by Jason Segel
Fons takes the lead as the three of us head in the same direction as the missing Children. Soon, I hear male voices in the distance.
“You get a great trophy, and I get third-degree burns. How the hell is that fair?”
“Quit bitching. I told you to turn down the sensitivity on the haptic response gloves. Those things can scald the hell out of you.”
“Yeah, but what’s the point of doing this if you can’t feel the hot blood? By the way, d’you see how that thing turned bright red when I grabbed it?”
“What’d I say? The real fighters are still out in the wild. All those ones back in Karamojo are just the ones that gave up.”
I can see them now. Two burly men dressed in arctic camo. They’ve both got assault rifles. Where are they getting this stuff? Nothing like that was available when I got to choose my weapon.
My vision blurs and my brain is boiling as the rage fills me. My mind no longer functioning, I race forward across the ice, my dagger in hand. I’m on the two avatars before they even know I’m coming. I slit the first one’s throat with a single slice. The avatar flashes, and I immediately slam my dagger between its ribs. He must have lost one life already, because the second time he flashes, he disappears. His friend has had just enough time to jump to his feet. He has a gun aimed at my temple when one of Kat’s arrows gets him right between the eyes. There’s a single flash and he’s gone.
The avatars have vanished, but two bodies are left behind, one giant and one small. The scream that comes from Ino makes my blood run cold. She runs past us through the snow and throws herself over her sister’s limp, broken corpse.
I open my eyes. Busara is kneeling over me, the disk I was wearing in her hand. I hear Kat sobbing on the bed beside me.
“Oh my God, what’s going on?” There’s real fear written across Busara’s face. “We saw tears pouring out from under Kat’s visor and we thought something must have happened to you.”
“It’s not me. I’m fine,” I tell Busara as I roll over to Kat.
“We’ll get the headset,” I promise her. “We’ll stop the slaughter.” I don’t give a damn what it takes. I’ve only seen Kat cry twice in the ten years that I’ve known her, and both times she’d broken a bone. This time there’s no pill that can ease the pain. It’s up to me to do something—and there is absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do to keep Kat from suffering like this.
“Simon?” I hear Elvis in the background.
“Give us a few minutes alone,” I tell him.
“No.” Kat sits up and wipes her face on her shirt. “We’ve got to get out of here. Remember what Wayne said? He knows who Elvis and Busara are. The Company is looking for all of us.” Kat slides off the bed and immediately starts stuffing things into plastic bags. I’d almost forgotten about our lovely dinner with Wayne. It seems like a lifetime ago.
“We should have left Otherworld sooner,” Kat continues. “Everyone’s depending on us, and we’re sitting ducks if we stay in one place too long.”
“I don’t get it,” Busara says. “You guys were only in Otherworld for a couple of hours. We pulled you out right when we were supposed to.”
Kat stops. “No. We were there for at least two Earth days. Maybe longer.”
Elvis is shaking his head. “No. You were there for one hundred and twenty minutes.” I was right—time is speeding up in Otherworld. Which means we need to move a hell of a lot faster in this one.
“By the way, just out of curiosity, how did Wayne find out about me?” Elvis asks, and I shrug. It’s an excellent question.
“So I guess he didn’t agree to our terms?” Busara asks.
“Not even close,” I say. “He tried to force us to reveal our real-world location. Kat and I managed to escape, and then we went to the ice cave. Two Children who came with us were killed outside the cave. That’s why Kat was crying.”
Busara is oddly quiet. Her eyes lit up at the mention of the ice cave—I know she’s dying to ask about her dad. But she doesn’t want me to yell at her for being insensitive. Her silence makes me as angry as the question would have. “Yes, the two Children who died were brave and wonderful creatures. They definitely didn’t deserve to be murdered by a couple of assholes who think it’s sporting to shoot unarmed beings with assault rifles.”
“God,” Elvis groans.
Busara’s face is stony. “I’m really sorry,” she says.
“Oh, and we saw your dad,” I tell her. “We freed his avatar from the ice.”
Her eyes grow big. “And?” she asks cautiously. “Do we know where to find his body?”
“Nope,” I answer. The response sounds mean even to my ears, so I soften my tone. “He wouldn’t tell us. But he has a virus that can destroy all the Otherworld headsets. He wouldn’t give it to us, though. He wants to talk to you.”
Busara races for the bathroom. “I need a razor!” she shouts. The hair on the back of her head has been growing in. She’d need to shave it for a disk to adhere.
Kat follows her. “You can’t use a disk,” she says.
Busara spins around. “What? Why not? You heard what Simon said!”
“Did you?” I snap. “I just told you we saw two Children get slaughtered right outside the ice cave. Even the liminal spaces are no longer safe.”
“Your dad wants us to get you a headset—and he’s right,” Kat says. “Otherworld is changing fast. There are no safe places anymore. The entire world is filled with psychos and beasts. You’d end up having to fight—and we all know your heart might not be able to take it.”
“Please. My dad needs me,” Busara pleads. “You’re worried about my heart, but I swear it’s going to crack right in half if I stay here and do nothing.”
“I’ll go with Busara,” Elvis volunteers, looking like the handsome doomed soldier in some Hollywood movie. “She won’t have to fight at all. I’ll take care of anything that comes at her.”
I get the sense that Elvis would happily take a bullet for Busara Ogubu, which boggles my mind. Since the day they met, the girl has been nothing but cold to him. Still, he’d sacrifice anything to impress her. But as noble as Elvis’s latest offer may be, there’s no way I’m going to let her take him up on it. Without Kat or me, they’d both be as good as dead.
“Listen, guys,” I plead. “There might be a better solution.” Busara looks devastated. I had no idea she was capable of caring this much about anything.
“Listen to Simon,” Kat counsels her. “Give him a chance.”
“We’ve arranged to meet someone who has a headset,” I say. “If we can convince him to let us borrow it, you’ll be able to go to Otherworld safely.”
“Who is it?” Elvis demands.
“Alexei Semenov.”
Elvis throws his head back and aims a frustrated groan at the ceiling. “Are you kidding me? Do you know anything about that guy? ’Cause I do. Alexei Semenov is not the sort of person you want to be making deals with. They call guys like him oligarchs, but they’re really just gangsters!”
Elvis is acting like I’m some kind of idiot. I’m not exactly thrilled about the situation either.
“Look—Semenov’s in New York,” I say. “He has a headset. We got word to him that we’d be at his house today at noon. Do you have any better ideas? ’Cause if you do, now is definitely the time to speak up.”
Elvis doesn’t look pleased, but at least he keeps his mouth shut.
“Who’s going?” Kat asks.
“Elvis and me,” I say.
“What?” Elvis yelps. “When did I sign up for a suicide mission?”
“You speak Russian!” I shout at him. “And unless I was hallucinating a few seconds ago, you offered to be Busara’s personal Otherworld bodyguard. Going to see Semenov is a hell of a lot safer than that.”
“Fine,” Elvis snips. “But the things I off
er to do for Busara’s body do not apply to yours. We go to Semenov’s, you guard your own ass.”
“Who said Simon was going?” Kat asks. “What if I want to meet this guy?”
Good God. Why the hell does everything have to be so hard? One look at her and I know she’s not going to let this go. “Grab a quarter,” I tell her.
* * *
—
I won the toss. Or lost, depending on how you look at it. Alexei lives in a Beaux arts limestone mansion on the Upper East Side. The place has so many embellishments that it looks like a five-tier wedding cake. Until recently the place was the embassy of Luxembourg. You can still see the dark square on the wall where the bronze plaque was removed.
“We could die in there,” Elvis says pensively.
Of course we could, but it’s fucking rude of him to point that out, if you ask me. “Let me get this straight—you’re totally fine going back and forth to Otherworld, where everything wants to kill you or eat you, but you’re terrified of asking some Russian dude if you can borrow his headset?”
“Beasts and guests are one thing,” says Elvis. “Russians are another. Do you remember when that meteor hit Russia a few years ago? Remember all the dashboard videos that showed a giant ball of fire flying right over people’s cars? Did you happen to notice that nobody stopped? They all kept driving toward the spot where the meteor was about to hit. You don’t screw with Russians, man. They are hard-core.”
I sigh with annoyance. “Do you have a point? If so, could you get to it? ’Cause it’s almost noon, and I bet our hard-core Russian friend won’t be too happy if we show up late.”
“I’m just thinking that if we’re about to die, there’s a question I’d like you to answer first.”
“Fine,” I huff. “Ask.”
“So what do you think I’m doing wrong?” Elvis suddenly sounds like a man in agony. “I’ve spent God knows how many hours alone with Busara, and she barely even looks at me. Sometimes when I ask her things, all she’ll do is grunt. I mean, it’s kind of sexy, but it’s hard to hold a conversation that way.”
I lock eyes with him. There’s no doubt he’s completely sincere. This is not what I needed at this particular moment. “You really want my advice? Right here? Right now?” I ask, and Elvis nods hopefully. “Give up on Busara. There’s something off about her. I told you back in New Mexico—I’m not one hundred percent sure she’s human.”
“She said my name in her sleep,” Elvis tells me, his voice dialed down as if someone could be listening.
I hope I’m doing a reasonable job of concealing my disgust. “I thought you just said you haven’t gotten anywhere with her.”
“We weren’t sleeping together,” he explains. “She passed out from exhaustion one night when we were working on the projector. I heard her whisper Elvis. She said it sweetly, too. I swear, it was the greatest moment of my life.”
“You really like this girl, don’t you?” I ask, though I can’t quite believe it.
Elvis nods silently. Why in the hell would someone like Elvis fall for a girl with less personality than an NPC? “She’s a genius,” he says, answering my unspoken question. “I’ve never met anyone who can do what she does.”
“Then I don’t know what to tell you,” I say with a sigh. “Maybe dial the dirty jokes down a notch?”
“Okay!” he says, obviously glad to have a plan. “I can do that!”
“And get your hands on a headset that will help her visit her dad. That’s the way to really win her over.”
“I can do that, too!” Elvis exclaims.
“Awesome!” I respond with fake enthusiasm. “Then let’s do it!”
“I know you’re screwing with me now, but I’m really glad we had this talk,” Elvis says as we cross the street.
“Me too,” I tell him. And though I said it to placate him, it’s not really a lie. I wish like hell he’d set his sights on someone else, but I do like seeing him happy.
* * *
—
I step up to the carved wooden doors on the front of Semenov’s mansion and press a small white buzzer that I assume is the doorbell.
A man in a perfectly cut three-piece suit answers. He’s got to be seven feet tall and there isn’t a single hair on his head. He glares down at the two of us without saying a word.
Elvis speaks to him in Russian. The man growls something brusque in response and then slams the door in our faces.
“That’s it?” I ask. “He’s not going to let us in?” I knew this house call wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, but I didn’t expect it to be over quite so quickly.
“He says we have to use the servants’ entrance,” Elvis snarls, kicking a concrete planter, which doesn’t budge.
“What?” I’m momentarily offended. It lasts all of ten seconds. Elvis appears to be taking the insult far more personally. I’m also worried he may have broken a toe.
“This is some serious bullshit,” I hear him muttering to himself as he limps away from the door. “I’m an American.”
To the left of the main entrance, wedged between Alexei’s mansion and his neighbor’s, is a narrow metal gate. I hear a buzzer sound as we approach, and I rush over just in time to push the gate open. Then Elvis and I squeeze between the garbage bags that are waiting to be collected in the narrow alley that leads to the service entrance. The door swings out into the alley and a smaller man in an identical suit ushers us inside.
“Hello,” the small man says in heavily accented English. “My apologies. We are not set up for guests. We’ve had to make special arrangements for you. Please…” He ushers us into an enormous kitchen. Sitting at a long wooden table are six more men in identical suits drinking coffee. Alexei has his own private army. The only thing that surprises me is how dapper they are. Alexei must spend a fortune on bespoke suits every year.
We follow the small man out of the kitchen and into a nearby room lined with metal lockers. At the far end is a stainless steel door.
“Please…” The man opens two of the lockers. Inside are pale blue jumpsuits and matching booties. “Change here. When you are done, the door will open for you.”
“Is this necessary?” I ask. “I swear to God, I’ve had all my shots, and we aren’t planning to stay very long.”
“Yes,” the man says bluntly. “It is necessary.” Then he turns back toward the kitchen, leaving us on our own.
“What do you wanna bet this is some Howard Hughes shit?” I say as I yank off my sneakers. “Our new buddy is probably terrified of germs. Maybe he collects all his fingernail clippings and keeps his piss in mason jars like Hughes did.”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” Elvis sounds unusually somber. “I’d bet it’s going to get a lot weirder than that.”
* * *
—
When Elvis and I are dressed in our snazzy blue outfits, the door slides open. Beyond it is a small stainless-steel room. Each of the four walls features a grid of tiny round holes. We step inside and the door slides shut and seals behind us. There’s a whoosh, and fog sprays from the holes. It’s some kind of decontamination shower. Whatever they’re spraying us with smells like an industrial pesticide. I hold my breath and hope it ends before I pass out. Thirty seconds later, the jets shut off, another door opens and we step out germ-free. A man wearing a pale blue jumpsuit just like ours greets us on the other side. He hands us each a hairnet, face mask and gloves.
“What’d I tell you?” Elvis says. “The next stop is the Twilight Zone.”
I think he may be right. Everything around us is a spotless white. The walls, floors and furniture all blend together. There are no windows, but the space is lit by a warm golden light that feels like the sun. Elvis and I are led from room to room until we hear the bubbling of water. The man who’s been leading us stops at a doorway and steps aside to let us pass through it.
I guess he hasn’t been asked to join the party.
I’m the first to enter. The air inside is warm and humid, and the room is empty aside from two chairs that have been positioned near the edge of a bubbling pool, which I now suspect is some sort of physical therapy tub. I see the top half of a naked man sticking out of the water. At least I think it’s a man. Given the condition of the person’s skin, it’s kind of hard to tell. Large patches on his chest, arms and face appear to have melted away. I’m thankful the roiling water hides the rest of him. The bits I can see are difficult to look at.
“I am Alexei Semenov,” he says bluntly. “You are Simon Eaton and Elvis Karaszkewycz.”
It’s the sort of welcome you’d expect from a Bond villain. Alexei does not disappoint. “May I ask how you know?” I say.
Alexei gestures toward the ceiling with his chin. “There are security cameras everywhere,” he says in an American accent that’s practically flawless. “Our facial recognition software provided online matches. I must be careful, you know. The people who did this to me are quite eager to finish the job.”
I should probably keep my mind focused on the task at hand, but it’s impossible not to wonder how anyone could survive whatever happened to Alexei Semenov. His nose and one ear are completely gone, as is his hair. But there’s enough left of him to see that he once looked a lot like his avatar.
“Believe it or not, I used to be pretty,” he jokes as if he were just eavesdropping on my thoughts. I think he’s trying to grin, and the result is hideous. “A year ago, the ladies couldn’t get enough of me.”
“I bet there are still a lot of ladies out there who wouldn’t give a damn what you look like,” Elvis observes. It sounds incredibly rude to my ears, but Alexei laughs. I guess they share the same sense of humor.
“This is true,” says Alexei, his voice hoarse from laughing. “But the doctors tell me I am prone to infection. Plus, I’m afraid my lower half looks far worse than my top. After I was poisoned, they threw acid on me and it ate away all my favorite parts.”
