by Isaac Stone
Over the bush, I peered and saw Chamita vanish up the staircase. She managed to rip loose the final board and leap up the stairs before the mob boss could fire a second shot off at her. He ran to the staircase and vanished up it too.
It took me thirty seconds to reach the staircase behind him. I stopped at the entrance and heard his footsteps as they thundered up the stairs. I glanced into the staircase and saw him vanish out a door four flights above me.
The stairs were in bad shape. I crept up them in silence and was worried they might collapse at any minute. If one of the stairs broke, the game ended right away. I didn’t have to die from the fall, but the mob boss could shoot me at leisure once he came back down. I kept my eye on the door he’d used when leaving the staircase. The stairs were inside some kind of shaft that didn’t have access to every floor. I figured this might have been some kind of service entrance.
It was quiet when I reached the exit. The doorway opened into the roof of the building. At one time, it was open as a kind of observation post where the valley could be viewed. Now, there were holes in the floor and most of the barricades were gone from the storms over the past thirty years. If this was the only door to it, he didn’t have another way out. The mob boss and Chamita had to be out there somewhere.
The deck was empty and I looked around to see where anyone might be hidden. All I could hear were the birds in the distance and the sound of the wind.
Right until I heard the gun click behind me
I felt the barrel on my shoulder. “Smart try, chump,” the mob boss said to me. “Now I can bargain. Just move to the center of the floor and watch those holes. I don’t want you dead yet.”
He pushed me with the gun until I shuffled to the middle. It wasn’t game over yet, he still needed to get that bag with the treasure in it. I still had a chance.
“Hey jungle girl,” he yelled in the air. “I got your boyfriend. Bring down the bag and we’ll talk. You don’t respond and I blow his head clean off. Want to try me?” There was no sound.
“Guess your girlfriend doesn’t want to play nice,” he said behind me. I tensed and expected to wake up any second in the VR chamber. Damn, I was so close and needed that bonus!
The brick hit the mob boss in the head. I turned around to see it fall to the floor as he staggered away and dropped the gun. The gun found one of the holes on the floor and fell down into the rest of the abandoned asylum. There was a plop as Chamita landed on the floor of the deck ten yards from us. She stood there with another brick in her hand and raised it for a second shot.
“You bitch!” the mob boss swore over his bloody face. He turned to Chamita and leaned down, ready to charge her. She might get him with the brick, but he weighed more than twice what she did.
I slammed into him hard. I went low below the chest line and struck him with all the force I could. The mob boss stepped back a few steps and turned to me. He was solid, but the character I played had the muscle mass and weight to do what I wanted. Time to use all those points I’d accumulated. VR D10 dice be damned!
He punched me the second time I body slammed him, but I kept going. I pushed hard and managed to take control of his center of gravity. He was thrown backwards. The mob boss went down and staggered up as I managed to tackle him a third time.
This time he was hurled backwards. He hit the remains of the railing, which once protected people from falling off the deck. But the railing was old and corroded. He grabbed the rail and it snapped. For a second he looked confused, and then went over the side of the deck in one swift motion.
Chamita and I walked to the edge and looked down. The mob boss landed on a stone walkway, cracked from years of weather, but still very hard. He lay still in a pool of his own blood. The last of the bootleggers was gone.
“He dead,” Chamita commented.
I put my arm around Chamita and gave her a hug. “You are a deadly little girl,” I said. “You’ve killed four men today. That must be some kind of new record.”
By the time we returned to the campsite, Bonnie was in better shape. The healing fungus worked its magic on her wound and Lester had given her a canteen to drink. Howard stood by and saw us approach as we made our way through the brush. Chamita held my hand, but walked a step in front of me. This forest, after all, was her home.
“The big boss?” Howard asked me as we walked up to the camp.
“Dead,” I said to him. “Chamita knocked him over the railing on the roof of the old asylum.” She turned and gave me a funny look, but said nothing.
“He was about to shoot her and she hit him with a brick,” I said, “She tripped him and he fell like a sack of onions. Made a big noise when he hit. Food for the vultures.”
Sometimes you need to keep the legend alive.
I looked down at Bonnie. “Can she walk?” Bonnie was in a sitting position and had Lester’s shirt wrapped around the shoulder where it was hit by the bullet.
“It’s a lot better,” She told me. “Whatever Chamita brought up needs to be sold everywhere. I don’t even feel any pain.” She stood up with the help of Lester and we began to move out of the campsite.
I let Howard lead the way. We found the bootleggers’ campsite not far from where we’d emerged from the caverns. Howard kept his carbine out and pushed tree limbs out of the way until he was sure the bootlegger’s still operation was silent. It was hard to tell from the distance if anyone was still in the camp, but there were no fires.
“I go see,” Chamita told us and vanished into the brush before we could say anything.
“You’ll have a hard time keeping her in the kitchen,” Howard joked like a true man of his time, “Make sure whatever house you buy has plenty of trees around it.”
Chamita returned a half hour later. “No one there,” she told us. It was safe to proceed.
We found several trucks in the camp. The old road was uncovered and led to the main county road down the mountains. From what we could tell, the barrels were full of whisky and ready for shipment before we made our appearance. The still was cold, but there was plenty of corn in the back fermenting. This was a major operation for illegal hooch. The money it brought in had to be astronomical.
We found three trucks and the keys recovered from the shoot-out outside the tunnel fit one of them. I watched as Howard crawled inside and put it in the ignition. The truck fired on the first turn and he let it idle for a few minutes.
“Engine sounds good,” he commented. “Tank is full. I think they were ready to ship the booze out this week.”
Howard stepped out of the truck while he let the engine run. “We need to talk about what is in that bag,” he told me. “All of us nearly died for what is inside it and you are her husband, like it or not.” I knew what he met.
“Give me a few minutes,” I told him. By now, Bonnie and Lester had crawled up into the cab of the truck. They seemed to be in good shape, the healing fungus had done the job.
I still needed to do one more thing before they could leave and I could count the extended game as a “win” and get the bonus.
The bag was next to Chamita. She carried it with her when we left the campsite. She’d stayed off to one side while Howard startled the truck. The noise seemed to bother her; perhaps she associated it with the bootleggers. I guessed they’d been after her many times while they had their little operation on the mountainside. She stood there with her spear and watched as Howard got it started.
The sun was behind her as I walked up to Chamita. She was beautiful in an unearthly way that was hard to describe. I planned to meet the person who came up with her character the moment I was out of the game. I wanted to know who game up with this trope. Was she based on a real person?
“I need to talk to you, Chamita,” I said to her as I took her hands into mine and pulled her over to the side, behind some trees.
“What about?” she asked, as her face made a pouty look.
“You sparklies,” I said to her. “Are they very important to you?”
“They pretty. You want them?”
I was shocked. She didn’t know. Chamita had no clue how valuable those gemstones were. She’d collected them from the crash site because she thought they looked nice. It turned out she had a collection of metal fragments down in the cavern for the same reasons. She’d brought the jewels up because she thought I liked them.
“Not all of them, Chamita, dear,” I told them. “I want to give some of what’s in the bag to our new friends. They did help me a lot.”
“You no take faces,” she said as a dark look came over her eyes. By “faces”, she meant the photographs in the other box.
“I don’t want the faces,” I told her, “and neither do they. But I want to share the sparklies with them.” She seemed relieved.
“Okay, but not faces.”
Chamita followed me over to them with the bag and watched as I took out the jewel box and opened it. She made sure the picture box was still in the bag and walked away with it. Assured her pictures were safe, she didn’t care what we did with the gemstones.
Howard spent an hour dividing the jewels up. As we watched, he divided them up by value and made sure half of them were pushed aside for Chamita. Next, we examined the rest and divided them up between Bonnie, himself, Lester and me.
When he was finished and all agreed the piles were equal, I took my pile and handed it to Bonnie and Lester. “A wedding present,” I explained to them. “I think it will come in handy.” Real handy if the game maintained the depression timeline.
“But what will you do?” Bonnie asked. “Now you don’t have any.”
I returned Chamita’s half to the box and closed it. “This is hers,” I said. “It seems I have a wife and she’s made me richer than any diamond.” I felt it to be fitting words to end the game. Come on, you would too.
They returned to the truck as I held the box with Chamita’s half in it and watched Howard engage the gear. “You can leave with us,” he told me. “Plenty of room in the back. I’m sure Chamita would like a ride in a truck. Maybe you can find a justice of the peace down the mountain and make it solid.”
“Thanks,” I told him, “but I don’t think that will be necessary. Chamita doesn’t strike me as someone who likes to stay indoors much and I have a lot to learn about her. The weather won’t get cold for a few months and it will give us time to get used to each other.”
“I meant to tell you,” Howard said as he popped the clutch, “this whole valley is state property. If I go back and file a claim, I’ll be able to buy it. I think I can work that cavern in as some kind of claim. I’ve plenty of money to buy it. Chamita and you will always have a home if you decide to stay here. The deed on the asylum was abandoned years ago, so no worries about it.”
Chamita approached the truck with care, as she was still afraid of it. She gave everyone a hug, and then stood next to me. I felt her arm around my waist as I slipped the jewel box in the bag she carried.
We stood there and watched the truck vanish down the dirt road full of stumps as they made their way to the main highway at the bottom of the mountain. My job was over and the game had ended for me. I needed to find out about the bonus.
First, I needed to find something for Chamita to do so I could communicate with the VR team.
“Chamita,” I told her, “can you go find us a rabbit or fish for dinner? I think the two of us need to have some food.”
“Yes, Vince,” she told me and bounced into the forest with her spear.
I waited until she’d vanished out of ear range and pulled out the pocket watch. I opened it and pushed the stem. Rhonda’s face filled the screen. I hoped this would be the last time.
Rhonda looked very tired this time. I knew she’d put in many extra hours and I hoped Sandstone Gems paid her well for it. Even with the jokes, I looked forward to talking to her. This, I hoped would be the last one. However, I did want to make one final request and I hoped they would grant it to me.
“Game over,” I told her. “My team survived and I sent them down the mountain with their part of the treasure. It wasn’t the full treasure, but I felt the spirit of the game required it be divided.”
“We saw it happen,” she told me. “The crew approved your decision. We consider the game a ‘win’ for you. Are you ready to be taken out now?”
I looked in the direction Chamita ran when she went off into the woods to find dinner. I was certain she was on her way back now with the rabbit. All I had to do was give Rhonda the green light and I’d be back in the real world, ready to collect my check. Yep, that was all I had to do. After all, none of this was real. Chamita was simply electrons running in a predetermined pattern. It really wouldn’t break her heart if she appeared at the camp to find herself abandoned by the man she considered her mate. Just a game.
“Can I get twenty-four more hours in this place?” I asked her. “I don’t think that is too much to ask. After all, you let me have more time in the game when you wanted me to get everyone to safety. Maybe there are some other kinks I can work out for the game.” I waited for a response.
“Let me ask someone, Vince,” she replied. I watched her face turn to someone off-screen as she whispered.
She turned back to the screen. “I’m told the crew can grant your request, but you only get twenty-four hours, Vince. Use your time wisely and contact us again tomorrow when you’re ready to be extracted. Don’t make us have to come in there and get you.” The screen went blank.
I closed the pocket watch and placed it in my vest the moment Chamita strode back into camp. We were still in the bootleggers’ camp, so there was plenty of room to cook. I checked one of the huts and it was equipped with a kitchen. All of this was used by people who were now dead, so I did get a creepy feeling when I thought about it. Even VR dead people were unnerved me.
That evening, Chamita cleaned the rabbit and cooked it the same way she’d done the deer for the whole group the night before. It was just another day for her, but I enjoyed watching my little wolf girl as she went to work with her knife. I needed to find out how she knew all these things and who taught her. It was hard to believe that she learned it all from Raja Dagna down in those caverns.
“Somehow I never figured my wedding night would be like this,” I told her as we chewed the meat from the bones of the rabbit. It was a big one and fed both of us. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen your wife gnaw the flesh from an animal she killed less than an hour ago.
The bunkhouses had decent beds in them as well. Since the bootleggers stayed up on the mountain cooking hooch for weeks at a time, they wanted a decent place to live. I found the largest bed in the camp and decided it would do. I wasn’t sure if Chamita could sleep on a bed, I’d only seen her sleep on the ground before.
After we’d finished eating, I showed the cabin to her. “We’ll sleep here tonight, Chamita,” I told her. “This bed has enough room for the both of us.” The sun had set and I held a lantern found in one of the tents. There were plenty of supplies left over.
Chamita walked over to the bed and sat down on it. She looked down and placed one hand on it. It wasn’t much, a straw mattress on a cheap frame, but it would do. We weren’t that far from the Poconos.
“Soft,” she said to me as she placed one tiny hand on the mattress and pushed down.
“You may not understand many things, Chamita,” I said to her as I took off my jacket and slung it on a wooden chair. “If you have any problems….” I stopped and starred.
Chamita slipped her furs off and let them fall to the floor. She moved one of her perfect legs under the blanket and slid her body under it. Then she looked across the room at me with her brown eyes and rubbed her hand on the sheets that covered the bed.
“I ready, Vince,” she told me.
Sometimes it’s difficult to do what you want when you’re excited and don’t want your excitement to show. At such times, it is very difficult to maintain frame. For my part, I almost tripped over the chair on my way to the bed.
I snuggled up to Chamita and felt her taunt warm body beneath me as I placed my arms over hers. I could feel her excitement too.
She turned her head and looked at me. “Like wolves?” she asked.
“Like wolves,” I told her.
The wolf girl was very ready indeed.
We slept very late the next morning. It wasn’t a Caribbean Cruise or a trip to Paris, but I didn’t complain. She didn’t either. I didn’t wake until the sun was high in the trees. This time I rose before she did and staggered over to the latrine. I made it back in time to watch her sleep another hour. I sat on the chair and watched Chamita sleep until she rolled over, opened her eyes and smiled at me.
It was the best morning of my goddamn life and I don't care that it wasn't real.
18
I spent the next day with Chamita, exploring the woods around the old asylum. We didn’t go anywhere near the entrance to the caverns as I didn’t want to see the dead bodies around it. I don’t know if the crew edited them out after the shoot-out, but the thought of them lying there made me nauseous. It was my understanding that the VR world reconstituted itself every time you walked into a new section. Since the Sandstone crew didn’t know where I would walk from one minute to the next, they had to keep a reasonable facsimile of the mountain and valley up so as to avoid a glitch in reality. It wouldn’t do for a paying customer to walk into a castle and confront a green screen.
Chamita had plenty of her favorite places to show me. She took me to the other side of the mountain in the morning to see the wolf pack where she found Lobo. As we watched the wolves at a safe distance, she began to tear up again. Always hard to believe that she could take out a group of men with a knife one day and cry for her puppy the next.
“He smallest,” she tried to tell me. “I take. Feed. Grow big.” I ended up letting her cry on my chest for a good five minutes while we sat there. I was really putting the programmers through their paces, and I started to wonder if there was a writer's room full of creatives who were scrambling to keep up.