“Well, I do know where Aislen lives,” Mathis started cautiously. “As a matter of fact, I saw her there not an hour ago...and I would be happy to give you that address, but first, I want to be taken to that special octave you were talking about.”
“What? You don’t trust me?” Ichiban said, feigning hurt.
“No,” Mathis replied with a slow shake of his head. “I don’t.”
Ichiban chuckled. “Good guess. Maybe you aren’t as dumb as you look.”
“What? You mean to tell me you weren’t planning to take me there?”
“Yeah...no. It really isn’t a very good idea.”
“You can’t back out now!” Mathis was livid. “That was the deal. I bring you Aislen’s whereabouts—you take me to this secret level and show me how the ‘real action happens.’ You take me there or I don’t give you Aislen.”
Ichiban deliberated this for a moment, his mouth working in and out, between pout and frown. Mathis hoped Ichiban couldn’t tell he was bluffing. There was no way in hell he was giving him Aislen, but he never had been a good poker player. His copious sweat production always gave him away.
Mathis reached up and swept a cold palm across his forehead. He could feel the clammy sweat on his fingertips. He said a quick prayer and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“You really do not understand the consequences that going to that octave may bring,” Ichiban said.
“I don’t give a shit about any consequences,” Mathis responded. Really? What consequences could there be from a video game?
“Life as you know it—reality, as you perceive it—may never be the same.”
Oh, geez, these fools really took this shit way too seriously. It may affect some players that way, weak players like Blake, but not grounded, old men like Mathis. “Whatever. We had a deal.”
“Fine,” Ichiban finally gave in. “But you may end up regretting this.”
Mathis already regretted everything. He should have just left the whole mess to Jackson and Investigations from the start. But he was in too deep now. He had to see it through.
“Take me there,” he demanded.
“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ichiban said with irritation. “Blake! Activate his visor.”
Mathis was taken aback. Blake? Was it just a coincidence that he yelled for another player who happened to have the same name as a kid that was sitting in a padded cell right now? Mathis scanned the jungle, expecting another player to appear, but there was no one else around.
Mathis turned back and watched in horror as Ichiban’s neck broke itself in half, twisting perpendicular to his body. A violent twitched worked along the flesh of his cheekbone then his head jerked upright again.
“Don’t say he didn’t warn you,” Ichiban giggled in a squeaky falsetto. Mathis could have sworn that it was someone else’s voice speaking out of his mouth.
“Better hold onto your underpants,” Ichiban said before leaning toward Mathis and speaking slow and deliberate.
“This. Is. Not. A. Game.”
∞
“Holy fuck!” Raze shouted, as Ichiban recited the activation phrase.
“Visors activated,” The Womb announced calmly.
Raze leapt up off the bed and made a mad dash for The Womb. Within thirty seconds all three players would disappear off the television screen, out of the game and into Raze’s section of The Stratum.
Raze realized during the last interaction that Mathis had no intentions of telling Ichiban where Aislen was. He was a terrible liar. He just wanted to solve his little murder and rightly suspected the “secret game level” was a tool in that.
But, how dare that motherfucker, Ichiban, activate the visors. Those were Raze’s property, meant to access Raze’s realm of control. Grant had no right to take Mathis there without permission. It was bad enough that he had already trespassed there himself.
He shouldn’t be transporting Mathis to any part of The Stratum at all. It was a violation of Protocol of the highest order. Maggots were to be contained by The Stratum, not taken there. They were never to know it existed.
Grant could explain Aislen to The 8. They would understand if he was trying to catch Preston Reed and ensnared her instead. They would give the asshole a fucking bonus for finding her!
But Mathis? That was a whole different story. There was no good reason to take him there. The punishment for such a violation was worse than death. If The 8 found out about it, they would have Grant’s brain wiped and scrambled. He would be sitting in an institution somewhere, slobbering on himself for the rest of his life, not knowing his ass from a hole in the ground.
Grant would never risk such a thing, which only meant Grant was not Ichiban.
Raze dove into the chaise. “Theta 4. Stratum access,” he demanded. The Womb activated, immediately throwing the room into darkness and bringing up the brown noise. Raze didn’t have time to cycle down properly. This was an emergency situation. He had to stop this madness and figure out who Ichiban really was.
∞
Mathis felt a vibration tickle his temples, where the visor frames touched his skin. The tingling sensation wiggled across his scalp until his whole head felt charged with electricity. He tried to speak, tried to ask Ichiban what was happening, but was suffering from a severe case of lockjaw. Every muscle in his face and throat had become rigid as stone.
The current worked itself through his skull and into his brain. His frontal lobe immediately went numb and his vision was overcome by black and white static. A strobing effect came next, creating a disorientation that affected his balance. The world felt like it was toppling end over end and the vertigo made him violently nauseous.
A sudden burst of orange light pierced his eyeballs, radiated throughout his brain and worked pins and needles through the rest of his body. As the orange faded out, Mathis slowly recovered feeling in his limbs. The paralysis of his throat and face released and he was able to swallow and breathe. He shook the last of the fog out and looked around.
No longer in the verdant and overgrown jungle, instead, he stood alone in a desert landscape that seemed to be somewhere between Barstow and Mars, surrounded by miles and miles of absolutely nothing.
This was it? This was the special place?
A vortex of particles and light appeared in front of him then and suddenly Ichiban materialized in front of him.
“Well, here we are. You happy now?” His voice had changed back to its more mature timbre.
“What the hell is going on here?” Mathis demanded.
Ichiban laughed, a deep chortle, completely unlike the boyish giggle from just a moment ago. “What do you mean, Sergeant? Not what you expected?”
“No! There’s nothing here!”
“Well, that isn’t true. This desert is here.” Ichiban strutted around in a circle in the dirt, surveying the arid wilderness. “It’s just enough for you to feel like you are somewhere, and not realize you’re really nowhere.”
“What are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it doesn’t. Because you are a fool.”
That was it. Mathis was done. The game held no answers for him and Ichiban was right—he was a fool. But he wasn’t fool enough to stick around. He was out. He reached up, yanked the visors of his face and tossed them.
Instead of watching them fall onto the moss green shag carpet of his living room, he watched as they smashed into the red, desert dirt and shattered into a million pixels.
That wasn’t right.
He looked back up. Ichiban was still standing there with a stupid smirk on the lower half of his. And he wasn’t just an image on his television set. They were both still standing in the desert.
“What the fuck!” Mathis yelled at him.
“What the fuck, indeed,” Ichiban said. He reached up and removed his visors, revealing a pair of milky gray eyes; eyes too wizened for the youth of his body. He looked at Mathis a smiled.
“It�
�s a trip, isn’t it?” he said. “But that’s nothing. Watch this.” He lifted his arm above his head and brushed an open palm across the sky. “Demesne,” he commanded.
The atmosphere responded, rippling as if he had brushed his hand across a pond of still water. The ground began to quake, groaning and creaking. Roads and then layers of ash appeared beneath Mathis feet. Skyscrapers began to sprout up around him like daisies in grass. Instantly, a city in ruins was constructed around them. Mathis recognized it immediately. It was the scene that was frozen on the Parrish television set, minus all the blood.
“I don’t get it,” Mathis said. “How does a game do this?”
“A game doesn’t do this. Your mind does this—with a bit of assistance, of course.”
“My mind? You’re telling me all of this is just a figment of my imagination?”
“Not just a figment, no. This is real.” Ichiban gestured to the city around them. “Just as real as the place you imagine you live. But enough of philosophy and physics, where is the girl?”
“But this doesn’t explain anything.”
“I never said that it would. But I gave you what you wanted, now give me what I want, where is she?”
“No. I want answers.”
“Don’t make me angry, Sergeant. You don’t want to see me angry. Where is the girl?”
But Mathis wasn’t going to let it go. “What does Aislen have to do with the murder of Scott Parrish?”
Ichiban’s body jerked back as if Mathis had just shot him. The gray clouds in his eyes evaporated and he suddenly looked at Mathis with a clear set of blue ones. “What did you just say?” he asked, in a thin squeal.
“I said,” Mathis started again, watching Ichiban carefully. “What does Aislen have to do with the murder of Scott Parrish?”
Ichiban’s head snapped to the side at an exaggerated angle again. A childish whine issued from him. “What? What do you mean? Ichiban! What is he talking about?” Then he let out a plaintive cry, “Ichiban, what happened to my dad!?”
Ichiban’s head snapped upright again. “Enough! Get back and stay!” Ichiban roared in a deep gravelly voice.
Mathis jumped back. He had no idea how any of it was possible, but he was pretty sure that there were two people inside of Ichiban. And that one of them was Blake.
Ichiban cracked his neck and straightened his uniform, smoothing his hands down the front of it. Once composed, he looked back up at Mathis, his eyes a pale, cloudy gray.
“You shouldn’t have upset him like that,” Ichiban said.
“Who?” Mathis was afraid to ask, but even more afraid of the answer. “Blake?”
Ichiban sighed. “Yes, Blake. Poor lad didn’t realize his father was...well, you know...”
Mathis was shocked. “Are you saying that Blake doesn’t know his dad is dead? That he doesn’t know he killed him? He did kill him didn’t he? They were the only ones in the house that night.”
“Well, Blake’s finger did pull the trigger, but his mind wasn’t in it. That was me.”
Mathis was apalled at the idea of this monster possessing a little boy and getting him to kill his own father. “Who are you?”
Ichiban laughed. “Well, if I told you that, then I’d have to kill you! Seriously? Don’t even try to figure that out. You’ll never find me.
“So. What was it we were talking about?” Ichiban continued. “Oh yes. The girl. You asked if she had anything to do with Scott Parrish’s, how should I put this, departure? The answer is no. She didn’t. She has to do with me. I need her and I need her now. So where is she?”
Mathis didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to leave—how to wake up from this nightmare, because that was the only thing it could be. He was out of options.
“Peek a boo!” Dookie’s head poked out from around his ass.
Mathis had completely forgotten about him and Ichiban startled, jumped back. Dookie stepped around from behind Mathis and aimed Big Bertha at Ichiban. Ichiban took another step back and Dookie shot a warning blast that missed him by mere inches.
“Do not even think about skipping out on me,” he yelled at him.
“Who are you?” Ichiban hissed at the troll.
“I would like to ask you the same thing, Mr. Ichiban. Just who might you be?”
Ichiban took another step away from the troll without saying a word. Dookie fired off another round even closer to his head.
“Do not test me or I swear, Big Bertha here will zap you back 100 millennia. You’ll come back as a river salamander in your next life.”
Ichiban stopped and put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I need to find the girl,” he finally said.
“So I’ve heard,” Dookie said, approaching Ichiban. “And I’m so curious about that. Why? What is she to you? You know her from somewhere perhaps? While I’d sure like to know, I have a few friends who would be even more interested.”
On the other side of Ichiban, Mathis spotted a laser beam of white light cutting into the city landscape. It tore through the wall of a building like it was nothing but a thin veil of fabric and a man, dressed in black from head to toe, emerged from the gash of light. He carried no weapons. He wore no protection, but he marched up to the group with no fear, like he owned the place.
Mathis had never seen anyone like him before. He was the epitome of human darkness. The man shot an icy look his way, and for the first time, Mathis felt deathly afraid.
“It’s about time you showed up,” both Dookie and Ichiban said in unison to the man.
The dark stranger turned his glare toward both of them, one then the other, before he growled in a low voice. “I don’t know who either of you are. But you both are trespassing here. Demesne is mine. Leave or die.”
Ichiban was the first to step back. “My apologies,” he said. “You are right. I trust you can handle things from here.” He gave the man a slight nod toward Mathis before vaporizing in a swarm of static.
Dookie looked toward the now empty space that Ichiban had occupied.
“Damn it! I wasn’t done with him yet,” he said. Then he looked at the man in black. “Raziel, I can explain everything. But let me take care of this guy first.”
Dookie turned toward Mathis. “Sayonara, Sergeant,” he said, aiming the weapon at the center of his chest.
“Don’t!” the man named Raziel shouted, but it was too late. Dookie had already fired and Big Bertha’s electric blue bullets were headed directly for him.
Raziel raised his palm toward Mathis and a white ball of electricity shot out of it. Both blasts of energy hurtled toward Mathis. The white sphere was faster and it caught up with Dookie’s ammunition. They collided and exploded upon contact, but a small amount of their mingled energy was still propelled forward and hit Mathis in the dead center of his chest.
The charge reached inside him, grabbed a hold of his heart, and sent burning spasms throughout the muscle. Mathis fell to the dirt in agony.
The man in black was suddenly standing above him, a dark angel staring at him with the icy eyes of death. He knelt down beside him and placed a hand on his chest. Another shock of pain ripped through Mathis. This time, a sucking pressure pulled at his heart and the pain began to subside.
The man in black took his free hand and placed it across his eyes. Mathis felt another current enter his brain as he heard the man whisper, “Go now.”
And everything faded to black.
CHAPTER 39
He opened his eyes to the sight and sound of static. The dark-haired devil who had been hovering over him, one hand on his heart, one on his head, had vanished. Mathis was flat on his back, alone except for his television screen swarming with an array of black and white chaos.
He managed to roll over from his back to his right side and came face to face with the dreaded gaming console. Only it was no longer inky black and throbbing with purple light. It was now just a cube of gray ash, a spent piece of charcoal barely holding itself together on the plush green of his carp
et. One last gasp from Mathis would blow it into dust. The visors were nowhere to be found.
The only thing that he brought back with him from the game was the unbearable pressure sitting in his chest, the knowledge that the game really wasn’t just a game, and that Blake really didn’t kill his father. He also knew that Aislen and Sabine were in terrible danger.
Mathis tried to push himself up off the floor, but there was nowhere near enough strength in his body to do that. He let his body roll backwards again and stared up at the popcorn of his ceiling. He was going to die here if he didn’t figure something out.
He lolled his head over to the left and spotted a flashing green beacon on his coffee table. His cell phone! If he could just make it the two feet to that table he could call 911.
Another crushing spasm racked his heart and he couldn’t breath. Mathis knew he didn’t have much time and with a mighty shove, threw himself all the way over to his stomach, schlepped his body in a slow, army crawl to the table, then flung his good, right arm toward the phone.
Thankfully, it hit its mark and the phone slid off the table landing just inches from his face. His vision began closing in on him and all he could manage to do was reach a finger up and push the green call button on the phone.
As he started losing consciousness, Mathis could hear the sweet sound of a woman’s voice.
“Hello,” Sabine said, right beside him, yet so far, far away.
“Help,” he managed to whisper before everything went black again.
CHAPTER 40
Soaring through a kaleidoscope of brilliant white and gilded amber, Aislen felt whole and complete. All the fear, doubt and insecurity she had been burdened with her whole lifetime was effortlessly shrugged off with the body that had fallen to her feet.
It had been a curious feeling to look down upon her own flesh as it lay empty on the floor. She hardly recognized it. It was familiar, but it was so flat—so two-dimensional—so limited. Now, flying through the unknown completely free, rapture ignited her heart filling her with total joy and complete peace.
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