Chapter 109: Stranded

Lena stared. “The hell?”

Matt looked down the table to Mask. “Do you want to tell them, or should I?”

Mask’s shoulders flexed. Instead of responding, he hunched further over his laptop and started jabbing at the keys.

The younger girl began to inch her fingers toward his arm. His mask shifted toward her and she jerked her hand back and glared at the rest of us.

“I guess I get to play storyteller,” Matt said. As he stood, he flashed a trace of his familiar smirk. A reminder that I’d only upgraded him from “acquaintance,” or maybe “colleague,” to “friend” after he got abducted.

I supposed I had to count it as a good thing that he’d preserved his smarm. I liked to think that if I had access to mind control, I’d be strong enough to never use it. Being cooped up in a cabin with Matt would leave me sorely tempted, though.

No way Mask let him carry on like this if zapping him into an obedient captive was an option.

“Before we begin,” Matt said, “I just want to clarify. ‘Mask’ is what you’ve been calling our host? You couldn’t have picked a name that sounds less like mine?”

“We didn’t pick it,” Lena said. “We got it off the invasion report.”

“Doesn’t exactly speak to the creativity of the people who post there,” said Matt, who’d been pro-invasion from day one.

Lena cupped her chin. “Wait, what do you call him?”

Matt looked down the table again. “Currently? I call him Allen and we all try to pretend that’s an alias.”

Lena and I both stared at Mask. We could’ve guessed he’d have an ordinary American name. He tried to put on the persona of a mysterious antihero, but he slipped into modern slang on the regular. Still, associating such a mundane name with his (lack of a) face made it hard not to laugh.

Give us credit, though. We both managed to clamp our jaws shut.

Until Matt added, “Of course, Allen initially told me to call him ‘the Nightmare Knight.’”

Lena covered her mouth, but if she wanted to stifle her laughter, it didn’t work. Probably because she wanted to draw attention to it, instead.

I managed to restrain myself to a snort and considered it an amazing display of self-discipline.

Even Matt and three of the other captives cracked grins.

How could you not?

Look. As usernames go, Nightmare Knight wouldn’t be a bad one. Certainly better than mine, and no cringier than Donica’s DeepingShadows.

We weren’t trying to get people to call us those names to our faces, though.

Between how ridiculous it was, and how ridiculously appropriate to the persona Mask – Allen, I supposed, because I sure as hell wasn’t using his preferred alias – put on, and the tension that had been building up in Lena and I, who could blame us for laughing?

The younger girl could, it turned out. She surged to her feet and almost screamed, “Shut up!”

I did my best to compose my face. Lena, frankly, didn’t.

“You have no idea,” the girl snarled. “You don’t know what we –”

“Quit it, Jan,” Mask said. No, I reminded myself. Allen said.

His voice changer made it impossible to parse his tone, so I watched her reaction instead. She didn’t cringe away from him, and when her glare swung his way, her body remained just as tense as when she’d shouted at Lena. Not what I’d expect from an abuse victim whose will had been broken.

Eventually, she coughed, slumped back into her chair, and fixed her gaze on the far wall of the cabin.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. We don’t know what you’ve been through.”

She glared over her shoulder. “Huh?”

“I want to hear the rest of Matt’s explanation,” I said. “After that, though, you two can tell us whatever you need to.”

Jan looked away again, but for some reason, what I’d said made Allen’s shoulders tense. His mask tilted up until its three eyes pointed at me instead of his laptop screen. “Since when is that your call, OldCampaigner?”

I met his gaze, even though I couldn’t see his eyes. Then, without answering him, I turned to Matt.

Who exhaled. “I can tell this is going to be interesting.”

I offered a rueful smile. I figured he would understand what I was trying to do. Hopefully, he approved. “Why don’t you finish up the introductions.”

“Good call,” he said. “You’ve just met Jan here. Life of the party, isn’t she? But try to cut her some slack. Allen, obviously. Our oh-so-gracious host. And Gerry told me you two fought Allen together, along with Erin?”

“Yeah. Although I probably didn’t make the best first impression.” I turned to Gerry. “I’m sorry I couldn’t pull you out, man.”

He crossed his arms. “Same.”

“That’s not fair,” Lena said. “We watched the whole thing through your cameras. Cam did his best!”

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“And it wasn’t good enough.” I touched Lena’s wrist but I kept facing Gerry. “I’m not sorry for not trying. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to succeed.”

Gerry sucked air through his teeth. “Yeah, well. I’m the one who fucked up and dropped his guard. You tried to warn me.”

“We cool?” I asked.

He ducked his head. “We cool.”

“Great,” Matt said. He pointed to the other two guys and the older girl. Each raised their hand or nodded to Lena and I as he said their names. “Bob, Ramon, Nadia. You guys, these two are Cam and Lena.”

“Pleased to meetcha,” Lena said. She’d broken character when she busted out laughing, but now she was back in full streamer mode. Her cheery voice and beaming smile came across as so effortless. I knew that as soon as she came down, she’d crash like never before. “Too bad it couldn’t be under better circumstances.”

All three of them nodded.

“You seem to keep your spirits up,” Ramon said. “You’re the famous one, yes? Ashbird?”

“Mmhm!” She bobbed her head.

“Allen has had us watch all of your videos,” he said. “You give good advice.”

Lena didn’t let her smile slip at the reminder that Allen was perhaps too much of a fan of The Magnificent Ashbird.

To keep her from having to try to hold it while she talked, though, I said, “How about you finish your story, Matt?”

“Certainly.” He rubbed his hands. “As you pointed out, we’re not exactly a helpless collection of players. Allen specifically targeted us because he expected us to be worth his time. Now, I admit, individually, none of us are a match for him, even now. Collectively, on the other hand?”

“You can take him?” Although I addressed Matt, I watched Allen.

His mask revealed nothing. As for body language, he went back to jabbing at his laptop keyboard.

Matt said, “We could a week ago, at least. And again tonight, I imagine, since it looks like Phantom won’t be much help until tomorrow.”

The voice changer scratched with Allen’s grunt.

“It’s so messed up that you use your Daimon to fight,” Lena said.

“Literally the point of them,” Allen muttered.

“Unfortunately,” Matt said, “while I hate to agree with our host, in this case, I do think he’s right.”

Lena scowled.

“Daimons are part of the game.” Matt spread his hands. “If we have them, we should use them.”

“They’re not just tools,” Lena said.

“Maybe not, but they seem to enjoy using their abilities,” Matt said. “They also seem to get stronger from it. That’s been true of Phantom, as well as Ramon’s salamander.”

Lena’s eyes widened. “You’ve got a salamander, too? Where is he? What’s his name?”

Ramon grinned. “Yes, in the room with our bunks, and Verano.”

“So cool! I can’t wait to meet him.”

“Gushing over virtual pets aside,” Matt said, “the point is, every time Allen goes out and brings back a new prospect, he gets himself beaten up and those of us stuck here get reinforcements. While he was grabbing Gerry, I convinced the others to act on that fact.”

I leaned forward. “And...?”

“We won,” Matt said. He waited a beat, almost long enough that I thought I needed to prompt him. “We knocked Phantom out of the fight, dropped Allen’s HP to zero, freed Gerry.”

Jan clenched her fists, but either Allen didn’t give a shit about his defeat or he did a better job of hiding it.

I looked back to Matt. “If that’s the case, how come you’re still stuck here?”

“Because,” he said, “and you can guess how much I love this, winning doesn’t actually matter.”

Lena cocked her head.

I nodded, though.

“You already figured that much out, eh?” Matt retook his chair.

“Let’s see if I’ve got the particulars down,” I said. “It’s impossible to force Allen to use his Key, because either he’s got HP and you can’t really threaten him, or he doesn’t and he can’t help you.”

Matt sighed as he tapped the touchpad of his laptop. “Yep.”

“You could force him to tell you your physical location,” I said. I held up my hand to let them know I was just working through my thoughts aloud. “I’m guessing he refused, though. Even if any of you were psychologically capable of beating information out of a helpless dude, which you’re probably not –” I hoped not, anyway. “– you could never trust anything he said. He’d have every incentive to feed you a load of bullshit that would make it likely you’d get lost and die in the wilderness.”

“Not quite every incentive,” Matt said. “Enough that I wouldn’t want to bet my life on my intimidation skills or his honesty, though.”

“One thing I don’t get,” I said. “If you’ve already unmasked Allen, why does he still wear his whole outfit in the cabin? It can’t be comfortable.”

“To protect all of you, dickhead,” Jan muttered.

“I’d call it mutual protection,” Matt said. “See, we didn’t unmask Allen after we beat him. He and Jan persuaded us not to.”

“Why the hell would you let them talk you out of it?” Lena asked.

“Because if we don’t see his face,” Matt said, “we can’t identify him to the police. Oh, we could make a good guess. So could a competent detective. Proof, though? Proof enough to stand up in court? Right now, we don’t have it. Which is for the best.”

Ah. Another piece of the puzzle clicked together for me. “If you saw his face, he’d never be able to let you go, and you’d both know it. As long as he keeps the mask and the voice changer on, he could, in theory, release you down the line.”

“Right again.” Matt chuckled. “Also, if he decided to stop bringing us canned food, we’d find out whether five city nerds could hunt and gather well enough to survive, or if our HP would protect us from starving.”

“For the record,” Nadia said, “we bet no to both.”

I thought of the people in the cabin as Allen’s captives, but that didn’t quite – if you’ll pardon the pun – capture their situation. He’d stranded them here. He controlled their resources. He was their best hope of getting back to civilization.

He didn’t have them fully in his power, though, because their group did have some hope of trekking south. And if it came down to it, they could beat him in a fight.

Him and Jan both, I assumed. She gave every indication that she would side with Allen against the others. If she wasn’t skilled enough with Third Eye to tip the scales back in his direction, why had he abducted her in the first place? Did he only look down on “mediocre” players if they didn’t take his side?

Regardless, the people in the cabin remained cordial enough with Allen and Jan to sit at this table and talk. They accepted their laptops and winter wear even though they had to guess it was all stolen. Matt knew enough about Allen and Phantom’s capabilities to have tracked the latter’s growth, and Ramon’s salamander, too, which implied they’d engaged in regular PVP.

Then there was Gerry’s behavior around Lena and I. He seemed halfway to siding with Allen himself, even though he’d been here less time than Matt.

I caught myself.

I’d assumed Matt wasn’t on Allen’s side. Matt admitted they’d fought, right?

Fought. Not “were fighting.”

“I guess that just leaves one more question.” I locked gazes with Matt, since Allen’s mask prevented me from seeing his expression and I didn’t know anyone else well enough to have even a hope of reading theirs’.

“Shoot,” Matt said.

“What,” I asked, “did Allen drag you out here to do?”