With that, we turn to go. I walk past the doorways and the depravities behind them without looking, without hearing the moans of pleasure and pain. Mika stays by my side, and together we try to walk without seeming like we’re fleeing from Kara’s knowing eyes. Eyes that still watch us.
Vera waits for us, a chipper grin on her face. “Finished with your audience? You’re lucky. Madam Kara doesn’t see many clients personally.”
“Yeah, lucky,” I say with a wry glance to Mika.
“If you’re ready, I’ll see you out and give you the door code to the target estate,” she says, motioning to the door in a way that’s somehow completely innocent while still drawing the eye along every exposed in of her flesh.
“Please,” Mika says fervently. “And I’m sorry, but I think I’m going to have to break that date.”
20
Acheryx
Estate Hub
Player: Sam
Level 4
“You sure you have the number memorized?”
Mika taps her forehead. “Yup. It’s only twelve digits long.”
“Only,” I chuckle. “I can’t even remember my cellphone number, and the last time I used it was… God, how many days since we woke up?”
Mika squints to find Wick’s silhouette as he melts into and out of alleyways and doorframes in the street ahead. “Oh, man. I don’t know. A week?” She looks to me, eyes reflecting the stars overhead. “It feels like a lot longer.”
“I don’t even feel like the same person anymore.”
“Amen.” We turn a corner. “Now, where did he go?”
“Over there,” I say softly. We haven’t seen anyone since leaving Kara’s, but I’m not about to test my luck by raising a ruckus.
Wick stands in front of a long wall with at least a dozen computer terminals set into it. Each looks like nothing more than a glorified ATM with a number pad and a little screen that glows faintly in the dark. The only thing setting them apart from a place to grab a twenty is that each has a door set into the brickwork next to it.
That’s it. Number pad, screen, and door.
Wick waves us over, but Mika holds a hand up for me to wait. “What?”
“Over there,” she says, voice hushed.
From down the main street, a group of two approach. They hold hands and stumble, giggling; he’s in light leather armor with a pike that looks like it’s bleeding slung over one shoulder, and she’s in a light white robe that he’s got half hitched up her legs. His hand’s going to town at her crotch, making it clear they don’t care who’s watching.
Wick ducks low into shadow as they stumble up to a terminal a few feet away from him. The man pulls his hand free of the woman, earning a loud complaint as she falls against him. He laughs and says something I can’t hear as his fingers fly across the little pad, and a moment later the door swings wide.
I catch the briefest glimpse of some sort of beach and a little cabin as they stumble through. Then the door swings shut, leaving the afterimage of a sunset of purples and reds burns into my retinas.
“Shit,” Mika says sadly. “Can we go with them?”
“I wish,” I say, stepping into the street now that the coast is clear.
“Hey,” she says, nudging me. “You still owe me a picnic when this is all over.”
“I didn’t forget.” I bury my nose in the strawberry scent of her hair and kiss her forehead. “Just been a bit busy.”
“Excuses, excuses,” she says, nuzzling my chest.
“Yo, lovebirds.” Wick glances back and forth nervously. “If you’re done making street babies, we should get you in there. No idea how long it’ll be before another Eye makes the rounds, but we wanna be scarce when it does.”
“Street babies?” I blink. “Aren’t those caramel candies?”
“No idea.” He glances meaningfully at Mika. “Maybe she tastes like caramel, though, eh?”
“Wick,” I groan.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, ducking Mika’s swat.
“Just show us how this thing works,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Simple. Punch in the code, walk through the door.”
I turn a slow circle, taking in the dark street. “No security? It’s not even lights so you don’t get mugged on your way in?”
“Players fend for themselves in Lifestream. And as for the light, well… Lots of players have far sight. Tricks like that. Shit, you’re familiar with the Eyes at this point. Just makes it a little harder for someone to steal your door code.”
“So, wait… Anyone can get in if they have your code?” Mika stares at the panel in disgust. “What kind of ghetto ass…”
“Tell me about it,” Wick says. “Anyway, I’ll get back to base. You guys secure the package. Get back to Kara’s. Then come find us and we’ll get outta here.”
“Secure the package?” I adjust the vibrablade at my belt. “You’re watching too many movies, kid.”
“Not much else to do when I’m not working newbs,” he says.
“Seriously?” Mika glares. “I would have killed to have access to a place like this before… You know. Before I died.” She puts her hand over the panel, ready to light it up. “Infinite possibilities for adventure, and you watch movies.” Her hand starts tapping. “Brat.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he laughs, skipping away. “Be careful in there.”
“Notice how he said he’s coming with us?” I say as Mika hits the last few digits. “He probably thinks we missed it.”
“Should we bring him? He’s been useful when he’s not horning out on me.”
“Yeah. I kinda like… him…”
I trail off as the door swings wide and we’re assailed by more color than I’ve ever seen in one place.
“What the hell…” Mika breathes.
We step through the door into a living cartoon. And by cartoon, I mean the entire goddamn world is an old forties animation.
Everything bounces. The trees. The animals that flit around us. The sun in the sky. They jag back and forth in that weird ass style that instantly identifies something as an old school cartoon. Even the emerald blades of grass at our feet dance back and forth in some kind of never-ending jig.
But that’s not the worst part.
“Everything has… Has…” Mika gapes.
“Tits.”
Those same bouncing trees. The mountains. The animals. They all have mammoth, bouncing breasts. They’re bare, animated as gorgeously as the rest of the world. An oak without a face or any other human feature jiggles merrily next to us, its enormous wooden tits rebounding as it bumps and grooves. The sun, zooming past overhead, actually has a face; but it’s male, with a broad, toothy grin and dark sunglasses. Massive boobs swing low as it zips by us, cackling madly. Even a rabbit that stops to consider us has tits so enormous I don’t understand how it stays upright. A face way too reminiscent of Bugs Bunny wrinkles its nose and then scurries away as it uses its oversized breasts to bounce into the undergrowth.
“Are you… Are you sure you got the right number?” I ask, backing toward the doorway.
“Let’s just makes sure.” Mika’s hands are clutched over her mouth as she turns to me, her eyes pinched as she holds back laughter.
The door sits in the trunk of the only non-dancing, non tittied tree. We push back through it, stumbling back into the dark street. The door slams behind us.
“What the fuck?” Mika cackles. “Seriously, what the fuck?”
“Right? I’m gonna need like… so much alcohol to burn those memories away.”
“Just as long as tits aren’t ruined for you forever,” she says, cupping hers.
“I’m going to need to see them to compare.”
“Right here in the thoroughfare?” She cocks her head. “How lewd.”
“But seriously? Who the hell chose that as their one and only level twenty estate?”
“Wick?”
“He would,” I laugh. “Alright. Time’s wasting. Try to get the number right
this time.”
“I’m actually kind of relieved I got that wrong,” she says.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I’m not a total Asian stereotype.” She touches her fingers to the keys for the second time. “Now shush. Let me concentrate.”
“Fine.” Her fingers tap out the first few keys. “Butterfingers.”
They only pause a moment as she laughs to herself. “There, that should do it.”
The door opens to…
A road.
We step through again. It’d be a lot more mind fucking to step through the same door to a completely different landscape if I hadn’t seen what I’ve seen lately. As it is, this rates at about a negative four of ten on the weirdometer.
We’re on a forest road at night. Guttering torches stretch along the cobblestones ahead, lost as the road takes a right turn off in the distance. Trees tower around us, forming an impenetrable barrier of darkness and wood as they throw off the sharp tang of the cedar, oak, and pine. There’s no wind and no sound of any kind aside from our breathing.
“Guess we’re supposed to go that way,” Mika says.
“Yeah. You sure you got the right number this time?” I ask. “No sass intended, just making sure.”
“With you, there’s always sass,” she says. “But yeah. I’m reasonably sure.”
“Reasonably?”
“Like, ninety-eight-point four percent sure.”
“Nerd.”
“Hey. If not for me we’d be stuck with Steamboat Titty.”
“Granted. Shall we?”
She takes my arm tight. “Lead the way, hero.”
The cobblestones are strangely comforting under my feet as we push between the dense tree lines. I watch constantly for anything; red, glowing eyes poking from between trunks as thick as cars; spike traps in the road meant to catch us unaware as we’re lulled by the quiet; I even watch the inky ribbon of night above us for anything descending to tear us to shreds.
But there’s nothing. Just a long, curved road leading to… Somewhere.
“Kinda nice, isn’t it?” Mika says.
“What’s that?”
“Been a long time since it was just you and me against the world,” she says. “I love the others, but it’s kinda hard to find alone time, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Aside from the roof the other night…”
“Even then, we had company partway through.”
I remember Eleria, her legs spread wide as she fingered herself and watched us. “Need to try that again, sometime.”
“Yeah, that was… Something else. Though I’m kinda worried.”
“Oh?”
“I keep discovering new kinks. Being watched. Aliens. Sexy guys with mental powers.” She clucks. “Before long, I won’t be able to get off without, like, a goat and fourteen pounds of Norwegian butter.”
“I’m down with the butter part,” I say. “Grease me up and I could be like an aircraft carrier, and you could be the plane that lands and is stopped by that little sticky uppy thing that slows it down as it zooms across the surface.”
Mika stops cold. “What?” she laughs, face pinching. Then, she guffaws. “Like… what?”
“In this scenario, the sticky uppy thing is my penis.”
Her laughter rings through the forest, so joyous I can’t help but join her. “Yeah…” she gasps. “I got… I got that.”
I hug her tight. “I love you. I have so much fun with you.”
She kisses the stubble at my chin. “Fun? Running for our lives? Skirting death? Blowing up dude’s heads with your dragon punch? That’s fun?”
“When I do it with you, it is.” I hold her a moment longer. “And yeah. It’s been a long time since it’s been just us, even for a minute.”
“Let’s go find this girl,” Mika says, releasing me with obvious reluctance. “A little just-you-and-me mini adventure.”
The road finally ends at the edge of a lake. It’s abrupt, clearly impossible in nature, but considering that this is all from someone’s imagination that doesn’t faze us. A bridge, wrought iron and ornate, stretches roughly a half mile before abutting huge walls that black out the night even at this distance. Little torches light jagged crenellations like tiny beacons that call us across the water.
“Guess that’s our destination,” I say. “No guards on the wall.”
“No one at all.” Mika looks behind us, then back. “No one on the road. No sign of life over there.” We start forward as she chews the information. I stay silent, letting her mind work. “This definitely feels weird.”
“How so?”
“Like a trap? Make this really easy to lull us, maybe?”
“Do you trust our employer?”
She gives me a level look. “Do you?”
“Not even a little. Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
We start across the bridge, our feet thumping along the heavy, water worn wood. “So, why are we still doing this?”
I consider. “According to Wick, she treats people who do her favors well. And she hates Obsidian. And as we agreed before, we don’t have much choice. If Obsidian finds us…”
“I know.” She kicks a loose stone off the bridge. It splashes somewhere unseen, almost obscenely loud in this place. “I think we’re probably safe, though. At least, for now.”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, if she just wanted to capture us or kill us, why not do it back there? In her lair, surrounded by her scary sexy ho warriors?”
“Ho warrior.” I laugh. “I like that.”
“Seriously, though. Why send us on a wild goose chase?” She eyes me. “I mean, she was obviously fascinated by you. She wants to keep you. So why not just take you back there? Or wait until she found our hideout and do it then?”
“She was interested in you, too, you know.”
Mika hmms. “Maybe. Though, for me, it seemed more like she wanted me to join the ranks. Service clients for her. You, though?” Her face is grim. “You didn’t see the way she looked at you when the psychic bitch had you under.”
I pause. “How?”
“Like she wanted to eat you alive.”
“Great. That sounds perfectly terrifying.”
“But like I said, why not take us back there? Why send us to find this girl?”
“Maybe she wants to have her cake and eat it, too? Rescue her girl and get us in the process.”
Mika’s brow knits. “Maybe.”
“Still has to be better than Obsidian catching up with us.”
“It would be so much easier if they knew we couldn’t respawn.”
I take her hand. “I’m not sure that would change their minds.”
“Yeah.” All humor’s gone from her voice as she stares out across the dark waters. “These people… Kara. Her girls. Obsidian. Three. It’s so strange.”
“I think I know what you mean.” As we walk, I watch the top of the walls for any hint of a trap. “They used to be people. And now they’re…”
“Still people, but… I mean, look at Kara back there. How do you go from Karen in Akron to that?”
“Somehow I doubt she was ever a Karen.”
“You know what I mean. She was someone, once. Someone with a job, maybe kids and a husband. And now she runs a brothel and a criminal empire in a videogame? How many people has she used or killed or fucked to get where she is? How do you go from one to the other?”
“I’ve thought a lot about that, actually,” I say, breath hitching. “Think about what these people went through when the Threvians arrived. All the… All the death. Watching their world crumble around them as their trusted leaders were powerless to stop it. Everything going to shit.”
“Yeah. But hey, there’s this game where you can be anything you want! You never have to leave!” Mika chews her lip. “If I’d gone through what they did, lost everything… I guess I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t take refuge in a fantasy world to forget.”
“I feel weirdly luck
y, sometimes. Dying, that is.”
“We didn’t have to go through all that, but we’re still here. Not alive, but not really dead, either.”
I sigh. “Never thought that diving off a cliff would be the thing that saves me.”
She squeezes my hand. “Saves us all, hopefully.”
We’re close to the walls, now. They loom over us, a dark barrier that blots out the night. We’re close enough that we can’t even see the torches above anymore. The bridge continues straight as an arrow until it buts up against the base. And in the center of the wall is a small door.
There’s a slight breeze now, chilling us as we consider the entrance. The only noises are our footfalls and breathing and the gentle lap of the waves below us. No sound descends from above, no calls to identify ourselves. I can’t even hear activity from the other side of the wall.
It’s bizarre.
We stop as we approach. “Still no guards.”
“Definitely creepy.”
“Hope Akalia’s in there,” I say. “How do we get in?”
“Well, considering that we’re here to infiltrate a rival Madam’s empire to steal one of her girls, I doubt they’ll let us just…”
“Walk in?” Mika takes the broad handle at the door’s edge. “Yeah, probably n–“
The door swings open at her gentle pull.
We’re too surprised to notice.
Noise and color slam into us like a runaway bus. Music and laughter, voices raised in song, fights and sex and sobbing… The sound pours over us in a sudden tidal wave. Through the doorway is a riot of movement and hue as people dance and drink and frolic; hundreds or maybe thousands of them packed into what looks like a long street fronted by bars and restaurants and more.
“How?” I yell over the roar. “No way we wouldn’t have heard this from outside!”
“Who the hell knows?” she says, putting her face to my ear. “Magic? Or maybe this is an instance inside an instance?”
I shake my head and don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. Finding a single elf girl in all this, even if she is a prisoner…
Mika’s despondent expression tells me that I’m not the only one thinking it.
“Come on,” I say, taking her hand and pulling her into the crowd. “Might as well get dirty.”
Aspirant 2: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 38
