The Goddess Quest

by Lawrence Ambrose

  Chapter 8

  ALEX'S VAN WAS A mobile armory: a fully automatic military-issue M4 under the seat (legal in the Verse), a Glock 19 in a concealed waist carry, a Gerber Ghostrike knife in concealed sheathe on her other side, and a Smith and Wesson MP 9mm Shield on her right ankle under her jeans. The weapons would be a tight fit on Alexandra's body but took up minimal real estate on Dionysus35567's large, muscular frame.

  It cost her a couple grand, including ammo, but what the hell – it wasn't as if she lacked working capital. Another nice thing about PUSA was the absence of background checks and conceal-carry permits. Machine guns were legal and sold in gun shops and even retail outlets like Walmart. Jesse Ventura – not a sim, but the actual avatar of the now-partly paralyzed former Seal/Minnesota governor – was the President of PUSA and a huge Second Amendment supporter.

  Maybe her arsenal and her attitude were overkill, but she had no idea what she was going up against with this hypothetical "killer on the road." He or she might be augmented. The official explanation for avatars who'd been awarded various "unnatural" powers was that they were mutations descended from a nuclear power meltdown in Stark County, North Dakota, in the seventies. The PUSA had cleaned up the power plants and abandoned nuclear power in the mid-seventies, but its legacy lived on in the "Augmented Americans" and the Department of Augmented Regulation and Enforcement, the government agency created to investigate and arrest augmented criminals. Some of the people in that agency and other government agencies, including Congress, were avatars who knew the score, but with rare exceptions stuck with the script. Occasionally, an avatar or inspired sim would claim that augmented people hailed from "a parallel dimension" rather than radioactive fallout, which President Ventura had called a "crazy conspiracy theory."

  Alex smiled a scornful smile. To make matters even more interesting and complicated, if an avatar was arrested and convicted of a crime, that sentence (if not successfully appealed) and any attendant fines or probationary conditions, needed to be served. During that time, the owner of the convicted avatar could not bring other avatars into the world. That was the contractual agreement all Verse users made as a condition of being there. Still, some people gamed the system, successfully anonymizing themselves. Not terribly difficult to do for a skilled hacker, but the risks of discovery were high – particularly since OmniCorp had christened AlphaOmega as the Verse overseer – and so were the penalties: double the sentence-time on the first offense, and a lifetime ban if further violations occurred.

  The Highwayman could be an avatar or a sim. Alex's vote was sim, since how else could the GM control the character or reset it for different competitors? But she didn't put it past the Gamemasters to throw a curveball with a real-live avatar psychopath.

  Driving south on Highway 15 toward the Tahquitz Canyon felt to Alex like driving on Mars: reddish, barren hills with intriguing hints of life and strange artifacts that were, as in the Rover's suggestive photos from Mars, probably products of pareidolia. The Omniverse architects, as was their wont, had offered up an excruciatingly exact replica of the hellish real thing.

  Lacking music, she decided to provide some of her own.

  "The heat was hot and the ground was dry, but the air was full of sound," Alex sang, liking the rich baritone of her Dionysian avatar. Except the only sound was the van's rumble and tires rolling on the empty road.

  "Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy," she sang. "It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me." Yeah, right. The only "girl" in these hills would be a fucking zombie or radioactive mutant vampire.

  Acknowledging her lack of prescience in not purchasing a few CDs for her road trip, Alex decided to sing through every road song she could remember. Which, considering her near-eidetic memory, was close to every travel song she'd ever heard.

  Let it roll, down the highway...keep your eyes on the road, your hand upon the wheel...been drivin' all night, my hand's wet on the wheel... Get your kicks on Route 66...country roads, take me home...on a road to nowhere...sweet home, Alabama...runnin' down the road tryin' to loosen my load... I'll show you a place high on the desert plain where the streets have no name...

  Bachman Turner Overdrive, the Doors, America, Chuck Berry, John Denver, Lynyrd Skynyrd , the Eagles, U2. She sang all of them, sometimes in a thick rock snarl, other times like an opera singer. All the work she'd devoted to her speaking and singing voice – a painstaking synthesis of her favorite classical and pop singers – now paid off. It was fun, more fun than she would've imagined.

  The fun was starting to wear thin when Alex turned off Highway 10 and rolled into Palm Springs. A short jog through town took her to the Tahquitz Canyon Visitor Center. Ten dollars earned her admission to the two-mile "nature hike," led by a middle-aged sim in a grey uniform named "Ranger Rob." First, a short documentary on the Cahuilla Indians and the legend of the demon, Tahquitz, followed by a hike with Ranger Rob on a well-worn trail between wild flowers and sand and stunted trees.

  Ranger Rob discussed the plants and the native tribe, the Cahuilla, who lived there, how they lived, and where the name "Tahquitz" came from. Apparently, the tribes had come into conflict with a demon-like being who wreaked havoc on the local flora and fauna. Alex listened for possible clues while eyeing the hills rising on either side of them. They eventually arrived at a waterfall and pond that she recognized from the Morrison film. So far, so good. A clue ought to be coming along anytime now –

  Alex spotted a dark figure in what appeared to be a red robe or tunic sitting near the top of a hill on one side of the falls, silhouetted by the sun. She shielded her eyes. A man. Possibly Hispanic or Indian.

  "Today," Ranger Rob informed them, "the Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla runs a number of businesses in the Palm Springs and surrounding areas. The Agua Caliente Indian Reservation is estimated to hold twenty thousand Native Americans and occupies nearly fifty thousand square miles in the Palms Springs area, including parts of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, and Rancho Mirage..."

  The ranger droned on, showing no awareness of the man on the hill. No one else did, either, expect for one six year old boy who pointed him out.

  "Mr. Ranger, is that an Indian up there?" he asked.

  Ranger Rob stared up at the hill, shading his eyes. "It is hard to say. It may be someone who does not belong here."

  As everyone gazed upward, the red-robed figure appeared to melt into the shadows. The group eyed the main attraction – a small waterfall that cascaded down a split rock that Alex thought resembled a vagina. While the others photographed the waterfall or thrashed around in the shallow water at its base, Alex considered how to avoid returning with them without getting into it with Ranger Rob, who'd made it clear any hiking beyond the trail was verboten for non-tribal members. She could either just disappear – risking him reporting her with his walkie-talkie – or try to persuade him to let her hang out here alone.

  Alex saw her chance when Ranger Rob's conversation with the older couple ended. She moved in on him as they wondered off.

  "Is there any way I could convince you to let me stay behind for a while when you go back?" Alex asked him.

  The sim-ranger tipped his cap back and did a fair imitation of looking puzzled and wary. "May I ask why?"

  "Meditation," Alex improvised. "I just need some time to, uh, connect with the...spiritual essence here."

  "I sympathize, but I'm afraid that's against Agua Caliente Tribal rules. If I made an exception for you, I'd need to make an exception for everyone. I'm sorry."

  "I understand. How about if I made a donation to the tribe in exchange for a couple of hours alone here?"

  "A donation?" She could almost see his algorithms spinning. "I'm not authorized to accept donations for the tribe."

  "How about a personal donation?"

  More algorithm-spinning. Sometimes, Alex sort of enjoyed torturing sims – that is, the programs and programmers by extension – by making them work outside thei
r comfort zones. This wasn't one of those times. She had a date with a mystery man on the hilltop and time was wasting.

  "Are you attempting to bribe me, sir?" he asked.

  "Yes. I'm sure you could use a little extra money, especially for such a good cause – helping me realize my spiritual quest."

  "You're on a quest?"

  "Yes. Will you help me help you help me?"

  The sim-ranger blinked at him, perhaps not so differently from a real ranger. Sims were supposed to imitate real-life people. But would a real-life ranger accept a bribe to allow such an innocuous thing? That was the question.

  "How much would you be, ah, be willing to donate, just out of curiosity?"

  "How about one hundred dollars cash?"

  "And all you want to do is spend more time here?"

  "That's it." She raised her arms. "As you can see, I don't have any camping equipment or supplies or even water. I couldn't stay out here long."

  "That's true." He frowned and finally nodded. "All right. If it means that much to you. But you can keep your money. I truly do understand what it means to want to connect with nature. I lived up here alone for years myself doing exactly that."

  "Really." Alex guessed that was straight from the real Ranger Rob's life. She was impressed once again by the meticulous simulation of the Real. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

  "Just stay on the trails," the ranger said.

  "Of course."

  He gathered his tourist flock and started back to the Center. A few of the people glanced back at Alex with puzzled frowns – and one of the kids asked why the "big blond guy" wasn't coming – which Ranger Rob dismissed with "he'll catch up to us later."

  When they were out of sight, Alex bounded up some boulders to the top of the waterfall. The scenery fuzzed and rolled around a bit before resolving into lifelike clarity. The breeze was realistically dry and hot. Lucky she no longer had to worry about food and water.

  It was possible that the "fool on the hill" had just been a random event, but when it came to games, any unusual person or event was almost invariably a clue. Ranger Rob's reaction indicated that a man sitting atop a hill was not a normal sighting on the Tahquitz Canyon hike.

  A scrabbling of gravel jerked her around. A Native American in a red poncho approached along the top of the rock alongside the creek that fed the waterfall. His burnished skin was so dark it was as if someone had painted him. At first, Alex thought he was wearing a yellow bonnet, but on closer inspection, it appeared more golden, metallic, like a crown. He had the high cheekbones and sharp planes she associated with Native Americans, but one half of his face looked as if it had been exposed to high heat and partly melted. A burn victim? His eyes were a half-shade darker than his skin, scarcely distinguishable except for their shine. An impressive piece of modeling.

  "Tahquitz, I presume," said Alex.

  "You presume much."

  The man or demon stood before her, his scornful smile revealing elongated canines that appeared hand-filed to sharp points. He wasn't tall, no more than five-six or seven, or muscular, barely filling out his red poncho, but to Alex that just made him more sinister, more threatening, as if he had no need of such superficial physical endowments. He was hardscrabble rebel Indian distilled into every White man's worst nightmare: pure, unadulterated malevolence toward his would-be conquerors and their ways.

  "I was hoping to meet you," said Alex. "I was hoping it was you we saw on the hill."

  "You were hoping to die in great agony?"

  Alex's smile felt shakier than she would've liked.

  "I was hoping more for a boon," she said. "The film we watched in the Center about you claimed that you, despite being horrifically evil, might offer a gift to someone he felt worthy."

  "Why would you be worthy of such a gift?"

  "I have a nice smile?"

  "I would rip it from your face and cook it in ceremonial fires, offering the ashes to my ancestors."

  "Fried smile," said Alex. "I wonder how that would taste."

  "Perhaps I will simply throw you off this cliff and let the vultures feed on your putrid flesh?"

  "You could try." She lifted her shirt, exposing her pistol. "But Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson might object."

  "Your White Man weapons have no power here."

  Alex was tempted to draw her pistol and find out. But then he might very well be right. Who knew what his powers were? For all she knew, he could vaporize her on the spot. That, however, wasn't how the Founding Fathers and their designer-minions worked. He was a clue, which meant, if played correctly, he wouldn't kill her. Shooting at him might not be correct play. As always, in a cutthroat competition like this, one wrong move could end her. Best to play conservatively – take extreme steps only when necessary.

  "It must be lonely all by your demonic self out here," said Alex.

  Tahquitz's brow squeezed down, puzzled wrinkles spreading like ripples in a dark lake.

  "I am one with my world," he said.

  "Then I envy you, Tahquitz. I'm not one with anything."

  "How could it be otherwise? You and your people view the world as your servant, the earth as a place to stomp your feet."

  "Funny. From what I know of your legend, you weren't exactly warm and fuzzy toward the 'earth' or anyone else."

  "The legend lies. It was the People themselves, forsaking their old ways, who brought ruin upon themselves and their land. I am merely the caretaker of their bitterness and self-hatred."

  The legendary shaman was starting to look more like some embittered old god than an evil demon.

  "I seek a killer," said Alex, lowering her voice in a very rough approximation of a Native American accent. "Will you help me?"

  "What is this killer's name?"

  "He is called the Highwayman."

  Tahquitz circled Alex, his red shawl lifting in the wind like a bird spreading its wings for takeoff. Alex turned to stay facing him.

  "I will make you an offer," he said. "We will wrestle. Each will try to throw the other off this cliff. If you win, I will give you his name. If I win, you may continue your journey if you survive the fall."

  The wise thing might be to walk away. Alex had a decent idea where the killer might be. But then her assumptions about "Death's Highway" – the scene of Morrison's alleged childhood encounter with the dead Indians – could be wrong. But a name would pretty much seal the virtual killer's fate. Besides, she, much like Tom Petty, rarely backed down.

  "Let's wrestle," she said.

  "You would risk your life to do a good thing?"

  "Sure. I'm a virtual saint."

  The Indian rushed Alex – so fast that Alex couldn't honestly say he saw him "rush." One second she had her hands outstretched in a defensive position, the next he was holding her aloft and flinging her high over the cliff.

  Alex swung her body around and got her feet below her. 9.81 m/s^2 – sixty feet – 30 MPH? – divided by three –

  She'd decided she'd definitely survive the fall by the time she smacked into the shallow water and then its sandy-rocky bottom. A very realistic and painful shockwave passed up through her body. Her 3x-strength body. After a few dazed moments, she pushed up out of the water and slogged to shore, feeling shaken but not stirred. No indication of broken bones or broken anything. The programming gods had decreed, it seemed, that her amplified strength allowed her to survive the fall with minimal if any injuries.

  Alex gazed up the waterfall. "Tahquitz" was still there, peering down at her, his face impassive. She started climbing back to the top of the cliff, far more gingerly than her first time. Soon she stood before the canyon demon again.

  "You live," said the Indian.

  "No thanks to you."

  "You do not have the power to defeat me," he said. "But you survived. The spirits must favor you. Therefore, I will give you one of the person's names: Harmon."

  "First or last name?"

  "You must discover that for yourself."

  Alex b
linked – and the Indian apparition was gone. Well, that could've gone worse.

  She started back to her van.

  A MINOR "health incident" brought Alex to the UC Medical Center ER and then to her physician, Dr. Helen Waters. Alex liked to think of them as speed bumps that slowed her down periodically. Today's "speed bump" was a sudden lightheadedness and erratic heartbeat while working out with Brad and Brandon at the gym. Brad had carried her out to Brandon's van and they'd rushed her to the ER. Her friend departed when her mom showed up at the ER and Alex received a cautious okay from the attending physicians.

  Dr. Walters had been kind enough to juggle her schedule to see Alex immediately.

  "How much time are you spending in your AFIRM unit daily?" Dr. Helen Walters cut directly to the chase after admitting them to her inner sanctum. Thanks to Alex's mom, that was her new go-to question. Unlike her mom, Dr. Walters was an experienced LION-user – not as a gamer but as a "virtual birder" and attendee of the many concerts, lectures, and other educational/cultural venues online.

  "Too much," Alex's mother replied. "She's competing in a special contest that's demanding even more of her time and energy than usual."

  "What kind of contest?" Dr. Walters asked Alex.

  "It's a quest competition between some of the Omniverse's top gamers," said Alex. "By invitation only."

  "Really?" Helen Walters raised a stenciled eyebrow. "That sounds quite prestigious. Congratulations."

  "She's in the lead at the moment." Cindy gave her daughter a proud look.

  "Which I don't particularly want to surrender," Alex added.

  The good doctor leaned back and folded her hands on the edge of her desk, appearing reflective.

  "I understand," she said, after a moment. "But back to my original question. Could you give me an idea of how many hours a day you spend in the module?"

  "I don't know. Maybe seven or eight."

  "More like ten to twelve," Cindy jumped in. "Perhaps more on a given day."

  "Four consecutive hours is the recommended maximum in an AFIRM machine."