by Julie Hyzy
Adrian tilted his head in a friendly way. With a grunt of pleasure, he smiled again. “Do you really think I’d hurt you?” he asked.
Vanessa whimpered.
“Do you?”
She shook her head, whispered, “No?”
“Guess again,” he said, and squeezed the trigger home.
THIRTY-NINE
Chimes sounded a third time, and Stewart’s head popped up, his attention pulled from the confusing configuration Vanessa had left. He glanced at his watch, then leaned far to the right of where he sat, glancing over to his own console to double-check on Kenna and Jason’s progress.
They may not necessarily like each other but, according to the readout, they were making good progress on the team-building drill.
Stewart reached across both consoles to silence the chimes, then returned to the confusing array of connections in front of him.
What the hell had Vanessa been doing last night? She wouldn’t have reconfigured the system so strangely without a good reason.
He knew she and Kenna had been working on Charlie’s final VR scenario. Stewart scratched his head. Vanessa generally left an e-mail or voice recording letting him know what was up, but there was nothing from her this morning. And the state of disarray she’d left was unlike her. Unless, Stewart reasoned, she’d planned to be back early this morning to continue her work.
Stewart stood up and stretched, enjoying the satisfying pops of his spine snapping into place. He took a deep breath, contented. Life was starting to get back to normal again. He’d been worried about Kenna more than he cared to admit. The girl had suffered so much in her life. And yet, every hit she took only served to make her stronger.
He walked around his own console to take another reading on Kenna and Jason’s progress. They were doing well. Alert to any hint of distress, techs kept a close eye on the duo, too. Charlie’s death at his facility had taken a toll, and Stewart hated the fact that he was constantly afraid that he might lose another one of his kids. He wondered, not for the first time, if this VR business wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Stewart paced the control room. White walls, stark lighting, giant gray workstations, and tall gray consoles against the walls. Equipment everywhere: flat, ugly, harsh. Depressingly necessary for making customers’ dreams come true.
Stewart strolled to the room’s far end. Windowed, it looked down over the ground-floor mainframe that ran every VR adventure for their clients. He stared at the mechanical monstrosity. It took an enormous amount of power to maintain detailed adventures, and yet Virtu-Tech promised smaller units were on their way. They’d take up far less square footage and allow for more VR capsules and stations. Continual upgrades…
Virtu-Tech. Always looking to squeeze another buck out of the fantasizing, eager—not to mention, paying—public. Like a low-lying storm cloud, it remained above the masses, hovering, powerful…threatening…omnipotent.
He shook his head to dispel the negativity. Things were finally back to normal. He needed to chill.
Stewart wondered at that. Entertainment came solely from VR adventures nowadays. Few souls really “did” anything anymore when it was just so much easier to participate virtually. Almost no one walked along the lakefront. Or skied. Or read books. Why should they passively read, when they could, virtually, live the story?
Every single day, people trotted off to work to pay for future VR adventures. Each night, they’d return home to sleep before starting the cycle all over again. He wondered about future generations and what the effect of all this would ultimately be.
Maybe he should retire.
A fourth chime sounded. Kenna and Jason would be halfway through the program soon. Marching right along…they seemed to be able to work together. He hoped he hadn’t pushed Kenna too soon.
Stewart scratched his head again. Time to focus on something positive, he reminded himself, returning to Vanessa’s console. She must have found something—there had to be a good reason why she’d left things a mess like this.
He glanced up at the clock again. It was nearly eleven in the morning. Pretty late for Vanessa, even if she had worked through the night. Maybe he should give her a call.
FORTY
Stewart noticed Vanessa’s car in the lot of her apartment building as he headed to her door. Metal steps sang out as he took them, two at a time, fighting his rising panic.
It was not like her to forget to call.
He crossed the walkway lining the ordered doors on his left. The sun’s rays, bright against the apartment walls, made the gold door numbers glow. He strode to hers, knocked, waited, and knocked again.
Knowing the attempt was futile, he nonetheless brought his right eye to the peephole and tried to see in. The doorknob didn’t turn when he tried it, which gave him a measure of relief. Doors were always left open when something bad was inside. He knocked again, harder this time.
“Hey,” someone said from his left. “Whatcha looking for?”
Stewart hadn’t heard the man come up. Dark, with an uneven unibrow, he was short, heavy, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt over dirty blue jeans. He carried a brown paper bag in the crook of his right elbow, but as his eyes narrowed, he switched the bag to his left and raised his chin. “Who are you?” he asked, before Stewart could say a word.
“My employee,” Stewart started to say, but then amended, “my friend didn’t show up for work today.”
The dark guy shot a glance down at the parking lot, scanning. “Her car’s still here.”
Stewart nodded. “You know Vanessa?”
The unibrow bunched together, creating a furry V on his forehead. “She’s been my neighbor for two years. Nice girl. Always says hello.” The suspicion in his eyes shifted to one of concern. “What, you think something’s wrong?”
Stewart stared at Vanessa’s door, as if it had the answers. “I don’t know.”
“She had company pretty late last night,” the guy said. “Her boyfriend didn’t leave till like two in the morning. Maybe she’s sleeping.”
Stewart stared at him. “That’s not like her.” Something was very wrong here, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Yeah.” The guy twisted his left wrist to see his watch. “It is pretty late. Want me to get the landlord?”
Stewart nodded, then paced the walkway as the guy hurried away.
He knocked at Vanessa’s door twice more, as hard as he could. “Vanessa?” he called, his face close to the jamb. “Open up.”
Still toting the brown paper bag, the dark guy returned, accompanied by an attractive, skinny woman of about thirty-five with hair in a pixie cut, wearing a wide leather tool belt that hung loosely at her narrow hips.
“What’s going on? Mark tells me you want to get into a tenant’s apartment.” Her words came fast as she shook her head. “Can’t let you in. My people have a right to privacy.”
“Come on, Margie,” Mark said. “Look at the guy. He’s no stalker. And”—pointing with his free hand—“Ness’s car is still down there. You know there’s gotta be something weird going on when she doesn’t go to work.”
Margie stared out over the lot and wrinkled her nose. She blew out a breath and addressed Stewart. “Show me some ID.”
Practically bouncing on the balls of his feet now, Stewart pulled out his wallet and let her inspect whatever she wanted. She twisted her mouth in apparent satisfaction and handed it back.
“You’ll let me in, then?”
She held up a hand. “I’ll go in.” Dragging a chain out from a pocket of her belt, she sorted through the sequentially numbered keys. Her mouth was set in a tight line when she pulled up the right one. “Wait out here,” she said.
Margie knocked again, calling in a loud voice for Vanessa to open the door. She waited, her head tilted as though listening for sounds of movement.
“I kno
cked already,” Stewart said, “about ten times.”
Margie’s look told him she would not be rushed. “Vanessa?” she called again, “please open your door. Or I’ll have to come in.” She slowed the pace of her words. “Okay, Vanessa?” she yelled again. “I’m coming in now.”
Stewart kept his top teeth tight on his bottom lip, clamped hard enough to hurt. The feeling that had come over him earlier—a gut-level knowledge that something was wrong—had kicked into high gear. His ears rang with panic. Margie moved in super slow motion, inserting the key into the dead bolt, then trying to turn it.
She glanced over her shoulder with a look of puzzlement. “The dead bolt isn’t set,” she said.
“Hurry up,” Stewart whispered. “Please.”
Mark placed his brown bag down on the concrete walkway, his eyes focused on the door as Margie turned the key in the knob. “Vanessa,” she called as the metal tumblers clicked open. She pushed at the door. “You here?”
As Margie made her way into the living room, Stewart followed with Mark close behind. She shot them both a warning look and pointed with her chin. “Outside.”
Stewart brushed past her toward the short passage that led to the bath and bedroom.
The bathroom was open—lights off. It was empty. He strode past, becoming aware of an unfamiliar smell, something different—not overly strong, but definitely unpleasant. He glanced at the kitchen on the right on his way to the back bedroom, listening for some sense of habitation. Nothing.
“Vanessa?” His voice came out panicked, but it didn’t matter. If she was still asleep, she deserved to be startled awake for the worry she’d caused. “Vanessa, are you—”
The words died on his lips as he stopped, two steps into her bedroom.
Mark came up behind him. “Holy mother of God.”
FORTY-ONE
Mellow Mary’s familiar, disembodied voice ran through the instructions that Kenna and Jason were required to follow.
“You will have one hour to complete this final challenge. At the end of the elapsed time, if your team has not successfully navigated a conclusion, you will be awarded a failing grade for this section.”
“Only an hour?” Jason said aloud.
“Higher standards are what set us apart from bargain companies, like Super-V,” Kenna said.
“. . . nothing at all,” Mellow Mary continued. “If items are required, they will be provided as necessary.” And as she said that, all the VR-created apparatus Kenna had equipped herself with disappeared. Across the white room from her, Jason’s gear vanished, too. He cocked an eyebrow at her.
Mary continued. “Technical staffers will monitor your vital signs. Your body may undergo stress in this scenario, but the staff will not end this program unless your blood pressure drops below sixty over thirty, unless cardiac failure is imminent, or unless you clearly speak the end-program code words.”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up before he shook off his surprise. “Mind games,” he said.
“Countdown to the challenge begins momentarily,” Mary said. “Please stand together in the center of the room.” A few background noises—clicks and hums—and then she returned. “Countdown commences. Ten…nine…eight…”
Kenna and Jason moved to the center of the room, instinctively positioning themselves back-to-back. The last challenge had them in a darkened room, using laser-beam pistols to shoot multicolored moving lights without getting shot themselves. They’d covered each other while taking out as many targets as possible. Together they’d scored a ninety-one. Though individual scores weren’t recorded in team-building scenarios, Kenna was pretty sure she’d outshot Jason.
Mary droned on. “Five…four…”
“Scared?” Jason asked.
“It’s VR,” Kenna answered over her shoulder. “What’s there to be afraid of?”
“Well,” Jason said, as Mary got down to the final two numbers, “with all you’ve been through, I wouldn’t blame you if you were a little tense.”
“Now who’s trying to play mind games?” she asked.
Mary said, “Begin.”
All the lights went out. The pitch-black room was utterly silent.
Jason was the first to speak. “You there?”
She felt the tips of his fingers against her hip. “I’m here,” she said, brushing them away.
“Just making sure.”
Kenna said nothing. She stared at nothing. Heard nothing.
Tense, she waited for something to spring out of the surrounding blackness to attack them.
Nothing.
“What do you think?” Jason asked.
Kenna tried to pick up some sense of danger, some imminent threat, but came up empty. “Maybe they plan to let us sit here until one of us tries to kill the other.”
Kenna tilted her head at the sound of her own voice.
“They’d have to give us a lot longer than an hour,” Jason’s voice edged with humor—and something else.
Kenna ignored that. “Keep talking.”
“What do you want me to say?”
She blinked a few times. She shut her eyes for a count of ten, then opened them again, hoping to pick up a source of light in the room’s depths. “I think we’re in a tunnel,” she said. “There’s an echo. A slight one.”
Jason called out, “Echo!” and the word bounced around twice before disappearing in the dark. “I think you’re right,” he said.
He bumped her from behind and they stood, backs touching. She didn’t move away this time, knowing that if they were in a tunnel, or a labyrinth of some sort, they should strive to avoid being separated.
“Give me your hand,” she said.
She gripped his right with her left, feeling his sturdy warmth even as they extended away from each other. Kenna reached her right hand out, fingertips extended, searching. “Anything?” she asked him.
He tugged her hand. “Let’s count our steps and move this way,” he said.
Keeping a taut hold between themselves, they inched their way Jason’s direction. A half step later, Jason said, “Ooof,” then, “I found the wall.”
Holding onto each other, Kenna stood firm. “I won’t move,” she said. “Go as far as you can.”
They maintained a loosened grip as Jason explored. She felt like the pinpoint of a drafter’s compass—stuck holding down the center while the pencil leg circled around.
“Feels like cement. Cool to the touch,” he said.
“Like a cave?”
“Too smooth,” he said.
They were silent another long moment. Kenna strained to hear something, anything, but all there was, was Jason’s gentle breathing and her own.
“So what do you think?” she asked. “A maze of some sort?”
He grumbled.
“What?” she asked, frustrated. She didn’t enjoy being the compass point. She wanted to do something.
“Not a maze,” he said finally.
“Then what?”
She felt him shrug. “It’s round…a hole.”
“Oh, that helps a lot.”
He sighed. “Fine. Cylindrical, approximately twelve feet in diameter, give or take a few inches. Concrete sides, concrete floor.” He let go of her hand. “Looks like we won’t get lost after all.”
Kenna angled her head up, still seeing nothing, reaching her hands out ahead of her to touch the wall. Unused to such pervasive darkness, she blinked several times. Even when she and Charlie would get up at ungodly hours to maximize vacation days, stumbling into the kitchen without turning on the lights, she welcomed the sense of her eyes adjusting to the dark. Here, there was nothing.
The smooth concrete, cold to Kenna’s touch, appeared to have no nooks, no hidden devices, no secret latches for opening an escape hatch. She crouched, feeling the walls from the floor to as far up as she
could reach. Making her way around the circular environment, she tried to cover as much area as she could as quickly as possible.
“I can’t seem to find—uhpff,” she said, as she and Jason collided. She stumbled backward; his strangled curse let her know that he’d almost lost his balance, too. Her next words came out sharp. “What were you doing?”
“A methodical search along the walls.”
“Wall,” she corrected. “Singular.”
She couldn’t see him, but she would’ve bet he rolled his eyes. Let him.
“There should be some way out, some key we’re not seeing,” he said.
“I agree.”
“I’m looking for it by searching the—wall—counterclockwise.”
“Some team we are,” Kenna said. “I was doing the same thing, only clockwise.”
His hand tapped her shoulder, then worked its way down her arm to grab her hand. “C’mon,” he said. “We’re missing something here.”
“You can let go,” she said, tugging her hand away. He held fast to the tips of her fingers.
“And risk you plowing into me again?” he said. “No, thanks. I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”
Despite herself, she laughed.
“Whoa! The iron maiden has a sense of humor?” he said. “Who would have guessed?”
His gentle jibe stung. Frowning in his direction, she tugged her hand to pull it free, but he held fast.
“Uh-uh,” he said. “Not till we come up with a plan of action.”
“Hard to accomplish much when I don’t have both hands free.”
Kenna heard him give a resigned grumble. He dropped her hand, and she let it fall to her side.
He made a few more noises: pacing, from the sound of it. Slowly.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“You know how the prior challenges had ‘steps,’ to let us know we were on the right track?”
