He was too much there, she thought, and now, she felt exposed in her own home.
Maybe she’d move, she considered. Or just get the hell over it. Var and Benny were right. It was routine, nothing personal. But it was personal to her-that was the problem.
They’d taken some of her things, she could see that immediately. Felicity had counseled them that the warrant allowed the police to confiscate and examine. But why did their rights have to smother hers? Wasn’t there enough to be miserable about without adding this?
She wandered into the kitchen, finally settled on a power drink. She hadn’t been able to eat at the memorial, and she couldn’t find the desire or the energy to bother with food now.
She took the tube with her to the window to watch the dance of lightning. But she set it down again after the first sip. It was too cold. Everything seemed too cold.
She wanted heat and sun, not cold and rain. She wanted to sweat. A good fight, until she was exhausted enough to sleep without thinking about Bart, without imagining the strangers who’d walked through her bedroom, touching her things, judging them. Judging her.
In any case, she’d agreed to work on the program. She didn’t know if the push was because she needed to be shaken out of her funk or if the game needed more tweaks. Either way, she’d do what she promised and accomplish both.
She drew the disc she’d logged out of U-Play from the right cup of her bra. Probably a silly and overly girly place to keep it, she thought, but she’d figured nobody could steal it unless they killed her first.
She kicked off the new shoes that hurt her feet, then walked barefoot to her holo-room.
She loved holo. She could go anywhere. She’d seen the world with holo-not to mention worlds that only existed there and in the imagination. Benny’s research was so thorough. She’d wandered Piccadilly Circus, shivered by a loch in Scotland, explored the Amazon jungles.
She didn’t need a crowded transport, the hassle of customs, the inconvenience of hotels where countless others had slept on the bed before you. She only needed holo.
Even as she slid the disc in, her mood lifted. She set the program, then took a long, calming breath.
The heat enveloped her, the heavy, wet heat of a tropical jungle. Instead of the black suit she never intended to wear again, she was clad in the thin, buff-colored cotton, the sturdy boots, the cocky, rolled brimmed hat of a treasure hunter.
She loved this game for the puzzle, the strategy, the twists and turns-and yes, especially now-for the upcoming battles-fists, weapons, and wits-with any who opposed her on her search for the Dragon’s Egg.
She opted to start at the beginning of the first level, and her arrival at the ancient village of Mozana. It would take hours to run the entire game, but that was all good, she decided. She wanted nothing outside of this, wanted to think of nothing else, maybe forever.
She went through the steps and stages, the meets, the bartering, the purchase of supplies.
In one part of her mind she was Cill the treasure hunter-ruthless, brave, and cunning. In the other she remained Cill the programmer, observing the tiny details of the images, the movements, the audio, searching for any flaws.
She hiked through the heat, watched a snake coil itself on a limb and hiss. She waded through rivers, and raced to the mouth of a cave as the ground shook with an earthquake.
And there, by the light of a torch she found the cave drawings. Carefully, as she had countless times before in development, she copied them in her notebook by hand, and took photographs with her camera.
The simplicity of the first level would pull the gamer in, she thought. They want to move up, move on, face more challenges. As she did.
She gathered clues, racked up points, mopped the sweat off her brow, wetted her throat with water from her canteen.
It tasted sweet and clear, and the salt from the sweat stung her eyes.
It was perfect, she decided. So far.
On level three, an arrow whizzed by her head. She knew the path to take-which was maybe cheating a little. But it was fun! And work, too, she reminded herself as she charged up the steep path, her breath huffing out. Her boots skidded on mud from a recent storm, and when she went down, she felt the warm, wet dirt ooze between her fingers.
Up and running again, dodging left, right as muscle memory guided her.
Come on, she thought, yeah, come on! as her fingers reached for the Bowie in her belt.
The rival she’d named Delancy Queeg stood in the path, his knife already drawn.
“The henchmen you hired need more endurance,” she said.
“They drove you where I wanted you. Go back now, and I’ll let you live.”
“Is that what you said to my father before you slit his throat, you bastard?”
He smiled-tanned, handsome, deadly. “Your father was a fool, and so is his daughter. The Dragon’s Egg is mine. It’s always been mine.” He waved a hand, and she glanced behind long enough to see five bare-chested natives with bows ready.
“Not man enough to take me alone?” she demanded.
“Go,” he ordered them. “You’ve done what you were paid to do.”
Though they slipped away, she knew he was a liar. They would lie in wait. She would have to be quick.
She shifted her grip on the knife to combat stance, and began to circle on the narrow, muddy path.
Jabs, feints, and the scrape of blades. Perfect, she thought again, no tweaking necessary. She smelled blood where she’d nicked the bastard Queeg’s arm, just above the wrist.
He’d cut her next, she thought, anticipating the next moves in the program as she played it. After he sliced her shoulder he’d smile, thinking he had the advantage.
Then she’d plunge it into his side, and leap from the cliff into the rock-strewn river below as arrows flew around her.
She considered dodging the slice since she knew when it was coming, and from where, but it was better to study the details, to look for flaws if she played it by rote rather than mixing it up.
His knife struck out fast, the tip ripping through cotton and flesh. But instead of the expected jolt, she felt the tear, the fire of it.
She stumbled back, dropping her knife as she brought her hand up, felt the blood as warm against her fingers as the mud had been. In disbelief, she watched the knife drip with it.
Real, she thought. Not holo. Real.
As Queeg’s lips spread in a feral smile, as his knife began another downward arc, she slipped on the muddy path and tumbled over the cliff with a scream snapped off by the rocks and rushing water below.
The next morning, Benny paced Var’s office. “I’m going to try her again.”
“You tried her five minutes ago.” Standing at his window, Var stared out in the direction of Cill’s building. “She’s not answering the ’link.” He rubbed his hands over his hair. “Or e-mail, or text, or any damn thing.”
Frustration in every line of his face, he turned back. “You’re sure she didn’t say anything to you about not coming in today?”
“No, I told you, just the opposite. She said she’d be in early. She didn’t want to stay at her place any longer than she had to. I told her she could bunk at my place. You know how she is about her things, her space.”
“Yeah, she said the same to me, and that if she didn’t go back and stay the night, she’d probably never go back at all. Goddamn it.” He looked at the time. “She’s probably just overslept, that’s all. Maybe she took a sleeper-”
“Maybe she took too many sleepers.”
“Jesus. We should go over. We’ll go over and check on her. Just in case… Probably just tuned out for a while, but we should check.”
“Let’s go now. Neither of us is going to get any work done until we do. She logged out her copy of Fantastical,” Benny added as they caught an elevator down.
“She did? Well, that’s good. That’s good. Work’s good for her, and it’s probably why she’s tuned out. Sure. She got caught up, worked late, took a sleeper. Probably didn’t crash out until dawn or something.”