Chapter 75: Anchor

I shook Zhizhi’s hand. Her grip was firm but not overbearing, the kind of handshake that would put you at ease if you weren’t the kind of person who found the whole handshake thing kind of inherently uncomfortable. Couldn’t be me.

Do you remember Zhizhi? After what had easily become the busiest week of my life, I barely did. Last Sunday she’d been the footnote in a story about Albie, a nosy jogger who I’d had to convince I wasn’t a kidnapper, who Lena had thought I was hitting on.

Now that I knew what she did for a living, I realized I’d been in more danger than I thought. Zhizhi was professionally nosy.

Back in the present, she stomped the snow off her boots and stepped into the apartment.

I don’t think we presented a very welcoming image.

Donica and ShakeProtocol scowled from their places at the counter. Erin and Lena huddled by Bernie’s pet bed and made themselves as invisible as the apartment didn’t allow. My smile probably looked as brittle as it felt.

Miguel bailed us out. With a huge grin, he hopped from his stool and offered his arm to take Zhizhi’s coat. “I’m delighted you could join us this evening, Miss...?”

She raised her eyebrow, but handed him the coat. “Zhizhi Wong.”

“Miguel Herrera.” He completed a handshake of his own, without evident discomfort. “Cameron tells me you’re a reporter?”

“He does, does he?” She glanced at me. Her eyebrow kept going higher. “That’s a very generous interpretation of a 9News internship.”

Miguel shrugged grandly. “Greatness from small beginnings.”

I gave him the side-eye. “Isn’t that from the Uncharted games?”

“You are no one to talk,” he said.

“I wasn’t objecting! I might remind you the next time you give Lena or I shit for a reference, though.”

This exchange seemed to break the ice. Zhizhi laughed. “If you guys are a murder cult, you’re the weirdest one I’ve ever seen.”

“Do you accept a lot of invitations from murder cults?” I asked.

“Only the ones with at least ten thousand subscribers on YouTube.”

“Oh shit,” Lena cried. She dug her phone out and tapped to her browser. “She’s right! We crossed 10K subs!”

“Congratulations!” Erin leaned in to look at Lena’s screen.

Ice fully broken.

Miguel took over the rest of the introductions.

Zhizhi made her way around the counter, offering shakes to everyone except, ironically, ShakeProtocol. He gave his name as Choi Joon Woo. I saw Donica glance at Erin and did the same, but I didn’t know what she was looking for and Erin’s face remained unreadable.

Zhizhi looked over the seating arrangements. She put a hand on her hip.

I got it. Six people, five chairs. What did she expect us to do? Rent an extra?

“You can take my chair,” I said. “I’m going to need to stand up for some of this, anyway.”

“For the tests, you mean,” Zhizhi said.

“Before we get to that, Ms. Wong,” Donica said, “I’d like to know what your intentions are.”

In the few minutes we’d had between Zhizhi’s text and her arrival – what was it with people claiming they were some number of minutes away from our apartment and then arriving in half that? – everyone had agreed to at least hear the “reporter” out.

I hadn’t expected that to turn into quite as much of an inquisition as Donica seemed to want.

Zhizhi didn’t seem ruffled, though. She just arched her eyebrows. “My ‘intentions’? What a formal way of putting it.”

“There are formalities to be observed,” Donica snapped. “Are you planning to publish what you witness tonight?”

“Considering that my ability to ‘publish’ amounts to linking blog posts on my Twitter, I’m not sure how much you have to worry about.”

Donica leaned over the counter at her. “You work at a newsroom.”

“Running errands.”

“That’s not the point. And considering that you wouldn’t even be running errands without a journalism degree, I think you know it.”

Zhizhi sat down in my chair and crossed her legs. “My ‘intentions’ were to accept an invitation to check out something interesting from a couple who seemed pretty cool when I met them in the park the other day.”

Lena and I had come across as a couple, even then? Well, I certainly wasn’t going to contradict Zhizhi now.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I didn’t even know Zhizhi was a journalist until I looked her up this afternoon,” I said. “I just wanted somebody without Third Eye installed to confirm our experimental results.”

“The fact she is a journalist changes things, though,” Donica said. “Erin and I don’t want our names splashed all over the evening news. I don’t think any of us want to read another hit piece on Third Eye.”

“You know,” Lena said, “she’s got a point, Cam.”

The world didn’t end from Lena agreeing with Donica, so I was pretty sure we were safe from any forthcoming apocalypses, too.

“‘Another?’” Zhizhi hummed tunelessly. “If a bunch of these pieces are cropping up, maybe there’s some fire with the smoke?”

“This is a bad idea,” Donica said. “Erin –”

“There’s a simple solution,” ShakeProtocol said. I supposed I should think of him as Joon Woo, now?

“Oh, good,” Erin said.

“You do have a journalism degree, yes, Ms. Wong?” Joon Woo asked.

“You can call me Zhizhi,” she said, “and yes.”

“Then you’ll respect it if we say all of this is off the record?”

She inclined her head. “I will.”

“Problem solved,” he said. He swept his eyes over us as best his position on Erin’s tablet allowed.

The tablet’s owner bobbed her head. Miguel nodded. I started to.

But Lena hunched over Bernie’s pet bed, hugging him and stroking his head, and Donica continued to glare.

“If you’re not all cool with that,” Zhizhi said, “tell me right now and I’ll leave. Kind of sucks I drove over here through the snow, but what can you do? I’m not going to sit here bringing your mood down for two hours.”

“Of course,” Miguel said, “if you were to do that, then we would have no agreement regarding whether any discoveries you might make were off the record.”

Zhizhi smiled. “Gosh. I wouldn’t have thought of it that way.”

Donica turned her glare my way. “This is your fault.”

“I –”

“Me and Cam agreed it would be okay to invite her,” Lena said.

We’d had to. When I got the idea of doing so, I almost didn’t propose it.

Lena had, in fact, insisted. Echoes of the weirdness from our first meeting, when Lena thought I was collecting phone numbers. I think she wanted to prove she wasn’t worried about me texting Zhizhi as much as I wanted to prove Lena had no reason to be.

When we looked her up after that and found out where she worked, maybe we should’ve changed our minds. By then, though, we’d committed to asking her over as a show of trust.

We should’ve invited Yvonne or Big Charlie, or another IRL friend, instead.

Ultimately, we hadn’t because we didn’t want them to get closer to Third Eye. If it did turn out to be dangerous to non-players, they’d have no protection against it. Zhizhi wouldn’t either, and if she got hurt as a result I’d feel like the lowest motherfucker on the planet for inviting her.

Still better than hurting a friend.

“ShakeProtocol,” Erin began. Her fingers flexed. “Er. Joon Woo. You trust that she’ll keep her word, right?”

“She wouldn’t be where she is without completing her ethics courses,” he said. “More importantly, at her level, she can’t afford any violations. It would be far easier for her bosses to cut her loose than to bother defending her against the source of a complaint.”

“He’s sure not wrong,” Zhizhi said.

“Besides,” Joon Woo said. “If there really is a story here, it will be one far too crazy for your local news to run.”

Zhizhi perched her elbows on the counter. “Now I really hope you’ll let me stay.”

It had to be universal agreement, in my opinion. If anyone objected to telling Zhizhi about Third Eye, I’d suggest she grab a coffee and we break out the board games for the most uncomfortable round of Catan I’d ever played.

Miguel was in. Of course, I didn’t know if he wanted Third Eye shut down.

Joon Woo was in. He seemed to think binding Zhizhi to an agreement was safer than intriguing her and then leaving her to her own devices.

Lena was in. I could tell, because she’d fallen silent. I felt bad about that. I didn’t think she was in for the right reasons. Donica had made it about me, and now Lena felt like she had to back me up.

Hell. I wasn’t even sure I was in. Well, I was in, but only because I was too uncomfortable with the idea of asking Zhizhi to leave after I’d invited her in the first place.

Which left Erin and Donica.

Erin bit her lip. “I’ll trust you.”

Donica frowned at her. “You’re sure?”

“No.” Erin chuckled. “I want to be.”

Donica threw her hands up. “Fine. I want your agreement that this is off the record in writing, though.”

“Works for me.” Zhizhi pulled an honest-to-God notepad and pencil from her purse and scribbled something on it. She tore a page from its ring binder and handed it to Donica. “Satisfied?”

Donica frowned down at it. She read it aloud. “‘I, Zhizhi Wong, 9News, will not disclose the names or identities of any person I have met this evening, nor publicize any event I witness, without the express written permission of all parties.’”

Zhizhi spread her hands.

“I suppose that’s good enough,” Donica said.

“Great.” Zhizhi rubbed her hands. “So when do I get to see your amazing secret?”

Everyone but her stared at me. When she realized, she spun my chair around to do the same.

I tried to smile. I clapped. “Right.”

For all the brouhaha about Zhizhi being a reporter, it actually had nothing to do with why I’d invited her. She was a non-player. Once she’d observed our tests, we’d know once and for all if Third Eye was screwing with our heads.

Or if, as seemed more likely all the time, it was screwing with our world.

I said, “If everyone but Lena would please move away from the counter for a moment?”

They stood. Erin scooped up her tablet and carried it with her, pointing it back at the counter so Joon Woo could see. While most of the group walked past me to stand between our computers, I watched Lena take a series of deep breaths, look down at Bernie, look at me, and find her steel.

There were too many people in our apartment. Too many she didn’t consider friends. A couple she might consider enemies. I should’ve realized how hard inviting them all over would be on her. After everyone left, I’d apologize.

But her nerves were for before. Apologies were for later.

In this moment, she needed to be The Magnificent Ashbird. And God, was she magnificent.

“It’s awesome that you guys could join us for a very special episode. This one’s not for public consumption, dear viewers. Not yet, anyway.” She stepped to the side of the counter and gripped the base of the weathervane. “Instead of demonstrating how to use Reactants in the game, my lovely assistant, OldCampaigner, and I are going to show you how to use them IRL.”

Zhizhi laughed.

Nobody else did.

I opened Third Eye, called up Air and Wood, waited for Lena to brace the Wood as well as the weathervane, and thrust my hand forward.

Zhizhi’s laugh died in her throat.