by Isaac Stone
What also concerned me was the vision I’d had where Howard told me I needed to take the offer from Ruby Realizations. I did it because Sandstone Gems was about to erase the entire VR scenario where I’d met and married Chamita. I decided I had to know more about what they planned to do with the Wolf Mountain system.
The next day I called Heath at the new company. The same people answered the phone that worked for Ruby, so I assumed they’d maneuvered the former employees of Sandstone out the door. When companies merge, they usually find themselves with two sets of managers and other functionaries. One set is moved out over a period of one year, but sometimes it happens right away.
I had Heath on the phone in a few minutes. “Hello, Vince,” he said to me. “Any issues? Do I need to contact the clinic for you?”
“Oh I’m fine,” I told him. “I’m a little curious about what happened to all the technology I worked with during my time with Sandstone. Are you keeping any of it?”
“Of course," came his reply. “Why would we get rid of it? That work is too valuable. We’ll find a way to make use of it.”
“What about the game scenario? Are they going to do anything with it?”
“We’re planning to use it as part of another game. Again, no reason to waste all that work.”
We talked for a bit longer. He couldn’t tell me much that was proprietary, but I had the impression they felt the rogue program was under control. I told him my health was good and promised to stay in touch.
I sighed in relief when I broke the connection. At least the Wolf Mountain VR world would be preserved.
I saw Chamita the next morning in my apartment.
As I emerged from the shower, I heard a sound in the living room. I froze and quickly dried myself off. I didn’t have anything to wear, so I wrapped my robe about me and looked for a large object to use as a weapon. The only thing I could find in the bathroom was a floor scale. I picked it up and carried the metal scale out with me.
The bathroom to my apartment was connected to the living room by way of a hall. I walked out with it in my hands and waited. Someone was going through a box in the living room. It was still early in the day and they might’ve thought I wasn’t in the apartment. I tended to sleep in sometimes and this might be another reason they would think me gone.
I peered around the corner and held my breath.
Right next to the kitchen, someone had the box of things the rest home gave me when Hans Konkin passed away. I knew it wasn’t a random burglary. Someone wanted what was inside that box. I had no way to know what it was, but it had to be very important to risk a break and enter job. I stayed perfectly still and focused my eyes on the burglar.
I could see the figure wearing a hoodie and with their back to me. They went through the box and pulled out random objects, held them up to the light, looked at each one and placed them in a pile. Every so often, the figure would put them in a smaller, second pile. I realized the second pile was for further interest. Perhaps these were things they wanted to take or which would lead them to what they wanted to find.
I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to do something. This was my apartment, dammit, how dare they break into it?
“Who are you?” I yelled at them from the entrance to the living room. I held the metal scale over my head. It might not be much, but at least I had some level of protection.
The figure turned around to face me.
It was Chamita under the hoodie. No, it was Chamistra. Dammit, it was the girl in the park. No, the woman in the dance club. They all blended together in my mind and my head began to hurt again. I dropped to the floor and in a ball of pain.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her pick something up out of the small pile and look at it. And then she walked out of the open door. I blacked out.
I returned to consciousness on the floor of the apartment. It wasn’t hard to pull myself over to the sink and pour a drink. With some water in me, I was able to sit on the couch as the pain subsided. I looked up and the box was still there with the two piles next to it.
As I caught my breath and wondered, why she’d been here, my cell phone began to buzz. I picked it up and looked at the caller ID. It was the new company, Pursuant. I accepted the call and held the phone up to my ear, a little pain still in my head.
“Vince here,” I said to whoever was on the other line.
“This is Heath Mint,” the voice on the other end of the line spoke to me. “How are you?”
“Not bad,” I lied to him. “Yourself?” Right now was not the time to tell him my headaches were back with a phantom from the VR world.
“We need you back,” he told me. “I don’t have a lot of time to talk, but can you come back and work for us?” He sounded desperate on the phone.
“Twice that VR world nearly killed me and now you want me to go in a third time?” I responded.
“The rogue program was spread to every aspect of our company network,” he told me. “We are in complete shutdown. We can’t get inside the VR systems and if we don’t do something about that program, the entire company will go down like a rock in the ocean. I don’t know what your price is to take care of this, but I’m sure we can meet it.”
“Why the hell do you need me?”
There was a pause on the other end.
“It won’t talk to anyone but you,” he told me.
“What did you just say?” I gasped into the phone.
“The goddamn rogue program is self-aware! The thing has developed agency, as we feared. Now it won’t deal with anyone but you and it has to be done inside the VR world.”
“You want me to be sent back to India or the mountain?”
“No, we were working on a new scenario. The player was supposed to locate a something on a prehistoric island in the pacific in 1933. This time it’s going to be that damn program in whatever form it wants. Look, when can you get down here? If the feds find out what’s happened, they’ll shut us down no questions asked. I don’t want to think what will happen if that program gets out to the Internet. Right now we have it contained in our network.”
“Can’t it find a way out on its own?”
“We severed all physical connections to the outside world in the building. We even smashed the router. The electronics are back to 1970 in that place. Everyone was sent home because the environmental system was hooked to the Internet. When can you be here?”
“I dunno,” I told him. “My head pain flared up a few minutes ago. I could phase-shift at any second, I probably shouldn't drive.”
“We’ll send a car.”
There was a pause after that, and when I didn't protest he continued.
“Listen, Vince,” he told me in a low voice. “That thing sent one message before it locked the entire system down. Do you want to know what it said?”
“Shoot.”
“It said ‘Lone wolves die in the wild’. Does that make any sense to you?”
Unfortunately, it didn't, but I wasn't going to tell him that.
“I’ll be ready in a half hour.”
“Car will be there. Call me if you have any more shifts.” The connection was broke.
I walked over to the couch and collapsed. At least my head pain was gone. I’d do just about anything to keep that skull buster from coming back. After I thought for a few minutes, I walked into my bedroom and packed another suitcase. I made one more call to Lane and asked him to pay some bills while I was gone. He had the information on my bank account and I trusted him not to clean me out. It was nice that I had one good friend I could count on now.
I walked out of the bedroom and dropped the suitcase on my couch. The sun was still over the roofs of the other buildings around me. I wondered if this would be the last sunset, I’d ever see again. I was certain that Heath would try to find some way to get me back into the VR game world the moment I stepped into the building.
At least I‘d find out the secret of Chamita/Chamistra. What name would she use this time?
Hell, she was in control of the entire game, she could make the rules. This run would be different from the other two by several levels of magnitude.
As I waited, I walked over to the door and looked at it. No signs of forced entry. She’d used a key, but those were easy enough to make. This apartment complex wasn’t the most secure.
The box was still where she’d left it. I went through both piles and checked to see what she’d taken. I had some idea and wasn’t surprised when I found it missing. As I heard the car pull up into the lot and the door slam, I placed the box back into the hall closet.
She’d left with the one picture I had of Chamita, or at least the only version of her that existed in this world. It didn’t surprise me; it was the only object that would tie her into the version on the other side of the game world.
“Are you ready to go?” the man said when he opened the door. They’d sent the same driver who brought me back from the hospital.
“Embrace the crazy,” I said as I picked up my suitcase before we walked down the stairs to the waiting car.
FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you so much for taking this adventure with me, take a quick break and if you liked what you just experienced check out some of my other work.
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HELLTROOPERS: A Space Marine Trilogy - Ash Wednesday and his crew of corporate mercenaries find themselves drawn into a galactic conspiracy bent on creating a literal hell on earth in this violent sci-fi remix of Dante’s Inferno.
