry hadn’t expected that. He thought of gamers as pasty white guys living in their mothers’ basements.
Nyissa was in this round as the clear top seed. Henry watched her come to the pod closest to his seat. No one booed her this time. Henry assumed it was because there was too much going on.
He couldn’t believe the whole thing could be over so fast. If she didn’t get first place in this round, she was out of the tournament. And then Henry would be out the money.
An announcer boomed throughout the room.
“Round one will begin in five minutes. Competitors take your positions.”
The people got into their pods and put their VR headsets on. The sound of judges and referees moved about the field, checking to make sure everything was in place.
Lukas said, “They’re mostly making sure the noise-canceling headsets are on. The easiest way for one of them to cheat is to listen to the announcers.”
Henry wanted to grumble that he knew that, but he hadn’t.
He said, “Thanks.”
There were two announcers now. A cheerful banter emerged between them. They were far too excited to watch what was going to happen.
“All five rounds will be compe
ted on different arenas. These arenas were specifically designed for the tournament and have nothing to do with the main world of Eburnean Passage. The players will have to navigate and learn the terrain and how it works as they go.”
The crowd erupted into excited cheers.
“Every five minutes the size of the arena will get smaller, forcing the players closer together. By the end, only one will remain. That is the winner.”
The lights dimmed. The final countdown was projected onto the screen.
Ten, nine, eight,…
Henry sensed the tension in the room. He tried to fight off the emotions within him, but he couldn’t help it. The drama and excitement were real. He wanted to see Nyissa win; he needed her to win.
Then it began.
The screen showed an overhead map of a roughly circular area. There were fifty red dots spread across it, indicating the positions of each of the people.
The map zoomed in on one of them. It was Nyissa. Henry accidentally let out a little whoop of excitement as the rest of the crowd booed. He struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.
They appeared to be on some tropical island. But the sand was red. Nyissa frantically glanced around for any enemies. When none were in sight, she rushed into a decrepit shack by the water. It looked like a haunted house.
Once inside, she used one of her assassin abilities and disappeared into the wall.
One announcer said, “It looks like the thief and assassin classes are going to have a huge advantage in this tournament format. Stealth will play a vital role in survival.”
The audience booed again.
The screen shifted to someone else. He was a giant brute and wore a Viking helmet. He had a giant hammer as a weapon slung over his shoulder. This guy had absolutely no stealth about him.
He had to be the strongest person in the entire round. His body reminded Henry of the Hulk, except that he wasn’t green. The gigantic muscles bulged as he ran, pounding the ground, indicating to all nearby people exactly where he was.
An arrow came out of nowhere flying directly at the guy’s head. The gigantic beast noticed just in time and did a flying dive roll. Henry had to remind himself it was just a game. No person of that size could move with that nimble speed.
Wherever this hidden person was that shot the arrow, they were smart. They predicted exactly where his dive roll ended, and a flurry of arrows came raining down from overhead. The man cried out in horror.
But he thought fast and apparently had some sort of spell ready. He pressed his hands upward, and the arrows deflected. He continued to run. The hulk saw the entrance to the shack and bolted toward it.
Henry wasn’t sure whether it was the same one that Nyissa went into. The screen zoomed out, and there were several other structures that looked the same around the edge of the island.
Once the brute was safely inside, he stopped for a moment and breathed heavily.
Henry thought this was strange. The game must keep track of how much energy one exerts and exhaust some sort of stamina based on this. The hulk moved into the room farther. He seemed to be looking around for anything that might be useful in the building.
There was a chest, and he knelt at it. The man opened it up, and then he was screaming. The camera pulled away and showed Nyissa with her sword through the hulk’s back. A devious smile came across her face.
Henry looked to the top right of the screen. The number of people remaining had already decreased to 31. A warning horn sounded. The available area began to shrink.
Nyissa was almost overtaken by it, but she flew from the building when she saw it coming.
As soon as she hit the red sand, her entire body took on the hue of the redness. It was like she disappeared. All that could be seen was a light shimmering across the sand as she sped onward to the next area.
Henry’s body hummed with electricity as he silently rooted for her.
His heart pounded, and he stood up with the rest of the crowd. She was going to win this. She could do it.
He didn’t understand what made this so captivating to watch. He wasn’t even playing. This was merely a bunch of people playing the game on a screen in front of him.
The outer beach area had disappeared and was now off-limits. The screen shifted away from Nyissa.
Henry had been so focused on watching Nyissa that he forgot to listen to the announcers. Now that new people were on the screen, he began to listen again.
“Here we seem to have a highly tactical battle of minds. Very little seems to be happening on the surface, but each one keeps predicting resistances and counterspells. These are the two best mages in the game. The one is a summoner; the other is a conjurer.”
Henry looked at Lukas. He didn’t seem to be dictating. This was something he needed help with.
Henry asked, “Hey, what the hell is the difference between a summoner and a conjurer? That sounds the same to me.”
Lukas said, “A summoner, well, summons things. Like right there. That was a fire elemental. A conjurer uses conjurations. So, he just predicted the elemental and used ice blast, which is strong versus fire magic. Both are mage classes, so they have access to standard spells as well. There! The summoner saw ice blast coming and cast a counterspell.”
Henry’s head spun as he watched the delicate dance of spell, counterspell. By the way the crowd reacted, he knew it was exciting for some. For him it looked like a bunch of people standing around doing nothing.
Eventually, one of them faltered. He couldn’t even tell which one was which anymore. The avatar of the loser disappeared as a barrage of spells landed on him.
The announcers had been so captured by the technical prowess of the battle, that they had neglected everyone else in that time segment. The horn blasted, and the world began to close in toward the center again.
The screen flicked over to another battle happening. It was near the edge of the allowable zone. The wall of red shifted toward them as they fought. Henry didn’t know what would happen if someone went through it.
A centaur was firing arrows at someone, and Henry couldn’t identify what class they were just from looks alone.
The person darted around, dodging the arrows. But the centaur was dangerously close to the edge, and one time, the guy flew up from his roll and quickly shot his hands out directly at the centaur.
Henry didn’t see anything, but it must have been a blast of air because the centaur flew back with a shocked look across his face. His body hit the danger zone and disintegrated.
Oh. So that’s what happens.
And then there were six.
The screen returned to Nyissa. She was still practically invisible. She hid up against a palm tree, and as one person ran from the danger zone, she slipped back into sight and performed another backstab, instantly killing the person.
She darted about the small remaining area, and the final people engaged in a wild free-for-all. Spells and swords and daggers and summoned elementals flooded the screen. Henry couldn’t keep track of it all.
It gave him a headache.
Nyissa easily dodged the chaos, and then only one other remained. She struck at the person with a clean, rapid swipe of her sword. The person didn’t even have time to see it coming.
It all ended so suddenly. The crowd sat in silence trying to figure out if it was over.
The win was as convincing as anyone could have predicted.
Victory music began to play. Nyissa held up her arms on the screen. It was like the crowd momentarily forgot how much they hated her, and they rejoiced in her win. It was exciting to see Round One finish.
But then Henry looked at Nyissa’s pod. Her body convulsed wildly. Something was wrong. It was almost as if the win had triggered her VR gear to malfunction. Henry quickly jabbed a finger into Lukas’s arm.
It was hard to hear anything with the roar of the crowd, so Henry frantically pointed at Nyissa. She was going to die just like Zane if no one did anything.
But no one ha
d noticed yet with the excitement of the win. Their eyes remained fixed on the screen.
Henry didn’t know how much time they had, but luckily, he and Lukas were in the front row closest to her pod.
They both jumped out of their seats and crossed the security tape and ran to be with Nyissa in her final moments.
Chapter 13
Lukas got to work on Nyissa’s headset. He pulled out a tiny screwdriver from his pocket and got a piece of the headset off, revealing the ugly circuit-filled innards of the gear.
What the fuck?
Lukas turned his tablet sideways, and the keyboard appeared. He somehow connected it to the headset and typed furiously. Nyissa’s body stopped convulsing, and her breathing returned to normal.
Henry realized he’d been shaking and plopped onto the ground in relief. She would pull through. There would not be another murder on his watch.
Lukas pulled the helmet off Nyissa, and her eyes were dilated and unfocused. She just stared off into space for a moment.
Lukas said in a soothing voice, “You’re going to be okay.”
Nyissa rocked back and forth in her pod as she began to return to normal. It was the first time Henry had ever seen her look frail and vulnerable.
She asked, “What happened?”
Lukas calmly said, “Your VR gear malfunctioned. It looks like someone rerouted the main capacitor to the visual cortex function. This created a feedback loop so that the more visual information it fed to your brain, the more the capacitor would overload. At some point it got to be too much and released the stored-up energy directly to your brain. If I didn’t break the loop, it would have fried you.”
Guards ran over to find out what was wrong. Henry was about to protest when one of them grabbed Lukas and dragged him away.
But then a set of rough hands gripped Henry’s arms and yanked him back as well.
“Hey. Watch it!” Henry protested.
Nyissa said, “Wait. They saved me. They aren’t trying to hurt me.”
