He took a sip of his tea. It was surprisingly light, both fruity and bitter, and oddly refreshing despite its temperature.
“But she always drew the dark ones,” the woman told him. “Angry ones and bitter ones. And now, she’s far away and her name is never spoken, and that worries me all the more.”
“You think someone needs to deal with her,” he said.
“You say it very simply,” she observed. “You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Hating violence and craving justice. A word to the wise, child—justice comes slowly and it hits wide. It’ll cost more than you want every time and give you less than you hoped. If you took my advice, I’d say to avoid Gwyna and her goldsmith. But, since you won’t…”
Ben chuckled and took another sip.
Yulia smiled. The smile showed him, only for a moment, how she must have been as a young woman. What was in her past, he wondered? She was a magic user, an old woman without regrets and with no hint of family or loss, and yet there must be loss to give her such wit and warnings.
“You should ask for Gwyna’s help,” the woman said. She tapped the ring. “Ask her to train you. She’ll take you.”
“Why?”
“She doesn’t want justice,” she told him, “and doesn’t care one whit about it. But the desperation for it makes people angry and she’s always been good at harnessing that anger. If she thinks she can use you, she’ll take you in.”
“But getting in is only part of it,” Ben protested. “What if she’s bound the goldsmith’s mind? How am I supposed to get her out? And what if I have to kill her? How do I kill a sorceress so powerful she can enslave minds and still no one knows about her?”
Yulia gave him a sardonic look. “That isn’t the world’s problem to solve, is it? It’s yours, boy. So find the answers. If you want justice, you had better be prepared to mete it out.”
He stiffened a little and swallowed. “And where is she?”
“There’s a warren of caves to the south on the shores of the lake. They are difficult to get to but not impossible.”
He nodded and thought for a moment but jumped when someone pounded on the door.
“That’ll be the two,” the woman said.
“The two what?” Ben asked. Immediately, though, he realized he should have known the answer. The door opened and Taigan stuck her head around it.
“There you are,” she said accusingly. “You tried to leave us behind.” Then, to the woman, she added, “I’m sorry. I’m Taigan.”
“Aye, and a strange one, you are.” Yulia looked appraisingly at her. “Well, come in, both of you. We should decide what to do with the two of you while yon wizard goes off to free the goldsmith.”
“We’re going with him,” the girl said at once.
“That, you most certainly are not. No, don’t you argue with me, young lady.” The old woman gave her a hard look. “We’ll find something for you two here.”
“But I need to help someone,” Taigan said. “I can’t sit around thinking and trying to shift myself between worlds anymore. I can’t. I need to be in danger and I need to help someone. It’s the only way I’ll get better. I want to go home.”
Yulia, who could not have understood any of the context behind that statement, watched the girl contemplatively. Ben thought she seemed to be looking beyond the specifics to see the shape of the truth despite not understanding anything about comas and pods.
“You’ve met some of her creatures,” she said. “Gwyna’s. They escaped her but her bindings still hold. I could teach you to free them and bring them back to the human world.”
The twins looked at each other and now, he was the one who felt uncertain.
“They shouldn’t be alone,” he said cautiously.
“They won’t be,” she said simply. “They have each other, don’t they? The problem with you, young man, is that you try to do everything at once and run off when it doesn’t work. Set your sights on one goal and go from there.”
Ben sighed.
“I’ll take care of these two,” the woman told him. “You go and find Gwyna. Do what must be done. I’ll help these two.”
“What? Now?” This all seemed far too sudden.
“Yes.” Yulia stood and began to shoo him out the door. “Don’t waste any time. You’ll only talk yourself out of it.”
“But—uh—” He reached the door and looked over her head at the twins. “Are you okay with this?”
“I…think so?” Taigan shrugged.
“They’ll run off if they aren’t,” the old woman said practically. “Along with you, young man.”
The door slammed in his face and he gaped at it.
“She has a point about you trying to do too much at once,” Prima said.
“Oh, not you too.”
“I’m just saying…”
He rolled his eyes and started south. “Where is this lake? Could I reach it by nightfall?”
“Actually, the team wanted to pull you out for some physical therapy. I’ll deposit you at the lake when you come into the game again.”
“Oh.” He looked around. “Should I find somewhere to lie down or—”
The world dissolved into blue.
“I guess that answers that question.”
Chapter Nine
When Ben opened his eyes, the feeding tube had already been withdrawn and the monitors had been unclipped from his fingers and chest. He struggled to sit and rejected an offered hand, although he couldn’t see whose it was.
“Let me try,” he rasped, hoarse from the feeding tube.
“Sure.” The hand withdrew and the person watched him.
When he managed to get up after a very undignified struggle, Nick smiled at him.
“You know, I won’t say our pod hasn’t done anything for you but I have to say, I think most of your progress is due to you being a stubborn bastard.” He cleared his throat. “No offense meant.”
“None taken.” He coughed and winced. “I don’t like feeding tubes.”
“Yeah. I’ll see if we can arrange to put you under for only twelve hours at a time or so,” the engineer said. “Normally, someone in a comatose state could wait much longer, but the virtual reality keeps your metabolism going and—whoa, hey!”
Ben had tried to push himself off the edge of the pod and almost faceplanted into the floor. Nick barely caught him and grunted with the effort.
“Jesus Christ, are you made of solid muscle?”
“I used to be,” he said bitterly.
“Uh-huh. Well, either you still are, or your bones are made of titanium.” The man pivoted and tried to hold him up. “Almost…okay, can you stand?”
“Yeah. Wait…dizzy.” He went backward, and—to his immense surprise—landed in a chair. “Huh?”
“We saw that Nick was having trouble,” Jacob said. He came around to look at him. “Also, for the record, you’re not wearing any underwear, so maybe less running around in a hospital gown.”
“Oh, fuck.” He went bright red.
Nick snickered. “Okay, mister, you know the drill—coordination tests and hydration, then you can have food.”
“Underwear first,” Ben said.
“I…won’t argue with that.” Nick stared at him with his arms folded. “How to get you into an exam room, though? You’re not in a wheelchair.”
“I have an idea.” DuBois pushed a low cart on wheels beside him. “Put him on this.”
“Sure,” Jacob said. “That’s not abandoning our duty of care at all.”
“I am your patient,” he said, “and I am telling you to not show my butt to any more people!”
“I don’t think that provides legal coverage,” Jacob responded. “So don’t sue us if you fall off this.”
“Uh-huh.” He tried to steady himself as the team lifted his chair onto the cart and set off. “Ohhhh, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“No throwing up on the ride, please,” Nick said, “and keep your hands and feet inside the cart area at
all times.”
“Okay, but why are you videotaping this?”
“For our records,” Jacob said without any shred of remorse. “Don’t worry, we won’t show them to Eliza.”
“You’d better fucking not,” he muttered.
He desperately hoped they didn’t show Eliza what happened in the next few minutes. From wiggling his toes to walking in various lines, he was asked to do a number of very simple tasks, most of which he could not do at all gracefully.
“This sucks,” Ben said flatly.
“Okay, remember that all the doctors are calling us and saying we’re liars,” Jacob said. “You’re doing the eighteen-month exercises for this and it’s only been what…three? Three months, I think.”
“People go on like this for eighteen months?” he asked, horrified. “That’s how long everyone thought it would take?”
The two younger men were suddenly very busy with paperwork, but DuBois answered promptly,
“Yes, and also—” He broke off with a yelp when his bag of popcorn tipped off the table and scattered.
“Oops,” Nick said. He met Ben’s gaze with the most limpid, innocent expression he could imagine. “Time for more tests and then you can have pizza.”
He wanted to protest but his stomach wanted pizza so he gave in with a grumble.
The next few hours passed with too-small meals and far too many coordination and strength exercises. He was given a set of weights so small they barely deserved the name and had to begin weight training with two of the physical trainers.
Both were relentless. Ben, who had thought he was a prime example of stubbornness, had nothing on either of the two. No matter how red his face got or how his muscles started to shake, they guided him through the exercises and the allotted number of repetitions and made notes calmly.
By the end of it, he was covered in sweat, aching, and absolutely ravenous. He barely made it to the table for dinner and could have cried with happiness to see a giant bowl of pad thai and a second of red curry.
It hurt to raise each bite to his mouth, but it was worth it.
“So,” Jacob said, as Ben shoveled food in, “how are Taigan and Jamie doing?”
He paused. The other man’s tone was slightly too casual.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
The engineer’s expression flickered.
“I’m not good at all that subtle ‘avoiding topics’ stuff,” he said. “So…is something wrong?”
Jacob sighed. “I can’t tell you most of it. I only wanted your impression of the two of them.”
“They’re nice,” he said. “Teenagers. I don’t know what you want me to say.” He suddenly looked over his shoulder. “Wait, they’re out there, aren’t they? In the lab? That’s as trippy as fuck.”
“I also can’t tell you about where they are,” the other man said. “Anyway, it looked like Jamie wasn’t too sure of you, but that seems to have calmed.”
“It was mostly understandable,” Ben said through a mouthful of noodles. “We’ve all seen dudes be skeevy. But Taigan doesn’t take shit from anyone. He doesn’t need to worry.”
“What’s she like?” Jacob was curious now. “We’ve never…met her. Only seen her in the game sometimes.”
“Oh, right. The coma. Um…I don’t think she likes to let people in.” He scratched his scalp and considered. “She told me about the coma and how she wanted to help someone to get better, but I don’t think she told me anything about her.”
“It’s a family full of strong personalities,” his companion said wryly. “If you think Taigan takes no shit, you should meet their older sister. Honestly, you can probably be glad you didn’t. She wouldn’t have sat you down to talk to you like Jamie did and would have merely stabbed you.”
“They’re protective of her,” he observed. “She’s the baby of the family and she keeps getting sick. I suppose it makes it sense.”
“Yeah.” Jacob took a sip of iced tea. “Keep eating. After this, you’ll need to fast for ten hours.”
“Ugh.” He began to wolf his food again. “I do not like that.”
“You don’t say. Anyway, Taigan was…there wasn’t anything off?”
“I don’t know how you mean,” he had to admit. “She’s a strong personality, but that’s not unusual in a teenager—especially one who’s going through this. Seriously, though, why?”
“I can’t say. I really can’t.” Jacob shook his head. “But thank you. Hearing from someone who’s been in there and interacted with her is very reassuring.”
Ben knew he wouldn’t get any further if he pried. For all their joking, the PIVOT team took privacy very seriously.
“One thing, though,” he said. “Is there anything I should watch out for? Anything you want me to draw attention to immediately?”
The young engineer considered this very seriously. “Not that I can think of,” he said finally. “But thank you for asking.”
“Sure.” He scooped up the last mouthful of noodles. “Okay, I’m ready to stop eating for now. I’ll have regrets in a few hours, though.”
“On the plus side, you’re doing very well so you won’t have to do this too many more times.” Jacob smiled and came to offer a hand to pull him up. “How are things looking for when you’re out on your own again?”
“Ugh, don’t say that.” He grimaced. “Your CEO is trying to get me a job in military stuff and…I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to take it, you know,” Jacob assured him. “She comes across a little scary, but she genuinely wants to help people.”
“I only, uh…” Ben shrugged. “I wanted to change the world, you know?”
“I do know,” the other man said honestly. “About six months ago, I found that I’d done the best work of my life for an eight hundred dollars a day machine no one could afford. It was ‘only a videogame’ and wouldn’t help anyone. And, a few days after that, I realized how it could help people.”
“So what’s your take on that life lesson?” Ben asked. “Steer into the skid?”
Jacob laughed ruefully. “I wish I had a good life lesson to take from that. I think the only one is, don’t fold. Because we had no idea where that would go.”
“Good point.” They had reached his makeshift little bedroom and he opened the door to smile at the bed. A real bed sounded nice right about now. After so much food and a day of exertion, he was ready to pass out.
After one more thing. He said goodnight to Jacob and headed to the computer to bring his email up.
He read through the stories of his friends’ exploits with a smile. Locked away in a virtual world, he had asked if they would send him updates each day about the mundane little things to remind him what the real world was like. There were stories about printer cartridges, expired coconut milk, and new puppies.
Mike and Natasha’s honeymoon had been wonderful and they had sent him pictures of them eating ice cream and leaning against trees, as well as going to a baseball game and buying ridiculous tourist apparel. He even saw a few shots of himself as their officiant, something that made him smile.
Eliza’s email was the last one he opened. He hadn’t wanted to ask her to email him every day and he was glad to see that she’d stuffed her message full of things they had talked about on their first date. She included a podcast recommendation and a link to a study she had cited, with an apologetic note that she had misstated the effects by two percent—something he could not imagine anyone other than her apologizing for.
He replied with notes about his physical therapy and took care to include all the terms he hadn’t understood. Not only could she clarify, but she and the other doctors at the Aspen hospital were also tracking his progress with great interest. Remembering how much of an ass he’d been right after the accident, he was trying to make it up to them with updates.
At last, he eased into bed and stretched. It was strange how divorced he felt, both from reality and from the game. Ben could see the choices stretching ou
t before him and how easy it would be tomorrow to fall into the world of the game without another thought, putting his safety on the line for Orien or the twins.
At the same time, he could see how his time there was coming to an end. He would miss it, he thought, but the purpose of the game for him hadn’t been to provide a place where he would thrive and enjoy himself. It had been to force him to confront all the parts of himself he tried to avoid.
As his thoughts drifted, he wondered how much of that had been a set-up and how much of it had been what he went looking for. He was willing to bet that most of it was the latter. The team, after all, hadn’t known much about him.
That was interesting. He’d gone looking for the very things he always ran away from in real life.
He wanted to turn that over in his head, but the day had caught up with him. A little clumsily, he managed to roll over on the bed but didn’t even have the covers up when he fell asleep.
Chapter Ten
Ben had barely walked out the door when Yulia pointed at the little bed and said, “Sit, both of you.”
The twins exchanged a look.
“Was that too complicated an instruction?” she asked acerbically.
“No,” Taigan said.
“But it’s not very friendly,” Jamie added. “You won’t turn us into frogs, will you?”
“Why on earth would I turn you into a frog?” She planted her hands on her hips. “What purpose could that possibly serve?”
Neither twin answered and both looked at the floor. Taigan hoped she wouldn’t make her answer for Jamie’s question, and she had the sense that he—the little weasel—hoped he wouldn’t be made to reply.
“Well?” Yulia demanded.
Taigan elbowed her brother.
“Ow! I, uh—it’s what witches do. In stories.” He blushed such a bright red that it was a wonder he didn’t burst into flames then and there.
Grasping The Future Page 6