by Isaac Stone
This one was very beautiful. I played the light of my torch on the rock formations and took it all inside. Caves were always a fascination of mine. I remembered checking a book out of the library as a kid and reading up on speleology, the study of caves. I never made to any of the speleological society meetings in town, but my interest waned after a few months. There weren’t many caves in our area due to the pattern of the last glaciers.
I stood at the edge of the niche and waited for Chamita to return. I could only imagine what she’d bring back this time. I hoped it wasn’t another giant cave rat, but we were all hungry and not in any position to be fussy. Whatever it was, I prayed the meal didn’t appear too disgusting.
As I sat there and waited, I was tempted to pull out the watch and raise the VR crew. This place was too real at times and it was difficult by now to remember I was in a simulated game. One of the reasons I needed to talk to Rhonda was to be reassured I hadn’t gone mad inside a dream world. It was difficult to remember where I was right now. The cavern had its own level of detail. Right now, all was quiet and all I needed to do was get everyone past that settlement of the cave dwellers.
It hit me that this wasn’t so much about the game as it was about confronting my own insecurities. I’d spent too much time in college partying when I should have tried to find a job upon graduation. Heck, I’d even convinced my parents to send me overseas on a dig site in China. It seemed archaeology was a field that only had room for the top one percent and everyone else picked up scraps from government projects or taught school. I didn’t like teaching and spent enough time frozen or roasting myself on a dig site. I needed to find a way out of this mess.
By the time Chamita returned, everyone was fast asleep. I heard her land in the middle of the niche. She didn’t weigh that much, so Chamita didn’t make that much noise when she came down. No one woke up.
She stood in front of me with her spear. On the spear were several of the white and blind river fish. These were the ones mentioned in the manuscript. They all had large mouths full of sharp teeth. I watched her drop the fish on the ground in front of me in one neat pile. These didn’t look too bad to eat, but the white color was a little disconcerting.
“Dinner tomorrow,” she said to me. “You think they like?” She gestured at the forms of my sleeping companions.
“I’m sure they will Chamita,” I told her. “Right now they’ll eat anything that doesn’t eat them. I’m glad you brought us the food and I’m thankful.”
“Glad you like,” she told me. She placed her spear on the cave wall and stretched her slender body out.
She walked over and sat down beside me. Actually, she folded herself up to the ground. She was quite agile and limber. I suppose years of climbing trees will do that to you, but it was also the product of some designer’s inner mind. I will say she was very consistent in her behavior, Sandstone Gems made sure she was part of the game through and through.
I felt the warmth of her head on my lap and looked down. She used me as a pillow with her long legs stretched out on the ground. She looked up and our eyes made a connection I hadn’t known in a long time. Right then, I was consumed with the desire to kiss her. But I didn’t know how it would affect the game. I was worried it caused another roll of the dice from the computer system that ran it. I wondered how her lips would feel; her head felt firm enough on me and her hair was soft. Instead, I placed one hand on the top of her head.
Then she began to cry. This I hadn’t expected.
“What’s wrong Chamita?” I asked her. Somehow, I knew the answer.
“Lobo,” she sobbed. “Miss Lobo.” She turned her head to keep me from seeing her cry.
What strange roll of celestial fate had sent me here? I couldn’t find a woman to save my life and now I had a walking fantasy who asked for comfort. I stroked her hair, but didn’t say a thing. What could I say? Lobo was gone and would not return. This wasn’t the kind of game where people or animals could spontaneously resurrect. There was no “spell” to bring him back. Anything I said would turn out the wrong way, so I remained silent.
I let my little wolf girl cry herself to sleep. By the time Howard woke for his watch, she was sleeping and I didn’t want to wake her.
13
I did get some rest after Howard went on watch duty, but not much. I didn’t move, as I didn’t want to disturb Chamita. She looked so peaceful asleep in my lap. It was hard to reconcile the small woman who cried over the loss of her pet to the killing machine I’d seen go into action earlier. I shuddered when I thought about what she would do when she had the chance to go at those bootleggers.
I woke up briefly when Howard went off the watch. He was replaced by Lester. When I saw Bonnie sniff at the way Chamita slept on me, I knew that it would soon be time for us to be up. In the darkness, it was hard to tell what time it really was, so I was forced to consult my pocket watch. The pocket watch, since it doubled as a communicator, didn’t need to be wound.
I was a little unclear, suddenly, if one minute of VR time equaled one minute of real time. What did the crew do when I slept? Did the entire façade shut down and wait until I woke? It seemed to be a waste of time to keep it all running when I was asleep. It reminded me of all those stories of people who’d woken from dreams only to discover that the world isn’t the same. Or how many people dreamed they lived somewhere else. I was almost convinced the universe was one big VR game and we played it out in our waking lives.
I woke for the final time to the image of Chamita cooking the fish over a fire. The ground was stone, which forced her to lay rocks around the fire to contain the heat. I didn’t know where she’d found the wood, but I guessed there might be supply down here from where the river since it flowed down from the surface. There are plenty of rivers who have streams that break off and disappear into ponds or streams. It’s easy for them to find their way underground too.
“She’s a good cook,” Howard said to me as he munched on a piece of the cavefish. “Never thought I would like one of these. They look like ghost fish. I guess they’re good for you.”
I took a bite off it and agreed with Howard. “She has many talents,” I told him. “Still would like to know how she survived in the forest all these years. She had to have help.” I looked back at Chamita’s intent look as she cooked more fish.
I glanced over at the forms of Lester and Bonnie. They talked and laughed about something in private. I hadn’t noticed them so close before and this seemed to be a welcome change.
“What’s the story with those two?” I asked Howard. “They’re acting like old friends.”
“It’s because they are,” he told me. “They were engaged before we started on this trip. Something happened on the way up and she broke it off. I never will understand these modern women.” Howard shook his head.
This explained a lot. It clarified Lester’s attitude and Bonnie’s crush on me. She used me to get back at him and I rejected her. Mission accomplished, she’d returned to Lester. I hoped it would adjust his attitude and keep her happy at the same time. Touche Sandstone, a job well done there.
“That little wolf gal has a thing for you,” Howard mentioned to me in a low voice. “She woke up and kissed you, but you didn’t notice. Right after that, she went to the fish and started cooking them. You married, Vince?”
“No, you?”
“I was, several times. Never worked out. If I was you, I wouldn’t be too quick to let Chamita get away. Something to keep in mind.”
Great, the only woman I could find who was interested in me was a piece of software pre-programmed to get cozy with player one. At least I knew what I wanted. It was a small comfort, but it was also a start. All I had to do when the game ended was to go to the woods and find some woman who howled at the moon. We could spend time on the tundra and plan our summer vacations chasing deer. I was certain my parents would be thrilled to meet their wolf-in-law.
“We need to get to the surface through that settlement,” I to
ld Howard. “It’s the only way up there on those maps and I don’t want to be down here any longer than necessary.” I turned as something snapped in the middle of the river. It was big enough to chomp a man in half.
“I don’t like this place either,” he agreed. “Too many creeps in the dark.”
He turned in the direction of Chamita. “I think she’s done cooking the extra vittles. I’ll go get one for you and see if she has more for me.” Howard strode over to her as Chamita cooked.
This gave me the chance to open up the watch communicator and check in with the VR crew. I’d been out of touch long enough, time to find out what took place in the real world.
Rhonda appeared to be sleepy this time. I wondered if she was on call 24/7 during this test. Why didn’t they rotate her with someone else? It made no sense to push her this way. When the game ended, I made a noted to talk to her about the hours she was putting into this project. I hoped they paid her well.
“Well, look what the wolf dragged in,” she joked when we established a connection. “So are you barking up a tree yet? Any puppies to report?” Always with the jokes.
“We’re headed into some settlement of cave dwellers called the Deritar”, I told her. “I found some cache that had maps and drawings in it. There were drawings of them. They weren’t in any of the character profiles, so I assume this is supposed to be a new development.”
“Right you are,” she replied. “They live in the depths of the caverns and we didn’t know if it was such a good idea to bring them out just yet. However, you forced our hand when you escaped from that gang. The VR dice spun when the grenade was tossed and it worked out in you favor. So we had to improvise on our end and bring out a set of unfinished NPC’s. I hope you like what we’ve managed to do with them when you reach the settlement. Like I said, they are a work in progress.” She winked at me.
“What do you mean?”
“We haven’t had the chance to create a huge back story for them. Don’t worry, the other NPC’s will react as if we had.”
“Okay,” I replied to her. “Had to check and make sure. So the box with the maps and study was your idea.”
“Right. Had to improvise that one too when the dice rolled in your favor.”
“One of these days I’m going to find my own pair of dice.”
“Good news is that we’ve decided to replace your logbook. Why don’t you look behind that rock to your right?”
I did as she instructed. There it was, the missing logbook. I grabbed it, rifled through the pages to make sure it was the same one, and then checked the character section. There they were, the Deritar cave dwellers in brilliant colors. I shoved the logbook into my jacket.
“Thank you, Rhonda,” I told her. “I need to return to the game. Anything else I need to know about?”
“Wasn’t that enough?”
I cut the connection. The logbook safely in my jacket, I continued back to my companions.
I stopped and watched them eat the fish that Chamita cooked. Everyone seemed so happy, even with the danger we were in at the moment. All of them sat around the fire she’d made and chatted. Chamita didn’t say much, I still couldn’t figure out why her vocabulary was so limited. How much of these programs and characters in the game degrees of agency? I was stuck between evaluating her as a product of someone’d vivid imagination and a real person. It was impossible to decide which way to go.
All of this was a test of my own abilities to manage and lead. Somehow I’d found the ability inside me to lead people. It was a talent I never had before today. This crazy VR pulp adventure game forced me to take responsibility for other people, something I’d never done before. As a gamer, I’d fantasized about leading armies into battle, but it was just that: a fantasy. Most of my gamer friends had enough trouble getting up in the morning, much less running into battle.
Perhaps the whole point of the game was to make me grow up and realize there were other people outside my own personal group of friends. The last time I’d hung out with people was in college. This was something I desperately needed to have back in my life.
We began to move again once the remains of the breakfast of fish was picked up and disposed. Chamita made certain that we dumped all the remains in the river. She didn’t want anyone or anything tracking us from our uneaten food. I noticed the water boiled every time we tossed the leftovers into the river. I had a brief glimpse of the things that ate them. They were all blind, white and had big teeth. How Chamita managed to swim in that river I never will understand.
The rest of the trip was uneventful until we reached the cave dweller settlement. Every so often, we would hear a scurry in the dark and hold the torches high to get a better look at the source. Usually it was some small creature with fur that wanted to avoid us. At one point, we heard a squeal and stopped to see what a niche next to us held. Inside was the largest spider I’d ever seen wrapping up a giant cave rat. Of course, the spider was white and lacked eyes.
So far, the huge cave rats were the only things I’d ran across in the cavern that had coloration. Their eyes tended to be smaller than their cousins on the surface. I surmised they were a late addition to the subterranean dwellers. Perhaps at some point a large rodent ancestor of theirs took to living in the deep caves as a way of survival. It didn’t resemble anything I’d ever seen in the real world.
We encountered the first of the cave dweller sentries two hours later. They were quiet. The same as Chamita. It hit me that sound was one of the few ways these underground creatures use to locate prey. Anything that made too much noise let every predator know in listening distance that it was on the menu. To survive, they’d learned ways to communicate which used a minimum of noise. Smell was a factor too and most of the creatures we’d encountered down there had little odor.
The entire trip was an exercise in one long night hike. As a kid, I’d gone camping with my parents on a clear summer evening. We’d gone out in the middle of the night to look at the constellations. The sky was filled with stars, more than I’d ever seen before. It was the night of an annual meteor shower and my dad wanted to see some of them. As a kid I was terrified meteors would strike the earth where we sat. It was only when we saw a few trails of them from the reentry burn that I realized how rare it was for a meteorite to hit ground.
The sentry was one of twelve. They materialized out of the darkness and surrounded our party the moment we were near their settlement. For the first time, I had a chance to see what one of the cave dwellers resembled up close. All of them carried spears; a few had short swords in their hands.
The deritar were without pigmentation, the same as every other creature adapted to this land of eternal night. They were short compared to humans; most of them were no more than five feet tall and the average four and a half feet. The lacked any body hair, as far as I could tell. They had eyes, but turned their noses to sniff the air and moved in response to any sound. From what I could see, they weren’t as reliant on vision as your standard human. I noticed their jaws elongated and teeth sharp. Life was difficult down in the caverns and it bred tough creatures. Although they had defined muscles, the cave dwellers were slight people. I don’t think any of them weighed more than a hundred twenty pounds. I doubted any of the deritari could pass as homo sapiens, but they were close enough to our group to show a common ancestor. None of them wore shoes or sandals.
“What do we do now?” I asked Chamita. “They don’t seem too happy to see us.” The deritar also handled their weapons as an extension of their bodies.
“Quiet,” Chamita said to us. “They know me.” She stood there and waited until all the deritar had her in their limited field of vision.
Once the band noticed Chamita, the tension level dropped. I couldn’t tell how they were organized, but I expected a war chief or elder to be the leader. After a few minutes of solid silence in the cavern, one of them broke from their ranks and walked up to Chamita. He appeared to be a seasoned warrior and hunter with scars on his sh
oulders and chest.
Chamita stayed still and didn’t move at all when he came up to her. Her eyes made contact with the man and neither said a word.
They were all men, although I couldn’t be sure as all of them wore the same loincloth. All of the deritar had the narrow hips and lack of prominent breasts associated with masculinity. However, in these deep caverns, it might not mean the same thing.
“Friends?” he asked her in a very definite English voice. “Are these your friends or not, Chamita?”
She smiled at him. “They friends Raja Dagna.” She continued to stay still and didn’t move.
“Why did you bring them to us?” he demanded. “You know the rules. No aikanna allowed in our areas. Why did you bring them here?”
She frowned. “Bad men. They chased my friends and made rocks fall. They need go home.” I was caught between adoration of her frightened little doe look and fear for what could happen if this went bad.
So I decided to roll the dice and take a chance. After all, these NPC’s spoke English. Too bad I was in no position to check the stat sheets in my logbook.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to the one she called Raja Dagna. “If I could explain a few things. Chamita doesn’t speak very well and I can tell you what happened better than she can.” I took one step forward.
This was not the smart thing to do.
The moment I took the step forward, Raja Dagna spun in my direction with his sword held high. Every other one of the band snapped to attention with their weapons ready. I had committed some kind of protocol breech. I cursed myself as a fool, but I couldn’t do it over again.
At the same time, Lester brought up his heavy Tommy gun and Howard his shotgun. Even Bonnie had her revolver out and leveled at the nearest deritar. We were very close to a bloodbath and it would be on my account.
“You might kill most of us,” Raja Dagna spoke to me, “but you will not kill all of us. You will not prevent your own deaths. You should think carefully about your next move.” He handled the sword as an expert and I didn’t doubt his ability to use it.
