At first I carefully scanned my surroundings as I walked, keeping an eye out for signs of buffalo in the distance. Now that the land has grown mountainous, I’ve stopped worrying about being trampled or eaten by bloodthirsty beasts. Instead I’m looking for the oasis I was promised. The oases I’ve seen online have all had water and palm trees, but there isn’t anything like that here. In fact, there’s nothing here at all. Even the carpet of green moss vanished long ago. All that’s left is rust-red dirt, and it’s been hours since I’ve seen so much as a rock. My only hope is that there’s something—anything—on the other side of the steep slope I’m climbing.
The barren soil erodes under my feet with every step I take, making it almost impossible to find a good foothold. I finally reach the top of the mountain and collapse in exhaustion. My mouth is dry and my stomach is empty. I drag myself to my feet and glance back at the wasteland I crossed. The vast, desolate plain stretches all the way to the horizon. I turn to see what’s ahead of me, praying it’s not more of the same. I nearly cry when I realize I’ve reached the oasis. I’m standing near the lip of a crater. A few hundred feet below me is a lake so crystal clear I can make out a school of silver fish in the water. The creatures are swimming together in an endless spiral, and the effect is mesmerizing. From the little I know of Otherworld, it’s safe to assume they’re piranhas.
A campfire is burning near the lake’s shore. The flames crackle and dance, shooting sparks into the sky. Three human-shaped figures are resting beside it. Judging by their bizarre outfits, they aren’t NPCs. One of them appears to be dressed as a medieval knight. I suspect they’re the three travelers who recently escaped from the goats. One of the humans catches sight of me, and they all jump to their feet. Kat isn’t among them. If she were, she’d have recognized my avatar by now, and these guys aren’t exactly rushing up to greet me. I can see someone has gathered a pile of rocks to be used as weapons if necessary. Apparently they’ve learned how dangerous it is to let down your guard in Otherworld. And like me, they won’t be making the same mistake again.
I play it as safe as possible. As I make my way down the slope toward the lake, I raise my hands over my head. “I come in peace!” I shout. Even in Otherworld it sounds unbelievably hokey, but it’s the only thing I can think of to say.
The three huddle together for a moment. I suppose they’re discussing my fate. Then the decision appears to be made. A figure in a Grim Reaper–style robe and an ogre-size man with tattooed skin stay put while the avatar dressed as a red knight climbs the slope to meet me. The visor of his helmet is up, and his scarlet cape billows around him as he walks. He’s wearing a chain mail shirt beneath his red tunic. The dude really geeked out back at setup. My guess is he’s taken part in a few role-playing games in his day. There’s a sword at his side, but his hand is nowhere near the hilt. It seems reckless, if you ask me. I could send my dagger sailing into one of his eyeballs before he could draw the weapon from its scabbard.
“I’m Arkan.” The voice coming from inside the helmet is brusque and emotionless. Arkan is a strange name for a knight. I was expecting something much fancier. But his attitude matches the outfit. He strikes me as the kind of guy who likes to fight. “Who are you?” he asks.
“Simon,” I say, offering him a hand, which the knight ignores. “I arrived at the White City earlier today.”
“The White City?” Arkan asks as if he doesn’t know it.
His response throws me for a moment. “You know—the city with all the white buildings,” I say. “Isn’t that where you started?”
“Oh, right,” says Arkan. “Yeah. We left yesterday.”
I’m about to ask why they left when I happen to glance down at his sword. It doesn’t look real. “Is that plastic?” I ask. Someone sure pulled a dud out of the goody box.
Arkan takes off his helmet, which somehow doesn’t seem to weigh as much as it should. Beneath it is a handsome, square-jawed head with a thatch of blond hair. I feel a jolt of recognition. I’ve seen this avatar somewhere before.
“What difference does it make if it’s plastic?” the knight asks.
I don’t even know how to begin answering that question.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“I don’t really know,” I tell him, figuring honesty might be the best policy for the moment. “I’m looking for a girl.”
Before I can say any more, Arkan’s eyes widen. “Follow me,” he orders, heading down the hill toward the other two avatars. A burst of hope pushes me after him. Then I pause. Below, the ogre now has rocks in both of his hands. The other figure has disappeared.
“Are you sure your buddies are as friendly as you are?” I ask.
Arkan doesn’t answer, but I decide to head after him anyway. I can’t really hold his companions’ behavior against them. If one of my friends had recently been eaten, I’d be a little defensive, too.
When we reach the bottom, Arkan and the ogre stand facing me. Then a woman with ginger hair appears beside them. The cloak she’s wearing must render her invisible whenever the hood is up.
“He’s looking for a girl,” Arkan announces as if it’s proof of something.
The woman glances up at the ogre, who towers over the rest of us. He’s wearing a loincloth made from hide, and every inch of his exposed flesh is decorated with intricate tribal tattoos. Yet his face, with its flat nose and giant amber eyes, seems oddly chubby and juvenile.
The ogre shrugs and the woman looks back at me. I’m not sure they know what Arkan’s getting at either. Then the woman sticks out a hand to me. The skin is buttery soft, but the grip is surprisingly firm. “Hey there, I’m Carole.” She has a sugary voice and a Southern accent. Her avatar’s face is freckled and pretty, with laugh lines around her eyes. “That’s Gorog.” She gestures toward the hulk. He drops his rocks and raises a callused hand in a half-wave.
“Simon,” I say. “So you guys came from the White City too?”
My question seems to confuse Carole and Gorog.
“He says that’s the name of the place where we started,” Arkan says.
“Really? I didn’t know it had a name.” Carole smiles, but she seems on edge. “So who’s this girl you’re looking for?”
“A friend of mine. I’m here to help her.”
“Is she dead?” Gorog blurts out. Carole sighs wearily.
“What? No!” What kind of question is that? “She’s not dead.”
“Are you dead?” Gorog demands.
“Of course not!” This conversation just took a turn for the weird, and I’m starting to worry.
“Are you sure?” Arkan follows up.
“Yeah, I’m positive. How in the hell can I be dead if I’m standing here talking to you?”
My response doesn’t appear to please Arkan. He throws his helmet down and stomps off toward the campfire, which he kicks at repeatedly before dropping miserably to the ground beside it.
“Your friend’s got a little rage problem. What was that all about?” I ask the other two.
Carole grimaces. “Arkan thinks he’s dead. He’s convinced that this place is some sort of afterlife.”
“But why would he think…,” I start to ask, and then I realize I already know the answer. They’re taking part in the Company’s disk beta test, just like Kat. But Arkan doesn’t know it—none of them do. Something happened to their real-world bodies, and they woke up in the White City without any explanation. Given the circumstances, it’s perfectly understandable that someone might mistake this place for the afterworld. I just hope Kat was eavesdropping when Martin and Todd explained the White City to me. Otherwise, she’s probably just as confused.
“You aren’t dead,” I inform Carole.
“Well, thank sweet baby Jesus for that,” Carole says with a snort. “I told Arkan this wasn’t what the Good Lord had in store for me.”
“We’re not in heaven?” Gorog asks. He sounds curious, but he doesn’t seem quite as concerned as his fellow travelers. I get the feeling he’s itching for adventure.
Carole glares at the ogre. “We watched Orin get eaten yesterday evening. If you think this could be heaven, you’re just as crazy as Arkan.” She turns back to me. “So where are we?”
The answer to that particular question might make their heads explode. I’m going to have to work up to it. “You don’t have any idea how you got here, do you?”
“Nope,” Carole confirms. “All I remember is driving up I-95 and then suddenly, poof! I’m in crazy town.”
“I was on my bike,” Gorog tells me. “There was a crash and a lot of people talking and then I woke up in some weird changing room. What happened?”
I’m not sure they’re going to find the truth very comforting, but I try to explain. “It sounds like you were both injured in accidents. Now you’re taking part in an experimental therapy. There’s a disk attached to the back of your skulls. Your bodies are probably in a hospital, but the disk is telling your brains you’re somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else?” Carole asks. “Like where? What is this place?”
“The town where we started is called the White City. But once you leave, you’re in something called Otherworld. The Company created the software for both the White City and Otherworld, and for some reason they connected them.”
“You’re saying we’re in the Otherworld?” Gorog asks. All I can do is nod.
Carole seems too stunned to speak, but Gorog’s started spinning around like he’s just landed in Oz.
“Daaammn!” he exclaims. “This is Otherworld?”
“Yeah, it came as a shock to me, too,” I say.
“Otherworld?” Carole asks.
Gorog’s too excited to stop and explain. “Oh, man, I would have done anything for Otherworld gear. But do you know how much that shit costs? Like three thousand dollars! I mean, how’s someone like me ever gonna get his hands on three thousand dollars? It’s not fair! I even tweeted at Milo Yolkin about it. I figured he’d understand my pain if anyone would. But the dude hasn’t replied to a tweet in months.”
Carole lays a hand on my arm to draw my attention away from the raving hulk. “Are you telling me we’re in some kind of game?” she asks, her brow furrowed as if she’s trying hard to understand. “I had a PlayStation back in the day, and there was nothing on it like this.”
“This is very advanced virtual reality,” I tell her. “There’s never been anything like the disk before.”
Carole’s hand flies up to the back of her neck. “I don’t feel any disk,” she says.
“You can’t feel it while you’re here, and you can’t take it off by yourself,” I tell her.
“So what—we’re stuck in this place?” She’s gone from curious to practically panic-stricken. “I’ve gotta get back to the real world! I’ve got to find a way out of here!”
“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. Your body may be”—I struggle for the right word—“damaged. The friend I came here to find was in a very bad accident.”
“I don’t care if I’m broken in a million goddamn pieces. I am not watching another person get eaten by goats!” Carole yells. Can’t say I blame her, but I don’t like being shouted at.
“Then you should have stayed in the White City,” I snap. “No one was going to get eaten there. You would have been perfectly safe.”
“Sure,” Carole says. “Until I threw myself off the top of one of those buildings. I stayed in that place for a week. I ate at every restaurant and had a pedicure every day. I’ve never been so miserable in my entire life.”
“Yeah,” Gorog adds. “I was pretty sure I was going to die of boredom.”
“Besides, I had to find a way home. I have responsibilities,” Carole goes on. “There are real people there who need me. I can’t hang out in virtual reality with an ogre and a knight and…” She pauses while she looks me up and down. “What the hell are you supposed to be?”
“A Druid,” I say.
“Perfect. And a Druid,” she adds. “A Druid with a giant nose.”
I’m seriously pissed off now. Not because this lady has the balls to insult my stunningly handsome avatar, but because an escort quest is not what I had in mind. I’m here to find Kat, not rescue every asshole who’s stuck in Otherworld. I should get out of here—find some excuse to sneak away and leave them behind. But I can’t—and that’s what pisses me off most. What would I tell Kat when I found her? That I abandoned three random people to die? They’re with me now whether I like it or not.
“All right, fine,” I say. “If you want to leave, I’ll take you to the exit. Your gear should shut off when you pass through it. After that, if your body is able to move in real life, you’ll be able to take off the disk. But just so you know, there’s a powerful being guarding the Otherworld exit, and I’m not sure the four of us will be able to take him down.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Gorog asks. “How’d you find out about the exit?”
I’d rather not repeat the whole saga right now, so I keep my explanation simple. “My guide told me,” I say.
“Your guide?” Carole asks. “Are we supposed to get guides?”
“We aren’t,” says Gorog. He’s grinning down at me like he’s just figured out my secret. “Only the One ever gets a guide. Neo had Morpheus. Luke Skywalker had Yoda. Harry Potter had Dumbledore. Ender had—”
“Gorog, what in the hell are you talking about?” Carole interrupts.
“Don’t you watch any movies?” Gorog replies. “Simon must be the One. He was sent here to rescue us all.”
“Like Jesus?” Carole asks. I get the feeling she’s a big believer.
“Wait a second,” I interject. “You just met me five minutes ago and now you think I’m the what?” I start laughing so hard I can’t stop. Of all the shit that’s been said about me in the past eighteen years, that is by far the funniest.
“Why’s he laughing?” I hear Carole ask.
“That’s how it works,” Gorog informs her. “The One never believes he’s the One.”
“Stop, stop, stop!” I’m doubled over, howling with laughter. “I’m going to piss myself.”
“What’s going on over there?” I recognize Arkan’s angry voice in the distance. “Are you guys making fun of me?”
I’m trying to stop laughing long enough to reply when Carole shushes me. “Don’t tell Arkan what you told us,” she warns me. “Not even the part about the exit.”
“Why not?” I ask. Suddenly I don’t feel like laughing anymore.
She taps her temple with her finger. “The boy ain’t right.”
“Hey!” Arkan shouts again.
“Nobody’s talking about you!” Gorog shouts back. “I made a joke about Simon being like Neo from The Matrix.”
“You mean the One?” Arkan yells, but this time the anger in his voice is gone. “That scrawny loser’s not the One.”
Crazy or not, I have to agree with him. I can’t be the One, because there’s no way in hell I’d be helping these dumbasses if it weren’t for Kat.