by Terry Schott
“It’s safe,” she said when he was directly beside her. “Join me.”
He sat down across from her. “Thanks, doll.” He reached for her coffee and took a drink as he winked at her.
“Oh my god.” Her breath caught in her throat. “Dillon?”
“Hi, babe.” There were tears in his eyes. “Did you miss me?”
She stood and hugged him before he could do the same, burying her face in his neck with a smile. “Oh, Dillon, I’ve missed you so much. I was afraid I would never see you again.”
They hugged for a moment and then looked at each other. “Let’s take a look at you, wife.” His eyes twinkled. “You are as beautiful in this body as you were in the other. I’m sorry to say you didn’t get as good a deal with the way I have turned out in this reality.”
“Stop it.” She slapped his chest. “You’re only a bit older than me and you’re a straight-up silver fox in excellent shape. I’m happy with what I’m seeing, husband.”
“Silver fox.” He laughed. “Okay, you still have your sense of humour. I’m forty here.”
“Thirty-seven. I guess we can enjoy the few good years you have left before I trade you in for a younger model.”
Dillon started to speak but she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his, closing her eyes and losing herself in the joy of finding the man who had been her partner and closest friend for decades inside the Sim. Susanne felt a wave of dizziness and she revelled in the sensation, putting her arms around Dillon and pulling him closer as they continued to kiss.
“Wow,” he whispered as they took a breath, his smiling lips still brushing hers as he spoke. “That’s what I’ve been missing, my sweet girl.” Dillon’s hand touched the back of her head as he ran his fingers through her hair. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”
“I wasn’t.” Susanne grinned. “Well, I flip-flopped between hope and despair. I believed we would find each other, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so soon.”
Dillon’s hand ran over her body, stopping to gently grab the small of her back and pull her hips tighter to his. “I could leave and come back in a few more weeks if this is too soon.”
“No way.” She laughed. “Oh, you’re in great shape. That’s a bonus.”
“It looks like both of us took the same care of ourselves here as we did on Earth.”
They kissed again, this time longer and more passionate than the first, with neither of them in a hurry to move forward in time.
“Can I get ya anything, kids?” They opened their eyes and looked at the waitress standing beside them. “A room, maybe?”
“Sorry.” Dillon smiled.
“No, we’re not. Just two cups of coffee, Dorothy. We can wait for a room, at least for a few minutes.”
Dorothy laughed and walked towards the counter.
They sat, holding hands and smiling until Dorothy brought their drinks. Susanne took a sip of hers and sighed. “I don’t feel like getting back to work.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world now, love.” Dillon added cream and stirred it into his drink. “Business brought us back together and it will allow us to help others find each other, too.” He smiled. “We can drink our coffee and talk a little business, then get out of here and spend some close-up time with each other?”
“Deal.”
“How safe is it to talk here?”
“Very, at least for the moment. They are bringing up new networks every day, but we’ve managed to stay ahead of them. Some of our key hackers got to work quickly when we returned and have been programming loopholes into each new mainstream platform as they spring up.”
“It’s the same from the city I came from. This is my twelfth city visited.”
“All of the major ones?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You’re a leader in the movement?”
“As much as anyone can be. We are still using the same system from the Earth movement. Small cells separated by multiple degrees of contact.”
“One gets caught, the rest are safe. I’ve been meeting, mobilizing, and then moving to the next city to repeat the process.”
“Does that mean you have to leave soon?” Susanne bit her lip, trying to hide her disappointment.
“That was the plan, but there was only one reason for me to keep moving. I was searching for you.”
Susanne began to cry.
“What’s wrong, love? Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” She wiped her eyes. “I feel bad.”
“Why?”
“I should have been doing the same.”
“Don’t say that. Coming back has been a huge upset for all of us. We’ve only been back for a short time and the main focus for the majority has been to make sure their bodies are working and finding a place to sleep and food to eat. I know it hasn’t been easy here.”
“Still—”
“No.” He squeezed her hand. “There’s no time for regret. No time for guilt. I was fortunate to wake up in a city close to the first power restoration.” He raised his hand to indicate the coffee shop. “This city was on the outskirts. I know how many have died here. I can’t believe how lucky we’ve been, both to survive and also to find each other.” His expression hardened. “We will not spend one second on regret or guilt, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good.” He pulled money out of his pocket and dropped it onto the table. “You have a place of your own?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go there.”
“Now? I thought we were going to talk business.”
He grinned. “That was a bad idea.”
Susanne stood, smiling as he put his arm around her. “You have a better idea?”
“You know I do.”
52
Thirteen stepped up to the security desk and cleared his throat, waiting until the bored-looking guard made eye contact with him. “I would like to speak with Trew Strayne, please.”
“Lots of people would like to speak with Mr. Strayne.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but mine is a special case.”
“That’s what everyone says.” The guard looked back at the papers in front of him. “Unless you have an appointment, I can’t help you.”
“It’s impossible to get an appointment.”
“You’re kidding, right? The man has a direct line. All you have to do is call his office and set something up with his receptionist.”
Thirteen frowned. “Am I kidding? Have you ever tried to call that number?”
“No.”
“I have. Hundreds of times. It’s not as easy as you’re making it sound.”
“Hundreds of times?” the guard looked up and looked at Thirteen more closely.
Damn it. Now he thinks I’m a psycho. “Not hundreds of times. It’s just very frustrating.”
“Uh-huh.” The security guard began typing on his keyboard.
Is he calling for backup? I can’t be taken into custody. He had spent the past few days wandering the city in an attempt to learn more about the reality he had landed in. At first he’d been surprised to discover this wasn’t Earth. Instead, he found himself on Tygon; a reality which revolved around a Game played by children. Even more shocking, he had pieced information together and realized that the game world was called Earth. It hadn’t taken long to figure out that the Trew and Danielle Strayne who seemed to be in charge were actually the same Trew and Danielle that he had known from his time on Earth. Repeated attempts to contact them had proved unsuccessful. Twice already he’d been forced to flee from the local law in order to avoid incarceration. It looked as if he was about to run for the third time.
“Never mind,” Thirteen said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.” He made it halfway to the exit when the guard called out.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Thirteen kept walking.
“Sir? I have Mr. Strayne on the phone.”
Thirteen stopped and looked over his should
er, expecting to see the guard coming towards him, but he stood behind the desk, a phone held out towards him. “If you’re name is Thirteen, he’s asking to speak with you.”
***
I hope this doesn’t lead to a jail cell. Thirteen watched the elevator floor numbers count upwards as he stood beside the security guard. The elevator stopped on the floor marked thirteen. Wonder if that is good luck or bad?
The door opened.
“The receptionist will assist you, sir.” The guard remained inside the elevator.
“Thanks.” He stepped off the lift and approached the reception desk where a pretty young woman sat, smiling at him.
“Hello, sir. Mr. Strayne and the Prophet will be right out. Can I offer you a drink?”
The Prophet? “No, thank you.”
A moment later, the office door behind the reception area opened. A man dressed in an expensive-looking black suit and a woman wearing purple robes walked towards him, both smiling. When they reached him, the man extended his hand.
“Hi there, it’s so nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” Thirteen said.
The woman leaned in to inspect him. “Thirteen?”
“Yeah. Danni?”
She smiled. “I am. And this is my husband, Trew.”
Thirteen smiled and hugged her. She laughed and returned the embrace. “I’m so glad to see you again,” he said. “It’s kinda strange, us looking different.”
“It certainly makes it difficult to be positive that you are who you claim to be. Thankfully we have a knowledgeable ally who vouched for you.”
“Who?”
Trew motioned towards the closed office door. “Come on into the office and we will introduce you.”
They entered the office and sat down. “I expected your office to be bigger,” Thirteen said.
Danielle laughed. “Each of us have larger offices, but this one is small and intimate. We don’t bring many visitors to this one.”
“Oh.”
“Hello, Thirteen.” A woman’s voice seemed to come from many directions at once.
“Hello—”
“My name is Sylvia. It’s a great pleasure to meet you.”
“Where are you?”
“She is inside this room,” Trew said, “but she doesn’t have a body.”
“I’m a computer,” Sylvia explained. “The mainframe that runs the Game.”
“Earth?”
“That’s correct.”
“This is so confusing. When I touched the Artifact, I expected to return to Earth, but I found myself here instead. How many worlds are there?”
“I knew it.” Trew clapped his hands. “He touched the Artifact.”
“That means it exists in all realities,” Danni said.
“At least in the one he just came from.” Sylvia’s tone contained a hint of amusement.
“Brandon said there was no Artifact in the other one,” Trew said.
“I’m not sure that’s exactly what he said.” Danni shook her head. “He said the old man told him it wasn’t where they were looking.”
“Wait a minute.” Thirteen frowned. “You’re confusing me.”
“Of course we are,” Trew said. “We can continue that discussion later, ladies.”
“Absolutely.” Danni patted Thirteen’s hand. “What were you thinking, touching the Artifact? It could have killed you.”
“I had a theory.”
“That it could take you back to Earth?”
“Yeah.”
“You were in the Dream?” Trew asked.
“I don’t know anything about a dream. I was on my home world. It’s called—”
“Wait!” Trew threw his hand up. “Thorn and the General live there? On your home world?”
“Yes.”
“Please, for god’s sake, don’t tell us the place’s real name.” Trew shook his head. “We know it as the Dream, and that’s what we call it here. Adding another planet name will just make things more confusing. Let’s all agree to keep calling it the Dream.”
“I think that it’s pretty cruel to call it the Dream. Nightmare would be a better description.”
“You lived your whole life there?” Sylvia asked.
“Yes, although I lived longer on Earth.”
“Your existence on Earth was not pleasant.” Danni arched her eyebrow, recalling Thirteen’s story of mental confusion for most of his life on Earth followed by troubled years during the Blackout event.
“Trust me, Danni. I would live eternity as a mentally broken person on Earth rather than spend another day in”—he paused to recall the correct word—“the Dream.”
“Tell us about it,” Trew said. “Your life there.”
Thirteen nodded and began to share what living in the Dream was like for the average person. He talked for over an hour, covering the major points of his world’s history. When he was done, Danni and Trew looked at him with pity.
“The Dream sounds like a terrible place,” Danni said.
“The average person is a slave, doomed to suffer and struggle for survival day to day, month to month, year to year. Until we die.”
“It doesn’t sound as bad as that,” Trew said. “Life is never filled with only the bad. Surely you must experience some goodness?”
“That’s the thing. It was all we knew for most of our lives. It only became bad once we experienced a better life on Earth.”
“And so you touched the Artifact, hoping to travel to Earth?”
Thirteen nodded.
“What if you had succeeded?” Trew asked. “How would you get word back to the Dream?”
Thirteen smiled. “Another theory.”
“Which is?” Sylvia asked.
“I think Earth and”—he paused—“the Dream, are connected. From a vibrational point of view.”
“Interesting.” Sylvia’s voice sounded thoughtful. “Do you know the frequency of your reality, Thirteen?”
“Yes, Sylvia, I believe that I do.”
Danni looked at Trew and Thirteen before shaking her head. “Sylvia sounds excited, but you’ve lost me on this one.”
“Knowing the frequency of the Game allows us to see it,” Sylvia explained.
“Oh.”
“Knowing the frequency of the Dream may allow us to see it as well.” Trew said.
“What purpose would that serve?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Thirteen admitted, “but I have some ideas.”
“So do I.” Sylvia sounded eager.
53
Melissa put mustard on her hotdog and crossed the street. She knew that she was being followed, and who it was.
Cooper gave her a wide berth, hanging back two blocks to minimize revealing himself. Melissa took another bite of her lunch and flipped her head to the right, hair bouncing as she turned into an alley. Cooper laughed and quickened his pace.
He entered the alley and saw Melissa leaning with her back against the wall a few paces in. She crumpled the foil hotdog wrapper and tossed it onto a pile of refuse. “Did ya really think I wouldn’t spot you?”
“No, but I figured it was worth a try.” He reached her and leaned against the opposite wall. “Too many years of training for both of us.”
“I guess.”
“As I follow you, I’m puzzled by what I’m seeing.”
“How do you mean?”
“I know you’re responsible for hunting down Gamers.”
“That’s right.”
“Yet I don’t see you bringing many in.”
“They are difficult to catch, and when we do it’s impossible to use them to find more. They have perfected their techniques, and I simply don’t have enough manpower to root them out.”
Cooper chuckled. “The General obviously believes these lies you are feeding him.”
“He does.”
“I know you are leading them.” He watched her tense slightly at the comment.
“Then why haven’t you squealed on me?”
> “Who would I tell? I’m more covert than you are. As far as I can tell, no one knows that I’m here. You’ve guarded your secret about me, maybe I feel obligated to do the same for you.”
“On that note, I don’t see a pile of bodies in your wake. Didn’t you say you were going to kill everyone and shut the simulation down?”
“There’s time for that later. If your plan fails.”
“You don’t know what I’m trying to do.”
“I have a pretty good idea. If the Gamers assemble and manage to affect change, then this world won’t need to be destroyed. I came to end a miserable reality devoid of hope or growth potential. If you succeed, then I don’t need to pull the plug.”
Melissa pushed herself off of the wall and moved closer. “If you like my plan, will you help me?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“And?”
“I think I’ll sit it out and watch.”
“You mean save your energy for executing your plan.”
“However you want to look at it.”
“Makes sense, I guess.” It’s what I would do in his place. “Can’t blame me for asking, though.”
“Not at all.” He turned and began to walk away. “I sincerely hope you pull it off, Melissa, if that means anything.”
“Thanks, Cooper. It does.”
54
“Stop playing with them.”
The Elite called Trance frowned and pushed his knee into the back of the man sprawled facedown beneath him. With a swift slashing motion of his knife, he cut the man’s throat and stood up, wiping the blade on a curtain in front of him. “You’re no fun, Ace. We’ve been waiting a long time for the green light on this.” He looked around and nodded. Twenty dead bodies were sprawled around the large room. Blood was everywhere. “Lohkam wants us to create fear among the population, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Ace shook his head and walked towards the door. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“The years have made you soft. You grew a weak spot for these NPC’s after spending so much time with ‘em.”
“Please. I could care less about these programs. I want to get back home as much as anyone else.” He waved his knife at the strewn bodies. “I killed just as many as you did, it just seems like a waste of time to drag it out.”