Only after she felt a faint vibration did she realize the light wasn't in the distance. It was only a meter above her head. Slowly, her senses reasoned with the darkness. No longer was she in that impenetrable void. Gabby was lying on a cot in the back of a dark truck. A faint crack let a smidge of light drift down upon her.
The sudden voice startled her into a sitting position.
"Gabs."
It took a moment to register.
"Avony?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"What are you doing here?"
Avony paused. Gabby wished she could see her face.
"I volunteered."
Then Gabby was glad for the darkness. Part of her was happy to have company, but another part suspected her involvement and the suspicion was written plainly on Gabby's face.
"Why?"
There was a long silence.
"I'm not, not answering because I'm trying to think of an answer. I'm not answering because I'm trying to get the courage to say what I feel."
Gabby waited a while before she said, "Okay." She hadn't been sure if Avony was waiting for an acknowledgement or just thinking again, but she started talking right after.
"I always hated that you made me choose. That you put our friendship to the test over Zaela."
"We've been over this before. I forgive you, Avony. Knowing what you knew about LifeGame, it's hard to fault you for trying to survive."
Gabby's eyes had adjusted enough she could see a faint outline of Avony sitting across from her. Avony's head shook lightly in denial of Gabby's words.
"I could have, Gabs. I could have accepted Zaela in the group. Look how you kept her advancing all those years, despite her deficiencies—"
"—they weren't deficiencies!" Gabby said more forcefully than she would have liked and then quieter. "It's just LifeGame hadn't found a place for her unique gifts."
"Sorry," said Avony. "You know what I mean. But my point is that I could have helped. It could have been all three of us together. We would have ruled Neversoft High."
"That's the difference, Avony. I didn't want to rule. I just wanted room to be myself and enjoy my friends."
"But that's all I ever wanted, too."
The truck hit a bump and they were thrown. Gabby hit her hand on the wall. Her sense-web was back to being fully engaged. She sucked on the injured finger.
"So why did you come?"
"I've regretted it for years. I wanted to make it up to you and to Zaela. To help bring her back."
"Avony, you fool. I'm probably going to die trying to do this. You heard Cassius."
"Yeah, but you went and joined the Frags and went to the Freelands and did all that stuff and then convinced them to take you back! If you can do that, why can't you do this?"
Gabby couldn’t believe it. Why did everyone keep throwing themselves at her? Didn’t they understand she wasn't all that? Just a girl trying to get her friend back.
"It wasn't just me, Avony. It was the whole team of Frags. Everyone had a talent, everyone was totally buffed at something. Heck, I think I was the least useful. So I tried to make up for that by regularly doing something stupid. And now it's just me."
"We can be a team, Gabs. Just like Final Raid. Don't tell me that wasn't fun."
Gabby smiled. "Yeah, that was."
"We can get Zaela back and figure out what that mist really was and fight our way back to the GSA. I'm sure Cassius would let Zaela be in the Coders after what we'd done."
"Coders? Zaela would never be in the Coders. She just wanted to do her art."
Avony shrugged. "That's okay. I'm sure there is a place for her in the GSA."
"If there was, they wouldn't have sent her in the first place!"
Another awkward silence passed until Avony spoke up, "That sounds like you're not coming back to the GSA." The tone was regretful, but Gabby didn't dare believe it. Despite Avony's heartfelt revelation, Cassius could have sent her along to suss out a confession.
"Why are you not angry about what the GSA has been doing all these years?" asked Gabby, hoping to deflect the conversation.
"It's the only system I know."
"But it turned its back on its citizens. I may not like the Southlands, but the GSA shares fault in this war. The GSA sent those kids over without ever bothering to find out what they were good at, only that they weren't good at LifeGame. The GSA has been making a huge mistake for years. The Frags were all...fragtastic in their own way. It's just they didn't fit in LifeGame."
"Gabs, I didn't make this system. I just happen to excel at it. It's not my fault the system is set up the way it is."
"Then work to change it!"
"I just got here. That's so like you to blame me for something I didn't do. I'm barely surviving as a Coder. I'm not going to suddenly be able to make radical changes to the GSA just because I want to."
Gabby put her chin to her knee. "Okay. You're right. You can't change it, but you shouldn't just accept it either. There are better ways, I don't know what they are, but the GSA could be better, way better."
Their conversation was cut short when the truck lurched to a stop. Gabby put her hand out to keep from being thrown into the wall.
The girls glanced at each other. The door was being unbolted. Chains were being removed. Gabby held her breath. The door opened and Gabby shielded her eyes from the blinding light with a forearm.
Chapter Six
Outside the truck stood a guy around their age with bushy red hair. A rifle hung on his shoulder comfortably like a treasured backpack. His camouflage had scrapes and scuff marks around the knees. Without saying a word, he threw them each a sack. The girls glanced at each other before checking the contents.
"I hope you two are in shape. We have a good hike ahead of us. I'll turn my back while you change. And my name is Coyote."
"Coyote? That's a strange name," said Gabby while she changed into a set of camouflage.
"Not so much a name as a job. Getting into the Motley Realms has its dangers and if I do my job, we'll slip in without notice, just like my namesake."
"Motley Realms?" asked Avony derisively.
Coyote turned around, smirking. He had dark brown eyes that seemed to sparkle with their own inner joke. Gabby had just pulled on her camo shirt while Avony was tying the waist band on her pants.
"The GSA and most of the Freelands call it the Southlands, while Panner and the others call it the Pantheon, but most of us peons call it the Motley Realms. You'll understand when we get there."
After they finished dressing, Coyote threw a camo net over the truck. It was parked in a grove of trees, nestled on the side of a rolling hill.
At first, the pace Coyote set was bearable, enjoyable even. An afternoon jog through the woods. But as the terrain got steeper, he picked up the pace.
"Could we slow down? These boots are killing me," whined Avony.
"We have to reach a certain point by nightfall and we're behind schedule."
"Could we at least stop for a bite to eat? Maybe a drink? I'm not sure if I've eaten in days."
Coyote chuckled. "Days? You were only in there five hours."
Gabby tried to keep her mouth from hanging open in surprise, but the truth was mind-boggling. Avony shared the same thought by the look on her face.
Coyote unslung his backpack and pulled out a water bottle and threw it to Gabby.
"Take sips. I don't want to have to stop for cramps."
Gabby drank enough to wet her thirst and handed it off to Avony. They ran for the rest of the afternoon, taking sips at intervals.
As the sun threw long shadows across the trees, Avony asked, "Why do we have to be worried about reaching some place by nightfall?"
Coyote nodded his head upwards. "There's a gap in the schedule."
"I don't understand," said Avony.
"Hunting hovercrafts," responded Gabby, to Avony's surprise. "When I was a Frag, we had to dodge them. We found many a dead kid that had been trying to escape the GSA.
The bullet holes always faced up."
Coyote winked at Gabby. "Clever girl, she's right. There's a tunnel under the wall, but the hovercrafts have been ranging farther out due to the impending war."
"Why can't you..." Gabby let the words trail from her lips. Coyote seemed to catch where she was going with her comment and gave her another wink.
"You're a Southlander, aren't you?"
"Nothing gets by this one, does it?" Coyote asked Avony, giving her a playful elbow as they jogged.
"Panner have mercy," Coyote exclaimed and threw Avony down as he dove to the ground. Gabby knew the drill and followed. When Avony tried to speak, Coyote put his hand over her mouth. His eyes watched the sky.
Gabby heard it first. Her ears were sensitive to the vibration the rotors made. They'd given her nightmares when she'd first become a Frag.
The hovercraft slid into view from behind a grove of trees. The effortless way they moved across the sky unnerved her. She liked it better when she was riding them. The hovercraft headed in their direction. Gabby held her breath.
About one hundred feet from them, the gun hanging beneath rotated toward them. Noise and light burst from the end of the gun, chewing up forest and spraying leaves into the sky.
Gabby fought every urge to run. Coyote had to lie on top of Avony to keep her still.
From the undergrowth, an antlered deer burst out, bounding away from the hovercraft in big leaps. The gun rotated to follow but didn't fire. The hovercraft silently slid through the air in the deer's direction.
A couple of tense minutes later, the hovercraft disappeared from view. Coyote put his hands to his head. Gabby heard him whisper, "Thank you, Panner."
Then to them he said, "That was too close. Let's go. We don't have far."
They ran through the forest after Coyote, always on the verge of sprinting, each one of them glancing nervously at the sky. Gabby tripped once on a tree root and was thankful she hadn't bashed her brains out on a tree or rock.
Then Coyote slowed and he moved away an unremarkable section of brush to reveal a dark hole. They followed him in and he created light using a trick of the eye-screens. There wasn't really light, but the eye-screens drew in the tunnel as if there was.
The tunnel echoed their footsteps. A few times, Gabby glanced backwards thinking someone followed, but it was only the echoes because they disappeared as she turned her head to the side.
Despite the tunnel turning and twisting, ahead it appeared to be straight and narrow. That's when Gabby realized they'd been given the Southlands program already. Probably when they were in the impenetrable void. Gabby used the standard tricks to bring up an interface but nothing appeared. Coyote shot her a sly look as if he knew what she was doing.
Twenty or thirty minutes later, they appeared on the other side of the tunnel. One moment they were deep beneath the earth and the next they stood outside. Avony muttered a curse under her breath.
"Be careful whose name you take in vain," smirked Coyote.
Gabby was barely paying attention to the exchange. Her gaze was focused on the carnival of lights ahead. It didn't take long for Avony to curse again as she noticed the view.
The three of them stood on a slope leading into a town nestled into a quaint valley. But it was no ordinary town. The place exploded in lights and color as if it were a fireworks display. Raucous, pulse driven music drifted up from the valley, calling for them to join.
When she glanced back to Coyote, she was stunned by the sudden change. Gone was the rugged outdoorsman with bushy red hair and dirt stained knees. In his place was a handsome boy attired in a fashionable Roman toga. Gabby had to shake off desires to oil his chest.
Avony cursed a third time, eliciting a fateful smirk from their now transformed guide.
"Are you still called Coyote looking like that?" Avony's tongue practically hung out of her mouth.
"One final drink before we make the last sprint to safety."
They each took long gulps at the pouch. The wear of hiking all day seem to lift from her body. Coyote held out his hands and they took them. He started running down the hillside.
They flew down the hill. Plants and trees sped by them, faster than they could have possibly run. The lights of the town rose to meet them and for a brief moment, Gabby thought she was falling.
With an abrupt stop, they were in the town. Gabby glanced behind her to find the hill towering above her. Her disorientation was further challenged when she realized she was wearing a toga like Coyote.
Gabby glanced to Avony. Her hair was bound in luscious curls spilling out from a glittery tiara. The toga cut across her chest in a deeply seductive way.
"You want to see yourself?" asked Coyote, reading her thoughts. His voice seemed silkier now, but she found it hard to concentrate as a mirror appeared.
A heavenly light filtered upon her, making her glow. Gabby knew the trick of it, of course, but still, the vision of herself was haunting. She'd never looked so good.
Coyote raised a finger and made a circular motion, indicating she should spin around. Gabby twirled, letting her hair braid tickle her exposed back.
She found herself staring in the mirror. She'd played with skins before, like every girl did, but she'd never been able to create this kind of image. She could be a goddess if she wanted. Gabby leaned forward and put her finger to her right eye, pulling the bottom down, seeing how the hint of smoke was infused into her skin.
"I love how my eyes look. They're exactly how I see them in my head."
Coyote nodded appreciatively.
"How is this possible? I've never designed a skin like this in my life. It's totally buffed."
Coyote gave her slight roll of the eyes. "Panner prefers more eloquent turns of a phrase." The change from the gruff outdoorsman manner of speaking to the high society banter was unnerving. What else would change in the Motley Realms?
"Who's Panner?" Avony asked. "You keep saying his name."
Coyote dismissed the mirrors with a flick of his hand. "The center of the universe as far as you're concerned. Come on, you'll meet him soon enough."
He led them into town and from the sounds, toward a party in the central square. Gabby had questions, reservations and concerns. But she also felt giddy and alive, like a bubble in a bottle of champagne, rising toward the surface and ready to pop. Deep in her gut, as the overwhelming sounds of the party reached out to claim her, Gabby knew it was either going to be the best night of her life or the worst.
Chapter Seven
Everyone experimented with forbidden immersives in LifeGame. Maybe even mixed them with a little stolen alcohol. Gabby had. She'd stolen a juice glass full of a clear and powerful smelling liquid from her parents. The bottle had been dusty and tucked into the back of the pantry.
The party had been crudely staged on top of a building in the capitol. Sitting cross-legged on her bed at home, Gabby had taken sips, her face shriveling at each one, before beaming her projection to the party.
Most of the kids came from other schools. Gabby had thought of the party as a gathering of the youth hacker elite. She'd stumbled through the party, head spinning from the clear alcohol, her projection rudely drifting through others.
When adventuresome boys launched themselves off the side of the building, to experience the thrill of falling, Gabby had decided to join them. With the sense-web set to safety, Gabby bounced on the concrete to the cheers of the boys far above. Unfortunately, the rapid movement made a mess of her stomach and back in her room, Gabby barfed up the alcohol and the creamy rice cakes she'd had for dinner.
The next day she remembered why she'd never been one for parties before. Gabby barely scored a point in LifeGame all day. She realized she should have taken her clue from the dust on the bottle. In LifeGame, there was no time for such frivolous experimentation.
Or maybe she'd just done it all wrong.
As she stepped into the party, Gabby realized she was not in a quaint little town full of lights and sound an
ymore, but on the surface of another planet. Blotting out the night sky above her was the planet Saturn. The hazy ring cascaded across the view forming a heavenly arch.
Pulsing lights and music penetrated her bones. Gabby felt an invisible tug around her waist, pulling her toward the party.
"Where are we?" asked Avony, the colorful lights bouncing off her upturned face.
"Pan," said Coyote. "It's a moon of Saturn nestled into the ring. But don't worry about such details tonight. Scurry into the party and enjoy yourselves. I'll gather you up later to meet your gracious host."
Her mood effervescent, Gabby grabbed Avony's hand and skipped into the crowd. The dancers parted and then swallowed them up. An ocean of experiences surrounded her.
Gabby lost herself in the music, feeling for a time she was the music. One note bouncing through the melody, drawing the outline of story.
The music was eternal. It matched the heavens, the glittering ring captured the light of the distant sun, hidden by the tiny moon.
At times, Gabby found herself dancing with Avony. Spinning around carefree and smiling. At other times, she danced with strangers. Toga wearing and beautiful, they were all minor gods and goddesses.
Part of her, the analytical portion of her brain trained by LifeGame to never turn off, admired the absolute synergy of the experience. The majestic view reinforced the music which buoyed the dancers decked out in their colorful togas. Minor details changed from one moment to the next. The girl Gabby danced with sprouted wings and fluttered above the dance floor, timed with a crescendo in the music. As it subsided, she floated back to the ground and the music carried on, rolling through a pattern that Gabby felt she could almost guess the next note, but once it had passed it had been forgotten and she had moved on to the next.
The music contained no words, but Gabby could sense an epic tale within. She imagined herself as the principle player, fighting and winning battles for all of humanity. She never wanted the music to end.
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