“I give the guy back his wallet with all his cash,” he said. “I’m not a thief.”
The woman nodded, and this time she sprinkled some red powder in each bowl. Again they flared, and again those flares died down and produced colored smoke.
“You’ve taken the oath of service to your country as a deep-cover operative. For years you’ve protected the innocent and combated horrors too ill to speak of for your country’s sake. One day you learn that your superior is torturing a captive. He says he must protect the lives of thousands, yet he insists no one can know about this for reasons he cannot divulge. Do you honor your oaths and listen to your superior, or do you have compassion for the prisoner and report his deeds?”
“Well, you certainly know how to suck the fun out of the night, don’t you?” Ethan said. When she didn’t react to his comment at all, Ethan shrugged and answered. “I report him. If it’s on the up and up, other people should be able to know, at least those with clearance or something. Right?”
To his surprise, she shrugged as well. “What is right and wrong? Even now, I can see you’re questioning things. I suspect those questions will only increase from here on out.”
“One day, a man threatens to attack you if you don’t give him some food,” she says. “Do you stand your ground and bravely fight him off, or do you give him what food you have and avoid the confrontation?”
“I give him—” Ethan stopped at this point. Would he give him his food? Perhaps in real life. But that’s not what he would want to do. He’d want to say no. He’d want to fend off yet another bully who thought he could take from what was his without repercussions. Moreover, Melissa didn’t date the weak. She wanted someone strong, brave. “I stand my ground.”
The woman placed a small leather pouch in the middle of the table. She opened it with well-manicured fingers that were adorned with a half dozen rings. From it, she took two pinches of purple powder and carefully dropped each into the bowls. The flames burned with a fierceness that would have been the envy of any dragon and caused Ethan to shield his eyes momentarily.
“Holy crap. What are you making, thermite?”
“For years, you’ve hunted down your mortal enemy, and one day you finally reach him. The two of you engage in a mighty duel that taxes you both to the breaking point. In the end, however, you triumph, and he now lays helpless on the ground at the mercy of your sword, begging for his life and promising to never cross paths with you again. Do you show him compassion and allow him to yield, though this might not be wise, or do you take his life and grant him a valiant warrior’s death, knowing this is the way?”
Ethan eased back as he thought about the question. How many assholes throughout his life in school would he have loved to run through because they found him easy prey? More than he’d like to admit. And that didn’t count the couple of teachers whose only joy in life seemed to come from tormenting any student they could. But could he really do it?
“I allow him to yield,” Ethan replied softly. “I can’t murder someone.”
On the game went, presenting Ethan with a dozen more scenarios, each one giving him increasingly more difficult choices where morality was murky at best.
It soon became clear to Ethan that the woman was after what he favored, or rather, what he wished he was: likeable, strong, and most of all, lucky. For even if he had the body of Adonis and the charisma of Christ Himself, unless he possessed the luck of the gods, Ethan felt he’d never have a snowball’s chance in hell of catching Melissa’s eye.
Then, before he knew it, the game was over.
“As you have spoken, your persona is made,” the woman said after he gave his final answer.
He watched the fires wane for a few seconds before the woman reached under the table and pulled out a cedar box with an old ship-of-the-line etched into its lid. She gently lifted the brass latch on one side and opened the box. Inside, resting on a velvet lining, was a small booklet and a floppy disk within a paper sleeve. The disk, jet black, looked unremarkable, and the booklet merely had the words ‘Captains & Cannons’ written across its face in elegant calligraphy.
“Is that a five-and-a-quarter floppy?” he said, scarcely believing what his eyes were taking in. He was expecting a crown of gold with all the theatrics, not a relic from times long ago.
“It is.”
Ethan chuckled. “Where did you get it? The Smithsonian?”
She shook her head and handed him the disk. “No,” she replied. “You can donate it to them if you wish, but I think you would rather experience what’s on it.”
“Right,” he said, eyeing it warily. “Look, I appreciate the show and everything, but my rig is top of the line. A dinosaur wouldn’t even run this.”
The woman curled her lips, and from somewhere in the dark, she produced one more item: an external disk drive, gray and slim. “Then I guess you’ll need this.”
Ethan picked it up and gave it a look. It had one slot where the disk was clearly meant to slide in, but it had nothing else. No spot for power. No slot for a USB. Nada.
“Assuming I take this,” Ethan said. “How do I use it?”
“You mean when you take this.”
“Fine, when I take this.”
“Don’t worry about the details, my dear,” she said. “Put the disk in and start your computer. The rest will take care of itself.”
“You really enjoy a mystery, don’t you?”
“Mysteries are fun. Besides, a little mystery never hurt anyone.” She stopped, chuckled, and put two delicate fingers against her lips before regaining her composure. “Well, maybe a little mystery hurt a few people, and some mysteries have hurt a lot of people. This mystery, however, will allow you to win prizes you never thought possible.”
“What sort of prizes?”
The woman smiled as if the answer were plain to everyone but Ethan. Given it was only the two of them in the room, however, that was probably true.
“People probably don’t like to be called prizes,” she admitted. She pulled a small glass from a drawer nearby, and from that drawer, she also took a bottle of white wine and poured herself some. “Let me rephrase. With that game, you will be able to make yourself into whatever you like while saving lives—saving souls—from the clutches of Death. That sort of thing.”
“You mean it’s a role-playing game,” Ethan said, eyeing the disk with some new respect. He wasn’t sure how the woman had pegged him as a gamer, but then again, the cute little raccoon on his shirt with controllers in hand screaming “pew pew pew” probably offered all the hint she needed.
“It’s more than a mere game,” she went on. “It’s an entirely new world offering the adventures you so crave.”
“They all say that. Still, might be worth checking out.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” she asked, nudging the disk and box toward him. “Give it a go, but don’t forget to read the manual before you do.”
Ethan hesitated but then took it all. After being reassured that he didn’t have to pay her anything four times over, Ethan said his goodbyes and left. Once outside, he was shocked to find that the fair had closed. He went back to ask her what had happened, but when he got to the door and gave it a knock, no one answered. In fact, when he inspected said door, he discovered the wagon was nothing more than a stage prop.
“And I’m officially weirded out,” he said to himself.
He hurried home, not bothering to answer any questions by the cleanup crew as to why he was still there.
Once he was in his car—a beat-up brown Dodge Omni—and had the engine cranked, his eyes locked on the game manual which he’d tossed onto the passenger seat. Curiosity grabbed him, and Ethan picked it up while flipping on the interior light. He flipped through the manual, the pages feeling rough against his fingers as his eyes haphazardly scanned the text.
Sections detailed everything from character creation to bestiary with plenty of what he assumed was the game’s world lore sprinkled throughout. F
atigue kept him from taking in much of anything in terms of specifics, but he felt as if he got the gist of it all: players made characters, did stuff, reaped rewards.
He could check out the specifics later, he told himself. With that in mind, he left the fair and headed home. Along the way, he pulled into a 7-Eleven and grabbed himself a cherry Slurpee. The waif of a girl who was the attendant that evening said something to him, but he couldn’t remember what. His mind was still trying to understand all that had happened with the wagon.
He had gone inside. He didn’t dream that up. After all, he had an old floppy disk and a game manual as proof. But he still couldn’t shake the image of the wagon being nothing but an old stage prop either once he was done.
He must’ve gotten turned around somehow. The real wagon was off to the side that he hadn’t seen. Yeah. That had to be it, he thought. It was dark. He was tired. Case closed.
But what was the bit about him saving people? She made it sound like he’d be saving actual people, not characters in the game. He hadn’t seen anything about such a thing in the manual, but then again, he had flipped through it quickly. But how would that work? Did she maybe mean he’d save himself from boredom? Probably. Most definitely. What else could it be?
Ethan popped open the door to his car and put his Slurpee between his legs after getting in and taking one last sip. The sugary goodness helped him slip back into the mundane world where strange women in wooden wagons didn’t fling ancient disks alongside promises of strange adventures.
“Maybe it’s some sort of scam,” he said to himself as he pulled out of the gas station. He then smirked at the next thought. “Or a way to try to sell me an extended car warranty.”
The rest of the drive home flew by to the tunes of the Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He’d gotten so caught up listening to the music, he almost missed his turn into his apartment complex and ended up fishtailing to such a degree that he left a good ten yards of tire marks on the asphalt. Thankfully, the roads were empty, the cops were elsewhere, and the only one who might have noticed was whoever was driving the pickup truck a quarter mile behind.
The car suddenly bounced upward as he hit a speedbump that had lost its yellow paint over the years. As his car slammed back down to the ground, his paltry shock absorbers did nothing but let the car make a loud bang. At the same time, his Slurpee left the warm confines of his legs, took a little solo trip through the air, and came crashing down so that its contents spilled all over his lap.
“Are you flipping kidding me?” he said with a huge groan. At least he was almost home, he told himself. At least he wasn’t about to show up at work with a crotch full of melted ice. He didn’t need to go through that again.
Ethan zipped into an empty parking space. He got out of the car, did his best to wipe himself down, and then decided how much he wanted to spend the next ten or fifteen minutes cleaning his car in the dark. He knew he had to, obviously. He couldn’t let the Slurpee sit overnight. Not that the interior was the Sistine Chapel or anything. His seats had plenty of cracks, and the floor mats were as stained as the carpet in a dollar theater. The previous owner was to thank for that one, but no matter how much Ethan tried to clean them, the mats’ fibers were forever soiled.
Right as he shut the driver’s side door, the pickup truck that had been behind him earlier came into the lot. It parked in a nearby space. The driver left the truck running and didn’t get out. From the looks of things, he was dealing with something inside the cab. And since he didn’t look like a psycho and all Ethan wanted to do was tend to the Slurpee and get to bed, he didn’t stick around to see who it was.
Three minutes later, Ethan popped out of his small apartment, wearing a new pair of shorts. In his hands, he had two dirty towels to soak up as much Slurpee as possible, a roll of paper towels to get the remaining bit, and some generic liquid spray cleaner he’d picked up at the supermarket the other day.
Initially, his eyes were downcast as his energy reserves were depleting rapidly. A bit of movement caught his eye, however, and he turned and looked up to see a man standing near his neighbor’s door.
The door in question belonged to Esther Williams, a spry, hilarious ninety-eight-year-old woman who went dancing every night, baked brownies for everyone in the hall, and loved telling stories about how she was one of the famous Rosie the Riveters from World War II. If she had a little too much red wine, which was more often than not, she’d also give Ethan advice that ranged from how to fold sheets properly to how to get over his nerves and ask Melissa out already.
But none of that was on Ethan’s mind. What he was concerned about was why there was a guy right outside her home. He sported a gray, double-breasted pinstriped suit with a dark-pink tie and highly polished shoes, so he didn’t look like someone who’d come to rob her. The man also had short, neatly cut brown hair on which a wide-brimmed fedora sat, as well as a face so cleanly shaven, it would’ve put any drill instructor to shame. So maybe he was a Fed? The fat, lit cigar held in the corner of his mouth and the clipboard with pen and paper in his hands would suggest that.
Then again, the guy looked more like he belonged in the 1940s than the 21st century.
The man looked up from the papers he was engrossed in. When his eyes met Ethan’s, he straightened as if he thought he was the last man alive and had suddenly come across another human being.
“Can I help you?” Ethan asked.
The man didn’t say anything initially. He turned around to see an empty hall behind him. He then faced Ethan once more and pointed to himself. “You’re talking to me?” he asked, sounding like an overly exaggerated voiceover for a mobster cartoon.
“Yeah. Who else?”
The man shook his head and muttered some curses before striding up to Ethan. He came so fast, it was a small wonder that Ethan didn’t bolt back inside his apartment, but something kept him rooted in place, something that felt unnatural enough that the hairs on the back of his neck stood.
The man took his cigar out of his mouth. “How you doing, kid? You here to do business or what?”
“No, I live here,” Ethan replied, taking a half step back, not so much out of fear at this point, but because the man’s cologne was overpowering and was making Ethan’s allergies act up. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for Esther,” he said, tipping his head toward her door. “Good gal. Thought she’d like it better if I came looking like her old days, you know?”
“Are you taking her out?”
“Yeah, you might say something like that,” the man said, taking a long puff of his cigar before blowing a perfect smoke ring in Ethan’s direction. “We haven’t been formally introduced yet. So, it’s more of a blind date at this point.”
“A blind date at a quarter after one?”
“Is it that late already? Guess the traffic was worse than I thought.” The man stuck his cigar back in his mouth. “You’re busy. I’m busy. Let’s get this done. What do you say?”
“Get what done?”
The man groaned and rolled his dark eyes. “That dame at the fair didn’t tell you, did she? That figures. Broad like that wants to have her fun, too, and I don’t mean rolling around in the sheets, you hear? That’s one thing you don’t ever want to do with her. She’ll eat you alive, kid, and I’m not being figurative on that.”
Ethan shook his head. He wasn’t sure if it was the conversation or simply the fact that he was tired and his car still needed tending to, but whatever it was, all he wanted to do at this point was to clean the car and pass out on his bed. He did have the morning shift, too.
“Look, man,” Ethan said. “I’m tired. The only thing I want to get done is mopping up the Slurpee I spilled.”
The man perked. “You telling me you don’t want to play for Esther?”
“Ah, no,” Ethan said with a curt nod. “She’s all yours, man. Just treat her right, you know?”
“Fantastic,” the man said. He shoved the clipboard into Eth
an’s hands. On the clipboard was a piece of paper with a massive wall of legalese written in a font so small, Ethan would need an electron microscope just to read it. “Sign at the bottom, and we’ll be done.”
Ethan pushed the clipboard back. He may have been tired, but he wasn’t stupid. “No way,” he said. “I’m not signing anything.”
The man took the clipboard and shrugged. He then scribbled something at the bottom of the page and spoke to himself. “Player refuses to sign, waives right to contest.” Once he was done, he tipped his head to Ethan, gave an informal salute, and smiled. “Off you go, kid. Nice doing business with you.”
“Whatever,” Ethan said. He sidestepped the man and headed for his car. When he was about halfway down the hall, he stopped and briefly turned back around right as the man reached for Esther’s door. “FYI, she packs. You go knocking on that door, and she might shoot first and ask questions never.”
The man smiled brightly and winked. “Thanks, kid, but I’ve got it from here.”
Ethan watched as he opened the door and stepped inside. He waited a few seconds, and when he didn’t hear any bloodcurdling screams or the repeated shots from a .357 magnum, he figured that all was well, and whatever was going on was none of his business. Truthfully, he didn’t want to know the details, either.
Over the course of the next ten minutes, Ethan cleaned the spill inside his Omni. Melissa happened to come home during that time. She even parked next to him as he worked, but she had her face stuck in her smartphone from the moment the car shut off—possibly even before that—and didn’t seem to notice him before she disappeared inside the building.
Once he was finished, Ethan took small pride in the relatively small amount of paper towels he had to use. When he went back to his apartment, he noticed that Esther’s door was open a few inches and light from her living room poured out into the hallway. He almost continued past, but a nagging feeling that something was amiss kept him from doing so.
“Ms. Williams?” he called out, cautiously approaching the door. “You left your door open.”
The Pirate (Captains & Cannons Book 1) Page 4