Battlecraft VR

by Linden Storm

  ∆∆∆

  Harold feels himself being lifted by William and pushed by Belle, up and out of the van and onto the rough, steep hillside. He keeps his eyes closed. It’s hard. He can hear the jackasses growling at Belle, and he wants to punch each of them in the face until they fall on the ground and die.

  “Take off your shoes and belts and empty your pockets,” one of the assholes says.

  “You’re that deputy,” Belle says.

  Before Harold can admonish Belle for identifying the masked kidnapper (not the wisest move), he hears a thud. Someone hitting someone.

  Harold feels an enormous fracas occurring all around him. He’s too groggy to react quickly, and before he can figure out what’s going on, a gun goes off.

  Everyone stops moving.

  “Sit the fuck down,” says a gruff, gravely, deep voice.

  Harold can see William holding his head and Belle holding her face. He figures out what happened: Belle pushed the deputy, the deputy hit her, and William attacked the attacker, provoking the gunshot.

  Harold can’t tell if anyone was shot. He’s panicking, wondering if Nick and the others are okay.

  He wonders if he should rise up, cause a distraction, and take as many of the hostiles out as he can. He tries to move.

  He feels a hand on his leg. Belle. Telling him to bide his time.

  And once again Harold feels dizzy, feels his eyesight dimming, feels the world fade out.

  Later—much later, Harold thinks—he realizes he’s been out for a while. He’s lying on a hard surface. A concrete floor. He blinks, trying to figure out where he is. His vision is blurry. The room looks like some kind of rural outbuilding.

  A dirty wooden floor littered with scraps of paper, gravel, cloth, junk. Filtered, sparse light. The scent of dust, sweat, grease, and blood.

  Nick is sitting near him, trying to get him to drink something.

  He coughs.

  “He’s awake,” Nick says. “Thank God, Grandpa. Are you okay?”

  Harold decides not to get up just yet and looks around some more. His mouth is dry.

  There’s a high ceiling with one high window, maybe twelve feet up. Bare lightbulbs. Cans of paint, rusty pipes, and fixtures spilling out of boxes or piled against the metal walls. Old sinks, a toilet seat or three, crates full of nuts and bolts, engine parts.

  It’s dim and reasonably cool, despite the heat outside. Harold doesn’t know how long he’s been out, but he guesses by the quality of the light that it’s mid-morning.

  He’s thirsty. In the corner, a leaky faucet drips water into a metal bucket.

  There are grease stains, grime, and cobwebs on the floor and walls, on the boxes, on everything. Fine dust hangs in the backlit air.

  He turns his head and sees Belle bending over him. She kneels, pounding her fist against her own thigh. Pound, pound, pound. Harold thinks she might be punishing herself, thinking she could have or should have anticipated this disaster.

  It’s true that he’d warned them, and they hadn’t taken him seriously at first. But he’d thought—as they all had—that they were safe after the night hiding in the wilderness.

  Yet here they are, kidnapped and imprisoned by the sons of bitches in the SUVs.

  How do these goddamned goons think they can get away with snatching five people, four of whom are famous?

  Do they know they have Rupert Jones Jr., a billionaire? Probably. His face is plastered all over the tech streams and the money streams now, too, during the runup to the Spigot World 2.0 release. Maybe they will try to get money from Rupert before they kill them all. Maybe that’s why they’re still alive.

  “Did they ask for money?” Harold says, his voice coming out raspy and quiet.

  “No one knows what they want,” Rupert says. “They won’t talk to us. We’ve been pounding on that door for a long time.”

  “You’ve been out a while, Grandpa,” says Nick. “Thank God you’re awake now. We were very worried.”

  Harold sits up and looks at the door. Above the door, a small camera blinks its red light. It whirs right and then left. Shithead voyeurs, Harold thinks.

  “Water?” Harold says. He’s shocked to hear his own voice, so weak and raspy.

  “Right here,” Nick says.

  Harold drinks some water and listens to the others talk too quietly to be heard by a microphone—or him, for that matter. Their heads are close together and they’re covering their mouths to prevent lipreading.

  Rupert leans in close to Harold’s ear and fills him in. Belle, William, and Nick seem to be certain one of their captors is the deputy that had arrested them in Nevada. But this is surely no official operation.

  Which means rogue cops are involved, which means big trouble.

  Harold wonders if they think they can get away with this because they are cops.

  “Some cops think they can get away with anything, especially Counties and shit-town Barney Fifes,” he whispers to Nick.

  “What’s a Barney Fife?” Nick says.

  “Never mind,” Harold says. “Dumbasses.” But what he’s thinking is that small-town cops who are power mad, weak, and scared spitless all the time are dangerous.

  Still, they aren’t murdered yet. Maybe every hour that passes without them getting murdered is a good sign.

  Unfortunately, Harold is beginning to worry about being a burden.

  William gives him more water out of the dented, slightly rusty tin can. The water tastes metallic and stale.

  His heart is again doing flip-flops and soft-shoe routines in his chest. He needs rest and his pills and probably a hospital, but none of that is forthcoming. Why hadn’t he agreed to the pacemaker? They’re not a big deal, but he hadn’t liked the idea of a foreign object in his body, a machine he’d grow more and more dependent on.

  The arrhythmia makes him feel light-headed. He accepts a hard pillow made of a filthy cardboard box.

  Belle is pacing now, trying the door—which gets her yelled at by the guard stationed outside.

  She starts piling up boxes and climbing up to the window, trying to see out, while Nick tugs at her pant leg and begs her to stop. He’s afraid she’ll fall. He’s afraid their captors will get mad. But it’s no use telling Belle what to do. She’s got her own plans. What a gal, Harold thinks.

  William stations himself below her as her spotter. She gets up there all right. But the window is crusted with dirt.

  “What are you doing? They can see you,” Nick says.

  “I can’t see out,” she says. “Give me something to pry with.”

  William hands her a piece of metal from one of the boxes, and she goes to work prying a sliver of wood loose.

  “Just sky and the top of a tree,” she says.

  The guard bangs on the door and yells. “Get away from the window, or you’ll be sorry.”

  “Better do what he says,” Nick says.

  “I’ve got to agree with Nick on that one,” William says. “Let’s call that window a Plan B. We don’t want them to separate us or tie us up.”

  Some new air blows in from outside, and from the smell of the place Harold can tell they’re nowhere near civilization.

  It’s cooler than it had been in Reno, and maybe the air’s thinner—could be they’re at a higher elevation. Or maybe he’s short out of breath because of the arrhythmia.

  “We are not escaping on our own. We’re going to need help,” Rupert says.

  “How can we get help?” Belle says. “They took all our devices.”

  “I know that,” Rupert says. “I’m thinking we negotiate.”

  “What have we been trying to do?” Belle says angrily. “They aren’t listening.”

  “What do you suggest, then?” Rupert says, a cold edge to his voice.

  “I suggest we are fucked,” Belle says.

  “First things first,” Nick says. “My grandfather needs his pills.”

  “What pills?” Rupert says.

  “His heart pills,” Nick
says.

  “Is that true?” Belle says.

  Harold considers lying, but he quickly decides against it. He does need his pills.

  It’s like being underwater, the way his eyesight keeps wavering, the way he keeps realizing he’s holding his breath. He makes himself cough. Sometimes that helps his heartbeat regulate.

  And for a few minutes it does seem to smooth out.

  But then it starts rat-a-tatting again.

  He doesn’t remember passing out, but suddenly he is waking up again, and someone is feeling his neck for a pulse. Someone else is bellowing his name. Someone else is pounding on the door, threatening to kill the guard if he doesn’t get the old man’s medication.

  That would be Belle.

  What follows is a loud recitation of invective so foul, Harold can’t help but be impressed. Belle sure is giving the crooked cop bastards hell.

  But Harold is thinking something the kids probably haven’t thought of. Kidnapping is sometimes treated as if it’s just as serious an offense as murder. If these guys get caught, they’ll be in more trouble than they can handle, and these so-called lawmen are not going to want to end up on prison with a bunch of criminals they’ve helped put there. Nope.

  Their best chance, their only chance now, is that Marina and Paul will realize there’s something wrong and send help.

  Chapter Ten

  They’re Going to Have to

  Make Some Adjustments

  After the phone call with the group, Marina feels a little better. Cleansed. Paul engulfs her in a long, swaying hug.

  She looks around Paul’s room. It’s not large; neither is it nice. He keeps it neat, though, in the fashion of a good soldier. Even his whiskey and cannabis supplies are lined up on a peeling, beat-up chest of drawers. The bed is made and it’s unwrinkled, although the bedspread is stained and frayed.

  His VR rig is placed in the only open space in the room, a battered skeleton next to the bed. His haptic suit is folded in half and draped carefully over the arms. His headset is hung on the spine.

  “The place is lousy,” Paul says. “Everything’s broken. Like the bathroom door. You have to prop it closed with that chunk of asphalt.”

  Marina nods, peering around the corner. Sure enough, there’s a small black chunk of asphalt on the bathroom floor.

  It’s shabby indeed, she thinks, but she feels happier than she can ever remember. She has money in her bag, she is with her friend, and she is safe. Best of all, her team is about to be reunited.

  It’s all sinking in. Leaving Jimmy has been like escaping from an unlocked dungeon. All she did was open the door and run. She knows there will be a price, but for now she will savor the moment.

  She wishes, though, that she’d kept her friends informed. Now she sees she has hurt people who sincerely care about her.

  It’s clear to her, finally, that this relationship with Paul is not transactional.

  He would do anything for her, as would William and Nick.

  Belle does not feel the same about her, but that’s understandably complicated.

  “Again, I’m sorry,” she says to Paul. “I could have gotten in touch before now, and I should have.”

  “Yes, you should have.”

  “I let my complicated emotions reign, and that was a terrible mistake. Jimmy and his friends were frightening. I wasn’t sure what technology they had at their disposal, or how much manpower. I was ashamed at the mess I’d gotten myself into, and I told myself I was training the team to work better together. But some of it, really, was simply that I wanted to do what I wanted to do for once. To be responsible only for myself. To enjoy it. I’m not proud of myself for that.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Yes, I meant for it to last for at most a day, but then I let it go on too long. Finally, I realized how selfishly I was behaving. Because you really do care what happens to me.”

  “You didn’t know I cared about you?” Paul says.

  “Not really.”

  “That’s partly my fault,” Paul says. “I haven’t been forthcoming.”

  She laughs. “That is an understatement.”

  He grins. “I got out of the habit of talking, because every time I opened my mouth the wrong words came out. And I haven’t exactly been at my best. I have headaches.”

  “I know. But can you talk to me now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you make an attempt?

  “Like, say something to you?” Paul looks pained.

  “Something meaningful.”

  “Do you want a drink?” he says.

  She laughs. He laughs.

  And they are laughing and laughing. They are bent double laughing, and they cannot stop.

  She finally heads toward the bathroom. She wants to use the toilet and wash her face, and then she needs to sleep.

  When she comes out, she feels as if she can’t keep going another minute. “I know it’s not bedtime yet, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to lie down on the bed. I’m very tired.”

  Paul nods. He looks embarrassed, and he rubs his head, and Marina wonders if his headache is back.

  “Sorry about the bed. It’s not very comfortable. I’ll take the floor,” he says.

  “I want to...No, I need to stay with you,” she says. Suddenly she can’t stand the idea of being alone. “But I will not have you sleeping on the floor. You take one side of the bed, and I’ll take the other.”

  She lies down and the next thing she is aware of is darkness, with a single shaft of yellow light cutting a line across her vision. She holds still but moves her eyes to the source of the light.

  She sees Paul’s naked leg and backside through the crack in the door, which is ajar. She smiles, remembering the chunk of asphalt, and continues to watch him. It’s not quite midnight. She’s been sleeping for several hours.

  She wonders how Belle is doing, hiding out in the California wilderness in a camper van with four men. Tomorrow they’ll all be together again, but right now, she and Paul are all alone in a secret world of their own.

  He moves back and forth in front of the door. He appears to be shaving. The bathroom smells of soap. The mirror is steamed up, except for a small circular window in which he watches his reflection.

  The back of his head is sprouting thick, light hair.

  So. He’s not bald, she thinks—he shaves off his hair, thereby intentionally displaying that giant dent in his skull.

  His back is triangular and beautiful, with its symmetrical muscular shoulders, narrow waist, and long, strong legs. She’s jolted into a higher state of wakefulness. She’d like to touch his shoulder, turn him around slowly, and stroke his scarred cheek, his chest, his strong arms.

  She’d like to heal him with her mouth, her touch, her sighs.

  She watches intently as he turns to the side, catches her eye in the mirror, startles in embarrassment.

  But she smiles and raises two fingers in a small wave, and he grins back, then reaches back with his foot—without turning around, pushing the door closed.

  When he comes out he has wrapped in a thin motel towel around his waist. “Sorry,” he says. “You didn’t seem like you were going to wake up any time soon.”

  “No problem,” she says. “Can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” he says. “Do you need shampoo or something?”

  “No. I want to make a request. Will you not…shave your head?”

  His hand goes up, and he rubs the stubble on his skull. He grins. “I guess that would be okay.”

  She rises from the bed, approaches him, and gently removes his towel.

  And then it’s all hard breathing and fast, urgent movements.

  “Is this okay…?” Paul says. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s what I want,” she says.

  Later, when Paul is on top of her, inside her, she is ecstatic with pleasure and happiness, and she says, “We are stardust.”

  She doesn’t know why she says it.
It just comes out.

  She feels more freedom than she thought possible. She is free of worries about money, survival, even her purpose in life.

  He laughs in her ear. “I can’t believe this,” he says.

  “I can,” she says. “It’s all part of the plan.”

  “Really?” he says.

  “No,” she says, laughing.

  Later, he curls himself around her and whispers in her ear: “So, we’re stardust, huh?”

  She swats at his arm and laughs. “I do not know why I said that.”

  And then they’re both asleep.

  ∆∆∆

  Several hours later, after a couple of more rounds, Paul watches Marina head for the bathroom door and he’s relieved.

  “Keep going,” he says, grinning, as Marina hesitates. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  He thinks of his wife.

  They’d never enjoyed making love like this or laughed together like this.

  We had nothing to laugh about, he thinks. I never loved her.

  When he’d married her, it was because he didn’t like to argue. How stupid is that? He thinks, shaking his head. She’d badgered him into showing up for the big church wedding right before he shipped out.

  He’d done what he was told. Showed up, played the part.

  He’d never for a moment considered forgoing the company of other women. She’d made sure the language about forsaking all others was in the vows, though, and he’d said the words, or at least he’d said, “I do.” In a church, wearing a tux, while she stood there resplendent and self-satisfied in white lace.

  What a joke, he’d thought then.

  I was such an asshole to go through with that wedding, he thinks now, to let her believe what she wanted to believe.

  Now all those memories make him feel sad and ashamed. He’s changed. Life means more to him now. Words mean more to him now.

  No wonder his wife had hit him and kicked him and gotten him thrown in jail. It was a wonder she hadn’t killed him.

  When Marina gets out of the bathroom, he is suddenly so weary he can’t think or talk anymore. “I have to sleep,” he says.

  He wants respite from the situation and respite from his feelings about Marina. He’s never been so glad to see anyone. But does he love her, or does he just admire her? What’s his love worth, anyhow? Pain, nothing but pain and sorrow. He wants to tell her what she means to him, but he doesn’t trust himself to say the right words—or to follow through on them.