by Isaac Stone
“Would I be able to use that spare tent you have?” I asked the group. “I seem to have neglected to bring one.”
Howard signed and pulled out a pipe, which he lit. “I don’t see why not,” he replied. “We’re using it as a supply tent, but if you push the food and guns aside, you’ll have plenty of room. So long as we’re going to be partners in this treasure hunt, you might as well have a place to stay.”
“Guns?” I said. “You brought guns?” Now I was a little nervous and needed to check that logbook.
“Why not?” he told me. “These hills are crawling with bootleggers and God only knows what else. I wasn’t keen on taking Bonnie along, but Lester insisted. I made sure she knew how to shoot a gun before we left. Not a real Annie Oakley, but she can handle a pistol.” He took a puff off the pipe.
The game was built for my entry point. They didn’t ask why I was out here without a tent or where I’d come from before meeting up with them. Nor did they seem shocked I didn’t have a gun. It might seem a little inconsistent with the time period, but there needed to be a way my character could be inserted as quickly as possible. I noticed no one had used a last name.
I spent the night in the supply tent. After pushing the guns out of the way, I had plenty of room. I counted three carbines and four pistols; all had ammunition boxes. They’d come prepared. For warmth, I had an old blanket pulled from the top of the supply stack. Howard gave me a candle box for reading. I explained to him that I wanted to study the map better before we ventured into the area around the old asylum. And this was partially true.
Once I felt everyone was asleep, I pulled out the pocket watch and contacted Rhonda. As before, her smiling face filled the screen.
“So how was your first day on the mountain?” she asked. I didn’t see anyone peering over her shoulders this time.
“Good. I’ve met up with the team who are trying to find the treasure. I assume this was all part of the plan?”
“Bonnie, Howard and Lester? Oh, yes, we made them well, didn’t we? Glad you saw the smoke from their fire, I assume that’s how you located them. Any more questions?”
“Does the food taste real?”
“You’ll find out. Now get some sleep, big day tomorrow.” She signed off and the watch face went blank.
I spent an hour or so going through the logbook. It had a complete set of stats for the three NPC’s I’d met. There was hit numbers for each of the weapons I saw next to me. There were also suggestions on how to run a successful campaign. I was surprised there were no more character sheets in the logbook until I realized it didn’t have any until the trio made an appearance. I assumed the sheets would appear each time I encountered a new character.
The next morning I awoke to the smell of bacon frying in a pan. I stuck my head out of the tent and smelled the fresh mountain air. It was better than the dew-soaked smell of canvas that I’d endured all night long, which always reminded me of a wet sock.
Outside, Lester was busy cooking breakfast for everyone. He flipped the bacon in the pan with ease and turned to look at me. I was surprised to see him the first one up, but there was no alarm clock to wake anyone. I waved and went back into the tent. It took me a few minutes to get my clothes back on since the 1920’s underwear was not what I expected. At least it was kept clean by the programs.
“Hope you like it,” Lester said to me. “We don’t have much else besides some bread and cheese. Hard to keep things fresh out here. I’d hoped to find a cold spring to dip them inside, but no such luck. At least we have plenty of water to get us through.” I thanked him as I munched on the bacon.
It was pretty good. It even tasted like real farm-cured bacon. Once again, I was impressed by the level of detail in this simulation.
“So we plan to reach the asylum today and look for the airship?” I asked my teammates. “It doesn’t look very far away according to the map.” I passed my map back to Howard, who’d loaned it to me the night before.
“I think we can reach the area around it,” he told me. “I don’t know what it will look like when we get there. After all these years, it’s probably so overgrown with weeds, vines and trees you might not be able to recognize it.” He shoved the map in his jacket and returned to the breakfast.
It didn’t take us long to break camp. The tents were all folded and everything we needed was placed into packs. I was able to help them with the excess baggage. Before long, the fire was banked and we were ready to move out. Howard, as I expected, was the leader and used his compass to guide us in search of the abandoned asylum.
“Strange place to put a mental hospital,” I pointed out as we picked our way through the brush.
Once again, a lack of trails slowed us down and made it hard to reach our goal. Now I had a much larger bundle on my back, which tended to snag on the undergrowth. It was slowed down by low-hanging tree limbs. At least the ground wasn’t too muddy and the weather was still cool without being cold. I didn’t see a cloud in the sky.
“Yeah,” Lester agreed. “Not even a road to it anymore. There used to be one, but the state wouldn’t pay for the upkeep once the asylum closed down. No one wanted to come up here after what happened.”
I refrained from asking about the story of the closed asylum. There was some mention of it in the logbook, but not much. I guessed there was a reason for this and more information would be rereleased as the story progressed.
“There’s a whole background to that asylum,” Bonnie spoke. “I found out about it when I was at the Library of Congress looking this crash site up. You wouldn’t believe what the doctor who ran it was accused of doing. When he disappeared….”
Her words were cut short by the appearance of a visitor.
Standing in front of us, was a wolf. It was a full-grown one and glared at us with its red eyes. My blood dropped a few degrees. We hadn’t reached any of the plot caches yet, was this something I needed to worry about right now? Where there was one wolf, there would be more, as they travelled in packs. I tried to remember who had the easiest gun to reach.
Out of the forest another visitor appeared. She was a small woman, no larger than five foot three. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. I was amazed at how silent her approach was after we’d notice the wolf. She wore a wrap made out of deerskin that barely covered her lithe body. Her hair was curly, but clean. She had large brown eyes that seemed to take everything in around her.
She crept over to the wolf and put her hand on its head. I noticed she wore no shoes, but both her hands and feet were smooth, not what you would expect from someone who lived in the woods. There were limits to the reality level the game designers wanted to place in this scenario.
She patted the head of the wolf and leaned down to whisper something in its ear. Next, she rose up and looked right into my eyes. I saw something that was indescribable. These characters were designed to be so real you couldn’t tell the difference, as was the scenery. But, up until now, I was aware of it being a game. This woman’s eyes were unlike anything I’d seen from the other three people I’d met.
I had the strange feeling she found my form attractive and was checking me out. Not surprising, Bonnie did it too.
And then she was gone. One second, the woman and the wolf were there, the next, it was as if they’d never been there. I looked around to see if the others saw her too.
“Chamita,” Bonnie spoke. “Chamita the wolf girl. I wondered when we would see her. Looks like she found us. I hope it’s a good thing, she’s not known to reveal herself very often.”
5
“Chamita?” I asked Bonnie as I was still in a daze from the encounter. “Who is she?” I tried to follow where the woman with the wolf had vanished, but they left no trail.
“She’s a wild woman,” Howard interrupted. “No one knows much about her. She appeared in these mountains a few years ago and people have talked about her ever since. I didn’t believe she was real until just now. We’re one of the few people who’ve s
een her. Too bad I didn’t have my camera out, would have been nice to get a picture of her. The papers would pay a fortune for the negative.” He still held out his compass, as she’d surprise him too.
“Some of the mountain folks say she was abandoned and raised by wolves,” Lester added. “But they say a lot of crazy things up here. There is no scientific proof that a human could survive alone in this environment. It’s a bunch of hokum. She has to be someone who made a deliberate effort to come live in these hills. I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for her.”
“And the wolf?” I asked him. “What about the wolf?”
“A pet of some kind,” he responded. “Anyone can raise and train a wolf if you put the effort into it. She is some bohemian who wants to live at one with nature. No different than Thoreau, just taken to an extreme.”
“Oh, Lester,” Bonnie sighed, “why can’t you appreciate the opportunity we were given? Forget your science and logic for a minute and accept the fact we were allowed the chance to see a child of the forest.”
While they continued to argue, I had a thought and pulled the logbook out of my backpack. I opened it. Sure enough, now there was an entire character sheet on Chamita the Wolf Girl with background information and skill levels. She was supposed to be friendly but distant. However, she had valuable skills we could use to our advantage if we won her over to our side. She also had a tendency to fall in love with heroic men. Maybe I fit that category.
What I really wanted to find was the location of a plot cache in the game. There had to be one around here. I flipped to the map inside the logbook, which now included the terrain around us. It filled out a bit more since last night. I guessed the map would add itself more territory every time we moved into a new location.
Wonder of wonders! There was a cache not ten yards away. Too easy. I quickly added up my character’s skill points and decided to take a chance. What was inside the cache wasn’t revealed to me. It might be able to help us. Or not. I looked ahead and saw the lid of something that stuck up out of the dead leaves.
“Someone want to cover me?” I called back to them as I walked to the cache. “I see a box here, but I don’t know what’s inside it.” I looked back to see Howard pull a revolver out of his jacket and cock it.
I walked over to the cache and looked at it. It appeared to be a metal box of some kind that was buried in the ground and concealed by leaves. My steps crunched on the ground and I could hear the pop of dead branches as I approached it. The morning mists were just about dissipated and the air was clear.
I looked down at the cache and cleaned away the leaves from the box. Sure enough, there was a metal lid beneath me. As Howard held his gun out and pointed down at the ground, I leaned over and looked at it. No sounds from within the box and it appeared to have been placed here a short time ago. No lock either. Well, time to see what it contained. What was the worst that could happen?
I lifted the lid up as it squeaked on it hinges. And then I looked inside the cache.
Lying inside the long metal box was a beautiful chopped down shotgun and a box of shells. This one was in excellent shape. It was freshly oiled, cleaned and cared for by whoever placed it in this location. Even the barrel was clean. Thank you Sandstone crew!
“What is it?” Howard yelled at me.
I turned around and held it up. “Looks like I got me a new toy!” I yelled back. “Ammunition too.”
“I wonder who left it there,” Bonnie stated as I walked back to the group with my find. I could tell she was impressed with it.
“Gangsters or bootleggers,” Lester snarled. “The scum are all the same. Once I have my share of those jewels I intend to start an institute.”
“Save it for later, Les,” Howard cut off his conversation. “Let’s get back in motion, I think I see a clearing ahead.”
I glanced in the logbook before I put it away. The carbine was added to my list of attributes. In the category of “weapons”, I now had one. It showed the point value for the range (not much) and effectiveness (a whole lot at close range). It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to find, but it beat a bomb rigged to explode when I opened the lid.
We continued on our journey and made for the clearing. By now, it was mid-morning and we were anxious to find a place outside the trees to take a break. I managed to get out in front of the group and push my way through the tree line.
I stepped into the clearing and greeted the bootleggers we were warned about it.
I have to admit, they concealed their operation better than anyone I’d believe. The stills were covered in such a way to keep the smoke from being tracked and the cars they used to haul the illegal hooch out were camouflaged with netting. Even the huts where they lived were painted green in intersecting colors to keep anyone from realizing what was there. A person might have walked right past that clearing and not known what took place inside it. We, on the other hand, walked right into it.
I stopped and didn’t move as the other three came up behind me. I could hear them emerge from the forest, which meant whoever had this illegal still operation could hear all of us. I placed one hand up in the air for silence and hoped that they understood the message. They did. I heard the footsteps halt a second later.
Two more seconds elapsed before Howard made his way up to me and whispered in my ear. “I don’t like the way this camp looks,” he said to me. “I think this place is run by rum runners. We need to get out of here before they know we’re here.
I agreed and nodded to show I understood what he meant.
Prohibition wouldn’t be over for a few more years. Right now, the Chicago mobs and their branches were busy supplying bathtub gin to every speakeasy in the country. Many of the same congressmen who voted against it were found soused in illegal booze a few years later. The country was ripped apart by the easy money the mob could make supplying substandard alcohol to the people who wanted it. Even doctors were deluged by patients who wanted a “strong tonic”, that is to say, whisky. Years after the Carrie Nations went after the saloons; the government finished the job on its own. The bad consequences of their actions were in full effect.
However, I reminded myself; I was inside a computer simulation and didn’t have to worry about a thing. Take a gunshot to the head and I’d wake-up and find the Sandstone crew staring at me. Expect I would look bad in their eyes, not get as much money and be on the bottom of the list for anyone who wanted to do this job again. And right now, I needed that cash. Not to mention the sheer horror of going back to a call center held for me.
It was in my best interest to back out with everyone else as quietly as I could. I moved slow and easy, with the pack on my shoulders and the gun cradled under my arm. The shotgun was useless right now, as I’d opted not to load it. The ammunition was safely packed away. Noob.
I melted back into the tree line with the others. We made little noise as we moved back up the hill we’d descended to get to the clearing. In a few minutes, I felt it safe to ask Howard where we were on the map. After all, he carried it.
“We can make it to the asylum if we walk around that clearing,” he whispered to me. The map was spread on a bush as we all looked at it. Bonnie had the job of lookout in case the bootleggers realized we were in the brush. We hadn’t seen them, but their snoring from the huts told us there were quite a few of them.
“I don’t understand how they moved those trucks up here,” Lester, pointed out. “There aren’t any roads up here. How did they drive them up the mountain?” He glanced back too.
“Maybe they cut down enough trees to make a path and covered it up,” Howard suggested. “There was a road up here twenty years ago. That’s enough time for the brush to cover it up if the government didn’t keep it up. All they would need to do would be to chop out the larger trees. Then go back and hide the tracks.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told them. “They are up here and we can be sure they’ve got guns too. These men aren’t the least bit afraid to use them. Many plac
es they can dispose of bodies in this forest. I won’t be surprised if they’ve been dumping victims up here for years.”
“If we take this part of the woods around their camp,” Howard pointed on the map, “We can pass by them and they’ll never know we were there. We have to stay quiet. We were lucky they didn’t hear us walk into the camp. I’m amazed we all weren’t shot dead.”
“What can we do?” Bonnie asked her heart full of fear. “They’ll kill us all if they know we’re here.” I could see her tremble.
“We’ve come too far to give up,” Lester announced. “The maps we put together should get us right to the spot near the asylum where the airship went down. We find it and the treasure will be right next to it. Those thugs don’t know we’re here. They can’t know about the Wellington treasure. All they care about is making rotgut whiskey.”
While they talked among themselves, I had the logbook out. Now there was a whole section on the gang that operated the still less than a hundred yards from where we stood. There were thirty members of the gang. Most of them were a bunch of red shirts. Other than the mob boss, none of them had a very high ranking, nor did they have many points to contribute. Good. I worried more about all their points accumulating against ours. In a one-on-one battle, any one of us could take out any one of the gang members, save the boss. In a large group attack, our odds weren’t so good.
I flipped to the map and found another cache located not far from us. This time, however, it was located right at the tree line of their camp. If there were anything noisy in that cache, the gang would hear it right away.
I decided it was worth the time to investigate. There was no way I could know what was in that cache, but it might contain something useful to help us find the treasure. Once the treasure was located, the game was over for me. The Sandstone crew would pull me out of the VR chamber. It would be nice if I could end this game right now, get paid and get home.