Island Girls

by Rodzil LaBraun

  "What should we do, Joah?" Lin asked.

  Everyone looked to me for an answer. I was ready to be the leader of this group, I thought. I mean, everyone has looked to me for answers since I arrived. I'm smart enough. I like to think things through before taking action. I care about these people, so it's not like I'd be looking mostly for my own benefit. But I've never, ever had a management job. I've always been a follower. I did what I was told. Especially in the military. Almost as much in security jobs. How would I make a good leader?

  I looked around at the faces awaiting my response. Without a doubt, Lin was more qualified for the position of lead. But she was deferring to me instead. No one else seemed interested in stepping up either. They all just wanted me to tell them what to do. That very moment was the most responsibility that I have ever felt in my life. I possibly held their lives in my hand.

  "Are you okay?" Shira asked me.

  "He's fine," Nancy answered before I could. "He's just thinking things through. That's what he does."

  That statement gave me the extra confidence that I needed. Later in life, if there was a later on. If we lived through this. I would have to tell her how important it was for her to speak up just then. And how proud I was of her, as well as of myself for building that trust.

  "We can't pass up this opportunity," I told them. "The only question is if we all go check it out, or only some of us. This door could lead to our deaths. But if it leads to freedom, we would have to risk losing it to come back for the others."

  "If only some of us go," Lin asked. "Who would it be?"

  "Me and one or two volunteers."

  "If you are going, I'm going," Lin announced.

  "Same here," said Nancy.

  "Me, too." Shira added.

  "I'd like to go regardless of whoever else goes," Drexel decided. "If it is actually part of the game, there shouldn't be any risk, right? If it is something else, I don't want to miss out."

  That left only Trixie. We all turned her direction to find her chewing on the next to last bite of her pickle. Before tossing the last piece into her mouth, she said, "Well I ain't fucking staying here by myself!"

  "What about Zach and Ronnie?" Shira asked. "Should would go get them first?"

  "If this is part of the game, they are already in there," Drexel replied. "If it is a narrow opportunity for escape, we don't have time to go back for them."

  Everyone then looked to me for a response to Drexel's assessment. "I think he's right. We should all go now. We've stood here too long as it is. Let's go!"

  "Wait!" Nancy said. "Do we have time to change out of our swimsuits?"

  "Just carry your clothes with you. You can change later."

  "In the tunnel?" Shira asked. I could see that she was willing to follow my instructions about not taking time to change but would have modesty issues slipping out of her swimsuit in the presence of others.

  "Hell," Trixie interjected. "I'd run naked through that tunnel with a dildo hanging out of my ass if it was required to get to freedom." It was a shockingly crude statement, but it certainly reinforced my point.

  Drexel descended the ladder first, then Shira, Nancy, Trixie and Lin. I went last and managed to shut the door behind me. I had no idea if that was good or bad. It was hard to believe that our captors did not know what we were doing right now. They were always watching, even intervening at appropriate times. Did that mean that we shouldn't go? Nothing could be gained by staying put. We had to take our chances, even if it turned out to be a trap. Or another game.

  The tunnel was very dimly lit. There was no way to tell how long it ran in either direction. There were no signs or physical differentiation between the two options. Left, or right? Which way do we go? It didn't matter, but we had to make a choice. If our first option turned out to be a dead-end, we could turn around and go the other way. But what was the likelihood of a dead-end tunnel in a starship simulation, assuming that is where we are?

  "We'll try right first," I told the group. "If we encounter snakes we'll turn and go the other way."

  "Snakes? Are you shitting me?" Trixie asked in near panic. It was the second time that I had been asked that same question today.

  "Yes," Lin replied for me. "Consider yourself shitted."

  "What does that mean?" Trixie asked, her expression changing quickly to being offended. "Are you insulting me?"

  "Oh my God!" Nancy exclaimed. "No, she was just trying to be funny. You asked if he was shitting you. The answer is yes. Shitted. You get it? But everyone was just joking, so let's forget about the shitting. And the snakes."

  After a long pause in the conversation where we heard only our own footsteps, Trixie finally mumbled, "There better not be any snakes."

  Lin and Shira couldn't control their laughter after that. Soon, Nancy joined them. Drexel and I just shook our heads and stayed quiet.

  "That's alright," Trixie said. "Go ahead and laugh. Ain't none of you all going to scoot away from danger faster than me. You’ll be pulling those fangy bastards off your legs while I’m laughing my ass off.”

  A moment later Nancy asked, “Is that the ass with the dildo hanging out of it?”

  “Enough!” I shouted. I shouldn’t have lost my self-control like that. I jeopardized our situation, possibly alerting guards to our location. We all stood still and listened for any repercussions. But we heard nothing at all.

  We continued down the tunnel for hundreds of feet. There were no markings or variations until we came across another ladder. The rungs were just as shiny as the one we came down, and the light above it was slightly brighter. Drexel offered to go up first. The rest of us waited patiently below.

  Drexel flipped open the door which was part of the floor of whatever was above us. He was able to hold onto it so that it did not clang against the floor. He looked around for a few seconds before uttering a profound, "huh."

  "Let me guess," Trixie called up to him. "You're in the blue barracks, right? That's the direction that we were walking."

  I hadn't even considered that when choosing a direction to do. Thinking back to the orientation of the women's changing room in the recreation center, then the door and the ladder. She was right. This was the underground way to her barracks. Had we actually found their access tunnel for bringing us food and new teammates?

  "Nope," Drexel replied, to Trixie's question, not the one in my head. "It's a cargo hold inside the starship. We are in the game."

  "Are you sure that it is not a warehouse on the island?" Lin asked. It was a good question.

  "The crates have the Solarian Commonwealth logo on them. I'm pretty sure that we're in the game," he replied.

  "Damn it!" Nancy said. We were all thinking it, too. But I couldn't let our group get depressed. We needed to stay focused.

  "It doesn't matter," I said. "It might still be our way out. We have to keep going. If we found a way in, there could be a way out."

  "What about the other direction?" Trixie asked. "If this way put us under the virtual reality game, where would the other direction take us?"

  Damn. That was a good question, too. "What do you guys think?" I asked.

  "It's up to you," Lin said.

  "We could split up," Drexel suggested.

  "That sounds like a bad idea to me," Lin responded. I agreed.

  "You say that you guys rode in a rail car through these tunnels in the game?" Shira asked. "How wide was the car?"

  Fuck! How did I not think of that? I was supposed to have all the answers. Shira made a fantastic point.

  "Good point," I said. "The longer that we stay in this tunnel the more chance that we have of being hit by a rail car. We should go up here."

  "I want to go the other way," Trixie said. "I don't see any point in going back into the game when the other way might be the way out."

  The other three confirmed that they wanted to follow my lead. They would do whatever I decided. I wanted out of this tunnel. That left just Drexel.

  "Sorry, Trixie,"
he said from above. "I want to go up here."

  "Well I ain't going by myself, so I’ll go with you guys for now."

  We all ascended the ladder. I went last again, but Shira was the one just before me this time. Her petite but firm ass winked at me with each step that she took. This wasn't the time to think about such things, but it couldn't be helped. There was no place to look but up. And all that I could see was that tight little ass, barely concealed by her swimsuit. Each time she lifted a leg, the fabric crept a tiny bit more into her ass crack.

  As if she was reading my mind, Shira repeatedly reached back to pull the material to cover as much as her butt as possible. Unfortunately for her, but not for me, every step pulled it right back in. The look that she gave me after we all reached the cargo hold was not an accusation, but she clearly was modest regarding exposing her body.

  The room was too big, I thought. The virtual reality game section of the arena area could not have been more than fifty feet across. This room was at least a hundred. And if Zach and Ronnie were using some of it to fight aliens, there should not be near this much space left for our portion of the game. And, we went hundreds of feet from where the game section was supposed to be.

  There were crates stacked up along one end of the room. The rest of the space was empty. Our entry was beside one wall. The door out was on the far wall. Before everyone started heading that way, I had an idea.

  "Drex," I said. "Place your hand on this wall. Everybody stay here. I'm going to touch the far wall."

  "What will that prove?" Trixie asked.

  "That this room is too big to be part of the recreation center," Lin replied.

  We were able to make physical contact with both walls at the same time. It just confirmed my suspicion from days previous that an underground section was used to supplement the game experience. The world that they created for us inside the starship adventure was huge.

  "Nancy, hand me your underpants," I said. Any garment would do, but I had a naughty streak in me sometimes that came out in the weirdest of moments. There was nothing other than clothing that I could use. We were not provided any other objects. I wanted to throw something into the air toward the ceiling twenty feet above us to see if the space was holographic. I at least refrained from sniffing them before I tossed them up, but I did consider it.

  "This room is real from top to bottom," I announced as I handed Nancy's panties back to her.

  "What does that mean for us?" Shira asked.

  "It's good news, I think. It means that we are likely underground even if we are inside the game. That means that there is a network of rooms down here used to fulfill our adventures. It improves our chances of escape, I think."

  Everyone then joined me beside the cargo hold door. There were no levers, handles or buttons present. The wall around it was as plain as the door itself. It did not open as I approached, or when I made contact. It was locked. And there appeared no way to open it.

  "What do we do now?" Nancy asked.

  "We go back the other way, just like I said," Trixie answered with her signature attitude.

  I gave it some thought before announcing, "I think that she might be right. But before we bail on this door, let's search this place first."

  Unfortunately, there was nothing in the cargo hold that could help us open the door. Though none of us miraculously had earpieces appear when we entered the game used space, I spoke into thin air to see if a computer could help us. There was no response. So back into the tunnel we went.

  "Should we go back the other way, or continue the way that we were going?" Lin asked. "Logically, the next ladder that doesn't lead to the dressing room should be closer if we continue this direction. Going back might take twice as long and put us at more risk of encountering tunnel traffic."

  "Agreed," I replied.

  "God dammit!" Trixie said.

  "What's wrong," Lin asked her.

  "I wanted to be right."

  Most of us just shrugged it off, but Lin wisely replied, "You were right. The cargo hold wasn't the way out."

  That seemed to appease Trixie and gave her a little more bounce in her step. She was a very upfront and outspoken person, and enthusiastic. I liked that part about her. But she also wore her emotions on her sleeve and made some crude comments from time to time. Just as with everyone, you had to take the bad with the good.

  We encountered the next ladder without any problems. It was spaced from the last one about the same as from the one we originally descended. So, Lin's logic was good. This one led to the large bedroom that we had been assigned when I was in the game with Lin and Nancy. The one with the large threesome bed. Again, there was no way to open the door.

  "Unless it's orgy time, this is another dead end," Trixie said. No one was particularly interested in the orgy scenario, at least not vocally, so we descended once again.

  A weird noise could be heard in the tunnel from the direction that we came. It sounded like animals fighting in the forest, but with medieval weapons. I had no idea what could be causing it. We went swiftly in the other direction and climbed the next ladder without waiting to see what was up there.

  This time the door flipped open into another cargo hold, but the large access door was already open. Before we could approach it, a mechanical creature entered carrying one of the crates. Large claws placed the crate on top of an existing one, then the droid rotated to exit the room. Instead of feet or wheels, the contact point with the floor was a ball in each corner. It was similar to the service droid that I had seen earlier cleaning up the guts of fallen humans and aliens. Another reason to believe that we were in the game.

  "It didn't see us?" Nancy asked. I figured she was probably not big into sci-fi movies or shooter video games. I remember playing games where you could walk right up to non-playing characters without their artificial intelligence triggering your presence. In the movies, these droids were not programmed to alert anyone to an intruder. They just carried and stacked shit.

  I hurried everyone to the doorway before it could close. This one appeared to remain open as long as the loader continued to work here. It came back with another crate a moment later and we ducked out behind it.

  The hallway was certainly the same as we had encountered in the game when we had to fight off attackers in the lower levels. Unless soldiers were sent into the area, we might not encounter another human, or game character that is.

  "I don't think that we need to hide," Drexel told us. "We're in the game. This ship belongs to us."

  "Then why couldn't we open the door?" I asked.

  "And why is the ship's computer not responding to us?" Lin asked.

  "If you run this show," Trixie said. "Tell that droid to stop."

  Drexel attempted to do so with no reaction from the loader. He jumped out of the way of the massive mechanical unit just in time to avoid injury.

  "I don't understand," Drexel said in frustration, picking himself back up off the floor. "Are we in the game or not?"

  "Not," Nancy answered.

  "I think that we are in the game world," I clarified what I thought the situation to be. "Be we did not enter as players. We have no active mission or parameters."

  "Can we be killed?" Shira asked.

  "I don't know. Best not to chance it."

  We continued down the hallway to find more cargo holds, most of them locked. I guessed them to be storage areas based on the doors. There were no more threesome bedrooms, or residential type rooms of any kind. I couldn't figure out how we wandered into the one that we had already. It made no sense for that room to be on this level.

  We also found an open door to a cargo bay. A force field shielded us from the dark vastness of space outside the bay. I had seen this scene before, so I was not surprised by it. What I was hoping for was some type of craft that we could hijack to get out. Though, I still had no idea where we would go or if the journey would be of any real benefit. Would we not still be in the game?

  In the back of my m
ind I felt like we were still being played with. Our movements and decisions were still entertaining someone, somewhere. But to what point? It just didn't make any sense. If they saw us everywhere that we went before, and watched everything that we did, why wouldn't they be watching now. And, if they were watching, why wouldn't they be stopping us?

  We finally reached a door that looked different. I believed it to be the lift. Again, the door would not open for us no matter what we did. Beside the lift was another small door like the one in the dressing room that led us on this wild goose chase. As expected, inside was another ladder. We could go up or down.

  "Up we go!" I said, leading the way this time. Drexel agreed to bring up the rear. I could hear Trixie teasing him about her ass being in his face. I could tell by the interaction between those two that Drexel found the annoying girl desirable. Physically, she very much was attractive. However, he was still too shy to make a move on her from what I could tell. Trixie had a good read on him, though, and was doing her best to draw him in. Apparently, she was done with Zach. Or, maybe she wanted more sexual partners here. Like me. I couldn't blame her for that.