The brightness retreated to reveal a wide, yellow-and-white striped awning above — crystal blue waters below. Kitty heard a splash. She spun around, hands paddling at the water. The infinity pool’s glittering waters disappeared into a backdrop of verdant hills all studded with the pale, multi-levelled architecture of blocky mansions.
A man broke the surface a few metres from her, mouth open in a gasp, black eyes widening when they found her. Lucy spat water from his mouth and dragged a slim, bronze hand over his lips.
“God, I hate this rift,” he said.
“That’s what you say about all of them,” Kitty replied.
She was really, really trying not to stare, but it was impossible. Lucy bobbed closer, his eyes narrowing.
“Yes?”
“You’re…” She cleared her throat. “Um…”
“Yeah, I’m fully aware.” Lucy swam past her with long, practised strokes. “Did I mention I really fucking hate this rift?”
Lucy stepped out of the pool. Unbidden, Kitty’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead. The man paused on the steps, shaking out his black, shoulder-length hair with a flick of his head. Then he glanced over his shoulder and grimaced at her, distorting his Adonis-like features.
“We have to get a move on,” he said.
Kitty swallowed, wetting her lips and managing a small, “Coming,” that sounded much too breathless for her liking. She floundered over to the steps and dragged herself free of the water. A second later, she was back in the pool, arms clasped over her chest.
“Okay, where the hell…” she scanned the surface of the water, eyes straining. “Can you see my—” she cut off with a pleading moan. “Did it fall off?”
“Nope,” Lucy said. “I warned you, didn’t I? But no—” Lucy waved a bronzed arm “—you think it’s okay to drag a bunch of toddlers into an R-Rated rift. Didn’t I warn you?” He spun around, stabbing a finger toward her. “I did warn you. I remember it clear as anything, mate.” His feet slapped against the tiles as he walked over to the shiny, curved bar at the end of the pool house.
“Here’s a towel,” he said absently, grabbing one to throw over the scrap of lycra that his avatar wore in place of clothing. “I’m going to find William and the kids.”
And with that, Lucy disappeared through a set of glass doors. Kitty splashed around in the pool for a few seconds, then dragged herself out again. She winced when she caught sight of a hazy reflection of herself in one of the bar’s frosted mirrors.
Okay, he had warned her. But she’d never played games like this. What was the point of abandoning real life only too, well, pretend you were living a normal life in the real world? Except, okay… she didn’t own a mansion with an infinity pool. Or a bar. Or anything resembling the slip of fabric that was supposed to be a bikini bottom. Okay, seriously, where the hell had the top part gone? It had to have fallen off in the pool.
Kitty wound a towel around herself, dragged as much water from her waist-length pink hair as she could, and pushed back her shoulders, resolution stiffening her spine. If she could make it through the haunted aldium mines of Chimera, then she could make it through the fake real-world of Play. It was easy. It was just real life: amped up by a few thousand degrees.
Her feet sank into white shag carpeting when she stepped inside the mansion, but her grimace had nothing to do with that. Was it a living room? It was too big to be practical. The chamber had several sets of lounge suits and coffee tables, another bar along the one wall, and a mirror ball dangling prettily from the ceiling.
“There’s clothes upstairs,” a voice echoed from a distant hallway.
Kitty peered around, found a flight of stairs nearly hidden behind a ridiculously large aquarium — with a shark in it — and trotted up them as quickly as she could without slipping.
The hallway was brown, yellow and lime. Someone had puked sixties psychedelic wallpaper all over the walls. Kitty opened the first door. Bathroom. Then the second. Another bathroom. With a sunken bathtub that could double as a splash pool. She sighed, opened the third, and sighed again when she saw a cupboard.
She opened it, and managed half a scream before her avatar was thrown on top of a revolving stand, encircled by mirrors. After a few seconds, Kitty realised she was alone, and stopped trying to cover herself with her arms. She hunched, eyes moving suspiciously around the empty room. Was she supposed to do something?
A hesitant thought touched an icon on her HUD. She was wearing a polka-dot bra and panty set. Okay, so far so good. White high heels arrived a few erratic thoughts later. Ugh… surely there was something resembling…
Kitty exited the cupboard, mouth set into a pout. She stomped down the hallway, flicking away tendrils of pink hair that slid down around her face with every step. She had to grab the railing for fear of tumbling down the stairs and got to the bottom without twisting her ankle.
“Uh… wow…”
She looked up, scowling at Lucy. “What?”
“You suck at this, don’t you?”
Kitty scanned him, her scowl deepening into a glower. Lucy looked immaculate in a canary-yellow, v-neck sweater, pale chinos, and beige loafers. His hair had been styled, lightly coiffed in the front and sleek to his neck. He adjusted a golden wristwatch, a single dark eyebrow twitching at her.
“It gets easier. We’re going to be here longer than any of us want, so you might want to… I don’t know…” Lucy grimaced, his words fading.
Kitty looked down at herself. “I don’t see what the problem is. At least I’m wearing clothes.”
“It’s a french maid outfit.”
“So? It’s functional.”
“Uh… not for what we’re planning.”
“I don’t know how to control the stupid cupboard inventory thing, okay? It was this or some kind of leopard-print lycra—”
“Okay, okay.” Lucy lifted his hands, stepping closer. “It’s okay. You look fine. Let’s find William and the others, then we can see if we can…” he waved a hand at her, obviously giving up on the sentence.
She followed him through a wide corridor littered with tables and statues, her heels making irritating clicking sounds on the high-gloss tiles. The front door opened for them, framing a perfectly manicured lawn that stretched to a distant line of fir trees. A flat, sleek sports car waited for them, its door sliding up as they approached.
“After you,” Lucy said.
Kitty clambered into the passenger seat, jerking at the frothy skirts of her outfit so that Lucy could close the door behind her without trapping them. She knuckled her skirts down, pressing them between her legs, and tapped long fingernails against the dashboard as she waited for Lucy to get it.
He slid in, gave her a bemused shake of his head, and drove forward.
“Please let go of my hand,” Lucy said a few seconds later.
“Who the hell’s driving this thing?” Kitty asked.
“The Game. You’ve really never played a life-simulation before?”
“It’s that obvious?” Kitty jerked her hand free of Lucy’s and used it to pummel her skirts into submission.
“Where are we going?”
“To the mansion next door. William and the kids shouldn’t have spawned far away from where we did. I’m thinking, because we weren’t right behind them, that’s maybe why we didn’t end up in the same place. It’s possible that the rift might kind of…” he trailed off, rubbing his palms together, “you know… shift.”
Kitty shook her head and huffed a strand of hair from her face. Outside, stretches of lawn blurred past, the occasional lawn-animal making an appearance.
“Does everyone here live in a fucking mansion?”
“That’s kind of the point,” Lucy said. Then he let out a half-choked laugh. “All right, one of them, anyway.”
“Shit, I really didn’t think it would be this bad. I mean what if those kids—”
“I told you—”
“Don’t say it!” Kitty held up a glittering fingertip.
Lucy turned to her, dark eyes regarding her coolly above a wide, expressive mouth. His lips parted, and Kitty’s finger lifted higher.
“Ah!”
Lucy shook his head and turned away from her. “We’re here.”
“Thank God for that.” Kitty scrabbled futilely at the door handle until Lucy opened it from the outside.
She half-slid, half-fell out of the car, yanking her skirts straight as she glanced around. This mansion had a wide gravel driveway, with tall columns studding a dark-tiled veranda that ran the width of the house. It was seven stories tall.
“Ugh, it’s just… there’s not even…” Kitty cut off and stomped after Lucy, who was nearly at the intricately carved double doors.
He rang the bell, giving Kitty a tight-lipped smile when she came to stop beside him.
“So like, where am I supposed to find the pants, exactly? I mean, there have to be pants, right? I looked all over, but there wasn’t—”
“I said I’ll show you. Relax.”
Was he hiding a smile? Kitty bristled and forced herself to look away, studying the ostentatious gardens on the far right of the mansion. One of the shrubs was in the shape of a giant, curved penis. Subtle, very subtle.
There was a chatter of excited voices, and the door opened. Eight people stood behind, most in various stages of undress.
“Oh dear God,” Kitty breathed, slapping a hand over her eyes. “Oh God, I’m going to prison.”
“Where’s William?” Lucy asked, voice tight.
“Back here!” called a voice. Kitty risked a peek through her fingers, her hand dropping away a moment later.
William slid out between the press of bodies, slamming the door closed and spinning to face them, face twisted.
“Right behind you?” William yelled, stabbing at Lucy with a finger.
“We—” Lucy began, but William cut him off with another stab to the chest.
“Just go? Make sure they don’t run off? We’re right—” stab “—fucking—” stab “—behind you?”
Lucy grabbed his finger. William shook himself free, glaring at the man.
“It’s a fucking nightmare! I can’t get them to put on clothes, they keep jumping into the pool, and two of them have passed out in pools of their own vomit already after getting behind the bar — despite the barricade I put up to stop them.”
Lucy’s lips twitched. Kitty tried to strangle the small laugh tickling her throat.
“What?” William shrieked.
“You’re so going to prison,” Kitty murmured, dropping her eyes for an instant to William’s trunkless trunk-area.
He glanced down. “Shit.” William spun around, trying to peer through a stained glass window. He glanced at them over his shoulder, snarling. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Then he dashed inside, bronze buttocks doing surprisingly little wobbling as he raced through the now-empty lounge and disappeared through a doorway.
“You want to wait out here?” Lucy asked.
“No,” she sighed. “I’m already serving ten to life as it is. Let’s get these fiends rounded up.”
Lucy’s lips curved into a smile, revealing two rows of perfect teeth.
“I love it when you talk dirty,” he said.
Kitty hurried past him, trying to ignore a blush creeping over her face.
. . .
The kids hadn’t been eager to dress. They hadn’t wanted to climb out of the pool. Those that had discovered the bar, hadn’t wanted to do anything except keep drinking, and had been belligerent to the point of violence about it.
But eventually, after much cussing and slapping, Lucy and Kitty had herded the children into a half-decorated gaming room at the back of the mansion, watching them as they split off and began playing ping pong, billiards, and darts.
William arrived, wearing neon-green lycra shorts. At Kitty’s raised eyebrows, he shrugged.
“Can’t figure out the damn cupboard thing.”
“You and me both,” Kitty said, tugging at her skirts. William gave her a brief glance before turning to Lucy. “So we getting out of here, or what?”
Lucy shook his head. He had his arms crossed as he leaned back against the edge of an abandoned billiards table. There were seven of the things, most just pushed against the wall. Whoever had been decorating this mansion hadn’t done a very good job. At least the place she and Lucy had arrived in had been, if not tastefully, then at least functionally decorated.
“It’s late afternoon already. We wouldn’t make it in time. We’ll have to stay over for the night.”
“What?” Kitty glanced at the kids, some of whom had looked up from their games at the sound of her yell. She lowered her voice, leaning closer to Lucy. “We can’t stay. We have to go. Like, now. There’s… my medication. My pills. If I don’t—”
Her mouth clicked shut. That had not been what she’d intended to say.
“I’m aware of how urgent things are becoming,” Lucy said, his voice pitched low. “I’ve been in-game for a lot longer than you two have.” He shifted, as if the conversation made him uncomfortable. Then he fixed his eyes on William. “You’ve been in this rift before, haven’t you? You know how it works. You get tired here, so you have to sleep. You get hungry, so you have to eat. There’s a lot of stuff you have to do in this rift, and everything takes time.”
Lucy reached behind him, drawing out a glass filled with amber liquid.
“Got to do what the rift wants you to do,” he said and downed the alcohol. “I’ve looked at the map. We try and go for that exit now, we’ll get caught in the middle of nowhere when night falls.”
“So? Then we’ll sleep… I don’t know—” Kitty threw up her hands “—in the car or something.”
Lucy shook his head again. “Doesn’t work like that. You have to sleep in a bed. You try and push through, you’ll pass out on the floor for a few minutes, wake up, pass out… so on and so on… until you find a bed.”
She was aware of William nodding from the corner of her eye. Kitty spun to him.
“When were you ever in this rift?” she demanded.
“A few days before we came here for the first time. While you were still…” William dropped his eyes. “You know,” he finished quietly.
“You never said anything.”
“You didn’t ask.” William’s eyebrows lifted, eyes flashing back up to hers.
Kitty suppressed a scream of frustration and stormed out of the room. Her HUD began flashing at her but she ignored it, marching for the front door. She had her hand on the handle when the doorbell rang.
Kitty put a hand on her breast, convinced she could feel the thump of her heart all the way from Earth to here. She flung open the door to someone enthusiastically waving a garish pamphlet at her.
“Hiya!” The girl had golden hair piled on top of her head, curls spilling to her shoulders and down her back. Everything, from her tiny waist to her enormous breasts to her elongated legs, looked wrong. Kitty grimaced before she could stop herself.
“Yes?” she said in a strangled voice.
“Here for the party!” the girl squealed. Her long lashes quivered as she scanned Kitty. “The invite didn’t say anything about a cosplay! Let me in so I can go get dressed up proper.”
Kitty resisted the urge to wiggle her finger in her ear. Did this chick have to scream everything?
“I think you have the wrong mansion,” Kitty said dryly. “Try the one down the road, with the tie-dye lawn. I saw balloons and stuff outside.”
She tried closing the door, but a bunch of people shouldered past her, all waving similar pamphlets.
“Hey! What are you—”
The corner of the door bumped into her thigh, but there was no pain. Kitty tried pushing against the door, her feet clambering up the wall for leverage, but there was nothing to be done to halt the steady stream of players surging inside.
A few seconds later, the door slammed shut. A handful of pamphlets fluttered to th
e floor by her feet. She lifted one, scanning the few words on it. Drugs. Booze. Sex. More. Be there or be… and then there was just the 8-bit representation of a human beside the words in black ink.
Kitty stared as the uninvited players began milling around, some disappearing into the pool area, a few up the stairs, even more to the back of the property.
“Hey, you can’t just come in here and take over,” Kitty yelled. She dashed forward and grappled a drink from a man sporting a dangerous afro. “This isn’t yours!”
“Kitty?”
“These people just rocked up here,” Kitty began, spinning to face Lucy. “And they’re not leaving, and they’re—” she interrupted herself, stalking away from Lucy to grab a bottle from the preposterously-endowed girl who’d rang the doorbell. “Give me that!”
“Kitty.” A hand closed over her shoulder.
She twisted, jerking free from Lucy’s grip. “Are you going to help me get these people out of here, or are you just—”
And then the urgent flashing on her HUD finally caught her attention. Kitty froze, bottle in hand, staring at the familiarly-shaped icon as it went red. Then she stared down at the bottle in her hand.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“What’s that?” Lucy asked, leaning closer. Someone had put on the stereo: it was getting loud.
“This is the most stupid—” Kitty brought the bottle to her lips and drank from it. There was no sensation of the liquid entering her throat, but she could feel the rim of the cool bottle pressing to her lips. When the bottle was empty, Kitty lowered it and dragged the back of her hand over her mouth, glaring up at Lucy.
“Feel better?” he asked.
His deadpan expression was really starting to get on her nerves.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” She dropped the bottle to the floor, disappointed that it didn’t shatter.
On her HUD, the icon shaped like a bottle flashed to green, then to white. She glanced at the other icons lined up beside it and groaned.
The Seventh Glitch Page 24