by Sam Ferguson
Brian agreed. The whole stone cavern was starting to shake a bit, and the floor was glowing and emitting smoke as more alien circuitry popped and crackled.
“Must... have... order!” the oracle shouted just before the projection disappeared.
Everyone stood still as the lights all faded and the tremors ceased. Somewhere deep within the earth there was a heavy groan. The alien terminal jolted, then spun forty degrees on its axis. The lights flared up again and the whole cavern shook so violently that everyone was thrown to the floor.
Books and loose VR headsets crashed down to the stone. Chris’s entire VR setup toppled over and crashed apart. The alien computer terminal started to glow a dark red.
“Guys!” Mike shouted. “We need to take Augustin’s suggestion!”
“We need to get to the evac site!” Augustin shouted. He grabbed a couple of stone tablets and darted for the exit, his adrenaline giving him newfound strength.
“I’ll send the distress call!” Chris said as he jumped to the professor’s terminal.
A piece of the ceiling on the opposite side of the cavern collapsed and shattered across the hard floor.
Yellow streaks of energy shot out from the alien terminal.
“Run!” Brian shouted. He helped Meredith to her feet. Despite the urgency of the situation, she had gone several days without food or water, and her body was not responding well.
“Here, I’ll help!” Mike said as he hooked Meredith’s arm over his shoulders.
“Grab Chris and the professor’s laptop!” Rhonda said.
Brian turned to see Chris ejecting the disc that ran the local copy of Terramyr Online. “I have Barry!” Chris said.
Good thinking! Brian thought. I had forgotten that Barry was still trapped inside. Chris made a break for it as Brian yanked the laptop free and started running.
“ORDER!” the alien voice screeched one last time as a bolt of electrical energy shot out and pierced straight through Brian’s left leg. Blood spattered onto the ground as the smell of singed clothing and burnt meat reached his nostrils. He didn’t even notice he was falling until he hit his head on the stone floor. He blinked as things seemed to spin around him. Hunks of rock fell as columns crumbled and the alien terminal exploded its side panels free.
“BRIAN!”
Brian blinked again. Chris’s voice seemed so far away.
As he closed his eyes, he felt hands grabbing his arms and tugging on him. Jagged rock scraping his exposed skin jolted him awake for a moment, but he quickly lost consciousness and was enveloped by darkness.
Brian opened his eyes, blinking against the bright fluorescent bulbs staring down at him from the ceiling. The acoustic tiles bordering the light were stained yellow from water damage. To his left, a machine beeped at him.
Hospital. Brian thought.
“Don’t move,” Mike said.
Brian turned his head to the right and saw his friend. “What happened?”
Mike smiled and patted his arm. “They came for us. Chris’s distress signal launched the emergency evac helicopters. We dragged you down to the evac site, and the government flew us out as the volcano imploded.”
Brian frowned. “Imploded?”
Mike nodded and sighed. “It’s all gone, man. Everything. All our equipment, every site. The only things that survived were the couple of tablets Augustin rescued.” Mike shrugged and leaned back in the small chair. “People from the embassy came, helped us connect with our families back home. Rhonda and Chris are already gone. I stayed behind to keep an eye on you.”
“Gone?” Brian had meant Rhonda, but Mike must have thought he was still talking about the site.
“Yeah, that alien computer exploded, but it must have had some sort of geothermal tap running down deep into the earth, because when it finally went, it sucked the whole mountain down with it. It didn’t happen all at once. The first explosion blew things out, that’s when we grabbed you. When we were about halfway down we heard another massive explosion. I looked up and the whole top just sunk down, forming a caldera. Dust and smoke were everywhere. It was nuts.” Mike kicked the bed gently. “It’s a good thing you’re skinny, man. Me and Chris had a hard time carrying you.”
Brian smiled sheepishly. “Thanks.”
Mike nodded. “Just don’t say I never did nothin’ for ya.” He grunted again and shifted in his seat. “The first time we saw the helicopters they had to turn back. The third explosion happened on their approach. The ground shook, and the whole mountain just fell into the earth. Left a massive hole. Took half of each nearby volcano with it, opened up some lava shafts and filled with magma. It’s all cooled now, but no one is ever going to find the things we saw. It’s all gone.”
Brian shifted his weight and a stabbing pain ripped through his left leg. He lifted the thin hospital blanket and saw a large bandage.
“Burned a hole straight through you,” Mike said. “Not a big hole, just like the size of a pencil. The electrical energy cauterized it almost immediately, and Rhonda helped with her EMT experience to keep you stable till we got you here.”
“When did they leave?”
Mike shrugged again. “We’ve been back in Santiago for a week now. Chris and Rhonda left a couple days after the incident. Augustin has been busy talking with officials since the whole thing went down. They’re keeping the tablets of course.”
Brian nodded. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. It seemed silly right after he said the words. How was that supposed to make up for everything that had just happened? They’d discovered not only that the legends of the oracle were true, but alien tech was behind it all. Yet, instead of being able to share the discovery with the world, they were sitting in a hospital room listening to the rhythm of Brian’s heartbeat, and no one was ever going to believe them.
“Sandwich?” Mike asked as he held half of an egg salad sandwich out.
Brian shook his head. “Not really hungry.”
Mike smiled. “Good, I already ate the other half anyway.” He stood up and tossed the sandwich onto the plate nearby and stretched. “I’ll go find the doctor and let her know you’re awake. They said once you were conscious, we could go home.”
Home.
Brian sighed and watched his friend leave as he thought about his gran.
Two days passed before he finally emerged from the cab that took him home from the airport. Gran had a small party for him with a few local friends he hadn’t seen since the year before. None of his teammates had come to see him. They were all busy restarting their lives. Even Mike was off trying to bury himself in the next thing, headed for post-grad research in Iceland.
Brian chatted with people at the party until gran finally sent them all home. It had been nice enough. People wishing him well and saying how glad they were he made it back, or how awful it was to lose his professor and a team member. He was too numb to really listen or engage with anyone. After it was over, he found himself sitting at the kitchen table. A small gift was sitting there, wrapped in gold paper and tied with a red ribbon.
Gran shuffled into the kitchen holding a cup of steaming tea. “Wasn’t that lovely, dear?” she asked. “Everyone coming from all over town to see you. We’re all glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” Brian said.
“I’m going to watch my soaps. I have a couple I want to catch up on before bed. Don’t stay up too late now.”
“What’s this?” Brian asked.
“Oh, goodness me, I almost forgot. That’s for you, dear. It’s your graduation present, from me.” He looked up to see her beaming through her thick spectacles. “Well go on, open it up! I’m ninety-five you know, can’t wait around too much longer to enjoy good moments. Come on!”
Brian laughed for the first time since he’d woken up in the hospital bed. He pulled the ribbon loose and lifted the lid. A flood of styrofoam packing peanuts cascaded to the table. “Gran, you know I don’t like these,” he said.
“Oh, fine, fine. I’ll take
the present back because you don’t like packing peanuts.”
“No...” Brian sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry gran, I just...”
“You’re under a lot of stress, dear. It’s all right. We don’t have to talk about it tonight, but no one goes through something like what you did and comes out all cheery on the other end of it. Go on, see what’s inside.”
Brian smiled. She always knew how to cheer him up and see what he really needed. She’d done something similar when his parents had died.
He reached in and felt a smaller box. He pulled it up, smiling at her briefly before looking back at the box. His smile faded and his mouth fell open. “Terramyr Online.”
“Now, I know this isn’t the newest one that you and your friend Mike were talking about before your trip, but this is the collector’s edition of the one right before. It’s supposed to have an alternate ending and extended quest line.”
“Thanks,” Brian offered weakly.
She patted him on the shoulder, bent down and kissed his cheek. “Now you go and enjoy yourself. Turn on your VR system and just get away for a bit. The real world will be here for you when you’re ready for it.” She started to turn and then stopped to call out over her shoulder, “Oh, I almost forgot. The collector edition was bundled with a pre-order of the next Terramyr Online game. You know the one, the Undiscovered Secret or something like that.”
Brian whispered the words. “Undiscovered Country.”
“Yes, yes, that’s the one. So you’ll be first in line to play it all over again when it goes public. Enjoy, sweetie. Granny’s proud of you.” She shuffled away, chattering on about his degree and how proud his parents would be, but all he could do was stare at the box, reading the title over and over.
After a few minutes he collected himself and dropped the game back into the box before heading to bed. He’d had enough games for a while.
Epilogue
A year after Brian had returned home and graduated from his program, he sat at the kitchen table reading an old copy of Beowulf that he had gotten during his undergrad years. He’d probably read it a thousand times all the way through. It was his absolute favorite story in the world. Sure, perhaps other books were better written, but to him there were none so fantastical or enthralling. He’d written two separate papers on the subject in fact.
He found it also helped him think. Whenever he read the story, he could almost hear the voices of those first men who would recite the epic poem. It almost transported him back to those old lands.
The only other time he felt as connected with people of the past was when he was working an active dig site, which he hadn’t done since Chile.
“Package, dear,” his gran said as she set a small white box on the table in front of him.
“Thanks, gran,” Brian said.
“Any luck with jobs?” she asked as she shuffled to the counter and poured herself a cup of tea.
Brian frowned and sighed, closing the book and sliding it to the side. “No, not yet.”
“Oh, what a pity,” she said. “I thought for sure the local museum would hire you after your interview last week.”
Brian smiled. The local museum was a small, two-room building that had once been the town jail back in the nineteenth century. It was really more of a taxidermist’s showroom than a museum, though it did have a few old railroad spikes, some badges, and a couple of revolvers that were fun to look at. It wasn’t really the kind of place that could offer him a real job, and the organizations that could offer him one weren’t biting. After the failed dig in Chile with two deaths and a nearly botched evacuation, no one seemed eager to bring him onboard.
Not that the volcanoes were my fault. Brian thought. He snorted as he thought about it a bit more. The eruptions were actually his fault, but no one else knew that. Even if he told them he’d helped defeat an alien computer, no one would believe him. It wasn’t fair. A find like that could have changed the world. At the very least it should have changed his life. Yet here he was, still living with his grandmother a year after the dig. A year after he’d stopped Rored from killing all of them. If Rored had somehow managed to eventually evolve and reach the real online gaming platforms, he could have killed thousands, maybe even millions of gamers.
He shook his head and tipped the box toward him to check the sender.
“Stavtech?” Brian said aloud.
“What’s that dear?”
“Nothing gran, just this is from the company that sponsored my dig last year.”
“Oh that’s nice, dear,” she said as she dropped four sugar cubes into her tea.
“Gran, you know the doctor said to ease up on the sugar,” Brian scolded.
“Brian, I am ninety-six years old. I still have all my original bones and joints, I can see, and I can hear without a hearing aid. I raised four children of my own, and then I raised you too. I think I lived my life well enough to put however much sugar I like into my tea. Understand?”
Brian grinned and shook his head. “Yes ma’am,” he relented.
“Now, I am going to watch my soaps. The young Mr. Lund on Best Years Under the Sun is a scrumptious little treat that will go perfectly with my sugary tea. Don’t interrupt me.” Brian slowly closed his eyes as she shuffled by him. He received a smack on the shoulder as she passed. “Don’t judge me, my beloved Tom died twenty years ago. I’m allowed to admire a pretty little—”
“Gran!” Brian whined.
She laughed and moved to the living room.
“Honestly...” Brian whispered to himself.
He pulled a small pocketknife out and sliced through the tape on the box. Inside were those dreaded Styrofoam packing peanuts he hated, with a folded piece of paper lying on top. He took the note and opened it up.
Brian,
You’re probably surprised to hear from me. I suppose you’re still sitting in your grandmother’s basement. I heard none of the group have found steady jobs—except for Augustin that is. He was hired on by the national museum in Chile. Good for him. Anyway, I wanted you to know that Barry has adjusted well. His contributions have helped make the next couple of game projects slightly better than I would have been able to do on my own.
Stavros asked me to reach out. He wants to get the band back together, though I’m not sure why he thinks that’s a good idea. We have Barry already, and I doubt the rest of you will add much value. Still, he’d like to bring you on as a design consultant. He wants to create an epic RPG set in ancient Mongolia. Think you’d be interested in helping us recreate Genghis Khan’s empire?
Oh, Barry thought you might like to know that I fixed the limited release version of Terramyr Online: The Undiscovered Country. It’s just a disc, so it won’t allow you to connect with any actual online servers, but if you want to take a look at the offline version once more, I think you will find it... interesting. Think of it as my way of saying we’d welcome you at Stavtech.
About the job, do respond quickly.
~Meredith
Brian held the paper in his hands and stared at it. Stavtech game designers were paid well. It wasn’t exactly what he’d imagined his degrees would lead to, but then again, so far his degrees had only resulted in a mountain of loan debt and no real prospects.
He folded the paper over and raised his eyes to look at the Styrofoam. Had she really sent him the game? He hadn’t played any Terramyr Online games since leaving Chile. Neither had Mike. He dug through the peanuts and found a hard plastic case at the bottom. He pulled it up, his heart pounding as he saw the title printed in plain letters across a white label. There it was. The very copy they had played before. He turned the case over and saw a small note scribbled on the back. He couldn’t be sure, but he assumed Meredith wrote it.
“Barry says he has something to show you,” he read aloud.
He dropped the game into the box and shook his head. No. He wasn’t about to go back to Prirodha. He knew Meredith was mean, but this bordered on sadistic. He rose from the table a
nd retrieved a cup, poured himself a drink of water from the tap, and then turned to lean back against the counter as he glared at the disc.
Should he burn it?
He couldn’t leave it out for anyone else to play. Safe or not, he just couldn’t think of some poor innocent kid picking it up and playing it without understanding what had taken place in this copy of the game.
Drinking the water, he left the kitchen.
He made it halfway to the stairs before he stopped.
I’m an idiot.
He turned around, retrieved the disc from the box, and then rushed downstairs to his gaming station. He slid the disc into the drive and booted up his VR equipment.
The VR system created the neuro link and music rose in the background. His heart raced. He could feel his palms growing moist and his stomach twisted into a knot, but he didn’t abort the loading sequence. Something about it all felt right. Like maybe the last year of waiting had brought him to this moment. Even if not, Barry’s taunting message about having something to show him tugged on his curiosity.
Barry always did know how to pull my strings, Brian thought.
With the system fully booted, the menu appeared and presented a simple question.
[CONTINUE?]
Brian stared at the word for several minutes. He thought of everything that had happened the last time he had been inside this game world. Would he emerge at the end with the crystal? Would he spawn back in New Viverandon? Would Freya be alive or dead?
He took in a deep breath, and then he selected to continue.
A high-pitched gong sounded, and everything he saw turned dark as the game loaded once more.
Score one more for Barry.
Thank you for reading The Undiscovered Country.
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