Too Young to Die

by Michael Anderle

  Metcalfe had gone oddly pale. He swallowed at the look in Tad’s eyes.

  In a moment, his face cleared. It was disturbing how calm he suddenly looked. His worry had been wiped away.

  “Senator,” he said, and his voice was warm and comforting. He leaned in with a smile that lit up his face. He was so inviting that he leaned in as well. He could see a new path before them in which the man could be an ally. He was smiling too when the lobbyist said, “It can still get so much worse for you. Remember that.”

  He left and Tad stared after him.

  “Senator Williams.” The director of the charity clapped him on the back. “It’s good to see you. Your office confirmed your attendance at the last minute but we are so happy to have you here—are you all right, sir?”

  “I, ah…” Tad shook his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t slept enough lately. I’m sure you’ve seen many junior senators with the same look.”

  How he stumbled through the conversation, he didn’t know, but the director seemed pleased by the donations and by his questions. When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, his head was buzzing from wine and from the sheer shock of Metcalfe’s words.

  It can still get so much worse for you. What kind of sociopath said something like that?

  The kind who doctored photos to make it look like there was an affair, he reminded himself. The kind who stirred up protesters and journalists to call him a child murderer. He shouldn’t be surprised at this point. He’d seen Metcalfe show his hand enough times.

  He really should go out there again and schmooze more. Thus far, he was doing well. He’d heard a few murmurs echoing the things he told the first group he spoke to, and the director had been seen accepting a check from him. Now was his moment to resume his efforts.

  The problem was that he didn’t want to. He simply didn’t. Fighting whispers with other whispers wasn’t how he wanted to do this.

  On the other hand, if Mary could try to help Justin by playing a video game—he still could not believe that video—he could make small talk for another couple of hours. He dried his hands and returned to the crowd. It helped to remind himself that he had nothing to be ashamed of. He had done the best he could for Justin and hopefully, the data would help to expand the testing. All he had to do was exude that honesty.

  Grimly determined, he spent the night talking, laughing, and trying not to look at the corner, where Dru Metcalfe leaned against the wall and studied him.

  Zaara was excited to learn to shadow-walk, and over the moon excited that she might become a sorceress’s apprentice. She even looked forward to sneaking into the king’s treasure rooms. After all, how often did you get to see something like that? Life had opened up all kinds of new possibilities.

  Her ebullient mood lasted until Kural informed her she would have to wear a dress to shadow-walk in the palace. He called them robes, but she wasn’t fooled. It involved considerable fabric around her legs and made it difficult to get around. How were you supposed to ride a horse, for instance?

  “You won’t ride a horse while shadow-walking in the palace,” he said and sounded deeply amused. “I promise you that if you find any horses, you will be in the wrong place.”

  “I don’t like dresses,” she retorted indignantly. She picked at the bodice of her gown—something old and musty she’d found in a chest in her room—and shifted uncomfortably. “This fits all weird.”

  “And it will only barely pass for ceremonial robes, so be careful,” the wizard admonished her. “The king is very strict when it comes to manners. He employs some humans, but he’s not happy about it.”

  “The king really is an Elf?” she asked, diverted by this interesting tidbit.

  “Not…exactly.” Kural shook his head. “I can’t explain more right now. Follow the instructions I gave you, try to stay out of sight, and see if you can find that key. I’m hoping it won’t be too much of a trial.”

  She grumbled a goodbye and slid the scrying ball into its pouch at her waist. With that secured, she stepped into the circle she’d drawn on the floor of her room, closed her eyes, and tried to drop into the trance her mentor had taught her.

  It didn’t work the first few times and she opened her eyes to the same white plaster walls and the fields outside her window. The carts rumbled on the main street and the villagers called to one another over the burble of the fountain in the square.

  Determined, she closed her eyes tightly again and focused. All the sounds faded and she opened her eyes to darkness. She was in a cold place with stone beneath her bare feet and took a cautious step, then another and another. With one more, she would know if she’d been successful. Holding her breath, she stepped forward and thankfully, didn’t collide with the wall of her room.

  She had stepped beyond her body. The thought was terrifying enough to spin her back abruptly. Her gasp sounded breathless as she wobbled, tried to recover, and tipped onto her bed with a thump. She stood quickly and sighed, told herself sternly that she was absolutely fine, and returned to the circle.

  This time, she walked forward with a purpose as soon as her eyes opened in the darkness. It wasn’t very long before the faint, greyish light took on a tinge of gold. A lantern, perhaps? She kept walking, thinking how strange it was to not hear her footsteps on the ground even though she could feel the chill of it.

  The glow wasn’t from a lantern. She must be close to the outer walls of the palace, with sunlight filtering through the carved stone walls. The stone had gone from greyish-white to golden and she traced her fingers over it. Insea was said to look like any town, only with the buildings all made from one piece of stone, but this hallway didn’t look normal at all. It was almost like a tunnel. The walls were eerily smooth and the floor slightly curved everywhere.

  “It won’t be far to the treasure rooms,” Kural had told her. “You’ll know them by the sigils over the doors—a scale picked out in red magic. Most cannot see it at all.”

  Zaara had to focus to see the glimmers of magic in the rock, and when she did, it was almost dizzying. Insea, it turned out, was not only rock but also magic. She should have expected as much. Whether it was millions of tiny pieces of rock made into one, or one piece that had been carved by spells, she could not say. All she knew was that it was shot through with both veins, as any might be, and so many spells and sigils that her eyes almost crossed.

  Luckily, the red of the scales stood out from the gold-and-white of the other spells. She hurried through the first doorway she found with the scales and stepped into utter blackness.

  It was quite extraordinary. There was no door and yet when she entered, the light was utterly gone. She froze but forced herself to keep walking after a moment. It helped to remind herself that she was not a coward or a thief, and she wasn’t technically there. Whatever traps there were, they surely could not hurt her.

  The dark was even rather comforting. It was complete but not malicious. When she stepped out of it, she was disappointed, but only for a moment. She looked around at the landscape in amazement. Her path had taken her to the top of a mountain where wind whistled around her and rough stone chilled her feet.

  A few more steps took her into a field of wildflowers, their scent intoxicating, and into a forest with moss and birds singing.

  It took her too long to realize that this was the treasure and not a trap. There must be thousands of worlds there—worlds she could only pass through but the owner of this room could travel to in the blink of an eye. The king could go to any place he wanted from this room, she would bet. With a small, contented sigh, she wandered through the wildflowers, the mountains, and the darkness. When she stepped into the corridor once again, she was sad to leave.

  The next room held elven artifacts that took her breath away with their beauty. She examined statues and paintings, fragments of old mosaics, musical instruments that were carved from the same pale stone as the castle, and even old dresses that looked so fragile, they might fall apart if she touched them. Necklac
es and rings were laid out carefully, a profusion of gold and gems and pearls.

  No key was in evidence, however.

  The corridor wound sideways and she followed it as she trailed her fingers on the wall but darted into the third room when she heard someone coming. Even knowing that no one could hear her, she still held her breath while the patrol walked past. The guards did not speak and they did not look into the treasure rooms. They must patrol this route so often that they were bored with what they saw inside.

  Zaara could not imagine that. She turned to look at the room and gave a huge smile. This was it, she realized. This was where the Dwarven artifacts were, and the room stretched on for ages. If the key was anywhere in this world, it was surely there.

  Of course, the area was massive.

  She noticed a similar way of organizing artifacts, however, and was able to narrow her search quickly. Decorated saddles were intriguing, although from the size of them, they must be for something the size of a hippopotamus. Ceremonial clothes, many of them decorated with pieces of ore and rough gems caught her attention. The other side of each one was a mirror of the design but metalwork and faceted gems winked in the light.

  Zaara trailed past statues, small carved balls of stone, and pieces of furniture. Numerous paintings were displayed, but she found them disturbing. All manner of clocks created a substantial collection—not surprising, she decided, if the dwarves had settled underground. Of course they would need a novel way to tell time.

  Although everything was fascinating, she didn’t lose focus on her purpose. Still, she had walked almost all the way down the room before she saw what she was looking for. It lay on a pillow, a three-sided key with one prong extended. She could see where it would slot in with the other two keys, although she was fascinated to see the lock it might open.

  It was there. Her relief came with a sense of sadness.

  She sank to her knees and studied it. Her next task was to get this to Justin and then, he would leave.

  It seemed right but was still painful. When she thought of Lyle, she knew she could send a runner to promise him a pint of ale and he’d wander to Riverbend. Kural was two days’ journey away, but she could see him whenever she chose to. Everyone else she had ever known lived in Riverbend and within a few hundred yards of one another.

  Justin was the first friend she’d ever had who would be entirely gone to her.

  But she wouldn’t be selfish. She understood his desire to go home. He had a family there who were worried about him too. Finally, she stood and turned to leave but startled when she noticed a figure standing behind her.

  Zaara uttered a shriek that, thankfully, could not be heard by anyone.

  Theoretically.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” the woman said before she folded her hood down. “You simply seemed to be deep in thought and I did not want to disturb you.”

  “Ah…” For a moment, she couldn’t think of anything to say but the enormity of this caught up with her. “You’re Justin’s mother.”

  “Yes,” Mary said.

  “You’re here for the key,” she guessed. She stepped aside and tried to smile. “You’ll be glad to have him back in your world, won’t you?”

  “I will.” The woman had stopped with those words and she seemed deeply sad. “We miss him, Justin’s father and I. And other people. But that is not why I am here, Zaara. Justin’s path home is his own. I have a different purpose.”

  “Oh?” She looked at the key, then at Mary. “Wait, how can you hear me? I’m not here.”

  The woman seemed to find this deeply amusing. “Neither am I. Don’t worry. No one can hear us here. Perhaps Kural mentioned me to you—a sorceress seeking an apprentice?”

  “You’re…” Zaara’s eyes widened. She recalled the bolt of energy Mary had launched from her hands during their escape from the bandit hideout. It was power like she’d never seen. “You’re the sorceress who wants to train someone?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “I have been told of your desire to protect your home. It is a noble goal and one I am sure you can accomplish, given how I saw you face danger to fight at my son’s side. If you will let me, I will train you. What do you say?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Wait, but—if Justin goes home and you’re still here…”

  “He is trapped in this world,” Mary explained. Her voice broke slightly. “I can come in and out at will.”

  “So he might come back too, someday.”

  “Someday.” The woman seemed intrigued by the idea. “Yes, I suppose he might. First things first, however. You have a great deal to learn.”

  “Fascinating,” DuBois murmured. Two empty bags of popcorn lay on the desk beside him.

  “What is it?” Jacob scooched his desk chair over.

  “The AI is…I don’t know how to put it.”

  The young engineer gave him a wary look. “Tell me you’re not about to say the AI is becoming sentient and about to take over the world.”

  “Not the second part,” DuBois said. “I’m actually not sure if it’s aware. I don’t know how we’d be sure. I only know that in order to make the connections that lead characters to one another, it fills in the gaps between actions. It doesn’t write the outlines of a story, it…dreams them.”

  Jacob swallowed and looked at the screen. “This isn’t so good. We set this game up on the bare bones of a story that was made to be fun and engaging, not the basis of an entirely new form of intelligence.”

  “Like I said,” the doctor cautioned, “I don’t know that it’s awake. I’m only saying it’s…dreaming.”

  “Don’t tell Price,” he said hastily, then paused to consider. “Well…will it hurt Justin?”

  “No. I’ve seen no indications that it would harm anyone.”

  “Then don’t tell Price. Not yet. She’d nuke it or…use it for something.” He shivered. “Let’s keep this to ourselves for a while, okay?”

  “Okay,” DuBois said, bemused, He opened another bag of popcorn and began to munch on it. “Fascinating,” he murmured again.

  Mary’s eyes opened to a clean white ceiling and the lid of the pod open beside her. Nick waved at her and continued to remove the electrodes.

  “You’re smiling,” he observed. “It looks like you’re still enjoying the game.”

  “Oh, so much.” She took his hand to sit. Her muscles were a little stiff after the hours inside the machine and she stretched subtly as she held her hands and feet out for him to remove the various elements of the haptic set. An assistant shadowed him and watched with rapt attention while he placed each item of the set in its designated place. Mary smiled at the assistant, who blushed bright red and made a show of taking the equipment to be cleaned.

  “They’re good people,” he told her in an undertone. “I don’t think they, ah…know all the other stuff Diatek does.”

  She swung her legs over the edge of the pod and watched his face as he cleared the monitors. “I appreciate you all working with Diatek. I know you have concerns about them.”

  Nick sighed as he worked. He handed her a bottle of water without looking up. Finally, after she had finished it and he had done all his checks, he sighed again. “I don’t get it,” he admitted. “She never says what Diatek does, but it’s clear it’s not…warm, fuzzy, Care Bear stuff. She got into this to help families, but she also does things that would give most people nightmares? I don’t get it.”

  Mary opened her mouth but closed it again when he waved a hand.

  “I know, I know, greater good. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything stupid. And I’ve heard all the arguments. But I don’t see how you can be so sure you’re doing the right thing when you help some people and hurt others. And don’t ask if I have an answer to how doing the soft, fuzzy thing can sometimes hurt more people, because I don’t.” He threw his hands up.

  She laughed at that. “You’re very much like Tad that way.”

  He looked up at her in surprise. “So…”
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  “So?”

  “So, you don’t think I’m being stupid?”

  “Stupid? No.” She pushed herself out of the pod and winced when her feet touched the floor. “I tell you, these pods are not made for old bodies. No, don’t tie yourself in knots telling me I don’t look old, you’ll only hurt your brain.” She patted his arm. “To go back to what you mentioned, I don’t think anyone has ever answered that one definitively. The only fact to remember is that for most actions, there are those who benefit, and those who are hurt. Make sure you try to help those you’ve hurt.”

  “But when you help them, you hurt someone else,” he said and pressed his fingers into his temples.

  “It helps if you don’t think of life as a problem to be solved once,” Mary said, amused. “The world is constantly in flux. There will never be one perfect solution, Nick. You do the best you can and sometimes, it’s difficult. If you believe people are hurt by your alliance with Diatek, you can take steps to change the world so those people are helped.” She patted his arm in a motherly gesture. “But you don’t have to find all the answers tonight. If you’ll forgive me being a mother for a moment, but I think you should probably have dinner and rest for a while.”

  Nick laughed. “It’s good to have an office mom, actually.” He looked stricken. “I hope you don’t mind me calling you that.”

  “As long as I still get to play the game, I’ll be fine,” Mary assured him. “Now, I’d like some dinner, even if all of you won’t go.”

  “It’s a good time to get some,” Jacob agreed as he approached the pod with Amber. “Okay, everyone but the evening shift, it’s time to go home and get some rest. Evening shift, how are you for food?”