by Julie Hyzy
Maya and Sabra had stopped moving again. Gripping her tools in one hand perched at her hip, Maya ran the other through her dark hair. “Maybe if you gave us the whole story, Pat? Why did everything change all of a sudden?”
Half turned, with Aaron’s pressure on his shoulder and back, Patrick grimaced. “Get your goddamn hands off me.”
Aaron glanced sideways at Sabra, who nodded.
Released, Patrick turned around, blowing out a breath of frustration. They didn’t have time to waste, but if they didn’t trust him, he needed to fix that before they moved forward. Otherwise—
“The security guard isn’t going to sit on his butt for too much longer. I’m supposed to be checking the backup generator. He’s going to want to get the power going again, and he might even decide to come down here and have a look for himself. Especially since he knows I’m down here, alone, and I’ve got his gun.” He turned to Edgar. “You want to hold the gun? You tell me right now. I’ll give it to you until it’s time for me to head back to Ben.” Patrick kept his hands up. “You want that? You tell me. It’s yours.”
“Just tell us what we want to know, Pat,” Edgar said.
Patrick waited a beat. They all stared at him, their faces a mixture of suspicion and hope. They wanted to believe him. He needed them to know he was on their side.
“At the Virtu-Tech meeting this afternoon,” he said, “Celia Newell came this close”—he held up his index finger and thumb a millimeter apart—“to giving the order to go. Today.”
Sabra’s mouth opened. “But I thought we had at least another month.”
“Yeah,” Patrick said. “So did I. But the other five territories are ready. They want to kick the initiative into gear now and let everyone else catch up as future upgrades are distributed. I lied. I told them that we didn’t have any Sixes here.”
Aaron’s stance had relaxed, slightly. “They bought that?”
“They had to. Werner argued, but he couldn’t prove me wrong. I blamed it on that new assistant he hired. And my brother is due back here tonight. We have to move, otherwise all our strategy is going to be dead in the water.”
The fivesome stood, the quiet settling among them like an uneasy truce.
A flash of lightning obliterated their vision with a green flash, punctuated by the roll of accompanying thunder. “Come on,” Aaron said, “Let’s get back to work.”
When they were done, Patrick pulled Aaron over. “Good job with the power,” he said. “I mean that. You’re going to restore it as soon as we’re clear?”
Aaron nodded.
“Where were you anyway, when I called?” Patrick asked. “They told me you were scouting new territory.”
Aaron smiled for the first time all day. In the green glow of the night goggles, it was a welcome sight. “I took a look around Virtu-Tech’s headquarters,” he said. “Doing a quick perusal of their security system, just in case.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
It didn’t take Kenna long to set up this time. Without anyone running tech, she got in faster, though a whole lot less securely.
The potential consequences of her actions were on her mind even as she watched the Virtu-Tech logo appear at the program’s startup. Stewart could fire her. He could arrange it so that she never worked in VR again. But she wasn’t about to wait until self-important Dr. Baxter gave the okay. Any day now, whoever created that werewolf program could delete it and then where would she be? She pushed her fears aside as the infinity-shaped symbol faded and her scenario began.
She had assembled all the components in place exactly as she had before. Additionally, she’d outfitted herself with an armed nine-millimeter Beretta. Going in unmonitored and untethered was bad enough. This time she wasn’t taking chances.
Once the scene crystallized before her, with the warm sun on her arms and the plants’ hot chlorophyll heavy in the air, she hurried to the rope bridge and issued a directive, ordering the werewolf to appear.
Nothing.
Kenna blew out a breath and tried again. She specified everything exactly as she’d done before.
Still nothing.
He had to be here. There was no way he couldn’t be.
Kenna studied the scene. She held control of the global database. She was able to access all files, all scenarios. The werewolf had to be where she’d left him. The only way he could be missing was if someone had moved his file.
And then it hit her.
Jason. Damn that meddling son-of-a-bitch.
Like a waterfall, the realization of what he must have done cascaded over her, making her furious, yet hopeful at the same time. Vanessa had casually mentioned that she’d told Jason about Kenna’s quest. And she’d done that right before he spent time in a capsule, purportedly to work out before their exercises. He could have moved the file by saving it in a new location. Could it be that simple?
If he had moved the file, it still had to be here somewhere. She just needed to locate it. But to do that, she needed time.
So much for getting in touch with Patrick Danaher tonight.
◊
As she wandered through a gray maze of file locations, Kenna blinked her weary eyes. The long day’s aggravation was getting the best of her. With millions of locations to choose from, the task could be impossible, but Kenna was determined to find this werewolf and she wasn’t about to give up now.
She’d been able to narrow her choices to files accessed that day. It cut out a lot but still left much to sift through. She’d searched through and been disappointed to find nothing in files that had “Jason” or “J” as part of their file name.
Kenna commanded the program to expand the thumbnail descriptions. Whereas a file on a computer might offer the first five lines of text, in VR, an expansion provided a small visual of a program’s opening scenes. Not much, but it was all she had to go on at the moment.
When she finally narrowed her choices to about a dozen, one in particular caught her eye.
Nighttime setting. Full moon.
A woman dressed in eighteenth-century clothing wearing a dark hooded cloak stood frozen midstride as she crossed a misty moor. Her head was turned to stare over her shoulder, her expression one of fear as her long blond tendrils curled out from the hood and twisted across her face.
Kenna’s neck tingled.
Oh yeah. This had to be it.
Jason hadn’t simply moved the file. He’d borrowed it.
With no way of calculating how much time had elapsed since she’d first logged in, Kenna knew that if she had any hope of success, she’d have to get in and out fast.
The program’s opening sequence beckoned with motionless drama. She considered copying it, but better information would be gleaned by inspecting its matrix in action. Assuming this was where the creature lurked, Kenna realized she’d have to go in and examine it here rather than move it back to the Hun jungle program. Plus, Jason would notice if the monster was missing. She had no intention of leaving any evidence that she’d been here tonight.
Have it your way.
Resigned, Kenna took a deep breath and started the program. A chilly wind immediately kicked up, bringing with it the wet scent of decay. The girl in front of her broke into a run.
Kenna took off after her.
“Wait,” she called. “Stop.”
The girl turned as she ran, her expression one of fearful shock when she caught sight of Kenna. The gap between them was widening rather than narrowing, as Kenna’s feet sank with each step into boggy ground. How was it that the blonde could scamper so lightly across this swamp?
It was cold here. Kenna fought off a bone-deep shiver as the damp breeze chilled her sweating body, ballooning her wet shirt for a brief moment before pressing it against her clammy skin. Her clothing had changed. She wore what for this time period would probably be underwear. Lightweight cotton c
amisole and to-the-knee cotton knickers. Button shoes with narrow heels. Again, she cursed Jason. “Cloak,” she said aloud, “wool, hood, black,” and one appeared on her bent arm. Damn. “I meant I wanted to wear it,” she complained to the program as she swung it around her back.
With the next squish of her shoes into the soft mud, Kenna swore aloud. She pulled up the hood and fastened the neck clasp while she called out another program change. The girl was half a football field ahead of her now, and Kenna knew without a doubt that the werewolf would be close behind. She couldn’t let the story’s victim get away.
“Parameter modification,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the mournful wail of the wind. “Adjust the ground. Pavement.”
The girl’s fleeing figure disappeared into fog as heavy breathing sounded nearby.
Kenna pulled her feet out from the sucking mud and kept moving, repeating her parameter change, wondering why the scenario hadn’t complied with her demand.
Exasperated, Kenna cursed herself. Jason must have locked out anachronistic changes to the scenario. It was a common practice among VR adventure seekers who didn’t want people messing with their setups. If Kenna had thought of that, she could have copied the program before entering and provided herself with permissions to make any and all changes she saw fit. But now, she was stuck working within whatever limitations Jason had dreamed up here. Could the little twerp have made this more difficult?
An immense shadow lurked within a tangle of trees about a hundred feet behind her. As another low wind moaned, Kenna watched the forest that framed this wide meadow. The werewolf was in there, all right. And a fat lot of good it would do her to face the beast with her feet stuck in muck.
Her hand groped her side for reassurance that her pistol was still there. When her fingertips touched the firearm’s metal however, she knew something was wrong. Pulling it out, she realized that it had automatically changed to fit the time-frame parameters. She stared at the ancient, muzzle-loaded pistol. On the order of a flintlock. Just what era was this supposed to be anyway? She’d have only one shot before ordering a reload and waiting for the program to comply. Have to make it count.
The trees behind her rustled, and even at this distance, she could hear the deep growling sounds of the monster in the woods.
Kenna tugged her right foot up. It made a sucking sound as it emerged from the spongy mud, and her left foot sank in farther. Ankle-deep now, she was trapped in this damn mire. Another low growl echoed, louder this time.
She fingered her cloak and considered options that would be consistent within the time frame of this story. “Okay, fine,” she said aloud. “Change the ground to cobblestone.”
The land beneath her feet solidified, lifting her up. Though uneven, it provided welcome traction.
In that instant, the purple sky exploded as a flood of bats burst from the trees. Their silhouettes swarmed against the backdrop of the full moon, heralding the werewolf’s lunge.
Howling, teeth bared, the creature raced toward her, its four legs pounding the ground with a racehorse’s gallop while the bats whup-whupped, encircling her in a tornado of leathery wings. Instinctively, she covered her head, ducking to avoid their onslaught. Though not a single one touched her, the air current from their mass exodus forced Kenna’s eyes shut as she rolled to the ground, hearing and feeling the earth pound beneath the werewolf’s feet.
It stopped short, barely six feet before her, its nose tilted upward, flaring, sniffing. Blasts of warm air shot out with each exhalation, curling up and away in the cold night. When it continued to search and sniff, she realized the creature’s eyesight was poor.
She crawled backward with ginger movements, placing hands and knees on the uneven bricks of the cobblestone to silently extend the space between herself and the man-wolf.
And yet…
She studied it from her low position. Though the moonlight cast gray shadows dulling the beast into monochrome, she could tell it was the same bright yellow fur, the same pale color eyes.
Yet they were different. When the beast had gone after the warriors in the original scenario, it had turned and looked at her. And when it did, its expression held cunning, intelligence, and what she’d sworn at the time was sentience.
But not now. Now the monster looked merely wild and hungry, oblivious to its surroundings.
Kenna backed farther away, breathing through her mouth to minimize the sound. She was confused—wondering if somehow her memory had endowed the creature with a sentience it hadn’t ever possessed. Could Dr. Baxter be right about Kenna seeing things that weren’t there?
Crouched, ready to boost herself to run, Kenna engaged the recording mechanism to tag the monster’s vitals. Once she had the information uploaded, she could find out where its program had originated.
Okay, big boy. Smile for the camera.
As though it had heard her thoughts, the werewolf’s massive head turned. Its long jutting jaw opened. Saliva strung out from both sides, landing on the uneven ground with soft plops.
Nostrils widening, it sniffed at the air.
Kenna willed herself not to move. The enormous flaring nose, still shooting out warm air like a locomotive, inched closer—so close that she could feel the blasts against her bare arms, smell the fetid expulsions. A chill breeze swept along her arms, rippling goose bumps to a state of high alert. Involuntarily, she shivered.
The triangular ears perked up and the creature hunched back, drawing up its shoulders, lifting itself high, its growl directed at prey it obviously couldn’t quite see. The monster’s lips spread thin, baring pointed teeth. Its eyes were wild, pitching back and forth in a mad attempt to locate her.
Kenna reminded herself that none of this was real. She merely needed to collect every byte of information before letting this nasty fellow go.
Once she had that, she didn’t need to ever meet this monster in person again. Schematic designs in VR were like DNA in people. It might take her a while, but she’d find a match and when she did, she’d track it to find out who designed this beast—and whoever had killed Charlie.
A scream, high-pitched and too close, jarred the quiet night so unexpectedly that Kenna couldn’t process it until the blond girl was almost on top of her. Emerging as a blur from Kenna’s far right, the girl shoved Kenna to the ground. In her rush, she tumbled on top of Kenna, all the while shouting in an unintelligible language. Kenna’s left shoulder took the brunt of the fall. The blonde scrambled to cover Kenna, as though to protect her, her hood falling back to expose her waist-length hair. What the hell kind of fantasy had Jason come up with?
Kenna struggled to push herself up, her ruminations on Jason’s fetishes cut short when the werewolf pounced, landing atop the two girls, knocking Kenna’s shoulder into the stone ground a second time. Sharp knives of pain seared across her back. Still pressed against the rutted cobbles, Kenna cried out in frustration, wedging her hands between herself and the young woman, pushing her off.
The girl screamed as the creature’s jaw clamped around her hair, yanking her head back. With his huge front claws pressing the girl from behind, her body arched backward in a grotesque U. The girl’s face stretched in a silent, horrific mask of torture and she made no sound beyond whimpering mewls that came from the back of her throat.
The girl’s hair still tight in its teeth, the werewolf shook her head like a puppy playing with a toy, and the moment the weight lifted enough for Kenna to edge herself out, the girl’s back gave way with a sickening crack.
Howling, the werewolf lifted its head skyward, dropping its prize, allowing the girl’s head to hit the ground: the sound of a club hitting a ripe watermelon. Kenna rolled away, revolted. Face down, she choked back sudden nausea, and repeated the envoy mantra. “‘Nothing is real,’” she mouthed silently. “‘Everything is perfectly safe.’”
Scrambling to get to her feet as the
werewolf continued its baleful howl at the moon, she hobbled as far away as she could get. Her eyes teared up from the sharp, unyielding throb in her head. Blood dripped from the side of her face to puddle on the ground.
She pulled the gun with her right hand, reaching around her side with her left to check her readings on the progress of this matrix’s upload. Her left arm pulsed, protesting movement as her skin pressed against the filmy fabric of her shirt. Her shoulder joint began to swell.
Only half the being’s program had recorded thus far. This was taking forever.
With the beast’s howls coming more slowly now, she limped away, blinking through the hot pain that shot up her back like fire against raw skin.
How could she feel so much? This was sensory overload, yet she’d set the parameters for normal. There should be no reason why she experienced this level of pain.
Unless…
Could she be facing mortal absorption?
She shook her head, refusing to believe that.
“Nothing is real. Everything is perfectly safe.”
Her heel skidded in the slippery blood beneath her feet. She fell to her knees, crying out again when the blow jarred her body.
Her left hand groped instinctively for her signal medallion, even as her fingers wrapped around her silver heart pendant. She had no one on the outside monitoring her vital signs. When she’d initiated this scheme tonight, she’d been so sure she’d simply walk in, capture the werewolf’s program, and get the hell back out.
Damn that Jason, she thought for the dozenth time. When I get out of here, I’m going to kick his ass.
If I get out of here.
The only way to get the information she needed was to follow the scenario to a resolution. Kenna had no doubt that killing the werewolf would resolve the storyline and grant her escape, but she needed him moving and alive to finish her upload. Only slightly past the halfway point now.