Alternity (30 page)

A game for people to get away from a game. Oh god.

“Are you okay, Skye?” Dawn asks, peering at me with worried eyes.

“Skye?” I repeat bitterly. “Skye? I’m not Skye. Skye’s just a made-up persona created by a video game designer. Earth doesn’t exist, so that means Skye doesn’t exist either. You were all right all along, Dawn. I’m Mariah. Obviously I’m Mariah.”

Dawn pulls me into a hug, squeezing me tight. I try to relax in his arms, but my body is trembling too hard. I bury my face in his shoulder and sob. It’s all too much to take. I can barely breathe.

My whole life has been a lie. My every memory obviously implanted, just as Dawn warned. My parents, my boyfriend, my very world? Not only will I never see them again, but in reality I’ve never seen them at all. They don’t really exist.

“I’m so sorry, Skye,” Dawn murmurs.

I pull away from his hug. Angry. Hurt. Confused. Alone.
This must be hard?
Please.
Hard
doesn’t even begin to explain the pain, the anguish, the horror at what I’ve just seen. How can I deal with this? How can I just accept the fact that my whole reality exists solely on a freaking computer server?

“So, what does this mean for the Eclipsers?” I demand, my voice harsh. “I mean, the fact that Earth’s a computer program instead of another world? Will that help or hurt their cause? What does this mean?”

Dawn looks at me helplessly. “I don’t know,” he says. “I hadn’t thought about it, really. I’m more worried about you.”

His words bring a small comfort. I remind myself that I am not facing this horror alone. I’ve had a great shock, sure, but at the same time, I’d already long ago given up my world in exchange for a life here. I belong on Terra. With the Eclipsers, with the Dark Siders—with Dawn, who loves me completely, no matter what. So, as horrifying as it is to realize my whole past has been a lie, at least I can be assured that my future is true.

“It does prove a point, I suppose,” Dawn adds. “Now we know for sure that the government is just trying to steal the Indys’ money and land.”

“We need to find a way to let the Indys know,” I say, pulling out my camera and taking a few snapshots of the room. I’m desperate to focus, to push down the panic growing inside me. “For proof,” I explain.

Dawn looks at me. “Are you okay?” he asks again. “You don’t have to be strong here. You’ve just been through a horrible shock. It’s okay to be upset.”

I swallow hard, loving him so much at that moment I can barely stand it. “I know,” I manage to say without choking. “I’ll deal with it later. Right now, we have to focus on our mission.”

I finish taking photos and we step outside the room. My legs feel like lead, making it nearly impossible to walk. My brain won’t calm down, reeling at top speed. I’d like nothing more than to find a quiet room and just sit down and process it all in my head, alone. But analysis will have to wait until we’re safe.

We head back through the server room, my chest hurting as I see the whirring machines, knowing my whole life is stored somewhere on those hard drives. Everything that means anything to me could simply be deleted at a moment’s notice. A simple patch to fix a bug could wipe out my whole existence.

Still, I’m a real person, I try to reassure myself. Most of my memories may be fake, but I’m real. I’m Mariah. A revolutionary leader. A savior to the downtrodden. The girl Dawn loves. I’ve got to hold on to that.

We go back out into the hallway to continue our search for the exit. We come to a dead end with a locked door that I open with the simulator, praying it’s a way out. Instead, it opens into a room filled with large file cabinets against the walls. Curious, I walk over to one, peering at its label.

Rupert Smith 11-01-2107

I pull open the drawer, to see what kind of files they might have on old Rupert. To my surprise, the drawer actually contains Rupert himself. Or what’s left of him, anyway. His corpse lies white and stiff on a cold metal slab. I put two and two together and realize what this whole room must be.

“A morgue,” I exclaim. “Dawn, come look at this.”

Dawn walks over to my side, peering down at poor Rupert, a former middle-aged Indy by the look of it. His corpse is swollen, naked, drained of blood, and pasty white, a pair of dark shades over his eyes. I reach down, slowly pulling the dark glasses off his face, wondering why he’s wearing them and nothing else. But what’s behind the shades makes me stumble backward in shock. Dawn catches me, propping me up, looking as horrified as I feel.

And here I’d thought it couldn’t get any worse.

“Oh my God!” I murmur, desperate but unable to look away. The sockets where Rupert’s eyes should have been are now hollow, blackened pits; charred remnants of his former peepers. “How strange.” I hurriedly replace the sunglasses. “It’s almost as if he gazed into the sun too long. But that’s crazy. You guys don’t even have sunshine. So, what could have burned out his eyes?”

“Maybe the moon.”

I whirl around, eyes wide. Will this day ever stop surprising me? “Moongazing,” I whisper in shocked realization. “Do you think? I mean, could it really?” I gesture helplessly to the corpse.

Dawn shrugs. “Seems entirely possible. If Earth really is just a computer-generated game, then that obviously means you’re not really traveling to another world when they lock you in one of their rooms. You’re stuck twenty-four-seven in a video game simulation. And the visuals are intense, right? So intense you believe they’re real. What if, after wearing these glasses long-term, they end up literally burning up your eyes?”

“And kill you, evidently, as well,” I add, shoving Rupert’s corpse back into the cabinet and slamming the drawer. I lean against the wall, sucking in a breath. “I guess that’s not something they’d put in the brochure.”

Dawn screws up his face. “All along you’re thinking you’ve just traveled to a whole other plane of existence, a brave new world that you and your fellow Indys are populating. You’re ready to start a new life,” he says. “But in reality, you’re stuck in a box, lost in a drug-induced hallucination until your brain crumbles and your eyes are literally burnt out of your head.”

“And the government pockets all your assets,” I say. “This would solve the population problem to boot. It’s brilliant in a way. Sick, but brilliant.”

I stare at the rows upon rows of boxes, each labeled with a name and date. All these people went willingly to their deaths, lambs to the slaughter, with no one the wiser. Rupert’s friends, his family, his coworkers—they all assume he’s now living a perfect life on a better world. No one has any idea of his real new digs: a nine-by-three drawer in a government fridge.

I pull out the drawer again and take a photo of the body. Then I go to the next drawer, slide out the dead Indy there, and take another. I repeat this over and over, taking photos of corpse after corpse. Each looks exactly the same: naked, bloated, blackened pits for eyes. My stomach churns with nausea, begging me to stop, but I ignore it. This is too important to be queasy.

“The dates of death,” Dawn observes, scanning the drawers, “are all recent. These are all labeled from the last week.” He walks to the other side of the room. “These are a bit older. It looks like these people died a few months ago.”

I cross the room to join him, yanking open a drawer of one of the less recently deceased. I take a photo. The body still has the telltale blackened eyes, but it looks yellowed, shrunken.

“Why do they keep them?” I wonder aloud. “Why not just bury them or something?”

“Who knows? Maybe they don’t want them found. Or maybe they’re experimenting on them, trying to discover why they die prematurely. Or perhaps they even harvest their organs. I mean, if it’s only their minds and eyes that go, they die with healthy livers and kidneys and hearts, right? Perfect for the fat-cat government officials to use to prolong their own miserable lives.”

I shiver at the thought. “That’s disgusting. But it does make sense.”

I head to the back of the room to another set of drawers. Just a few more pictures and I’ll have enough evidence to rally the Indys and get them to force the government to shut down the Moongazing program for good. It won’t save these poor people, but at least it will prevent others from dying the same horrible way.

“I wonder how long it takes for someone to die,” Dawn says, pulling out another drawer. “It must be a while. After all, you were inside for a few months before the Eclipsers pulled you out.”

“Thank God they did,” I say, scanning the drawers. I’ve shot a lot of male bodies. I’d like a woman this time. “Or I’d have ended up—” The words die in my throat as my eyes focus on a name on one of the drawers. My camera falls out of my hands and crashes onto the floor. “Dawn,” I cry, my voice scratchy and hoarse. “I think you’d better get over here.”

I stare at the name, hoping, begging, praying that I’m somehow reading it wrong. But no. It’s there, clear as day. The name I never expected in a million years to read on a drawer in a morgue:
Mariah Quinn
.

TWENTY

“What is it?” Dawn asks, instantly appearing at my side. But my throat’s closed up and I can’t speak. I point a shaky finger at the drawer. Dawn stares, his mouth gaping, then turns to me, an uncomprehending look on his face.

“What the hell?” he whispers. “How can that—how can that be?”

I shake my head. I have no idea. I really thought nothing could top the shock of learning that Earth was just a virtual reality video game. But if Earth is a game, then by all rights I have to be Mariah. And if I’m Mariah, I’m obviously not a corpse. Which leads us to the ultimate question. Who’s in the drawer?

“Maybe it’s empty,” Dawn reasons, not sounding all that convinced. “Maybe they’re saving it for you, hoping to kill you and then put you there.”

I swallow hard. “Right,” I agree. “That must be it. The drawer’s probably empty.”

We fall silent, staring at the drawer, neither one ready to test the theory.

“Should … should I open it?” I ask at last. “I mean, so we have proof that there’s no one inside?” I really would rather not, but how can I just walk away not knowing? I’ve come this far. I have to know the truth, no matter what it turns out to be.

“I don’t know,” Dawn says, sounding at a loss. He reaches down and grabs the camera on the floor, fingering the lens. I stare at the drawer, my heart thudding painfully in my chest. What to do, what to do, what to do?

I take a deep breath and yank it open.

The drawer isn’t empty. There’s a corpse lying on the slab. The body of a girl. A naked girl with glasses who looks exactly like me.

I stumble backward, then fall to my knees, unable to catch my breath. I double over and throw up, sickly yellow bile spewing from my lips and pooling onto the stone floor. Dawn grabs me, pulling my hair from my face and rubbing a hand over my back. He’s saying something, something soothing, but the blood pounding in my ears makes it impossible to hear what’s coming from his lips. I take a deep breath and pull myself to my feet, vision blurry with unshed tears. I shiver, my body suddenly freezing cold. I realize I’m likely going into shock and I try to break free from the darkness, pull myself together. Losing it now could end very badly.

“Wow, its not every day you get to see your own dead body,” I mutter, going for gallows humor. Or ‘Gazing humor, I guess, as the case might be.

Dawn grabs and pulls me into a fierce, smothering hug, squeezing me tightly against him. I realize he’s shaking, too, as terrified and confused as I am, but trying to be strong for the both of us. I bury my face in his chest, sobbing.

“I don’t understand,” I blubber. “I’m not dead. How can my body be in this morgue?”

“I don’t know,” Dawn answers helplessly. “I just don’t know.”

“It’s definitely me, though, right? It’s definitely Mariah?” I can’t bear to take another look.

Dawns shifts in my arms for a second glance. “Yes,” he says after a pause. “It’s definitely Mariah. And it appears she’s got the burned-out eyeball thing like the rest of them.” He takes a few pictures of the corpse. “I’m going to upload these photos and send them back to headquarters,” he says, pressing a few buttons on the camera. “They have to see this.
Now
.”

I nod, barely listening, my whole world spun off its axis. “So, if that’s Mariah, then who am I?”

“You, my dear,” pipes in a voice from across the room, “are not exactly a ‘who’ at all.”

Dawn and I whirl around. At the entrance to the morgue stands Duske, flanked by six heavily armed guards. He’s dressed in a severe black suit, and his thumbs are swathed in white cotton bandages.

Without giving reason a second thought, I rip my sword from its sheath and charge forward, blinded by rage and madness. My vision is red. This man must die. Die for what he did to the people. Die for what he did to Mariah. Die for whatever the hell he’s done to me. Whoever I am.

The guards step in front of him, pulling out their own swords and effectively protecting their master. I stop my advance, sword still held high in the air, glowering at the man who is responsible for so many broken lives. Duske grins and gestures for the guards to withdraw. He pulls out his own sword. “This is excellent,” he says. “I’ve wanted to see you fight ever since I created you. After all, you were programmed with all the top training.”

I squint at him. “Programmed? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Duske shakes his head. “Fight first,” he commands. “If you best me, I will tell you everything.”

“If I best you, you will be dead and thus unable to speak.”

“No, no, my dear,” Duske says laughingly. “My guards will not let me die. Don’t be stupid. We’ll simply spar until there is a clear champion. But we must agree not to shed any blood. I will not kill you if you agree not to kill me.”

“From what I saw in the drawer over there, it appears I’m already dead. And why should I believe even for a second that you won’t just have me killed later?” I glare at him, not wanting to play games anymore. I should have killed him back at the house. Not doing so was a big mistake.