As Worlds Drifted

by Parker Tiden

  Just when I needed all the oxygen I could get, I held my breath. A figure emerged from behind one of the booths, limping through the debris-ridden water. I felt instinctively for a weapon that I didn't have, and opted for the next best option. I turned to run.

  "Lily! Wait!" the figure shouted and whispered at the same time.

  I didn't, wait.

  "Remember the clowns?" he continued.

  I stopped and turned back around. "Skulder?"

  "Who?"

  "CGU?"

  He nodded.

  "It's about freaking time," I said.

  "Where's Maxwell?"

  "Last time I saw him, he was on fire," I said. "I lost Nick."

  She was bleeding from the head, but it didn't seem to bother her, so Tristan didn't let it bother him either. He was on the hunt for Maxwell with a lethal weapon in his hands. Having a deranged teenage girl tagging along was suboptimal, to say the least, and not in keeping with agency policy.

  He made a half-hearted attempt at talking some sense into her. "Stay here until the cops get here."

  "I've got to get to Nick," she said. "I put him in this situation, it's up to me to get him out of it."

  Any minute now, the place would be swarming with cops, he wasn't entirely sure if that was a good thing. His gut told them that he needed to find Maxwell before anybody else did. He felt for his left ankle, and, against his better judgement, relieved his ankle sheath of its three-inch knife. "If you insist, you might as well take this." He had already handed a weapon to one civilian today, with good results. Why not double down on that bet? Besides, he wasn't about to let her go into a battle unarmed. He handed the blade to Lily. She took it, felt its weight and its balance in her hand for a second, gripped it, and, without saying a word, began to walk, steps squelching, back towards the water's source. The water had, by now, receded, leaving a field of sodden trash and waterlogged carpet behind it.

  Tristan did his best to keep up. He might as well let her lead the way—he didn't have any better ideas. They hadn't gotten much further than 30 feet when, suddenly, a rasping sound came from their left, pushing through the wailing sirens. Lily set off on a run straight for the source. Tristan tried to follow.

  I smelled the burnt flesh before I saw it. As I rounded what was left of a demolished booth, I saw them. Maxwell must have heard me and swiveled around to face me. He held Nick pressed close with an arm around his neck. He bored his pistol into Nick's temple. Nick looked like one could expect… like he was having a really, really bad day.

  A horrifying gasp was all that came out of Maxwell's mouth, or what was left of it. His face had melted partway off his skull, and what was once a mouth was now just a gaping hole from hell. His beady eyes were still more or less intact. He didn't have to say anything. I knew what he wanted, and I didn't have it. The drive was gone, lost in the tidal wave. But I wasn't stupid enough to let him in on that little secret.

  I could sense Skulder limping up behind me. He pulled up next to me and I could see from the corner of my eye that he raised his gun and aimed it at Maxwell. "Let him go," Skulder said calmly.

  In an implausibly elegant move, Maxwell swung Nick around in half a turn so that Nick's back was towards us and I could hardly see Maxwell at all. The gun was in Nick's mouth. I couldn't see it, but the sound of metal against teeth and Nick's throttled gasp. There was no way Skulder could get a clear shot now.

  The thumping of rotor blades was as clear an indication as any that they had entered the endgame. Maxwell wasn't about to leave any witnesses behind. If he didn't get what he wanted within the next few seconds, the poor kid with the gun in his mouth would be toast. Getting in a 20-foot shot like this one would normally be a cinch. He'd have to hit Maxwell more or less right between the eyes to knock out his central nervous system, to make him drop instantly and prevent him from voluntarily or involuntarily pulling the trigger. But Tristan could barely see Maxwell at all. The coward was hiding behind a kid. Another, admittedly risky, option would be to shoot the kid, somewhere soft and nonlethal, and hope for the best. Hope that the slug would continue through him and come out the other side, and in turn, hit Maxwell. A geometrical crapshoot he wasn't prepared to gamble on.

  “Let the kid go," Tristan tried again. "I'm sure this can be worked out. Just let him go."

  Tristan glanced over at Lily no more than two feet away from him. It was like she was on automatic, intently focused on the scene in front of her. He could see that she was holding the knife he'd given her in her right hand, but it wouldn't be much use to her now.

  "Luna," a garbled wheeze of scorched lungs came from the hole in Maxwell's face. "Your dad begged... for his life. He cried like... like a baby."

  I could feel my hand squeeze the knife's handle, letting the steel fuse with my body and become one. For a moment, rational doubt fought back, reminding me that this wasn't Alphacore. Reminding me that we were, instead, in a world where actions have real consequences… a world where you die when you run out of HPs… a world where daughters have fathers ripped away from them. But rational doubt lost. I charged. I ran toward Maxwell and Nick with the knife in my hand, with no plan for what to do when I got there.

  In an instant, the playing field changed. Lily sprung forward like a pouncing mountain lion. Tristan had to factor yet another parameter into an already complicated situation. His Glock was raised, his finger on the trigger, ready to blast Maxwell's head off. Lily had covered half the distance between her and Maxwell in less than two seconds. Nick fell away from Maxwell and Tristan squeezed the trigger to the brink and flinched. In his sight was the wrong head—Lily's head.

  The waterlogged carpet squelched under my feet. I could glimpse Maxwell's brow-less eye widen from behind Nick as he saw me coming for him. He hesitated, there was less than ten feet between us now. I was still gaining speed when Maxwell heaved Nick out of the way to liberate his gun from Nick's mouth. I caught a glimpse of the muzzle in his hand, and then, suddenly, I went down. A second later, a shot rang out.

  Tristan set off after Lily, he couldn't let her go into hand to hand combat alone. He ran with his gun still aimed at where he hoped Maxwell's head would appear. This meant, effectively, and not a little worryingly, that he was still aiming at the back of Lily's head. A split-second later, Lily disappeared, and in her place, right in his line of fire, was Maxwell's melted face. Tristan fired on instinct.

  I was on the floor, face-first in the water-logged carpet. The thumping helicopter blades and blaring siren framed an unexpected silence. My body throbbed. I couldn't feel where the bullet had hit, but I knew it had. I slowly turned my head to the side and opened my eyes. I saw yellow. It took me a second to realize that I was staring right at a rubber ducky, just inches from my face. I pushed it out of the way and looked back. I had been felled by an oar, what a pathetic way to die. To my right, I saw Nick. He lay in a fetal position, his back to me, motionless. In front of me, the horror that was Maxwell's face was on the ground, not more than three feet from my own. There was a red dot between his eyes, a pool of red spreading around him. Maybe the bullet didn't have my name on it after all. The silence was broken by a cascade of boots. "Police! Everybody down!" I rested the side of my head against the floor and let my eyes close.

  Aftermath

  Tristan sat on the rear bumper of an ambulance out on the exhibit parking lot. Strobing emergency vehicles were strewn around the lot like someone had dropped a bucket of Hot Wheels. The cool night air cleared his mind. It would be a while before all the question marks were sorted out. But tonight, the cops had, to his own surprise, and thanks to Maria's and Rajeev's initial statements, let him go on his own recognizance. A medic attended to his leg when an angry Kalminski popped up out of nowhere. She was in leggings and a sports bra again, with an unzipped hoodie to top it off. She had that healthy glow about her.

  "Christ, are you constantly working out?" Tristan asked.

  "It's Sunday morning, what do you expect?" Kalminski replied,
crossing her arms.

  "True, although 4 am is mighty early for hill running."

  "To get ahead, you need to be ahead."

  "Huh... is that from your book? Profound."

  "Thanks for starting the only nerd-induced riot in recorded human history. I've got ten injured guards and at least 30 injured nerds. We had to shut the whole production down for at least an hour. That alone cost us in the seven figures, then there is the PR and legal fall out to come."

  "On a positive note, a major threat to our national security was stopped, and the only people that died were the ones that deserved it. Maybe something for your PR people to spin? Don't forget you did your part in helping us catch, or rather kill, the bad guys."

  "Oh, don't worry, I haven't forgotten."

  "Listen, it's been great chatting, but I need to get to General. My friends are there." He turned to the medic in front of him. "Think you could give me a ride?"

  They had shot me up with something to take the edge off—something I definitely could get used to. The drugs might explain what happened next. My mom burst into my hospital room. She rushed over to my bedside and hugged me more and harder than she had done in the previous 16 years of our lives together—at least it felt that way. "I thought I had lost you too," she said into my neck as she started to sob. I tried to muster my trusted defenses, but I couldn't resist. Instead, I joined her. The sobbing was epic, almost desperate, with our tears and snot in free flow. As far as I knew, it was the first time we'd cried since my dad was murdered. I didn’t know where it would take us, but I knew that something changed between us, right then and there.

  "How you holding up?" Tristan said as he limped into Maria's hospital room. Rajeev was on a metal folding chair by her side. Tristan had grabbed some flowers in a vase off the nurses’ station and now placed them on the table next to Maria.

  "Oh my," she said with a weak smile. "You shouldn't have." She had spunk left in her yet. He took her hand where it lay on the covers and squeezed it gently.

  "Rajeev," Tristan said. "I have no flowers for you, but thanks."

  "Hey, it's the oath, remember? Just part of the job." He couldn't hide the smidgeon of pride that revealed itself in the corners of his mouth.

  "Above and beyond, Rajeev, above and beyond." He turned to go. "Of course, I will have to write you up for failure to follow orders, hero or not." He smiled and was out the door.

  Three doors down, a couple of local police officers stood guard. Tristan nodded towards them. "Fred, Miroslav, thanks for doing this." He'd asked them to come by and guard Lily’s room. They were two of the few people he could trust right now, friends from basic training. He knocked, pressed down the handle, and pushed through the door.

  It was with some relief we were interrupted by a knock, it had gotten hard to breathe. Skulder stuck his head through the doorway. "I preferred you in that mullet," he said as he approached my bedside, nodding to my mom.

  "You sure as hell are an all-around disappointment," I replied meekly.

  Anticipating my question, Skulder explained, "Nick is down the hall. His family is with him. It’s rough having a gun stuck in your mouth... but given time..."

  I shut my eyes as guilt washed over me. "You did good, kid," Tristan said. "Your father would be proud."

  I opened my eyes again as he turned to go. "What about the others?"

  He turned back. "They have some bruises, relatively unscathed. They wanted to see you, but your doctor put a stop to that."

  "Hey... what's your name anyway?"

  "It’s Tristan. Listen, I have told the investigators to hold back for now... but in the next few weeks, there will be a lot of questions that need answering." He was at the door. "But you rest for now."

  They let me go home later that same day. That night, I dreamt of Alphacore again. The dream started the way it always did. I walked through the field of tall grass, and came to the hill where my dad sat under his tree, looking out over the landscape with the wind in his hair. I waved and shouted, and at first, there was no reaction. I shouted again, "I did it, Dad! I got them!” Then it happened. He slowly turned his gaze and his eyes met mine, my world ruptured. I saw on his face, finally, that beautiful smile. The one I had missed so much. "You are free now! You can go!" I shouted. He waved back and nodded slightly.

  The dream started to dissolve. I did all I could to hang on to it. I fought against the awakening in me. But in the end, real life won out again—it always does. I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling. It was covered with stars and the moon.

  Tristan stepped out into the morning air on Portero Avenue. He couldn't delay his date with destiny at the FBI field office any longer. If his leg had been in better shape, he would have hoofed it over to the offices on Golden Gate Avenue, but as it was, he needed a cab.

  Tristan had no idea how far inside the bureau the tentacles of conspiracy reached. He wasn't even sure he could trust his own boss, Richards. The video Rembrandt had given him was pretty hard to dismiss. Simon Lut, CEO of Westcap EnviroTech, was on the run. An international arrest warrant with his name on it had already been issued through Interpol.

  He thought of Charlie and realized that he hadn't seen his own daughter in over six months. The room in West Oakland he had prepared for her and the bed she was supposed to sleep in were untouched. Why had he been such a coward? Was he ashamed of what he had become, was that the reason he hadn't fought for her? Instead, he had fought for someone else's daughter.

  Baby Steps

  My mom and I were in the kitchen, cups of tea in hand, when the doorbell startled me. My mom was quick to sooth. "The police have a cruiser outside, honey, you're safe here.” I wanted to remind her that a cop had tried to kill me just two days ago, but didn't. "Why don't you get that?" she said.

  I felt the pull of isolation again, as I did after he died. The need to enter myself and leave the world behind. The difference this time was that I resisted it, I knew better—I hoped. I made my way to the front door and placed my eye against the peephole, and my heart skipped a beat. I turned the deadbolt, took a deep breath, and pulled open the door.

  Sarah was in her jogging gear. She held out a small, rectangular, white box. "A phone, for you," she said. "You can't expect me to be coming over once an hour every time I want to talk." I hesitated, then took the box. "Now, before you get all choked up and all, know that it's just a crappy Chinese thing. It's probably bristling with spyware, so be careful what you talk about. You wouldn't want the Chinese government finding out about your gas issues, right?"

  "True," I said. "Listen... I just want you to know that I'm—"

  Sarah held up her hand. "I don't want to hear it."

  "I shouldn't have—"

  “Enough. Go and get geared up and let’s hit them hills.” I was halfway up the stairs when she called after me from the doorway, “And, Lil, you better not let me win this time.”

  With my grief, my world had imploded and become infinitely small. I couldn’t see, then, that Sarah’s world and mine were inexorably tethered, like the steel cables unifying the two towers of the Golden Gate. I thought that I wasn’t worthy of her love… I was wrong.

  A week later, the crew was chilling in Nick's basement, the four of us just regular noobs. The tournament had continued on without us. The fact that there had been a gun battle a few feet from thousands of clueless gamers didn't seem to phase Alphacore corporate. The show must go on. The advertisers must be given satisfaction. A consolation of sorts was that one of the favorites, a professional outfit out of Seoul, had won, raking home the 200,000-dollar prize. Better that than some other ragtag team of newbies, like us, be given eternal glory.

  "Oh, George," Jamaal said, "before you get shipped off to oblivion, you'll need to hand over keys to the Twitch account." George's parents were going to send him off to another rehab, this time for three whole weeks somewhere in the middle of the woods without electricity and barely any running water. The second-degree burns on his nipples were t
he tipping point.

  "What are our numbers?" I asked, actually interested for once.

  "We've hit the 100,000 mark,” Jamaal said. "We could almost live off that now. We wouldn't need that bitcoin of yours." He was referring to the stash my dad had left me—we hadn’t figured out what to do with that just yet.

  Changing the subject, Nick said, "Listen, guys, we fought good and hard," taking back his role as team leader. "We gave them hell in both worlds.” Nick was almost back to his good old self, but something in his eyes had changed. They were the eyes of a grown man… a man who had stared death in the face, twice. He was seeing a shrink. They'd wanted me to see one too, but I'd refused. I hadn't felt this good since before my dad was killed, and wasn’t sure if it was ok.

  "We'll take them next year," I said, tagging onto Nick's optimistic note.

  "Interesting that you should say that," Nick said. "Our performance—"

  "Lily's performance," George clarified.

  "Our team performance got us noticed. When I opened my email earlier today, guess what I found?"

  "Spit it out, Nick," I said.

  "An invitation to the hottest invitational of the spring."

  "That's a good thing... right?" Jamaal ventured, picking up on Nick's muted enthusiasm.

  "One slight detail that I should mention," Nick continued. "The tournament is in St. Petersburg."

  "I see your point," George said. "Miami would be sweeter. But there are worse things than Florida in spring."