“Nope.”
“Do you know anything about faeries?”
“I know they don’t like swimming. You think a war is going on?”
“Well, I know of soldiers on one side, and I may be meeting some from the other side. Some sort of good-versus-evil battle…though I’m not sure who is who.”
“Sorry, don’t know about that. I stick to the water, and things are peaceful here.”
Terrance chuckled. “Well, of course; you have Aquaman protecting you.”
Jenna’s smiled disappeared. “Are you making fun of Aquaman?”
Terrance hesitated. “It’s just—you know—a lot of people do. His superpower is talking to fish.”
“He commands fish; he doesn’t talk to them.” She began to look angry, but then seemed to calm herself. “You know, in his original comics in the early 1940s, he fought the Nazis.”
“Then I thank him for his fictional service to my country.”
“He’s a good superhero; I think more people need to give him a chance instead of making fun of him.”
“Okay…I’ll check out his comics.”
She smiled again. “If you give me your email, I can send you a list of the good series to look into. Hey, if you think about it, being a programmer, you’re kind of like Aquaman—but instead of commanding fish, you command computers.”
Terrance carefully hid how insulted he was to be compared to Aquaman. “Actually, I’ve had my job compared more to Batman in the past.”
Jenna grimaced. “Who would want to be like Batman? He doesn’t even have superpowers.”
Terrance wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. “So what exactly is going on down here?”
Jenna’s smile faded again, but now her expression was serious without looking angry. “Do you want to know the secrets of this cavern?”
“Um…I guess. It is under my apartment, and something down here keeps hitting my floor from below when I make noise.”
“Then come into the water with me; I’ll show you everything.”
Terrance considered the half-naked lady—or, more accurately, the completely naked half lady. “I wasn’t really planning on getting wet. And I have my phone…”
“You can leave it on shore. No one will steal it.”
Terrance fidgeted with his hands. “Um…here’s the thing. I have a girlfriend, so I don’t really think I should be swimming with a naked woman.”
She giggled. “My bottom half is fish; nothing is going to happen.”
“Yeah…I see the logic there. Still, I don’t think I want to go swimming right now; maybe some other time.”
Jenna frowned. “But there is so much you need to—” She quickly turned to look behind her. “Oh no.” She turned back to Terrance. “An evil thing comes; hide.”
“Huh?”
Jenna did not respond; she simply disappeared into the water. Terrance noticed something very large—almost like a whale—moving in the water toward him. He backed away, and the creature surfaced with a splash, sticking its broad head above the water. It was dark green and scaly, with large yellow eyes and a wide mouth big enough to swallow Terrance whole, filled with sharp-looking teeth. Terrance had put some distance between himself and the water’s edge, desperately hoping that the thing was unable to go on land.
It spoke. “Do not listen to the mermaid; it lies.” Its voice was deep and raspy, like a frog’s croak.
Terrance ran through his mind what Jenna had said, to figure out what had possibly been a lie, but she mainly had talked about how Aquaman was actually a decent superhero—and he already suspected the truth about that. “She said she was going to show me the secrets of this area.”
“She would lead you to your doom,” the thing said. “If you wish to learn, follow me.”
“Get in the water with you?”
“You can ride my back.” It surfaced some more, and now its scaly back, perhaps thirty feet long, stuck out of the water.
Terrance took a careful look at the scary-looking creature and its mouth full of teeth. He didn’t want to get in the water with it, either, but this was less of a moral quandary. “I was just coming down here to get a look at the place; I really need to be heading back.”
“That is your choice, but I have lived here for a long, long time. If you wish to know its secrets, then I can show you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind…um…you wouldn’t happen to be the one who doesn’t like the noise from my apartment?”
“No, I do not hear you up there. What you wake with your noise is something far more ancient than even I.”
“What?”
“I can only show you.”
Again, Terrance looked at the creature’s teeth and decided he really wasn’t that curious, after all. “Well, I’m just going to watch some TV and get to bed, as I have to work tomorrow. Nice meeting you, though.”
“We shall meet again.” The creature sank back down until it was once again just a huge shadow beneath the surface of the water, then it floated away.
Terrance took one last look at the vast cavern and its underground lake. He really didn’t know what to make of it, but he decided to worry about it another time, as he really did have work tomorrow. And there was a very long ladder-climb ahead of him.
Chapter 14
“So there’s a cavern under our apartments, and I found a mermaid there.”
Lance poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot in the break room. “Was she hot?”
“Yeah, pretty much. She also wasn’t wearing…anything.”
“No seashell bra?”
Terrance shook his head. “I guess that’s a Disney thing. It would probably be uncomfortable.”
“Never worn a bra; wouldn’t know. If you’d said there would be hot mermaids, I probably would have gone exploring with you.”
“Well, I didn’t know what I’d find. That’s why you explore.”
“And what happened?” Lance asked.
“What do you mean, what happened?”
“With you and the mermaid?”
“Well…we argued about comic books.”
Lance sipped his coffee. “You really know what to do with a naked woman, Terr.”
Terrance ignored that. “She got scared away by this other creature in the underground lake. A big, scaly thing, large as a whale but reptilian.”
“A dinosaur?”
Terrance scoffed. “Yes, Lance, I discovered a dinosaur—a creature thought to be extinct for 65 million years—and came to work the next day like everything was normal. It was just some monster or something.”
Lance sipped his coffee. “The naked mermaid sounds more interesting.”
“So, have you heard of the Infinite?”
“Nope. Who are they?”
“I don’t know; that’s why I was asking.” Their meeting was tonight, and he still hadn’t decided whether he was going.
The dark figure of Darlor approached, the lights of the break room seeming to dim in his presence. “Mr. Denby, are you working on the bugs in the legacy algorithm code?”
“Yeah, I’ve had to get a little help from Pendergrass, because the stuff is really old and confusing, but I’m making progress.”
“Good. See it done without delay.” Darlor gave a slight smile, revealing his sharp teeth flecked with red, then turned and left.
Terrance looked at Lance. “Why does it always seem like his teeth are bloody?”
“Maybe it’s what he eats.”
“What’s he eat?”
Lance thought about it. “When we went to Chili’s a few weeks ago, he got a live deer.”
“They have that at Chili’s?”
“It’s not on the menu; you have to ask for it.”
“Well, I better get to work.” Terrance grabbed his coffee and headed to his cubicle. As he sat down, his cellphone rang. It was Shannon.
“Hey, lover, am I interrupting?” she said in a sultry voice.
“Of course; I’m a very busy,
important man.”
“Well, I just wanted to say I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“I really hate my stupid work schedule. One day I’ll get a promotion and it won’t be like this anymore. A Night Mistress is more of a lone assassin, so I’d have more control over the mission times and parameters.”
“That sounds great!” Terrance said, thinking he sounded pretty convincing.
“So what have you been up to without me?”
“Just sitting around being alone and sad.” It was a joke, so it wasn’t really lying.
“Aww. Well, we’ll have fun tomorrow. Can’t wait for you to meet some of my friends from work.”
Dread slithered through him, but he pushed it away. “That should be fun. I really miss you.”
“Me too. You’re a great boyfriend; I hope you know that.”
“I try.” He felt like a horribly deceitful boyfriend.
“Well, I have to get going. I just wanted to touch base so I wasn’t some super-absentee girlfriend.”
“Your time away makes you more mysterious. If I saw you more, you’d probably quickly become annoying and boring.”
“Lies! Remind me when I get back that I must smack you for your lies.”
She could hit surprisingly hard. “I’ll write it down.”
“Bye, Ance.”
“Bye.”
He set down the phone and once again contemplated whether or not he should meet with Talia’s group. What did he hope to learn from them? It was like he was searching for something, and he was hoping they could finally tell him what.
Terrance set the idea aside and went back to his programming. He pulled up the old, horribly formatted main algorithm code. It was so complex-looking and inscrutable that it was hard to imagine it didn’t have thousands of problems. He noticed a comment in the code, one of the very few in it. It read, It watches. And it waits. As you fall apart. One of these days, Terrance figured he’d need to hunt down who wrote this code and give him a piece of his mind, but for now he was happy to just lose himself in fixing it.
Terrance parked his car and looked at the handwritten note. Beyond the Hobby Lobby. In front of him was a strip mall with a building labeled Hobby Lobby with a block-lettered orange sign. He wasn’t sure what hobbies it catered to, but he suspected video gaming wasn’t one of them.
He got out of his car and looked at the sheathed sword lying on the rear seat. That was what he was here to get answers about—or at least one of the things he wanted answers about. He picked up the sword and attached the scabbard to his belt. It was an odd weight at his hip, and his left hand went down to the hilt to hold it still. He had a strange sense of peace as he touched the sword at his side.
He looked around for where the “beyond” of the Hobby Lobby would be, and noticed a really thin alleyway between it and the pizza joint next door. He paused to reassess what he was doing there. What was he committing himself to by talking to these people? He told himself he’d just find out if they were all nutty, and if so, then he could dismiss them and move on. After that, he’d at least have some peace of mind.
He headed down the narrow alleyway. It was just wide enough for him to pass through, and was surprisingly long. As he reached the end of it, he thought he heard waves. When he finally exited the alleyway, he found himself on a clifftop hundreds of feet high, overlooking the ocean. A portion of the clifftop jutted further over the ocean and on it sat an ancient-looking castle that had become worn with age. Terrance hadn’t thought there were any old castles in North America…but then again, this whole area didn’t make any geographic sense. He was starting to come to the realization that nothing was ever going to completely make sense to him again.
For a moment, he stared out over the ocean. The sun was beginning to set, and its red light emphasized a large, mountainous island far in the distance. It was hard to see much detail, yet a desire to get to it boiled somewhere deep inside him. He shook away the notion and headed for the castle.
A large wooden double door was the entrance. One of the doors was ajar, and a piece of white paper was taped to the other, with a message written on it with a Sharpie: MEETING OF THE INFINITE INSIDE.
Terrance stepped through the open door and into a large stone entryway. Ahead, he saw an African American woman who appeared to be lighting torches along the wall with a box of matches. She turned and smiled as soon as she saw him. “You must be Terrance. Talia told us about you.” She was wearing a simple blue dress, though at her hip was a sword. She walked over to Terrance and extended her hand. “I’m Vivian.” She had a kind face that instantly put Terrance at ease.
He shook her hand and took another look around. The walls had mostly crumbled, but he saw a few doors, one with a piece of paper and an arrow taped next to it. “I’m just here to…um…maybe learn a little. I’m not really sure what’s going on, especially ever since I was given this.” He tapped the sword at his side.
She patted him on the shoulder. “We’ve all been there. We’ll tell you what we know, and maybe you’ll even have some things to tell us. If you want to head to the meeting room, there are cupcakes and lemonade if you’re hungry. My husband, Curtis, also brought coffee.”
“Okay, thanks.” He chuckled a bit. “I was a little afraid you would all be like Talia.”
“Oh.” She hesitated a moment. “Yes, Talia is…special. She has an intensity to her, doesn’t she? She’s very sweet, she just has…um…a lot of enthusiasm and her own unique way about her. We’re very grateful for what she contributes.”
Contributes to what? he wanted to ask, but he assumed they’d answer that at the meeting. He headed for the meeting room. Inside were a whiteboard on a wall and a number of folding chairs arranged in a circle. The room was lit by a single bulb on the ceiling with a dangling metal-link cord to turn it on and off—though it was hard to imagine that this old castle was wired for electricity.
A folding table held cupcakes, a pitcher of lemonade, and a coffee carafe, and next to it stood an African American man, who looked at Terrance with a friendly smile. He wore slacks and a red sweater, which contrasted with the sword at his belt. He was tall but not a big man, and despite the weapon, he was yet another person who didn’t look like a warrior. “Hi, I’m Curtis.”
They shook hands. “I’m Terrance.”
“It’s great you’re here. Why don’t you grab some food if you’re hungry, and take a seat,” Curtis said. “Hopefully we’ll have some answers for whatever questions you need to ask.”
“And hopefully we don’t scare him off,” said another man, laughing. Terrance turned to see an older man with a graying beard seated in one of the chairs. He wore an old jacket that looked military and also had a sword at his hip. “I’m Randolph, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you.” Terrance took a cupcake and a napkin and poured himself a coffee. He never refused free coffee when offered. “I’m just hoping you guys can tell me something about my sword. Were you given yours by faeries, too?”
“You saw faeries?” asked a little girl. She was in the corner with some toys and coloring books and an even younger little boy. They looked to be about seven and five years old, respectively. “Did you see their palace? It’s neat. I want to go up in it!”
“Yeah, I saw the palace,” Terrance told her, “when they gave me the sword.”
Curtis chuckled. “Faeries are an interesting thing. And don’t worry, Terrance, we’ll talk about all this when everyone arrives. We’re all still learning here. These are my children, by the way, Grace and Daniel.”
“Hi,” he said to them. Grace smiled and waved at him, but Daniel kept playing with a toy truck.
Terrance took a seat, and soon a young couple who appeared to be about his age entered, two attractive people who looked like they must have been the stereotypical star quarterback/head cheerleader couple in high school. “Hey, bro, name’s Travis and this is Erica,” the man said with a big, friendly smile as he extended his hand.
Terrance shook it, and it was a more forceful handshake than he was expecting. “Terrance.”
“Ready to get out there and destroy evil?”
“Well…uhh…”
“Don’t push him,” Erica chided Travis. She turned to Terrance and put her hand on his shoulder as if she were calming a child. “I bet this is all new and scary for you, but we’ll help you through it. We’ve all been there ourselves.”
Behind them, a middle-aged woman in scrubs walked in. “New guy!” she exclaimed upon seeing Terrance. “I’m Joyce.”
“Terrance. So, are you a doctor?”
She straightened her scrubs. “Nope. Just a fashion statement. All the kids are wearing scrubs these days; haven’t you seen it? I bet you’re wondering what we’re up to here, but it’s nothing too weird, I assure you. Live sacrifices are scary the first time, but you get used to them.”
Terrance went pale. “Wait, what are we—”
Curtis shook his head. “Don’t listen to Joyce about anything.”
A Hispanic man in a nice suit with a neatly trimmed goatee entered next. “I’m Donald.”
“Terrance.”
“Good to have you here,” Donald said as he took a seat. Terrance found it refreshing to meet someone who wasn’t talkative.
Next to arrive was a dark-haired teenage girl in glasses, dressed more like a woman in her forties except for her backpack. “Hi, I’m Felicia.”
“Terrance. Um…aren’t you kind of young for this?” Not that Terrance was quite sure what “this” was, but everyone in the group did have swords.
“I don’t think anyone is really ready for it,” she said sheepishly.
“The forces of the Darkness don’t spare you on account of age,” Randolph said. “I certainly don’t get a senior discount.”
The last to arrive was Talia, still dressed in her white cloak, head concealed in her hood. She walked in cautiously and immediately locked her eyes on Terrance. “You came. You didn’t bring your ‘girlfriend’?”
Sidequest: In Realms Ungoogled Page 10
