by D. J. Bodden
“He’s still alive,” Jeff said.
Sandra and Osmark both looked at him. “What?” they said together.
Jeff pointed at the computer station with his bandaged arm. The feed from Alan’s eyes was still on, and it was moving. “He’s still alive.”
TWENTY-FIVE
THE SKY WAS DARKENING. There was a damp charge to the air like it was heavy.
“Alan? Come on, boy, get up and say something, or have you been struck dumb and stupid?”
“I’m dead.”
Horace snorted. “I’m no necromancer, but I think you might have that wrong.”
I ignored him. “Rob? Sandra? Anyone?”
Nothing. Just the feel of Horace’s hand on my shoulder. June was saying something, but it came through as noise, like the grown-ups speaking in a Peanuts special. I tried to log out again, and couldn’t even get the prompt to come up.
Then I heard the scratching sound of someone putting on a headset. “Alan?”
“Rob?”
Someone chuckled. “No, it’s Jeff. Rob and Sandra are standing behind me like scared extras in a Romero movie.”
His flippant tone slid off me like rain on a windshield. “I can’t log out.”
“That makes sense; nowhere to log out to. Sandra fried your nanites when she tried to resuscitate you. In fairness, it was the right call because the nanites wouldn’t do you any good once your body was dead. Or would they? That’s a scary thought, isn’t it?”
I swallowed. So that was it, then.
“I will not, sir. You’re welcome to join me, but I will not ‘give you the room,’” Jeff said. There was the sound of muffled speaking, then Jeff added, “That’s kind of you, Ms. Bullard, but I’m not feeling fragile. Things are very clear from where I’m sitting.”
More scratching sounds, then Rob came on the line. “Alan?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I had zero handle on what was going on right now.
“It’s going to be okay, Alan. You’re still here. We’re going to find a way through this.”
“I understand the nanites in my brain are fried.”
“We have more.”
“And that I don’t have a body to come back to. Or is the real Alan still in my body? Is he watching this now? God, this isn’t happening.”
“There’s no one in your body, Alan. You’re the only—”
“That doesn’t make it better!” I snapped.
June had her big arm around me, and she was holding me to her chest.
“I will find you a way out of this, Alan. I promise. I’ll build you a new body if I have to.”
Jeff snort-laughed out loud.
“All right, that’s enough. Sandra, get him out of here. Drag him if you have to.” More mic feedback and scraping. “Damn it. Alan, I’ll be back. Stay safe in there.”
Then silence. If I hadn’t been so stunned, so intent on avoiding the eyes of the market-goers staring at the man talking to himself, I wouldn’t have seen the first crossbowman settle into position on the opposite rooftop.
“FUCK!” OSMARK SHOUTED, throwing his headset across the room. He followed that up with a stream of more colorful Italian curse words he’d learned when he was a kid.
Berkowitz looked like he was on the verge of laughter or tears again.
Robert turned his attention to Sandra. “How you gonna fix this, huh?” His Brooklyn accent came right out when he was pissed, and he didn’t care. “What? No answer? Fine. Come with me. You too, doc. Stop dickin’ around with that body, it ain’t goin’ nowhere. And you!” he said, stabbing his finger at Jeff. “Stay off the computer. You’ve caused enough trouble today.”
“Is he alive? Is it really him?” Sandra asked.
“What am I, a priest?” Osmark started walking toward the door. “I have no idea. I need the head developer in here yesterday to tell me if there’s a persistent copy stored in game for bad connections or if that’s really Alan, but it’d be easier for all of us if he was just gone. In the meantime, get security on that door. No one in or out, especially Chuckles back there. He’s not ready to drive a car or tie his shoes right now.”
“Yes, Mr. Osmark.”
A MESSAGE FROM PROVUS hit my inbox.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
Alan,
Problem bigger than we thought. Praetorian barracks attacked. Uncle wants me out of the city while he solves the problem. You should leave, too. Will wait for you where we started the hunt. Don’t be long.
—Provus
<<<>>>
There were dozens of crossbowmen I could see, and maybe more hidden by the orange tarps that the merchants had strung from the roofs to long tent poles for shade. They squatted in teams of two, a spotter/reloader and a shooter. They started to take aim.
It brought me right back into the moment, to my face against June’s enormous chest and her stroking my hair like I was a frightened child. I struggled free.
June let me go. “What—”
“Run!” I Vocalized to the whole market. “Run for your lives! It’s the terrorists who attacked the South Precinct!”
People ran. Accipiters took flight. The Risi in the crowd trampled people. There was screaming. Bowstrings snapped and bolts fell like the first drops of a downpour, little black flashes across my vision. Clusters of people hammered on doors, pleading to be let in. The crowd was bunching at the main entrances to the marketplace, and there were more screams. I grabbed Horace and June and pulled them toward that little side alley I’d used to chase after Provus, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
I heard a whoosh and the screams intensified. People were falling back. A woman fell in front of me, a crossbow bolt buried between her shoulder blades. A fireball streaked across the plaza and exploded into a group of people trapped on the armorer’s doorstep. Another burst against a cluster of palm trees and set them on fire.
“What do we do?” June asked me.
I had no idea. I could see the alleyway now. A wall of fire was blocking the entrance.
Then I couldn’t move. Or speak. I could move my eyes. June, Horace, and I were wrapped in cords of fire. They didn’t burn, and they were translucent, like they were only partly there, but they held us all the same.
The screaming was getting fainter. I had a clear view of the northwestern entrance to the market. Men and women in black masks with green-painted eyes were lining people up on their knees. Those who tried to fight or run were cut down or shot. A drop of rain hit my face, and I couldn’t wipe it away.
Thalia stepped in front of me. “Alan.”
Thalia? I thought, but my mouth wouldn’t move.
“I should have known it was you. You were too smooth. That’s what gave it away. Just like the old man.” She released Horace from the spell and dragged him in front of me, holding him from behind so I could see.
“Thalia?” he said with a quaking voice. “What are you doing? I’ve known you since—”
She grabbed his throat, and her hand glowed ice blue. “You liked this trick, didn’t you, Alan? Do you like it now? Does it turn you on?”
Horace’s mouth moved and his body shook. No sound. She’d frozen his throat shut. Please stop, I thought. Please. Thalia held him up the whole time, and his struggles became more frantic, until his face turned blue. Tears streamed down my face.
“Was it a game for you, Alan? To seduce me after you killed him? Can you let me in on the joke, or are we all laughing together, now?”
She released June.
“Horace!” June screamed. I heard scuffling, then grunts. More rain, now, a steady trickle from the sky. June was dragged in front of me by two of the masked terrorists. Thalia joined her. The Dawn Elf’s lip was split and bleeding.
Thalia laughed, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist. “I like this one, Alan. The cabinetmaker’s daughter. Do you know I tried to hire her, once? I was going to offer full meals at the Terrace, but she didn’t want to go. Said she wanted to be with
her regular customers, in the lower quarter.” Thalia reached over and drew the sword from one of her henchmen’s sheathes. She waved her hand over the blade, and flames lit the steel. It hissed and spat as raindrops hit it. “The best rotisserie in the city.”
June didn’t get to go quietly. She screamed until she was hoarse, and I could do nothing.
JEFF WATCHED IT ALL happen on the monitor, bandaged arm crossed over his left. Was Alan an NPC, now? Would he disappear forever if he died?
All Jeff had to do to find out was the same thing he’d done until now. Nothing. Osmark was right. It would be easier. They could shut the system down, or just roll it back to its state three days ago. This could all go away.
He picked up the headset. “Alan? I know you can’t speak. I know you’re surrounded. But you were brave. You acted where I broke down, and you deserve better than this, better than all of this.
“Osmark wants you dead. I heard him say it. I can’t save you, but I’m going to give you a chance. Run. Hide. Find a way to escape. It’s the only way.”
Jeff set the headset down, typed a few commands into the computer, and hit enter.
OSMARK WANTS ME DEAD? Of course he does. I was an inconvenience. A bug in the system. He could clean all of this up, fix the security logs, claim it was my doing and he didn’t know, as long as I wasn’t around to contradict him. For a moment, I saw Rob’s face instead of Thalia’s as she dug the flaming sword into June’s back.
June cried out one more time and went limp in the men’s arms, eyes blank, drool and snot hanging from her face. The men looked at Thalia, and she nodded. They dumped June onto the ground like a sack.
Thalia stepped over June’s body, flaming sword still in hand, and I wasn’t scared anymore. I was too full of cold, calculating hate. “I wanted you to feel that before I kill you, Alan. I wanted you to know how it—”
Jeff materialized out of the air, wrapped his arms around my crazy almost-ex-girlfriend, and slammed her to the ground.
Time slowed.
June and Horace were dead. The terrorists in the masks were executing the people who’d surrendered. Thalia and Osmark were unstoppable monsters. This was bigger than me. I was too small. My only chance was to do what Jeff told me to—run, hide, and then grow until I could throw it all back in their faces. The entrances were blocked, and almost thirty of the masked men and women were pouring into the marketplace. The only path that didn’t end with me hacked, shot, or roasted was toward the blank wall where I’d found Horace, that first day, a place where there was no path I could smell, taste, touch, hear, or see.
Time resumed, and I ran. A henchman grabbed my cloak, and I shrugged out of it. Something creased the back of my neck, but I kept going, even when the second bolt slammed into my thigh. The wall was getting closer. I heard Jeff shrieking, the way June had shrieked, but I blocked it out. There were only the Halls, a state of mind, a place that wasn’t a place. I hit the wall and passed through.
When I was nine my mom and her girlfriend brought me to a Burlington Coat Factory outlet and I hid from them in the rows. Passing through the wall felt like that, like I was a kid again, pushing my way through hanging peacoats, buttons and catches grabbing at me as I pressed the heavy wool fabric aside.
I stepped out into the marketplace. The sun was shining. The wind stirred the palms. Horace was taking a nap against the temple wall, and I could join him if I wanted—just for a while. I’d had such a hard day. The memory of screams, smoke, and blood was fading away, but something warned me that if I stopped here, I would never leave. The Halls of Illusion are the straight way through crooked places. Someone had told me that. I walked forward.
I was in the market, all right, but the angles were strange. Things shifted to form a direct path, as long as I meant to stay on it. It’s just as confusing as it sounds. Vendors called out, offering me balms, ointments, and potions. That sounded nice because I had a dull ache in my right thigh, but I could bear it, so I walked on.
“Alan!” June said, waving at me. “Come try this new recipe!” She held a plate of meat, vegetables, and peppers toward me, and my mouth watered.
“It smells great, June,” I said, not stopping. I had somewhere I needed to be.
The vendors became more frantic, offering me charms and armor at deep discounts. Fatin asked for a moment of my time. Tozhug challenged me to an arm wrestling match. Quest offerings appeared like pop-ups on a naughty website, and I dismissed them all. I was almost at the archway.
“Alan?” Thalia said, behind me. I turned to look. She was wearing a white halter dress with lace around its straps and a modest V-neck. She’d braided flowers into her hair, like a crown. “Can’t you stay?” she asked.
God, her voice still did it for me after all she’d done. “I don’t think I can,” I told her sadly.
I stepped through the arch.
Bright fluorescent lights blinded me. I blinked. Doctor Vila was by my side. “He’s alive!”
Sandra hugged me. “Alan! I’m so glad.”
I gave her a squeeze. Her body was hard and toned. Her black hair smelled like hairspray; it took a lot to get a flawless bob like hers. I took hold of her hands and gently pried them loose.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I thought we’d lost you. Here, swing your legs out of the bed and I’ll help you walk.”
I smiled at her. We could have been something, she and I. There was a hardness to her, an aloofness, but also a deep, internal honesty I could have planted my feet on when I felt lost. But this wasn’t her. I threw the covers aside and stepped forward, toward the ceiling. The world rotated around me.
My bare feet touched the floor of Alpha Testing. It was cold, always so cold in here. Jeff waved at me from the computer station. “Alan! Come see this! It’s fucking amazing!” I walked forward and the room bent away from Jeff toward the exit. The whole team was there, cheering, yelling, “Speech, speech, speech!” The podium was to my right, up a short flight of stairs. A hundred ears waiting to hear Alan Campbell’s wisdom. I laughed out loud.
“You did it, Alan,” Osmark told me. “You saved Viridian. You saved the whole company. We need to talk about your future.”
“I can’t go with you,” I told him.
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Then I’ll go with you.”
We talked as we went. He told me he had big plans, long-term plans. We just needed to get me a bit more training, a bit more exposure, some credibility with the senior staff. I went along with it. We’d had this back and forth before, and it was true. I could have been something. But I stayed focused on the path because Rob would push or pull ever so slightly to the side without meaning to, and I might have been led astray.
Frank stood at the door, his arms crossed. “Can’t let you through, Alan.”
I tried to step forward, but Frank put his hand out and stopped me. The world did not bend. He was as solid as rock, his eyes as dark as the abyss. “Get out of my way, Frank,” I said.
Rage and madness glittered in the thing’s eyes, and for a moment I got a flash—a taste—of it slithering off a narrow stone bridge suspended over nothing, and dark, chittering, sliding things moved, frantic and formless, in that void. They hungered. I pushed the door open and stepped out onto the parking lot. I wondered if I would walk all the way to the sea.
“Your car’s over here, Alan,” Osmark said. The Spyder was parked by the door, first spot, project lead for Viridian. I laughed at the ridiculous vanity of it all. Osmark frowned. “If you don’t like it anymore, take mine,” he said, pulling his own keys out of his pocket.
I looked forward and found the main office building in front of me. Why not? I walked through the entrance. Rob didn’t follow me in.
The receptionist looked up and smiled. “Good morning, Mr. Campbell! Your mother is on the line. Shall I connect you?”
I shook my head and draped my coat over my arm. I was wearing a silk-lined bespoke Saville suit and Italian leather shoes, and the whole
outfit was obscenely comfortable.
“Mr. Campbell, could you take a look at—”
“Mr. Campbell! A comment for the Daily—”
Sandra walked beside me, clipboard in hand, wearing a perfectly fitted navy-blue suit and skirt. She’d aged as well as I thought she would. “I have the agenda ready for the Board, Alan. Do you have time go over it?”
“I’m sorry, Sandra. You can’t imagine how much. But no. Clear my schedule for the afternoon.”
“Okay. Is everything all right?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ll see you at home.” It was my fantasy the Halls were feeding off, after all. I might as well enjoy it.
Pops waited by the elevator, holding his hat by the brim with giant hands. I recognized the brown pants and the tweed sports coat he wore to church. I knew he’d smell faintly of earth and pipe tobacco. I felt a lump in my throat.
“Hey, Nieto. You have time for an old man?”
I almost lost it, then. I almost ran to him and wrapped my arms around him. The only thing that stopped me, and I hadn’t realized it until now, was that Pops looked a bit like Horace, and Horace was dead, just like Pops. The elevator doors opened, and I stepped through into my office on the top floor.
Epilogue
I’D ARRIVED AT THE end of things. The office was just how I would have wanted it—floor-to-ceiling windows all the way across, a poured, textured, and polished concrete floor that looked like I was stepping onto an abstract painting of a Carribean lagoon, plain white walls, and a gray wood desk that looked like a solid block floating inches above the floor.
I stepped forward, and the clack of my shoes echoed. I laughed.
“Of course the room has perfect acoustics.”
I looked around, frowning.
“Where did that... Oh. I see.” I was depersonalizing. Disassociating. “Now even my internal monologue had been taken away.”
I walked forward, heels clacking. I thought—