by Isaac Stone
“Before I came here. About two days ago.”
“I thought you said they’d stopped,” the women cut into the conversation.
“This was a dream,” I explained. “I woke up in bed after it happened. Not the sort of thing that happens in the middle of the day.”
They asked me about the nature of the visions and I did the best I could without telling too much about Sandstone Gems. I made sure they understood I was the only person who had this problem. I also made sure they understood that I could lose medical benefits if it came out I leaked the results of this test. After all, they were outside consultants.
“We’ll keep our findings private,” the woman told me. “Other than what we share with Ruby Realizations, this will never go public, so you don’t have to worry.”
“Besides,” the man added. “If you have suffered some kind of mental damage we can’t identify, I think your previous company wouldn’t dump you out on the street. The publicity would destroy them.”
A comforting thought.
Wouldn’t it be just as easy to see I met with a little accident, I thought to myself.
I leaned back in the chair and looked out the window. It wasn’t much to see, just the parking lot and the security fence that surrounded it. I needed to ask the doctors one more thing, so I turned to them.
They were gone and I was back in the abandoned camp on Wolf Mountain.
Once again, I sat on a plank between two rocks. The bootleggers who made this cheap bench didn’t care much about how it looked. All they wanted was some place to sit and eat their canned beans. Maybe some venison and the cheap whisky that they distilled before the entire operation went down.
I could see the canvas huts around me and the blackened remains of the campfire. As before, the sun was high in the sky, but there were no sounds. It was too quiet in the camp. In the later summer in Western Pennsylvania, there was always some noise out in the wilderness. You had birds singing and animals running through the brush. But right now, I couldn’t hear a thing.
Except the sound of a woman crying.
I turned in the direction of the noise and saw Chamita seated on the ground not ten feet from me. She was alone, still in her fur pelts. She had her face in her hands. I could hear her sobs and see the tears flow between her fingers. I got up from the bench and walked over to her.
This time I checked to make sure there were no wolves in the brush that waited for me. The last time I heard from Chamita in a phase-shift was through the watch communicator. Just as she accused me of abandonment, an entire pack of timber wolves leaped out from the brush and came down on top of my naked form. I woke up and didn’t want to repeat the experience.
I looked around. Still quiet except for the sobbing form of Chamita. I was sure I’d seen her in the park before I left, but here she was back in the game world. My little wolf girl who’d married me in the underground caverns. All she wanted was my love and I’d abandoned her when I told the Sandstone Gems team to take me out of the VR game.
After all, it wasn’t real, nor was she. Just a game. I felt like a human piece of shit.
I walked over and placed one hand on her bare shoulder. “Chamita,” I said to her. “This is Vince. I’m back. I’m sorry I had to leave you.” Her body felt warm and her skin was tanned as usual.
She stopped crying and slowly turned her face up to look at me. I was relieved to see she didn’t turn into some nightmare creature. If I’d phase-shifted to the VR world, anything could happen. In fact, wasn’t I, right now, inside Sandstone Gems’ territory?
“Vince!” she said to me. “I miss you so much!” Poor Chamita, no one ever taught her how to speak very well.
My wife and I were reunited.
Of course, everything went black again. Goddamit.
I woke to find myself in bed. I was still at the Ruby building and in the room, they’d provided for me. What woke me was the alarm that went off. I didn’t even recall entering the room. The last thing I remembered was the conversation I had with the two psychologists about the phase-shift. Yet, here I was in bed, which meant that I’d managed to get myself back into my room and go to sleep.
This meant that the period from when I spoke to the psychologists and the moment I woke, a good 8 hours, was blank. I’d blacked out and had no recollection of what transpired during this period. Blackouts were a sign of many things, none of them good. I got out of bed, shaved, showered and put my clothes on that morning. So far, it didn’t appear anyone had gone through my things.
Once again, there was a knock on the door and I opened it to see anxious Heath stand there. “Big day,” he announced. “The shrinks have cleared you to work on the project. We’ll have you inside the VR game world in a few hours.”
“How did I seem last night?” I asked him.
“At dinner?” he questioned. “The same as you were last night. We chatted a bit around dinner. What are you getting at?” He seemed concerned all of the sudden.
“Nothing really,” I told him. “Just wanted to get some input. I had a dream about the mountain last night. I thought it might have to do with what we talked about.” He seemed relieved by what I told him, but not much.
We entered the research area of the Ruby building after the security system identified us. The company had a very elaborate system. It let the security staff know where anyone was at a given time. In their system, no security tag was needed; the programs could identify anyone and match them up to their corporate profile. It was less intrusive, but we were still under constant surveillance.
The VR chamber, as they’d told me, was one large room with a chair in the middle. The chair had secure points on the waist, wrist and ankles, just as it appeared in the picture. I was told this was to prevent the subject from an accidental fall while they were in the VR world. I wanted to believe them, but I noted there was no way to unstrap yourself from the chair; it had to be done by an outside technician.
Just as the Sandstone Gem version, the team that monitored the VR simulation would do so outside the room. In this case, there was no window for them to watch, everything was accomplished by a series of cameras that would be trained on me.
Once again, Dr. Moon took me through a series of tests designed to monitor my health and general physical ability. Once again, I had no issue passing the tests and examinations he conducted on me.
“Looks good,” he informed me as I sat on his examination table. “I’ll send Dr. Stouffer in to talk to you. He doesn’t think anything is wrong upstairs, but we need to make a formal examination from his end too.
I was whisked to another examination room where the older man came out in his suit and tie. He sat down in front of me and brought out his tablet computer. I watched as he brought up some information about my health on it and studied the readings.
“By yourself today?” I asked him.
“My college has other business to attend,” he told me. “This is a final summary exam, so we felt her presence wasn’t important. Besides, you did so well yesterday we were ready to let you go ahead without this interview. I’m only doing this because the company required it.”
We began with a series of questions on how I felt and moved to some basic word association tests. He checked my eyes and reflexes, all of which appeared to be normal. I watched as he brought up a brain scan they kept from when I first came into the building a few days ago. He studied it, nodded, and clicked the file off.
“Wish all my patients showed such progress and general health,” he told me. “I still don’t understand the phase-shifts, but I see no problem in letting you go ahead, so long as you can pull out of the VR world if you run into any trouble.”
“I didn’t get an eject button,” I told him. “Or at least they never told me about one.” Sandstone Gems had an emergency red button concealed on the back of the fake pocket watch they supplied me as part of my cover. I almost used it several times on the mountain, but didn’t. The red button was supposed to pull you out of the VR
world instantly. I didn’t use it the last time because I wanted the extra money I could accumulate from running the game to the end for their test. I noted that Ruby Realizations was doing the same thing to keep me in the game world as long as they could.
“Really? I can’t believe they’d send you in without it. Check once you are inside, there may be one to use.”
“How did I seem to you after we’d talked about my phase-shifts yesterday?” I asked the psychiatrist. “Did I seem unusual in any way?”
He looked at me odd. “No you seemed quite coherent. You left right away, once we’d finished. Mr. Mint came and picked you up.”
“I don’t remember a thing from the time I was telling you about the phase-shifts until I woke up this morning,” I told him. “The entire 8 hour period doesn’t exist in my mind.”
The psychiatrist almost dropped his computer tablet.
“This is serious,” he told me. “Why didn’t you say anything at the beginning? You may have suffered a stroke or worse. We need to do more tests. No way will I consent to having you undergo this trip into the VR world until I know what happened.”
I took a deep breath. “Then why did you give me a clean bill of health yesterday?” I asked him. “According to the both of you, I am fine and the poster boy for mental health. So why didn’t you or anyone else find a problem? Christ, they even took blood from me the other day and weren’t supposed to.”
“Sometimes things manifest them out of nowhere. I’ve seen patients who had normal blood pressure suffer a stroke in the lung. He’d thought it a good idea to start doing push-ups after 20 years of sitting on his butt. We can’t tell everything. This stress might’ve triggered something we don’t know about.”
“But you told me I seemed normal when I left here yesterday.”
“You can’t risk this test run if you are having brain issues,” the psychiatrist thundered back at me. I could see the veins flare in his bald head.
“And I don’t think you know everything that’s happening to me,” I told him. “I think there are more issues in place than any of us know about. So maybe I didn’t have a black-out yesterday and maybe you didn’t hear about it.”
“I will tell them that you are not to sit down in that chair.”
“On what basis, doc?” I told him. “I’ll say you’ve begun to act strange. Even if the cameras record everything right now. I might have told you that just to see how you’d react. I think there is substantial evidence that you are biased against the whole idea of VR gaming. So maybe this interview is over and I’ll keep your advice under consideration, but I still intend to enter their version of the VR game world!"
The psychiatrist gritted his teeth and slammed the cover on his tablet. “Go,” he told me, “just go and see if I care that you might not come out of wherever they intend to put you. But I will file my report and say that I was opposed to it from the beginning!”
“You have a good day, doctor,” I told him, stood up, and left the clinic. Yeah, that's me, Mister Badass. Can't believe he didn't call my bluff.
I didn’t have any issue finding my way back to the command center. This was where they planned to send me into the new gamer world. I still didn’t understand what they were going to do, but it wasn’t based off nerve induction. This was far more advanced than whatever system Sandstone Gems used to use to send me to their VR world.
I still didn’t understand how my actions were supposed to save the mountain and the people I’d left behind. If they were simply computer simulations, how could they even care? Were the NPC’s supposed to be so “real” that their actions would trigger sympathy from me? On the other hand, had they achieved self-awareness and developed agency on their own?
I walked into the command center. Heath Mint sat there with his three guys in lab coats. It was the same three men who’d interviewed me the day before. I could see them fidget as I walked in and a look of relief on Heath’s face. They were anxious to get started, so time to do this thing.
“Doctor says I’m cleared for take-off,” I lied to them. “Get me prepped for launch because I want to see how your version of reality stacks up to the last one. Anything else I need to know?”
“You’ll find everything you need once you’re in the scenario,” Heath told me. “Check the brief case you’ll find when you land. Just try to act normal as you don’t want the game world to mess up the moment you arrive.”
“Normal is a very relative term these days,” I told Heath as he walked me into the room-sized chamber. I entered and saw the chair was ready. It had a few lights focused on it.
Next to the chair was a medical technician of some kind. She had on a paper mask and wore rubber gloves. I turned to Heath and gave him a look of confusion.
“We have to take every precaution since this is a new system,” he explained. “I can’t go any further into the room. She’ll help you get prepped for the transfer and we’ll observe the proceedings from the monitors.”
“Nice to know you’re leaving me in such good care,” I told him as I stared at the technician. I couldn’t see much of her but the outline seemed familiar.
“You’ll be happy to know that Rhonda will be your mission control contact,” he told me as we shook hands for the final time. “Good luck and find the box quick so we can get on to the next project. If this one runs smooth, there will be plenty more for you.” Heath turned and left the room.
Somehow, I didn’t find that reassuring. The only reason I wanted to get back in the virtual world was to prevent the mountain and everyone connected to it from being erased. However, I wasn’t about to tell him that information.
“So how does this work?” I asked the technician. “Do I have to take my clothes off again? At least this time I’m not going back into the womb.”
“All you need to do is lay back and I’ll handle the rest,” she told me. “Roll up your sleeves so you can make contact with the conductive part of the chair. I’ll make sure the rest is comfortable for you.”
I followed her instructions and sat down in the chair that would take me into the VR world. It had a headrest, so I laid back and made myself at ease. After rolling up my sleeves, I placed my arms down and exhaled. Time for another voyage into the land of make-believe.
I allowed her to strap me in and didn’t say a word. If Ruby Realizations wanted to kill me, they could’ve done it at any time in the past few days. I’d never left the building once I entered it. She made some more adjustments and observed a screen that materialized over the chair. Finished, she took a few notes on a computer tablet.
“Everything is fine,” she told me. “Are you ready, Vince?”
“Now or never,” I told the technician. Then I had a sudden thought. “How did you know my name was Vince?”
The technician pulled down the paper filter from her face to reveal the familiar form of Chamita. She leaned over and kissed me.
“See you on the inside,” she said.
And the world vanished.
CHAPTER THREE
This time the transfer to the new place was a little bit easier than the last. I didn’t see the intense glow of color or hear any of the sounds I’d witnessed before, but I knew I was inside the interface of the regular world and the one where the game began.
For some reason, I saw bits and pieces of the last time I’d been inside the previous VR world. I saw Wolf Mountain and the people who I’d shared such adventures with, but not from my perspective. I saw things as they occurred from the way the NPC’s would see them if they were real.
I saw the team who were in search of the Wellington treasure. I saw them from the viewpoint of Chamita. I could see us in the woods as we were surrounded by the gangsters who were sent out by the crime boss. I could feel the fear in Chamita as she realized what was about to happen and how she had to react. It took me a few minutes to realize who I was since the VR game placed me inside a tall hunky form for the scenario. There I was, in full Jeff Chandler mode as I glared at the b
ad guys and dared them to kill us. My friends tried to stall by saying they knew where the treasure was located.
I saw the gat man turn and look in surprise as she went up behind him and cut his throat. He went down fast and I realized this wasn’t the first time Chamita had done this. A stray memory floated inside Chamita’s head that told her how to do it quick and fast. I could see the image of an old man who drilled her in the silent ways of killing. What kind of person had raised her? I knew Chamita survived the airship crash as a toddler, but someone had given her the skills she needed to survive. It wasn’t the cave dwellers; I knew that.
I watch the slaughter of the gangsters as she turned Lobo her pet wolf loose on the last one. She’d managed to kill two more men who were armed in the space of a minute. It wasn’t something she liked to do, but felt it was necessary if she was going to save my life.
I saw the way she looked at my form and felt the love pulse through her body. Chamita had never felt this before. Something about that tall image triggered a memory deep inside her and I couldn’t place it. No matter, I was only along for the ride. Her eyes locked into mine on the other side and I found myself starring into my own eyes.
Once again, the world went black.
This time it returned in the form of a man wearing a British officer’s uniform. I could tell by the insignia that he was a major in the British Colonial Army of Baharajah. This had to be my contact and I was now inside the Virtual Reality word. The one that Ruby Realizations had spent so much time to create.
The atmosphere in the room where I sat was hot. I could feel the humidity in the air and felt my cotton uniform stick to my flesh. It had rained that day and the sky was black from the clouds. I worried my arms would peel when I took them back from the chair. At least the crew managed to send me into the same position I was when I left. I looked down and saw the shorts that I wore. At least they allowed me those in this tropical environment.
“Did you hear me, captain?” the man said to me.