Out of the Black (31 page)

"Hey now, old man!" Smack yelled from the land of the unconscious. "Don't be kicking your old pal when he's down!"

"I'll show you kicking..." Smack's fallen body received a few playful kicks before his eyes fluttered open.

"You are so dead again." Smack grogged out through his newly functional mouth.

Lo Pan leapt away as the rest of the group turned to watch the show. He made a dash for his decomposing corpse, and quickly relieved it of his dragon pole. "Now we'll see who does the dying!" He shouted with more than a hint of melodrama. He held the staff aloft, then slammed it down between his feet. A sound like thunder's louder brother threw everyone off their feet and collapsed a few dilapidated buildings around them. When they looked again, Lo Pan stood at one end of a long crevice that had opened in the ground.

"Yeah. 'By the power of Grayskull!' We know the drill." Smack said, clamboring to his feet.

"That's right, baby! And don't you forget it, either." Lo Pan said, turning back to his corpse, "...now, no more fooling around. The reboot's coming up fast!"

Reminded of the impending deadline, the three formerly dead Avatars scrambled to recover their equipment from their silk-wrapped previous incarnations. They stowed the gear they arrived with in their packs. Later, they would store the reserve equipment in the lockers at the inn near the spawn point, so they could retrieve it quickly the next time they died.

They were mostly done when an even tone filled the air and a cool voice spoke in every ear. "Scheduled outage in thirty seconds. Save-point in twenty-eight seconds."

"Man, my workout ain't half over either." Rygar complained as he buckled the last of his armor in place.

"You did get to do the big corpse-sprint back from town." Smack said.

"Workout my butt!" Angel laughed, "Rygar, everyone knows you're a cutout."

"Your butt?" Lo Pan asked, giving the object of discussion a glance. "What's that supposed to mean?"

A gossamer list of their current possessions appeared in the air near each Avatar.

"I was about done anyway." Angel verified her list and sat down to await the end of this world.

Smack looked through his semitransparent list at Angel, pretending to check his inventory before the save-point. Here she was tall with smooth ebony skin and snow-white shoulder-length hair. What will he see when he sees her with his own eyes? He could have looked at her ID photo when he'd hacked the server's database. He'd only harvested her name and the name of her gym. He wanted the rest to be a surprise.

He was still looking at her when the world ended.

Shivering sparks, static he feels and tastes- blackness.

Water surrounded him. His strained and twitching arms and legs were held immobile by the resist-net that went into lockdown when their server went down. His eyes were open, but they might as well have been closed. The darkness was absolute.

He heard the lock release tone and closed his eyes. After a moment of increasing light coming red through his closed eyelids, he tried to open them. The low light still seemed too bright, but with a lite blinking, it soon became bearable.

The resist-net disengaged with a clunk, followed by a muted
hydraulic hiss. Slow currents in the water caressed his skin.
In the increasing blue light, he saw the resist-net clamshell move back from his body, freeing his sore limbs. He'd never been able to shake the image of the resist-net as a huge gray mouth. Its inner surface looked like a large plastic tongue, studded with taste bud sensors and servos.

After a long and quite painful initial stretch, he disengaged the connectors that linked his helmet with the gym's network and spent the next minute reeling in the vertigo of the disconnect. Finally, he floated up half a meter, pushed the lid of the tank open, and struggled from his workout and out into the real world.

He stood shakily on the heated metal grate near the tank, dripping wet and dizzy. He took his helmet off, staggering slightly as the sense-tape separated from its place on the back of his neck. He stowed the helmet on a shelf and grabbed a towel from the rack above the shelf.

Two tanks away, she was emerging. She was short, but not compared to him; her skin was the rich color of cocoa. Her body was muscular on a thin frame. She leaned against the tank and pulled her helmet off. Her eyes were closed as she collected herself. Her acne scars added a weathered character to her face; her ample lips seemed still to smile. Maybe she's thinking about him?

Angel.

So, that's what she looks like. Beautiful. Now for the hard part- easy conversation.

He moved to the stretching benches and began the painful work of insuring he retained his current range of motion after the intense workout. Essentially, the VR experience was candy coating around a full-body workout. He didn't understand how people used to work out before VR Gyms... people like him probably didn't.

He was into his second circuit of leg stretches when she sat down on the bench two meters to his right. She wasn't looking at him, but of course he was used to that. Even though he had played his way to perfect physical fitness, he still wasn't the kind of guy girls stole glances at.

What was he doing? Fear made a final plea to control his actions, but foolishness won out in the end. "You at the Pain Foundry, too?" He tested the conversational waters, feeling stupid before he'd gotten out the first syllable.

She glanced at him, then quickly away. "Yeah. How'd you...?"

"You got out with me... I figured it was the scheduled maintenance."

Her eyes darted back to him then back away. "Yeah. Though I don't usually admit I go in for that wands and dragons stuff."

"Your secret's safe with me." He said with a nod. "You play there often?"

"I choose to exercise my Fifth Amendment rights." She smiled an unexpectedly dazzling smile, then glanced quickly at him again. "Why do you play at a server all the way in Washington State?"

He laughed. "I just moved from there... haven't met any friends on the local servers yet. You?"

"Oh, I have some good friends there." She smiled.

"Alexander Ahmed." He held out his hand.

"Rae Jackson." She took his hand, gave it a quick shake. She looked at him a little bit onger before looking away.

"Hey, maybe I've seen you online. What's your handle?" He asked, knowing the answer.

***

"I'm not sure I'm ready to get married," she said, looking at him like he'd just dropped his pants in public, "I mean, I've only known you three months."

"Eight months." Alex corrected.

"I've only known what you look like for three months." Rae said with a smirk.

"Oh, it's all about physical beauty with you now?" He shook his head, "So superficial." He said in airy condescension.

"I've only known your name for three months."

"You've known Smack for eight months," he said reasonably, "and that's who you'd be taking to the altar. Besides, think of the wedding gifts."

"You are such a geek." She said trying for a look of shocked indignation.

"You might get that Black Cloak of Aragoth you've been hoping for..."

She laughed, "This is sinking to a new low..."

"So the answer is 'yes'? Ah! You've made me the happiest Avatar in all of Gorgo!" He said, laying on the irony.

"Keep it down!" she hissed through clenched teeth, giving him the fiery eye of death. She covered her face with her hands and shook her head despondently. "This is not happening."

"You can invite all your cop friends..."

"NO!" Her head snapped up, terror filling her eyes.

He shook his head in mock condemnation, "You are so easy to provoke... are you sure you're a good cop?"

"I don't even know if you're gay yet."

"You're not saying if we sleep together you'll know I'm not gay, are you?"

"...so the answer is 'yes'?" she said with enthusiasm.

His eyes smiled; his head shook, "I think you have a problem with commitment."

"I'm not the one who wants to get digitally hitched."

"Exacty."

"Hey, is this some kind of geek dating ritual? You know- like the dork version of going steady or something?"

"Always the nerd anthropologist." He said, reaching across the table, past the greasy food, around the protein-infused soda. He placed his hand over hers and looked directly into her eyes. "You know, I've felt steady from the beginning."

She smiled, perhaps even blushed a little. There was an uncomfortable pause as something heavier than the normal banter passed between them.

It didn't take long for her to break eye contact. "Net stalker." She jabbed an accusing finger at him while picking up a fry with the other hand.

"High priestess of the order of Xandock." He jabbed back, just a little louder.

"Shhhh! Man, you're embarrassing!" She looked around praying no one had heard.

"This man giving you trouble, officer?" The rather stealthy waitress at the end of their booth said. Rae jumped, then froze with her eyes closed and her lips tight.

"Nothing a little police brutality wouldn't correct." Rae said in a measured tone.

"She won't marry me." Alex said.

Rae's eyes opened, giving him the look of impending death.

After a moment spent in appraisal, the waitress gave Alex a short nod. "Yeah, I get that."

"You are really endangering your tip." Alex wagged a finger at her.

"We all know who wears the tip in this family. You need any dessert?" the waitress asked, turning to Rae.

"I tipped yesterday!" Alex tapped his finger on the table.

"Yeah... A dollar- I look like a gumball machine to you?" the waitress asked, arching her eyebrows.

"A dollar fifty." Alex said, looking guilty.

"You used a fractional dollar?" Rae was horrified. "Only tax software considers pennies... oh, I forgot... you are tax software... I'm dating tax software."

"So we
are
dating!" Alex made the male triumph gesture with his fist clenched and elbow cocked, "Yes!"

"Never marry a poor tipper, honey." The waitress said, walking away.

Three weeks later, Smack and Angel were married in a big ceremony in a castle near the Cliffs of Echoes. Even some Avatars from rival clans came. Proving that even virtual gift registries do work, Angel received the Black Cloak of Aragoth from a very thoughtful immortal.

Alex got her a wedding ring that allowed her to levitate.

Unfortunately, she lost them both a week later in an unfortunate eaten-by-dragon incident.

***

"It's not a lie!" He was angry, and that realization had an odd effect on her- she couldn't remember ever seeing him mad before. His anger had a crystallizing effect on her rage, like an ice pack applied to her broken heart. Well, at least now they're beyond the glib banter, even if it's only at the end.

She'd known it at some level- knew that she'd only be burned by love... would ever be its refugee. She didn't need him to tell her she wasn't pretty; that was something she'd always known.

The scale of her rage was an uncomfortable indicator of just how much she'd let her guard down. Well, she wasn't going to make that mistake again.

The cameo lay on the floor where she'd thrown it.

Oh no, here come the tears, she thought bitterly. Her eyes blurred, and her lips began to twist... what's next?

Uncontrolled sobs. Dammit. She turned to the door, intending flight, just needing to get out. His hand clamped around her elbow, stopping her. "NO!" He yelled.

She was walking a tightrope between rage and sorrow, and she was going to fall. She couldn't look at him.

"I love you!" he shouted, shaking her arm slightly.

She snorted, hope reasserting itself in the most infuriating way. But she knew that couldn't be true. "It's over." Her gaze fell on the fallen cameo, ashamed of how much she wished what she saw...

His tight grip on her arm stopped her second retreat. "This the part where I knock you out?" she said though clenched teeth without turning back.

"Do what you have to do... I'm not letting go."

"Why not?" she shouted, whirling about on him. She had to give him credit for only flinching slightly- he really wasn't the physical type. "You can give your Stepford Action Barbie necklace to someone who would hit you a lot less for it."

"It's not about me."

"Really." Her eyes rose to meet his. "So it's someone else who you want to see me like I was pretty..." her voice faltered on 'pretty'.

His expression softened with empathy. This wasn't what she wanted- pity. This was the bottom of the deepest well in hell. The muscles of her right arm tensed... yep she was actually going to hit him.

"It's for someone else." He said, looking directly into her eyes.

Her arm didn't relax, but it didn't slam into his head either. She paused briefly, off balance.

"It's for you."

That got him a bitter bark of laughter, and she was still reserving judgment on the punch. "You're so full of sweet."

"Rae... listen to me... trust me for just a sec here." He said, looking earnest. Maybe he actually believed the crap he was shoveling here. "I just wanted you to see yourself the way I do... I wanted you to believe."

"By giving me a mask? A mask!" Her voice caught, her fist unwound; she sobbed. "I thought maybe you..."

"It's not a mask."

"It's a paper bag." She moaned.