“So, what do you do with all the things adventurers sell you?” he asked. He’d always imagined NPC merchants with piles of bone chips and beetle legs.
The game had anticipated this, though, and it was ready with its sarcasm. “We put them in the stew,” the innkeeper explained. “I’d try today’s, sir. We have plenty of jellyfish umbras. We had a visitor from the west, you see.”
He swallowed painfully and tried not to throw up all over the bar. That was the most disgusting thing he’d ever heard.
Also, he now knew that the west of this settlement included a town called Silent Hill and stew made of jellyfish parts. He had begun to think it was the birthplace of all evil.
“Maybe later,” he said. “Could I see what you have for armor?”
“Of course, sir.” The innkeeper popped up a new menu, this one showing several pieces of leather armor. “I’m sure you’ll find one to your liking in here.”
“Thank you.” He paged through until he found one that provided stats for both strength and mana regeneration. What he needed, he thought, was a one-handed sword—but he was getting ahead of himself. He didn’t have all that much money right now.
With his new breastplate on—this one had less suspicious scorch marks on it—Justin ordered a piece of bread and cheese. He really wanted stew, but as the game now gave him tastes and smells, he was too nervous to try the concoction at this particular tavern.
“Ale?” the innkeeper asked.
“While you still have some, yes.” After all, Lyle would probably drink them dry in an hour. They’d been on the road for two nights with not a single stop at a tavern. For all he knew, the dwarf had already purchased an entire barrel and was drinking out of the spigot.
One of the tavern wenches walked past with a tray of beers and Justin turned to stare. Video games had been doing fan service characters for years, of course, but it was rare that they were your size. Up close, the proportions looked a little more improbable, but he was willing to go with it.
When in Rome…
When she retraced her steps, he was ready with a smile. She stopped and curtsied. “Can I get you another ale, sir?”
“No need,” he said and leaned on the bar. “The pleasure of speaking to you is enough.”
She blushed and he felt a wave of both humor and annoyance. This was so easy in a game world—why wasn’t it easy in real life? It seemed like when he spoke to women, he either managed to get completely tongue-tied or they simply walked away from him.
Which made buying groceries difficult, among other things.
“Why are you in town, sir?” She looked curiously at him.
“I’m here to kill the wizard,” Justin said loudly. He smiled and lifted his ale to the waiting crowd. Hell, in the real world, he would never be the one who came back to a hero’s welcome. He might as well get everything out of this game that he could.
To his surprise, the people at the tables began to mutter and cast him dark looks.
“I should go.” The tavern wench tried to leave.
“Now, wait a minute.” He leaned out to catch her hand. When she stopped, he felt a thrill. He was never brave enough to do things like this in real life. “Sephith has terrorized your people for years. Surely you should be happy to have someone kill him?” Happy and maybe grateful. If he was lucky.
The maid hesitated before she moved closer to speak in a whisper. “You don’t understand, sir. Sephith can hear every word that is spoken in this valley. He is all-knowing and all-seeing. If we do not obey him—”
“What?” He leaned toward her. “If you do not obey him, what happens?”
“He takes those who do not obey to his tower.” The maid looked terrified. “Them, and sometimes others, too. He demands that we give up our fellow villagers to him. We tried to resist at first, but it is better to choose rather than endure his revenge.” She pulled away and said clearly and loudly, “I could never wish you luck in such an ill-advised venture, sir. It is an insult to all of us for you to threaten the wizard.” She curtsied and left.
It was her way to protect herself, obviously. Justin reminded himself to see what she said when he returned after he’d killed the wizard. He would prove himself and they would see that they should have helped him. A little disgruntled, he took a bite of his bread and cheese and admitted to himself that he did not feel very charitable toward these villagers. Wasn’t the playing character of a video game supposed to be the hero?
He had turned to the bar in a black mood when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He twisted to see a figure in a dark cloak.
“If you want to kill the wizard…” The voice was husky. “You can get in line. He’s mine.”
“The hell he is,” Justin said. He stood and turned to face the stranger. “Why don’t you look me in the eyes and tell me that, you coward.”
The figure pushed back its hood to reveal a woman’s face. She had dark hair and sharp features, as well as an all-black outfit that he couldn’t see much of behind the cloak. She folded her arms over her chest.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” he countered.
“I asked first.” She smiled and showed a great deal of teeth. “And before you start a bar fight, you might want to remember that I’m not the one who came in here and caused trouble.”
He looked around and found the unfriendly gazes still fixed on him. He shrugged. “I’m Justin. What’s it to you, whoever-you-are?”
“I’m Anna,” the woman told him, “and if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not see another set of would-be heroes run up to that tower, only to come out as lich. It’ll be hard enough to fight my way in there as it is. I don’t need to fight your corpse too.”
“You won’t have to,” he told her. “Because I’ll kill him tonight. That ten gold is mine.”
She gave a derisive snort. “You can have your ten gold if that’s what matters to you. I’ll make sure to send it along when I get it. Of course, I can’t do that if you’re dead.”
“Tell you what,” Justin said. “Why don’t we see who’s better suited to this task? You and me, outside.” No woman would beat him in combat. He had a sword and he had fireballs—he’d win decisively and he could continue with the quest. Maybe you got XP for dueling in this game.
A commotion ensued outside and someone shoved into the tavern. “Sephith is here!”
Screams followed this pronouncement. A few people tried to flee into the back of the inn, only for the innkeeper to march them toward the door. Everyone seemed terrified but resigned to the fact that they would have to face the wizard. He really had trained them to do his bidding.
Justin curled his lip. These people were pathetic and he intended to show them exactly how wrong they were to bow down to a wizard.
“Get out of my way,” he said to the woman. He drew his blade. “I intend to kill the wizard.”
“You’ll end up like all the others,” she all but spat at him. “Every single one of them was so determined to run out with their weapons drawn. You’re a fool.”
“And you’re a coward like all the rest of them,” he told her. “All talk and no action. I should have known.” He looked around the bar. “Lyle!”
With a clatter from under one of the tables, Lyle rolled out and stumbled to his feet. “Hic—here! ʼS there a fight?”
“The wizard’s here,” Justin called.
“Oh. Right.” The dwarf ducked under the table again.
“No.” Justin crossed toward him and caught him by the collar. “We’ll fight him now.”
“Shouldn’t we learn more about him first?” his teammate argued.
“You really should,” Anna said. She still had her arms folded.
“I didn’t ask for any of your sage advice,” he told her. “Now, why don’t you stay in here while I take care of the wizard for you?”
Dragging Lyle behind him, he marched out into the town square.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When M
ary arrived at the lab, she saw no other cars in the parking lot. She frowned as she exited the vehicle and carried her bags into the shadowy interior of the building. No more cars had followed them since the first night. As if realizing that the tactic hadn’t worked, the lobbyists had returned to more effective strategies.
Threatening Justin’s life indirectly.
Mary had no doubt that they were behind the insurance company denying coverage for Justin, even though they cited the reason as being experimental treatment. With his doctor weighing in and the relatively low costs, there had seemed to be hope that they would agree, but that was now well and truly dashed.
She marched down the hallway and her heart pounded in her chest. For some reason, she couldn’t seem to get that to stop these days. She was always angry—at the lobbyists, at the girl who had crashed with Justin in her car, at the doctors for not being able to fix him, and even at Tad and herself, although she didn’t know why. That was the problem with anger. The more you let it into your heart, the more it ate you from the inside out.
During all of this, she had avoided going to confession. Father LeMarc was very kind. He had a way to straighten things in your mind. She knew that if she called at any time of day or night, he would be willing to meet and pray with her.
The problem was that she didn’t need him to sort out what was in her head. She knew what lay below the anger and the emotion was the only thing holding her up in the crisis. As soon as the anger left, she would have only a terrible fear of all the possibilities and unknowns.
She pushed into the lab, prepared to see it empty and to be angry at the scientists, too. Instead, she saw the strange doctor hunched over the monitors as usual while he chewed a handful of popcorn. As she watched, he set his bag of popcorn down and began to type furiously, regularly consulting a set of notes.
Mary came closer. “How is he?”
Dr. DuBois looked at her. “Oh. It’s you. Nothing is wrong.” He looked at the screens, then at her. Consciously, he stopped typing. “What did you bring?”
“Oh.” She began to take things out of the bags. “Some things from home. I know it’s…silly. But I think it would do Justin good to have these things around him—it’s only some toys, pictures of us, and old stuffed animals.” She had managed not to cry while taking them out of storage, but it had been a close call. “Where can I set these?”
“Anywhere,” he said confidently.
“Are you sure?” She had expected him to be more territorial about his lab. “I wouldn’t think stuffed animals would be allowed.”
“Every lab has stuffed animals,” DuBois said vaguely as he typed a few more things. He took another mouthful of popcorn, saw her expression, and realized she needed more explanation. “You see, scientific equipment can be very finicky. Every lab has their rituals to keep them happy. Some use little figurines. Others use stuffed animals.” He cleared his throat. “I assure you, we do not think this works. It’s more of a…tradition.”
“I find it charming.” Mary set the toys out, smiling as she did so. She tended to think of scientists as people like Dr. DuBois with strange, inconsistent priorities and no grounding in the real world. The idea of them doing something as human as decorating their labs or trying to make machines work was endearing. She fought with her printer, and they fought with intricate scientific equipment.
She hoped they weren’t fighting with the pod Justin was in. If they had as much trouble with it as she had with her printer, that would be a bad situation.
Her task complete, she looked at Dr. DuBois, who inspected one of the toys she had brought, a purple dragon with a figurine that rode it. He picked it up and seemed to take joy in the detail on its scales.
“Justin painted that,” she told him. “He begged for the figurine and the paints for his birthday. He promised he would make something beautiful with it. We were surprised at how pretty it was. I guess he learned how to do all of this online from videos.”
“He likes dragons?” the doctor asked her.
“Yes.” It was pleasant to talk to someone who didn’t judge this quite as harshly as her husband did. When she asked Justin about his video games, Tad always rolled his eyes and sighed. But sometimes, her son would light up when describing a particular game. “He always loved dragons. Some of his favorite children’s books had them. We got him signed copies and stuffed animals. His favorite game was coming out with a new part this year and there would be dragons for players to ride. He was excited about it.” She looked down and blinked her tears away. “I hope he gets to play it someday—wait, what are you doing?”
DuBois typed furiously on the keyboard.
“Well,” he explained, “the game is quite adaptable. I should be able to add a dragon if there’s an asset for it. Even if it’s a rough asset, his brain fills the details in. Of course, I don’t know if flying has been added as a mechanic yet. This will be a beta test, but we might be able to get in there.” He added as if to himself, “That’s if the wizard doesn’t kill him. He should have taken that ally. I don’t know where I went wrong there.”
“If the wizard doesn’t what?” Mary came to stare at the screen. She couldn’t read any of the output, but this was where everything was happening. “Did you say the wizard might kill him? Couldn’t that be deadly?”
“Oh. Ah.” Dr. DuBois looked uncomfortable. “Um, well. Technically, yes.” His eyes strayed to the monitor again.
“Don’t look at the screen,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on!”
“What’s going on is on the screen,” he reminded her.
She had to admit he had a point.
The doctor sighed. “Let me start at the beginning. You see, the game—no, farther back. The AI—no. Well, the wizard—no.”
Mary prayed for patience.
“You remember that the brain is most engaged when it believes the game is reality,” DuBois said. “And the AI will respond to however you play, which increases that perception. Well, Justin is making some very interesting choices. For instance, he seems to have decided that fortune favors the bold.”
She could not believe that. He had always loved stories with dragon riders and heroes but he had never been the kind of child who did bold things. She had waited for a rebellious teenager phase during which he would do things like take the family’s car or stay out at parties, but that had never come.
Sometimes, she thought her husband would have been happier if Justin had done those things. If there had been actual fights, if he had challenged his authority, Tad would have recognized that. Instead, he sat silently while his father yelled at him. Justin didn’t go out with girls Tad didn’t approve of—in fact, he didn’t go out with anyone at all. He didn’t trash the house with parties. Instead, he simply played his games.
“Justin has never been…very bold,” Mary told DuBois. She was sure the doctor must be mistaken about what he saw in the game. “Now that he knows a misstep in the game can cost him his life, he’ll be careful with it.”
He didn’t look at her. She didn’t know it, but he thought furiously about what she had said. He had been torn about communicating with Justin at all. Telling him outright that the game wasn’t real could have had disastrous impacts on his ability to get into it, after all. But Amber had pointed out that he already believed it was a game and that telling him about the potentially deadly effects would draw him in.
DuBois had to admit that she’d been right. Still, it was interesting to see Justin being so bold and so reckless, given what Mary had told him.
“What is he doing now?” she asked.
“Right now, he’s sleeping.” He pointed to some of the output on the screen. “Only a few days of game time have elapsed, and that’s only a few hours to him. He’s still healing, which means he needs to sleep a lot, and since the game responds to his active input if he falls asleep, it merely waits for him to wake up.”
Mary nodded. She didn’t understand games but she assumed this was like falling asl
eep while reading a book.
The doctor heaved a sigh. “As I said, the game is responsive to the player’s choices and Justin is behaving as if he’s much stronger than he is.” He tapped a few keys and another screen opened, filled with numbers that were equally incomprehensible to her. “This is the enemy Justin will face soon. When he behaves more boldly, the game adjusts the wizard to be stronger.”
“Well…” She shook her head. “The game must be misunderstanding.”
“It isn’t,” DuBois told her. “These are his choices. He is seeking the limits of the game, and by seeking them, he is pushing them. The game is becoming more difficult. That appears to be what he needs right now.”
She stared at him, a little nonplussed. Given what she knew of him, she hadn’t expected philosophical insight. “Are you suggesting that…children need limits and consequences?”
He looked at her as if she were crazy. “I’m saying that Justin’s recovery depends on him activating his survival instincts,” he said, “and the game will make itself as difficult as it needs to be to convince him he’s in mortal danger.”
Ah. So it had been science, after all, and not philosophy. That made more sense.
Mary’s brain caught up with her and she realized what he had said.
“Wait—you’re telling me that…Justin is pushing this until he believes he will die?”
“It would appear so.” DuBois looked around. “Where did I put my popcorn?”
“Forget the popcorn! I know my son, and he’s not one to walk into danger for no good reason.”
“Oh, people never do things for no reason,” the doctor told her. He found the bag of popcorn and began to select a careful ratio of caramel, cheese, and plain popcorn. “Even when the reason makes no sense to you, it does make sense to them. Trust me, I know. People always do strange things like lying and handicapping themselves.”
For a split-second, she thought she could see the world as DuBois saw it. She thought of the little white lies that were part of everyday life and the way people refused to ask for what they wanted or tell the truth.
Too Young to Die Page 16