WinterJacked: Book One: Rude Awakening

by Athena Grayson

  “I wouldn’t know how.” Jack folded himself into the passenger side and buckled in. “And I’m sure there are rules for technology. The place still seems to run on feudalism.” He gestured to his head, above which the invisible crown that she could only see out of the corner of her eye floated.

  She remembered the steady four-bars icon on her phone. “Feudalism didn’t seem to stop the phone company.” Her lips twisted. “Then again, that’s kind of right up their alley, isn’t it?”

  “We got through the Oddways just fine the other night on foot, but I have no idea what they would do to a car. Let’s please not find out tonight.”

  ~*~

  There weren’t many times when Jack missed his old Jaguar, but having to drive out to the ‘burbs was one of those times. The Jag had been a status symbol, a superficial representation of all he thought he had at one time, and all he believed he wanted in his old life. Along with the career-partner wife and the upwardly-mobile condo and the power-couple social schedule.

  But power-coupling, upward mobility, and the five-year plan hadn’t erased the rest of his life from around the picture-perfect. Once he understood that, he not only let the car go, but cast it off with more than a little shame at his superficiality. Folded into a ten-year-old Honda, he glanced at the woman driving and wondered why he’d never placed her into the roles he’d mapped out in his old life.

  She caught him looking and glanced over. “Sorry it’s so cramped.”

  He shook his head. “Forget about it. I’m used to it.” When they’d entered the car, she’d flung a notebook and assorted items from the seat into the back, and adjusted the seat back as far as she could, but the box of supplies already occupying the backseat didn’t afford much room. The evidence of her life was all over the car. As imperfect as it was, she carried it around, made and kept it part of her. It couldn’t be sliced up and sealed away. By climbing into her car, he’d entered her life. And had the sudden urge to surround himself with it.

  Let it smother away his own.

  He kept his gaze fixed on her profile as they escaped downtown. Once they passed the exits for the inner neighborhoods, she started to worry at her bottom lip, peeling away layers of lip gloss along with the miles heading north. “What are we going to do about Shane?” She finally put voice to her concern.

  A pressure headache was beginning to nag at him, just behind the eyes, as he tried not to think of navigating the next few hours. The freeway street lights streaked across their laps as Jack pondered the answer to her question. “If he’s at Starla and Bailey’s, our problems are solved and we worried for nothing.” A holiday party was one thing, but an intimate gathering of what used to be best friends afforded no place to hide from the uncomfortable questions that didn’t need to be asked for their presence to be felt. And knowing Starla, they’d get asked.

  “All except for the problem where I smack him for making me worry.” Lin navigated the traffic around a busy interchange where a mall of big-box stores still flooded the atmosphere with lights proclaiming last-minute Christmas Eve sales while he took several deep, cleansing breaths through his nose to try to relieve the headache. “What if he’s not?”

  “I don—” The pressure swelled. The change was sudden enough for him to suspect it couldn’t be something natural. He bent his head and swallowed back sudden sour acid.

  “Jack?” Lin glanced over. “Are you all right?”

  Red and black spots danced in his vision. “I don’t—” His voice sounded muffled, congested, liquid, and he swallowed again.

  “The rest stop’s just ahead. Can you hang on?”

  His eardrums stretched taut, her voice came through tinny and distant. He nodded carefully. Even the small motion sent nausea through him. God, what was wrong with him? Was he having a heart attack? A stroke? Cocoa poisoning?

  The car rolled to a halt at the rest stop. Jack clawed at his seat belt, clawed at the door handle, until fresh air with the stench of diesel fumes from idling trucks hit him.

  He waited for gray-edged nausea to pass, half hanging out the passenger door, wondering if he was going to throw up before or after his head exploded. Lin’s boots appeared in his limited field of vision. He shook his head. “Watch—your boots.”

  “My boots will survive.” Warm, feminine fingers touched his forehead. “No fever…”

  Jack burped. Humiliation tasted like artificial marshmallow flavoring. He pushed against the car door frame until he rose on unsteady legs. The nausea receded a little, but the pressure in his head still made him want to gag.

  “Can you feel this?” Lin squeezed his arm and he nodded. “Okay, breathe for me, then.”

  He dragged air past his burnt throat and spat it back out again. He took a step away from the car. Beyond the narrow field that encompassed her toes and pavement, there was a green space with picnic tables, deserted at this time of night and year. He needed to make it there.

  “Whoa. Where do you think you’re going all by yourself.” She fit her shoulder into his armpit and held him around the waist. He was ashamed to lean on her.

  He felt like a zombie, with the effort it took to lift his arm and point to the darkened picnic area. “Gotcha,” she said. Together, they shuffled over the sidewalk and past a gap in the low wall onto the grass. Jack fell on the bench, clutching his chest.

  Lin appeared in front of him, from the gray field that was his peripheral vision. “Don’t you die on me, you hear me?” Her keys jangled and a bright light flared, showing her tense expression, the corners of her mouth white, before blinding him. “I’m calling the paramed—”

  She froze at the same time he felt the light thumps of something landing on the picnic table behind him. They echoed around the inside of his skull like earthquakes.

  “Majesty must not stop!”

  The light voice of his Advisor flowed in around the pressure in his head. The nausea churned when he turned his head, and he never thought the blue-skinned, fluff-haired creature would be a welcome sight, but she was. “Wha’s—” He tried to make his mouth form words around the bubbles churning up and the pressure holding him down.

  He twisted his head, seeking escape, and for an instant, the world flashed in day-glo colors. The bare trees glowed neon and the buildings disappeared into a misty blob while the grass under his feet turned purple and the evergreen bushes glowed fuschia. He lifted his chin and blinked.

  The Frostling winked into existence. “Majesty must not stop in the Oddways now!”

  Lin lifted her chin and glared at the little Oddling. “Your Majesty is having some sort of reaction!” She glanced down at him. “What are you allergic to?”

  Jack swung his heavy head back and forth. Nothing that he’d come in contact with, and certainly nothing with this violent of a reaction. Lin cupped his face and stared into his eyes. “Hang on, Jack.”

  I’m not going anywhere, he wanted to say, but acrid fear made him wonder if he could make that promise.

  The Frostling swatted Lin’s hand away and inserted herself between them, squatting on Jack’s chest, which didn’t help the indigestion. He burped again. Oh God…

  “Majesty needs to move!” The angry little Frostling punctuated her words with stomps of her feet that brought little heaves up his esophagus.

  Jack finally had enough and sat up, dislodging the Frostling, along with a particularly acidic gas bubble that ripped out of his throat and echoed through the parking lot. If he weren’t in actual fear of dying, he’d be asking to die after that. Or expecting a round of applause. He leaned forward, hoping at least if he did throw up that it would end the nausea.

  Lin, meanwhile, had grabbed the Oddling by her tunic front. The Frostling smacked Lin’s hands. “Unhand Frostling-tribe! Majesty must move!”

  “He’s sick! He’s having an attack of something and if we move him—”

  “Majesty must pass through the Boundary!”

  “Listen, you little—”

  Jack waved a feeble han
d. “Wha—boun—?” Hard to make the words come out around the drool pooling under his tongue.

  Lin tightened her grip on the Frostling. “Talk. Now.”

  The Frostling squirmed, glaring at Lin while Jack pushed himself back up. Boundaries meant trouble. He remembered this from the other night. Boundaries meant Oddlings, and the last thing he needed right now was for them to see him in this state.

  “Majesty is stuck between Realms! Majesty must pass from one Realm to another! Majesty. Must. Cross. The. Boundary!”

  Lin’s eyes darted back and forth from him to the Frostling. “Will that fix him? Ease whatever’s wrong with him?”

  “Can’t—be—Majesty—right now.” The burst of energy that pushed him to his feet drained away and the ground was looking like a really good place to be. And it was coming up to meet him like a friendly dog.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Lin’s body was there between him and the ground before he could land. Her fuzzy sweater scratched against the side of his face and her hip dug into his. His downward momentum shifted sidewards and he was back on the picnic table bench. He listed to port and fell all the way to the side.

  Lin’s fingers were at his neck, searching for a pulse. “Dammit, this can’t go on. I’m calling—”

  “Majesty must cross the Boundary!” The little Advisor’s voice had dropped to a growl. It might have been mistaken for the growl of a house tabby, save for the words. She stomped her feet on the picnic table, sending little shocks through Jack’s body. “Frostling tribe did Not. Make. A Bargain. For Majesty. To. Renege!”

  His cheek stuck to the bench, Jack stopped breathing as understanding penetrated the nausea.

  “Lin.” Please don’t let me start drooling now. With herculean effort, he pushed himself back upright. “This. Place.” He had to pause. “Is a. Boundary.”

  “Majesty’s brilliance outshines the sun!” The Advisor crowed. “Majesty must move through the Boundary. No Kin can live in two Realms!”

  “Okay, okay, we get it. No need to be a jerk about it.” Lin lifted his arm and tucked herself back under his shoulder. “How wide is this boundary?”

  “Majesty’s suffering eases as it recedes.”

  Lin staggered beneath his weight as they shuffled back to the car. “And Majesty can’t cross boundaries without a bargain, huh. Next time, make a better trade.”

  His feeble attempts to help her get him situated did more harm than good. She swatted his hands away. “I got this, Winters.”

  “I’m—sorry—” It was the best he could do.

  “Shh.” She pressed a finger against his lips and brushed leaves off his coat with the other hand. “Starla better deliver on that ham.”

  ~*~

  Starla couldn’t have been more excited if it were Christmas morning already. “You came!” She enveloped Lin in a hug. “Together!”

  Jack still looked a shade paler than healthy, but he no longer looked gray. He met her eyes with a reassuring nod.

  “Golly, I do believe in miracles! Jack Winters, twice in one week, let alone a year.” Bailey’s falsetto sounded silly coming from someone his size, but he used the handshake to pull Jack into a bro-hug. “Come in, come in! Ham’s ready, and there’s egg nog and champagne.”

  Once they got out of the doorway and into the living room, Bailey took their coats and Starla brought out wineglasses. Jack waved the wine away. “I’m driving this time.” Lin was glad he turned down the drink. After the earlier episode at the Boundary, she wasn’t sure the effects would remain otherworldly.

  Bailey picked up a remote and pressed a few keys. Christmas music swelled and the TV flickered on. Jack chuckled. “Ah, the Burning Log video loop. Is this the one we made for EvoWorld?”

  “The very same, my friend.” Bailey grinned. Sure enough, a few seconds later, a tiny chair floated down from the top of the screen, only to be incinerated in pixels and disappear in a puff of green smoke. The loop continued with more icons from the game floating down and combusting—gold coins, daggers, bows, gems, goblets, plants, tankards of power ale and strength potions. Lin smiled until the loop came to its end animation—the giant ice sword of the Northern Hordes fell down and stabbed the log in two, extinguishing the flames. The soundtrack overrode the Christmas music with a tense musical riff of doom, once used to herald the coming of an expansion of EvoWorld.

  The sword and the riff sparked an old, familiar clench in her midsection. Even though the expansion had been sort of his baby, Jack had left the company before the launch. To her, the sword had severed something in EvoWorld. The first of the founders to have moved on. The turning of the company from spunky start-up to entry into the big leagues. The beginning of the end.

  Bailey and Jack muttered between themselves, their voices growing heated and receding back to normal in waves. Bailey was showing off the high-tech remote to Jack when Starla sidled up to her. “Come help in the kitchen.”

  Jack took the remote from Bailey at one point and thumbed commands. The music swelled, traveled around the room from different speakers, and receded to normal listening levels. Both men looked up, guilty, at Starla’s shouted protest. “Take it downstairs if you’re going to play with your toys.”

  Lin couldn’t help the start of a grin as both men started towards the stairs without skipping a beat, talking all the way.

  “When you’re done down there, get the firewood onto the deck.” Starla hollered, and Bailey’s “yes, ma’am” floated back up the stairwell. She shook her head. “Overgrown boys, the both of them.” Her smile softened. “Still, it’s good to see them at it again. Bailey hasn’t had anyone to share his plans for the new media room with.”

  Lin jerked her head towards the stairway. “He’ll never say it, but I think he’s glad you issued the ultimatum to come up here.” She followed her friend into the kitchen and the wall of warm, delicious smells. “You went all out, didn’t you?”

  Starla made a face. “Half of it is for tomorrow with Bailey’s family. You know they could eat through a city if you let them.” She motioned towards the fridge. “I’ve wrapped some for you to take with you when you go, though I wish you’d join us. You know you’re always welcome. More welcome because you’re female. We need all the help we can get.” Starla complained every get-together how the McMorrissey men overwhelmed the women in number as well as size. Lin wasn’t fooled, though. Starla loved her husband’s boisterous family.

  Lin was not really a fan of boisterous families. They brought out her inner wallflower. “I’m good.”

  “You shouldn’t spend Christmas alone.” Starla pulled sweet potato casserole out of the top half of the double oven set into the wall. “Cut those rolls, will you? The munchkins will want sandwiches.”

  Lin dragged a breadknife through a yeasty cloverleaf, inhaling the sweet, carb-y scent. “I’m good, really.” Starla threw her a Look. “I’m actually…not spending Christmas alone.”

  Starla glanced towards the living room. “Indeed?”

  Lin felt her cheeks heat. “Yeah. It’s no big deal.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Starla’s tone showed how much she believed that one. “Soo…are you two an Item now?”

  She stared at the granite countertop, tracing a squiggly line between the golden flecks in the surface. “I’m not sure.”

  “Hon, you’ve been crushing on him for ages. Why the hell not?”

  Well, for starters, half our time has been spent outside of reality. “It’s…complicated. I’m not in a terrific place to start a new relationship, you know. I did just lose my job. Put that together with my crush suddenly attracted to me, and both of us being single enough to pursue it—I know I’m not thinking clearly right now. And that doesn’t even go into the other stuff.”

  “Other stuff?” Starla’s grin faded. “This sounds serious. Is Jack okay? I mean, we don’t all see each other every day like we used to, and truth is, Bailey misses him terribly. But we wanted to give him space after his mother passed and all the crap with Nancy
—I pushed, but Bailey said Jack’s just like that. He ices over when he’s wounded.” She bent down and rummaged in a cupboard, emerging with a taped-together box that looked like it had seen better days.

  You have no idea. “Honestly?” She sighed, and tossed the last of the sliced rolls into the basket and covered them with a towel. “I’m not sure if Jack’s okay. He’s fantastic in some ways.” And immensely stubborn in others. “He’s been dealing with some very heavy shit.”

  “Mmm-hm.” Starla opened the box and revealed an electric knife, straight out of the 1970’s.

  Lin raised her eyebrows. “That thing’s as old as we are.”

  Starla flashed her a grin. “And just as dangerous.” She snapped her fingers. “So what about your heavy shit? Here, crush this garlic.” Starla handed her a mortar and pestle.

  Lin macerated the innocent bulb and the scent rose heavy in the air around her. “I’m really aware that I’ve been crushing on him, and my objectivity is way the hell compromised as far as us being an Item.”

  Starla scooted around her and pulled the ham out of the lower oven. Lin paused in her garlic abuse to pluck the cardboard of the aged knife box out of the way so Starla could set the ham down. The cardboard felt fragile, as if it would flake apart with a stern look. The picture of a smiling housewife in a go-go dress had faded until its colors blended into smooth, dimensionless hues, as glossed-over as her thick pancake makeup and artificial smile.

  “Hon, you don’t need to rush it, and you certainly don’t need to answer to me about your life.” Starla’s expression turned sympathetic. “And nobody expects you to be objective about the man you’re seeing.” She touched her fingers to the back of Lin’s hand. “I’m kind of glad you two got together. Even if it all blows up, at least now you know.”

  Starla knew her too well. I have to find out, she’d said to Jack Friday night. “I know part of me wants to keep the daydream, and that’s not fair to me or to Jack.” She glanced down at the box. The Jack she’d claimed as a crush had the same smoothness as the cardboard housewife. And the same depth.