Angel Eyes

by Nicole Luiken

  So staggered. Blind-sided. And awed and confused and crazy-happy all at once. Because that hadn’t been a prop. And the stones had been amethysts, the violet colour of my eyes.

  So the question was: why was Mike carrying around an amethyst ring in his pocket?

  Chapter Fifteen

  ANGEL

  Ten, nine, eight… White on blue numbers flashed on the VR contacts that were required wear in the NextStep Immersion. The countdown had started at 1000 while we entered the Immersion and walked down a featureless hallway.

  …seven, six, five…

  My heartbeat accelerated. I didn’t know what to expect once the scenario started. I clenched my hands into fists, ready to duck and roll in case we emerged into the middle of combat.

  …four, three, two, one.

  Darkness. I blinked, straining to see. To my disorientation, I found myself lying in a bed covered by a scratchy sheet and rough blanket. A bed that rocked gently back and forth like a huge cradle. I was on board a ship. A steady hum vibrated through the floor and a faint glow came from the doorway.

  I sat up and promptly bumped my head on the low ceiling. I was in the top tier of a bunk bed.

  "Angel?" Maryanne's voice came below. Her real voice, no longer disguised, as she’d had to remove the choker. When I peered over the side, I saw that she still had blonde hair and cherub cheeks, but her hair now hung to her mid-back. I could feel mine floating around my shoulders, a disturbing sensation. The hair had to be VR, but it felt real to the touch, false messages sent to my nerves through the paper-thin VR gloves I wore.

  "I'm here," I told Maryanne. "Gee, I wonder what our disaster's going to be? A-sinking we will go, a-sinking we will go," I sang softly.

  Maryanne giggled. "Stop it! You're horrible."

  I ignored her impugning. "Out of the way, I'm coming down." I rolled onto my stomach and swung my legs down, then stepped onto Maryanne's bunk.

  My mind buzzed, ticking down lists. "Priority one, we need to find the others. Priority two, we need to figure out where we are.”

  I'd had a choice of several different starting options for our team: all together, in two groups, in groups of two, or everyone alone. Starting with everyone separated yielded the most bonus points, but I'd elected to be a little cautious and gone with groups of two. That way everyone had a partner. Gerry and Ron would be together. Jazzy had paired with Sahan—to his stunned delight. Mostly, I thought, because she hadn't wanted to pair with Tad. Tad had asked to go solo.

  “Um, Angel?” Maryanne’s voice stopped me just shy of the door. “I think you’re forgetting something.” She gestured to her nightgown. “Like clothes.”

  “Oops.” I plucked at the voluminous white nightgown I was wearing. "Talk about one size fits all."

  "Yeah," Maryanne agreed. "You could park an aircar under this thing."

  I snorted back laughter.

  "Shhh!" Maryanne pointed.

  For the first time I noticed two more bunk beds across the aisle with sheeted figures snoring away.

  Now that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I could also see trunks at the foot of each bed. Maryanne headed for the first one. "Don't bother," I told her. "I think we're in a period piece. The kinds of dresses you’ll find in there are not going to be good escape-from-a-sinking-ship clothes. They might even have little weights attached like corsets and hoops." I spoke freely—there were no penalties for violating the historical period—though the non-player characters would think us peculiar.

  "I think we're too poor for those kinds of fancy duds," Maryanne whispered back.

  I'd netted my team an extra two hundred bonus points by not making our characters top tier socially. Again, I'd hedged my bets a little and given Jazzy and Sahan middle-class status.

  "We need pants," I said. When the Disaster struck, I wanted to be able to run.

  "I don’t know,” Maryanne said doubtfully. “Did you notice the guys got bonus points for playing male characters? Women must have a survival advantage.”

  “Good point. It’s probably due to the old ‘women and children first’ rule. But I’d still rather dress as a man. We can always reveal ourselves to be girls later.”

  “Either way, we can't leave our cabin in our nightgowns," Maryanne said firmly. “We’ll draw too much censure like this.”

  “I bow to your superior expertise.” We began ransacking our trunk.

  "This one’s plain, but it has short sleeves.” I held up a simple sheath.

  Maryanne squinted at it, then snorted. "Um. I'm afraid that one's a chemise—underwear. Worse than going around in your nightgown."

  I picked a blouse and skirt mostly at random and pulled them on, jittery excitement dancing along my nerves. The Disaster could occur at any time.

  "What're you two doing?" The question came from a thirty-ish woman on one of the top bunks. She’d braced herself on one elbow, and her four-foot long braid hung down over her shoulder like Rapunzel's ladder.

  "We're going for, um, a walk," Maryanne said quickly.

  "At this time o' night?" the woman sounded incredulous and Irish. "What are you, streetwalkers? I'll report you to the porters if you are! I'll not room with women o’ loose virtue! Nell and I will tell the authorities, won't we, Nell? Eh, Nell?"

  Nell, in the bunk below, rolled over and started snoring.

  "We're not prostitutes," Maryanne protested, sounding horrified.

  I aimed a silent curse at the programmers. What an evil way to make it difficult for women contestants to leave their cabins at night! But there was no way I was going to be caught sleeping when the disaster struck. I needed to locate the rest of my team before then.

  Of course, if the programmers had scheduled the disaster to take place thirty hours from now, I would strongly regret the sleep Maryanne and I were about to pass up.

  Especially since I hadn’t slept much the night before thanks to Mike’s little performance with the ring. Just thinking about his, “I need to ask her a question,” made my stomach swoop, fear and elation mixing unpleasantly.

  "My cousin is seasick," I told the Irishwoman. "I'm hoping a brief turn on the deck in the fresh air will make her feel better so she doesn't—" What the heck was an old-fashioned term for vomiting? Upchucking? Tossing her cookies? "—uh, you know," I finished.

  The Irish woman snorted. "In these temperatures? Ye’ll freeze. Liar. Yer up to some mischief."

  "Maybe so," I said haughtily. "But you're rude!" I put my hand on Maryanne's back—her shoulders shook with stifled laughter. "Let's go, cousin."

  "I’ll be watching you! Don't you be bringing any men back here!" the woman yelled after us as a parting shot.

  "Old harridan," I muttered. Now there was a historical-sounding word. We’d escaped for now, but if we had to return she’d make trouble for us.

  Electric lamps illuminated the hall. They both narrowed down the time period and decreased the likelihood that the disaster would start with a fire. Fire, as I recalled, was a really bad thing aboard a ship, despite the ocean all around.

  Sahan’s and Jazzy’s research had included a long list of naval disasters. It had given me an appreciation for just how many things could sink a ship: fire, storms, collisions with other ships, boiler explosions, improperly closed ferry doors and, of course, all the war-time risks of mines and torpedoes from below, and bombs from above.

  "Now what?" Maryanne asked.

  “Now we hook up with the rest of the team. We can borrow pants from Gerry or Ron.”

  “If we roll them up to the knee, maybe,” Maryanne muttered.

  Looking left and right, all I could see was a long row of doors. "I told the others to gather someplace where food is served," I said. “We’re supposed to have basic knowledge of our surroundings. Access character memories. Locate cafeteria,” I said.

  Nothing.

  “Locate kitchen,” Maryanne said.

  “Locate galley.” Still nothing.

  “Eat breakfast,” I tried. That
did the trick. A series of pictures flashed across my VR contacts, showing intersections and which way to turn.

  “This way.” Maryanne and I walked past six lamps before reaching an intersection. One of the doors said Laundry, but when I peeked inside all I saw were huge sinks. No conveniently drying men’s clothes.

  The second hallway was even longer. We had it all to ourselves. Where were Tad, Gerry and Ron?

  I paused at the next intersection and called experimentally, "Angel here!"

  No reply.

  A set of stairs took us down a level to a door labeled “3rd class dining room”. The long tables inside were all empty, and no one seemed to be serving food.

  We waited. A clock on the wall proclaimed it to be 11:15. To pass the time, I tested the limits of the NextStep Immersion. What was real and what wasn’t? The chairs felt real, and I sat in three random ones without falling on the floor. I could also feel my muscles flex in a way that mere VR couldn’t simulate. On the other hand, the textures of the wood and my clothes didn’t feel quite right: they either weren’t the same substance or the paper-thin VR sensor gloves were actually impeding my sense of touch.

  As the minutes ticked by, I abandoned my investigation and began to pace.

  Inevitably, my thoughts turned back to Mike. Did I have it right? Did he intend to propose?

  I was dead certain the ring was meant for me, but maybe it was just a promise ring or a Forgive-me-for-being-a-butthead ring. Except Mike hadn’t done anything wrong that was jewelry-worthy. That I knew of.

  No. I wasn’t going to let Devon’s stupid games make me doubt Mike. He loved me, and I loved him.

  If he did ask, what was I going to say?

  Part of me jumped up and down with joy at the thought of being engaged to Mike. I wanted to spend the rest of my life at his side, wanted to declare to the rest of the world that we would never be separated. If I’d been a normal girl and Mike my normal boyfriend, I would’ve said yes in a heartbeat.

  But we weren’t normal, and it wasn’t that simple.

  If we married and, eventually, years down the road, had children, we would be doing exactly what Dr. Frankenstein had wanted us to do. Reproducing our species. Breeding more human weapons. Any child we had would immediately become a target. Dr. Frank was dead, but there were other governments and scientists and shady people who would be more than ready to hop on board his plan. Even Hatcher might prove to be less trustworthy than he seemed, playing a long game to lull us into complacency or to win us over.

  And the thought of Dr. Frankenstein laughing at how easily he’d manipulated me and Mike from the grave made my skin prickle like a rash under my skin. No, and no and no again. I hated the idea of him winning.

  Scowling, I paced back in the other direction and nearly tripped over Maryanne’s foot. I snapped back into the present and shoved all thoughts of Mike into the back of my brain. I had to focus or my team would Game Over.

  It was now 11:25. The others ought to be out of their rooms by now. The programmers must have arranged little snags for them, too, or they’d fallen victim to outright sabotage by another team.

  We were running out of time. I could feel the disaster looming, but stuck down here in third class, I couldn’t do anything about it. And if thunderclouds or enemy planes were gathering on the horizon, I would have no way of knowing.

  Jazzy and Sahan should be up a level in second-class, and probably had their own dining room, but where were Gerry and Ron and Tad?

  "They're not passengers," I realized suddenly. "They're crew. Locate crew quarters.” Nothing. “Locate crew dining hall.”

  Still nothing. My stupid character didn’t know anything.

  “Keep waiting?” Maryanne suggested. “As crew, they might be able to find us.”

  I didn’t like that option. I shook my head. “If they could, they’d be here by now.” Since they weren’t… I winced. “I bet they're working right now."

  "It's the middle of the night," Maryanne said doubtfully. "Surely all the porters and stewards are in bed by now."

  "The porters, yes. Someone's got to be running the ship though."

  "That's good then, isn't it?" Maryanne asked. "They'll be up on deck changing the rigging or whatever. They'll be positioned well for the Disaster. All we have to do is get up to them."

  "I don't know," I said. It sounded good, but I'd gotten bonus points for making Gerry and the others poor. It seemed too easy if they were up on deck already. Plus, the ship we were on was much too big for a sailboat, and I could hear the hum of motors. Would they still be operating on steam power or did they have the internal combustion engine yet? I had the vague notion they still used steam power in World War I, but had switched to internal combustion by World War II.

  "Any guesses as to the date?"

  “Sorry.” Maryanne made a show of looking around. "No handy newspapers here."

  "You stay here," I told Maryanne. "Keep checking the hallways. Call out if you see anyone from our team."

  She grabbed my sleeve. "Where are you going?"

  "To steal some clothes."

  "It’s not worth the risk," Maryanne argued. "In this time period a thief is more likely to get stabbed or shot than arrested."

  And with three or four bunk beds to a room, the chances of someone waking up would be greater.

  I looked critically at our chosen-in-the dark clothes. The striped blouses had tight-fitting bodices and long sleeves, and the narrow skirts had silly little bustles. The heavy cloth would act as a drag in the water. My blood ran cold at the thought of trying to swim in such a costume. No, it had to go.

  “We’ll never get into the boiler rooms dressed as we are. I’ll be careful,” I said.

  She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  She knew me so well.

  I slipped out and tried a door near the first intersection. Although I moved soundlessly, a floorboard creaked underfoot. One of the figures in the bunk beds stirred, and I retreated. Bloody programmers.

  A door farther down spilled light from within the room. From the loud conversation, a bunch of men were sitting around drinking and playing poker.

  I toyed with the idea of crashing the game and winning myself a set of clothes, but even if I could convince them to let a woman play it would take too much time.

  Instead I eased open the door of the closest room and whispered, “Joe, are you in there?” No answer. None of the bunks were occupied, all of the men probably next door playing poker.

  Better yet, I found several pairs of trousers draped over a trunk. I was suspicious until I realized they were sopping wet.

  Those wacky programmers. What a laugh riot.

  I gathered up the clothes and inched the door open again, then quickly shut it, heart pounding, at the sound of approaching footsteps.

  My first thought was that the programmer had struck again, but they came from farther down the hall than the poker game.

  My interest sharpened when I heard a woman say, “We’re running out of time. The golden hour is up. The disaster could happen any second, and we’d be stuck down here.”

  A rival team. I peeked out through the keyhole and recognized the woman from a movie I’d seen. Penny Someone. In the film she’d been a kick-ass spy; here she sounded whiny. And good luck doing any martial arts moves in her fancy white silk dress.

  Her companion seemed to think she was whiny, too. “Or we may have hours yet.” Despite his top hat, gold waistcoat, and ridiculous sideburns, the man looked dangerous. “You’re the one who proposed an alliance so you could ‘improve your storyline’. You don’t earn bonus points eating dinner or attending a reception.”

  “When you said you wanted to get a souvenir from each level, I didn’t realize how many levels there were,” she complained, pushing back a tendril of hair, which had fallen out of her poufy bun.

  Souvenirs? Like a scavenger hunt?

  “Just hurry up will you? Either 1st class luggage or the cargo hold ought to have something
juicy—then we can hightail it for the boat deck. The bonus points are worth the risk.”

  “If we can find them,” the actress muttered.

  A rustling noise from inside the room made me turn. A man sat up from where he’d apparently been sleeping on the floor—cheaters. “Hey, girlie,” he slurred.

  This could get ugly fast. With no choice, I slipped out into the hall. Top Hat spun around, hands up, ready to attack.

  I pasted on an insipid smile. Best if they thought I was a Non-Player Character. “Shhh!” I put my finger to my lips. “Don’t tell!” I hurried toward them.

  A thump came from behind me—the drunken man knocking something over, perhaps?

  I whipped around the corner. The rival team followed.

  “What’s going on?” the actress asked.

  I giggled and held up the trousers. “I’m playing a prank on my brother. When I was washing my unmentionables earlier, he held them over my head where everyone could see,” I invented. “Now he’s going to be the one displaying his underwear.”

  Actress lost interest, but Top Hat still looked suspicious. I moved past him, turning down the next intersection. I glanced back. Drat, he was still watching.

  Nothing for it. I found my room and eased open the door. With luck my roommates would be sleeping, and I could just stand against the door for a moment until the other team left.

  I wasn’t quiet enough. The Irishwoman immediately sat up in bed and accosted me. “Where have you been?”

  Her reaction satisfied Top Hat. As I closed the door, he turned to leave. One problem down.

  And another gained. The Irishwoman glared at me. “What’s that in your hand?”

  The prank explanation wouldn’t placate her. “Just some trousers that need mending.” I changed the subject. “What year were you born?" If I asked for the date outright, I felt sure the programmers would block me.

  “1878. Why do you need to know?" she demanded irately.

  “Oh, no reason.” I shrugged. “I figured you must be fifty, but I guess you’re only forty.”

  “I am not!” she screeched. “I’m only 34!”