Lost in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  “Is there any research done on it to say it’s a fact?” I asked

  Brock nodded. “It is true, but it’s to do with the DSD rather than the Dream State itself. I’ve done enough reading on the phenomenon to know that it’s not just a correlation. It’s the same effect that people get when they become too reliant on sleeping pills. They first have trouble sleeping without them and then, when they try to get off them, they can end up as insomniacs. It’s the same with DSD. After all, it has hypnotic properties just like sleeping pills.”

  I looked around the bus at my friends, realizing we were now the only people on it. “Have any of you been having trouble getting regular sleep when not on DSD?”

  Everyone shook their heads. Everyone but Keri.

  “Keri?” I said and she looked up as though waking from a daydream. “Have you been having trouble sleeping?”

  She looked shocked for a moment but then gazed down at her lap. “No, but someone I know who plays in the Dream State a lot has been.”

  “Seriously?” David burst out. “Is it anyone we would know?”

  Keri couldn’t meet any of our eyes when she shook her head, and I noticed her brush her blonde hair behind one ear. It was an obvious tell. Keri had always been a terrible liar. Considering the majority of our group was on this trip and we had all just denied having sleeping problems, I wondered who it was.

  It would be the person who used the most DSD, the person who is in the Dream State the most often.

  I started to think of those in our group who weren’t with us. Data, Frank, Tessa, and . . . “Siena . . .”

  Keri’s eyes shot up and I knew I had been right.

  “She’s been acting strange lately, more aggressive, trying harder and harder to prove herself.”

  David brushed this off with a wave of his hand. “But she’s always been competitive.”

  My jaw clenched and I was suddenly uneasy as my suspicions came together. “She’s been different lately. I should show you the stuff she said to me over the Dream State’s messenger. It was like she was taunting me, desperately trying to get a fix.”

  I turned to Keri, and from her expression, she knew that I was aware of her lie. Catching my eyes, she slowly nodded.

  “Tell us what’s going on with her,” I demanded. “I knew she was a bit rattled when seeing Kristie was a Screamer, but I had no idea it had affected her so badly.”

  Keri bit her lip, as though caught between Siena and us. “Just don’t tell her I told you this. She’s been seeing a psychiatrist lately about a recurring dream she has whenever she falls asleep without DSD. The dream was one of her losing a soccer match and she thought that it came from her fear of losing in the Dream State. That’s why she challenged you. She thought she could get over it if she beat you.”

  I gritted my teeth. “But that didn’t happen.”

  And worse yet, I used the FPS to humiliate her.

  Chloe grabbed Keri by her arm. “That’s not all she told you though, did she?”

  Chloe wasn’t always very perceptive, but she had always been able to read Keri better than any of us.

  Keri shook her head, eyes downcast in guilt. “She said that unless she can beat you in a rematch, her insomnia will only get worse.” She was breathing heavily now in her confession. “She asked me to tamper with your Dream Engine so that she could.”

  “You should just lose,” Brock muttered and we all turned to him. “If she thinks beating you will help her get to sleep, lose to her. That’s the only way to see if her dream is caused by her fear of losing or if it’s something else.” His lips pulled inward. “I don’t think it will, but it’s the only way to rule it out. Then we can look for the real reason she’s not sleeping.”

  “Which you blame on her overuse of DSD?” Chloe asked.

  Brock nodded and turned his gaze back to the window.

  Trust Brock to not trust the DSD.

  I had been planning on losing to Siena before she set me off, but I’d let my emotions get the better of me again.

  We arrived at the eastern cape of the island after several stops and hours of sitting on our butts watching the scenery go by. The place was a ramshackle town called Tutuala, and the bus driver explained to us how we would have to hike through the hills to get to the place where a boat would take us to Jaco Island.

  When we asked if there was a place for tourists to stay, he told us about a guesthouse called Pousada Lautem where he said he would be willing to drop us off. We agreed, and the bus ride allowed us a good look at the little village, which was mostly filled with the young and the elderly.

  Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up outside a humble set of small rooms at the base of a hill. Strangely, the buildings were pink.

  A busboy in shorts and a red singlet came out and brought our bags into the main entrance. I was more thankful than ever that Brock had brought the phrasebook, because the young man didn’t seem to speak a lick of English. The receptionist at the guesthouse was another story.

  “Hello, welcome,” the large Indonesian woman said as she came toward us from a back room. “How many?”

  “Five,” I said.

  “Five it is.” She called to the boy, “Levar malas para o quarto deles.”

  She smiled at us after using such a brusque tone, and as the boy went to collect our gear again to bring it to our room, she gestured around to her desk and we made our way down a hallway to a back door. Trees surrounded most of the rooms, and we crossed a patch of grass leading to a few of the connecting huts.

  “How will these do?” she asked as she opened a door and gestured us inside.

  Like the guesthouse itself, the rooms were homely, but not as small as I had suspected. I nodded. “These will do fine.”

  “I’m glad.”

  I followed her back across the grass toward the main house and started my questions. “We would like to know how to get a boat to Jaco Island.”

  She looked at me, her expression changing. “Now why would you want to go to such a place as Jaco?”

  “We would like to explore the area. Are there any chances we would be able to take a boat there sometime tomorrow?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr . . . ?”

  “Hughes,” I lied.

  “Mr. Hughes, please allow me to show you something.”

  She led me down to the road to where our bus had vanished. Seeing it was gone made the sudden feeling like I was stranded here well up in me. However, that wasn’t what she brought to my attention. It was a large parking lot around the corner from the guesthouse. Parked in it were several large, black minivans.

  “You’re not the only one interested in Jaco.”

  This definitely threw a wrench in the works.

  “Do you know who they are?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Work for some big company. Sonics Australia, but they don’t have any signs. Only black vans and men in suits who walk around acting like they own the place.”

  I nodded to the woman and frowned. I decided to try my luck and see how far my money got me. I brought out five one hundred dollar bills.

  “For finding someone who can get us there,” I said, glad that American money also worked as currency here. “And twice that if you can find someone who can get us there in secret.”

  The woman eyed the money and called, “Riccardo!”

  The boy who had been carrying our bags ran to her. She spoke to him in Portuguese before he ran off again. She reached a hand out and I passed her the money.

  “Someone will pick you up at four, early dawn. You will be taken to the beach where a man named Philippe will receive you and take you there by boat. He doesn’t speak very good English, so I will have Riccardo translate for you, but Riccardo doesn’t speak the best English either, so best have what you want to tell the skipper prepared well in advance.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Oh, you shouldn’t be thankin
g me. You’re more likely to get yourself killed than find what you are looking for.” Her voice was bitter as she continued, “You know . . . that island was one of the few sanctuaries left in the world before companies began to get interested in it because of its seclusion. Now there are more people trampling the local brush and killing the wildlife there than ever. Crying shame.”

  I nodded. “I agree.”

  “Hah. All they do is take. Think they own the place.” She held up the money I gave her and smiled. “This helps though.”

  Having confided this with me, I felt like I could trust her. “They’re the reason we’re here. Oh, and one more thing.” I lifted Windsor’s suitcase, which hadn’t left my side since we departed Dili. “Would there be any chance I could put this in the guesthouse’s safekeeping during our stay here?”

  The woman took the briefcase and nodded before leaving me to consider the black vehicles. That was Plan A arranged, and after Windsor told me how much the drones cost, I didn’t want to have to resort to Plan B until I absolutely needed to.

  Chapter 19: Jaco Island

  The Wi-Fi was pretty terrible in Tutuala, at least compared to what we were used to. That didn’t stop us from entering the Dream State to kill time until we were called for, though. I wanted to talk to Siena and clean up the mess I had left her in. I knew an apology wasn’t going to cut it, not with her. So I decided to take Brock’s advice and ask her for a rematch. However, despite my attempt to start an actual conversation by asking her how she was feeling, I only received one reply.

  Siena_the_Blade: “New Coliseum, Sunday evening.”

  That girl has a one-track mind. I wonder what she’s planning.

  Knowing none of us would be able to wake up comfortably at four in the morning, we decided to forego sleep. Instead, we did one of Heaven’s new dungeons.

  It was an event similar to the Great Train Robbery, only on an airship. The point of the mission was to defeat all enemies that managed to come aboard. The complication was that our own airship kept on flying through dense clouds, so little of the enemy airship could be seen. Pirate-like in design, the enemies would emerge from the mist swinging all manner of blades and flintlock pistols.

  Although a Tertiatier dungeon, David had recently synthed a new weapon, a massive Grav-Hammer. It was super effective against airborne fighters and grounded any of the flying monsters that flew by trying to claw at us. He was the linchpin of our party, each of his swings dictating when and where we were to strike next. I could tell from his satisfied look while the warping animations sucked in each enemy that he had found a new favorite dungeon.

  The game ended at midnight, and we stayed up late in the room I shared with Chloe, trading stories of our school years. Chloe and Keri were telling a story of their time at Washington Lake Middle School when there was a knock at the door. The messenger was early. I got up and opened the door to see the young luggage boy, who I recalled was named Riccardo.

  “Hurry, ah, por favor. Philippe wait,” he said. He led us out of the guesthouse and across the street toward a small cab.

  Along with Riccardo, it was hard for us to all fit in there, but we managed with Chloe on my lap and Keri sitting across David and Brock’s legs. I don’t know who was more embarrassed by the situation, them or her, but by how his eyes shifted around the insides of the taxi, Brock appeared to be the most put out. The cab took us across the small town in the early morning darkness. When it stopped, I paid the driver and we emerged from it like it was a clown car.

  Riccardo led us to a small jetty where a lanky man waited next to a small skip.

  I didn’t know if it was the excitement of creeping onto an island in the early morning darkness or the residual adrenaline from our airship event, but I could feel my heart racing and a deep anxiety building within me as we approached the boat. Riccardo talked to the man—who I assumed to be Philippe—in Portuguese, and I could see a glowing dot in the darkness whenever he took a drag on his cigarette. The boy then returned to us.

  “Two thousand,” he said.

  I pulled out a thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills. “A thousand now and a thousand when we get back.”

  The boy took the money and passed it to the man. I could see in the glow of his cigarette as he counted it and nodded to the boy before saying something else. Again, the boy returned.

  “Philippe say he will wait ‘til dawn. After that, he will leave without you.”

  I had discussed with the others that our first trip was just to scope the place out and thought we would be able to do that in the three hours the darkness afforded us. Even so, I need a good look at the place before I decided if we were going to try and infiltrate it.

  “Tell him he’ll wait until seven or we have no deal.”

  The boy ran back and Philippe looked at us again and breathed out a cloud of smoke in the sigh.

  “Seven,” he agreed.

  The boy waved us over and we all followed Philippe onto his boat. Even Riccardo had gotten in, and I saw in the moonlight that he had a big grin on his face. He was probably as excited as we were. Philippe started the boat quickly, and I could see why it was chosen. For a small skip, it was very silent. We took off out onto the water. The wind was warm and blew away from the island, which I hoped would make it so any sound wouldn’t reach it.

  Brock pulled out some binoculars and I bit my lip, realizing how stupid I was for not bringing a pair of my own.

  “We’re heading away from the island,” he said and looked to the boy.

  “You said secret.” He pointed his finger down and in a circular motion. “Best way secret is round back.”

  Brock nodded and raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Alright, listen up everyone.” I pulled out a map of the island I had stolen from the reception rack and pointed to the back. “All we’re going to do for this trip is climb the rear hill, take a quick look to see what’s going on there, then head back to the boat. It hopefully won’t take us the full allotted time, but I need to find out what we’ll need to get in there.”

  Chloe continued where I left off. “The place is probably guarded, so if you get caught, pretend you’re just tourist who got lost.”

  “What’s the word for tourist in Portuguese?” David asked.

  Brock grinned. “Tourist.”

  “Okay, I think I can remember that.”

  We all smiled and I continued. “Once we know what we’re dealing with, we can tell whether or not we’ll need the equipment Windsor gave us, but before then, don’t go too close. We don’t need people getting suspicious that we’re here for any other reason than to check out the island.”

  They all nodded. I still didn’t know how I felt about taking everyone along. Brock and I would have been enough. I was almost tempted to tell Chloe and others to stay in the boat. However, the fact that they had come this far showed how serious they were about continuing. Chloe in particular looked very pensive when I said not to go too close to the base. I could only hope she could hold herself back when we arrived.

  She’s not that stupid. When has she ever rushed ahead during a dungeon?

  The thought made me inwardly chuckle. Although we hadn’t done anything IRL with real-world consequences, many of our in-game missions had been to do with stealth and evasion. Particularly when I had been playing for my life, it was ironic that the game had, in some ways, prepared us for this mission.

  Mist sprayed in our faces as the boat purred over the water. After we got far enough around the island, the boatman turned us around and slowly brought us to shore. There was no visible dock in sight, and I had a feeling our feet were going to get wet. Riccardo was out first, jumping from the boat and onto the rocks sticking out of the water.

  I eyed the boy. “You’re coming with us?”

  Riccardo nodded. “Aunty say don’t-go-Jaco. But know it like back of hand.”

  I nodded, feeling like having a guide with us wouldn’t be such a b
ad thing. We all climbed out of the boat and onto the rocks. Keri slipped on one and got her shoes drenched before Brock reached down and pulled her out. It was a simple gesture, but like with how uneasy he looked when she was sitting on his lap, it spoke volumes to the rest of us.

  I’d call Brock competent at many things, but relationships aren’t one of them.

  When we were all ashore, we followed Riccardo up the hill into the trees. The area reminded me of the Primatier dungeon I explored while trapped in Basetier, one of the only places in the Dream State that changed from day and night depending on what side of the hill you were on. Of course, my own comparisons with the night side of Rising Hills was the trees, the darkness, and the fact that we were on a hill.

  At least I thought it was similar until no monsters arose.

  Halfway up the hill, Ricardo called out, “Stop!”

  We all froze, watching as he snapped a long branch off a tree and walked in front of us. Although my eyes hadn’t adjusted fully to the darkness, I could see the excited grin on his face as he pushed the branch into the ground.

  A metal mouth jumped up from the brush, its fangs clamping down on the stick and snapping it. David and Chloe both gasped, and Keri jumped back with sudden fright. She cried an “eep!” and the boy raised his finger to his lips with a hiss.

  After the surprise had passed, I quickly realized what should have been obvious if it weren’t for my overactive imagination. The thing had been a bear trap, but considering there were no bears on this island, it would be more accurate to call it a human trap.

  “This place is booby trapped?” Brock whispered.

  Riccardo nodded. “A line, circle. Just need find one and you can slip through.”

  To demonstrate this, he stepped over the bear trap and rushed on up the hill. We followed in a single line behind him, and once we were past, I caught up.

  “Shouldn’t we reset it so they don’t know we were here?”

  The boy shook his head. “Harder to find on way down. Reset when come back.”