Open World (5 page)

Den
peeked at her screen, and true to form she was trying to buy better clothing
and armor for her character,
Quies. “Quies, Hope?”

“Yeah, I saw it somewhere along with the word serenity, and I
resonated with it. I thought how nice. It sounds like keys…keys to
serenity…keys to your heart. What about you…
Armino?”

“Don’t
know where I saw that name. It just kinda came to me. As for your family,
Cassandra and her friend joined up under the Harlestchapel Clan. They’re
witches, elves, fairies, and the like. I know Faith and Tav are with the Marine
Class, Statiochapel Clan. But your parents, I have no clue. James hasn’t let on
to what he’s doing.
Though we did try to get it out of him at
the office during the week.”

“That’s
my dad for you. I’m sure we’ll
run into
him
in the game. Then you’ll know.”

Sounds
of keyboards clicking and subdued voices speaking into headsets replaced the
loud conversations of earlier.

Two
thunder booms clapped in quick succession over their heads, disturbing the
quiet hum of gaming. Den glanced out a window. It looked like night had arrived
early.

Nearby,
Beth fidgeted in her seat. Her face had turned a pale green.

Den
had only seen that complexion once before when he and Tavis went boating on the
lake. Tav never told him he disliked boats due to experiencing sea sickness. In
fact, Tavis didn’t like many things that dealt with more than puddle amounts of
water.

Beth
stood, pointed down at her table and opened her mouth as if she wanted to say
something but couldn’t seem to speak. A red laser beam of light connected her
quartz pyramid to Rick’s. Lightning flashed, illuminating the windows
overlooking the playground. Thunder rocked the clubhouse. Crimson rays shot out
of the two crystals and connected to two more. The process repeated until all
the accessible pyramids were part of a glowing grid.

People
stood, clamored about the strange occurrence and the sudden change in weather.

The
grid intensified, shrouding the room in an unnatural blood-like glow. Den
shielded his eyes against the brilliance and reached for Hope’s hand.

Lightning
and thunder battled again, seemingly right overhead.

The
lights went out.

Someone—he
guessed Beth—let out an ear-piercing scream.

PART
TWO

Charming
Hope

Chapter Four

A wave of dizziness hit Hope out of the blue. Her chest grew
tight, immobile, as if all the air had been sucked out of her. She shook her
head and breathed deep in an attempt to right herself.

Hot, electrified tingling zipped along her fingers and toes and up
through her limbs. She looked down at her hands. They were hers but not hers,
or at least they felt that way. The outfit she’d put on for the party had disappeared
and been replaced with tight black pants and a matching, tucked in t-shirt.
Plain black boots covered her feet.

What the hell?
Where’s my blouse?
My pumps?
Those items cost me over four
hundred combined!

Nearby a snarl rolled through an overcast, deep gray day that
seemed to be darkening as the seconds ticked by.

A growl?
A
cloudy sky?
What is going on?
She crossed her shaking arms over her stomach.

Another menacing sound echoed around her.

Every part of Hope froze save for her searching gaze. She found
herself in a narrow alley created by two destroyed buildings. The rubble
consisted of fractured and crushed cinder blocks, partial stucco walls, broken
slabs of sheet rock and miscellaneous debris. Across the way a piece of metal
glinted from the last bit of ambient light that still existed. The shape of a
dome slowly came into view.

I’m down near The Circus?

The sound of scratching reverberated in the opposite end of the
passage. A gust of wind funneling through the narrow passage brought the stench
of rotting meat to her nose.

The shaking of her muscles grew worse as her mind processed the
environment and her thoughts.

Wait. Am I in the
game? How’s that poss…

“Hey, if you want to be bit by the CWU that’s coming up on you,
feel free to continue standing there with your thumb up your ass.”

Hope unfroze and spun toward the voice. A man, also dressed in
black and in a matching colored Old West duster coat, stood before her. Dark
sunglasses covered his eyes and his face was obscured by a hood cloaking his
head. He wore a chain and pendant that reminded her of Mr. Jenkins.

“What? Who?” she stammered the short questions as behind her the
growls and scrapes of footsteps slowly closed in on her location.

“Really?
We don’t have time
for a Q and A.” He reached out, grabbed her hand and yanked her from the alley.
The man swung her behind him, shielding her with his body.

Off balance and slightly dizzy, she grasped the back of his coat,
caught her breath, then peeked around him.

He held up his arm, his palm facing toward the oncoming Chem
Warfare Urchin.

Her heartbeat fluttered, and her body braced to run. According to
the game’s story line, CWUs were the dregs of current society, humans who’d
lost
their humanity and higher reasoning. During and after the chemical wars, they’d
mutated, morphed and bred into creatures comparable to zombie-looking rogue
vampires and had no special abilities. But if the CWU caught and bit a person,
the poison they injected would change the infected into one of them.

Those animal-like beings were
the complete opposite of her character’s kind. For some reason, the chemicals
from the wars gave her, and those in other clans, special powers and heightened
instincts.

A twisted smile contorted the
monster’s mouth. Pointed canines dripped crimson liquid.

“Damn it. It’s fed.
Means it’s going to be extra strong now.”

“Not a good thing,” she
murmured.

“No worries, luv,” the stranger crooned in a deep voice.

The creature neared. Inch by inch it limped closer, dragging its
bum leg along and making the foot rub against the ground.

Thump. Scratch. Thump. Scratch.

Hope couldn’t take the sounds,
nor
the onslaught
of the vermin’s fetid stink much longer.
“Dude.”
She
poked him in the back. “
You going
to do something or
not?”

“Patience, my dear.”

Patience.
The CWU’s just a
yard away, and he’s telling me to be patient?
If they didn’t move
or kill the thing soon, they’d be toast. She started to take a step away from
the man, but his reflexes beat out her thought process. He reached back with
his other hand and grabbed her arm.

The urchin, seeming to take advantage of their brief distraction,
advanced.

As it flew toward them, Hope screamed and dropped to her knees.
Her rescuer projected a laser beam of golden light at the CWU.

The creature vaporized into thin air.

Air whooshed out of Hope. After a couple of inhales, she looked up
at the man. All she could see was a pair of kissable lips and a square chin.
“Well, now that was something.”

“Yes, it’s quite a handy talent.” He held out a hand.

She clutched it, and he helped her off the ground. “Thank you. Mister…?”

“Call me Buzz. And you are?”

“Buzz.
Interesting
name.”
But what
about Alden?
Where’d he get
off to? Maybe I
am
in the game
… For
some reason, her instincts were telling her not to use her game name, Quies. “Um,
Hope.”

“Hope. Pretty.” He cocked his head.
“Something
troubling you?”

“I’m not sure.” How could she explain to the stranger the peculiar
situation she seemed to have found herself in?
I was in one place one moment and then
another the
next.
Like I got sucked into a parallel universe
.
That would get her off to a great
start.

Problem was, the more she stood across the way from the circus
dome the more her current reality seemed real and the other she’d left?

Not so much.

“So, Hope, where you need to get to?”

Den mentioned ‘The Experience’ downtown was a neutral area.
Maybe that’d be a good place for me to go
and figure out my next move
. “I’m needed down at ‘The Experience.’ Why?”

“You seem like a noob, so I want to give you a boost.”

“A noob?
A boo—”

Before she could finish the second word, Buzz had lifted his hand
and shot a burst of white light at her.

Hope blinked. The broken sign of the Horseshoe slowly winked on
and off. She shook her head.
I’m downtown?
But how?
Now I have another thing I’m gonna have to
figure out
. Horseshoe was missing the first S and E, and the last E hummed
in electronic fury as it sputtered back to life to join the lights of the
others only to go dark a moment later. The pale green and red colors flickered,
gave a brief glow, and waned.

Glancing
around, she realized Buzz wasn’t with her. The buildings in the vicinity seemed
intact though not as dazzling as she’d remembered them to be. As with the
Horseshoe, the neon lights weren’t as intense and some flickered incessantly,
causing pulsating effects on the tattered canopy. Industrial metal music played
through the few speakers remaining in their high perches on the casinos.

For how long had she stood and stared at it all? She had no idea,
and she probably would have continued to be mesmerized by the shabbiness if a
tap on her shoulder hadn’t disturbed her.

“Hope?”

She turned her head in the direction of the voice.

Cassandra clicked her fingers in front of Hope’s face. “Hope?”

Snapped out of her trance, Hope threw her arms around her cousin.
“Oh my God, I’m so happy to see you. Please tell me you know what’s going on.
Where’s Faith?
Our boyfriends?”

Cassandra peeled Hope off of her and cast her gaze at the ground.
“I wish I could explain it all. I woke up in my secret location, dressed in the
outfit I use for ceremonies, and a note from
Morrigan
requesting I meet
her when I have a chance.”

“So you don’t know where anyone is?”

“Nope.”
Cassandra shrugged.
“Sorry.”

In a strange world.
Family’s
missing. Den is nowhere to be seen. Thank God Cass is here. I hate being alone
. Hope’s blood ran
cold through her veins. She rocked slightly, twisted her hands together as she
dealt with the news.

Cassandra gripped her shoulders. “Look at me, Hope.”

Drawing in a breath, Hope met her cousin’s gaze.

“We’ll be all right. Got it? You trust me, don’t you?”

Overwhelmed and at a loss for words, she nodded.

“Good. Now, buck up. We need to figure out how to find Faith and
the others.”

As if Cassandra conjured Faith by just saying her name, Faith
materialized next to them.

Faith wobbled on her feet, and Cassandra caught her before she
fell. “Good of you to join us Faith. Hope and I were about to discuss a game
plan to find you, but now that you’re here.” Cassandra grasped Faith’s hand and
also Hope’s. “In the words of our favorite story fairy godmother…Bippity.
Boppity.
Boo!”

Hope, her sister and her cousin appeared in a great room of a
house. A large picture window had been boarded over. Cassandra opened the front
door, letting a cool breeze drift in. Hope caught a glimpse of the Strip in the
distance. The area surrounding it spread out in a black blanket, dotted
sporadically with gold. At least she thought it was the strip. The row of
lights didn’t seem as grand as she remembered. The whole city was probably in
shambles, same as the area Buzz had found her in.

“Where the hell am I now?” Faith stomped over to the entrance.
“We’re up near Lone Mountain, aren’t we?”

Cassandra directed her back to the center of the room. “Come.
Let’s sit, and I’ll do my best to answer your and Hope’s questions, and
hopefully between the three of us, we’ll determine what’s going on.”

The three of them sat upon a large black throw rug. Candles placed
throughout the room winked to life then flickered in golden light. Hope gasped
as did Faith. Seemed her cousin had been able to access her character’s
abilities. She wondered when she’d be able to work some magic herself, like the
shifting Den had mentioned.