The Wi-Fi was pretty terrible in Tutuala, at least compared to what we were used to. That didn’t stop us from entering the Dream State to kill time until we were called for, though. I wanted to talk to Siena and clean up the mess I had left her in. I knew an apology wasn’t going to cut it, not with her. So I decided to take Brock’s advice and ask her for a rematch. However, despite my attempt to start an actual conversation by asking her how she was feeling, I only received one reply.
Siena_the_Blade: “New Coliseum, Sunday evening.”
That girl has a one-track mind. I wonder what she’s planning.
Knowing none of us would be able to wake up comfortably at four in the morning, we decided to forego sleep. Instead, we did one of Heaven’s new dungeons.
It was an event similar to the Great Train Robbery, only on an airship. The point of the mission was to defeat all enemies that managed to come aboard. The complication was that our own airship kept on flying through dense clouds, so little of the enemy airship could be seen. Pirate-like in design, the enemies would emerge from the mist swinging all manner of blades and flintlock pistols.
Although a Tertiatier dungeon, David had recently synthed a new weapon, a massive Grav-Hammer. It was super effective against airborne fighters and grounded any of the flying monsters that flew by trying to claw at us. He was the linchpin of our party, each of his swings dictating when and where we were to strike next. I could tell from his satisfied look while the warping animations sucked in each enemy that he had found a new favorite dungeon.
The game ended at midnight, and we stayed up late in the room I shared with Chloe, trading stories of our school years. Chloe and Keri were telling a story of their time at Washington Lake Middle School when there was a knock at the door. The messenger was early. I got up and opened the door to see the young luggage boy, who I recalled was named Ricardo.
“Hurry, ah, por favor. Philippe wait,” he said. He led us out of the guesthouse and across the street toward a small cab.
Along with Ricardo, it was hard for us to all fit in there, but we managed with Chloe on my lap and Keri sitting across David and Brock’s legs. I don’t know who was more embarrassed by the situation, them or her, but by how his eyes shifted around the insides of the taxi, Brock appeared to be the most put out. The cab took us across the small town in the early morning darkness. When it stopped, I paid the driver and we emerged from it like it was a clown car.
Ricardo led us to a small jetty where a lanky man waited next to a small skip.
I didn’t know if it was the excitement of creeping onto an island in the early morning darkness or the residual adrenaline from our airship event, but I could feel my heart racing and a deep anxiety building within me as we approached the boat. Ricardo talked to the man—who I assumed to be Philippe—in Portuguese, and I could see a glowing dot in the darkness whenever he took a drag on his cigarette. The boy then returned to us.
“Two thousand,” he said.
I pulled out a thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills. “A thousand now and a thousand when we get back.”
The boy took the money and passed it to the man. I could see in the glow of his cigarette as he counted it and nodded to the boy before saying something else. Again, the boy returned.
“Philippe say he will wait ‘til dawn. After that, he will leave without you.”
I had discussed with the others that our first trip was just to scope the place out and thought we would be able to do that in the three hours the darkness afforded us. Even so, I need a good look at the place before I decided if we were going to try and infiltrate it.
“Tell him he’ll wait until seven or we have no deal.”
The boy ran back and Philippe looked at us again and breathed out a cloud of smoke in the sigh.
“Seven,” he agreed.
The boy waved us over and we all followed Philippe onto his boat. Even Ricardo had gotten in, and I saw in the moonlight that he had a big grin on his face. He was probably as excited as we were. Philippe started the boat quickly, and I could see why it was chosen. For a small skip, it was very silent. We took off out onto the water. The wind was warm and blew away from the island, which I hoped would make it so any sound wouldn’t reach it.
Brock pulled out some binoculars and I bit my lip, realizing how stupid I was for not bringing a pair of my own.
“We’re heading away from the island,” he said and looked to the boy.
“You said secret.” He pointed his finger down and in a circular motion. “Best way secret is round back.”
Brock nodded and raised his eyebrows at me.
“Alright, listen up everyone.” I pulled out a map of the island I had stolen from the reception rack and pointed to the back. “All we’re going to do for this trip is climb the rear hill, take a quick look to see what’s going on there, then head back to the boat. It hopefully won’t take us the full allotted time, but I need to find out what we’ll need to get in there.”
Chloe continued where I left off. “The place is probably guarded, so if you get caught, pretend you’re just tourist who got lost.”
“What’s the word for tourist in Portuguese?” David asked.
Brock grinned. “Tourist.”
“Okay, I think I can remember that.”
We all smiled and I continued. “Once we know what we’re dealing with, we can tell whether or not we’ll need the equipment Windsor gave us, but before then, don’t go too close. We don’t need people getting suspicious that we’re here for any other reason than to check out the island.”
They all nodded. I still didn’t know how I felt about taking everyone along. Brock and I would have been enough. I was almost tempted to tell Chloe and others to stay in the boat. However, the fact that they had come this far showed how serious they were about continuing. Chloe in particular looked very pensive when I said not to go too close to the base. I could only hope she could hold herself back when we arrived.
She’s not that stupid. When has she ever rushed ahead during a dungeon?
The thought made me inwardly chuckle. Although we hadn’t done anything IRL with real-world consequences, many of our in-game missions had been to do with stealth and evasion. Particularly when I had been playing for my life, it was ironic that the game had, in some ways, prepared us for this mission.
Mist sprayed in our faces as the boat purred over the water. After we got far enough around the island, the boatman turned us around and slowly brought us to shore. There was no visible dock in sight, and I had a feeling our feet were going to get wet. Ricardo was out first, jumping from the boat and onto the rocks sticking out of the water.
I eyed the boy. “You’re coming with us?”
Ricardo nodded. “Aunty say don’t-go-Jaco. But know it like back of hand.”
I nodded, feeling like having a guide with us wouldn’t be such a bad thing. We all climbed out of the boat and onto the rocks. Keri slipped on one and got her shoes drenched before Brock reached down and pulled her out. It was a simple gesture, but like with how uneasy he looked when she was sitting on his lap, it spoke volumes to the rest of us.
I’d call Brock competent at many things, but relationships aren’t one of them.
When we were all ashore, we followed Ricardo up the hill into the trees. The area reminded me of the Primatier dungeon I explored while trapped in Basetier, one of the only places in the Dream State that changed from day and night depending on what side of the hill you were on. Of course, my own comparisons with the night side of Rising Hills was the trees, the darkness, and the fact that we were on a hill.
At least I thought it was similar until no monsters arose.
Halfway up the hill, Ricardo called out, “Stop!”
We all froze, watching as he snapped a long branch off a tree and walked in front of us. Although my eyes hadn’t adjusted fully to the darkness, I could see the excited grin on his face as he pushed the branch into the ground.
A metal mouth jumped up from the brush, its fangs clamping down on the stick and snapping it. David and Chloe both gasped, and Keri jumped back with sudden fright. She cried an “eep!” and the boy raised his finger to his lips with a hiss.
After the surprise had passed, I quickly realized what should have been obvious if it weren’t for my overactive imagination. The thing had been a bear trap, but considering there were no bears on this island, it would be more accurate to call it a human trap.
“This place is booby trapped?” Brock whispered.
Ricardo nodded. “A line, circle. Just need find one and you can slip through.”
To demonstrate this, he stepped over the bear trap and rushed on up the hill. We followed in a single line behind him, and once we were past, I caught up.
“Shouldn’t we reset it so they don’t know we were here?”
The boy shook his head. “Harder to find on way down. Reset when come back.”
I made a mental note to keep the boy in front of me when we decided to return to the boat. Eventually, we made it to the top of the hill. Instead of the hill simply hitting a peak and leading down, it ended at a cliff with a full view of the hills that rose and fell along the rest of the island.
Ricardo slowed and crouched low, lifting his hand, palm face-down, and signaling us to lower ourselves to the ground before we came to the bushes at the top of the cliffs. We all crouched and edged ourselves through the bush and to the edge of the cliff. Lying down next to Ricardo, I looked to where he was pointing, making out a thin path in the shadow that led through the trees. I followed it until my vision landed on a different surface, one that didn’t reflect light, but absorbed it.
I pointed to the area and looked to Ricardo. He nodded and I looked to Chloe who was lying in the bushes beside me.
“I see it,” she whispered, her body rising and falling with her heavy breathing. “So Lucas is down there.”
She stirred, and for a second, I felt like she was going to walk down there and find out for herself.
“We should wait until it gets a little lighter,” Brock said as he lifted his binoculars. “I can’t see much through these without some light.”
I nodded. “Ricardo, would it be possible to get a look from a closer angle?”
“Closer?” He shook his head. “Militares ‘round.”
“Military?” Brock asked. “The company’s hired the military to guard this place, too? What kind of company has that kind of connection?”
“One with government ties,” Chloe cursed.
Is this as far as we can get? I can kind of relate to Chloe’s urge to just rush down there and break in.
In the growing dawn shadows, we noticed movement among the brush. Brock pulled out his binoculars and then passed them to Chloe. Chloe’s lips pulled inward, trying to hold back some intense emotion. She passed the binoculars my way next, and I took a look at the area where there had been movement.
Men in green camouflage and black berets moved onto the path and began circling the facility. I also saw that the place, at least on the surface, resembled the first level of the Mountain Research Center on the Yarburn archipelago. However, where the black had looked clean in the Dream State, here vines had grown up the side and most of the windows had either been broken or boarded up.
One of those will be our opening point if we decide to use the drones.
“Come on, gimme,” Keri whispered, and so I passed the binoculars over for her to have a look.
“They’re armed with automatic weapons,” Brock murmured. “No way I’m risking getting shot down there. We’ll need to find another way to search the place, or at least find some way of the distracting the guards.”
I shook my head. “There are other ways to infiltrate this place. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve seen all we need to see.”
Chloe frowned at me. “What? You want to turn back now?”
“As I said, there are other ways. Windsor gave us all we need to get there. When we head back to the boat, I can show you.”
It was clear by now that I would have to resort to my Plan B.
Keri passed David the binoculars, but I saw that, in the rising sun, the laboratory and soldiers were clearly visible below us. It was still early morning, but if we could see the soldiers, they could see us as well. I didn’t know if they were to track us and find us or shoot anyone on sight. Either way, I wasn’t going to risk my friends’ lives when I knew there was another way.
Ricardo caught my eyes and tapped the lack of a watch on his wrist. “Tempo.”
“Alright, it’s getting too light. We should head back.”
David handed Keri the binoculars and we passed them back down to Brock. We then shimmied back through the bush and crawled through the grass until we were back behind the ridge.
“Ah, I’m all dusty,” Keri complained.
“Pressa!” Ricardo hissed impatiently.
“I know, I know. Come on, guys.” I turned but then noticed Chloe still staring down the hill at the lab. “Chloe?” Her jaw was clenched so I grabbed her by the hand. “Come on, we’ll be back soon to check that place out, I promise.”
She looked away and allowed me to pull her down the hill after the others. We had to jog to keep up with Ricardo. I wasn’t as worried as he was. It wasn’t like Philippe was going to just leave us behind and not take his other thousand dollars from me. When we came to the ring of traps, Ricardo stopped and allowed us through. He then bent down and pulled the bear trap back down and locked it in place. I was impressed that a kid with such scrawny arms could pull off such a feat.
Then we all ran down the hill. On the way down, David tripped but then caught himself on a tree branch. I gave him a withering look and he grinned back.
“Close call,” he said.
“I’m just glad you didn’t scream this time.”
In fact, with all five of us here, I was surprised we had all kept our wits about us and hadn’t signaled everyone of our presence. It had worked out better than I’d hoped. We came in secret, we scoped the place out, and we would leave in secret.
At least, that’s what I’d hoped. However, when we came to the rocky shore where Philippe had dropped us off, all of us halted and Keri cried, “Oh, no!”
My first thought was that Phillipe was hiding his boat and I scanned the darkness for it, but no matter where I looked, the conclusion seemed clear: he was no longer there.