I awoke to the sound of sirens. My dreaming and waking consciousness merged together, faintly registering the clang of frantic, high-pitched bells, overlaid with a harsh whooping sound. It sounded like a fire alarm, only...angrier. It sounded wrong. Dangerous.
A pair of smooth, cold hands gripped me, like icicles pressed against my skin, pulling me upright off the bed by one shoulder and the opposite wrist. By the time my eyes were open, I was practically standing.
It was Tanya. She was wearing a hoodie and a pair of pajama pants with little pink, cartoon kittens on them. Her hair was pulled back into a swirled bun behind her head, with what looked like a chopstick poking out of it. She was yelling something at me, but I couldn’t hear it.
I shook my head at her, blinking. My eyes felt like they’d been rusted shut in the night.
Tanya clenched her jaw. Her small, alabaster hand slipped into mine, and she pulled me toward the slightly open door.
As the door swung wide, the alarm became louder, more immediate. The house was mostly shrouded in dark, but I could see flashing, multi-colored lights downstairs, through the railing. I covered one ear as Tanya dragged me down the flight of stairs and into the living room.
It was a comfy space with one long beige couch, two loveseats, and a brick fireplace. However, there was a tall, wheeled desk that had been scooted into the room, in front of the fireplace. Black cords ran along the carpet and over the fireplace brick. There was a desktop PC on the desk, with glass siding and flashing LED lights that cast rainbow-life images onto the walls.
My eyes were on the two monitors. One showed a livestream website. There was a webcam attached to the top of the monitor frame, with a conference mic set on the surface of the desk in front.
The other monitor appeared to be showing sixteen different security camera feeds all at once, broken up by black lines, like little boxes on the screen. They were tinted in green night vision, with lots of dark shadows, and some objects that shone a bright white, imposing themselves on the otherwise bland visuals like a floodlight, or a sun. The feeds covered various angles of the outside of the house. A circular gravel car lot, with a flowery garden mound in the middle. Another bit of cement driveway leading up to the garage. A pathway leading downhill on the other side of the house, winding between two garden beds.
Some of the footage looked like it was coming from remote areas of the estate, which I was starting to realize was a big place. One showed a naked tree branch bobbing, extending into the night like a petitioning hand. Others showed slopes of hills with small trees and clumps of grass and brush swaying in the breeze.
But the box that grabbed my attention and held it wasn’t of trees, or wildlife, or anything else I would have expected to see on the property. It was one box out of sixteen, and it showed three black vans. At the exact moment that I noticed this, one of the vans’ side doors slid open, and a dozen or so armored men with rifles started filtering out. They looked like a swat team. A side door on each of the other vans opened, with even more armored men stepping out in single file.
I sat up on the couch, my body tensing up. I suddenly felt very wide awake. Though, part of me debated whether I actually was. Maybe this was another surreal action sequence my subconscious had cooked up, like back in the tunnel.
But no, I was awake. This was all happening in the real. I wasn’t an expert in much of anything, but I knew what it felt like to be in a simulated environment.
Tanya was at the desk. With a tap of her finger at the keyboard, the alarms stopped.
“There you are, you motherfuckers.” Tanya said. She looked over her shoulder at me. “Ready to go live?”
“Live?” I said.
Leftie hopped over and into an adjacent couch. He was wearing his same outfit, only his tie was removed, with the top couple buttons of his white dress shirt undone. His hair was a little ruffled, he was sporting some five o-clock shadow along his cheeks and jawline, and he had dark circles under his eyes, but he appeared to be in obnoxiously good spirits. He winked at me and settled back on the couch.
“Okay,” Tanya said, as she clicked something. “Here we go. Three, two, one—Hey, everybody!” She stepped back, waving to the webcam. Leftie waved as well.
“Go on, Kit,” Tanya said. “Wave.”
I wasn’t looking at her. I was glancing at the front door at the far side of the living room.
“Oookay,” she said, turning back toward the webcam. “My name is Tanya Bedford. But I also go by another name. I’m the current defacto leader of the Bannerets guild, Tara Vellis. To one side of me is someone you’ll know as Sater, also a member of the Bannerets.”
Leftie—rather, Sater—waved amiably.
“To my other side,” Tanya said, “Is someone with whom you should be very familiar. In the real, his name is Kit. In Rithium, he’s Winter Wolf.”
The chat bar exploded, blurbs of text scrolling across the screen like they were in a race, like they were trying to get somewhere.
I barely noticed. I was thinking about the three or four steps it would take to get to that door.
The SWAT team was still making their way toward the house, navigating in a spread out, routine fashion across the grounds. They popped up here and there on the camera feeds, wearing hefty-looking nightvision goggles, like binoculars hanging off of their helmets, their rifles level and ready to fire.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
What is the plan here? The four of us—if Rightie is the only other one—against a whole army? Like a shootout in an old western? High stakes ‘Home Alone’?
Then again, what was the plan if I left the house and ran out there? Would the intruders shoot me? Would they detain me and send me back to Aberdale? Did I even know who they were?
I was startled by a shift in the couch’s fabric as Leftie/Sater plopped down next to me. He put his arm behind me and leaned over to whisper in my ear, like you would a date in a restaurant booth. “You won’t get far.”
I smirked. I was off my meds, and I had recovered from being drugged. Now that I was fully awake, my mind was clear in a way it hadn’t been for months, maybe even years, and I could feel this sense of calm certainty steeling over me. Or perhaps it was just resolve. Either way, I leaned over and whispered back: “Neither will you.”
Just because I was a stupid junkie didn’t mean I couldn’t get even. I’d find a way.
Sater grinned, amused for some reason. He tossed a stick of gum in his mouth.
Tanya was still talking. “This house belongs to Sater’s family estate. It is located on four-five-nine-five Ryder Avenue, Seattle, WA, zip code nine-eight-one-zero-nine. I’m telling you this because we’re currently being SWATed.”
She tapped a button on the keyboard, and the livestream transitioned from the webcam to the contents of the other monitor, where the approaching “SWAT teams” were clearly visible.
The chat was in a frenzy.
“Allow me to explain,” Tanya said. “This is happening because my colleagues and I recently freed Winter here from a rehab facility. Winter had this object planted in his forearm.” She held up the chip that had been removed from my arm not all that long ago.
Oh shit.
I winced and looked down at my forearm. In the excitement up until now, I hadn’t even thought of my injury. I had felt it, but in a distant sort of way, deemed less immediately important by my subconscious.
Black stitches ran along the length of the closed gash, like spindly spider legs. It was red and swollen, and there was a faint yet consistent ebb of pain coming from it, like waves crashing down the length of my arm.
Lovely.
“Take a good look.” Tanya said, rotating the chip in front of the camera. “It’s authentic. As you can see, there’s an encryption code on the side, here. For geeks like me, you already know what this is and how it works. This was a tracking device used to keep tabs on Winter, without his consent. And that’s not all.”
She reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out something else. It was a dark, square object. A box, really, the width of her palm.
“This,” Tanya said, “Is a Black Dart.”
I found myself frowning, shaking my head. And not just because it looked like a box more than anything else. Shouldn’t they have called it...Black Box?
I’d heard of “Black Dart”. It wasn’t real. It was a story started by hardcore criminals in the Rithium circuit. A story about the undercover cops infiltrating the game. Some people can’t comprehend that a cop could be better at the game than they are. Or admit to themselves what really happens when you’re in the system too long, or playing too hard. You die.
Rithium kills. Eventually, anyway. I knew that if I ever went back to it, it’s what would eventually happen to me. But not everyone can face the facts like I can. People tend to look for other explanations. Other places to pit the blame.
“It was the police. They hacked the game. They killed my friend.”
No. The police may have been involved. But nobody hacks Rithium; it can’t be done. And I hate to break it to you, but your friend killed himself.
Oscar’s face flashed in my head, like a mirage. This immediately precipitated a spike of pain that shot down the side of my head. It pulled on my eyeball, pushed against the inside of my skull. I keeled forward, pressed the palm of my hand against my eye.
I knew this feeling. It was Rithium withdrawal. The very thing that the drugs at Aberdale were designed to hold off, or at least control, the way day-drinking puts off the symptoms of an impending hangover.
Ah, memories.
The only thing worse than the persistent feeling of emptiness caused by hollow, unstimulated dopamine pathways in the brain was the headaches. That was when it really hit you, every time. That was when you knew you had to go back.
After a few moments, the pain began to subside, a bright sun smothered by passing clouds.
“As some of you may know,” Tanya said, putting away the Black Dart, “The Bannerets have been in a longstanding rivalry with the Rifters guild. What you may not know is that the Rifters have been infiltrated by undercover police. Under the guise…” She paused. Her back was to me. For some reason, she seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. “Under the guise of a Rifter guild member, one of these undercover agents used a Black Dart against the leader of our guild, and took him out.”
No. He overdid it. His brain couldn’t keep up with his activity within the simulation.
But Tanya seemed to really believe what she was saying. She paused for a moment, long enough to be awkward. Then, her posture straightened. She seemed to be getting a hold of herself.
“Our plan is simple. We know the location of a piece of evidence that will incriminate the police and these corrupt institutions. With Winter’s help, we will sync in, find the evidence, and catalog it using the Black Dart. We will prove the existence of these Black Dart operations. We will go public with said proof. And you, my followers, will know I’m telling the truth. Thank you all, we’ll check back in with you later. For the time being, I’ll leave up the security footage so you can follow what’s happening. Peace.”
Tanya turned off the webcam. She turned to Sater. “How was that, you think?”
Sater gave a thumbs up.
“I thought it was kinda infodump-y.” Tanya said.
“You were succinct.” Sater said. “You got the point across. Should give us the time we need.”
I stared at the chip, still in Tanya’s hand. For some reason, it bothered me that they had had their way with me. They had performed surgery on me without my consent. Not so that they could destroy the tracking chip, or help me, but in order to further embroil me in their schemes.
I raised my hand.
Tanya’s eyes fell on me. There was a detached look to them, as if her mind was just coming back from somewhere else. I could see emotion behind those eyes, but it was churning far below the surface, being held at bay.
“Any chance I could get the chip back? ”
Tanya tilted her head at me, eyelids scrunching together. “May I ask why?”
I shrugged. “When I got my wisdom teeth pulled, the dentist let me take them home.”
Tanya folded her arms. “I’m not your dentist.”
“Hey,” I said. “The thing came out of me. If anyone should be holding onto it, it should be me, right?”
Tanya sighed. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation right now.” She used her thumb to flick the chip in my direction. It went wide, but I reached out and caught it.
“You realize that thing is still active, right?” Tanya said. “Anyone could track it. I showed the code during the stream.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” I said. Assuming I survive this at all...
“Course you will.”
I started to say something, then stopped. Then started again. “Do—do we know each other?”
“Do we?” Tanya said, enigmatically.
No. The answer was no.
Right?