by S. R. Witt
But I couldn't let the poison fly out of me. Not in front of Xi and her billions of loyal fans. If they thought I was crazy before, ranting and raving at my father would be the final nail in my coffin.
Xi’s eyes flicker between my father and me. She acts disappointed, like she hoped this meeting would be a sweet and tender reunion. “Those are serious accusations, Adam. And while I take them seriously, I'm afraid without some substantiation, I can't let you use this show as a platform to accuse your father of such horrible crimes.”
I ease back into my chair and let out a long, slow breath. I need to stay in control. “I'm sorry, at the time I was more concerned about not getting killed than gathering evidence.”
“But no one ever pressed charges?” Xi pretends to flip through her notes again. “We couldn’t find any accusations of child abuse from your mother. And it doesn’t appear you filed anything with a child advocate, either.”
I smile, even though I’m dying inside. Xi analyzing my past and putting it on trial is the reason more victims don’t come forward to report assaults of all kinds. Society doesn’t want to believe that this ugly mess happens next door. It’s easier to discredit the victims and pretend the world isn’t filled with secret monsters. “My mother was terrified of him. If she’d gone to the police, he’d have made her suffer for it. By the time I was old enough to file a claim, I thought he was dead. There didn't seem much point in going to the police to tell them all the sordid details of what a dead man did to me.”
“She wouldn't let me see my boys,” my father rumbles. “She told me I wasn't supposed to come back to the apartment. She told me I could never see them again.”
Xi turns sympathetic eyes toward my father. “That sounds awful. What happened?”
My father wrings his pudgy hands. He rests his chin on his meaty fists and stares at me with hangdog eyes. Just like they coached him. “She thought I was a bad influence on them. She was getting sick, and she didn't want me around because I didn't have a job. She thought if the boys saw me not working they'd think they didn’t have to work either. I didn't want to cause no trouble, so I left.”
My inner 12-year-old screams at the lies. How can anyone believe this? Look at this guy. He’s a monster. He beat his kids. He beat his wife. He never worked a day in his life.
Why wouldn't my mother tell him to leave? He was a horrible person, and he didn’t deserve to be in our lives.
But what the old man said doesn’t jive with what I know. No one told him to get out, he left on his own. I try to imagine my frail mother standing up to this man, telling him to get out and never return.
The image won’t gel. I can't make those pieces of the puzzle fit together.
All eyes are on me, waiting my response. I'm shaky, I can't catch my breath. Things are falling apart. I need to give them something to get them off the scent of blood in the water.
“I don't think we came here to talk about my family life. Wouldn't you rather hear the rest of my story?”
Xi offers me her hand, and I take it out of reflex. She squeezes my fingers and smiles at me with fake sympathy. “This is your story. You thought it was a big leap to go from a kid playing a game to a criminal mastermind. And you’re right. But your father has a slightly different story to tell about your younger days that might shed some light on that transition.”
I try to pull my hand away, but Xi holds on tight. Her eyes lock on mine and her smile tells me she thinks she won. I don’t know what her plan is, but she has something dangerous up her sleeve.
”I told her what you used to say.” My father says, an apologetic whine leaking through his words. “I told her how much you hated the Companies. Told her how you used to say you wanted to tear them all down.”
I don't know what to say to that. It isn't a lie, but it’s ridiculous just the same. So what if I said I hated the corporations? Lots of people have lots of reason to hate them.
And they did destroy my life, after all.
My mother's illness is caused by deadly pollution. Not just in the air, but in the water and soil. One of the conglomerates used the water reclamation plant in our neighborhood to hide their waste. My mother, a lifelong Brooklynite, drank that water from the time she was a little girl until the day she was diagnosed.
In the name of their bottom line, corporate dickweasels had killed my mother. They’d killed a lot of mothers. And fathers. And little kids. Hell, I drank that water most of my life, which I’m sure cut my own life expectancy down by a few decades. Hating the corporations wasn’t unusual. “I was a kid. I was mad because mom was sick. You were the one who told us the company made her sick.”
He nods and his extra chins wobble beneath his sweaty lips. “I shouldn't have done that. I just wanted you kids to be good citizens, wanted you to grow up and get jobs and take care of your families. I didn’t want you to end up like me.”
I want to punch the false regret out of his mouth. Instead, I hold onto Xi’s hand and ride out the emotional storm raging inside me. “That's not how I remember it.”
“You don't remember all them books I got you about computers and stuff? All those books about the Sons of Liberty and the Revolutionary War?”
That much was true. My father wanted me to be a programmer or a politician, he didn't really care which. He thought those were two jobs that would pay well and let me take care of him in his festering old age. He'd brought home moldering stacks of crumpled books he found behind the used bookstore. He'd drag them out of the dumpster and throw them down in front of me and sit there drinking beer after beer as I read them cover to cover.
He thought he was teaching me. In a way, I guess he was, but he wasn’t teaching me anything useful. He taught me to hate books and reading. He taught me to fear him and his drinking.
“The programming books were old and outdated. We didn’t even have a computer until after he left.”
Xi releases my hand and eases back into her chair. “I know you're trying to minimize the role your father played in your life and how he formed you during those early years. But let's be honest. Those books gave you the background you needed to become the terrorist you are.”
This story is ridiculous, but Xi is selling it. I glance at one of the broadcast cameras and my mouth goes dry. The great black eye sees what Xi and her corporate masters want it to see and beams their chosen message into the brains of the world.
I imagine the vapid faces of her viewers soaking up all this drama. They’ll believe her, because they’ve been trained to believe her. They’ve watched her tear down the bad guys and build up the heroes for years. What she says, what she wants them to believe, is all the truth they need. Anything else is a confusing distraction, and they don’t like confusion. It’s easier to believe what you’re told and not think about it too much.
I don't bother disputing what Xi says. Fighting against the tide will only make me look guilty.
I bide my time, hoping the rest of my story will be enough to win everyone over.
Xi smiles after a few moments of silence and gestures for me to continue. “I think we left off after you decided to become a thief.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Karl was in charge of the timers, and he kept tabs on our budget. For most people playing the Game, budget wasn't much of an issue. If you didn't plan on taking any money out of the Game, you paid your $50 a month and never had to worry about any other fees. Sure, you could pay for vanity options (custom titles were a big thing, as were fancier skins to upgrade your character's appearance), but those were one-time payments.
If you’re looking to take money into the World, things got more complicated.
The Devs wanted to keep the economy balanced. They knew that play-for-pay was a must-have in this day and age, but they didn’t want people stripmining the Game and converting their loot into dollars back in the World.
Their solution was charging mercenary players a per-minute fee. You paid for a certain number of minutes up front and th
at’s how long you could play. You paid a buck a minute for less than an hour, but if you were smart you’d just pay $50 for a full hour. Sure, it was only $10 an hour savings, but that could add up quick if you were spending all day in the game.
When your minutes ran out, the game dumped you back into the World. They didn’t give you a grace period to find your way to a safe spot to log out, just boom, booted out of the game.
Dragon World Online added a nastier wrinkle than most to disconnecting. If you left the Game in a safe place, your character would wink out of existence the second you pulled the plug. Easy peasy, no risk or worries as long as you were in a town, a camp site, or some other location the game deemed safe.
But, if you weren’t in a safe zone, your character hung around in the game world for a random period of time after you pulled the plug. Your character would stand, helpless, for anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours. During that time, it wouldn’t react or defend itself against attacks. Anyone or anything could wander by and stick a knife in your character’s guts—and then loot your body for everything you were carrying at the time of your untimely demise.
See the problem here? Jerks figured out pretty quickly that the easiest way to make money was to stalk other profiteers in the hopes they’d poof and you could grab all their hard-earned loots.
You think thieves don't have any honor? Gamers are worse.
Karl held my CIN in front of me. “Listen, we have to make some money here. I'm running out of savings and we need to start getting a return on what we’re spending. I've loaded four hours of Game time for each of us, and set timers on both of our CINs. We need to turn a profit today. As soon as you get into the game, go see the old man and convince him to let you be a healer.”
“Sure,” I said, though I was not at all sure I could do what Karl wanted. He didn't know what happened after he logged out the previous night; I hadn't mustered the courage to explain it to him.
It was bad enough that I was a thief, and not a healer like he wanted, but he was going to be really pissed when he found out I'd been spirited away by a bunch of shadows with bad attitudes. “Where should we meet if we get separated?”
Karl's suspicion flared. “Why would we be separated?”
“Well, I mean, you logged out before I did last night?” I chewed on my lip for a minute, trying to think up a quick excuse. “And then I wandered around for a little while, you know, just trying to get the lay of the land. And then, well, this is embarrassing.”
Karl didn't say anything to let me off the hook. His eyes burned holes in my forehead and I busied myself by staring at the knots in my shoelaces. I bought a few more seconds by untying my shoes and kicking them off. If we were going to be in-game for four hours I wanted to be as comfortable as possible on my aerogel. Wearing shoes while hooked into the Game was a good way to come back into the World with both of my feet asleep.
Karl had had enough of my stonewalling. “I don't care what you did. Fix whatever your problem is and meet me at the tavern. Don't accept any quests, don't get into any fights, don't do anything but come straight to the tavern. Do you understand?”
I raised both hands in surrender. “I get it all right? I get it. I'm too stupid to handle anything on my own, so you get to handle everything for me.”
Karl handed me the CIN. “Don't get all butt-hurt. You're the one who screwed up the plan, and I'm the one who has to fix it.”
I positioned the CIN’s primary node over the knobs of my spine at the base of my skull, and the memory plastic wrapped itself around my throat. It wasn't tight enough to choke me, but it was snug enough to make talking difficult.
Which was fine with me. I didn't want to continue that conversation with my brother. I tossed him a one-finger salute and flopped back on to the aerogel.
A bright red three floated into view to countdown the seconds until I was inserted into the Game. If Karl didn't want us to get out of sync, he had to get back to his own room right away.
He closed my door on the way out. It banged into its frame hard enough to let me know he was pissed, but not hard enough to wake our mother.
I was thankful he hadn't flipped his lid, yet.
But I was worried that was coming.
Because I had no idea what the other thieves had in store for me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Entering the Game was disorienting. A yellow 2 flashed across my vision, followed by a green 1, and everything went black.
I was jostled from side to side and my wrists and ankles ached. I couldn't see, but the blackness wasn’t perfect. The shades of black and gray swam into focus and revealed why I couldn’t see. There was a bag over my head.
For my character, no time had passed since I logged out. I was still in the hands of the shadows and they were hauling me off to whatever terrible and secret initiation they planned for newcomers to their ranks.
“You could have bought a guy dinner first,” I grumbled and someone smacked the back of my head so hard spots danced across my vision. Awesome, my new buddies weren’t the joking types.
There was no way to see where we were going, but it was obvious how I was getting there. My bound arms and legs were looped around a pole and unseen porters were carrying me. Bitter cold winds snapped at my body, and I kept expecting to see Game messages telling me I was dying of frostbite. My joints creaked in protest and I would've given anything to just be walking, but that wasn't my captors’ plan.
Something groaned and then slammed to the ground nearby. My head dipped and a moment later the wind was gone. We’d gone underground.
I was thankful for the relief from the winter wind, but being underground brought fears of its own. What if they dumped me down here and let rabid sewer rats feast on my bones? What if they stuck me in a hole in the wall and bricked it up like that guy in the Poe story?
My mind got the best of me. The longer this went on, the more horrible visions flooded my mind. They were going to bury me up to my neck in sewer sludge and leave me there. I’d hang from a meat hook while vampire bats drained me dry.
I wanted to ask what was going to happen to me, but I was too afraid of their answer. I was still alive, and I focused on that fact to keep from losing my mind.
We descended a series of spiral staircases for long minutes. Then I heard feet splashing through water before we ascended another set of staircases. We crossed a wooden floor that echoed with every step, and they dropped me into an uncomfortable chair.
Someone ripped the bag off my head and I found myself inside a dilapidated cathedral. I wasn’t sitting on a chair, I was in a stone pew.
Candles clung to the cathedral’s walls on wads of melted wax. A few candelabras dangled from the ceiling on rusted chains, candles dripping wax from their rims. The light cast more shadows than it illuminated the area, and eyes glittered like shards of broken glass in the pools of darkness.
My captors said nothing for long moments, before a man’s voice whispered from somewhere off to my right. “Why are you here?”
“I don't know, it wasn't like I got an engraved invitation or any—”
Something sharp bit into my cheek. The pain in my face was followed by a muffled clink as the small dart that had struck me fell onto the pew between my legs.
“Why are you here?” A feminine voice asked from behind me. At least the maniacs who’d kidnapped me were equal opportunity employers.
I hung my head and tried to think of an answer that wouldn't get me hurt.
I took too long. Something bit into the back of my neck and a warm trickle of blood ran down my spine.
I think the Devs went a little bit far with this part of the Game. Real panic swelled in my chest as I realized just how helpless I’d become.
Another voice broke the silence. “Why are you here?”
Maybe they figured I’d come up with an answer they liked if they kept asking the same question and hurting me when I was wrong. Being on the receiving end of that plan felt like a g
ood way to die. I had to give them something, anything.
”I want to be like you.” I said, appealing to their vanity.
“No one wants to be like us.” A man said. “Why are you here?”
At least when I spoke they didn’t cut me. That was a good start. “I want to be a thief.”
That was not the right answer. Something pale flashed in the darkness and my head rocked to the side. Stars danced across my vision and I tasted blood.
Yet another voice chimed in from further away, “Why are you here?”
My head lolled on my neck as I struggled to come up with an answer. “Because I failed as a healer.”
That didn't earn me a slap. Good. Progress.
“Why are you here?” Two voices that time, a man and a woman, coming from opposite sides of the empty cathedral.
“Because I'm too weak to be a warrior.”
Nothing happened for a few moments, and just when I was sure I was about to be hit again, three voices intoned from the darkness. “Why are you here?”
I thought about what choices that led me to this moment: hiding, attacking from the darkness, the raw terror of combat. “Because I'm afraid of what's out there.”
Four voices this time. “Why are you here?”
Fine, they want honest? I'll be honest. “I need the money.”
A flurry of pain exploded across my chest. Four separate stinging bites made my muscles scream. Pain washed over me in pulsating waves and invisible rats gnawed on my nerve endings.
“Because I'm a failure.” The pain intensified.
“Because I won’t follow orders.” The pain receded.
“Because I’m fast.” The agony faded from an inferno to a burning ember.
“Because I'm clever.” The pain lingered, but I was on the right track.
Only I’d run out of things to tell them. And every moment that passed without my speaking up, the burning intensified. It clawed at me until its fiery embrace engulfed everything. I couldn’t see. I couldn't hear. I couldn't even think. The pain stripped me down to my most primal essence and words poured through my screams without conscious thought from me.