Ready Player None

Chapter 13.1 - Alex "Brandy"

The cave was dark, like our home had been. The only difference was the temperature, which was uncomfortably warm, but nothing like the deadly heat outside. Oh, and the smell. I had to blink away a few tears, although no one around us seemed to notice. It looked like they used animal hair to insulate the walls at the mouth of the cave, right next to the cooking fires and the curving panels along the ceiling that served to direct the smoke outside.

How did they taste their food? When you live with a cave-full of kids and dogs and cats and pigs, I suppose at some point your nose just turns off in disgust. If mine could skip ahead to that point, it would be great.

Physically, I was okay. My hands and feet were loosely bound; I could shuffle around, but couldn't go much faster than that. Kate was resting now, and the cut on her temple had finally stopped bleeding, but while awake she had clearly been scared, and desperately trying not to show it. I had decided that I needed to remain calm for her benefit. Nothing was going to be gained by getting upset, or acting out against our captors, so keeping a level head and a sense of humor would have to do. As long as we retained either one of them.

The sandpeople looked like.. people. With their covering gear removed, they were just like us. No third eyes. No extra heads growing out of their neck. They were a lot dirtier than we were, although a few more days outside of a Community and I would be hard-pressed to prove that statement. I put a hand on Kate's shoulder as she stirred, wanting to make sure she knew I was here, so she wouldn't startle or scream.

One of the people watching us saw she was awake and called over to another group. They talked quietly among themselves, and then one of their number rose and walked over to us.

Their selected emissary was fairly young. I expected an elder, but we were apparently only worth a trainee. I wasn't going to argue; if you looked past the rough haircut, and the waxy layer of dust, she was.. well, for lack of a better word, she was beautiful. Not that I would ever want her to know I felt that way. She might have been the one selected to cut my throat.

"I'm not going to ask you to relax," she said, remaining several feet away. Even from that far away, in the flickering torchlight, I was struck by her sky-blue eyes. "If you are scared, then be scared. I know what you think of us. I know what you've been told. We are different than you, and things are harder outside the walls, but there's really no reason to be afraid of anyone here. For example, Outsiders don't eat people. Not in this clan, anyway. Two caves down, you're on your own."

That was a joke. I think.

She didn't wait for me to work it out. "We were in contact with Community One. They were looking for you, and asked us to help. Now they know we found both of you, and they know where you are. You should only have to suffer a few more hours until someone takes you back to your little wonderland, where you can shower as many times as necessary to remove any physical evidence of having been here."

"If you're going to let us go anyway, why did you tie us up like this?" Kate asked. Her bonds were a bit tighter than mine, for some reason, and had cut into her skin.

"Our people and yours have a rough history. Not that long ago, a young girl from one of your communities shot a triple-barrel shotgun into a group of our rescuers without waiting to see who it was, or asking to see why we were there. That girl even hit my clan-brother, the man who once risked death to pick up a tiny child sitting and crying outside the walls of a Community that had just shunned her. Me. I am trying very hard to overlook that particular detail."

Kate's eyes darted down, and she said "Sorry" as quickly as possible.

The young woman nodded, and continued, "Your hands and feet were bound like that to protect us, and yourself. No more misunderstandings until you've heard our part of the story, which you have. Jevin will cut you loose if you agree to behave."

"We will," I replied, for both of us. The rough-looking man who had been watching us stepped forward to sever our bonds with a stainless-steel Bowie knife. I wondered where that had come from; probably scavenging from a residence outside a Community's protection. The dog that had been sitting quietly with him bared his teeth quickly at us in warning, and was cuffed lightly and told to settle down. We may have been free, but we were certainly not unmonitored.

"Kate, it is very important that you don't do anything crazy right now."

"Yeah, I know. If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead already." A little louder, she said, "Thank you, Jevin."

Nodding seemed to be half the communication around here, as that was his only initial response. He appeared to think heavily about something, and then leaned sideways while pulling up his ragged and torn shirt high enough to show part of his back. There was a dark red spray of wounds in the pattern of a recent shotgun blast. Most were still bleeding.

Kate said, "I'm really sorry." She was learning how to apologize and mean it, if only due to repetition. We might end up accomplishing exactly none of our original goals, but this trip had certainly quickened her development as a person. Mine too, I guess.

He pulled his shirt back down quickly, and said, "I get you food and water." He headed over to the cooking fire, leaving the young woman alone with us. Other than the dog, which was quite enough of a guard by himself.

"The food will be far beneath your standards, I'm afraid," the woman continued. "As you can tell from the number of babies crying, and young children playing, there are more mouths to feed all the time. Even with help, there's not a lot to go around, so our diet is.. predictable." She clearly wanted to use a different word.

"We've been living on unflavored soy for quite a while now. As long as it's not that.."

"It is," she interrupted unapologetically. I suppose we were interlopers, and weren't going to be here very long. If they had better food available, it wasn't for us.

"Oh well, we're used to it, at least."

Kate had been watching Jevin as he gathered our meal, possibly trying to see if he was going to poison us. She tilted her head back at the red-haired woman, and said, "So, are you and him..", wiggling her eyebrows in a very strange manner.

The dog gave a low growl. The woman also seemed to know whatever it was that Kate had meant, and answered plainly. "No. Jevin would die for me, and I for him, but we are not paired." She looked directly at me as she said the last part, quite helpfully, as now I knew what 'wiggle your eyebrows' meant in girl-code.

It felt like a good moment to ask another question I had been curious about. "How did you contact Community One to tell them you found us? That's the same place we were going, and it was still very far away when we crashed."

"Smoke signals? War drums? Solar-powered shortwave radio? There are lots of possibilities, pick any one you like," she replied. "Now I'll ask a question. What was so important that you disregarded every warning about going outside that you've been given since you were born? You already knew that the sun will burn you, the sand will make you sick, and anything alive will kill you for your possessions, your flesh, or both. Things go wrong out here, and you can't plan for half of it even if you know what's coming, which you definitely didn't. Why exactly were you traveling outside by yourselves?"

"Stupidity, mostly," I replied. Kate glared at me, but didn't argue. "But the original reason was that we needed to fix a problem with my OASIS account."

At first, she gave me a look of disbelief, but then saw I wasn't joking. "Oh my God," she said, thoroughly disgusted, and started walking back to the group at the other side of the cavern. Although I wanted to watch her walk away, I averted my eyes. I didn't need Kate teasing me about finally being interested in a girl, and it looks like I had lost whatever chance I may have had with her, anyway.

Despite the noise surrounding us, I could just make out what she said as she walked away. "They went out into the red for a damn game, and ended up two caves away from being someone's main course."

Maybe it wasn't a joke, after all.