Are they real props too? Ramiro wondered suddenly. Normally he’d have assumed they weren’t, but the box had been real, right? So maybe the magical items were as well.
He hesitated, then visualized the pause icon again. Suddenly the game was gone, and in its place was a large mechanical room. There were switches and valves and pipes and data screens all over the place, and the sarcophagus turned out to be a control console. Red ring: Oxygen, one screen read. In the game that had been a picture of a demon. Red ring: Pressure. More demons. Green ring: CO2.
They were in Environmental Control.
Life support.
No game should have given us access to such a place, Ramiro thought. Suddenly the sense of wrongness was overwhelming. Fear was stirring inside him—real fear, not the fake gaming stuff. “Van!” he called out. His voice was shaking. “Pause the game! Look around!” His voice echoed from the cavern walls, filling the chamber with his fear.
But Van was too wrapped up in arranging his magical items to listen. He did really have props for them, Ramiro noted, but not simple physical markers. Each one was a small device of some kind, and as Van connected them to one another, tiny lights blinked in acknowledgment. The game was directing him to assemble something.
“Van!” Ramiro yelled. He could hear the panic in his own voice. “Stop it! Stop putting those damn things together! Listen to me!”
But Van didn’t respond. Ramiro could have been a ghost for all his words mattered.
Maybe he can’t hear me, he thought suddenly. Maybe the game is keeping him from hearing me. But why would it do that? What purpose could it possibly serve?
Deep within his brain, a primal voice urged him to flee. Run! Run as far and as fast as you can! Don’t wait! Go now!
But he couldn’t leave Van behind. Not if there was real danger here.
He sprinted toward the console, meaning to break apart the strange device before it could do anything. But even as he did so Van threw up his hands triumphantly and stepped back, and Ramiro knew that in the virt the sarcophagus was probably cracking open. On top of the console, the small device blinked and beeped. Too late. Ramiro was too late! One by one the red lights on the device were turning green, while behind the thing, in the real world, security screens displayed various elements of environmental control: oxygen, pressure, circulation, air quality.
All the services that human beings needed to stay alive on a space station.
Then whiteness exploded, consumed him, melted him. A roar like a thousand ships’ engines filled the room, then was gone. He was aware of being thrown back into the wall, but felt no impact. What little was left of his body was no longer capable of sensation.
Then the world was gone.
Both worlds were gone.
GAME OVER
SAKUNA
That which was forgotten, the sakuna remembers.
That which was lost, the sakuna seeks.
That which was divided, the sakuna reunites.
KAJA: An Outworlder’s Guide to the Gueran Social Contract, Volume 1: Signs of the Guild
GUERA NODE
TIANANMEN STATION
THERE WERE five suns hanging over Ru’s head. White suns, identical in size, evenly spaced, as if they marked the points of an unseen pentagram.
Strange.
Dimly she remembered that one should not stare at suns. She tried to look away, but her motor control wasn’t back yet, and she couldn’t turn her head. She closed her eyes, but the suns blazed crimson on the insides of her eyelids, mocking the effort.
Outrider Gaya?
The words buzzed in her ears like insects; if she could have moved her arm she would have swatted at them. Slowly the fog of stasis was lifting, sensation seeping back into her body. She was aware of tender bruises where the contacts of the stim suit were still attached to her skin, soreness in her throat where the respiratory tube had been, and an itching deep, deep within her flesh, beyond any hope of scratching. They were familiar discomforts, and she welcomed them as a sign that she was coming out of stasis properly.
Still the voices buzzed in her ears.
Is she awake?
I saw her eyes open for a moment.
Ru? Ru Gaya? Are you awake?
Proxima Five had insects that could mimic human speech. Maybe that’s where she was.
Readings say yes.
Ru. Respond if you can hear me. It’s important.
Slowly she opened her eyes again. This time the suns resolved into the lights of an examining room. Still very bright. Painful to look at. She uncurled her fingers and felt the hard shell of the stasis pod beneath her hands. Why was she still in the pod, if she wasn’t on her ship?
Then memories enveloped her.
Screaming voices coming closer: alien voices, hate-filled voices. The words are foreign but the bloodlust behind them is clear. The lander is only a few yards ahead of them and she and Tully run toward the ramp, desperate to make it before their pursuers catch up to them.
Suddenly Tully gasps and goes down. As she reaches out to grab him she sees there is a slender metal dart sticking out of his leg. Cursing, she drags him forward those last few feet. Up the ramp. Through the hatch. Darts strike the ship as the door whisks shut behind them, but one dart makes it through in time. It misses Ru by inches, hits the far wall, and clatters to the floor. Its tip, black with poison, gleams in the dim emergency lighting.
Shit.
Tully is moaning in pain, and she knows that if there is poison on his dart he can die if she doesn’t tend to him. But if she doesn’t get the lander off this damn planet they will both die for sure. She can hear a distant banging on the hull as she sprints for the navigator’s console. “Hang on,” she mutters, as she forces the lander to skip half the steps of its launch protocol. The engines roar to life and suddenly the banging ceases; no doubt the locals are running for cover. Good. Good. Her hands dance feverishly over the console. As soon as the seals are confirmed they can get the hell off this benighted rock—
Something sharp stabbed her arm. INJECTION, her wellseeker informed her, red words scrolling brightly across her field of vision. DAMASOL. The drug started burning away the last of the stasis fog, scattering her planetary memories. The room around her was coming into focus now, as were four people flanking her open stasis pod, two male and two female. All Gueran, from the look of them. Guild, most likely. The room itself was stark, white, sterile. Some kind of medical facility?
“What happened?” she gasped. “Where am I?” Then the post-stasis sickness hit, and she leaned over the side of the pod and vomited. Someone had put a container by the side of her pod, and she aimed for it as best she could. Small cleaner bots whirred into action, racing to clean up the mess that had missed the target.