Battlecraft VR

by Linden Storm

  Harold’s life might depend on it.

  ∆∆∆

  Harold watches from his position on the floor. From that angle, he can see William’s face as he stands over Belle. The kidnappers can’t, because William’s back is to the camera. They’ll be able to see Belle’s face, though. Fortunately, she seems to be an excellent actor. William’s not half bad either.

  Belle draws closer to William. He stands motionless for a moment, then places his hands on her face, cradling it. He tilts her face up, turning her to the side to give the camera a better view of the proceedings.

  Her stiff posture slowly, slowly softens, her angry eyes turn sad, and she cries actual tears. They flow down onto William’s hands.

  My God, that’s good, Harold thinks. Go, Belle, go.

  William’s eyebrows knit and his lip curls. He shakes his head slowly, expressing disappointment with everything he’s got. He’s overacting, but the kidnappers probably need something obvious in order to get the emotional picture.

  Harold feels irritation in his throat and coughs. This is not part of the act, and he hopes William and Belle can ignore him and barrel ahead with their dysfunctional-lovers’ quarrel.

  With difficulty, Harold turns on his side to settle his heart down and resumes watching. William looks down at Belle, who is not only weeping real tears now, but trembling and clutching at William’s arms.

  “This has to be done,” William says. “But I promise, when it’s all over, it’ll be you and me, baby, together.”

  “Really?” Belle says, adding on a choking sob. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”

  Then she presses herself into William, presses her face into his chest, and he, trouper that he is, wraps his arms around her and pats her back, even as he turns his head away from the camera and rolls his eyes at Nick and Rupert, who are slouched on some boxes near the back wall, acting bored.

  Pretty damned good, Harold thinks. I might be fooled if I wasn’t in on it.

  “Tell me how it’s going to be,” Belle says breathily. “How we’re going to be together forever.”

  “That’s right,” William says, petting her hair. “You be good, do what I say, and you’ll be my girl. We’ll even get married.”

  Belle squeals with apparent delight.

  Harold remembers what Belle had written down for them on a piece of old cardboard, using a pencil stub she’d found in one of the crates. William, you need to be intimidating, she’d written, even after we make up. I want the assholes to be excited, and maybe even a little scared for me. Don’t worry about overdoing it. They’ll believe it.

  Harold is wondering if William will remember to deliver on his promise, when William shoves Belle away from him and grabs her by her narrow shoulders.

  “But listen,” William says, “If you ever do anything like that again, it’s off, and I will hurt you bad. I mean it.”

  “What did I do?” Belle wails.

  “You lost your shit. Even after I warned you and I told you to calm down, you called me names. And then you slapped me. No bitch calls me names. No bitch hits me. Do you understand?”

  Belle looks at the ground and mutters something.

  “What?” William says, shaking her. “What did you say?”

  “I said, you call me names all the time.”

  William shoves her backwards, and she hits the wall, crying out. She throws herself onto the floor and bawls loudly and dramatically, like a child who isn’t hurt but wants you to think she is.

  Harold sits up. He can’t help but be concerned. This can’t be right. It’s too much.

  But William says, “Shut the fuck up, Bitch. Now.”

  Belle appears to try to stop crying, then appears to fail, and William stalks over her, bends over her, and fists balled, threatens her.

  The words are unintelligible, but the intention is unmistakable.

  “Hey,” Harold says.

  “Shut up, old man!” William says. “I’m trying to save your life.” He jerks Belle’s arms, pulls her into his body. She struggles feebly for a minute, then gives in.

  Please let this be over, Harold thinks. I don’t think I can take much more.

  He thinks, too, that it’s pretty funny that right now he’d give anything to see the old Belle, the real Belle, the one who tells them all off regularly.

  He wonders if the scene is as believable as he thinks it is and then decides it most certainly is.

  The thugs are seeing what they want to see. He can only imagine how pleased they must be.

  Belle puts on an innocent, childlike expression, then, eyes brimming, pouty mouth, shaking lips.

  Harold is newly impressed.

  And then he wonders if she’s replaying a scene or three from her childhood.

  Poor kid; all those foster homes. She probably saw lots of stuff like this. Weak men acting tough, women saying and doing what they had to.

  He remembers his first few years with Meta, and feels his face redden with shame. He hadn’t ever hurt Meta physically, but there had been times when he tried to intimidate her. He’d been one of those angry young men, one of those rebels without a clue—a kid who was playing the part of a grownup man. Thank God Meta had been strong enough to call him on his bullshit and work with him until he grew out of it.

  Still, he wonders how much damage he did to Meta’s heart, to her image of him in those years. For about the hundredth time, he offers a silent apology to her for every way he’d ever wronged her.

  Everything settles down. They wait. It’s blessedly quiet. William sits next to Belle on the floor, his arm tight around her. She’s pretending to be asleep. Or maybe she is asleep. None of them have gotten much sleep in the past 48 hours.

  Nick and Rupert loiter in their places.

  It won’t be long now, Harold thinks, but several more minutes go by.

  “Wait,” Belle had said. “Wait for them to come to us. It’ll give us an advantage.”

  And sure enough, there’s noise and motion at the door.

  One of the masked men comes in and motions for William and Belle to follow him out the door.

  ∆∆∆

  It’s nearly five in the morning when Belle and William are ushered at gunpoint into a decrepit farmhouse, where two additional masked men wait at an old table with rusty aluminum legs. Belle’s phone is in the middle of the table.

  She is given instructions. She nods to show their captors she understands, then calls Paul’s number and puts the phone on speaker.

  “Belle!” Paul says, picking up before the phone even rings. “What happened to you?”

  “I’ll explain later. Can I talk to Marina?” Belle says.

  There’s a pause, and then Paul says, “Sure.”

  “Howdy, Marina,” Belle says, when Marina says hello. “Sorry to call so early.”

  The lead thug stands and puts his hand on Belle’s shoulder, squeezing down with his powerful grip. It doesn’t hurt. Yet.

  “Howdy,” Marina says, her voice strong and clear. “It’s good to hear from you.”

  By the way Marina greeted her, and the false tone of her voice, Belle immediately knows that Marina is getting her message: there’s big trouble with strong adversaries. She glances at the goons. They don’t appear to have noticed anything strange about the conversation, not yet, anyway.

  “How long has it been? A week?” Belle says, adopting a bouncy, high-pitched tone. To her own ear, she sounds completely false. She’s counting on Marina to feel the same dissonance.

  “Too long, Sister!” Marina says, matching Belle’s girlish enthusiasm. Marina has never before addressed Belle as her sister. Belle wants to cheer. Her message is being received loud and clear.

  “How are you?” Marina says. “How is everything? I was worried when I saw your devices go offline.”

  “No need to worry,” Belle says. “We were practicing for the Garrison Map and we lost track of time.”

  “The Garrison Map is quite a difficult scenario.” />
  The Garrison Map is a Battlecraft scenario in which one member of a team is imprisoned in a dungeon, and the rest of the team has to try to free the prisoner and eliminate all the opposing team members.

  Yes! Marina gets it.

  “Don’t you think the practices would go better if we were all together?” Marina says.

  “You’re right. We’re in a remote location, though.”

  “I see that from your device locater,” Marina says. “Near Donner Pass. What are you doing there?”

  “Just trying to get some uninterrupted practice time in. You know how it is, especially now that we’re famous.”

  “I get it,” Marina says.

  Belle can tell she’s trying hard to keep a tremor out of her voice. “Anyway, that’s why I’m calling. You’re not far away, are you? Can you come and meet us?”

  “Of course,” Marina says. “Do we need to bring anything?”

  “Just your amazing selves,” Belle says.

  “I understand,” Marina says.

  “It’s going to be great,” Belle says.

  In her peripheral vision, Belle sees the leader’s right hand making a circling motion. What is she forgetting? Oh, yes. Their captors want to know when to expect Marina and Paul.

  “So. When do you think you can get here?” Belle says.

  There’s a long pause.

  “Sorry,” Marina says, “I had to check with Paul. He says we can’t get there until the at least tomorrow morning. Paul has to get permission to travel and we have to get some money together.”

  “Ah,” Belle says. She knows Marina has plenty of money from the Vegas stop.

  The hand squeezes down. Belle grunts.

  “What was that? Are you all right?” Marina says.

  Belle takes a breath. “Just me being clumsy. I dropped something on my foot.”

  “Oh, okay,” Marina says. “See you soon, then.”

  “Great!” Belle says. “Can’t wait.”

  Belle hands the phone back to the nearest masked man. She rubs her shoulder.

  “Now, can we please have some blankets and sweatshirts and food?” William says. “This bitch won’t stop complaining, and I’m sick of it.”

  “Yeah, we can work on that,” the head thug says, nodding. “But no tricks.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” William says, holding up his hands like a real innocent.

  Chapter Twelve

  They’ve Answered the Call

  It’s nearly six in the morning, but still dark, when Paul tells Gemma to pull over in some trees and park behind an abandoned cabin. They roll to a stop and sit for a moment, then silently exit the van. Paul circles the van and pronounces it well enough hidden. He then shuffles through the sacks of supplies he’d obtained in Milpitas and pulls out some binoculars.

  Paul looks Marina and Gemma over, then asks them to put on some darker clothing. Gemma pulls a black shirt and a navy sweater out of one of her packs. For a moment, he questions his own judgment. Wouldn’t it be better if they took their chances with the law? But who would they call? What if the local law enforcement, sheriffs and such, are working with the abductors? How would they know who is and isn’t evil? He decides to go forward with the plan, such as it is.

  “Now what?” Gemma says.

  “Stay low and follow me up the hill.”

  Paul shines a pin light at the rough ground, and the women follow. They scramble through the brush, moving higher and further west, toward the ping from Belle’s phone. When they’re within a hundred yards, Paul finds a fallen log to crouch behind. The women copy him. He pulls out the binoculars and zeroes in.

  He breathes in the scent of pine and grass and fresh air. Despite the sour fear in the pit of his stomach, he feels good to be outside, to be doing something physical.

  Belle’s locator signal is coming from a clump of decrepit vacation homes near Sugar Bowl, the old ski resort. Paul had noted the rusty ski lifts stilled forever like the bones of some dead creature crawling down the mountain to die. The buildings are boarded up, the area fenced to deter squatters.

  The homes are boarded up too, worthless now except as temporary drug-cooking labs.

  Paul hunkers down on the log and peers through the binoculars he’d gotten from Milpitas, sweeping them right and left, then up and down in a grid until in the dim light he catches some movement near one of the old cabins. The cabin is set back on an overgrown lot and shaped like a small barn, with a large wooden outbuilding or garage behind it. On one side of the outbuilding, he can make out an antique bulldozer with a scoop, a snowmobile, and a rusty old Camaro on blocks.

  Sure enough, a man wearing a brimmed hat, a jacket, and dark pants is pacing and vaping near the outbuilding. A thrill courses through his arms and shoulders. It’s a familiar feeling.

  Paul swings the glasses back at the old house and refocuses. A wisp of smoke rises from the chimney.

  This has to be the place.

  He calls Marina over and gives her the glasses. “I think our friends are being held in that outbuilding.”

  Paul orients Marina, tilting the glasses until they’re about right, and she looks. “Two men just came out of the cabin. One of them turned on a porch light.” She looks for several more seconds. “There are three of them total now,” she says. “Not Jimmy, but one might be his friend, the Maricopa County sheriff. Now two of them are going back in.”

  “Okay,” Paul says. He’s thinking about the rifle. If the sheriff is there, the bad guys are sure to be armed. He’s glad he is too, but the idea of shooting at a fucking sheriff does not seem wise. Nope, not wise at all.

  “What are you thinking, my dear?” Gemma says. “Not about using that thing.” She cuts her eyes toward the van. Paul knows she means the rifle that’s wrapped in a blanket in the back.

  “We may not have a choice,” Paul says. He wants the women to be ready if he pulls the rifle out, to accept his judgment. He won’t do it unless he has to.

  “What if I tried to talk to them?” Gemma says.

  “Ma’am, they kidnapped our friends and they’re keeping them in a metal shed. So yeah, I don’t think talking’s going to help,” Paul says.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Gemma says cheerfully.

  “It’ll be light soon,” Marina says.

  “Right. We have no chance to get them out now. We’ll wait until it gets dark again,” Paul says.

  “Really?” Gemma says. “We have to leave them in there all day? That seems harsh. Shouldn’t we call the police?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Paul says. “But one of these guys is an Arizona sheriff who’s working with a Nevada sheriff. We don’t know who to trust.”

  Marina nods. “But also, it must be admitted that if we attract the attention of the authorities right now, I will likely be arrested and deported. It is certainly the case that if I am caught up in this mess, I will not be allowed to play in the Battlecraft finals.”

  “I don’t know how we’re going to fight these fellows by ourselves,” Gemma says skeptically.

  “I agree that it’s a slim chance, a tiny chance,” Marina says. “But it is my only chance. We can call in the authorities later if we can’t get them out ourselves.”

  “She’s right,” Paul says. “The government doesn’t care what happens to the thousands they deport every day. Asylum is dead.”

  “All right then, darlings. What should we do right now?” Gemma says.

  “We have to wait until tonight,” Paul says. “We’ll use the daylight hours to get a better idea of what’s down there and what we can use.”

  “Use?” Gemma says.

  “Yeah,” Paul says. “Use.” Paul’s not sure what he’s talking about. He just knows every operation produces opportunities to exploit, and he wants to be ready for them.

  “Do you think there’s anything we can do to prepare?” Marina says.

  “We can make an airtight plan. And if we could check on our people, make sure they’
re in good enough shape to make it through the day…and get a message to them that we're coming...” The last thing Paul wants is to wait for darkness only to find out things have already gone FUBAR.

  “We still have a few minutes of near-darkness,” Marina says. “Sunrise isn’t until 6:30.”

  Paul nods. “And?”

  “What if one of us went down there and tried to see what’s going on?” Marina says.

  “How?” Gemma says. “What if they see us?”

  “It’s a risk,” Paul says, rubbing the back of his neck. “But it might be worth it.”

  “I don’t believe we have much of a choice. We need them to be ready,” Marina says.

  “Ready for what?” Gemma says warily.

  “For when we bust them out,” Paul says, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. This lady is not taking the situation seriously enough.

  “Oh, my,” Gemma says. “This is exciting!”

  “Yes, exciting,” Marina says, running her fingers through her hair.

  “I am frightened too, sweetie,” Gemma says, patting Marina’s back.

  “Being a little scared is good. It gives you an edge. But once we have a solid plan and it’s time to go, you’ll be good, right?” Paul says.

  Marina looks scared, but steady enough. Gemma, on the other hand, looks as wacky and unreliable as ever.

  “Right?” he says.

  “Right!” Gemma says. Her gleeful smile tips her appearance over into crazy territory.

  Paul keeps his face still, but his guts are roiling.

  “Right?” Marina says, but it comes out with the upward inflection of a question, as if she’s far from sure.

  “Okay,” Paul says, moving things forward. It’s what he does, and he knows he does it well. “Let’s decide when we’ll make our move. An hour after sunset seems about right.”

  “Sunset will be 7:30 p.m.,” Marina says.

  “Let’s call it nine, then,” Paul says. “Marina, you write a note, and I’ll deliver it to our friends.”