by Gwynn White
The ones betting on me.
The keyhole was a specialized slot on a golden dais. Above it hovered the scoreboards, the data continuously updating names and symbols, points for kills and torture and porn, points for Easter eggs.
And the standings. I was on top. The first one through World 25.
This wasn’t a race. There was no finish line. I had to escape. But being ahead of the pack didn’t hurt my accounts. I stroked the key, letting the euphoric moment saturate. I was about to slot the twenty-fifth world. How many were left? Fifty? A thousand? In the Maze, time could stretch out for centuries. In skin time, sponsors and watchers only saw the highlights. For them, only three months would pass before the game ended. For us, it was lifetime after lifetime because time was malleable. And I was wasting it.
I buried the key.
The cheers faded. World 25 turned black. I floated in a void of nothingness. Eventually the fleshwrap of another body tightened around me. A stomach-curdling drop. The warm splash of saltwater.
I swam to the surface with a new body and seawater filtering through a bristled beard. In all directions, water.
Welcome to World 26.
CASSIDY
Cassidy’s mother was a drunk. And a pill head.
She always said her metabolism was low, that her blood was clogged with candida or the government was poisoning her. The pills, she said, helped her sleep and the booze made her happy. The pills, they were totally working.
The booze, not so much.
Cassidy was five when her mother left for good. There was shouting, glass breaking and doors slamming. The next morning, the car was gone.
You’ll never change, was the last thing she said.
Cassidy’s father wasn’t husband material, that much was true. He wasn’t really father material, either. Cassidy didn’t mind. She never really needed a parent. Her mother always said she played by herself. Her mother lied a lot, but not about that. Cassidy didn’t have friends.
She just watched her father.
Her earliest memory was standing in his boots. Her diaper was damp and swollen, the boots humid around her feet. His door was ajar. He was asleep in the big chair with a brigade of empty soldiers—his energy drinks—on the floor.
A dozen keyboards were arranged beneath as many monitors, the letters nearly worn off the keys. She clopped inside without waking him, tripping on the laces and picking herself up. Transfixed by the graphics, she pushed a mouse across the desk and stroked the cold plastic keys. One tiny click was all it took and he shot up like a bucket of water to the face.
He took her hand off the mouse and went back to work without saying a word. Her mother didn’t call it work. His games. He plays fucking games. Her words carried the stink of something worse than murder or rape. Infinitely worse than pills and booze.
The morning she left for good, Cassidy found her father in his office. He was slouched in the big chair surrounded by shards of glass. The monitors were on the floor, their guts stomped out. The few still on the wall were black and spidered.
He swept up and made her a lunch in a brown paper sack. He walked her to the bus stop and waved as it pulled away. He never told her what happened. He didn’t really need to. New monitors arrived the next morning.
Life carried on.
Cassidy learned to make her own lunch. She made dinners, the kind that came in a box or a can. The kind she heated in a microwave and took to the office. Her father sat in the big chair, tray on his lap. Cassidy had a small table next to it.
She loved to watch him work.
She didn’t understand what he was doing half the time. It was mostly data and lines of code and fragmented graphical interface, colors and numbers. He was a programmer, that was all she knew. He made computers work.
Some days, the monitors had someone on them, each person speaking a different language that filtered through a translator, the words not matching the lips like an old foreign film. He only left the room to use the bathroom. Weeks would go by without ever leaving the house. Sometimes months. When he wasn’t working, he was gaming.
It’s still work.
That was when she understood. There was no difference in programing and gaming. He liked the challenge. It was something to solve. The harder, the better. If he really got into a game, two or three nights would go by before he slept. Cassidy would throw away the empty soldiers and cover him with a blanket when he finally crashed.
Cassidy would stand by his side. Sometimes, she took up the sticks to serve as his wingman. She was intuitive. She sniffed out misdirection and effortlessly memorized maps and weaponry. Her specialty was finding Easter eggs—the side treasures that led to bonus weapons and valuable caches.
Secret weapon. That was his nickname for her. My secret little weapon.
In high school, she got her own big chair.
It was nearly identical to his, only newer and softer. He contracted someone to build a rotating dais for them to sit side by side so they could spin around the room in tandem. She even helped him program, but it was the games where they bonded.
She was a senior when the letter arrived.
Looking back, it seemed odd that the invitation would arrive via snail mail. The envelope was eggshell white, crisp on the corners and sealed with a dollop of wax. The font was thin, the address in tiny letters. There was no return address. It wasn’t a bill to be paid, but she opened it anyway.
Inside was a stiff card, the edges sharp. There were no words, just an embossed symbol, the raised black lines sliding beneath her fingers.
Her father took the card from her with both hands—lips silently moving—and locked himself in the office.
The next day, he quit his job.
WORLD 50
The female in white owned the dance floor. Calling it a woman suggested something human.
Thick fur covered her arms and face, a pattern of white and black horizontal stripes carefully combed and styled. Her blond mane flowed to her waist. Her hips swayed like the ocean; her knees bent backwards like that of an upright animal.
She exuded sex in fragrant waves, a well of sensual promises that lured males into her hypnotic gravity. Despite the lack of human attributes, my groin was tempted to ride that side game into a treasure chest of bonus credits from porn sponsors. I could take her from behind on the dance floor while the dancing mob watched. The extra credits would be nice, but right now efficiency was more valuable than currency. I’d spent too much time in this world already.
Going beast wasn’t going to help.
Above her, a DJ spun music from a lighted stage. The white light of the keyhole was somewhere behind him. I slouched in the cushioned lounger. It took a lot of time and effort to reach the club. Now was not the time to rush.
[Map.]
An overlay of World 50 unfurled before me. I pulled the view closer and verified what I was seeing. I’d calculated twenty different ways to reach the DJ. It looked easy enough, but the last forty-nine worlds had taught me one thing.
Nothing is what it seems.
The DJ was likely the boss—an unassuming orange-fur that would likely transform into something heinous. The white dress was somehow central to reaching the keyhole. I wasn’t sure how, but nothing that tempestuous was by accident. Was she friend or foe? One thing was certain.
She wants to dance.
The building suddenly lurched. Some of the patrons fell over. They threw their hands up and cheered like the ride was just beginning.
“Anything else?”
A waitress leaned over. A familiar scent raised the short hairs on my arms. A pheromone, maybe?
“No, thank you.”
“Nice meeting you.” She threw a paper receipt on my lap.
Mesmerized by the lady in white’s liquid hips, I almost brushed the receipt away. Five lines were scribbled on it.
When the ledger has been paid,
And the temptress leads the way,
See your face,
With
your eyes,
And you will escape the Maze.
World 50, a farthing of time paid. I’d clawed my way through twenty-five worlds for another shit poem.
The waitress stood at my side, I assumed waiting for me to balance the ledger of my drinks. A shag of kinky hair fell over her shoulders.
“You write this?” I asked.
“It’s the bill.”
I held it up. Laser lights flickered across it. Thank you! she had written in looping cursive. Cass.
She parted her hair with a long talon, her face a calico of fur. A notch had been taken from one of her ears, a tiny bite-sized gap. Her eyes were silver mirrors.
World 25. I saw that on a billboard in World 25 at the horrendous cat musical.
My distorted reflection looked back. My head was bald. Unlike the other party-goers in this world, only my face was hidden in a silky coat of fur. The waitress, however, was slightly entranced by me. Maybe she was a thrill-seeking skinner who’d paid a handsome sum to temporarily drop into the Maze. She would have no control over her body. Maybe she’d paid extra to have her name thrown in front of me. Maybe she hoped I’d score a few porn points with her.
Behind me, the club danced in her eyes, a distorted reflection of the ordered chaos, the rhythmic storm of party lights.
The white dress was leaving.
And the temptress leads the way.
I followed her through the crowd, lasers reflecting off the disco ball and dashing the furry faces red and blue and green. Her dress lured me to the front door. She was part of the clue, someone to see my face with my eyes. Or maybe this was a diversion.
Friend or foe?
I stepped outside. The atmosphere bit my cheeks. I fastened a fashionable respirator over my face, the air too thin to breathe. The sidewalk swayed.
White dress was across the street, leaning on a brass rail. I dodged traffic and stopped several feet to her left, just another patron out for a breather. Clouds were below us. The floating city hovered in the troposphere. Black forms flew in the night, dragons circling the city in hopes of snatching an inebriated patron who wandered too far from the protected areas.
Bastards cost me several respawns.
“What are you doing here?” White dress’s voice was tinny in the sleek mask.
“Looking for you.”
Her hair was gold and thick, its scent perfumy. Intoxicating. It lay over her exposed shoulders, a lavish comforter that wrapped around her midsection. The fur covering her skin looked soft and warm. I imagined rolling in it.
I ran my hand over my scalp. I was the only bald character in this world. That clue eluded me and, apparently, everyone else.
The respirator filtered out the effects of her pheromones and I felt less caught up in her. She shook her head and exposed a small opening between her shoulders where the fur gave way to a small patch of earthy flesh.
There, in bright red, was the relief-branded symbol.
My stomach went numb.
The smell of burnt flesh overpowered the respirator’s filtering capacity. White dress held a small weapon at her side, her flaxen hair draped over it.
My midsection was missing.
I respawned back on the planet with the dreaded realization that I’d have to deal with those dragons again.
The boss wore a white dress.
CASSIDY
Something was different.
The mail was piled on the counter. Cassidy couldn’t remember the last time her father fetched the mail. She couldn’t remember the last time he stepped outside.
She put the groceries away, sifted through the bills, and opened a letter from a university that wanted her back. It went into the garbage.
There was a box in the trash.
Cassidy brushed cold noodles off the sides. It was addressed to her father with no return address. It had been several years since she’d seen that tiny font, long enough that she couldn’t connect it to that eggshell-white envelope and fateful postcard.
A velvet bag was inside, the gold drawstring slack.
She left the box and velvet bag on the counter. They would find their way back into the trash. And she would forget to ask about them.
Cassidy heated soup and opened a soldier. She carried two trays into the office. Her father’s complexion was pasty. His eyes were unblinking; tear tracks lined his cheeks. Whispers leaked run-on sentences or clipped phrases. A pencil nub was wedged between his fingers.
She took the notepad from him—page after page of indecipherable notes—and shook his arm. He ate without looking away from the monitors.
It smelled like Sea World in the office—a chlorinated odor emanating from a clear tank in the corner. Bubbles streamed up the sides. It saturated the house, her clothes, the food. Even her hair had turned dirty blond. The thing had been delivered one cold afternoon. Her father attempted his one and only vertical immersion and panicked. He never tried again, but refused to get rid of it.
They might as well put fish in it.
Cassidy had never seen him fail. If he set his mind to something, he beat it. She wasn’t disappointed that he wasn’t able to tolerate the respirator or the thought of breathing while submersed in solution. She silently celebrated.
If he can’t tank, he can’t game.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to game. It was just the current game. The monitors had been alive with the same action since the postcard arrived. Cassidy sat down to watch the big monitor, where a new cycle was beginning.
Nine tanks. Nine bodies.
Asian, African-American, Canadian, French, Korean and a few others she couldn’t identify. Some were men, some women and one she couldn’t tell. They had one thing in common.
The memory wipe.
They looked like imbeciles hung from hooks as they were hoisted above the tanks and slowly lowered inside. Respirators were fixed over their numb expressions. In a few minutes, they would be dropped into the saline solution and their awareness pulled from their bodies without memories, thrown onto another planet, another universe.
Another reality.
Nine losers would emerge three months later. They would still win money, but wouldn’t really know it. Their minds would be too scrambled, their thoughts too distorted. The winner, however, would emerge wealthy and sane and with something money could not buy. Memories intact, he or she would be free from the human condition.
Enlightened.
Cassidy had seen it happen twenty-two times, the clarity in the victor’s eyes as he or she crawled over the tank’s lip and looked upon the world with new eyes. Was it worth the risk?
Ask the losers.
“Where’s the tenth player?” she asked.
There were only nine tanks. Ten players always entered the Maze. Ten enter, one exits.
Her father was mumbling, perhaps taking a call through his auditory implants.
“Dad, hey.” She grabbed his sleeve. “Where’s the tenth?”
He turned to her and blinked as if he just realized she was there. All the other monitors illustrated virtual worlds, vibrant and alive. Some ran feeds from the game’s creators, some from the sponsors and the dark, seedy corners of the world that had access to this secret competition that everyone wanted to watch. Her father’s hand crawled over the keyboard. One of the monitors flipped to another feed.
The tenth.
Cassidy almost dropped her noodles. It was a white male, head shaved, eyes closed. All the players were shaved, but this one wasn’t in a tank. He was lying on a table, sunk halfway into a cushion. Nurses attended tubes in his arms.
A needle in his forehead.
“What the hell?” Cassidy said.
Maze symbols lit up the monitors. Cheers rose and the players dropped. The thirty-first Maze had begun.
The man with the needle didn’t flinch.
Her father returned to taking notes while monitoring data. The players appeared in the virtual worlds as they woke up in their new bodies with only essential
memories to guide them.
Three months would pass before a winner crawled out. For the players, it would be lifetimes. Some never really escaped. They came back to the skin, but their minds would be chopped and stirred, a part still trapped in the Maze.
When three months had passed, an Asian woman was winched out of the tank and burst into tears as confetti fell and people cheered. Her father had taken notes Cassidy couldn’t understand. He analyzed data for reasons unknown. Where once they discussed strategy and conquest, a time when they considered beating the Maze, now it was just the mad ramblings of a slightly autistic shut-in.
Like the Maze had already taken him.
Several months later, when the thirty-second Maze was selecting players, Cassidy returned with groceries. A car was in the driveway. The license plates were missing. Footsteps were tracked in the snow.
Deep down, she knew this day would come.
Cassidy left the bags in the kitchen. Her father wasn’t floating in a tank. He was lying on a cushioned bed with two nurses at his side.
WORLD 75
A horse whinnied.
I’d fallen asleep in bramble. Streaks of dried blood slashed across my arms. It was a stupid place to hide, but the only one where I hadn’t taken an arrow to the throat. A few scratches were a fair trade.
The ground rumbled beneath the hooves of the advance guard, their uniforms crisp blue. Their flesh, though, was as gray as the sky. No fur, no scales. I couldn’t remember how many worlds it had been since I’d seen someone that close to human.
Through a telescope, the top half of the carriage came into view. The coachman snapped the reins. The guard was on the left, his head down and loading a bolt that, if I didn’t play this right, he’d bury in my vitals.
The clue was plated on the carriage between them.
When the commoners have been paid,
And the king’s horses point the way,
