Running Wilde

by Jenn Stark

  Trees… I frowned. Had there been trees there before?

  “Stop it!” Brody howled as the horse halted right beside him, shaking out its gorgeous mane.

  “Hey, who’s my new tailor?” Nikki exclaimed simultaneously, just as everything came together for me in a clash of awareness.

  “This is Simon’s Arcania game.” I strode a few steps up the small rise, and stared. I’d been right. We weren’t just on a rising hill, we were on the edge of the cliff. A cliff that looked remarkably familiar.

  “It’s the Tarot,” I said. “The world of the Tarot.” I stared around, trying to get my bearings. “That message board room was a second entrance into the game.”

  “Whoa there, girl. Whoa there,” Brody muttered as the horse nudged its head down toward him, its heavy bridle giving Brody something to grab on to. He hauled himself upright as Nikki came striding toward me, holding her skirts as high as she could for clearance.

  “A room where the Connected could enter into this new game? Arcania?” she asked, staring around us. “And Arcania is…some whacked-out Tarot incarnation, apparently.”

  “It is here, anyway,” I said, scanning the horizon as the sky changed from vivid blue to nearly black to yellow to orange and back to blue again, depending on where I focused and what was beneath it—sometimes open ground, sometimes buildings, and in the far distance…maybe water. “But way weirder.”

  “Weird is right.” Nikki pointed over to the far left of the vista. “If I’m not seeing things, that’s a castle over there. A castle that looks a hell of a lot like Prime Luxe.”

  I squinted in the direction she was pointing, and…she was right. Though I could have sworn I hadn’t seen it on my first scan, now the Magician’s castle was easily visible high on a steep bluff adjacent to ours, the sky above it no longer blue but a bright yellow, a gleaming infinity sign seeming to shimmer above it in the cloudless sky. As I stared, I could see other structures beyond it, all gathered on the same bluff, and I recognized them as the other Council residences: the white and black towers belonging to the Hierophant and Emperor, the lava-lamp spire of the Devil’s domain, the glittering foolscap of Simon’s home.

  “Simon’s replicated the world of the Tarot here,” I said again, my voice sounding strained and nervous to my own ears. “The colors, the stylized art. But why?”

  “And why has he got me all dolled up like the Empress?” Nikki demanded, sticking out her own arms to inspect herself. “Although I have to say, I do like his taste in fabrics.” She peered at me. “You’re rocking your old hoodie, though, and…” She reached over my shoulder, poking something hard enough to almost knock me over. “Well, that came through, anyway.”

  “What?” I demanded, turning my head to look. Then I saw it too, and I unshouldered my pack quickly, flipping open the top flap. Sure enough, nestled in the thick padding within were three scroll cases of gold, amber, and jade. “These came through, but our guns didn’t?”

  “Looks like.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Brody called out behind us, sounding a touch more alarmed. He’d have to hold on to his horse, though. I continued searching the bag, but found nothing else. I quickly reslung its heavy weight as Nikki patted down all her dress’s many folds.

  “That would be negative on weaponry,” she confirmed. “Hell, I don’t even have a nail file for protection.”

  “I know. And I’m sure that’s important too. It just seems like—”

  “Sara!” Brody shouted, his voice strident with urgency now. As one, Nikki and I turned around, only then seeing what it was he was yelling about.

  It wasn’t his horse.

  Behind us, the gray Tower had begun to shake—for all that it was completely silent. Fire now raged from its ramparts, and the sky above it had gone from a heavy gray to complete black. The building gave another heaving lurch, and then sound suddenly burst forth, crashing around us with an earsplitting convulsion. Lightning shot out of the sky, striking the sides of the Tower, and the building erupted from the top in a series of mini explosions. Instead of people leaping from its windows to their death, however, something else flew out of the Tower. Wands, eight of them, long and slender and bearing toward us with an almost palpable malevolence, racing down the side of the Tower and whistling with fury, as if to impale themselves on our fleeing forms. Eight of Wands meant speed, flurry, urgency, racing, and—

  “Run!” Brody bellowed, and suddenly he was up and on his horse, racing forward with all the pell-mell intensity of the Knight of Swords. He leaned down and with one arm reached for Nikki, while I stood staring a moment longer at the wands. The Eight of Wands wasn’t a negative draw, dammit! I read cards for a living. I would have picked up on that.

  “Just go with it!”

  I blinked, and suddenly in front of the rods there was another figure pounding toward me, a boy with shaggy blond hair and a long-limbed gait, his walking stick and knapsack bouncing on his shoulder as a small white dog bounded along at his side.

  I gaped at him, my brain totally locking up at the wands, the Tower, the explosions in the sky, and now straight-up Fool emerging out of nowhere. Said Fool reached for my arm much in the same way Brody had gathered up Nikki, then kept racing toward the precipice as his voice lifted in a panicked wail.

  “Jump, jump, you have to—!”

  We went over the cliff.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  This landing was better than I expected, but no less weird.

  We fell into a forest clearing and hit the ground without even breaking stride, Nikki and Brody surging ahead of us deep into a thick knot of trees. Nikki was perched behind Brody on his warhorse, her arms wrapped tight around him. Up, up, up we went, the path becoming steadily steeper but none of us losing pace. Instead, we were jumping over boulders and fording random streams and plunging through branches, the sound of huffing and puffing weirdly electronic in my ears. All of us were running in the slightly disjointed, awkward way of CGI avatars, and the forest remained remarkably quiet above our sounds of exertion, except for the far-off explosion of the Tower, over and over again. The wands had disappeared.

  Meanwhile, I kept staring at the Fool running ahead of me. Was this Simon, the real Simon, or Simon an avatar, or something entirely different and not Simon at all—and how would I even know it, no matter who he was?

  “Hey!” I finally yelled, and the Fool whipped around, grinning wildly as he kept running, his face manic with a curious mix of exhaustion and excitement.

  “It’s me!” he crowed. Then he reached out and hauled me forward, when I would have stumbled. “Well, most of me. Okay part. I wrote the me, but I can sort of be the me too. I’m still sitting in front of my console, but I’m also here—and look! I’m still wearing clothes!”

  “But how can you—” My words were lost as Simon picked up speed again.

  After what seemed like way too long, the forest finally opened in front of us once more, and we stood before an enormous gate—the Magician’s fortress, I knew instantly, crafted in stone rather than the steel and glass I was used to seeing in Las Vegas. But now that we were right up on it, I could tell something was terribly wrong.

  Brody’s horse wheeled and whinnied, stamping its feet, and Nikki slid off the beast with far more grace than her heavy skirts should have allowed.

  “What’s this?” she asked, striding ahead of me. “Looks empty.”

  She was right. The gates hung open and the walls were covered with vines, all of it looking abandoned. We entered into the courtyard, and the interior trees were overgrown as well. There was a statue of the Magician at the center of the space, and I was pretty sure I could see other statues in the thick, crawling vines that draped the corners of the courtyard. I trotted up the steps to the front doors of the Magician’s keep, and tried the heavy handles.

  “Locked,” I said, my voice sounding overloud. The entire place was silent.

  Brody’s horse blew out a harsh breath and tossed its head. Brody dism
ounted, his sword once more in his hand. Meanwhile, the Fool paced the walls of the courtyard, muttering a little here, singing there. He dragged vines from a half-dozen other statues, and a few of them I recognized from the traditional Rider-Waite depiction of the Tarot Majors. The High Priestess. The Hermit. Even the pot-bellied, horned, crazy-eyed Devil. Kreios wouldn’t be pleased with the representation, I was sure.

  “All right, Simon. You’ve got our attention,” I said, turning back to the Fool. “What have you done here? What’s this place all about?”

  “This place? This place?” the Fool cried, throwing down his walking stick and turning toward us, his eyes eerily bright as he flung his arms wide. He was…Simon, but only sort of, I decided, no matter what he thought he was. Like something programmed by Simon, then left to run wild. “This place is the world of the Tarot. A masterpiece and a trap!”

  “Okee-dokey,” Nikki muttered, and she carefully shifted toward me, though neither of us had our guns. Would my abilities work in the game? I had no idea. I shook my arms out, though, trying to stay loose, just in case. What damage could I cause inside a video game?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.

  “What you see here is the domain of the Great and Powerful Magician of the Arcana Council,” Simon continued, and my attention snapped back to him. “A place that was allowed to fall to rack and ruin, continually assaulted by the dark and dreadful Tower—the force of upheaval when all the Magician ever wanted in this world was balance.”

  The Fool gestured wildly, and, unable to help myself, I turned back. Through the open gates of the Magician’s castle, I could see the top of the Tower still bursting forth with fire and spitting lava. Which made no sense, because the Tower of the Major Arcana deck didn’t have lava, but Simon was clearly trying to make a point.

  “The Magician is the master of the elements,” I said carefully. “How is it you managed to freeze him in place here? Him and the others?”

  “He froze himself, long ago,” Simon insisted, then turned quickly. “And then there are the others, who are stuck in the trap of their own false beliefs!” He shouted the words, as if by sheer decibel level alone, he could rouse the statues from their rocky repose. “The Council is made of leaders and followers, followers and leaders. The Magician is a leader, and the rest must be followers by definition. But there are other leaders who do not follow the Magician. Who seek to destroy the Magician. Riddles upon puzzles upon lies!”

  “Crank it down a few notches, buddy,” Nikki said, taking another few careful steps forward to position herself between me and Simon’s avatar. But the Fool paid no attention.

  “All these things I know, all these things I can never share,” he said, turning slowly around, his arms flung wide. “Instead, I create the battle plans of the lost and leave them here, where only the truest souls may find them, but where darkness cannot rule.”

  “You mean the Connected?” I hazarded. Simon definitely seemed unhinged in this incarnation. Was that on purpose? Or just a factor of the game?

  “No.” And now the Fool turned to me, a look of genuine regret on his face. A face that wasn’t simply Simon’s, but something more. This being was the true Fool of the Major Arcana deck, young, idealistic, hopeful even in the face of certain ruin. But I could also read a clear, profound fear of that ruin in his face. “No, Sara. I didn’t create this place for others to find. I created it for one person, one person alone. That person was you. I knew if I could bring you here and explain what I had done, what the Emperor had done, all those years ago; and finally what the Magician had done back in the ancient mists of the past, then you would see what you must do, now.”

  “So this entire game became your mea culpa,” Nikki noted dryly.

  “In so many ways.” Simon gave an exaggerated bow, popping up again and spreading his arms while taking another slow turn, his gesture encompassing the entire space around him. “A three-dimensional, totally immersive, Technicolor confession and apology, all at once. A whole new spin on WYSIWYG.”

  “What You See Is What You Get,” Brody translated, sheathing his sword.

  “That was my plan, but that wasn’t how it turned out.” Simon spun back to me, bright with renewed energy. “I wanted somebody to see my creation, somebody to test it and declare it sound. Artists need their validation, and I…” He laid a hand on his thin chest theatrically. “I am no different. I showed it to my Spinning Top programmers, knowing they were Connected, curious to see if they could enter the world of Arcania beyond the tiny little test area I’d given them access to. They told me they could not, and I felt safe to continue. I’d code something for them, then for you…then them…then you. Eventually, I hid away all my stored knowledge in this place. For you to find before it was too late.”

  “But they could get in,” I prompted, when he seemed to fall into an impromptu reverie.

  He immediately stirred “They could!” he declared. “They did. And once they did, they invited others. Others who were like them, or who they suspected were like them. Nobody but a Connected could walk through Arcania’s doors and see beyond the barest whisper of what lay within. There were Connecteds who tried, however. Tried and failed. Many of them. Before long, an entire underground community of souls scrabbled at the door, lacking only the opportunity to communicate with each other, to learn how they might see.

  “So you gave it to them,” I interjected. “The arcane web.”

  “Oh! That existed long before the game, long before.” The Fool shook his head, his eyes rolling around, skittering with excitement. “But they used the AW to find each other, they did! Found each other, then encouraged or challenged their friends to try to enter as well.”

  “And those who didn’t want to be left out, used technoceuticals to give them the necessary boost.” I was suddenly smote with the vision of Henry catatonic on the couch in his father’s club, his mind trapped in this game by drugs intended to enhance his Connected abilities.

  The Fool hung his head. “They didn’t need the drugs, though. It should’ve been so obvious, it was in their very name. Connected! They only needed to connect with others like themselves, and their shared power could act as a key to unlock the door.”

  “So they entered, they found this place. And, um, it’s…nice here,” I managed with a hint of compassion as the Fool fell silent. “Weird, but nice. That shouldn’t have been so bad.”

  Simon sighed, his expression immediately transforming to one of genuine remorse. “It wasn’t, not at first. They came to this place, but they did not stay in this land of the Tarot. They didn’t grasp its meaning.”

  “Finite attention spans,” Nikki observed, and Simon nodded again.

  “Beyond this place, however, lies a model of earth. Cities, countries. Battlegrounds. That was so you, Sara, can see what might be coming.” He waved as if to someplace in the distance. “So you could plan, prepare.”

  I looked again at the statue of the Magician, frozen in place, and my heart ached at the truth of that effigy. He’d frozen himself in a kind of stasis, rejecting the strongest, darkest part of his power. But now he had to reclaim that power, to become his full self. He feared what it would make him, but…I didn’t.

  Not anymore.

  “When the Connecteds left here, they went in search of other places, other cities, other battlegrounds.” Simon’s gaze was far away now, seeing an entire planet I hadn’t even stumbled upon yet in this game…one I didn’t want to stumble upon either. “And in those cities and battlegrounds, they came across Sara Wilde.”

  I winced. “Right. Explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to put me in this game when I’m a real person in the real world. And explain to me why you thought not telling me was an even better idea.”

  “It all happened so fast!” he protested. “No sooner had I put you in the game—minding your business in a certain French château, working on your abilities, maybe showing off the tiniest bit how much of a badass you were, but only the tiniest
…then rumors began to circulate on the boards, that people had seen this Sara Wilde in real life, that people had heard about her. That she was trying to keep kids from getting hurt, kidnapped, trafficked.” He sighed and clasped his hands to his heart, as if overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. “How could I have known that some of the very kids you rescued turned out to be gamers?”

  “A French château,” I groaned. I knew the one he referred to. There had been children there—a lot of them. And more spread throughout all of France. “Did you really need to do that?”

  “It was one of the few places I went with you,” the Fool exclaimed in a passionate defense. “I did good work there. You needed me. And I thought that would be the perfect place for you to enter the game—a place you would find.” He waved around the brilliantly colored, stylized space we inhabited. “Not this—this is the backstory, the mythology. But I couldn’t figure out how to get you in front of a terminal that would allow you to enter the front end of the game. I couldn’t! And I had to be careful, so careful.”

  Now at least we were getting somewhere.

  “Because Viktor was watching you, wasn’t he?” I asked. “You owed Viktor for something, and Viktor was making you pay up. How?”

  I knew the answer, but I needed to know the specifics. The Fool hung his head.

  “Everything you did, every place you went, every piece of information I gathered for the Magician, I also passed along to the Emperor,” he said miserably. “The Emperor knew of the research Interpol was conducting. He knew of the friction between you and some of the members of the Connected community, like Gamon, of course, but others too. And he began to build his alliances. To the weak, he gave strength; to the poor, he gave money. To the information-hungry, he gave data, and to the addicted, he gave whatever they craved. Through intermediaries, he could see everything in the world, and through intermediaries, he learned of the duplicity of Rangi and the specific weaknesses of the veil that allowed Zeus to come through. He exploited that weakness. Now…he cannot be stopped.”