Game Slaves (15 page)

Mi did throw up.

She puked about a gallon of the fluid we'd all been swimming in.

But . . . how long? How many years? What were we? Convicts? Lost hospital patients? Or normal people who got kidnapped, lobotomized, reprogrammed?

We slept. Almost as soon as the van door shut, we all closed our eyes and drifted away.

Later, in the dark, a hand grabbed my arm. It was small, insistent. My face rose, stuck for a moment in a foul pool. I'd lost my stomach too, in my sleep. Lucky not to have suffocated on the stuff.

Jimmy walked us. I had no idea where we were, but the air was so cold.

“How long?” My mouth forced the words out.

“Three days,” the little voice said. “You slept three days.”

Doors closed. Heat washed over my face.

Soon the five of us had stumbled through a series of plush rooms. Down a hall, toward more gloom. The lack of light was a beacon. It felt good, much better than the harsh glare of lamps and bulbs.

We were attracted to dark corners. And not for the first time.

More sleep. All of us. Curled on a huge mattress, tucked together for warmth or safety or perhaps just to feel our first human contact in . . . how long?

Once, when I opened my eyes, the sun had come up. It hurt less and less each time, and eventually I could focus on things farther away than my hand.

My hand. All clean now. But so small. Slender fingers. A third its former size. No calluses on the palm or scars on the knuckles.

So I turned it over. Real world, right?

But there it was. Just as in the digital world, my tattoo remained. All those swirling bars, all that code.

Now, however, it didn't glow.

It would not shine.

The charcoal ink was just ink. Slightly worn, not perfect or animated. There was no internal power source. It was just lettering. Just a plain stamp.

Where were we? I figured it was a guest home or a pool house, because in the distance was what could have been a castle, with wooden beams, stone entryways, turrets, and towers. Fields of long grass stretched in every direction. It was even bigger than anything in the game world.

And there was a familiarity to all of it. Pieces matched up. By one pool, was that the statue from
PAIN PLANET
? I thought so. Didn't that tree line appear in the closing sequence of
VIETNAM VENGEANCE
? Even the barbed wire looked the same.

Dakota was right. Real-world memories were tucked away in our heads. But whose memories? Was I even Phoenix? Or was I Fred Smith—plumber, fry cook, whatever. Had I gone missing at summer camp? Or had I not woken up from a dental exam? They were always doing freaky things to death row inmates in games. Maybe I was just too violent to be allowed to roam free, had gotten convicted, and . . . ?

What had Reno said that day? “There's
always
an abandoned research facility where the secret experiments run amok and the virus gets out of hand . . .”

Then, instant sleep. For a long, long time.

 

Some soup. It tasted strong even though it was barely water.

More light. A pair of dark glasses.

And more sleep.

It went on like that for days and nights. One after another until, finally, one of those cloudy evenings, I felt a whole lot better.

The sickness was gone. I ate some bread and didn't vomit it right back up. The broth seemed like water, so I added more powder. Then some noodles. An hour later I'd eaten so much my belly felt like it'd pop.

I stood. My legs held. My head, which I realized had been foggy, felt clear. It was the first time I could remember feeling like I wasn't about to fall down and crack open my skull.

“We're getting used to it,” a voice said. It was Dakota, and she was also standing.

But she wasn't what I expected.

And I bet you this—I wasn't what she expected either.

 

York and Reno were on a couch. It was pitch-dark outside. A TV screen with stock tickers and profit projections read 3:14 a.m., but our internal clocks just didn't care what time it was. We had become night creatures. We were all wide-awake now. There must be some formula to determine how long it will take a brainjacking victim to readapt to the real world.

In the distance we could see the lights from the main mansion. Jimmy and Charlotte would be up there somewhere, tucked in by the help, snoozing away. Maybe having dreams about their strange new pets, the ones they'd smuggled from BlackStar and hidden in the estate's guesthouse. In their million-dollar playhouse.

The pets they'd been feeding. The ones who wore stolen clothing from main-house wardrobes. The ones who were beginning to understand the word “mortal.”

“I'm ugly,” York was whining. “And where are my huge beastlike muscles?”

“My forehead's not even brick-shaped,” Reno agreed. “My skull's no longer a square block of bone.”

“I can barely lift this coffee cup,” York said, testing his strength, “let alone throw huge boulders and cars at my enemies.”

“Ha ha! So you wanted to be human?” I chuckled to myself. “Welcome to Earth, puny mortals.”

“I'm just so
plain
.” Mi was looking in the mirror. “What are
these?
Average-sized boobs? Ick! My weak, skinny butt! No bulging calves? Ripped thighs? Why don't I look the same anymore?”

She was right. In digital, like everyone still back in there, we were all figments of an artist's imagination. Those worlds were always full of huge, athletic megastuds who could fight and run and jump.

Out here, just like all those gamers when they came back to their real lives, we were about as average as average could get.

I was no taller than any of the rest. Had dork hair growing in patches around my head. Arms as limp as pasta. When I made a fist, instead of a leather sledgehammer, it resembled a doll's hand. Soft and tiny. Breakable.

Dakota had auburn hair, not neon blond, and everything from her nose down to her toes was soft as a marshmallow.

York and Reno might have been poster children for some kind of geek camp or nerd retreat. Poor Reno had already taken to wearing a pair of reading glasses around the house. Bad eyes? Game villains never need contacts.

Actually, it was pretty funny when you think about it. What had Dakota expected? To come into this world as the planet's most dominant woman? Reality check here: we'd been living in a
tank
. We'd had no more real exercise over the past years than any other kid who lies around playing video games all day.

Our bodies were horrible. Our looks were worse. We were weak, slow, and short. Talk about homely!

“You still love me, right?” Mi was pleading. “I mean, this won't change anything, right?”

I gave her a hug and a long kiss on the cheek. Whoa, that was
new
. It was . . . remarkable. When my lips touched her face, it was the first time I'd really physically tasted . . . her. Does that sound right? Does it make sense? Sure, it was just cool skin, nothing to it, but I remember the smooth texture as vividly as any sensory moment I've ever had.

It was
great
.

She smiled. I hugged her again. She was, after all, human now. She needed the affection more than ever.

So did I, perhaps. It sure felt good to hold her. It felt safe.

Not just safe, it felt . . . alive. It felt like promise, or hope. Now I could put my head on her chest and hear a heartbeat. And not just hear it, but
feel
it. No game had ever provided that mix, that intimate connection. How could it? It was so simple, yet so unbelievably wonderful.

But safe was the last thing we were. There was too much going on, and those few waking moments in the guesthouse would end up being the most peaceful times we'd have together. I've come to believe that war just follows some people, maybe like one of those magnetic bombs.

 

Dakota stayed occupied with Charlotte most of the time. I didn't know if she was working the child for information or seeing if she could somehow become BlackStar_1's adopted older daughter, but the little girl didn't mind a new playmate. These kids lived on a huge estate. A pretty desolate existence, other than all the money and all the toys.

They made a nice pair, Dakota and the little cherub, but this was not going to be a successful infiltration experience. We couldn't hide here forever. If they'd taken all that surgical trouble to tank us in the first place, they'd want their investments back.

On our bodies' surfaces, we changed. Brief journeys into the sunshine helped our skin move past the instant-sunburn risk. And our diets were getting better, not to mention Jimmy had lifted bottles and bottles of workout shakes and protein pills. None of us looked like the comic-book muscle boys on the package labels, but hey, that day I first did two pushups without having chest pains? It was a great moment.

One day Jimmy cornered me and peppered me with questions. As he did, his eyes barely left my face. I think maybe I was some kind of school science project to him. I couldn't imagine any other kids would be able to bring video game legends to show-and-tell.

Heck, I didn't even know if he went to school, but he was trying to find out everything he could before the project came to an end.

“How does it feel to be so puny?” he asked. Then, before I could get my words straight, the follow-ups flew. “Does it hurt to be hungry? What will you do for money? Can you keep Mi happy if you're dirt poor? What will you do when you get sick? Everyone is going to ask about that huge cable port next to your eye, how can you explain that? An industrial accident? One that you all had in the same spot? How about your tattoos? Bounty hunters will be on the lookout for those, so do you all just wear one glove everywhere? What about jobs? What
else
do you have training in? Are you actually worth anything to the world now . . . ?”

I couldn't keep up. All I knew was this: “We can't stay here much longer.”

“No, that's the bad news. The search is spreading. I opened Dad's e-mail today. They've expanded the hunt off the company campus and are working their way through the suburbs.”

“Are these suburbs?” Mi asked. “Nice burbs, Jimmy.”

His answer was “I'll get some supplies together for you.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

York had a different idea and turned to me. “I say we don't go anywhere without better toys.”

“Toys?” Charlotte smiled when she asked.

“Big-kid stuff, sweetie,” York explained. “First, we use our two hostages to demand multiple attack helicopters, fully loaded. BlackStar will pay. They'll never let these kids come to harm. I need an assortment of long rifles, house-to-house breaching charges, and fully auto submachine pistols for personal backups.”

Reno chimed in. “Wheels too. Several. Tough overland vehicles. I know the mall parking lots are full of minivans, but we gotta demand escape chariots with bigger engines. Bulletproof glass. Nitrous. Supercharged. The works.”

“Hostages?”
Dakota stood up. “No way.”

But my boys were making their shopping list. Better not get in their way. “Rocket launchers, land mines—make sure to put those on the demands sheet. Lots of spending money. And dirty weapons too. Like poison gas and small-tonnage nukes. Is someone writing all this down? When the security forces get here, they need to know they're dealing with pros.”

“We're not using the lives of our friends as bargaining chips,” Mi chimed in, agreeing with Dakota.

Jimmy also seemed to think this was just talk. “You guys will be fine out there. Get to the city. Get into Redwood. Stick together and lie low. Maybe you've got family nearby. That's a good start. It's unlikely you came from outside the border.”

“Border?” Reno asked.

“You gotta stay away from the military police for a while,” Jimmy asserted. “At least until you can blend in better.”

I already had a destination in mind. “The best thing for us will be to get on the road. Away from Redwood
and BlackStar. We'll head to Arizona or Florida and begin our search on familiar ground . . .”

Now the boy began chuckling. “Are you, like,
new?
Phoenix, you're smart enough to know about staying out of the wasteland. Barely anything crosses that anymore.”

“Wasteland?” York had a puzzled look on his face. “Hey, I played sim games. There's no wasteland. Rolling hills. Highways. Airports. Trains. Soccer moms and vacation cruises and . . .”

Jimmy actually rolled his eyes at me. “C'mon, guys. Get your heads straight. Those sim games are so fake. Just frosting or candy coating for what real life is like. You all
know
that.”

“I'm a trained shooter.” I smiled. “It's all I know.”

“You don't look like one anymore,” he said honestly. “You're back to square one. Think of this like your first RPG. You get the role of father.”

I smirked at that. I got it. “Mi's my independent, kick-ass queen. York and Reno are the unshakeable knights.”

“And Dakota's your rebellious, troublemaking teenager with a bad attitude and no real life experience to speak of. But you still have to take care of them or the whole dynasty fails.”

My hand was fingering the open port in my head. That area throbbed. It always throbbed now. And you couldn't look at me and not notice it right off. The metal hole gaped so wide a mop handle might fit.

But something about what Jimmy had said about my age was making it hurt less. Like it was the right path or channel to explore.

So I asked the kid straight. “How long was I in the tank?”

The boy nodded. Like he'd expected it. “You accessed the dates on my files, on our files, when you were playing in the server directories, right?” I'd seen my hand flickering. He'd looked.

His eyes gleamed. “You're catching on, Phoenix. Now you're asking good questions.”