“Who’s—”
He gasped. A creature pounced on the ledge beside her. The glistening blue thing had a human face — with the minor addition of saber teeth and an extra eye, glowing red. The creature swung a sword at Maddie. She blasted it. It didn’t die right away but kept coming after her, taking the sparking hits from her weapon. It swung a second glowing sword. She had to dodge, leaping off the rocks onto a grassy field. Here too there was an elegance to her moves.
Sensuous...
Which is when a flying pterodactyl dropped from the sky and ripped Shaw’s heart out of his chest.
YOU’VE JUST DIED! a sign in the goggle screen announced.
He remembered which button to hit.
RESET...
He was alive once more. And, now, his survival upbringing returned.
Never lose sight of your surroundings...
He spun around — just in time to dodge a squat creature attacking with a fiery hammer. It took five shots of the laser to kill it and he had to leap back from a final swing of its weapon before it died.
The goggle message was YOU’VE JUST EARNED A LAVA HAMMER. A small picture of one popped up in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen. The window was called WEAPONS STASH.
A shadow appeared on the grassy field in front of him.
Shaw’s heart thudded and he looked up fast, just in time to kill one of those damn flying things. It too had a human face.
He found himself sweating, tense. He felt an urge to be trigger-happy, blasting creatures through weeds and trees, shooting when he had no clear line of sight.
He thought of the hunter, all those years ago, shooting the buck through a stand of brush.
I hit something? There was just a noise in the bushes. I thought it was a wolf...
Shaw calmed and took control of his tactics. He zapped a slew of running, flying and slithering things — until an alien unsportingly dropped a boulder off a hilltop and crushed him.
RESET.
He saw Maddie Poole taking on three creatures at once, ducking for cover behind a downed tree trunk, laden with bags of corn and peasant bread — it was the table on which sat the chips and soup cans. Shaw had a good shot at one and killed it. She didn’t acknowledge the aid. Like a real soldier, she wouldn’t let her attention waver.
An Asian-inflected voice came through the speakers: “Your Immersion experience will end in five minutes.”
After Maddie killed her other two assailants, she hit a button on her goggles and walked up to Shaw and pressed the same on his. While the fantasy world remained, the aliens had vanished. It was suddenly quiet, aside from the make-believe sound of the ocean and the wind. There were no laser guns in their hands any longer.
“Hell of an experience,” he told her.
She nodded. “Totally. Notice how all the creatures had variations on human faces.”
He said he had.
“Hong Wei, the CEO of the company, ordered focus groups to help select villains. Gamers are much more comfortable killing anything that resembles people than animals. We’re fodder; Bambi’s safe.”
Shaw looked around. “Where’s the exit?”
She said coyly, “We’ve got a few minutes left. Let’s fight some more.”
He was tired, after the eventful day. But he was enjoying the time with her. “I’m game.”
She smiled, then took his hand and put it on yet another button on his goggles.
“On three, press this one.”
“Got it.”
“One... two... three!”
He pushed where instructed and, from the controller, a red-hot glowing sword blade emerged. One appeared in her hand too. This time there were no other creatures, just the two of them.
Maddie Poole didn’t waste a second. She leapt at him, swinging the sword overhead, bringing it down fast. While Shaw knew knives well, he’d never held a sword. Still, combat with the weapon was instinctual. He effectively parried her blow and, finding himself irritated that she’d withheld what this portion of the game would entail, he charged forward. She deflected each of his thrusts and swings or dodged out of the way. As soon as he missed her, she was back, coming at him. His advantages were longer legs and strength, hers were speed and being a smaller target.
He was breathing hard... and only partly from the effort of climbing on the ledges and rocks.
They received a two-minute warning from the heavens. The deadline seemed to energize Maddie. She charged forward repeatedly. He took a cut on his leg, and she one on the upper arm. Blood appeared in the wound, an eerie sight. A meter on his goggles reported that he had ninety percent life left.
He feinted and Maddie fell for it. She dodged too late to miss a slash on her upper thigh, a shallow wound, and he could hear her low, murky voice: “Son of a bitch.”
Shaw pressed forward and Maddie backed up. She tried to make a leap onto a low ledge — a platform about eighteen inches off the ground — misjudged and fell hard. Though the floor was padded with foam, her side had collided with the edge of the platform. She dropped to her knees and gripped her ribs. He heard her grunt in pain.
Standing straight, he lowered the sword and walked forward to help her up. “You all right?”
He was about three feet away when she sprang to her feet and plunged her blade into his gut.
YOU’VE JUST DIED!
It had all been a trick. She’d fallen on purpose, landing in a particular way — with her feet under her so she could leverage herself up and lunge.
The overlord in the ceiling announced that their time was up. The fantasy world became a backstage once more. He and Maddie pulled their goggles off. He started to give her a nod and say, “That was a low blow” — not a bad joke — but he didn’t. She wiped sweat from her forehead and temple with the back of her sleeve and looked about with an expression that wasn’t a lot different from that of the creatures that had killed him. Not triumph, not joy in victory. Nothing. Just ice.
He recalled what she’d said before they stepped inside the booth.
We’ll just try it out here for the fun of it...
As they walked to the exit, it was as if she grew aware suddenly that she wasn’t alone. “Hey, you’re not mad, are you?” she said.
“All’s fair.”
The awkward atmosphere leveled but didn’t exactly vanish as they walked outside. What did disappear was his intention to ask her to dinner. He would — might — later. Not tonight.
They handed their goggles to the HSE employee, who put them in a bin for sanitizing. At the desk, Maddie was given a canvas bag, which he assumed contained a new game for her to take home and review.
His phone hummed.
A local area code.
Berkeley police, to arrest him for the transgressing larceny? Dan Wiley and Supervisor Cummings deciding to arrest him anew after changing their minds about the Great Evidence Robbery?
It was from JMCTF, though just the desk officer, telling him his car was available to be picked up at the pound.
Exhausted and having died three times in ten minutes — or was it four? — Shaw thought: Give it a shot. “Can somebody deliver it to me?”
The silence — which he imagined was accompanied by a look of bewilderment on the officer’s face — lasted a good three seconds. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir. You’ll have to go to the pound to pick it up.”
She gave him the address, which he memorized.
He eased a glance Maddie’s way. “My car’s ready.”
“I can drive you.”
It was obvious that her preference was to stay. Which was fine with him.