Gamer Fantastic

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  Tessa yelled, “I don’t know what’s going on here, Len, but I’m warning you—”

  “Oh shut up, lady,” Len said. “We don’t answer to you now. Take her too, Niangarl!”

  “You’re going to regret this, boy,” Ace said. “He’s lied to many who were far smarter than you.”

  “I’m going to regret nothing. I’m going to have a Star Mage’s power for real! ”

  “Silence, Leonard Chandler,” the deep voice boomed out of the black flames. “Your prattling wearies me.”

  Sam blanched at Len’s suggestion. What does that kid know about AJ? The Vanguard? Me? Sam used his keypad to open a private link to AJ, but Sam knew Len and his cronies outside could probably listen in. He whispered, “AJ, how can I help?”

  AJ responded, “Stop the others outside and find the real urn. Deliver that, Sam, and I’ll do the rest.”

  “I brought the one you wanted, Niangarl, and more!” Mason said, kneeling before the cloud. “Pull them in and grant me what’s mine!”

  “Ours, you mean,” Bobby’s voice interrupted.

  “Yeah, ours,” Rick interjected as well.

  “Stupid children, you don’t even say his name right.” AJ snapped.

  “Well, you’re the one who set him free,” Len replied, “so who’s stupid now?”

  “I set him free inside the game, because here he’s limited and I only wanted one magical opponent. If I had let Alan finish, you and he might also be wielding spells against us.”

  “What? Have you all gone nuts?” Tessa said in disbelief.

  Sam kept the headphones on but set the controller down. Thank Herunos these are wireless transmitters. I can keep an ear on what AJ’s up to away from the screens. He checked the pod door and found it locked from the outside. Nah-ah, kids. Doors are my specialty. He concentrated, focusing on the lock, and his hand glowed. A shimmer spread along the door’s frame, and the lock opened with a soft click. Sam visualized a nearby door—the restroom at the back of the exhibit hall. Sam pulled on the pod door, and while it stayed physically shut, a phantom door of magic opened and Sam stepped through it onto the gray tiled floor of the restroom.

  In his headphones, Sam heard Len say, “Take the three of them, demon, and grant us what you promised!” Sam turned, opened the restroom door, and peered into the Guardians Games booth through its rear arch. Sam faced the back of the giant monitors that showed the Online Thrills game to viewers within the castle. Rick stood at the controls for the game at the central console beneath them. Off to one side, Bobby dragged the real gold urn, his red shirt stained with sweat. Sam let the door close behind him, and he slipped out of their line of sight behind the castle wall. Sam’s headphones transmitted the demon’s voice chanting quickly in some unknown language.

  Sam stopped when a flash of light flooded the castle and Rick and Bobby both yelled in surprise. Tessa screamed in the headphones, and AJ then muttered, “Well, that’s a new trick, I suppose.”

  Len babbled, “Hey, wha—How did I get—Why am I here? Where’s Sam?”

  “Very good questions, Leonard,” AJ said. “We’ve been pulled into your game because you betrayed us to this demon. You’re here as he’s fooled you. Sam’s simply returning a favor.”

  Thanks, AJ. No pressure, man, Sam thought to himself.

  Tessa’s voice was tight with panic. “Wha—where? What’s going on? Everything smells like ozone . . . feels like nails on slate . . .”

  Sam heard AJ say, “Don’t worry, Tessa. You’ll be safe. I won’t guarantee you the same, Leonard.”

  “Shut up, old man!” Len yelled, and Sam could hear racing footsteps.

  “Now, kill Soltare in your world for me, and earn your arcane rewards. I must attend to Leonard’s failing me.”

  The resonant voice sent chills down his spine as Sam silently moved around the western corner of the castle toward AJ’s pod. Sam heard Len’s terror as he wailed, “Guys? Get Soltare! Find Sam! Help—no—I—” Len’s voice ended in a scream. “Little traitor. You’re not worthy of any power.” Sam guessed Len had a brutal comeuppance ahead.

  Sam ignored the game and focused instead on the archway ahead. Bobby was in front of him, setting the urn down on the steps into AJ’s pod. Sam lunged, wrapping his left arm tightly around Bobby’s throat and wrenching the obese man’s other arm hard. As Bobby fell unconscious, Sam heard Len’s muffled screaming and AJ talking calmly to Tessa.

  “Tessa, listen to me. The trickster pulled our consciousnesses into our game personas.”

  “This can’t be happening.”

  “I’m afraid it is, dear. I’m sorry. Your employees seem to have nefarious plans for us, no doubt urged on by this sham demon.”

  “You wound my pride, Alexander. These children came to me, awakened me with their silly games and their beliefs in magic.”

  “I thought I’d hidden you well, trapped you in something so ugly no one would ever want it, let alone claim or touch it.”

  “It kept me from this world for far more than sixty years. Leonard Chandler and his cohorts used the urn as a role-playing game prop. While none knew proper words of power to release me, their collective wishes for true magics awakened me enough to speak to them.”

  “AJ, what is it saying? This is just a game. I don’t understand . . .”

  “She doesn’t know your true nature, Alexander Solomon? And you call me trickster.” The spirit’s laughter hurt Sam’s ears as he lowered Bobby to the ground, leaning him against the outside of the pod.

  AJ said, “Tessa, it is by far the most dangerous game imaginable, and we must win it, together.”

  “Comfort your cow if you wish, Alexander. Perhaps I shall keep her as a toy once I’m free . . . in your abiding form. You’ll be a much better vessel after you’ve died.”

  “I don’t fear death, but you should. I know your true name, spirit.”

  “And were you in a legitimate body, I would be quaking in my misty nether regions. I am breaths away from having a form in which I can finally claim my rightful power.”

  AJ laughed. “I doubt that highly. Sam, you’ve got my back?”

  “And front, AJ.” Sam spoke into his microphone. “One down, one to go. Target acquired.”

  “It matters not, Alexander. You’re in here . . . with me. “I can do you grievous harm here. And you still have to worry about protecting someone else.”

  AJ shouted an incantation, but Sam couldn’t hear or see the game and what was going on. He knew the spirit didn’t like it, since his roar rattled the headphones and speakers by the central console.

  Tessa’s voice quavered as she said, “AJ . . . what did . . . how did we get here . . . you can’t cast spells like that . . . Ace can’t . . . you’re not Ace . . . how did you . . .”

  “Tessa!” AJ’s voice snapped through the speakers. “Take the gun from Mason’s belt and blast the urn! NOW!”

  Sam lashed Bobby’s arm to the pod stair railing with his own belt when he heard someone running up behind them. He turned to see Rick staggering toward him, both arms extended overhead with a metal battle-ax in his hands.

  Sam muttered, “Oh for the luvva Mike . . .” He kicked backward from his crouch, catching Rick in the right shin. The man toppled, his ax falling from his hands as he tried to stop his fall. The ax clattered against the pod while Rick slammed to the ground hard. Sam rolled onto his back and slammed his right elbow hard into Rick’s back, driving the wind out of him. Sam knelt atop the prone man, whipping off his own belt to lash Rick’s arms tightly behind him. “Seriously, guys, you’re pathetic villains.”

  “Less jokes, more help, Sam.” AJ snapped, and then muttered another incantation.

  “What’s this new form?” The demon seemed amused as he said, “Your true self now, Alexander? Excellent. It took all you had six decades ago to imprison me. You’re hardly that strong now.”

  “I’ve stopped you twice already, spirit.” A string of quick mystic words, and Sam heard the demon howl, but in a
n odd muffled way. “Third time’s the charm. Tessa? Some help, please?”

  Abandoning Darlene’s southern drawl, Tessa said, “All right. Eat ice, demon.”

  Sam jogged to the control console, replacing his headset with Rick’s. “AJ, Tessa, I’m at the main console. Should I just pull the plug? Erase this game?”

  AJ said, “No! That’d kill us and leave it free!” He turned briefly, and Sam could see the trademark white spit curl of the black-haired immortal mystic Solomon Lazarus. His double-breasted cerulean suit was impeccable, and Sam remembered AJ could switch his personas in the game.

  Lazarus and Darlene were on the warehouse floor, the skylight and chunks of the roof blasted away. The man’s left fist generated a blue shield that protected them from blasts, while his right hand held a yellow bubble around the creature’s flaming head. Darlene fired at the urn with Ace’s frost gun. The demon still clutched Mason in his left hand like a crumpled, bloodied doll.

  Sam hated this—AJ was trapped in a video game, fighting to save himself and Tessa. Sam couldn’t do his job and protect him from here. “How can I help, AJ?”

  AJ yelled, “Find the true urn—it has to be close!”

  “Got it! What should I do with it?”

  “It needs to be trapped inside metal or ceramic. He’s been put into the game, but he’s still tied to the urn.” Lazarus paused to reflect a demonic power blast back at the creature.

  Darlene reloaded the revolver, turned back to the spirit, and yelled syllable per shot. “Worse! Than! Two! Ex! Husbands!” The rune-scoring inside the gun barrel transformed the bullets into cold magic. Ice glaciered the urn, and Sam got an idea.

  Labels marked the console controls, noting each pod, screen, and recent game locations. Sam found the view he wanted—the warehouse door off the alleyway. He focused hard on that image and put it on all the screens in AJ’s pod. Sam said, “I got an idea . . .”

  “Do it fast, Sam!” AJ grunted as a blast got past his shield and hit his right shoulder. The same blast knocked Tessa outside of the shield, and her gun in her hands clattered and slid toward the ice-encased urn.

  The spirit dropped Mason’s bloody form to lunge toward Darlene. It clawed at her, leaving bloody rents in her jacket’s back, and Darlene screamed in pain.

  Lazarus yelled, “Niryanghaarull, HOLD!” He threw a handful of powder at the arm that dwarfed his entire body, and it recoiled in pain.

  “How? Powdered ivory here?” The demon’s arm boiled with black oozing blisters where the powder touched.

  AJ laughed. “Thank goodness we can’t smell that. YOU were the one who pulled me into this reality. Here, I can act as my fictional characters and Solomon Lazarus always has rare components in his preset caches.”

  Sam wished he could watch, but he turned back toward AJ’s pod. He focused his mind’s eye on the image of the alley door in the game. Sam grabbed the grotesque gold urn by its crooked arm. Damn, this thing’s heavier than it looks. He heard a small voice in his head. I can reward you in unimaginable ways, mortal . . .

  “Sure, sure, sure,” Sam muttered, and he grabbed the pod door with his right hand. A moment’s focus, and a miragelike shimmer suffused the whole door. Sam willed that door to link to the virtual warehouse door, and yelled, “AJ! Incoming!” He yanked the pod door open and energy arced in the doorway as magic and technology fought to reassert control in that threshold’s reality. Sam flung the urn as hard as he could directly through the door and into that energy. He held his breath until he saw the urn fall—not on the floor pads or the fallen AJ—through the warehouse door on the screens and into the warehouse itself. Sam let go of the door and now watched the events on the monitors.

  The gold missile clattered across the iced-up floor, and the demon grabbed at it. Lazarus threw another handful of powder and yelled, “Niryanghaarull, PAIN!” The spirit reared back as if stung, and it howled.

  Sam watched Darlene pull her own gun from her purse and aim it at the sliding urn. Sam yelled into the headphones, “Tessa, let it hit!”

  The urn slid against its ice-encrusted double with a bell-like toll. Blazing bolts of power cascaded from where the two urns touched. The spirit wailed and lurched as the power arced bolts through it.

  “NOW, Tessa!” Sam yelled. “Shoot both urns!”

  Darlene fired, and each shot made Niryanghaarull spasm as well as fracturing each urn.

  Lazarus wove an intricate incantation. “Niryanghaarull, darkroath nullif xaen. Niryanghaarull, sruroath nullif xaen. Niryanghaarull, plaraoath nullif xaen. Niryanghaarull, xaen. Niryanghaarull, xaen. NIRYANGHAARULL, XAEN!” As Lazarus cast, energy grew around the spirit and its urns. With the spell’s final syllable, Darlene fired her last shot into the urns, destroying them. Sam, Lazarus, and Darlene all shielded their eyes from the brilliance, while the demon roared the speakers to feedback.

  Sam expected another explosion, but the light dimmed quickly. Sam looked at the screen to see Darlene and Lazarus approaching the mound of golden shards. Lazarus muttered another spell, and the shards all flashed and dissolved into twinkling lights. Sam approached AJ’s fallen body, and checked his pulse. Whew. Still beating.

  “What the hell just happened?” Tessa asked.

  “An old threat resurfaced, and we buried it, perhaps for good,” Lazarus said, and he gestured toward her, his palms glowing. He touched Darlene, and the persona dissolved.

  Sam said, “Whoa! AJ? Tessa? You guys okay?”

  Tessa replied, “Wow. Um, wow. Oh, thank God . . .”

  Lazarus turned out toward the screen to face Sam. “We’re fine, Sam. I just returned Tessa’s spirit to her body, and I’ll do the same for myself in a moment. I’ll ensure that trickster is truly stuck in here, since I can’t cast the same spells outside of this reality. Very handy, using one’s fictional selves like this.”

  “All that magic you were slinging around?” Sam asked. “Just who exactly were you, AJ? You weren’t just Lexicon Jones, then?”

  “Obviously not, Sam.” Ace cocked an eyebrow at him. “Monty wrote up my cases as Solomon Lazarus and the Redressor, as I wrote up his as the Gaslight. I was never Ace Barrigan until today. We may need to make up an identity for your exploits, young man. Sending the urn into the game as well was brilliant.”

  “Like you told me, ‘Instinct and improvisation fueled magic for millennia before any written ritual.’ I figured the metal and ceramic servers for this game ought to be able to hold old Green-gas.”

  “And with both urns shattered, the trickster can’t be restored unless game characters rebuild both urns perfectly while knowing the creature’s true name. I’ve already scattered the pieces all across this virtual world. Once we wipe out all references to it, he’s gone for at least another lifetime or longer.”

  Solomon Lazarus nodded, “By the way, Sam, this makes us even.” With that, the persona sketched a loose salute to his shock of white hair and faded away. Sam breathed a sigh of relief at the same time AJ’s eyes snapped open and he drew an equally large breath. By the time Tessa had reached the open pod, Sam had AJ on his feet.

  AJ looked at Tessa and said, “Interesting game, though I think you’ll need some other programmers to run it tomorrow, dear.”

  “I need an explanation, guys,” Tessa said, “I have to call the police . . . though I have no idea what to report, how not to sound insane . . .”

  “Leave the boys to me,” Sam said. “AJ can explain, while I put them where they can’t cause any more problems.”

  “You some kind of cleanup crew or something?” Tessa laughed, but Sam could sense the fear in her eyes and voice. “Do I disappear, too?”

  “Hardly, Tessa,” AJ chuckled. “You’re too valuable to Bulwark’s publishing ventures right where you are. And now that you know that magic is not just fictional, you can be of great help. After all, many have panicked, but you came through with fire.”

  Tessa laughed nervously at AJ and Sam. She looked at Bobby and Rick and shook her head. Open
ing her cell phone, she punched a number, and said, “Roger, you and Sandy will run the pod demos tomorrow. Grab four more people and get down here to the exhibit hall. We still need secondary pod testing tonight. My guests and I will be gone, but I’ll have the guards let you in. We’ll leave the machines on for you.” She paused before saying, “No. Len, Rick, and Bobby were fired and will be gone ASAP. Now get down here.”

  She shut the phone and sighed wearily. “You owe me a drink the size of a nine-year-old to help me absorb all this. One probably wouldn’t hurt you either. And I’ve got a lot of questions right now . . .”

  “I understand, Tessa,” AJ said. “There are always questions with magic, whether in stories, games, or real life.”

  GAME TESTING

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Her car broke down north of Cairo, but Jen DeAngelo couldn’t stay in Illinois. She lived by only a few rules:

  Stay until life became unbearable.

  Get close to no one.

  Stop wherever the car did.

  Never live in the same state more than once.

  When the car broke down, she had to choose between rule 3 and rule 4. She decided to violate rule 3—not liking the precedent—but liking it better than violating rule 4.

  Besides, she’d lived in Illinois once. And that experience was one of the things that led to rule 4. She’d be damned if she lived in Illinois again.

  She traded in the car for an old van and paid cash for the difference from the last of her savings from her previous job. She had enough money left for two tanks of gas, one night in a hotel, or a two weeks’ worth of meals.

  She opted for one tank of gas and one week’s meals, figuring by the time the gas ran out, she’d be out of Illinois. She made it to southern Wisconsin before the indicator light came on and to the tourist town of Lake Geneva before she had to put the van in neutral and coast down what had to be the highest hill in the entire state.

  She eased the van into a parking lot beside the library, a 1950s Frank Lloyd Wright classic that overlooked the lake.