Game Slaves (33 page)

Plus, I liked to build forts. They stretched throughout the trees.

The kids were back there now, hanging a rope swing.

Max and I watched through the window while we continued our same conversation.

“Why don't you,” he said, “stop pumping your share of your profits into building that school?”

“Those are my people, too,” I told him.

“You butcher millions of them in games every day you work!”

“Not out here. Out here, I take care of them.”

He reminded me, “You could have a house as big as mine. Sports cars, motorcycles, even your own helicopter if you budget it right.”

But I shook my head. No. Mi and I wanted to be good for a while.

York and Reno? Well, that was a different matter.

York took his share, his pay, and bought a house right on the lake. Spent millions buying custom boats he had shipped in from XMart. Sailed the waters, romancing the ladies, and for some reason thought he was this century's greatest pirate-slash-playboy.

Reno. He
did
take the helicopter. Cost him a fortune and a fortune more to run. He told me he'd been dropping in on the powder fields in the northern mountains, actually skiing up there beyond the wall.

He kept trying to get me to go up there with him. And this from a guy who almost lost his leg six months ago. Sure, he still limped. But it was getting better.

It was all getting better, little by little, every day we were free.

 

The party was great. The neighbors were all decent people, even though their kids constantly asked to play the newest video games. We still didn't have any consoles in the house.

Yeah, sure, at work, we'd be chained to our desks—strike that—chained to our BlackStar gamechairs and the meds for a long, long time. But aren't we all shackled? A job is a job, it's just that we still had the best one on the planet.

I'd cooked up some burgers and brats on the grill. Mind you, I'd also burned over half of them. I'll get it. Some life skills are hands-on.

Reno arrived wearing his ski clothes. What a show-off. York had been diving at the lake, and it occurred to me that of everyone left on the planet, we might be the
only
four who don't spend a single minute of free time playing video games. Not one.

Mi was laughing. Some of our other neighbors had come over and one guy's wife was a real kook. Tons of makeup, huge hair, and her clothing was 90 percent sequin, but Mi really seemed to like her. The hubby worked on BlackStar satellite feeds or something. Boring. But he gamed in his off time, too. Everyone needs escape.

So that ultrabiotic had done its work. Maybe not all the way, but I wasn't going crazy and had exactly the right number of arms and legs. No second head, no sprouting gills or webbed toes.

I was getting healthier all the time. Bigger and stronger than Max Kode. Slowly, very slowly, my body was morphing into the one from the games. I knew I would never be as huge and heroic as game-Phoenix, but at least I wasn't so sickly anymore. Had been lifting weights. I could run a couple miles without collapsing. I may not have been a real-world gladiator, but I was turning into a nice mix between digital-dweeb and digital-abomination.

So that's about it. Happily ever after.

For everyone except Dakota. What a way to go. At least it had been quick. And she went out fighting for something she believed in to her very soul. I respected that. We all did. But I bet they wouldn't grow any more of that model anytime soon.

I reached in my pocket. The ring was there. Good thing; it cost a lot. Took weeks to get shipped. BlackStar may own Redwood, but XMart owns BlackStar. If not for supplies, there'd be no gaming company. And without Kode's revenue and worth to the planet, every poor soul in the city would be doomed.

Like Kode said, everything out here was a lighter or darker shade of gray. I wanted to be a really light one for a while.

So, it was time. All our friends were here. Work was far away.

How would I do it? Something like, “Mi, my love, with whom I've killed and slaughtered billions, taken over galaxies, ruled the universe, enslaved worlds, fought bloody wars and crushed all opposition . . .”

No, maybe I would leave the mundane day-to-day stuff out of it.

I'll just tell her I love her. That should be enough.

And then the doorbell rang.

I don't know why I answered it. I should have just let whoever it was wander in.

But I was close, so I opened the door. And there was Dakota.

 

How did she look? Sick? Dying?

Not really. Certainly not as healthy as those of us who'd taken the ultrabiotic, but her skin was almost a normal shade again. Her eyes were bulging less.

“Dakota? No
way
. I saw you die!”

“I didn't die.”

“You fell . . . ?”

“Is that what you think?”

“That impact must have broken every bone in your. . . .”

“Phoenix, man, shut up! Time's short! It was
so
hard to get to you.”

I just stared back. Hard to get to me? Just walk up and ring the bell. Like she did. I don't have guards stationed anywhere.

I stepped back to let her in, wondering how she got some of the serum. She was a climber—did she climb out later? Was there water at the bottom of that pit? “What are you doing here, Dakota? You don't look so good . . .”

“I don't have time,” she urged. “I think they're right on my tail. Really, listen, this is
huge
, Phoenix.”

“Huge?”

“Look around,” she told me, pointing left and right. “Do you think this is real? It's not! You're still in the game! BlackStar tricked you! The ultrabiotic was a re-slavery drug! So they could drown you back in the tank!”

I looked at her blankly. Behind me, I could hear the music, the party, Mi laughing at another of that crazy neighbor woman's jokes.

Dakota continued, “Max told you what he knew you'd react to. That you could never get to the serum. So
of course
you'd try. You're so objective-based, he counted on that.”

“I did it because you had a detonator and were threatening . . .”

“I pulled the batteries out of that even before we left the store,” she admitted. “I would never blow you guys up . . . I wasn't
sure
. Just wasn't positive it was another test. Not until I saw the trapdoor. And I heard the woman say my lines.”

Behind us, Reno was asking some kids whose parents also worked at BlackStar if they all wanted to go powder skiing. Out in the wilderness. Beyond the wall. No takers there.

And I could smell the grill; I'd left something cooking way, way too long. Again.

“You're nuts, Dakota, but let me help.” I showed her my port, now covered with a nice cap. “Let's get you in and fitted and on the payroll and heck, I'll buy the place next door for you, and . . .”

“Really!” she stressed. “I'm not insane. I didn't fall into a pit. I jumped that environment because I figured out it was all fake!”

“All fake?”

“You thought I wanted to try to escape through the north wall gap? To climb? That wasn't what I meant. What was weird was the way the people would only edge their toes to the very limit of the wall border. Because
that
was the edge of the environment BlackStar had built! Fake rabbits! It was
all
another trick. To make us
choose
to be in the tank. So we'd be satisfied and happy with our place as slaves and keep gaming!”

I shook my head. “Reno's been skiing up there for weeks, way past that wall.”

“So they added it on. What do I care? Phoenix, this is all an illusion created by BlackStar to keep you happy! Oh, my God, here they come!” She waved behind her, at an empty street. “They're going to pull me out of here!”

Dakota pointed to my front drive like there were a bunch of cars or agents or something on her heels.

She was nuts. It was all empty. Nothing was out there but the commuter vehicles driven by our friends.

“I've been trying for weeks to track you down! I met a wasteland hacker. He knew about Kode building a duplicate reality environment. Then he turned me onto some backdoors through the servers . . .”

I didn't know what to say. Not really.

I knocked the door for effect. A nice, wooden clunk. I knocked it again in a another spot. There it made a different sound.

“Look,” she urged, “I gotta go or they'll trace my router, then they'll finish the job! Phoenix, you can still be free! You can still escape! Just give the word and . . .”

Then, suddenly, as if she thought someone or something was right behind her, she spun and ran as fast as she could toward the driveway, jumping through a small hedge.

I didn't know what to do, I was so worried. She was all cracked up. The malaria was wreaking havoc on her brain. But I had to follow. Once I got to the bushes, though, I couldn't find a trace of her.

It was as if she just disappeared.

Regular footprints in the dirt, then none.

Not even an indentation where she landed on the other side.

For a second, the hedge gave me the creeps. What if it
was
some kind of portal? What if I reached out my hand and it completely vanished into the other side? What if it hit an invisible wall, like back there in the desert . . . ?

Where had Dakota gone?

My fingers came up, stretching, expecting some kind of tingle or shock. After all, where could she have disappeared to? She was always fast, but not that fast.

I reached out.

Fingers stretching through the air to . . .

Nothing. My hand didn't vanish. It didn't hit an invisible door.

There was no portal. She was out there in the woods, or I was cracking up.

And I wasn't cracking up.

Listening, I could hear her footsteps retreating. Running far away now.

I'd tell Kode about this as soon as I could. That poor girl. She really has bad luck. The bacteria must have been eating away at her brain. We had to get her some help.

I went back into the party, ring in my hand.

It was time. Time to build a life. Time to just be human and frail for a while.

 

Mi said yes. There was a lot of clapping and hugging, and I saw genuine tears in her eyes. As I held her and kissed those soft, cool lips, my fingers came up, brushing the embedded port on the side of her forehead, knowing we had a bond no normal humans could match.

And that port, that explosive shackle, was really the bottom line.

In games, we didn't have them. Out here, we did. So we
were
here. Our world was real.

In a game, that port wouldn't have still been tucked into the side of her head. Dakota just didn't ever make that connection.

What a beautiful day that turned out to be. Mi was beaming, my buddies were slapping me on the back, and the afternoon just rolled on and on.

I liked it in the real world, though. We heard you citizens complain so many times about the endless grind of real life. We picked up constant crosstalk about how hard it is. How relentless the pressure can be. The dangers you face are more terrifying than any games can create.

It's not fair how, without money or resources or education, all you really have for an escape is the same place my team made its living.

Reality is brutal. It's cold, hard and merciless. I feel for you, I really do. So I'll give you our best fight—that's my guarantee—when you come online and we're on duty. You can count on Team Phoenix to continue to deliver the very best in digital entertainment. We'll make it so real, so bloody, and so graphic that your everyday life will be a lot less frightening.

That's our BlackStar promise.

I was standing with Reno over by the Ping-Pong table. Not exactly a bloodlust type of game, but you have to have
actual physical skills
. If you don't, even little kids rough you up.

And Reno and I both sucked at it. It was a fair fight.

The door opened again. No knock. I didn't expect it to be Dakota.

It wasn't. In fact, it was Jevo, although I sure didn't remember inviting him. The big guy wasn't limping, even after the jagged hole Dakota had put through his nethers. Maybe she'd missed because the target was too small.

First to greet him was Max. They seemed to be tight now, especially after Jevo had been chosen as bounty hunter and sent on our trail. And though they'd both been carved up a bit by Dakota, they were now on their way to full health. Max's arm worked fine. I hoped Jevo's injury was more trouble.

And that, right then, was when something twitched. It was right at the side of my eye. Exactly where the port was located.

It burned. Then it subsided. Then it came back again. It felt a lot like when the infection was raging. Oh,
no
. Was
that
coming back? Maybe the ultrabiotic hadn't been strong enough, maybe the . . .