Wait, the Tekaneer wasn’t an NPC? And it knew his name? Who could possible know his—

Username @Pak-Man: Grace is that you?

He couldn’t quite believe it. Grace’s handle was @TheAmzingG. Why was she calling herself @BukARoo?

Username @BucARoo: Yes, it’s me. Can’t you tell?

Username @Pak-Man: No, your name is coming through as @BukARoo.

Username @BukARoo: Oh, for Pete’s sake, really? That’s an old login name. Let me fix that.

A couple of seconds passed. Charles hoped his avatar’s impassive facade hid his relief. He was overjoyed to find Grace. It meant he wasn’t alone in this strange world.

Username @TheAmzingG: Is it fixed?

Username @Pak-Man: Yes. What is going on, Grace? What is this place? And what do you mean by how did I get here? I got here the same way you did.

Username @TheAmzingG: *laughing emoji* I very much doubt that.

Username @Pak-Man: Are you the Virus person too?

Username @The AmzingG: No, who is Virus? Oh, man, we need to talk. Hold on, there should be a way of doing this in the game. Try calling up the play mode menu and picking “game comm.”

Charles called up the play mode menu, and, sure enough, there was a “game comm” command. How had he missed that when he first checked the menus? It would have saved him a lot of trouble.

“Does it work?” Grace’s avatar asked in the game.

“I think so,” he replied.

“Yes, it does,” Grace said, a broad smile crossing the avatar’s face. Then she glanced down at his cyborg arm and frowned.

“I see you got that,” she said, in a curiously expressionless voice.

“Yes.” He raised the arm and the sunlight made it gleam like gold. “Isn’t it sweet?”

Grace didn’t answer. That’s when he remembered that she didn’t have Tekaneer’s cyborg eye. And that wasn’t the only thing that was missing. He glanced back at Diablo’s rump. His horse’s tail was still gone. The jackalopes had taken it, so it should be around here somewhere.

“Didn’t you go through the tutorial?” he asked, looking around for a flail-like attachment. “I got this old man called Win Chester and he told me where to find my arm.”

He squinted at a tumbleweed. There seemed to be something glinting under the thorny brambles. Was it—yes, it was.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh, I went through mine. His name was B. Lunder Buss, like my gun, and he told me if I raided a nearby medical ship, I could steal the eye. Then the parrots took if from me and led me on a merry chase. I still got it though.”

Raided? Oh, that sounded like fun. Tekaneer’s homeworld must be a huge upgrade over the squalor of Scorch Gulch. “You started in Islands of Terror?”

He walked toward the tumbleweed, reached out, and extracted was looked like a thin, flexible broom with a plug at the end. Diablo whinnied with glee.

She nodded. “It’s full of pirates and ships and krakens. That’s where I found him.”

She looked up and put her fingers to her lips. A loud whistle pierced the air.

Charles followed her gaze, a black dot was circling above them, getting closer and closer. It turned into a dark bird—the plumage of a raven, but the body of a parrot—which landed softly on Grace’s shoulder.

“This is Polly,” she said, smiling at the bird fondly.

The bird’s head turned and its purple eyes opened and closed rhythmically. That’s when Charles realized that the feather and claws were metal.

The bird was a robot.

Charles raised a brow. Grace had not gone after the cyborg eye, but had captured herself a parrot, instead? That was questionable judgement. He’d always thought Grace was a fantastic player—one of the best he knew, but now he wondered.

She seemed to sense his disapproval. “Hey, you kept the horse. I saw him when I arrived.”

“That is a mode of transportation. This is a pet.”

“Polly is a scout,” Grace said, extending her hand. “She finds things out for me, and she has a nifty shield function. Can your equine friend block laser blasts? I don’t think so.”

A cracker appeared in mid-air. She caught it with a smooth motion and fed it to the robot parrot. The robot pet guzzled them gleefully.

Charles walked over to his horse and fit the whip tail back on, felling as if he had definitely lucked out in the sidekick area. Diablo tussled his hair and Charles responded by patting his neck.

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“Good,” he replied. “Can your bird find out what’s going on? What is this game?”

His question was greeted by silence. The silence stretched and stretched, until Grace finally shrugged.

“It’s an older version of Legends of the Universe,” she replied. “A very old version.”

Well, duh. He had figured that out all by himself. “How is it still working?”

Tekaneer’s face hardened. “Unclear. They gave up on it years ago because a contractor sabotaged it or stole the code or something five years ago. I think they may be trying to bring it back.”

The prospect seemed to worry her, but why—Charles froze. Sabotage? Five years ago?

He didn’t have to do the math for that. The numbers were imprinted in his head.

“Who sabotaged the game?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

Another silence.

Grace shrugged. “Who cares? The point is that you are not supposed to be here. ”

That’s what the Virus guy had said that too. Charles looked around. Same weird graphics. Same odd cacti. Same sun, only slightly lower in the sky.

Only the sand was different. There was now a pixelated discoloration where Deadmark’s body had lain. It was likely a glitch in the old program, but it felt eerie and faintly menacing.

“No kidding,” he said. “Are you?”

That was a rhetorical question, but it resulted in another long silence.

“Yes, I want—I need to play this game.” Grace shook her head. “But I have no idea why you got sucked in. You should quit the game and reboot. Maybe then you can get back into Legends.”

Wait, he could be playing the most sophisticated gaming platform in existence and she chose this? That was weird. Some people, like Scales, were into retro and creepy stuff and would go out of their way to pick a game like this, but Grace Chamorro wasn’t one of those people.

Grace was into the popular stuff that hat tons of purchasable skins and accessories. If it was new and it cost a lot of money to play, then Grace would be on it like white on rice. This wasn’t her kind of game at all.

“Um, are you sure about this?” he asked Grace.

She was eyeing his cyborg arm, frowning. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

“Yes,” she finally said. “I have something I need to do. But you should go, or at least try to. Thanks for the gold.”

And with that she leaped onto a rock and started climbing up the slope, the skirt floating around her slender form.

Charles stood still, rooted to the spot.

That was it? She just left? Questions swirled in his head. What was this game? How had she known about it? What was it that she had to do? Who was the Virus player?

He stared at the silhouette grafted in the sand. The outline was starting to fade, but he could see traces of the calavera mark on its back.

Alejandro Pakito had disappeared after what had been described as an act of corporate sabotage on a game he had been working on. The police, his family, and his betrayed employer, Cinco Gaming, had searched for him in vain.

This was the game. It had to be.

And it was still around.

You don’t belong here.

Everyone seemed to agree about that. He glanced back at the discoloration. It was still there, a somewhat sinister detail in the landscape. For some reason, it made him shiver.

Sure, he could log out, reboot, and then try to enter Legends. That’s what made sense.

But he didn’t want to leave Scales, or even irritating know-it-all Grace, alone in the game. No way.

“Wait,” he shouted, following Grace up the slope.

Luckily, Ranger had more speed and stamina than Tekaneer, and he caught up with Grace at the top of the slope. Diablo greeted him with a neigh.

His horse seemed to have made a friend. Grace, it seemed had also found herself a mount—a black steed with a cyborg eye similar to her character’s.

“I’m not leaving,” he said. “ I want to play this through.”

Grace made a face. “Why? The other game is much better.”

Really? Then why aren’t you playing it? Why are you here?

He left the question unasked. After all, he was going to play it too, and he definitely didn’t want Grace inquiring why.

“I like this one,” he answered.

That made her laugh, a sharp sound with a dull bitter edge to it, like stale sour candies. “No one likes this one.”

He couldn’t argue with her about that.

“When why are you here?” he finally asked.

“I told you.” She grabbed her horse’s reins. “I have something to do.”

And she clearly wasn’t going to tell him why.

You don’t belong here.

Virus’ words—and Grace’s—echoed in his head. But he disagreed.

“Fine,” he said. “Then you may need some help.”

She laughed even harder. “Really, cowboy? I was the one who rescued you. Have you already forgotten?” She mounted her horse. “Go home, Charles, or at least try to.”

“No,” he said stubbornly. “I have something to do too. I need to find Scales.”

Her head jerked up. “Scales? He’s here too?”

Her eyes widened in dismay. Charles recalled the faint voice he’d heard when he’d first entered the game. Something’s wrong…

“Yes,” he said. “And I need to find him.”

Grace grew quiet. She sat on her saddle, staring down at the pommel.

“I’m looking for someone too,” she whispered.

Charles’ heart leapt. “Well, we have something in common, then.”

She smiled, but it came out as a bitter grimace. “No, we don’t.” She paused and glanced down at his arm. “At least, I hope we don’t.”

The expression was gone in a flash, but the ghost of it remained. It didn’t look like a video game expression.

It looked almost human, a very odd occurrence indeed, given how stylized the art was in this game.

“How did you guys get in here, anyway?” she asked.

Charles made a face. “The same way you did. We got the code.”

Her brows furrowed in puzzlement. “What code?”

“What do you mean? Scales gave it to me and I assumed he got it from you.”

Her eyes widened. “He did not get any code from me. How—?”

She broke off and glanced down at his arm.

“But it’s probably too late anyway.” She pulled on her horse’s reins. “And you’re right. You can help me.” She pressed her knees on the horse’s flanks and he horse stepped back. “And I can help you.”

The last words were faint and he wasn’t even sure he’d heard them correctly. Help him with what?

Charles grabbed Diablo’s reins and mounted. By the time he was done, Grace was already heading down the road.

“Wait,” he shouted. “Were are we going?”

Grace looked back, but she didn’t slow down.

“We are going to rob a train,” she shouted. “C’mon, it will be fun.”

And then she raced away, a pixelated cloud of dust floating behind her.

Charles sat on his horse, staring at the dust clouds. This was why he liked gaming alone, or with Scales, who didn’t run off, expecting him to follow, or ran off and immediately got into trouble he had to be saved from. He could just go his own way and find Scales.

But Grace seemed to know a lot about this game. She even knew about the sabotage.

And robbing a train did sound like fun.

“Lets go, Diablo,” he said, digging his spurs into the horse’s flanks. “Follow her.”