Desert

by Caiden Walker

  The goddess raised her hands as though she expected something to happen, but nothing did. A look of shock came over her lovely features as she realized her powers had been taken from her for this final battle. Then her expression turned stony and a glowing sword appeared in her hand.

  Nika's Viking speed and strength that her ax lent her were enough to allow her to dodge the goddess' blade and circle around to her open side. Swinging her ax as hard as she could, she felt it cut into Gaia's side. But the goddess had speed and strength of her own. A quick twist of her body just as Nika's ax landed took what should have been a killing blow down to little more than a scratch.

  The two women began circling each other, each watching the other for any signs of weakness. The rest of the battle raging behind them was lost to Nika, and she fervently hoped it was lost to Gaia as well. If she could just buy the others enough time to end the elves, they just might pull this off.

  Nika ducked yet another sword slash aimed for her head and delivered an ax thrust of her own to Gaia's outstretched arm. It turned out to be a lucky blow and Gaia's arm was severely damaged. As Nika watched, the goddess gave a mighty roar, and the arm healed. But an amazing thing happened. Looking up at the air above the goddess, two stats bars suddenly appeared. The green and blue for health and mana. After her healing spell for her arm, Gaia was almost out of mana!

  The game was limiting her as to mana. That was the best news Nika had been given since being trapped in the game world. Without having the mana to constantly heal, Gaia was just as vulnerable as they were.

  Of course, now that Nika's berserker type speed was wearing off, she wouldn't last long against her more powerful opponent.

  As Gaia took up her fallen sword in a single fluid movement, three arrows sprouted from her chest. Looking at them in puzzlement, Gaia turned to face the rest of the party just as Ash stepped over the remains of a blood elf to cast her chain lightning spell on Gaia, quickly followed by a full party heal.

  As Nika watched, Ash's mana went down to zero, but it was worth the sacrifice. They were fresh for battle and Gaia was almost out of mana. They could do this.

  Gaia raged, but with the three of them working together, the goddess never really stood a chance. Finally, she was forced to her knees before them. Her hand raised in abject defeat.

  "I am beaten," she said, sounding more than a little surprised. Slowly she raised her face to the group before her. "Perhaps there is strength and faith in your kind that I have failed to see." She got to her feet carefully, hands still out before her. "You have won this time," Gaia said. "But should you and your kind continue to destroy my beloved creation, know that I shall return to her defense once more."

  With those final words, Gaia stepped to the side and a glowing portal appeared.

  "Go home, Warriors," the goddess said, giving them a weak smile. "You've earned it."

  THIS TIME THERE WAS a slight difference in the portal. Another destination option appeared, just as the clerk had promised. Nika nodded toward Player's Lounge, the light around her flashed, and she found herself lying flat on her back. This time around, she didn't keep her eyes closed. They popped open of their own accord.

  It didn't take long to realize that they had finally made it home. Within seconds, her bed was surrounded by people. Her nurse, Pam, was working quickly to disentangle the cords and tubes that had been necessary while she was in the game. The other people, two young men and a young woman, she didn't recognize right away.

  As soon as Pam had her free, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. From that position, she had a much better view of the room. As the nurse went to help the others fully disengage from their support systems, Nika stood up holding tightly to the bed as she did so. She wasn't nearly as weak as she'd expected to be. Pam had done a great job keeping her body limbered up while her brain went off to play.

  Nika looked the new people over more closely and vaguely remembered seeing them around the company. They must have been fairly new before the beta test. That meant they most likely weren't to be trusted.

  Pam must have caught her giving them the evil eye because she called over to her. "Oh, don't worry, Nika," she said. "Those three are the good guys. Trust me."

  Then the three parted just enough to let Nika see behind them. Two big and burly men were secured to heavy equipment and looked like they were sound asleep for the moment. Just out of reach of the men, a woman was tethered tightly to yet another machine.

  Cora.

  The woman’s eyes widened as Nika started across the room, gaining strength and determination with every step. Cora was still sputtering a nonsense explanation when Nika’s blow hit. She might not have her Viking Ax, but she did have a hell of a lot of anger to put behind the blow. It was enough.

  Cora went down like a sack of bricks.

  Nika rubbed her knuckles. That had hurt. She grinned. For once pain felt really good. The sore and bruised knuckles would be a pleasant reminder of this moment. At least until they faded.

  “Um, I hate to interrupt such a sweet and caring reunion,” Evan said from behind her. He must have been the next to be released from all the sustaining tubes. When she heard the fear in his voice, she turned toward him. He was pointing to a trio of metal boxes sitting on the floor in front of the main computer hub. “Are those bombs?” he asked. “Because they sure look bombs to me.”

  Nika looked from the boxes up to Pam, but the nurse was still busy getting everyone free from their connections. If they were bombs, she didn’t want to slow her down with questions.

  The smaller man of the trio of ‘good guys’ answered the question instead. “Yes, they are. Or at least they were,” he said. “They’ve been disconnected and taken apart, so they are harmless right now.”

  “Sure,” Evan said slowly. “Harmless bombs. The best kind of bombs to have around.”

  “Yeah, well,” the man said. “That’s the good news. The bad news is that we don’t really know how many more are scattered throughout the building. We have VirTech’s word that they have been disarmed, but we aren’t trusting that all too much.”

  Nika’s eyes flew to his. “There are bombs out there too? Has the building been evacuated?”

  He shook his head. “We figure that we’re being watched pretty closely. Any signs of police or evacuation and VirTech just might decide to blow the whole place up. Along with a hell of a lot of incriminating evidence against them.”

  Nika looked over at the computer hub. As much as she wanted her employees safe, she wanted the system safe too. Her father and Louella were still in there. It wasn’t like they could evacuate them to safety.

  “Someone needs to catch us up to speed pretty quickly,” Evan said, glancing at the lockdown door. “I take it the safe room protocol was activated?”

  “Yes, and if it hadn’t been, I don’t think any of us would still be breathing,” Pam said. She had finished with the others and they all gathered around Nika. “These three are heroes plain and simple. If we make it out of here, it will be because of them.”

  Their story took a while, but in the end, they were still undecided as to what plan of action to take. If they called in the SWAT team, VirTech was very likely to blow them to kingdom come. And even if they could manage a timed evacuation, Nika wasn’t okay at all with leaving the system to be destroyed.

  She looked around at her team. The people that had helped her get this far. “Anyone have any bright ideas?”

  Before anyone could answer, the phone on the desk rang, startling everyone into jumping inches off the floor.

  The smaller man walked over and answered it. “This is Les,” he said simply.

  He listened for a minute and then a slow smile spread across his face. “You don’t say,” he said. The man stretched the phone over to Nika. “I think this call is for you. He says he’s the Mayor and that they’ve taken care of things outside of the lounge. They want us to open the fire doors.”

  Nika’s brows furrowed, b
ut she took the phone. Mayor Bradford and her father had been Poker buddies for decades. She also seemed to recall that the Chief of Police was a regular at those games too.

  “Mayor?” she said softly. “I hope you don’t mind, but things are kind of stressed right now. Before those doors open, I’m going to need proof that you are who you say you are.”

  A soft laugh came over the phone. “I don’t blame you my dear. Not one little bit,” the voice said. “You might be interested to know that a few hours ago, I received an email from a dead man. Your father, in fact. It was shocking to say the least.”

  She smiled. “I bet it was,” she said. The Mayor’s words relieved her to no end. If her father had emailed him, that meant that he and Louella had survived. They’d rebooted. All of her father’s reassurances aside, she had had her doubts. “Can you tell me what he said?”

  “I printed it off to bring with me, so I’ll just read the pertinent part. The beginning was all proving he was who he said he was.” There was a pause. “He was quite convincing, by the way. So here goes: Tell Nika that we made it. Gaia and her minions took us out pretty easily once you all went through the portal, but me and our pixie friend popped up right back at the save fountain. I told you we’d reboot. I don’t know what’s going on over there, but just in case you need it: pickled pig’s feet. I love you. Kick Cora for me, will you? Dad.”

  Pickled pig’s feet. That was the safety code she and her father had come up with when she was just a toddler.

  Nika nodded over to Les. “Open the door.”

  He took a deep breath, but didn’t question her. Seconds later, the fire doors opened, and sure enough, there stood the Mayor. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone.

  The President of VirTech and several armed men stood beside him. Before Nika could motion for Les to shut the doors, the Mayor turned the man around so that she could see his hands were cuffed behind his back.

  “We figured that we might need a little insurance that the place wouldn’t go up in smoke before we could find all the little devices that VirTech had planted. So I insisted that he and a few other executives of their esteemed corporation join us for the day,” the Mayor said with a grin.

  “How did you know about the bombs?” Evan asked.

  “Ah, well,” the Mayor said. “We got what we thought was a prank call earlier today from a man claiming to be your head of security here. He said that VirTech had forced him to plant several explosive devices in the building. According to him, the bombs had been disarmed but left open to reactivation. Apparently, the murder of a few hundred innocent people weighed a little too heavily on his mind, and he decided to bring us in on it.”

  He rubbed his face with his hand. “I’m sorry we didn’t act on it immediately. But truthfully, the man sounded like he had a few screws loose. Especially when he said we’d have to go in undercover.” He paused. “Of course, once I got your father’s email, it all clicked.”

  Evan swallowed. “How many bombs did you find? Are you sure you got them all?”

  “Pretty sure,” the Mayor said. “We found all the ones the security head told us about plus three more—one was actually in a drawer of the guard’s desk, if you can believe that.” He slapped VirTech’s President on the back. “Seems like our friends at VirTech didn’t want any loose ends.”

  The man stood ramrod straight. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said. “But my attorneys will have a field day when word of how I’ve been treated reaches them.”

  The Mayor grinned. “I’m quite sure your lawyers will be busy for years to come over this one. But I don’t think you are going to have the same luck you’ve had in the past.”

  “You can bet on that,” Nika said. “If it takes every penny I have, I’ll see justice done.”

  There was a moan from the back of the room. Cora was coming around.

  Nika looked back to the Mayor and gave him her sweetest smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me for a minute, I need to honor my father’s wishes.”

  She just wished she’d been wearing shoes.

  An Offer From Caiden Walker

  IF YOU LIKE FUNNY STORIES with a touch of the fantastic, I have a couple you might like. In exchange for your email address (which I promise to only use for good—no Spam, ever), you can pick up two of my favorite stories: Survivor Ship and Felinian’s Revenge. Both are guaranteed to get at least a giggle, if not an outright laugh or two. Check them out.

  (This will also put you on my mailing list for new release alerts, so win-win, right?)

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading Desert: Gaia’s Rebirth Book Two. I truly hope you enjoyed it. If so, I would greatly appreciate it if you could post a review for the book on Amazon. Reviews are the life blood that keeps us authors going.

  And if you would like to touch base with me in a more personal fashion, feel free to email me at Caiden@CaidenWalker.com. I’d love to hear from you.

  Thank you again for your time, and I hope to see you again soon.