Chapter 42

A Dwarf’s Warning

 

 

The microwave beeped letting Shea know the package, dubiously labeled “Healthy Meal,” that she’d chiseled from her freezer’s permafrost was ready. No telling how long it had been trapped in the ice. She’d intentionally avoided looking at the expiration date. She burned her fingers pouring the molten mix of vegetables and pasta into a bowl. The colors looked a little washed out, but it smelled okay.

Trinity followed her to her desk, sniffed the steaming bowl, and darted into the bay. Not a good sign, Shea thought as she tried a tentative forkful. It tasted like chicken. She wolfed it down, without regard to whether or not it actually was chicken. She’d spent the evening sweating away calories in her cybersuit as she ran what were known as the loops, a series of interconnected trails and roads that circled the most visited gates, and now hunger overruled caution.

She had gone into the Land to hunt, or more accurately bait, the Gray Warrior, but Falin’s mirror never vibrated. The monster was a no-show, and the only action she’d seen was from the occasional roaming band of simulated characters whose programming didn’t know better than to attack the game’s last legend-level ranger. She hadn’t realized until tonight’s solo trek how much she had enjoyed trekking with Falin. As disastrous as those journeys had almost been, it had been nice to have someone to share the adventures with. Maybe tomorrow she’d invite the cute new trainee to join her, assuming he could get the rig time.

As she ate, she brought up her email and selected Darshana’s inbox. She scanned the requests for guide gigs. Shea could use the money. Her job at InVerse covered her rent, the bike, food, as long as it came in a frozen box, and little else. Without the guide income, Versing would drain her bank account in no time, and she’d join the panhandlers around the EV charging stations before she’d ask her parents for money. She sighed as she turned each request down. Taking a guide job while the Gray Warrior was still in the Land was out of the question. Her reputation wouldn’t sustain another abandoned or annihilated party.

She moved on to her personal mail. Her mother’s weekly request for a med school admissions status had shown up on schedule. She skimmed it to make sure it contained no mention of any looming family crisis or tragedy. Her grandparents in India had both been sick recently, and there was some talk of Shea joining her parents on a trip to Mumbai to check on them. Though she enjoyed those trips, the food, the culture, and most of all, seeing her extended family, she didn’t relish the air travel, even if it would be first class. Tony’s head would explode if he learned what her parents shelled out for those tickets.

She skipped over a message from the former classmate who seemed to be in league with her mother on the med school campaign and scrolled down to one from Falin. When she read the subject line, her heart ached as though someone had reached into her chest and squeezed it. Final goodbye and urgent warning.

She clicked on the heading and read.

Dear Shea, this will be my last message. Don’t be sad. I am ready to go. I do regret we never met in the real. I know if we had, you would have fallen madly in love with me. How could you not? I’m pretty hot for a dwarf. She rubbed her eyes and laughed, then read on. Now, you need to take the rest of this seriously. The hacker behind the Gray Warrior is murdering people in the real. You are in danger. Below are links to two news stories about the murders. You knew the victims as Danaka and Pharoah. She gasped. Don’t hunt him, Shea.

Be safe and farewell, Falin the Dwarf, also known as Mad Hat, Bobby Penn, a dozen other aliases, but always, Mùyáng “Mikey” Jackson (from South Boston.)

She smiled through the tears. Not being familiar with the Chinese name, she didn’t know if Mùyáng fit Falin’s personality, but she could picture him as a Mikey.

The sadness of the message had temporarily overshadowed the shock of Danaka and Pharaoh’s deaths and the surreal nature of Falin’s warning. But now, the horror and fear were cutting through the grief. Danaka and Pharaoh were murdered, and she was in danger. The first news article was from a Nashville TV station and described the grisly beheading of a young woman named Jyothi Reddi. Shea assumed Jyothi had been the ranger she’d known as Danaka. The second link led to a similar article published by a Las Vegas station detailing the beheading of a fifty-six-year-old man named Charles Tate who she assumed was Pharaoh. Both articles said the killer had used a sword. The Vegas station’s article had led her to other stories. One claimed the killer had taken body parts but did not elaborate.

Shea shivered as her mind drifted back to her first encounter with the Gray Warrior. She’d watched him cut Darian’s head off with a sword and take Ava’s ears. Since then, she’d seen several of his kills. Always the same. Heads and ears removed. Body parts. The Vegas articles creeped her out. She was about to see if she could find any mention of missing ears on the internet when the hairs on her neck stood up like she was caught in some electrical field. The source of the sensation wasn’t electricity, though, it was the feeling she was being watched. She spun around in her chair to find Trinity’s yellow eyes staring down at her from the ventilation duct high up near the ceiling. The cat’s tail swished back and forth. She looked like a panther in a tree preparing to pounce.

“Damn. You gave me the heebie-jeebies, Trin,” Shea said as she walked under the cat’s perch. “How did you get way up there?”

Trinity meowed then padded along the duct into the darkness, her paws making a soft tin, tin sound as she went. Shea was about to return to the desk when another sound caught her attention. Tap, tap, tap. Something was tapping on the small, four-paned window in the people door next to the bay. It had to be close to midnight. Who could be tapping at her door? She retrieved her phone in case she had to call 9-1-1 and made her way toward the sound.

Tap, tap, tap. “Who the fuck is there?” she whispered as she approached the door. Just as she reached the window, a large insect slammed against the glass. Tap. Then another one. Tap. She let out a long sigh that turned into a nervous giggle. Then she noticed she’d failed to lock the deadbolt. She locked it and looked at the outline of her rig illuminated only by its power and status LEDs. The thought of Danaka and Pharaoh’s murders made her consider how vulnerable she was living alone on this empty stretch of road halfway between Atlanta and the Alabama line. She would never hear anyone come through the door while she was in the rig. She checked the lock again and looked out the window. Nothing but suicidal insects, tap, tap, and a dark road.