by Jason Segel
I announce my plan to the group and explain why I should be the person to go. Carole isn’t having any of it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says. “You want to take my invisibility cloak?”
“Yes. And Gorog’s fire,” I say. “When I return from Mammon I promise to give them both back.”
“But we’ll be defenseless,” Carole points out. “What if the monkeys attack again?”
I lay out the swords I took from the cave.
Carole looks back up at me. “I don’t want to use one of those,” she says.
“Oh, it’s easy,” Gorog chimes in. “Seriously—anyone could do it, even a girl.”
Carole glares at him, and he wisely shuts up.
“Then you go to Mammon,” I tell her. I take out my trusty dagger and hand it to her. “The Child said the city was filled with diamonds. Bring back as many as you can.”
“Are you joking?” Carole asks. “How do we know that thing was telling the truth?”
“We don’t,” I admit. “But does either of you have a better plan?”
Carole looks down at my dagger and then gets to her feet and tucks it into the waistband of her cloak. “Okay then,” she says with a smirk. “I’ll go.” I can tell she thinks she’s calling my bluff, but I’m not bluffing at all. Her smile fades fast. “You’re really going to let me take your dagger?”
“You may need it for protection,” I say. “And it’s a lot easier to carry than a sword.”
“But…”
“You have the most important tool,” I tell her. “Without the invisibility cloak, my plan won’t work. But it’s your possession. You choose who gets to use it. Just remember, our lives depend on the success of this mission.”
Carole draws in a long, deep breath and exhales. “All right,” she says. “I’ll do my best.”
Like I said, I wasn’t bluffing, but I didn’t really expect her to take me up on the offer. I figured she’d chicken out and let me go. I suddenly feel naked without my dagger. I’m sure Gorog feels the same way as he hands over his fire.
“Please don’t screw it up,” he begs Carole. “You’ve probably never done anything like this before, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life stuck here hanging out with Simon and a bunch of man-eating monkeys.”
“Excuse me? How do you know I’ve never done anything like this before?” Carole demands. “I got news for you, smartass. I’m practically Lara goddamn Croft. You think because I’m a lady I don’t know what I’m doing? Well, as they say back home, Hide and watch, son.”
Then she pulls the hood of her cloak up over her head and instantly disappears.
—
Hours have passed. The sun is starting to set and Carole still hasn’t returned. In the silence, I think of Kat. I try not to obsess over where she might be—or what might be happening to her. To stand a chance of finding her, I’ll have to stay sane. So I close my eyes and pull up one of my favorite memories and let it play like a movie on the back of my eyelids. The sun was setting then too, and inside our fort there was barely enough light to read when I first showed Kat the book Gangsters of Carroll Gardens.
“That’s my grandfather,” I said, pointing to the picture of the Kishka. “He used to break people’s fingers.”
“Whoa!” she said, holding the book up to see the picture. “Tough guy, huh?”
“More like thug. I think that’s why my mother never really loved me,” I said. It started off as a joke, but that wasn’t where it ended up. Suddenly I was struggling to keep my voice steady. “Because I look so much like him.”
“Nope,” Kat replied, shaking her head with absolute certainty. “That’s not why.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Because that’s not a reason not to love your kid,” she said. “If your mother doesn’t love you, it’s because there’s something wrong with her, Simon.” She looked back at the picture of the Kishka. “He seems like a pretty interesting guy to me. What do you know about him?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “He was a gangster who had a lot of girlfriends and ended up at the bottom of a canal.”
“Great,” she said.
“Great?”
“Sure. If that’s all you know, then you get to decide what he was really like. Maybe he was an awesome guy. Maybe he only broke people’s fingers if they really deserved it. And maybe he passed all his awesomeness down to you.”
“I could pretend that’s the truth, but it wouldn’t be real,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked. “He’s just a picture in a book. Why can’t he be who you want him to be?”
—
“I can’t believe you let Carole take my fire.” Gorog interrupts the memory, and I open my eyes. He’s shivering in his loincloth. “As soon as it gets dark, those monkeys are going to eat us alive,” he groans.
I look over my shoulder and he’s right—the troop of monkeys is back. I’m about to suggest we start discussing Plan B when something hits the ogre in the middle of his forehead. A diamond the size of a grape falls into his lap.
“That’s for the vote of confidence earlier,” says a disembodied voice.
Carole’s head appears first, followed by the rest of her as she pulls down her hood and drops a sack at our feet. Her face is flushed with excitement as she hands Gorog his fire and passes my dagger back to me.
“The canyon is just the beginning,” she says, her eyes glowing. “Mammon’s a freak show too. I don’t know what’s going on over there, but the houses I saw are all booby-trapped. I’m talking spike pits, swinging logs, the works.”
“How did you—” Gorog starts.
“Survive?” she finishes for him. She bends over and pinches him playfully on the cheek. “Awww. You sweet little thing. You still have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you?”
I’m not in the mood for fun and games. “Are you sure you got enough diamonds to go around?” I ask as I reach out for the sack she dropped. The weight of the bag answers my question. There must be thousands of jewels inside.
“So? What do you think?” Carole asks with an eyebrow arched.
I can’t help but smile. “I’m starting to think we might actually get the hell out of this place,” I tell her.
—
Before darkness falls, we gather a giant mound of the fruit from the trees. We eat a few for dinner, but most we save for morning. The monkeys have been inching closer, so we take turns keeping watch through the night. I have the first watch, and while Carole and Gorog sleep, I prepare the goodies for our trip through the canyon.
Into each ball of fruit, I insert twenty-five of the precious stones that Carole gathered in Mammon. I’m careful not to push them in too deeply. I want them to sparkle in the morning sunlight. When it’s my turn to rest, Carole takes over. I sleep so deeply that the next thing I know, I’m opening my eyes to see hundreds of bejeweled balls laid out around us—and two dead monkeys. They tried to sneak up on the camp in the middle of the night. Carole might not like using a sword, but as it turns out, she’s pretty good with one. She got rid of the monkeys without even bothering to wake us.
With the sun streaming into the canyon, we begin the last of our preparations. We have no bag large enough to carry the fruit, so I take off my burlap robe and fill it with as many of the sparkling spheres as it will hold.
“Your robe isn’t going to cut it,” Gorog observes. “We need to take everything we’ve got with us. If we run out of fruit in the middle of the canyon, we’re goners.”
“Here,” says Carole, pulling her cloak over her head. “We can use mine too.”
“No,” I tell her. “We’ll find another way to carry the stuff.” Carole’s invisibility cloak will guarantee her safe passage. I can’t ask her to risk her life on a plan that might not work.
“Don’t treat me like I’m some precious little flower,” she snaps. “I want to get out of here as much as you do, and I won’t be able to make it alone. Take the damn cloak.
”
I reach out for it—I’ve already forgotten we’re having an argument, because for the first time, I see what Carole’s been wearing under her cloak, and it leaves me totally speechless.
Gorog cackles. The ogre never loses the power of speech. “Oh, man, I forgot you were dressed like my mom.”
“Yeah, well, when I chose the outfit, I didn’t know I’d be running from swarms of insects or fighting off monkeys, did I?” Carole snaps. She brushes off her beige chinos and straightens her pink polo shirt. “I dressed for comfort.”
“Where’d you think you’d be going?” Gorog asks. “A PTA meeting?”
“Says the guy who’s clearly compensating for something with that overgrown avatar,” Carole says. “You want a spanking, you little fart?”
“Yes, please,” says Gorog, bending over and lifting the back of his loincloth.
“Okay, okay!” I shout. “That’s enough. We aren’t here to talk about Carole’s fashion choices. If she wants to dress like a soccer mom from San Antonio, that’s her business, not ours.”
Gorog bursts out laughing again, and Carole sticks her lower lip out like a kid. “I hate both of you,” she grumbles.
“Yeah, well, if it makes you feel any better, we’ll probably be dead soon,” Gorog replies.
Gorog meant it as a joke. He’s talking about our avatars, of course. But Carole and I instantly sober up. The ogre still doesn’t know what’s really going on, and now isn’t the time to tell him.
“We’re not going to die,” I say, hoping to convince myself along with the others.
“Of course not,” Carole chimes in. “You’ve come up with a brilliant plan.”
“Even if our avatars do bite the dust, it’s better than playing their stupid game,” Gorog says, pointing up at the cliff dwellers’ caves.
He’s got a point. I still can’t understand why anyone would stay in the canyon—raiding, killing and suffering—just to work their way closer to Mammon. They have to be pretty good at the game to survive this far. Otherworld has been available to headset players for about a week. You’d think some of these guys would have found another way through the canyon by now. But they haven’t. And what scares me most is that in seven short days, this is what they’ve become.
I pick up one of our sacks of fruit. Carole takes the other. Gorog is carrying the slingshot I found in the cave.
“You guys ready?” I ask them.
“Hell yeah,” says Gorog.
“Then let’s get out of Dodge,” Carole says.
“What’s Dodge?” Gorog asks.
Carole sighs. “Good God. Never mind,” she says.
I step into the grass between the canyon walls and prepare to address the savages.
“Hey, I just thought of something,” Gorog calls to me. “Are you sure the guys in the caves all speak English?”
Shit. It never occurred to me. “Yep,” I lie. “I’m sure.” There’s no turning back now.
—
I enter the canyon, staying just out of arrow range, and hold up one of the jewel-covered spheres. It sparkles like a disco ball in the early-morning sunlight.
“Listen up!” I shout. My voice bounces off the canyon walls. It’s far louder than I could have hoped. The acoustics here are excellent. I wait until the cliff dwellers emerge from their caves. “Every sphere contains food, water and diamonds. Everything an avatar needs! There is one for each of you. Make sure you get yours.”
I turn to Carole and Gorog. “Here goes.” I hand Gorog the ball of fruit I’m holding. He places it in the slingshot and sends it sailing into the first cave. The cliff dweller catches it, examines it and immediately throws a rope down the cliff side. He’s not satisfied with one. He wants them all.
“Okay, he’s coming,” says Carole.
“Time to start walking,” I say.
“Dude, he’s getting close,” Gorog says nervously. The man sprinting in our direction is a particularly fierce specimen. I don’t know which one of us he’d go for first, but I’d rather not find out.
“Make sure you get yours!” I shout again. “Don’t let this guy get them all!”
The attacking cliff dweller has made it to a point less than a hundred yards away from us when a spear slices through his abdomen and pins him to the ground like a bug to a board. Gorog immediately shoots a gem-covered fruit in the spear thrower’s direction. The neighbor examines it and almost goes for his own rope. But a glimpse over his shoulder gives him pause. The next cliff dweller along the canyon has a bow and arrow aimed directly at him.
“Don’t let anyone take what’s yours!” I shout.
“Holy moly, it’s working!” Carole whispers. Now the truth comes out. She didn’t think it would.
“Yeah, ’cause they’re jerks,” Gorog says. “I bet they don’t even care about a few diamonds. They just don’t want their neighbors having more than they do.”
“Ah, human nature,” I say. “It’s so revoltingly predictable.”
“Hey!” Carole says, taking offense on behalf of the entire human race. “Gorog and I are human too, you know. And neither of us has ever killed for diamonds or resorted to cannibalism.”
“Yet,” says Gorog, flinging a fruit at another cliff dweller. “With the right barbecue sauce…”
Carole rolls her eyes and passes the ogre the next piece of fruit. “He’s joking,” she says, as if I need it explained to me. “But if you ask me, we’re the only real people here. I don’t know what you’d call them.”
You’d call them guests, I say to myself. I need to stop thinking of them as human. It’s obvious now that the two things are not the same.
—
We reach the gates of Mammon without a single piece of fruit left between us. Along the way, three cliff dwellers pressed their luck and tried to claim more than their fair share. All three died at the hands of their neighbors. In the end, my plan worked perfectly. If a cliff dweller tried to attack us, the player in the closest cave would kill him. Not out of goodwill, of course. It was just simple logic. If you’re waiting for a delivery, it’s in your best interest to keep the mailman alive.
Carole and I put our cloaks back on as we approach a pair of golden gates that stand between us and Mammon. There’s a booth to the right of the gates, and an NPC guard is sitting inside. He doesn’t move as we draw near, but he keeps his eyes trained on us. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan for this part. I have a hunch that those gates aren’t going to open unless we’re able to pay a hefty price.
“How did you get past the gates when you were here earlier?” I ask Carole.
“I stayed invisible and followed a cliff dweller through,” she tells me.
“You’re kidding. They let one of those cannibal freaks inside?” Gorog asks.
“Sure,” says Carole. “For the right price they’d probably let anyone into Mammon. I hope you guys brought enough to pay the toll.”
“What?” Gorog yelps. “Why didn’t you say something? We used up all the fruit!”
“Good thing one of us held on to a few diamonds in case of an emergency.” Carole pulls out a sack of jewels I didn’t know she had. Then she stands on her tiptoes and pinches the ogre’s overgrown cheek. “You going to make fun of my outfit again?” she asks.
Gorog shakes his head.
“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Carole tells him.
It’s a different world inside Mammon. The only road through the realm is lined with mansions surrounded by gilded gates and well-tended lawns. Each of the homes is more ornate than the last, and they’re all covered in stucco that’s been mixed with diamonds so the walls sparkle in the sun. It seems the gems the cliff dwellers kill for are as common as dirt here. Everywhere I look I see royal palms, English ivy and topiary trees. But there don’t seem to be any avatars or animals. The realm is totally still. As we start down the road, it feels like we’re strolling through Beverly Hills just after the apocalypse.
Far ahead at the end of the road, a massive golden templ
e sits atop a hill. I’m guessing that’s where the Elemental of Mammon resides. The homes closest to it are practically palaces, but the temple itself seems to be the ultimate prize. If anyone’s alive in this part of the realm, I’d bet they’re striving to reach it. I’d love to know what they get if they do.
“We need to make our way to the temple,” I say. “If this is anything like Imra, the Elemental of Mammon will decide whether we can leave. And I’m betting that temple is where he or she lives.”
“If we’re going that far, I should probably stay invisible,” Carole says. “Give me your tools and weapons for safekeeping.”
“Again?” Gorog whines. “Why? There’s no one around.”
“Don’t be so sure. I stole the diamonds from one of the homes here. The entire yard was booby-trapped like you wouldn’t believe. There are definitely people around, and they aren’t any friendlier than the ones back in the canyon.”
“Okay, but what could these people possibly want from us?” Gorog’s irritated. “Look at these houses. They have everything. They’ve got it made.”
“You think that’s how it works?” Carole asks. “There are rich people in the real world who’d steal a jar of pennies from an orphan. That’s how most of them got rich in the first place. Can you imagine what the ones here are like?”
“She’s right,” I tell the ogre. There’s something eerie about this place. I hand Carole my weapons.
“Whatever,” Gorog says. “Take my sword and my fire. But I’m keeping the slingshot. I like it.”
Carole rolls her eyes at the ogre before she pulls the hood over her head and disappears. I figure she must be lugging her weight in weapons.
We set off toward the temple on the hill. As we walk past the gates of the first mansion, a relatively humble Gothic pile, I hear a strange mechanical whir. It takes me a moment to figure out that it’s the sound of a hidden camera following our every move. Someone inside the building is watching us. We reach the second and then the third mansion and discover that their owners have taken security surveillance to even greater heights. Countless cameras are mounted on posts along the gates, and as we pass, drones buzz above our heads. Gorog flips them the bird. I feel strangely naked, like the cameras can see through my clothes and my skin. The discomfort makes me itch. It seems to make Gorog angry.