"Yup. That's how I'm gonna die."
A flock of teenage girls eyed me, frightened by my out loud affirmation, but an awkward 'hello' sent them back to their selfie. A dozen duck faces later, they shuffled away to the Mount Royal Chalet, leaving me alone and anguished in the brick courtyard facing Montreal's skyline.
I leant on the stone railing circling the observation deck, enjoying the dazzling colours that autumn had splashed upon the canopy. The maple trees rivaled with vibrant shades ranging from vermilion to bright yellow, their fallen leaves forming a fiery, crunchy carpet. But though many considered this season to be the most typical of Canada, my heart longed for the comfy, fluffy, white cloak that would muffle up the city this winter. Too bad I would be dead by then.
What kind of idiot accepted a rendezvous with a stranger, in the middle of the woods, right before nightfall? I could picture the headlines: "Foolhardy girl found in dumpster. Lower half of her body still missing."
Unless I had misheard what Darcy had mumbled. Did he really say "Kondiaronk Belvedere", or did he invite me to "come see a monk, buy a bear", whatever that meant? In that case, I was waiting for a fictional character and would soon crawl back home with shame.
However, no doubt could subsist as far as his last sentence was concerned. He had recommended, nay, commanded for me to stop sleeping with the Bridge on. This left only two possibilities: Darcy was aware that he was an NPC inside a game and broke the fourth wall for an unknown reason, or there was a human behind the machine and they wanted to see me. Which brought me back to the serial killer theory.
"Hello."
I screamed and jolted around, raising both arms in a pathetic karate chop. Gosh, was it all I could summon under pressure from Mom's kravmaga lessons?
About ten feet away from me, a hooded figure stumbled back, palms held up in surrender. Careful not to startle the martial artist sleeping within every Asian, they removed their hood, revealing a sheepish, lopsided smile.
"Theo?"
"Yeah, ahem, hi. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." His thumb indicated the building behind him. "I had to wait for the group of girls to leave the area."
"Why?" Though I was relieved to recognise him, facts and stats about victims knowing their murderer sprang to mind.
He ran a hand through his hair, then on his face, resting it on his chin. With a pensive sigh, he replied, "I'm not allowed to meet with Bridge users outside InfiCorp."
"Why?" I repeated, still unsure about this encounter.
Theo motioned towards the low stone wall, and when we sat down, I kept a safe distance between us.
"Since the Bridge launch, DigHandlers have been forbidden to reveal their existence because it showed how the program worked. If players were aware that real persons were amongst the NPCs, monitoring them and intervening when necessary, many people would freak out, and stick to the standard plot. What's so thrilling and enticing about the Bridge is that everything is possible."
"DigHandlers?"
"Digression Handlers. We're the people in charge of anything out of the ordinary."
"Like when someone sleeps with a non-playable character?" I breathed out the question before I could scold myself against the idea.
A blazing beetroot shade spread on Theo's cheeks. "No, err, sex is very well managed by the engine. There's a whole team dedicated to perfecting realism. Because of the demand, this might be the most thoroughly covered aspect of the Bridge."
Now it was my turn to flush.
We sat in companionable silence for a couple of minutes, both pretending to be fascinated by the leaves swirling on the deck while we put a lid on our respective blush.
"Why did you contact me?" I studied the creases and folds of his hooded sweatshirt, asserting the possibility of a wrench or lead pipe under it.
Theo bit the interior of his lower lip, then whispered, his voice so faint I had to lean forward to catch his answer, "You're amazing."
He tilted his head back, his stare fixed on the pinkish blanket of clouds. "I was assigned to your profile a month ago, when you asked the Bridge to play Beautiful on the pianoforte. You know you put me on a hot seat? I had to find the partition and add it to the game data, but I first downloaded the wrong song. You came this close to Eminem's version."
Uh? I let out a snort so powerful that Theo's eyes widened like saucers. His chuckle grew timidly, rumbling low in his throat, then sparked to a boisterous guffaw when I started rapping.
Just as soon as I walk in
It's like all eyes on me, so I try to avoid any eye contact
Cause if I do that then it opens a door to conversation, like I want that
"What?" I giggled, tears glistening in the corner of my eyes. "These lyrics totally fit Darcy. He would've gone mad, raising his hands up in the air and hollering, 'Yeah, boo, that's my thang.'"
For a moment, I thought Theo had controlled his hilarity, but a single glance at my disheveled and exuberant imitation of Darcy was enough to send him back into fits of laughter. While he held his stomach and hiccupped, I decided he was not carrying any weapon other than his killer smile.
He wiped away the rivers streaming down his feverish cheekbones. "I don't know if I could've kept my cool hearing you rapping. I couldn't even refrain from clapping at your passionate interpretation."
"Thank you." Then, after a split second, "Wait, you were listening to me?"
"Yeah. I had to dive into Darcy to keep him out of your field of vision and stall while I scrambled to find Christina Aguilera's song."
"Dive? As in jump into his body?"
"Yup. When we don't have enough time to write the NPC's instructions, when the expected behaviour doesn't exist yet, or when it's too subtle for the engine to process, we take control of a character to help the plot moving on."
A nagging suspicion took form in my mind. All merriness gone, I glowered at Theo. He perceived the mood shift and gaped at me, like a deer in headlights. Before I could formulate my accusation, he yelped, "It wasn't me. It was the Bridge."
"It was the Bridge that did what?" I detached each word, my voice tense and dripping with boiling anger.
Theo inched away from me, sensing the danger looming under my preppy appearance. "It was the Bridge that found faults in your... your... cleavage."
"Did it?"
"Yes. As I mentioned earlier, I was only assigned to you at Lucas Lodge." His statement, seconded by his earnest expression and unwavering eyes, rang true.
After a few moments of deliberation, I rendered my verdict. "I believe you."
Theo practically deflated himself, holding his head between his hands and sucking in long, shaky breaths. I hesitated, then patted his back. "It's all good now. I said I accepted your explanation."
He glanced in my direction, sandy hair strands veiling his gaze. "You're scary."
"I thought I was amazing."
"You're amazingly scary when you're mad."
With a chortle, I nudged his shoulder. Or at least tried to: as Bahiriya had estimated, Theo was well over one meter eighty; because of our twenty-centimeter difference, my attempt at jogging looked a lot like resting my head on his shoulder. I cleared my throat and scooted back to my seat. "Except this fateful night at Sir Lucas', when were you with me, in the virtual world?"
"If you're wondering when I had to dive into Darcy, the answer is three other times: when you ran away from the drawing room with Miss Bingley, at the Netherfield ball, and, err, at the Parsonage."
"Yeah, I figured the last one by myself. You mentioned the Bridge and took flight after I k..." My heart faltered and blood drained away from my face. Did I... Did we...
"I shouldn't have stayed. I should've left Darcy's shell when you brought up Schrödinger's cat and I realized you were about to kiss me, err, Darcy. I apologise."
"No harm done," I mumbled, remembering the shameless abandon with which I had assaulted him. What could his impression of me be? What kind of lunatic went around snogging innocent NPCs?
"Other than these four dives, I intervened on the plot to put Wickham on your path in Meryton, and have Collins claim Mary's first sets at the ball."
"Great. Great, great, great." I moaned, thankful for his changing the subject.
A nerve-racking silence stretched in the Belvedere as I fought to regain composure. With the tip of my shoe, I pushed a pebble left and right, focusing on the scratching sound it made on the bricks until I lost it in an interstice.
"I won't bother you any longer." Theo got up, his palms brushing against his jeans. "Gotta be back home anyway. My on-call shift is about to start."
"Okay," I whispered, confounded by his precipitous departure.
"Just promise not to wear the Bridge at night."
"I won't." Geez, he was making a run for it.
"Good." He took his phone out to check the time, then fidgeted with it, his attention absorbed by the scarlet cotton balls hovering kilometers above us.
My brows furrowed. Why hadn't he left yet, if my loathsome presence was such a torment?
With a sigh, he shoved the phone into his pocket. "May I escort you back down the hill and to your bus or metro station? It's getting late, and this park is a wasteland after sunset. You might stumble upon someone ill-intentioned."
I didn't confess that I had imagined him ill-intentioned, and nodded, my eyes trained to the floor.
After twenty-five minutes of excruciating muteness, we reached the entrance of Peel Station.
"I'll leave you here. My apartment is over there," he stated, motioning in the direction of McGill University.
"Thank you for escorting me." Dread flooded me at the idea of having lost his good opinion.
"You're welcome. See ya." And with a stiff bow, he turned on his heel and started on De Maisonneuve Boulevard.
I stared at his green hoodie, befuddled by our abrupt goodbyes, and upon seeing his lanky silhouette stop at a pedestrian red light, shouted, "Theo, wait. When will I see you again?"
At the crosswalk, two men, startled by my loud call, glared at me, but I ignored them and strode to Theo. "When will I see you again?"
He peeked at the couple then put on his hood. "The engine will alert me next time you do something peculiar, I suppose."
I pinched my lips and searched his eyes. "How can I be sure to trigger a dive?"
An angel passed by, their feathery wings grazing my racing heart and Theo's burning cheeks.
"Ahem, as you might know, the first edition of the Bridge was Avengers-related. The QA team, being the geeks that they were, hid a special way to easily alert their fellow DigHandlers. It's from the movie Thor: Ragnarok."
"Oh, is it a Hulk smash? Can I grab an NPC and repeatedly crash them on the ground?" A vision of Wickham being flattened like a pancake crossed my mind.
Theo raised an amused brow. "I wish. But nah, all you have to say is, 'Hey, let's do Get help.'"
"A classic." I grinned, and all remaining self-consciousness melted away when he beamed at my catching the reference.
"Err, Lizzy?"
"Yeah?"
"What's your real name? It's not divulged in your game profile."
A gust of wind tousled his hair, allowing me to glimpse at his dark brown eyes. His stare was intense yet timid, troubled but hopeful. Under my scrutiny, his pale lips twitched, then curled up into his signature lopsided smirk. I smiled back, happy to have followed my intuition and climbed atop Mount Royal today.
"Leah. I'm Leah."