The Goddess Quest

by Lawrence Ambrose

  The explosion, like distant thunder, took its sweet time in reaching her. The two attack copters banked around and headed back in her direction. Alex wriggled back into the grass, watching the craft angle north well clear of her haystack. They'd bought her dumb tough-guy act. They believed it was "mission accomplished."

  By some coincidence, exactly what she believed.

  Chapter 15

  NO REST FOR THE fucking weary.

  Though it was time for her eating, bathroom, and exercise break, Alex couldn't see abandoning her avatar at this crucial juncture – not in the middle of some human-forsaken prairie when "Alex Milner's" status re the authorities was uncertain. They might believe she was dead, but if her avatar ran into a nosy farmer or rancher or cop and he did something to fire up their suspicions...

  Before she could rest, she needed to find a safe place. The desiccated brown hills and plains around her might be devoid of trees, homes, or any indication of human civilization but they didn't strike her as safe. Safety lay a long ways from here in a new identity blended in with the surroundings. Running through the plains, a lone figure in the short grass, she felt as exposed as a mile-high lightning rod in an electrical storm.

  She'd tossed the pilot and Secretary Learner's cell phones in a pond. Google Maps informed her that she was running through the Rosebud Reservation populated by tiny to small towns. She guessed – hoped – she was traveling southeast. One of those towns might offer a chance to be reborn. The sooner the better.

  The endless fields of brown grass and an occasional scraggly tree slowly surrendered to fields of adolescent corn and soybeans – signs she was getting close to being somewhere. The fields surrendered in turn to an industrial area. Then she was approaching a major thoroughfare or perhaps rural highway that she guessed would lead her into the center of town.

  She needed a couple of things: cash and a new identity, probably in that order. With her telekinetics, acquiring money shouldn't be a big problem. Just had to exercise some discretion. Any hint of augmented abilities would draw DARE to the area like a diabetic grizzly to honey.

  At the main street/highway into town, Alex slowed her mile-eating jog to a fast walk, trying to look deliberate but not in a hurry while checking out the local businesses for potential cash cows. Fast Fred's Repair (as though fast work positively correlated with quality), Duane's Auto Salvage (how could you not be named "Duane" if you worked in auto salvage?), a Mormon church (did they keep cash offerings onsite?), Gross Implements (she definitely could see the business potential but really didn't want to go there), Winner Ford Motors...

  Any of them might keep small amounts of cash somewhere, but they might also have cameras. The returns didn't match the risk, in her estimation. Better not to break obviously into anywhere, yet with a big payoff. What fit the bill?

  Alex subvocalized a Google search for ATMs in Parallel Winner, South Dakota, slowing her walk to focus on the locations. One was inside a bank; the other inside a convenience store. The convenient store seemed more convenient. She checked the hours: 8 AM – 8 PM. The marquee sign at the BP Gas station down the street read 7:47. Later than she'd thought. Funny how time flew when you were dueling government agents and running across endless plains.

  She had only minutes to reach the ATM before it closed. She could only guess what happened then. Perhaps they stowed the cash in a safe or just left it in the ATM machine. But if she didn't get there before the machine shut down (or the store closed?), she might lose the relatively simple, less risky solution.

  Alex entered the store at 7:54, by its wall clock. She paused at a rack bearing tourist paraphernalia, including hats and sunglasses. She slipped on a hat and glasses, making a brief show of checking herself out in a in the glasses display mirror while scanning the walls and ceiling for cameras. She spotted two – one in each opposing corner. She squashed them both. Only tiny squeaks of metal announced their death.

  Alex headed toward the ATM machine in one corner. A customer at the checkout counter keeping the checker – a Native American dude – distracted. A heavy-set guy pulling a twelve-pack of beer from the refrigerated area didn't glance in her direction on his way to the checkout counter.

  Alex made a show of inserting a nonexistent bankcard and tapping out a few numbers while examining the machine. A lock and hinges indicated it opened on one side. It ought to break open easily enough, but standing there with an open cash machine, trying to pry out the cash boxes or whatever held the cash inside – having no clear idea how it all worked – struck her as a loser's gamble.

  Turning from the machine, Alex spotted the heavy-set guy with the twelve-pack headed toward the door stuffing his wallet into a back pocket. She followed an irresistible impulse and telekinetically pried the wallet from the pocket and drew it in a blur to her waiting outstretched hand. The man pushed through the door and was gone, apparently none the wiser.

  Alex turned to face the ATM and thumbed through the wallet. Sixty dollars and change. A couple of credit cards. A driver's license that portrayed a decent-looking young guy whose face had gone puffy from too many beers. Someone, with his squareish jaw and large blue eyes, you could conceive of being her Dionysus – if you needed glasses and had an active imagination.

  On a dubious inspiration, Alex hurried after him.

  "Sir?" the checker called out, stopping her at the door. "Your hat and sunglasses?"

  "Sorry." She doffed the hat and glasses and set them on the nearest display counter. Outside, a pickup truck was starting up. She sprinted over, brandishing the wallet. The driver spotted her and rolled down his window.

  "Man, thanks!" He accepted the wallet with a beefy hand. "Had no clue I dropped it."

  "No problem."

  "Hey, let me give you something for your trouble."

  He opened his wallet, sliding out a twenty.

  "That's okay, dude," said Alex. "But maybe you could help me out. I'm looking for a place to get a bite, maybe a drink. I'm new in town."

  The man chewed on that for a moment. "I'd be happy to buy you a drink and some food..." He frowned in further thought. "Or maybe I could grill you up a steak at my place? Got a freezer full of prime butchered steer cuts. And plenty to drink." He patted the twelve-pack.

  "Are you sure? That sounds great. And to be honest, I wouldn't mind the company – don't know anyone in town – but I wouldn't want to put you out."

  "You wouldn't. Hop in. Just live a couple miles out of town."

  Alex slid into the seat beside him, wondering what new and ridiculous adventure she was embarking on. Maybe not so new. Shades of Rick Drager II.

  "I'm Derald," he said.

  Alex shook his hand, wondering what name she should give him. She settled on: "Al. Sure I'm not putting you out?"

  "Truth is, you'd be doing me a favor. Just lost my wife to the big "D" and I tend to drink too much alone."

  "D for death?"

  "Divorce." He gave Alex a wan smile. "Same difference."

  Alex responded with a short laugh, getting into a character that might fit this guy. "I hear you."

  "Been divorced?"

  "Uh...yeah. But I don't want to talk about it."

  "Real bitch, huh?"

  "Aren't they all?"

  Derald shook his head. "Mine wasn't. Good woman, to be honest. Didn't want a dime from me that wasn't owed. She just got tired of my choice of career."

  "What's that?"

  "Dreamer." He gave Alex a dour smile. "She always said, if dreaming were a business I'd be a millionaire." He snorted. "Well, sometimes she also said if dreaming were a college major I'd have a PhD."

  "What do you dream about?"

  "Anything that doesn't involve living in a small town." He shrugged. "But enough about me. What's your story? What brings you to the busy metropolis of Winner?"

  "Just been traveling cross-country. Sorting some things out. Looking for a place I might call home."

  "That was one of my dreams. Just drop everything and trave
l cross-country."

  "Why don't you?" Alex was beginning to see some potential in this new relationship. "Do you have children? Responsibilities?"

  "Nope. It's more what I don't have."

  "Money for travel?"

  "That, too. But I was going to say 'guts.' One thing to dream, another to live it. That takes courage."

  They pulled into Alex's formerly sighted Fast Fred's Repair parking lot and swung around behind the utility building. Alex followed him into a studio apartment lined with loose clothing and bookshelves and dirty dishes in the sink of a mini-kitchen.

  "Be it ever so humble," said Derald. "I work for the owner. He lets me stay here practically rent-free."

  "What do you do here?"

  "Repair shit. Farm equipment, lawnmowers, the occasional pickup."

  Looking around the cramped little shithole, Alex thought the owner might be overcharging. She moved to the books, not something she would've associated with a good-old boy like Derald. UFOs, conspiracies, and far-out science stuff with lurid covers lined the shelves: Living In The Real Matrix, A Digitalized Universe, UFOs and the National Security State, The Beginning of Forever, Quantum States of Mind...

  Make that a good old whacked-out boy, Alex thought. Funny how a down-on-his-luck loser could've stumbled so close to the truth. But her sense of a potential ally shot up another notch. The GM working their devious magic again?

  "I got a grill and chairs outside," said Derald. "We can watch the sun go down while we drink and eat?"

  "Sounds romantic."

  "Heh. Sorry, but I'm straight as a steer's horns."

  "I'll try to get over my disappointment."

  "And speaking of beef, what's your cooking preference?"

  "As long as it's not mooing, I'm good."

  Derald laughed and broke out some beer from his fridge, tossing two massive steaks to defrost in the microwave. They sat in a pair of folding chairs against the back wall facing the setting sun as promised. He started up the gas grill.

  "Here's to better times," said Derald, offering his bottle up to Alex.

  Alex clicked bottles. "And big, life-changing adventures."

  "Yeah, right."

  He set his beer on the asphalt and returned with the defrosted steaks, tossing them on the gas grill. After asking how she liked her steaks, they didn't speak for a minute or so. Alex let the silence simmer. The smell was almost as good as eating the real thing.

  "What did you think of my books?" asked Derald. "I noticed you checking them out."

  "Interesting."

  "My wife didn't think that. She thought it all the biggest waste of time ever. No practical good could ever come from 'reading that crap.'"

  "Good thing you're divorced."

  Derald gave her a startled wide-eyed look. "You don't think it's crap?"

  "Most of it, probably. Not all. But my point is that if you're with someone they should be more supportive, not treat what interests you with contempt."

  Derald stopped drinking his beer and stared at Alex. It was either the look of a man clinging to a lifebuoy desperate with the hope of being saved – or the expression of someone who wanted to take a swing at her. Hope and hostility, she thought. Maybe she should dial back her usual blunt sardonicism. The dork was probably still in love with his ball-busting ex.

  "I'm not sure she isn't right," Derald said, turning back to face the sunset with a sigh. "All this far-out stuff is just a distraction. An escape. It's not like I have the brains to answer any of the big questions, but it's fun to pretend I can see things other people can't – or won't."

  "Maybe you can."

  "I'd like to think so. I'd like to believe I'm special, even if I am living in the back of a garage converted to an apartment and have less than one hundred dollars in my saving account."

  "If you question things, you're special. To call most people sheep is to insult sheep. Having money or not doesn't make you special or any less a sheep."

  Derald got up and flipped the steaks, birthing a fresh cloud of charbroiling smoke. He gave Alex a co-conspirator's smile.

  "You question stuff, too, I take it."

  "All the fucking time, for whatever good it does me."

  "Like what?"

  "I question why some people are born with a silver spoon jammed up their ass while others are born poor or deformed. I question why an innocent child dies in labor and some rich evil fuck lives one hundred and twenty years. Why some are born to sweet delight and others to the endless night. I question why evil seems to triumph so often. I question the nature of reality itself. I question why we live for a nanosecond – yet we think our lives matter in the grand eternal scheme of things. For that matter, I question eternity. Seems kind of tiresome."

  Derald chuckled. "I'm with you there."

  "I question Katy Perry and Taylor Swift making up. I question Donald Trump's hair. I question Michael Jordan being the greatest basketball player of all time."

  "Huh? Doesn't Michael Jordan play third base for the Chicago Cubs? And who's Katy Perry?"

  Alex gave him a grudging smile and sipped her beer. Derald fried up some potatoes and dropped them on plates along with the steaks. Alex declined his offer of ketchup, which Derald used to drown his French fries.

  "Derald," she said. "What if I were to tell you that some of your so-called 'crazy beliefs' were true?"

  "You mean aliens really do exist and have influenced our government?"

  "I don't know about that. I'm talking about the simulated reality thing."

  "We're all living in a simulated reality?"

  "Virtual reality. But yeah."

  "You believe that?"

  "I know that."

  "How?"

  "Because I'm an avatar."

  Derald paused in cutting his steak and stared at her. "Are you saying...you're from a parallel world?"

  "A representation of a being from the real world."

  "Right. That's what avatars supposedly believe. You know, that our world is fake, that we're all just programs, kind of a playground for real people."

  "That's true."

  "Except I happen to know I'm a real person with real feelings. And so is my ex-wife – well, some of the time, anyhow – along with my family, friends, everyone I know."

  Except that's what you're programmed to say. But it was pointless to argue about that.

  Alex consumed a few pieces of meat, which reminded her how much her actual body needed to eat – along with performing all her other natural bodily functions. She needed to solidify her situation here ASAP. If she couldn't reel Derald in quickly, she'd need to remove herself to a safe place soon.

  "So are you being serious?" Derald asked. "I mean, really serious?"

  "Really, really serious."

  "You know, that's one of my dreams. To meet an actual avatar, to finally see for myself that they're real."

  "Then one of your dreams came true. Congratulations."

  Derald laughed uneasily. "Well...uh...heh. But you know, I'd actually need some proof for that."

  "I'm not sure that could be proved to you. Not formally, anyway."

  "Do you have any special powers?"

  "Yep. Enhanced strength, no necessity for food or drink, and moderate telekinetics."

  "Ha. You seem to be doing pretty good with that beer."

  Alex smiled. "Optional, not necessary."

  "You said 'telekinetics.' So you can move things with your mind?"

  Alex tossed her beer bottle in the air, where it stopped as if perched on an invisible shelf a few feet overhead. Derald's startled motion caused his plate to flip off his lap, spilling his steak and fries over the oil-soaked asphalt. As he reached for the plate, he kicked over his beer, which bathed the mess in a puddle of golden-piss.

  "Shit!"

  "Sorry about that. Here, have mine."

  "I can't take your dinner, man."

  "As I said, I don't need to eat. And at the moment, all it's doing is reminding me how hungry my
real body is."

  "I don't know. I think I just lost my appetite."

  Alex lowered the beer hovering over them into his disbelieving hands.

  "Why don't you take a drink and try to relax a little?"

  Derald gulped down the beer like a man who'd just come in from a week in the desert. Some moments passed as he restored his even breathing.

  "That only proves you're augmented," he said. "But we already know augmented people exist. That's why President Ventura ordered the creation of the Department of Augmented Regulation and Enforcement. Though I'd always dreamed of meeting someone with extra powers. They're supposedly only two or three thousand augmented individuals in the whole U.S."

  Alex nodded. "But as far as proving my 'avatarness'..." She had a sudden thought. "I could do something you might find more convincing. I could go online – in my world's internet – and tell you some things I probably wouldn't know otherwise."

  "How do you go online in your world?"

  "I can access it from my AFIRM...my virtual reality module."

  "From here? Where you're sitting?"

  "Yep."

  "Using...mental telepathy?"

  "No." Alex fought down an impatient sigh. "I can make commands from here using what's called subvocalization. It's a new, cutting-edge deal on our world. You say words without actually speaking. The computer program recognizes the words from motions in my throat and mouth – at least it can recognize most simple commands."

  "Wow. That sounds real advanced. So how would we do this?"

  "You ask me something that's public knowledge, and I look it up."

  He scratched his head. "Public...?"

  "Whatever you can find in an online search – information that's publicly available. So, for instance, I couldn't Google your mom's first fuck –"

  "I don't appreciate you talking about 'googling' my mom."

  "What I'm saying," Alex gritted out, "is that we don't have any special information on your world that's not available to the general public here. We can't, for example, view some master document about all the characters in the Verse –"