Chapter 2
“The Archer”
The amber glow of the evening sun filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Emily Mortimore’s home, one of the last bastions of privilege in what locals still stubbornly called Millbrook, though the old mill had crumbled years ago. The modern structure stood like an alien artifact on the outskirts of town, its sleek lines a stark contrast to the surrounding decay of what had once been a postcard-perfect English village.
Emily stood at the window, rolling the medallion between her fingers – a nervous habit she'd developed since her father's disappearance three months ago. The metal had warmed to her touch, its surface worn smooth where her thumb traced the strange marking etched into its surface. His last gift to her, pressed into her palm with trembling hands.
"They're lying," he'd whispered that night, his eyes wild with a fear she'd never seen before. "The game isn't what they think." His fingers had gripped her shoulders too tight, the familiar scent of his aftershave mixed with sweat. "I have to stop it." Then he was gone, leaving her with nothing but the medallion and the echo of footsteps in the hallway.
From her vantage point, the town sprawled below like a fading photograph. The old high street, once proud with its Georgian shopfronts, now stood mostly boarded up, the windows covered in the same rationing notices that plagued every town in Britain. The community center – converted from the old town hall – still functioned as the heart of what remained, its queue for water rations snaking around the corner each morning. Even from here, she could hear the constant drone of the industrial air purifiers that kept the town breathing, their massive filters turning gray-brown within days of cleaning.
Different from the savage resource wars that had torn through larger cities, Millbrook had managed its collapse with more... civility. The same number of people died, of course. They just did it more quietly, more politely. Very British, that.
The soft whir of the climate control system – another luxury most couldn't dream of – nearly masked the sound of her arrow hitting its target. Nearly. Thwack. The impact resonated through the specially reinforced wall of what had once been meant as a sitting room. Draw. The familiar weight of the bow settled into her grip, still new enough to excite but practiced enough to feel right. Just a year ago, she'd never have imagined herself here, becoming this.
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She remembered the day her father had brought home the bow, his hands shaking slightly as he'd pressed it into her arms. "You need to learn this," he'd insisted, so unlike his usual gentle suggestions. The fear in his eyes had frightened her more than the collapse ever had. She'd never seen him afraid before, not even when the rationing riots reached their doors. That fear had driven her to practice until her fingers bled, then practice more. Something in his voice, in the urgency of his insistence, had told her this was more than a father's worry.
Release. Time seemed to slow as she watched the arrow fly, her vision narrowing to a tunnel that contained only the target. Another thwack. A year of obsessive training had transformed her into something else entirely – each clustered hit at the center a testament to hours spent perfecting her form. "Focus is freedom," her father would say during their practice sessions, watching her with an intensity that bordered on desperation. "In a world of chaos, we make our own stillness."
The private range showed the wear of tonight's practice – dozens of arrows grouped tightly at center mass, hours of meditation through motion. The bow felt alive in her hands, wielded with practiced precision. Each breath brought clarity, each release a moment of perfect certainty in an uncertain world. She'd become better than good – but why had her father known she would need these skills? What had he seen coming that he couldn't bring himself to tell her?
Emily's eyes drifted to her father's study door, left ajar just enough to see the edge of his desk. Three days after he vanished, they came. Government types with blank faces and blanker credentials, stripping away every trace of Dr. William Mortimore's research. Computers, tablets, even the old notebooks he kept locked in his safe. But they hadn't found everything.
The notebook she'd discovered behind the loose panel in his private safe told her more than they'd ever wanted known – pages dense with technical specifications about neural interfaces and consciousness mapping. Most of it read like gibberish, but enough made sense to know something wasn't right about the game. Something in her father's frantic notations hinted at a deeper truth being hidden from the public.
She crossed to her father's desk, boots silent on the plush carpet. The gamepass felt heavy in her pocket, its edges pressing against her leg. The word "APPROVED" burned in her mind like a brand.
"I'm coming to find you," she whispered, her crisp accent breaking slightly on the words. "Whatever it takes."
A soft chime from her phone reminded her it was time. The processing center would be expecting her soon. Emily took one last look at her reflection in the window – tall, athletic frame honed by months of relentless training, dark hair pulled back in a practical braid. The medallion caught the light, throwing fractured patterns across the glass like a warning.
Beyond her reflection, the evening sun painted the dying town in deceptively peaceful hues of gold and shadow. The distant hills still looked much as they had in her childhood, but the town itself had become a patchwork of rationing stations, makeshift housing, and the desperate machinery of survival. But somewhere in the virtual world they'd built to thin the herd, her father was leaving her clues. She just had to stay alive long enough to follow them.
The security system hummed as she made her way downstairs, carrying her toward the game that had taken her father. Toward answers. Toward death or victory.