Chapter 66: Firebreak

I turned to face the elevator doors.

They opened on hallways running in both directions, with a series of doors and door numbers and mail slots marking the apartments. Cream carpet, white plaster walls, a potted fern that looked like it needed way more water than it got.

All of that to the naked eye.

When I raised my phone, I saw what Lena was staring at through her Google Glass. Not that it came as any surprise, since I’d already heard it.

Through Third Eye, the hall was ablaze.

Flames climbed the walls and clung to the door frames. Ash darkened the carpet. Only blackened branches marked where the fern had been.

Lena took a step forward.

I started to reach for her.

She fixed me with a gaze.

“Whatever happens,” she said, her voice astonishingly calm, “you have to promise.”

I swallowed. Forced myself to nod. “It’s all yours.”

She stepped forward.

I expected the flames to curl and twist around her. Perhaps, when the flash faded, to see her in her armor for a moment even without my phone. Or maybe I’d see her as I always did, and I’d have at least a hint of evidence that I was overreacting to Third Eye.

I feared, no matter what my naked eye might tell me, that Lena would touch the flames and catch fire for real.

The one thing I hadn’t braced for was what actually happened:

Nothing.

Her wings battered the walls, stirring the flames around them and adding to the conflagration. The fire didn’t seem to hurt her, but she didn’t absorb it, either.

I took a step after her.

“Wait,” she said. “I must be doing something wrong.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” I said. “Either you collect it or not.”

Which she must already know. “So why doesn’t it come to me?”

“Either another player put it there, or it’s like the decorations at the construction site last night.” Placed by a dev? Would we find another inspection report clipped to a wall somewhere in this apartment building? “How did you know you’d find Fire here?”

“Because I paid for it!” She turned around. Her eyes blazed and her fists were clenched. “I can’t believe this bullshit. I came where I was supposed to, I dealt with all my stupid emo crap, I got you to stop playing hero for five minutes. And I still don’t get Fire?”

“It’s not looking like a great investment,” I said.

She scrunched her face up and glared at me. Then she sighed. “No kidding.”

“What was it, exactly, that you thought you should get from the Kickstarter?”

“A bunch,” Lena said. “Magus of the Second Circle was supposed to give me the Custom Personification, plus a bunch of other stuff. Tickets, which I definitely didn’t get yet, ‘Entry into the roster of the Occulted,’ whatever that means, a ‘Bonus’ Reactant – I’d settle for any –, and a Realm. I thought for sure this was the Realm.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “If you weren’t standing in the middle of a Third Eye fire, I’d say maybe they just hadn’t implemented Realms yet.”

“That’s what I figured when we first started playing,” Lena said. “Since they knew where to send my amulet, and for that matter to send your invite to your new phone, I didn’t think I’d have to come back here. But when I couldn’t seem to get a Reactant anywhere, I thought, maybe Realms are harder to move.”

“If you can’t absorb this Fire, I don’t think I’d be able to, either,” I said. “I’d like to get out of the elevator, but I understand if you don’t want to bet on my hunch.”

Lena unclenched her fists. “No, you can’t just hang out in there. What if somebody calls it back down? C’mon.”

I stepped forward.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tense as my phone showed the flames licking my boots and curling around my corduroys.

But I didn’t catch fire, and I didn’t catch Fire.

I didn’t know which possibility worried me more.

“At least it’s not completely unfair,” Lena said.

“It seems like you’re on the right track,” I said. “Are you willing to try your apartment itself?”

She took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

She reached down and brushed her hand through the flames. I could only imagine how spectacular they looked through her smart glasses. She flexed her fingers. “I’m sure it’s been rented out, though. We can’t just barge into somebody’s apartment.”

“It can’t hurt to knock,” I said.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Her eyes tightened. “Can’t, huh?”

I didn’t know what I’d said wrong. Whatever we found this morning, she and I had a lot to talk about.

Not here, though. I wiped my brow and looked at the back of my hand. I really was sweating like crazy. Nerves, or the heat I felt? “I know this sounds insane, but, does it seem way too hot in here to you, too?”

“It’s toasty for sure,” Lena said. “You’re thinking it’s from Third Eye?”

“The possibility may have crossed my mind.”

“Okay, but.” Lena’s hands and wings whipped the blaze around her. “If flames this intense were real, I’m pretty sure we’d be dead. Also, the fire alarm would’ve come on.”

“You’re right.” Still, I unzipped my parka.

She did the same with her jacket. “Maybe the landlord has the heat cranked?”

“Did they do that when you lived here?”

“I don’t remember.” She tried to smile.

I don’t think either of us believed they had.

She stepped toward me again, toward the elevator.

I pulled my parka off and tucked it under my arm. I held the arm out.

She shrugged her jacket off and hung it on top of mine.

Through my phone, I saw her blazing cloak drape over my cloth one; instead of lighting it on fire, it hissed and turned to steam.

Nonetheless, I felt hotter than ever. Maybe because no matter what Third Eye showed, I was carrying two people’s coats.

Maybe because Lena had come closer.

I thought back to all the times I’d believed our own landlord had turned the useless furnace on. All the times Lena and I had been out scouting and, despite the freezing morning, felt comfortable.

I was way past dismissing it as impossible.

I wanted desperately to know if the heat was just in my head. The sweat pouring down my forehead said no, but I couldn’t rule out either nerves or an actual furnace.

Next time I went to Walmart, I’d buy a thermometer and test how warm our apartment actually got, compared to how I felt. Would that settle whether Third Eye did real things, or showed me real things, or messed with my mind? Only if I could get a non-player to confirm the results.

If I proposed to Lena that we abandon her scouting expedition to run that test, I suspected she’d go for it. Not because she was afraid of anything Third Eye related, but because she didn’t want to face the place she used to live.

I didn’t say it, though.

After a moment, she straightened up, squared her shoulders, and, for the first time since she’d stepped into the hallway, turned to her left. “Fuck it. There’s no way I’m gonna walk out of here without at least trying to check.”

Her flames and the hallway’s gleamed off her armor. Her wings flexed.

“I know it sounds stupid,” I said. “But I don’t think Third Eye would put your Realm somewhere you couldn’t get to it.”

“Guess we’ll find out,” she said. “Come on. Just... stay far enough back that if we get to the part of the Fire I can collect, I’m the one who gets it.”

“I promise,” I said. “Actually, do you mind if I try something? I think it would make me less likely to pick something up, rather than more, but I can’t be completely sure.”

“Try it.”

I tapped to the Third Eye app and opened the Reactions window. When I’d gotten my Water, I’d acquired four units of it, not just the one I had of Air. I’d still never dared to use one up as a Material, rather than a Reactant.

Now I did.

I tapped Air first, Water second.

A globe of the latter appeared in the hallway before me, sizzling at the edges where the fire touched it. I cupped my free hand and pulled back, drawing the Water closer until, finally, it floated right in front of me. I angled it to the floor and stepped in.

Lena raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to do? It looked cool until you used it as a wading pool.”

“Keep the Fire away from me. And me away from the Fire.” I shrugged. “I hope.”

The thing was, it felt cool.

Not like I’d actually stepped into a puddle of water, or a globe of it floating in zero gravity. This much real water would have soaked through my corduroys and the bottom of my sweatshirt already. Also, if it didn’t put the fire out entirely, it would start to boil me.

I felt more like I’d stepped into a cool mist, enough to cling to my skin but not enough to drench my clothes.

What I expected, amplified by whatever Third Eye had done to my head? Or in some sense something real?

“Let’s try not to test your theory,” Lena said.

“I’m with that.”

We strode down the hall.

The flames seemed more intense around each door we passed. Each time, Lena brushed her hand through them. Each time, nothing happened.

When I passed one, I gave it an experimental poke with the hand cradling my phone; I had to keep my other hand constantly curled and tucked almost behind my back to hold my Water in place. I didn’t absorb any Fire, and I didn’t know how much of the sensation of heat I felt from the door was real. I felt it all the same. My Water hissed.

Two doors from the end of the hall, Lena stopped.

I lingered a few feet back. I figured she needed her space, both physically to collect Fire and emotionally to face her old apartment.

“There aren’t any flames on this door,” I said.

“What?” Lena frowned and looked it up and down.

The walls and carpet were aflame, and most of the doors blazed. This one remained untouched.

“I guess that makes sense,” she muttered.

She’d lost me, but I didn’t think she’d said it for my benefit. I was content to wait for her to process what she needed to.

She thrust her hand forward and gripped the doorknob.

Logically, it should have been locked. Lena had moved away half a decade ago, and whoever the new tenants were, they wouldn’t just leave their door open while they went to work. Or they’d be off work, or unemployed, or working remotely, and they’d probably still lock their door.

If not, we were about to have a very embarrassing confrontation.

I didn’t really believe any of those things, though.

The doorknob turned in Lena’s hand.

I’d never believed anything else could happen.

She pulled at the door and it opened a crack.

She said, “Hello?”

“We’re here about the apartment for rent,” I called.

She glanced back at me and flashed a smile when she got what I was doing. If we’d completely misread the situation and all this mystical bullshit turned out to be just that, we could excuse our presence as a misunderstanding the tenant might actually believe.

We needn’t have bothered. Nobody answered us.

I’d never believed they would.

Lena tugged the door open the rest of the way.

It blocked my view of the interior, but not of her expression.

At first, the latter didn’t change. She stared into the apartment with her jaw set in a frown. Then, slowly, mechanically, she began to shake her head. She took a step back. “No. No way.”

I stepped forward and reached for her.

She reached back, clutched my arm, clung to it.

“What the shit is this?” she hissed. “It’s not... it can’t be –”

She backed herself up against me. My Water popped and sizzled where it touched her burning armor. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. I whispered, “It’s okay.”

She squirmed and snapped her gaze up to me. “Like hell it is! Look at it!”

For the first time, I did.