by Deck Davis
A series of images hit me, and I had to stop talking. I saw a plane flying into a wild patch of turbulence. The pilot’s face straining as he tried to control the plane, then his eyes widening as he realized he couldn’t. The mountain side looming close, directly in the path of the plane. Mom gripping the seats, Dad gripping her, Bill shouting, the wind howling, the plane engine screaming….
This was only the series of images my mind created when I thought about the accident; I’d never actually seen it. The feeds were there to watch, if I had the urge. They recovered Dad’s mainnet chip, after all. I’d never even considered it. Still, when planes, or Mum, or Dad were mentioned I’d always flinch as a moving picture of a plane struggling in the storm tried to creep into my mind. It was always a battle to keep the horrible scene from playing in full in my brain.
“Did it….crash?” asked Eddie.
I nodded. “Dylan and I were only supposed to be on our own at the ranch for a week, until a guy came by for the wolfhounds. He was going to adopt them. Dad had leased the ranch to this family who were gonna get there soon. After that, we were supposed to fly south too.”
“I’m sorry, Harry,” said Eddie.
Glora said nothing. There was this strange look in her eyes, like she was choked up.
“After that, I was living on the ranch alone. Dylan got taken in by a family in Duisben, but he stayed over at the ranch so often that he practically lived there. When I was eighteen I got them to sign me up as his guardian, and he came to live with me. I powered up Dad’s old studio and started fighting in VBRs, and the rest is history.”
We said nothing for a few seconds. We just sat there, each of us swimming in our own thoughts. The wind battered against the wall I’d made in front of the crevice, and then howled when it was defeated. The fire was fizzing out now; our scant supply of wood was charred. Without more fuel, it had nothing to do but die. The fading of the firelight and absence of its heat should have bothered me, but it didn’t. Maybe the flames were dying, but I felt in a weird way that something else was dying too. I had told Eddie, Glora and Rynk something deeply personal, and the act of saying the words had stirred something in me. Already, I felt the tension in my skull ease.
“Listen, Harry,” said Eddie.
I shook my head. “You don’t have to say anything. I didn’t expect anything from you after telling you that. I just needed to say it.”
“Well I got something to say if you’ll spare me the time,” said Rynk. “A long while back Harry here was bugging me to know why I say partner all the time. I told him that it was because of westerns.”
“Westerns?” said Eddie.
Rynk slapped his forehead. “Jeez. The films. Does nobody round here have a little culture? Glora here used to watch them with me all the time.”
Glora said nothing. She was staring at the makeshift wall in front of the crevice almost as if she could see through it. Her eyes had that absent look that comes when someone is right next to you physically, but is miles away mentally.
“So, why do you say it?” I said.
Then, Rynk’s voice changed. Not dramatically, but it seemed to gain a bit of weight as if the cockiness left it. “The truth is it does come from westerns, in a way. But not ‘cos I like ‘em. If I’m honest with you, I can’t stand ‘em. Old movies always have this grainy look about them, y’know? Like the picture might disintegrate while you’re in the middle of watching it. I guess you’d never get that on a gel-screen, would ya? Tech always seems to be-”
“Rynk, buddy, you’re floating down a different stream,” said Eddie.
“Sorry. I guess you and Harry used up the emotional speeches and there’s no room left in your cold hearts for old Rynk, eh?”
I patted him on the shoulder. “We’re listening,” I said.
He nodded, and kept his head dipped low so that he was looking into the dying flames. “My Pa used to watch ‘em. He was mad for cowboys and stuff. He used to watch the same movies on repeat over and over again, and when he wasn’t doing that he’d go to these conventions where all the fans met up dressed like sheriffs and outlaws and bandits. When he was at home, he’d always be using the lingo. Y’know, calling my Ma ‘pretty broad’ and calling my uncle Hector, who travelled a lot, a ‘saddle bum’. And me? Well, you can probably guess what he always used to call me.”
“Are your parents gone?” asked Eddie.
“A blood clot got Pa when he was seventy-two. Ma’s still soldiering on. The old broad’s gonna be ninety-eight this December. She’s in a home now. You know, one of those hi-end care places?”
“Those places cost a bomb,” I said.
Then it dawned on me. The reason Rynk would seemingly do anything for bits, the reason he agreed to fight in team VBRs even when the very idea of a team seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth. He needed the bits for his elderly mother. He wasn’t just a slippery, greedy SOB. I’d never even bothered to find out. Just like I always did, I’d judged him the second I met him.
“Ma’s mind isn’t what it used to be. For some damn reason, she still asks about you, Glora,” said Rynk.
Glora’s stare seemed more absent than ever. The color had drained from her face. I started to seriously worry about her. Then, incredibly, a tear trickled from the corner of her right eye. I had never expected someone like her to become so wound up about something. She ran her hand through her hair. She gave a long, deep sigh, as if she were trying to exhale all her troubles. From the look on her face, it hadn’t worked. “I…need to tell you guys something,” she said.
Was I imagining it, or was her voice wavering a little? Who was this woman sat across from me? It certainly wasn’t the Glora I knew.
“What’s up?” said Eddie.
“It’s just…hearing about everything that happened to you guys, and why you need bits. Rynk for your mom, Har for your dogs.”
“Wolfhounds,” I said, correcting her out of instinct.
“I just feel like shit,” she said.
“Why? You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re helping us.”
“That’s just it,” said Glora. “I have done something wrong.”
She said nothing for a few seconds as she regarded each of us in turn. Her eyes seemed to flit from person to person. Something clicked into place in my mind. Deep down, I felt like I knew what was coming now. I knew what she was going to say. I felt sick with the thought.
“It was me,” said Glora. “The map, the ambushes. It was me. It was all my fault.”
Eddie stood up. He flinched as though someone had hit him. “What are you talking about?”
“Back in Eden. Before the VBR, Lucas asked to meet me. He said it was about the Expanse Charter. When I went to see him, he promised me all this stuff. How he’d bring back the Charter. His family would pay for it, and he’d make me head of a division. All I had to do was let one of his programmers, Douggie, mess with my avatar a little.”
“What are you saying?” said Rynk.
Glora’s voice was cold now. “He modified my avatar so that when I place map pins, it broadcasts to a few teams that Lucas has chosen.”
“Like Team Elk?” I said.
She nodded. “And the map that Rynk sold me…it wasn’t just left on the overseer’s computer. It was planted there.”
“So that we’d make plans around the wrong map,” I said.
Again, she nodded. The realization of what she’d done hit me like a punch in the face. I lost my balance, and I put my hand out to steady myself and then felt the burn of the fire embers on my palm. I flinched and moved away from the fire.
“I told you,” said Glora. “The Expanse Charter were like a family to me. More than my real family ever were. Eddie, you know what my dad was like. How he used to hit my mum, and then how he turned on me. You knew what I had to put up with. When I was old enough to leave for the Charter it was like I learned what a family really was. Then, when the Charter folded, and it was taken away from me…”
“So, you
set us up? What the hell, Glora?” said Eddie. Anger was written in his features in a way I’d never seen before. He was always such a happy-go-lucky guy that it made me shudder to see how mad he was.
Glora stood up. “After listening to you guys talk, I had to tell you,” she said, her voice wavering, “I’m sorry, okay? If I could take it back, I would.”
“There’s no taking this back, babe,” said Rynk.
Glora looked at me. “And you, Harry. I know what your old team did to you. I know how this must feel to you.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
She cleared her throat. “I’ll make it right” she said. “If they’re tracking my map pins, I know how to put an end to it.”
“What are you saying?”
With that, Glora walked to the wall covering the crevice, and she climbed over it. Then, she started walking across the tundra and toward the Bluejaw lake, where the ice sharks swam.
Well, I had my answer, at least. My instincts had been right; someone was working against us, only it hadn’t been just Lucas. It had been someone on my own team, someone I’d trusted.
As I watched her go into the distance, I realized what she was going to do. She was going to jump in the lake and kill herself, or her in-game self, at least. In some weird way, maybe this was how she planned to make amends.
It would be a horrible death. Even though the map pain sensors weren’t as harsh as real life, I knew it would be a gruesome fate, jumping into a freezing lake and getting torn apart by sharks, but I decided that I would let her do it. I would allow her to suffer.
Chapter Fourteen
I shut Glora out of my mind. As she walked toward her death, I forced myself not to look at her, and to feel not even an ounce of pity for her. Instead, I turned to Rynk.
“I owe you an apology,” I said.
Rynk couldn’t take his eyes off Glora.
“I guess I had my doubts about you, Rynk,” I continued. “A small part of me thought you might have had something to do with it all. You know, with the map and stuff. So, I’m sorry.”
The sky had darkened now. A smog-grey cloud drifted overhead and blotted out the daylight. The fire had died completely, leaving behind a scattering of ashes and charred wood. Even the wind had dropped. It was like an absence of everything, of sound, of light, of heat.
I couldn’t believe that it had happened again. Maybe this just went to show that you couldn’t trust anyone, ever. Give someone enough rope and they would hang you from the gallows. I felt like I wanted to climb over the wall myself and just leave Eddie and Rynk behind. After all, it was only a matter of time until they betrayed me too.
Rynk turned to me. He had a steely look on his face. “Are you just gonna let her leave?” he said.
I couldn’t help feeling there was a hint of accusation in his tone. “What do you expect me to do?”
“We’re still in a battle, partner. There’s how many, sixty-somethin’ teams left? The next wave is getting ready to piss all over us, and you’re gonna sit there while one of our team goes for a swim with the sharks.”
I stood up. My face felt hot, despite the absence of the fire. “Did you even listen to what she said? She sold us out.”
Rynk grabbed my shoulder. “She had her reasons. I’m not saying I agree with what she did, but it wasn’t for nothing. There’s more to life than bits and battles, bub. Like the Charter…I always knew what it meant to her.”
“She screwed us over,” I said.
“We still need her. I know she messed up, but to my mind, if a gal’s willing to jump into a goddamn lake full of sharks just to make amends, then that means she’s sorry.”
I thought about it. Anger, hate, revenge - was this me? Was that the kind of person I was? Then I thought about what Glora had done to us, and I decided that maybe it was. “I’ll take my chances without her,” I said.
“Those chances, partner, are nothin’ with one of our team gone. Dying ain’t no way to make amends. Let her do it another way. Let me go out there and bring her back. Let her make it up to us by fighting.”
I looked to Eddie for support. “Would you trust her again, Eds? Would you have her fighting next to you?”
Eddie’s expression was set in a grimace. “She betrayed you too, Rynk. What about your mom and her care? How can you be so detached about this?”
“’Cos, I don’t play emotions. I play the odds, and without the girl, our odds drop. There’s more to this than just swinging our swords and killing a few monsters. What about your wolfhounds, Harry? What about Wolfy’s dad? That damn library in Perlshaw? Think about it.”
“We can’t trust her,” I said.
Rynk squeezed my shoulder harder. “People have different things going on in their heads, buddy. Different problems, needs, urges. Sometimes, some things are just too strong to resist. We’re all human, Harry. Nobody on earth has a halo above their heads. What about you? If you could somehow have your family back, get your Ma and Pa back home just by screwing over some damn VBR team, wouldn’t you do it?”
I was about to answer out of instinct, but then Rynk’s words really sank in, and they stunned me into silence. When I thought about it, I was shocked to realize that he was right. If there was some way to bring Mom, Dad and Bill back, I’d have done it no matter what it was. They were family, after all. For Glora, the Expanse Charter were her family.
Maybe forgiveness was the ultimate test of a person. Whether you could get hurt by someone, feel it deeply, and then still find a way to forgive them. A small, angry part of me hadn’t forgiven my family for leaving me, as petty as that sounded. I’d never forgiven Lucas for what he did either. Lucas, on his side, had never forgiven us, even though I still couldn’t even comprehend what reason he had to do the things he’d done.
The point still stood; without forgiveness, there was only misery, and a well of hate that was complemented by a feeling of emptiness so vast it could suck the light out of even the brightest soul.
“It’s time we stopped being on the back foot,” I said. “No more running. Not that we could, anyway; they’ll be able to track us through Glora’s map pins. It’s time we took this VBR by the balls and squeezed the hell out of them. Rynk, go and get Glora back, and then we’ll go on the offensive.”
As Rynk climbed over the wall and ran across the icy ground toward Glora, Eddie spoke. “Wave three is hitting soon,” he said.
Without warning, Elder Arin’s voice spoke in my head. I pictured him in the cave deep in the Perlshaw hill, fixing me with this piercing stare.
“Me, you, and everything and everyone you’ve ever known will be gone someday, Harry,” he had said. “The best thing you can do is try and outrun the wave of death long enough to leave something lasting behind.”
The more I thought about it, the more I decided that there was some truth to it. That was all we were doing, when it came down to it - outrunning the wave of death. Not just in the VBR, but outside of it as well. Maybe now it was time to stop running and to leave something lasting behind.
Chapter Fifteen
30 Teams Remaining
With the third wave imminent and knowing that it would close around the Shadow Quadrant for the finale, most teams made their way toward the south east part of the map. Another wave meant a smaller map, and with so many roving tribes moving in the same direction, it was inevitable that teams would be forced away from stealth and into conflict. This cut the number of teams down considerably.
After Rynk brought back Glora, I knew that we didn’t have enough time to talk any of this through. Recriminations would have to wait, because right now we needed to focus solely on the battle. I was still surprised, though, when Glora strode back into camp swinging her hips and with her head held high.
“What are you boys waiting for?” she said. “We have work to do.”
Eddie looked away from her. Out of all of us, Glora’s betrayal had hurt him the most. He’d known her for the longest, and not only that, but he w
as the most trusting of us. Eddie had come into the battle as a naïve and optimistic guy. Now, after having his faith in the overseers shattered, and witnessing Glora’s confession, he looked like a different person. Some of the youthful vigor seemed to have left Eddie’s face, replaced by lines of cynicism.
When Glora came back in such a cocky way, I took a few seconds to stop being mad, and instead, I thought about it. That was when I realized that deep down, Glora would be feeling a lot more fragile than she let on. The way she was acting now was just her method of getting through the situation until the end of the battle. Thinking about it, I decided that it was the best way to be. We all just needed to wear our war faces and get through this. With that in mind, I tried to ignore what she’d done, and I focused on winning the battle.
