Part 2: Next Level / Chapter 18

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My car was running on empty, so we stopped at a gas station about ten minutes from Darla’s place.

As I pumped the gas, I realized I was running on empty too. I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours.

“I need some food,” I said as I headed for the mini-market attached to the gas station. “You want anything?”

“Candy!” she called.

“What kind?” I asked.

“What kind do they have?” she asked back.

“I have no idea,” I answered.

“You’re no help,” she lamented, exiting the car and following me in.

Inside, she selected some Red Vines.

“Why didn’t you say you wanted Red Vines?”

“You said you didn’t know what they had.”

“Everybody has Red Vines. I thought you wanted something exotic.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, a Whatchamacallit.”

Whatchamacallit is the best candy bar there is and I’ll fight anybody who says different. But for reasons I’ll never comprehend, it doesn’t get all the press that big shots like Snickers and Twix get. Alas, many sad, unfortunates have never even heard of a Whatchamacallit. Given the name, there was an outside chance of a lengthy Who’s-on-first-esque back and forth where Darla attempted to get the skinny on the greatest candy bar in the world. But to my surprise, she answered simply, “Yeah, those are pretty hard to come by. But they’re the best.”

This woman has taste, I thought. But I’d have to rethink that assessment after I picked out a premade sandwich from the refrigerated section, inspected it and then hurriedly returned it from whence it had come.

“What’s wrong?” Darla asked, sensing my disgust.

“It had tomatoes.”

“What’s wrong with tomatoes?”

“What’s wrong with tomatoes?” I repeated, shuddering in revulsion. “You need me to explain what’s wrong with slices of rubbery, slime-filled sponges defiling a sandwich?”

“Tomatoes are delicious.”

“They’re mushy balls of dirt water to be reviled in every form.”

“What about ketchup? Don’t you like ketchup?”

“Of course I like ketchup,” I seemed to concede.

Then I reversed course.

“It’s what happens when you smash tomatoes to a pulp, which is exactly what they deserve.”

Darla shrugged and let the subject lie. That was for the best. I got pretty worked up when somebody pushed me on the tomato thing. If you want to chow down on a fleshy balloon full of swamp run-off that’s your business, but don’t try to sneak it on to my plate.

Darla had failed the tomato test, like so many before her. Not surprising. But she’d passed the candy bar test. I’d never met a woman who had done that. I tried not to read too much into it.

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By the time we pulled up in front of Darla’s house, it was early dawn. As we exited the car and approached the front porch, we were both eager to get a look at the clairvoyant computer and find out if it had served up any new information. But that was going to have to wait.

“What the hell?” Darla cried as we approached her half-open front door, noting the splintered wood around the lock—presumably the work of a crowbar.

“Isn’t there an alarm?” I asked.

“Of course! It’s state of the art. There are sensors on every—” Darla started, then dropped off. I could see the realization deflate her face.

“I forgot to set it,” she admitted.

As we entered, we found the living room and the rest of the first level of the house had been enthusiastically tossed.

We wandered down the main hall, taking in the damage. The contents of a hallway closet lay strewn across the floor. In the kitchen, cabinets hung open, and silverware was scattered everywhere beside discarded drawers. In the living room, couches and lounge chairs were upended, their cushions and pillows disemboweled. Darla took a detour to my left and I heard her call out, “My unmentionables!”

I found her standing just inside what I deduced was her bedroom, staring gap-jawed at an array of cast-off undergarments, seemingly dumped hither and thither by someone hastily rifling through a dresser that now rested against the wall at a forty-five-degree angle. She was incensed. Apparently, for her, the incidental invasion of privacy was somehow the worst of the offenses perpetrated.

“Are you . . . okay?” I asked.

“It’s just . . . the world is going to hell! People can’t afford groceries and kids are getting cyber-bullied and totalitarian regimes are seizing power all over the globe and . . . now this!”

She seemed to be losing steam, but then she ramped back up.

“Seriously! What kind of people come to somebody’s house and throw their underwear on the floor?”

“People who rob people?” I offered weakly.

“Don’t let them off easy. The guys in Ocean’s Eleven rob people. You see them throwing anybody’s undies on the floor? No! Because they have a shred of human decency.”

“Well, I guess we can rule out George Clooney and Brad Pitt as suspects.”

She gave me a half smile and seemed to settle a little. I thought about how freaked out I would have been by a robbery even a day ago. But after all the killer dolls and ferrets, a regular old crime was almost refreshing. Still, I had a sense it was all related and we needed to figure out what had happened here and why.

“What do you think they were looking for?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like a random break-in. Average robber doesn’t gut the sofa cushions. Can you think of anyone who would think you were hiding something of value?”

A light bulb went off in her eyes.

“The computers!” she exclaimed.

She rushed up the stairs, which creaked with her hurried bounds. I followed. The stairs curved up to a hallway with a single door, which was sitting ajar, lamplight emanating from the room beyond. Darla slowed as she approached, uncertainty creeping into her manner.

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“Did you leave a light on?” I asked.

“I don’t remember.”

The notion that whoever had tossed the place might still be in the house finally dawned on us. But she steeled herself and stepped forward, nudging the door all the way open. It swung wide to reveal a room packed with bulky, beige computing equipment and . . . a guy sitting in front of a central monochrome monitor, scrolling through endless green text. No. Not text. It was gibberish—the same gibberish I’d seen in my dream. The same gibberish that had flashed up on the wall in the conference room before Marty had become Car Guy.

“How . . . ” I muttered, trying to make sense of the coincidence.

The guy sitting in front of the monitors looked over at us with a tortured expression and said simply, “What does it mean?”

“Merrick?” Darla exclaimed.

“What does it mean?” he cried again, now raising a gun in our direction. He was disheveled and overwrought—so consumed by his task that he hadn’t even noticed us banging around downstairs. He’d clearly been here for hours. But he hadn’t found what he was after. And from the look of him, he needed whatever he was after pretty bad.

“Tell me what it means!” he yelled. “Tell me how he did it! How he knew what he knew . . . ”

He gestured to the glowing screen and continued, “. . . from this!”

The harried, trespassing psychopath was a chilling spectacle. And the mystery of how the nonsense from my dream had landed on this antique monitor was hanging in the air. So the last thing I expected was to hear myself say, “He’s not that good-looking.”

But that’s what happened.

“What?” Merrick said as he and Darla looked at me.

I had no idea what I was doing. Typically, if somebody points a gun at you, you shut up and give them what they want. But for some reason, it really peeved me that this whack job had caught Darla’s eye, and an overwhelming compulsion to litigate the matter had taken hold.

“You said he was good-looking,” I said to her. “But . . . meh.”

Maybe she assumed I was buying us time to think. Maybe shock was setting in. But for whatever reason, she got on board.

“Well, he wasn’t all crazy-eyed and waving a gun before.”

“Even so,” I said, peering appraisingly at Merrick. “Dude’s a seven on a good day.”

“What are you . . . ” Merrick fumbled for a handhold on reality.

“Look who’s talking,” he scoffed. “You’re a four!”

“A four?” I yelped. “That is outrageous! I gave you a solid valuation, but you’re just being petty.”

“I . . . shut up!” he said, frowning and shaking off the detour.

“Where’s the key!” he demanded, shaking the gun in Darla’s direction.

“What key?” she asked.

“The key you use to translate this stuff!” he answered, gesturing to the screen. “Your uncle must have given you a . . . a code book or something!”

The mess downstairs suddenly made sense and I saw Darla putting it together. Meanwhile, Merrick was growing more agitated. The bizarre tangent I’d taken us on had indeed served as a delay tactic, but we needed to try to diffuse the situation. Darla gave the truth a try.

“There’s no code book,” she said. “You just have to give it time.”

“What are you talking about?” he yelled back. “I don’t have time! You’re lying! Give me the key or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you!”

The truth hadn’t diffused things as much as it could have. Darla tried indignation.

“What’s the matter with you?” she cried. “You come into my house and throw my underwear on the floor?”

“People hide stuff in their underwear drawer all the time!” he barked, defensively.

“Well, you could have been tidy about it, you creep! Maybe refolded stuff.”

“It’s impossible to fold women’s underwear!”

“It’s not impossible, it’s just really hard!”

“Gimme the key!” he yelled.

“Go suck an egg!” Darla yelled back.

He didn’t love that. Out of nowhere, he lunged at her. But I shoved her out of the room and slammed the door, stepping in front of it to block Merrick’s exit. It was a reflex—a reflex I couldn’t make sense of.

“What the . . .” Merrick screamed, pointing the gun at me now. “Get out of the way!”

What was I doing? I barely knew this woman. Why would I put myself between her and a bullet? Then again, I thought maybe my chivalrous idiocy wasn’t as irrational as it seemed. My Life-O-Meter was at fifty. My Skin Thickness was at twenty-three. I could take a bullet, couldn’t I?

“Henry, what are you doing?” I heard Darla yell from out in the hall.

“I’m . . . being heroic!” I yelled back. “You’re supposed to be running away!”

“I said get out of the way!” Merrick growled, shaking the revolver and cocking its hammer menacingly.

“Just because you’re in a video game doesn’t mean you can’t die!” Darla yelled back. “Wait. Does it? Do you get extra lives?”

RIP is strictly hard core, Robbie had told me. His advice to avoid dying felt less superfluous at the moment.

“Uh . . . no,” I answered Darla.

“What does she mean you’re in a video game?” Merrick snarled, struggling to connect the conversation to his obsession with the code. Meanwhile, I felt a burning sensation shoot through my forearm. We needed to change the subject.

“We can’t talk about this in front of Merrick,” I called to Darla.

“Wait . . . talk about what?” Merrick demanded as the mind wipe set in. He seemed even more confused and angry. The forceful brain rewrite had shortened his patience.

“Oh, screw it!” he yelled.

Then he shot me.

The bullet tore through my abdomen and I doubled over, falling to one knee. It really, really hurt. And a sickening thought occurred to me: Would my stats matter? I’d jumped into some drama that had nothing to do with RIP. I’m about to bleed to death! I thought.

But a moment later, relief swept over me as I felt the wound closing and healing.

“Henry?” I heard Darla call from the other side of the door. “Henry!”

As Merrick took a step toward me to go after her, I stood up straight again.

“I’m . . . okay,” I said in disbelief.

“What the . . . ?” Merrick marveled at the miracle. But not for long. Because, unfortunately, he couldn’t witness me healing without having his memory rewritten to make sense of it.

“Did I . . . miss you?” he puzzled.

Given the fact that he was four feet away from me, it was hard to believe he could have missed. But not as hard to believe as the idea that I’d insta-healed.

He raised the gun again.

“Wait!” I yelled.

Too late. He fired a second time and the bullet ripped through my chest.

I fell back against the door, grimacing in agony.

“Henry!” I heard Darla yell again from the hallway. She tried the door, but I held it shut.

Again, I felt the wound closing and repairing and looked down to see my shirt weaving itself back to new. I was healing faster than I could believe, even with my new and improved stats. My Life-O-Meter was bouncing back almost as fast as it dropped.

That actually made sense. Merrick wasn’t an RIP game element so he wasn’t dealing battle damage. There was no in-game conflict to be resolved before my healing could kick in. It was like fall damage in a video game—just incidental, temporary ticks that the player can shrug off unless they’re really, really reckless.

“I missed you . . . again?” Merrick said in disbelief.

“No!” I yelled, flustered enough to do exactly what I’d told Darla not to. “Look, I’m in a video game and I—”

The burning sensation in my forearm struck again and I felt my Life-O-Meter’s recovery reverse itself. It was dropping faster than it had when I’d been shot.

I sighed and finished, “Yeah, you uh . . . missed me.”

He shot me again, this time in the shoulder. Plenty of pain, but the wound—and the fabric—instantly healed again as Merrick’s memory was rewritten again. So he shot me again. And I healed again. And he shot me again.

“Stop doing that!” I yelled.

“No!” he yelled back like a defiant child and shot me again.

“Why! Can’t! I! Hit you?” he cried, punctuating each word with a shot. On the last one, I smartened up.

“Oh! You really got me that time!” I cried, channeling the throbbing paid into a clumsy bluff and putting a hand over the new entry wound to conceal its healing. “I’m definitely dying!”

“You’re not even bleeding!” he rebutted and shot me again.

“Ah!” I cried out.

Luckily, as he attempted to fire yet again, the gun finally clicked empty—and as he stared down at it in furious exasperation, he left himself open for a kick to the groin. So I delivered said kick. I half-expected to send him flying into the ceiling, given my Muscles stat. But the game logic seemed to be aligned with most video games I’d played, where ambient NPCs just got shoved out of the way if you ran into them, no matter how powerful you were. Suffice it to say, my foot’s impact was muted to conform to the standard rules of reality.

Still, a kick in the biscuits is a kick in the biscuits. He grasped his groin, and stumbled into a rack of equipment to his left. The rack tipped over and crashed to the ground—sparking and smoking. A few tiny flames sprouted out of the wreckage, as I yanked open the door and limped out into the hallway.

“What the hell happened in there?” Darla asked as we both stumbled down the stairs.

“He missed me,” I answered.