by White, Gwynn
Emotions were treacherous ground in the Grimm camp.
He was about to turn off the computer when one email grabbed his attention. It was dated three days ago. CONFIDENTIAL. Seemed like if something was confidential, you wouldn’t scream about it, but his dad wasn’t a thinker. Neither were his friends.
The sender was curious. There was no name, just an exclamation mark.
!
Normally, that screamed spam. But he’d just seen that exclamation mark on the creased postcard stuck to the freezer.
Reservation confirmed, the email read. A new universe awaits.
Maybe it was spam, one of those vacation time shares had suckered his dad into a free presentation. He already couldn’t afford the condo he was living in, why not commit to a time share on the beach? Live for today!
Only there wasn’t a link.
Spam always had links to siphon personal information from the user’s computer, or asked for passwords or social security numbers or a prince that needed money ASAP. This was just a short note. It meant something. Or it was the worst spammer in the world.
Grey sat on the couch and studied the postcard. It was just an exclamation mark and that day’s date. It must’ve been where he went, but no address or map. There was nothing else for Grey to go on.
So he smoked half the bag of weed.
* * *
His dad returned on Sunday, just after lunch. The clock flashed 12:45 when the front door opened, his dad’s keys hitting the counter. Grocery bags rattled; the refrigerator opened.
Grey lay in bed, flipping through a mental inventory of the apartment as a blender fired up. There was no memory of cleaning anything up or turning the stereo down. He pictured an empty pizza box and dirty dishes—the residual of a boring weekend. He’d get an earful—you’re a slob, have some respect, grow up—but at least the computer was turned off, history wiped, and the Ziploc returned to its dark hole.
“How’s your trip?” Grey stood in the bedroom doorway in only his boxers.
“Good. How were things here?”
I smoked half your weed. “Boring.”
“It is what you make it.”
Maybe if his dad had left the stash out in the open, Grey would’ve asked what his dad was doing with weed. But having to explain why he pulled out the drawers was a future conversation he wanted to avoid at the moment.
His dad wiped the counters while whistling. He handed the rest of a fruit smoothie to Grey, smacked his chest, and told him to get some nutrients. He smelled weird. Kind of like an open wound, the soft flesh that puckered up around the edges.
The shower started.
His dad was mellow that afternoon. And he was like that the rest of the way home, saying very few words but smiling and whistling. What he did say was chill, as if the stick had been surgically removed from his ass. He was just a regular guy with perfect teeth and trimmed eyebrows.
“You going to tell me where you went?” Grey said.
Big smile. “Nope.”
“There was a postcard on your refrigerator, the one with the exclamation mark. It had this weekend’s date on it.”
“That was just something someone sent me.”
Oh, they also sent you an email, said a new universe was waiting for you.
That was another conversation they would eventually have.
8
Grey
Before the Punch
The system upgrade was slow.
One of the cables was faulty. Grey swapped it out, reattached the headset to his laptop and double-checked the wall outlet. Music thudded from puffy headphones.
Good school grades got him the high-speed connection he needed to run virtual environments. What would he have to do for auditory implants, the outpatient surgery that inserted microscopic Bluetooths next to his eardrums?
Probably cure cancer.
He watched the update’s progress and remotely tested the VR headset. If the new cable didn’t work, he had a few more ideas.
A cold hand squeezed his shoulder.
Grey jerked around. For a moment, he imagined boney digits slipping from a wide, black sleeve and a long sickle in the other. His mother motioned to his headphones. Her bristly hair was red with dashes of gray. No makeup, no jewelry. Just a pair of safety glasses in the front pocket and a yellow bandana around her neck.
“I’m leaving.”
“Okay.”
“Dinner’s in the fridge.”
He nodded, the headphones bleeding guitar riffs.
“You have homework tonight?” she asked.
“Done.”
He wasn’t lying this time. He’d finished the paper for ethics class ahead of the deadline. It helped that he got to choose the topic. He’d become obsessed with the Foreverland incident, the body-swap ring that shaped technology laws. He’d read everything written, watched all the documentaries and followed the lives of the survivors. Sometimes he wished he was one of those boys that woke up on a tropical island. Everyone had to die, why not have some fun doing it?
“Clean up after yourself, all right?” She looked at the empty cups. “I don’t want a mess waiting for me. How you getting to school in the morning?”
“Bus.”
“Okay. I should see you before you go.” She grabbed a handful of hair. “We need to cut that.”
Grey put the concert back on his ears. The update was finalizing. He pretended to scroll a webpage, waiting for her to leave. She stood in the doorway.
“What?” he said.
She shook her head, fussing with the bandana. Sometimes she did that, just looked at him before she left. When the front door finally closed, he went to the kitchen for something to eat. Her vanilla-scented candles were still smoking, wisps still rising from black curly wicks. She rarely left a room once, always returning for keys buried in the basket.
When he returned to his bedroom, he kept his eyes on the front door as he reached under the desk for a crude sleeve made from a plastic soda bottle. The edges of duct tape curled around it. A slender phone was tucked inside, a high-res model modded for virtual environments.
There were very few things he hid from his mother. She went through his stuff under the guise of collecting laundry or dirty dishes, but he knew she nosed for electric cigarettes (which he quit, sort of) or other contraband. He rarely cleared the history on his laptop, surfing incognito when needed. He wasn’t doing anything wrong most of the time. The few things he did hide, though, were monster.
It was better she didn’t know.
He tapped out the security code. A code he didn’t write down, a code he told no one. Not even Rach. He locked the phone into a visual headset, slid motion sensors over his fingers and unplugged the headphones.
When everything was in order, he turned off the lights and lay on his bed without pulling back the covers, and adjusted the pillows. There were times he went into the VR headset for hours, coming up with neck pain that lasted a week.
The VR headset fit snugly. An initial retinal scan—a red laser line—verified his identity, one last layer of security to keep out strange eyes. Images danced and a periscope into a virtual gaming environment opened.
The projection filled his periphery. Earbuds snugged in place, he ignited the environment with a flick of his wrist. Fog rolled in. Trees as large as buildings emerged, gnarled branches reaching for him, vines dangling. Moon-cast shadows ran over mossy logs and a thicket of leaves.
The scarred hands of a warrior appeared as Grey lifted his hands, jewels gleaming on knobby knuckles. He was no longer a shaggy-haired loner, but a hunter that stalked the forest with no particular mission, just a leisurely stroll that usually ended in a solid bludgeoning.
A word blipped in space. Hey.
“Hey.” His auditory text formed a balloon.
What are you doing? Rach texted back.
“Homework.”
Leaves crunched below him. A sagging cottage emerged off the narrow path. He leaned against a tree, slipp
ery lichens beneath his hands, the damp smell of soil. He would feel better if this was real, this wooded earth filled with trolls and bandits.
If this was Foreverland, he thought, I wouldn’t have to leave.
What are you doing this weekend? Rach texted.
“Dad.”
Sorry I didn’t come over last time.
He didn’t answer. They hardly saw each other at school. She returned his texts after an hour passed, sometimes two. And then it was usually about plans she had, they would catch up, maybe next time.
Or some bullshit.
Just get on with it, he thought.
A dwarf opened the cottage door. He stacked weapons against the wall and didn’t see Grey lurking behind the banyan tree.
“Go on,” he said. The words typed out.
What?
“You know.”
There was a long pause. Just need some space, that’s all.
“Whatever.”
That all you got to say?
“Guess so.”
He killed the connection and blocked incoming. Enough with words. A massive emptiness opened in his gut; an elephant climbed onto his chest. When the dwarf arrived with his third cache, Grey stepped into the open; fallen limbs were crushed beneath him.
The warrior dwarf was armed and ready, but not for what Grey brought. He funneled all his rage. The battle was over quickly; the dwarf’s braided beard dangled from his peeled face. Sticky blood stained Grey’s rings. He whistled for a pack of wild dogs and fed them the remains, then plundered the treasure and set fire to the cottage.
It was virtual. None of it real.
Some of the characters he destroyed were merely computer constructs, programs that walked and talked, acting human or humanlike. Sometimes he felt guilt for punishing them for no good reason. That’s your human condition, someone once explained. You’re programmed to feel empathy for hurting something, even if it isn’t real.
He wondered if there was something wrong with his programming. Because he still destroyed and he still felt guilty. Somewhere in the world, someone watched their carefully constructed dwarf sim be pulled apart by wolf beasts and his elaborate hut turned to ash. He didn’t feel Grey’s fists or the snap of his neck, but it hurt just the same.
Grey didn’t feel better for doing it. But at least he felt something. And no one got hurt.
Not really.
* * *
Midnight, he got something to eat.
His mom had made a bowl of pasta. That was third-shift dinner. Easy to make, easy to keep. Grey ate it night after night without complaining.
He had ditched the VR headset and watched video torrents. He’d opened an email from an unknown sender. It came with an attachment. Usually, he pitched something like that right to the trash. This one intrigued him.
The file name was an exclamation point.
Maybe it was a coincidence. The sender might have been from one of his encrypted pirate accounts. Grey downloaded tons of videos through them, but viruses were rampant. He ran the file through security and it came up clean. It was still inadvisable to open, best to trash it. But curiosity got the best of him.
Like usual.
It was a video that started with a stage, a big production of lights and announcements. He knew the setup, he’d seen Maze events. But this was new. Ten tanks were in the center, a soft spotlight for each one. They were tall and transparent, light refracting through the prism of clear liquid, something thicker than water. Almost like gel.
A body floated in each one.
Some were completely bald. For the non-shaved, hair floated out like the vacuum of outer space. Respirators covered their faces.
Both genders. All races.
The sound was blotted out by music. Grey didn’t need to hear the announcements, didn’t need the commentators to describe the risks. Nine of them would barely survive. One would be greatly rewarded. All of them would never be the same.
A symbol filled the screen.
Macabre scenes of mayhem followed the opening ceremony, as realistic as the tanks. Grey knew of their experiences, read of the awareness transport into virtual worlds as real as the skin on their bones. When a wild dog tore them open or a warrior pulled their head off, they didn’t die. But they felt it.
Over and over, they felt it.
Every game was different, some more bloody than the next. Others were cerebral challenges to follow clues to a secret exit. Sometimes they had no idea they were in the Maze, a complete memory wipe. They would be lost in a different dimension of time and space. Some claimed to have lived a thousand lifetimes in these alternate realities, even though their bodies were only submerged for months. Sometimes weeks. Or, as impossible as it seemed, only hours. Time was not synced between the Maze and the flesh. A time dilation sped up life.
The investors got wealthy from the black-market spectators. It was illegal, which drove up the price to watch it live. And it didn’t scare off advertisers. Even family-friendly restaurants threw in product placements.
Due to the time dilation, spectators watched condensed highlights. The boring and mundane parts were clipped out, the everyday living that no one wanted to see. The climaxes were expertly edited for maximum adrenaline or heart-wrenching drama.
The players paid the biggest price.
They paid it for escaping the tanks they willingly entered. Their flesh unaltered, unharmed, but their psyches mangled. All except one. A lucky winner would escape the game intact. Some victors claimed to be enlightened, that the experience had stripped away the illusion of separateness, that they had indeed found their true selves.
They had captured the secrets of the universe.
When they emerged, they had a peculiar smell. After months of living in the solution, they came out with a scent that would remain with them the rest of their lives. Rumor had it you could smell a player in the next room.
Grey advanced the video to the end, skipping the highlights until a heavyset woman pulled herself out of the tank. Stripping away the respirator blocking her entire face, she looked up with the eyes of a newborn, as if seeing the world for the first time. Maybe she was enlightened.
Or maybe just relieved to have escaped.
The Maze symbol pulsed in the background as she was winched out. The mucus solution stretched from her toes, pooling on the stage in sticky puddles. She wiped off her face and began to weep.
To play was to risk prison if caught. He’d seen these endings before, read the stories of riches that followed, the Maze creators hiding from authorities sometimes in plain sight, as if no one really wanted to catch them. The players were given new identities.
The losers came out wide-eyed and paranoid. The ones that could talk barely made sense. He was almost asleep when he heard one of them babble. It was nothing new, but it reminded him of something he’d seen at his dad’s apartment. Something he’d read in an email. He said it over and over, as if they were the only words left in his vocabulary.
“A new reality awaits.”
* * *
“I want to go with you.”
His dad was in his office, an iPad on his lap. “Close the door.”
Grey stood with his thumbs wedged beneath his backpack straps. The office smelled more like a dead fish than mouthwash. His dad slid his eyeglasses between his teeth, sucking on the plastic end.
“Go where?” he said.
“The place you went.”
“Where did I go?”
Grey shrugged.
“You don’t know, but you want to go?”
His dad’s laughter broke Grey’s knees. This wasn’t the dead-car laugh, but an eloquent one that words could not capture. It said you’re an idiot, a moron. You want to go, but you don’t know where I went? God, you’re stupid.
Grey didn’t know where he went, but he had an idea of what he did. It was that peculiar smell described by those that experienced immersion reality. Obviously his dad didn’t go into the Maze, but he’d been awaren
ess leaping. He had dropped into a tank and left his flesh behind, returning to the glow of happiness, the kiss of an angel, the breath of God in his lungs.
That’s what I want.
His dad stood up slowly. His leathery smell filled the room, no longer tainted with the putrid tang of a few weeks ago. He sucked on a breath mint.
“You must have an idea.”
“I just want to hang with you.”
He half-turned, aiming a squinty eye. “Try again.”
Grey kicked at the floor. He didn’t want to tip his hand. Vagueness was the best way to approach his dad, let him feel like he had the upper hand, all the power. Besides, he learned everything from snooping through his dad’s shit. He’d give himself up if he said too much.
“I don’t know. It just looked like you had fun. You seemed… happier, I guess.”
“You guess.”
It was the truth. Work it right and the truth could manipulate as well as a lie. Or better.
“So you have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going?”
“I’m just asking, that’s all. If it’s fun or something I can learn, then I’d like to do it. I don’t want to sit around your apartment another weekend. Boring as hell.”
“Smoking my weed is boring?”
Grey looked at the floor. Best to fall on that grenade. “Sorry.”
“You go through my drawers, my closet; you destroy my privacy with one hand and ask for a favor with the other?”
“No, I just… I knew you kept the weed somewhere. That’s all, I swear.”
“You didn’t water down the whiskey?”
Grey was stepping on landmines now. His dad was lighting them up. Now was the time to shut up.
His dad looked in the fish tank. The goldfish stared back with one bloated eye. Hands on his hips, he spoke to the ceiling.
“You want to tell your mom I have weed, go ahead. She’s no angel. You want to tell her I’m leaving you at the apartment with a refrigerator of food and neighbors complaining about music, be my guest. Because if you have any ideas of blackmailing me, son, you best know I don’t lean that way.” A darting look came his way. “Understand?”