At Any Turn (Gaming The System) (21 page)

I sat back, trying not to laugh. I hadn’t seen that article. What a load of bullshit. I’d have to ask the developers on Monday if they had planted that bogus clue themselves.

“What do
you
think, Fallen? Is it a waste of our time? I’m
really, really
curious to get your opinion on it,” Heath asked.

*You tell Fragged, Fat chance
.

“I dunno. I’ll go with the flow. If you guys are having fun, let’s just keep at it. Hopefully Em—Mia is feeling less cranky?”

“Wreaking murder and havoc on the monsters of Yondareth always brightens my mood,” she said in a breezy, distant voice.

*Eloisa tells you, Nice almost-slip, genius boy
.

*You tell Eloisa, Can’t *always* be perfect
.

Yeah, I’d almost slipped and called her Emilia. As far as I knew, I was the only one who called her by her full name. I’d started out doing it as one of my many ploys to throw her off track as to who I really was. But it had stuck. She was my Emilia. Mia was what everyone else called her.

*Eloisa tells you, Yeah, so…really…you aren’t working too much, are you?

*You tell Eloisa, Define “too much.”

*Eloisa tells you, Adam…

I sat back, my fingers hovering above the keyboard. My chest seized again. I was touched by her concern while at the same time resenting it. God, I missed her. And we’d only been broken up for a few weeks.

*You tell Eloisa, I’m mostly fine
.

*Eloisa tells you, Why only “mostly”?

*You tell Eloisa, I figured that would be obvious
.

“Incoming one badass motherfucker! It’s Grubious the Great. Get him! He’s got loot!” Heath yelled into his mic as his character appeared out of nowhere, chased by one very large and angry troll. Our group jumped into action and a few minutes later the troll’s corpse was dead at our feet, his virtual loot split between the four of us.

*Eloisa tells you, Sorry. I meant, like with the lawsuit and stuff. The bloggers aren’t being very kind.

*You tell Eloisa, So I noticed. Glad to see Girl Geek has stayed out of it.

*Eloisa tells you, Of course I’d stay out of it. I spend my efforts on important things like raging about chainmail bikinis, not lawsuits.

We spent over an hour working our way through those trolls, which generated (in gamer speak we used the word “spawned”) as fast as we could kill them. The mythical key never appeared, as I knew it wouldn’t. I was almost tempted—almost—to log in on my other rig and code something that looked like a key for them to find as a joke, but decided against it as too mean.

I figured I’d throw them a bone instead, even if it was a very, very subtle bone.

“So guys, this is getting extremely boring and we aren’t getting anywhere,” I said. “How about we go make some new characters and run around the starting area?”

“WTF, Fallen. Newbies? Um, no. I’m not in the mood to get killed by a first level bat over and over again while picking yellow daffodils for General SylvanWood’s lost love,” Kat said, referring to one of the basic first quests ever given to a new character in the world of Dragon Epoch.

*Fragged tells you, What’s the matter…are we getting warm? I have a feeling we’re on the right track and you’re trying to reroute us. It *is* the key, isn’t it???

I laughed again. Like I would tell him. I hadn’t even told Emilia anything helpful and I’d slept with her every night for months.

*You tell Fragged, Ooops, I guess you caught me.

A little while later, Katya logged off to go to work. Heath stayed for another few minutes before signing off and Emilia and I were on, alone. Instead of sending text chat, we could actually talk.

“So…” she said.

I cleared my throat and stared at her avatar on the computer monitor. “I’m glad you decided to come back to work,” I began lamely.

“I don’t think William would have forgiven me if I hadn’t.”

“Not true. He wouldn’t have forgiven
me
.”

She laughed a little nervously. “Maybe you’re right.”

There was a long, awkward pause. The static electrons hissed between us. It hurt, hearing her voice and knowing she was close by. The distance between us might as well have been millions of miles.

She began again. “So…I’ve been thinking about all the stuff being said on the blogs right now—the ones focusing on the developments of the lawsuit…”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and rubbed it, feeling the onset of a new headache. It served me right. The doctor had advised me to wear special glasses while using the computer and I almost always forgot to put them on. Of course, I didn’t fully believe his theory that the eyestrain was what induced the migraines.

“Yeah? What are your thoughts?”

“I know these people—well, not in person, but we communicate online a lot. I read and comment on their blogs, they comment on mine. We share info. We e-mail each other. I know what would steer them away from this beat-down campaign.”

I frowned, concentrating on her words and wishing I could see her face. I imagined that cute little dimple that appeared between her eyebrows when she was concerned. “What’s that?”

“Change the conversation. Get them talking about something else.”

“Well, I was hoping that the buzz around our very first DracoCon would do that, but it doesn’t even seem to be making a dent.”

“The Con is going to be awesome and a lot of the bloggers will be there. But I know of something even better.”

“Yeah? What?”

“The hidden quest.”

I sighed. “Is this another attempt to pry clues out of me?”

She paused. “It’s an attempt to help you save your company’s reputation. This would get them off the warpath. And players would flock to their blogs if they were discussing their progress on the quest.”

“Bullshit. The minute that quest is uncovered, it’s over. They put their heads together and share clues. Then, they solve the entire thing in a thirty-hour period and post spoilers online so everyone else can just repeat what they uncovered. I worked on the concept for that quest for
years
. I’m not about to see it just blown through in a day and a half.”

“But…it’s been six months since it was implemented. People are claiming the quest doesn’t even exist or that the code for it is broken. I know in my heart that the quest will be an amazing experience or you wouldn’t be so protective of it. But you have to let it go. You have to give it up so that others can enjoy it.”

I shook my head though I knew she couldn’t see me. “I’ll, uh, I’ll think about it.”

She sighed. “Okay. You can’t keep all your secrets forever, you know.”

That seemed like a personal message to me about
us.
I took a deep breath, feeling like we’d crossed over into forbidden territory. We’d never expressly forbidden this territory, but it seemed dangerous all the same. “I’ll keep them for as long as necessary.”

“I see,” she said quietly.

I paused. “When can I see you again?” I finally asked.

She cleared her throat. “I thought you were seeing other people.”

“That’s not an answer.”

She paused. “I don’t know.”

I closed my eyes, the headache intensifying. But this ache was nothing like the one in my chest. I’d fucked up with her, badly, and if I didn’t rein myself in soon, I stood to fuck up even more.

“I’m gonna go. I won’t log on again unless you want me to.”

“Why would I not want you to? You had fun today, I could tell. I’d never ask you not to log on.”

“I did have fun, but you enjoying your gaming time is more important.” And I probably wouldn’t have logged on if I hadn’t wanted to hear her voice so badly.

“Adam, I…”

“Yeah?”

“Just—think about what I said, okay? And…”

I waited. It took her a minute.

“And take good care of yourself, okay?”

I took a deep breath and expelled it. I wanted to go over there right now and I wanted to pull her into my arms and kiss her senseless. This feeling of emptiness was almost overpowering. “Okay,” I said in a dead voice.

“Thank you. I’ll see you around.”

Yeah…around. My stomach knotted. We said good-bye.

In my soul, the temperature was absolute zero, the temperature of space. And I was empty, like the huge distance between the stars, out on the edge of existence. When I’d spent a week and a half on the International Space Station, one of my favorite activities was to go up into the cupola once we’d crossed the terminator—the line between day and night in orbit. From that observation dome, I could see the stars—marvel at the blackness of empty space between them. Wallow in my insignificance as a tiny spec of a being in awe of it all.

My worries, my life had felt so inconsequential in the middle of the vacuum of space. It reminded me that if I really needed some perspective, I could attempt another flight, as I’d vowed to do the minute I’d touched down in the landing capsule from the previous trip.

Another grand adventure for Adam. All alone. Because my last “grand adventure,”
my Emilia
, was turning out to be an epic failure.

Chapter Fourteen

DracoCon was in less than two short weeks and after the weekend, I found myself putting in long hours at work, despite Emilia’s requests that I restrain myself. I was well into my twelfth hour on Monday, running to keep ahead of another headache that had been hovering over my brain for the previous twenty-four hours. It was haunting me. Sometimes they came on that way…a distant inevitability that I knew I couldn’t avoid. Sometimes they struck suddenly, like mind-searing lightning.

This one ended up doing both. And it happened when the complex was mostly dark, at around 7 p.m. Several staffers had stayed late to get extra work done and I was on my way back to my office from development when the fucking thing slammed into me like a brick in the face. There were no visual distortions this time, just pure pain. I hadn’t had a violent one like this in a long, long time.

Thank God no one was around to witness it. I might have dropped to my knees and whimpered if I hadn’t been standing near the wall. I slumped against it, closing my eyes, hoping for this wave of cranium-crushing agony to pass. With it came nausea. My stomach turned. And if I didn’t will it otherwise, I’d probably soon be puking up my guts.

I crawled back to my office, threw open the door to the lighted hall, but kept the room in darkness. Going over to the couch, I slumped down and closed my eyes.

I lay there for almost half an hour, willing the pain to pass. I tried to decide whether I should give in now and take some kind of medication or if I should just tough it out.

I heard someone approach from the outside. I half-wondered, through the haze of pain, if Maggie hadn’t gone home yet, when the overhead lights came on, stabbing at my eyes and right through my head.

“Turn it off,” I moaned, throwing an arm over my eyes.

The lights flicked off immediately. I listened to the footsteps, hesitating in the doorway. Likely it wasn’t Maggie, but it might have been Jordan or one of my close associates who knew about the headaches. Otherwise I could just claim that I was sick from bad sushi at lunch or something.

Then the steps inched into the room, hesitating. “Adam? Are you okay?” came a small, quiet voice. I was in a full-on sweat now, but the headache wasn’t so horrible that I didn’t recognize the voice when I heard it. Emilia.

“I’m fine,” I said, my eyes still firmly shut. Even the dim light from the doorway would just aggravate the situation more. Right now that was the last thing I needed.

“You’re not fine.” Her voice came from right beside me. “You’re sweating.”

“I’m hot.”

“Bullshit. What’s going on?”

I breathed through another wave of pain. I put my hand to my forehead, pressed down in the center—the pain crackled, out of control. I let out a long breath.

“It’s just a headache. Go away, please.”

She set something down—presumably whatever it was she’d brought with her. “I was just leaving Mac’s display board for you to go over. When I saw the light off, I figured you weren’t here. You seem to be in a lot of pain.”

You seem to be in a lot of pain
. Thank you, Queen of the Obvious, I wanted to reply. And it wasn’t just the wretched agony that made me wish I could decapitate myself, either. It was a deeper, soul-ache of a pain. The one in my heart. The hole she’d torn in it when she went away.

I turned my head away from her, facing the back of the couch.

“Adam, let me help you. Can I get you some water, anything?”

I blew out a long, tight breath. “It’ll pass soon,” I said. It had
better
fucking pass soon.

Emilia got up and shut the door to the office, leaving us in almost complete darkness. How she made it back across without tripping was a mystery to me. But in seconds she was beside me again, sitting on the edge of the couch, her hip nudging against my ribcage.

“You’ve had something like this before?”

She didn’t know about the migraines, because I’d never told her about the really bad ones I used to get. The few that I’d had while we were together had been easy to shrug off.

I turned my head back toward her and opened my eyes. I studied her silhouette in the darkness—the white blond hair stood out, even in the dim light. The pressure vise that held my temples eased up just slightly. At least the nausea was starting to fade.

“Why’d you change your hair?” I said, startling myself. Had I said that out loud?

She shifted. I couldn’t see her facial expression. She turned her head away. “I wanted a change.”

I let my heavy lids drop over my eyes again, weary. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I didn’t want to be angry. She’d murdered my heart, but I didn’t want vengeance. I didn’t want this pain weighing down every thought and action. “You’ve made a
lot
of changes lately.”

“Adam, you’re starting to worry me. Your speech is slurring.” She fumbled in her pocket and pulled out her key chain. “Can I look in your eyes?”