by Jamie Hawke
Letting the bitterness creep in, I was kind of relieved when my solitude was interrupted.
“Ryan,” Brad’s voice came from behind, and I jumped up, turning to see him running toward me. “Ryan, let’s go.”
“You’re back.”
“No shit, and I have news.” He reached the base of the hill, motioning to me with eyes full of excitement. “I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed on and… someone’s found something.”
“Like what?”
“A shimmer, he called it. But I think it might be a portal.” He motioned me again. “So hurry the fuck up, before someone manages to fuck it up for all of us.”
I wasn’t processing what he was saying, but understood it was better than sitting there and obsessing over the past.
“Wait, you’re saying there are other people here?” I asked, realizing that it made sense, considering someone had given us the link. We hadn’t seen them, but there probably weren’t a whole lot yet, if it was as much of a dark channel as Brad claimed. And we hadn’t likely seen them because they were off exploring, seeing if they could find anything.
“A few guys I play with, but… don’t judge me for that.”
I laughed. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
We ran until we needed to rest, then entered a bit of a ravine. He glanced around, pulled up a map, and grinned. “They’re resourceful. There!” Sure enough, he pointed to our left and I noticed something move in the darkness at the bottom of the ravine.
As we drew close, I had to squint to make sure I was seeing it right. Sure enough, there was a cat. I’d have expected it to be a tabby cat that might suddenly transform into a witch, but no, it was simply a cat with a silly grin on its face.
“That’s our healer,” Brad explained as we approached. “Pam, say hi to Ryan.”
The cat meowed, then laughed. “Playing with ya, big guy. Hey.”
“Hi,” I replied, wondering who else would be in this little party. I didn’t have time to wonder. I shouldn’t have been surprised that there was a kobold, an obsidian golem, three dark elves, and a dragon woman. None on the side of the Angelic Hord, I noted.
“An angel?” the kobold asked with a frown.
“Hardly,” Brad replied with a wink my way. “Only in looks.”
“You hitting on me?” I asked, trying to be playful, to fit in with the crowd. Two of the elves chuckled, at least.
“We’re waiting on one more,” the cat, as it was easier to think of her than Pam, said.
A flash went off behind me, and we turned as a monkey guy strode up, carrying a long staff. Their race was the most agile, known as the Rankin race. I’d almost played their kind at first, because I loved their similarity to a certain Monkey King character from Chinese myth.
“Who’s Mr. Divine over here?” the Rankin said, staring me down.
“Guys, everyone…” The kobold held up his hands, then motioned us toward a section of the ravine that was darker than the rest. “Nobody gives a fuck what you’re playing in the game right now. This is bigger than all that.”
“This is nothing more than another game company losing their shit and firing everyone,” the golem shot back, his voice revealing he was probably a twelve-year-old boy. “Happens all the time.”
“No way,” the kobold shot back. “I’ve been analyzing this whole thing—the code doesn’t make sense. I was scanning the place when I found this.”
“And what is ‘this,’ exactly?” I asked.
A couple of glares my way, but the kobold grinned, stepping into the darkness. “You’ll see, soon enough.” He continued a few more paces, then stopped. “Here.”
“Here what?” the cat asked, and then moved ahead, vanishing.
A second later, the cat returned and was shouting, rolling on its back, clawing at the air and casting healing spells on itself repeatedly.
“Pam! Pam!” Brad was the first at her side, picking her up and holding her, petting her and saying, “Pam, you’re okay. You’re with us.”
It took a minute, but finally Pam relaxed, curling up into his arms and purring, but still looking around with wild eyes.
“Fucking A,” the golem said. “I’m next.”
He took a step past the kobold, in spite of the rest shouting out warnings not to do it, and then he vanished. Unlike Pam, he didn’t come back. We all looked at each other, and I was the first to ask.
“What’s going on?”
The kobold shook his head, turning to the cat.
“Well?” Brad finally said, waiting on Pam.
“I don’t fucking know. It was weird… images flashing. Blood. Pain. Screaming. Ever seen Event Horizon?”
“Oh, fuck.” I turned to the darkness. “And… the golem?”
“Paleon,” the kobold said. “That’s what his character name is, anyway. And I don’t know. I’m reading it as a portal, though, so I’m guessing he’s… somewhere.”
“Good guess,” Brad replied with a scoff. “I’ll second it and say it’s safe to assume he’s somewhere.”
“Don’t fucking joke about this,” Pam said. “Not until you’ve been in there.”
“Why the hell would we go in there?” one of the elves asked.
“Choice of words…” Pam growled.
“To find Paleon, for one,” the kobold added. “Curiosity for another.”
The elf considered Pam, then shook his head. “Not I, sir. Count me out.”
With that, he vanished, having logged off already.
“The rest of you, too?” the kobold asked. “Going to leave Paleon in there like that?”
“He walked in with his own two feet,” the next elf said. “Well, his virtual feet. He can log out whenever he wants to like the rest of us, but I’m not looking for some scare-show bullshit.”
“I’m going,” I said, stepping toward the darkness.
“We all are,” the kobold said, a hand out to stop me. “But as a team, ready to fight whatever’s on the other side.”
“You want me to go back in there?” Pam asked, voice heavy with fright.
“It’s just a damn game,” the Rankin said, and then walked up next to me, hand on my shoulder. “Heavenly Light here gets it, don’t you?”
I glared straight ahead, simply waiting to see what the others would do.
“You know I’m going,” Brad said. He was the only one who knew about me and Katie, and I meant to keep it that way. At least for the foreseeable future.
“No way am I going back,” Pam said, leaping to the ground, moving away from the darkness. “No way in hell…” She shook at the words.
“We’ll need a healer,” the kobold said. “We’ll need you.”
“Pam, come on,” the Rankin held out a hand, shrugging. “It’s a fucking game.”
Those words hit me. If they knew what I knew, would they still think it was only a game? If they had any idea that I was pretty sure I’d seen my dead fiancée come out because of the game, that the version of her I’d met in the game, or simulation really, had possibly actually been her, or her spirit anyway… would this conversation change?
Regardless, we needed to move forward. I kept my mouth shut, in part because there was no way I was going to jeopardize the chance of finding Katie, but also because I knew they’d probably think I was crazy. As I’d told them, I meant to go through. If whatever awaited us on the other side was as bad as Pam made it out to be, I’d need their help. What I didn’t need was her scaring the rest off, or causing panic once we were in there. If our skills worked as they did in a normal game, then I had defense and healing magic.
“You’ll have my healing,” I said. “More of a heavenly retribution style, where we can take in health from whatever damage we cause to the enemy, or share it among ourselves, but… we might not technically need Pam.”
“Good,” Pam said, and took another step back, suddenly vanishing. She’d logged off.
“Way to go, Mr. Perfect,” the kobold growled.
“I can do it,” I said, sticking to the topic at hand.
Brad stepped toward the shadows. “You heard him. We’re good to go.”
The Rankin grinned, showing his monkey teeth, and stepped into the darkness. The rest of us hesitated, then moved as one to find out how this hell on the other side could possibly be so bad.
8
Gnashing of teeth didn’t begin to describe it.
Even before we’d fully crossed over the pain hit, and I mean pain, the likes of which you’re not supposed to feel in a simulation or game or… ever, without death. It was a good thing for all of us, then, that I’d already activated my heavenly wards and had both defensive angel dust and healing auras coursing through the group. Even as they protected us, waves of heat came unseen, then a barrage of what looked like hornets made of glowing rock, and Brad had up a wall of black steel, while the Rankin and dragon woman threw out energy waves and walls of flame in offensive maneuvers without knowing who they were attacking.
Images assaulted us in a way that didn’t make sense to any game I’d ever played—not just on the screen, but in our actual heads. At least in mine. As Pam had described it, there was blood, mutilated bodies, empty eye sockets, and then the screaming and tearing.
“Angel!” the kobold shouted, and I saw him kneeling at my side. “Do something!”
I attempted more shields and auras of healing, defense, but nothing was working. A voice came from ahead, calling for help, then silence and a shock wave that left us feeling as if we were floating… The momentary silence interrupted by a scream… and more screams again.
“It’s not the game,” I shouted, suddenly ignoring all of that other shit and charging ahead. “Some of it is, or might be, but this is more than that.”
The others followed my move, still throwing out attacks and defenses, but fleeing that space. A wall of sticky, red slime met me with resistance, but I cast a holy flame around myself and burst through, stumbling out to a ledge with a massive drop off.
To my relief, the chaos subsided. I turned to see the Rankin at the point we’d broken through, staff tracing the edges of red stone, leaving totems there.
“It is the game,” he said, “and you’re right. It’s more.”
“What the fuck are you two going on about?” the kobold asked.
“A game can’t get in your mind like that,” Brad said. “Or… shouldn’t be able to.”
The dragon woman looked at us, sniffing the air. “There’s something you aren’t telling us.”
Brad and I shared a look, but it was the kobold that spoke up. “Haven’t figured it out yet? This isn’t the game, or a hack of the game… We’re so far past the game, the game’s a fucking dot!”
“What?”
“He’s trying to say…” The Rankin scrunched up his already scrunched up face, then shook his head. “What are you trying to say?”
“You were the one who sent me the link,” Brad said to the kobold, more as a realization. “I have my thoughts, and I know Ryan has his. But… Pierce?”
“Pierce?” I asked, not expecting a name like that for him, for some reason. Maybe because I’d expected a British accent with a name like Pierce, but he sounded more… Mexican, maybe?
He ignored me and turned to Brad instead. “The girl I got it from was in the company, and… yeah, you all don’t need to know more.”
“Shit,” Brad glanced at me with worry etched on his face, then back at Pierce with an accusatory frown. “You—”
“That’s enough.”
Now it was my turn, as I was catching on fast. “You’re here to try and shut it down.”
Pierce shrugged. “Fuck it. Kind of, but… more like see why it hasn’t shut down yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“They tried shutting it down—first the company when the government came in, then they claimed they did everything they could, so the government put their people on it. When they couldn’t do shit, they called me in.”
“So you’re like a black ops fucking hitman of computer oddities?” the Rankin asked, and then laughed. “Shit, Kobo, I knew you were good, but not that good.”
“Hey, I play, too.” Pierce glanced around as a rumbling sounded through the red stone. “But sometimes play is more than play. And I like to think of myself as more of a bounty hunter.”
“Great, Boba,” I said, jokingly, but only to mask how much this was freaking me out. If he did find a way of shutting it down, my questions might go forever unanswered. “In a situation like this, what’s to be hunted?”
“That’s the thing.” He pointed at his head. “As we established, a game shouldn’t be able to get into your mind like it did back there. So, either this is a new type of program, or…”
“Or…?” more than one of us said at once.
“I don’t only specialize in tech. There’s a reason LivreCorp was able to make their programs so realistic, and it wasn’t their A-class former spook data-gather types as they’d have you believe. They did that stuff, yeah, but when they were doing internal tests, it just wasn’t enough. So they brought in other types of people, mediums and shit… and it got weird.”
“You were there?” Brad asked.
“Nope, but I get paid to know what I know, to make sure the right people are whispering in my ear. You ask me? I think they opened something…”
“Fuck you,” the Ranking said with a laugh. “This is fun, but it’s not… what? What exactly are you saying—like a portal?”
“Sure.” Pierce looked at me, eyes narrowing. “A rift, a doorway to the afterlife, in a sense. But then… as often happens with this shit, it escalated. Something fucked with the system, something changed it all. Didn’t it, Ryan?”
“What’re you saying?” I asked.
He nodded, knowingly. “You think they aren’t watching? Don’t have everything that happens in their system stored? I got access to it, man, and there were weird spikes in yours. Something happened with you.” At my gulp, eyes darting about, he laughed. “But don’t worry, homey, you weren’t the only one.”
“No?”
“Why do you think Pam was coming along?” When none of us could answer, he said, “A daughter. She lost a daughter.”
Knowing that, combined with the idea that he’d been using this scenario to try and get close to her, I suddenly disliked the kobold even more than I had.
That, plus the look in his eye when he turned my way again, told me everything I needed to know.
“You think we’ve breached the afterlife,” I said. “That we’ve… somehow affected it—or infected it, and that…”
“…it’s crossing over to our world too. Yes. Perhaps.”
“You all are fucking nuts,” one of the elves said.
“Hold the front door,” the other said. “So… Paleon?”
“Somewhere down here,” Pierce said. “Or… maybe it’s not down. But in the afterlife.”
The elf who’d spoken took a step forward and clocked Pierce a good one, down across the jaw. “You should’ve fucking said something.”
Pierce, stumbling back, held up a hand. “And risk it all? Fuck you!”
Both of the remaining elves moved on him, but I stepped up. “This won’t help find Paleon, and it won’t solve the larger issue.”
The dragon woman snorted, smoke coming from her nostrils, and Rankin grinned awkwardly, as if trying to decide if we were all messing with him.
“So, you think this is really a thing?” Brad asked Pierce. “I mean, when Ryan was telling me—sorry, pal—it seemed like insanity.”
“Thanks.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s not like I would’ve seen it any other way, if we were reversed.”
“Right. And no
w there are multiple people saying this, so…”
Pierce, still rubbing his jaw and glaring at the elves, grunted. “And the ramifications here…”
“Right.” I shook my head.
“We have to put an end to it.”
“Hold on.” I held up a hand. “When you say those words, I don’t think they mean the same thing as when I say those words.”
“I have my mission. You’ll either help me, or…”
Now I was ready to punch him, but he held up a hand and continued, “What if, okay? Just stick with me—what if whatever’s in the afterlife tries to come over? We have to think about our world here, not only… theirs.”
“But, who knows what that means for us when we die, for the ones we’ve lost…” I breathed deep, trying to not get overwhelmed by the thought of it all. “Have we doomed ourselves to, I don’t know—something that isn’t what we were meant for?”
“Let me get this straight,” the Rankin interjected. “As is, when we die, it might now be that we end up in some sort of video game-like world, with stats and leveling up and all of that?”
“Maybe,” Pierce admitted.
“Sign me the fuck up! That sounds amazing.”
The elves tilted their heads at that, and seemed to agree.
“Whether it’s a positive or a negative,” Pierce said, “I have to find out what we’re dealing with… and if necessary, stop it.”
“As in… end the afterlife?” I asked.
He arched his eyebrow. “Honestly, I don’t know. At least close the rift.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Brad said, moving to the totems the Rankin set up, staring through the now-blue shimmer that had formed. Something seemed to be moving on the other side, or maybe it was a ripple in the field. “We’re not finding Paleon, a solution… or our loved ones, if we just sit here debating it.”
“You want to go back into that stuff?” one of the elves asked.
“I don’t see another way.”
He had a good point. Turning back to the cliff, the other side was sheer rock face, a drop down into darkness, and more darkness above.
“Leap of faith?” I asked.
Pierce scoffed. “Leap of death, more like it.”
