The Riddle (Alternate Dimensions Book 2)

by Blake B. Rivers

  Granted, during puberty I did have a reoccurring nightmare that I was a spy whose teeth would fall out at the most inopportune times and cause me to fail missions. So there was that.

  Back when I was a kid, I visited her every day. She lived in a very cool world that had a literal butt-ton of water everywhere, and flying cars, and it was super high-tech. Basically, anything that I might have seen in a sci-fi movie got shoved into her existence. She was one of the reasons I was put in therapy by court order after the school counselor and then a social worker raised concerns about my mental health. Which was completely ridiculous, by the way. Kids are strange folk with wild imaginations. I lived a not-exactly cookie-cutter life, and I needed an escape from it all. So, I had an alien friend from the future to help me cope; that didn’t mean I was insane. Or, uh, ‘childhood psychosis bordering on early manifested schizophrenia,’ as the official term was.

  I can’t really remember what happened, but all I knew was that, suddenly, my visits to her stopped. One day, I could swing by her world whenever, and then…nothing. A lot of my memories from that time were just faint echoes and swirls of color, however. Severe head trauma tended to do that.

  However, I really didn’t have time to get lost in nostalgia. I shoved myself out of bed and headed to the communal bathroom to try to force energy into my body via a hot shower. As long as I didn’t procrastinate, I would have enough time to eat a slice of breakfast pizza I had in the fridge and a banana before I headed to my public speaking class. For once, I had finished my homework, so I wouldn’t be frantically filling out some questionnaire in the hall, and hopefully today would go easily.

  But, as I went through the motions of getting ready, I couldn’t help but feel a faint sort of melancholy lapping at the edge of my mind. Thinking about ye ol’ days was not putting me into the best of moods. Perhaps, after work, I would stop by the game store and see if I could treat myself. According to my math, I still had twenty-three dollars in my fun budget.

  Grabbing my messenger bag, I nodded to myself.

  Maybe a little escape was exactly what I needed right now.

  Chapter Two: Cross Platform Nostalgia

  I whistled happily to myself as I crossed the parking lot to my favorite video game store. Normally, I just purchased my stuff online, but there was something particularly therapeutic about browsing physical shelves, picking up cases, and flipping them over to see their backs.

  Plus, the employees knew me at this one, and I didn’t have to listen to any of the stereotypical comments about girls into video games, or other girls complain about comments about girls into video games. Not that the other girls were wrong to be upset, but sometimes, I just wasn’t up for a debate on equality, when I just wanted to blow stuff up.

  The bell chimed as I walked in, and I debated between hitting up the console or computer sections first. There was no doubt that I could find better deals and more selection for my gaming desktop online, but I still couldn’t help but be drawn to that section first.

  I had finally been able to save up for the parts to build my rig just a few months prior, and my beautiful, little, technological child was still new and shiny to me. After lusting after graphic cards and custom cases for years, I didn’t know if I would ever get over the surreal-ness of finally owning my own legitimate gaming computer.

  The rows were in alphabetical order, which I always found to be the least helpful. In my opinion–because I had an opinion about everything–it should go by genre, and then be organized alphabetically within the genres, themselves. That way, if I came in wanting a shooter, I could just go to the shooter section. And if I wanted an RPG, I could skip puzzling through a thousand different games and just look only at RPGs.

  Despite my internal griping, my eyes flicked through the titles out of habit. Nothing was really catching my attention until I noticed a familiar font at the edge of my field of vision.

  “Oh, my god, you have gotta be kidding me.” I held my breath and reached out, unable to believe it as I pulled a case off that had the same title of the sci-fi series I had just read the night before. Rushing to the desk, I waved over one of the workers.

  “Hey, I haven’t read anything about this. Is this a new release?”

  He glanced at it, then shrugged slightly. “I think so? It’s not a super huge seller as far I as I know. Kind of a niche based on a series of books. We only got it as part of a bundle deal with a distributor.”

  I’m not going to lie, I had not been expecting much of an answer beyond ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ “Huh, you know all that?”

  “I eavesdrop on our shop manager’s calls a lot. She’s got three kids at home and does impressions for them when they call her on her breaks. It’s cute.”

  “Really? Stacy? She looks like she’s sixteen.”

  “Yeah, she gets that a lot.”

  We continued our friendly talk, as was polite, but my mind was fully on the game. Normally, book-to-screen adaptions were terrible, and book-to-video game even more so, but I couldn’t help but have hope. It kinda seemed like a sign from the universe. New book dropping one day, finding the game the next. I knew it was just good marketing, but still. It felt special.

  It was hard not to speed as I drove home, and I was vibrating as the game downloaded all the necessary drivers and went about instillation. I tried to distract myself by making a salad with giant chunks of avocado–an expensive treat, but one of my favorites–but I was still bouncing around as I prepped it.

  Finally, I heard the alert from my computer, and I shot to it, bowls still in hand. Donning my headphones, I jumped mind-first into the universe the developers had created.

  It was everything I wanted and more. Chills went up my arms as I built my custom playable character, and I was just beginning to realize how much this series meant to me. After all, I had been reading it since my freshman year of high school. It had followed me through graduating early, finding a job, learning to drive, going to college. For all the struggles I had been through, I had been able to read and immerse myself in incredible stories that made my life seem not quite so bad. It was fairly magical.

  I chose to make myself human, but there were seven races to choose from in total.

  The mooreerie were a four-armed species known for their strength and utter adorableness. Their eyes were large, and they definitely all had baby-face syndrome. Most of them had large horns and three fingers. The interesting thing about these cutesy bodybuilders was that they had four different sexes, and only one–the lodee–was able to carry children. It was a fascinating power dynamic that one of the standalones had explored, and I had loved it.

  Then there were the krelach, which were essentially giant desert rat people. They were usually the shortest of the species behind the four-foot mooreerie and nesr-roona, and covered in thick layers of fur with four eyes and very sharp teeth and claws. Unlike the mooreerie, they only had one sex. It was never really explained how they reproduce or what their sex rituals were like, but I didn’t feel like the story was lacking for that.

  Then there were the kodadt, who were basically on the complete other side of the spectrum. They were massive–bordering on giant–feline-like people. Big ears. Big tails. The works. Thankfully, though, they were peaceful, otherwise they were powerful enough to take out whole stations on their own.

  The nesr-roona were the most alien out of the bunch of them and, according to the myths, the oldest existing species in the Alliance of Six. Although they were small, they were an incredibly hardy people, with armor plating along parts of their body. Females often had more horns, and this was apparently an evolutionary trait for defending their young. Which, by the way, were carried in pouches like a kangaroo.

  After that was the sierr and half-kin. The sierr were an amphibian race with three different sexes and a complex dynamic within those three. But, of all the races, they were the only ones that could interbreed with humans, which lead to the creation of the half-kin. There were about four different bo
oks in the series set in different eras that really focused on these mixed-species creatures’ struggle to get the same rights as everyone else in the Alliance of Six, and I remembered all of them being enthralling but heartbreaking.

  I figured I could try out one of these on my second play through. According to the game cover, there was branching dialogue and multiple endings, so I was definitely going to get my money’s worth on the replay value.

  It took me a solid hour to get my character how I wanted her and put in her name. I won’t admit how long I fiddled with the facial sliders until I was finally satisfied, but the important thing was that it happened. I nodded with satisfaction to myself, then clicked to begin my story.

  The opening was dramatic, of course, featuring a Council raid on a black-market junker. I was sucked into the plot almost immediately, and the immersive score and fairly decent graphics certainly helped. Time ticked by as I shot, hid, and talked my way through the tutorials, which cleverly presented choices that shaped what my origin story would be. I loved stuff like that.

  It wasn’t until I realized that I had to go, and badly, did I realize how much time had passed. It was dark outside, and I had morning classes tomorrow, followed by an eight-hour shift at work. I really needed to get some sleep.

  But sleep isn’t what I got. At least, not right away. I rushed to the bathroom, and grabbed myself a drink on the way back, then sat myself right back in front of the computer. Hitting the pause button once more, I let myself fall right back into the action.

  Man, I had wanted an escape and, well, now I had one. And a damn good one at that.

  “Andi…Andi!”

  I blinked, unsure of where I was for a moment. It took a couple of seconds to realize that I was in my room, still sitting at my computer desk.

  “Andi, hello!”

  I followed the sound of the voice to realize it was coming from my computer screen that was glowing a blinding white.

  “Um…hello,” I said slowly.

  “I’ve missed you! Have you been busy?”

  “I…uh…you’re a computer. This isn’t real.”

  The voice chuckled, and it was a light, childish sound. “You’re being silly, Andi. It’s me! Don’t you see me?” As if in response, the blinding light projected itself onto my desk, solidifying in form until I saw a holographic version of Gee-Gee. “There, is that better?”

  “Much,” I said, but my confusion was still first and foremost in my mind. “A bit concerned that I’m suddenly manifesting visual hallucinations after years of clarity, though.”

  She laughed again. “I remember how mad my parents used to get when I mentioned you. It was great.”

  “Yeah, a real riot.”

  “What happened to you, by the way? You left so suddenly. I didn’t really have a chance to say goodbye.”

  Guilt pricked at my stomach, and I shrugged. “I don’t really remember. Sorry, Gee.” Then I realized that I was talking to a holographic projection–a technology that didn’t exist–to an alien girl, who also didn’t exist. “So, uh, any reason you’re visiting me through my computer?”

  “She needs to warn you of something, but you’re getting distracted.” The light of my screen warped again, shining down next to my mouse until the author appeared in tiny, holographic form.

  Now that…that was weird.

  “All right, I think we crossed the line into really not making sense here.”

  “It doesn’t matter if we make sense, we’re just projections of your damaged psyche trying to force you to hear the warnings you shut out.”

  My eyebrows shot up at her matter-of-fact tone. “Who are you calling damaged?”

  “Not you, your psyche. Your…otherness. That thing that you feel at the back of your mind but shut out because everyone told you that what you know is impossible.

  “And, also, that you had your head bashed in, too. That didn’t help.”

  “Geeze, you make it sound so dramatic.”

  “You were hospitalized for a month and had to relearn how to walk.”

  “Semantics.”

  “Now you’re the one distracting us. Listen, Verdandi. You need to be prepared. Everything that you’ve been suppressing for all these years is about to drop kick you into a new century. You need to be prepared.”

  Just what I needed. More responsibility.

  “And if I’m not?”

  “Then you die. We all die.”

  *

  My mouth tasted terrible.

  I sat up slowly, rubbing my eyes, confused as to why it felt like I had chowed down on some old cotton balls. After blinking a bit, I realized that I had fallen asleep at my desk while playing the game. That was very unlike me. I was definitely a bed and comfy blanket girl through and through.

  I stretched and was almost immediately hit with a wave of blinding pain. I cradled my head–which seemed to be the source of the discomfort–in my hands and stumbled to the bathroom.

  Practically blind from the throbbing, I routed through our shared medicine cabinet and somehow managed to find some migraine pills.

  I choked them down without any water and stood there for several long minutes, gripping the sink like a life preserver. And it basically was; I wasn’t even sure if I could stand upright without it.

  “Yo, you okay?”

  I looked blearily to the doorway to see one of my roommates standing there, a concerned look on his face. “Fine. Just a headache.”

  “Oh, gross. Do you need me to grab you a glass of water or something?”

  “No. I took some meds. It’ll be fine.”

  “All right. You can always knock on my door if you need anything.”

  I tried to squint a smile at him, but I just wished he would go away. The throbbing in my brain was growing more and more insistent. “Thanks, bud.”

  He turned to go away, but seemed to remember something and turned back. “Oh! By the way, some guy keeps stopping by for you? Big guy, says he has your Christmas present. He your uncle or something?”

  My eyes widened, and I stood ramrod straight. “You didn’t tell him I lived here, did you?”

  “What, d’you think I’m stupid? A strange man shows up asking for a female college roommate? Like hell I’mma tell him who lives here. That’s why I wanted to ask.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  “Should I call the cops if he comes around again?”

  “No. Just tell him you’ve never heard of me.”

  “Righto. Get some rest now.”

  He went off to his room, but I kept standing there for several moments until I felt like I wouldn’t upchuck on my first movement. The pain was pulsating now, almost as if it was physically tugging me in a direction.

  I might as well follow it.

  I staggered down the hall and through my door, shutting it behind me. The darkness of my room was a pleasant relief for a moment, until my computer screen suddenly flashed to life, way too brightly to be comfortable.

  I shielded my eyes, groaning at the luminary assault. I felt my way toward my computer, then practically collapsed into my gaming chair as I blindly poked around for the monitor’s power button.

  But the moment my fingers touched the screen, I felt something surge through me. Suddenly, everything was vibrating loosely around me, reality warping and bending in on me like paint colors swirled across a palette. I had never wanted to vomit so badly in my life, but I wasn’t even sure I had a stomach anymore. Or a body. Was I even real?

  The very cells of my being seemed to be scattered across an impossible amount of space, each one being pulled somewhere they shouldn’t be at a speed that shouldn’t have been survivable.

  But then, like a snapping rubber band, I came back together with a pop.

  I couldn’t breathe for a second, but then my body adjusted, and I gulped in a breath as I realized that I was very much not in my room anymore.

  I was in what looked like…some kind of laboratory? But it was far more high-tech than
anything I had ever seen. Even more than the cheesy sci-fi films I used to watch. Everything was shiny, holographic…and futuristic.

  “Andi!” Something called my name, and my head snapped in the direction of the sound. My mind almost shut down then and there, when I saw what basically looked like a seirr from the game. A seirr that looked practically like an identical copy of the author.

  I opened my mouth, even though I had no idea what I was going to say, but before I could utter a single word, she was tackled by someone much larger than either of us.

  I moved automatically, feeling strangely protective of the small-framed alien, as if she was someone that I wanted to protect. I got maybe a step or two toward her, when I was physically thrown into a far wall.

  Fire licked at my cheek, and acrid smoke scoured my lungs. Head spinning yet again, I blinked rapidly to try to figure out what was going on.

  Explosion. Something had just gone boom. With me right next to it.

  I’m sure that’s not what they meant with the term ‘warm welcome.’