Page 32 of Blow Me Down
“Granted, but you’d still think it was real. You can’t imagine the countless man-hours that went into designing the environment and artistic renderings in this game.”
“It’s very nice, but—”
“We digitized videos of hundreds of actors and actresses,” he said. “We used the same technology movie studios use.”
“The people look very real—”
He stood up and spun the chair he’d been pinned to around so I could see it.
“Every object in me game, every item of furniture, every building is authentic to the period.”
“Yes—”
“Everything right down to the smell of lime in the privies is realistic,” he all but shouted at me.
“Stop yelling at me,” I yelled. “I saw the privies! They’re disgusting!”
He stopped for a moment, glaring at me before speaking. “Aha! You wouldn’t find them disgusting unless they struck a realistic chord with you. I rest my case.”
I rolled my eyes, setting the knife down on the desk. I didn’t really need it, nor had I meant to threaten his noogies with it; I was just upset on finding my sole hope of getting out of the game turn into a pipe dream. “I’m not going to argue about this. Whether or not the game is realistic—”
“It is,” he said.
“—is of no matter. What does concern me is how you’re going to get us out of here.”
Corbin stopped looking annoyed at me and looked thoughtful instead, half sitting on the edge of the desk. I slumped into the chair upon which I’d formerly been held prisoner, and tried very, very hard not to cry. “What I want to know is how it happened in the first place.”
“Who cares how it happened. I just want out!” I wailed. “Wait—there was a storm when I logged on. Could lightning have something to do with it? I think it hit a power line near me. Maybe that zapped us into the game?”
“Lightning? Oh, the storm.” He looked slightly amused. I wanted to kick him.
“I’m afraid you’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies. The lightning couldn’t have done anything to drag us into the game. It was just a coincidence.”
“Then what does it matter how the game trapped us? We’re stuck here. That’s the important thing.”
“If I knewhowthe fail-safes were corrupted, then I could get us back to reality,”
he pointed out.
I sniffled pathetically.
“Aw, Amy, don’t cry.” Corbin dropped to his knees before me, resting his hands on my legs, his pretty gray eyes all clouded with concern. “Big pirates don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying. I already went through that. Crying is a waste of time. Corbin, what are we going to do? What’s going to happen to us? And what is happening to our bodies? Oh, dear God, I’ve been away from home for five days now.
What happens when I have to go to the bathroom?” With each sentence my voice rose higher and higher. I hate being out of control, and the thought of my body sitting in a chair, brainless, alive but not cognizant, soaked in bodily effluences, filled me with a sharp, cutting sense of panic. “What about my daughter, Tara? She’s never been left alone longer than a weekend—oh, my God, she could be in any God-knows-what sort of trouble, not to mention probably panic-stricken over my catatonic body! You’ve got to get me out of here!”
“First of all, calm down,” he said, his hands warm on my legs.
“But I’ve been here for five days—”
“So have I. But it hasn’t really been five days,” he said in a soothing voice, his face filled with compassion. A rogue thought flitted through my mind that any other man would have told me to get a grip, but Corbin was a nice guy, and nice guys don’t like to see people in pain.
“I’ve slept four nights,” I pointed out, ignoring the rogue thought. I could think sweet, romantic things about him later, after I was out of the game.
“You onlythinkyou’ve slept,” he said in that same reassuring voice. I opened my mouth to tell him I knew the difference between sleeping and not sleeping, but he continued before I could get the words out. “The human mind is remarkably easy to trick, which is why virtual reality works so well.”
I forbore to point out that this program wasn’t what I would call “working well.”
