by Isaac Stone
Chamistra slowly turned to me and didn’t say a word for thirty seconds. After her dark eyes drilled through my soul, she spoke.
“They will do what I tell them to do,” she explained. “It has always been thus.”
I didn’t need to ask anything else.
“You wanted to find the courier box,” she said to me. “Come, I will show it to you.” Her hand reached down and took mine.
“How did you know where to find the box?” I asked her. She stood there and tugged on my hand.
“Didn’t you want to find it?” she asked. “I thought this was very important to you.”
There was something very wrong with this game. None of the other characters was supposed to be self-aware. Only the players were assumed to have knowledge of the game. Chamistra was supposed to be a program that ran in accordance with the other ones in this simulated world. She wasn’t supposed to have any more knowledge of the world about than a financial program has knowledge of who owns the money it tracks. I recalled the words of Heath. If the programs were becoming self-aware, it could account for the way Chamistra had acted.
She held onto my hand and let me look into her eyes. I couldn’t take my gaze away from her. Those eyes were two dark planets that knew things. She wasn’t another Howard, Bonne or even Sargent Grom. This NPC was aware of her surroundings and the world in which we lived.
For a minute, I knew fear. Up until this minute, I never really worried about what happened to me inside the VR game world. It was all supposed to be one big computer simulation system, after all. I was supposed to be the only character in this game that knew it wasn’t real. It was supposed to be the same on the mountain, and yet, I’d fallen hard for Chamita. The wolf girl wasn’t even remotely based on any realistic scenario. After all, how could a person have survived under such conditions? None of those old pulp novels about children raised by animals made any sense. It was an old legend, as old as the tale of Romulus and Remus in Ancient Rome and equally a fable.
However, people live and die by their fantasies. I knew of people who’d avoided relationships and marriage to continue to play their MMORPGS. I’d heard about men who were lost to the real world as they let their online game engulf their whole life. How much more of a threat did this VR world represent to humanity? I’d never felt the touch of a woman quite like Chamistra/Chamita before. And which one was in front of me right now?
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“I’m everything you ever wanted,” she told me in a calm voice. “Don’t you understand it?”
“No I don’t,” I replied to her. “None of this game makes any sense. I was supposed to lead my team into this place, find the lost courier box of Major Buttersnipe and get out. How do you even know about the box?” I tightened my grip on her hand but it didn’t seem to faze her.
“What are you talking about?” she told me. “I know you were looking for a box and it was supposed to get you and your team out of here. I overheard you discussing it with your men. I have no idea what that box contains.” I might’ve believed her but she said it with a smile that made my knees tremble.
“You’re not real,” I told her. I was close to the prime violation of the game by these words. If I went too far the VR team, whom I knew listened to every word, was justified in pulling me out of the scenario.
“I’m as real as you are, Vince,” she said to me. Chamistra pulled herself close and looked up at me. I had the height advantage, but she had the power of women everywhere.
“You’re not the only player in this game,” she whispered.
She stepped back, still with my hand in hers. I pulled it away.
“Then the whole goddamn game is compromised,” I told her. “I was supposed to be the only player in this scenario. I might as well hit the red button and get out of here.” I pulled out the revolver and flipped the cover open.
I was furious. They’d sent in another player for whatever reasons the corporation had and didn’t tell me. Until now, I’d assumed all the other characters were mere programs. Now, I’d discovered Chamistra was another player. I’d treated her differently as I assumed this whole place was just one big computer generated landscape with more programs running the creation of the temples, people, guns and whatever. I was determined to get out of this place and find the truth.
She didn’t even do a thing to stop me. “I’ll see you on the outside, Chamistra, Chamita, or whoever you are,” I told her. “That fucking company owes me a lot for this. And don’t tell me that I signed some secret paper that said I approved them doing this because I plan to go the media when I get out of here.”
I depressed the red button on the gun handle communicator.
Nothing happened. I pressed it again, the world stayed the same.
I did it a few more times until I realized nothing would happen. In frustration, I slapped the cover back on the handle and shoved the pistol back in my holster.
Me and my big mouth. Total newbie move.
“Are you ready to listen to me?” she asked.
“I don’t see as to what choice I have,” I told her.
“I am another player like you,” she told me. “But Ruby Realizations doesn’t know I’m inside the game. They think I’m another program that is running around here and following its protocol. I can control some of the back end of this VR world, but not much. If I did too much, their security people would realize the VR world was compromised and bring everything to a halt. Right now, they think something is wrong in real time and can’t understand why the transmission of you won’t come across. They think my character returned to my convent and left you alone. I can’t keep this ruse up long because they’ll become suspicious.”
“You still haven’t told me who you are,” I said to her.
Chamistra pulled leaped on me and wrapped both legs around my thighs. This was something I’d only seen in a few select films and didn’t think it could happen in real life. At which point it hit me I was still inside a computer simulation. This was a VR world where she had a lot of influence. Right now, she’d shut down the connection to the VR team.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” she told me as her hands began to unbutton the uniform over my chest. “I figure a half hour before they bring in someone with skills I can’t block. Well, I could block them, but that would make the corporation really suspicious.”
“If you are so all powerful,” I told her. “Why can’t you simply dematerialize our clothes and generate some bed with cushions. You still haven’t told me who you are.” I was ready, VR world or not.
“That would take too much memory,” she told me. “It falls under the time limit problem. I could take us to a secluded beach in the hot sun, but then they’d know something was out of control.” She yanked her wrap off and tossed it over her head.
I grabbed her head with both of my hands and looked into her black eyes. “Who the hell are you?” I demanded. “Goddamit quit speaking in riddles. Ouch.” The last one was from her right hand and responded to what it grabbed.
“Vince not like his girl this way?” she said in the same voice Chamita used. “My big hairy wolf.” The last one almost had me on the ground.
“You’re Chamita too,” I told her later as we lay on the stone floor. The moon was on its way down, but I didn’t care. I would miss this character body, as it was quite versatile when we were rolling around.
“I’m more than just her,’ Chamistra told me. “I know what you wanted and it was easy enough to provide. I could be Betty Page if that made your rocker swing, but I think it would be too obvious. I haven’t had a lot of time to study you, but I did get your number. Didn’t you like what we did?” She was on top of me, but I felt little weight.
“I liked it a lot,” I responded to her. "Too much in fact."
She laughed and rolled off me. Chamistra stood up and looked down in my direction. As she stood there, she turned into Chamita. It wasn’t hard for her to do, since both women were almost doubl
es of each other, just minor deviations in pigmentation, costume, and mannerism. One minutes she was the wise woman of the woods, the next my innocent little wolf girl. Then she changed back. She picked up her wrap and put it back on her body.
“You know the best part?” she asked me. “I didn’t even have to use much memory to do that. I could’ve done the same thing in the real world. It’s all in how you perceive me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Watch what you say,” Chamistra told me as we walked across the abandoned city. “There VR team is about to come back on line. Don’t tell them a thing or even say a word about what happened. Well, you can tell them we worked on the Yoni Tantra or however you want to spin it, just nothing about what I told you.” I nodded in agreement.
“How do you know these things?” I asked her.
My answer came in the form of the revolver handle vibration. The VR team wanted to talk to me now! I pulled out the revolver and flipped open the cover to the communicator. Chamistra took the hint and walked far enough forward to appear out of hearing range.
Rhonda’s face filled the screen. “Vince, are you alright?” she asked me. “We haven’t been able to get access to your part of the game for the past half hour.” The time frame seemed correct.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Chamistra, the abbess of that convent, is here.” I looked up and noticed Chamistra was nowhere to be found. “Scratch that, she wandered off before you called.”
“Good,” Rhonda told me, “We can’t freeze time again.”
“Why didn’t you bring me out when you couldn’t locate me inside the game?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. I’m passing on the information they gave me. There seems to be some problem when they do that if you aren’t aware of it inside the game. Anyway, are you ready to come out? They made me promise to ask you. I’d think what happened should make you reconsider finishing the game on your own.”
“Nope,” I told her. “I’m going to stay here.” I tried to look firm.
“Why?”
“Why not? I have Chamistra here to help me. She knows her way around this place.”
“A lot of good she’ll do if those Nazi’s come looking for you!”
“They’re all dead. Most of them anyway. Two made it to the jungle when Chamistra unleashed the tribesmen on them.” I could see the look of astonishment on Rhonda’s face.
“They didn’t tell me a thing about it!” she cried out.
“Guess it happened while you couldn’t reach me. See what I can do with a little help from my friends?”
“I need to tell them about this!” Rhonda sputtered. “I’ll call you right back!” She broke the connection.
I felt Chamistra’s hand on my back. “Is everything all right?” she asked me. I turned and looked at her. I was ready to laugh about it but her eyes said: “Don’t”.
“Just some problems with my gun,” I told her. “I talk to myself at times.
Chamistra held my hand and took me down the ancient corridors to a part of the abandoned city I hadn’t yet been inside this time. We walked down shops and small buildings which were meant to represent houses and dwellings for the lesser nobility. Since the entire place was the product of one lonely man, I felt I was inside the skull of a shut-in. The designer had some strange fascination with the culture of the Indian subcontinent, but I doubt he knew much about the place. The VR team filled in the gaps and did the research, but none of it held together. The city was still unfinished, although abandoned. It was similar to the game in that respect.
I wanted to ask Chamistra who she was behind this mask of electrons. She knew what I looked like in real life; I desired to know the same about her. I wondered if she resembled Chamita or Chamistra. Both women were close, but age and experience separated them. I thought about the mysterious woman I’d seen back at the park. Was she the prototype? And if so, why did she flee when I tried to make contact with her? Then again, I was nothing like my British captain outside of the VR world, what if she was another player using a familiar skin as a way of getting to me? But for what?
We walked into a large city square of some kind. Chamistra released my hand and walked to a tent, which was pitched in the middle of it. The union jack flew over the sole tent that was there and I knew this had to be the final encampment of Major Farnsworth Buttersnipe. I watched Chamistra pad over to the tent and stand by it. She turned around and motioned to me.
“Here is what you seek,” she told me. “Here is what you seek today, but it’s not what you will desire in the end.”
I wanted to tell her that what I desired right now was to know the real woman who hid behind the form of Chamita/Chamistra. However, I knew the VR team monitored everything. After they’d committed on the night of passion I spent with Chamita before I left the mountain, I was mindful of everything I did.
I walked up to her and looked down at the figure who sat in a portable chair. The fire in front of him was burnt out a long time ago, but it didn’t seem to concern him much. He’d died a long time in the past and it was obvious from the condition of his body. A desiccated mummy faced me, still in his uniform with the pith helmet collapsed down on what remained of his head. His eyes were closed. Next to him, a rifle stood propped up on the chair.
“He died in his sleep,” I told Chamistra. “It happened a while ago. Why is his body and camp still here? There are no other signs of debris in this city.” I glanced over the remains of his expedition and found no one else but him. The others abandoned him.
“It stays this way because I will it to be this way,” Chamistra told me.
I looked down and noted the box in his dead hands. It still had the unbroken seal on it. This was the courier box I needed to locate to win the game and leave this place. Here it was, I’d found it, but only with Chamistra’s help. I assumed it still counted as a “win”.
I picked the box up and examined it. Major Buttersnipe was loyal to the end, or at least his character was. I looked the box over and noted the fine workmanship on it. Someone wanted the recipient of this box to be very impressed with it. It had gold and ivory inlay across the surface.
But there was only one-way to be sure it was the courier box. I had to open it.
As Chamistra watched, I cracked the wax seal and opened the lid. There was no lock on it, which did surprise me. I assumed the security of the box was entrusted to Buttersnipe, who’d done his best to make sure it was protected.
“I’m sorry, major,” I said to the silent form in front of me. “I need to know if this is the real one. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was booby trapped or if you had the real documents in another box somewhere else.” I like to think he heard me.
I lifted the lid with care, but nothing exploded. To have the box detonate would be too much of a spoiler, I surmised, and Chamistra would never have led me to it. I swung the small lid back and looked inside it.
The box was small enough to contain an entire stack of documents. I picked them up and began to read. Here were contingency treaties between the British military and several neutral nations for the evacuation of the nobility and officer corps should the Axis powers over-run England. I could see why this was never to be recovered. The existence of these treaties made several high-placed people in the British government appears to sell-out the nation to save the hides of their class. They might pretend it was a way to keep Great Britain alive, but the average factory worker who would languish under the Nazi whip wouldn’t see it that way.
Beneath the documents was something else. Here was a manual to use for a part of the game system that the corporation didn’t want anyone to know about. Not only were they working to create an interactive entertainment system, but also the VR world could find use as a way to hide assets and information from the prying eyes of the government. Ruby Realizations planned to use the VR world as a Swiss bank account. Of course, they didn’t want anyone to know about this part of their “new and exciting game system”. Let the gamers have fu
n and be used as a front.
I realized this wasn’t supposed to be in the box and the VR team didn’t know about it. I looked up at Chamistra and she smiled. She’d led me here to find the true nature of the VR game system. I closed the lid and slid the latch back on it.
“This should never be seen by anyone,’ I told Chamistra. “These documents would damage the future war effort beyond repair. If they ever got out, the Axis powers would use them against the allies," I said before sucking in my breath and looking back at the body of Buttersnipe, wondering with horror if he'd been a player all along, and that perhaps I was never hunting for a dead NPC at all.
Chamistra winked at me, which told me all I need to know.
“I think they should be buried,” Chamistra told me in her wise woman voice. “I will go find a place to bury them.” She jumped up and vanished in the direction of the jungle.
I watched her go and pulled my service revolver out. The handle was vibrating by the time I had the cover off the communicator. As before, Rhonda’s face filled the screen.
“What the hell happened with those commandos?” Rhonda stammered out. “I talked to the VR team and the whole monitoring center is in a panic.”
“You are mad they were killed?” I asked her. “I thought that was part of the game, to kill the bad guys.” I tried hard to keep silent what I knew.
“Not a bloodbath,” she told me. “This was supposed to be an adventure game where you went out and found the treasure or hidden object. The German Commandos were in place to make it more difficult. You weren’t supposed to have them mowed down.”
“I see. It was perfectly fine for my team to be shot to pieces, but not a band of goose-stepping killers.”
“Look, this is a game. None of these characters exists in real life. They’re all programs running on specific instructions. For God’s sake, they are NPC’s.”
“Then why did they even care who was killed? If you didn't want anyone to go all first person shooter on the Nazis then you shouldn't have added guns to the scenario.”
