Dream Drive Ch. 02

"Toward the lake." Chaki stepped out from behind the tree. "Thank you, for saving us. Thank you. I owe you a tremendous debt."

"Can you show me how you did that magic trick?"

Chaki frowned. "Tree-talking? I cannot teach you. Shaka is our spirit guide, and she takes only one student. It is forbidden for me to pass the knowledge to others. I'm sorry."

"Well, maybe I can convince her. Payment for lives."

"...maybe," Chaki said. Shaka took her role very seriously. She would not be easily convinced. Chaki was torn between telling him that outright, and not wanting to upset him, so she said nothing more on the matter. "My name is Chaki. Again, I thank you for saving us."

"I'm Jackson Vedalt."

"A long name." Chaki considered something. "How do you know our language? Are you from some distant tribe? Outsiders I have encountered had their own tongue."

"...I didn't realize I was speaking another language. I'm just talking in English."

"I don't know what Enk-lish is, but you are speaking clearly to me."

Jackson frowned sharply for a moment. His eyes narrowed. "Huh. Alright. So, want to lead me to the lake?"

"It's this way." Chaki gestured and moved forward. He had not really answered her question, but she decided not to press it.

As they walked through the wood, she watched him sidelong. She expected him to take a tad more advantage of her somewhat shoddy modesty, but he kept his gaze to himself. She found herself oddly disappointed. Did he not find her attractive?

His eyes were a sharp, calculating green. They were surrounded by dark circles. His hair was a mess, floating above a whitewashed forehead. She felt intensely curious about him. "So, then, you are a stranger to these lands?"

"Yeah. You could say that."

"Spirits!" She snatched his left hand, examining the twisted black scarring. "Does this hurt? I have to heal you immediately!"

Jackson tugged his hand away. "It's an old scar. Just looks bad. It's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," he said. He cleared his throat, and they started walking again. "What about you? Where are you from?"

"Our tribe should still be nearby, I hope," Chaki answered. "It was a good twist of fate. We were sold to a place closer to home than where they took us for the selling." She looked at him. "I am of the People of the Plain-Under-the-Mountain. We travel the flatlands, following the bison. We take from their lives for ours. The boy you saved was my little brother, Palla. I am student to Shaka, my tribe's spirit guide. She leads us in matters of essence, where the elders cannot."

"So, like a medicine woman."

Chaki tilted her head. "She does know much about medicine. But more importantly, she is our living connection to the Mother Earth, our link to the world spiritual. She retains knowledge of our the past, our ancestors, and the sacred runes, which use essence to bend the spirits in the land and living things to her whim."

"Awesome," Jackson said.

"It is worthy of awe," Chaki agreed.

"Wait," Jackson said. "If you can do all that, why didn't you escape from the cage yourselves?"

"...the wood was dead," Chaki said. "It could not listen to our runes."

"Oh." Jackson's face grew pensive. "So, you're Shaka's student, then. The next spirit guide?"

Chaki puffed up her chest a bit. "She selected me for my natural talent with essence. It is to me that she shall pass all her knowledge, and when she returns her spirit to Mother Earth, I shall become Shaka in her place."

Jackson's attention was firmly on her, then. Chaki realized that the way she was moving, her chest out, made the leaves ride up quite high on her body. She felt a sudden nervousness and hunched over the other way.

There was an awkward quiet for a moment.

Jackson broke the silence. "So, is Shaka a title?"

"Title?" Chaki was unsure of that word. "The spirit guide is named Shaka. When the role changes hands, the new guide becomes Shaka."

"Weird."

"It isn't weird," Chaki said. "It just is."

"I mean..." Jackson shook his head. "Never mind. I'm not good with people. Talking, I mean."

"...that is fine. I do not like people who speak frivolously." She smiled brightly at him. "Actions speak far louder than words, Jackson Vedalt. You have already shouted to me what kind of person you are."

"I'm glad you think so," Jackson said. And there was a small smile on his face, too, a half-lift of his lips. Chaki felt a little thrill in her heart. "You..." His lips searched for his words. "You would have really stayed there and fought with me."

"I would have," Chaki said emphatically. "I am as good a fighter as anyone in my tribe. Though, injured as I was..."

Jackson's face changed. It turned into a deep frown. "I was worried when I saw your back. But it looks better, now."

Chaki was torn between gratitude over his concern and panic that her back was completely exposed to his gaze. Her modesty was being torn into tiny shreds. He'd think her some sort of slattern! She angled herself away from him, trying to get as much leaf between his eyes and her body as possible. "Shaka healed it, as she could."

"You better watch we're you're going."

The words had barely left his mouth when Chaki's foot caught a root. She tried to catch herself, swayed, arms out, flapping in circles.

Jackson caught her under her arm. He brought her back straight. "Jeeze. You alright?"

He was close. Too close. His bare skin was pressing against hers. She tried to fight her blush. No use. He was staring right at her. "I'm fine. I'm fine!"

Jackson laughed and stepped away from her. "You're kinda cute when you're flustered." Chaki could say nothing past the lump in her throat. "Hey, are we getting close to the lake yet?"

She took a breath to steady herself. "We're nearly there."

"Chaki, is that you? Chaki!" Palla came crashing through the bushes. His eyes widened. "It's the warrior!"

Jackson's voice had a flat amusement. "It's Palla."

Palla gasped and clasped his hands over his mouth. "How did you know my name?!"

Chaki rolled her eyes. "I told him, you hollow tent pole."

"Oh. Um, thank you, great warrior!" Palla placed his hands together and bowed in a child's mimicry of respect.

Jackson rubbed his neck a moment. He shrugged in a strange acceptance of Palla's thanks. "You're welcome."

"Is Shaka alright?" Chaki asked.

"That's why I ran when I heard you," Palla said. "She's sweating more, and her face is really hot. I think she has a really bad fever!"

"A dead sun," Chaki swore. "I knew it."

Palla covered his mouth again. "You can't say bad words," he hissed through his fingers.

"Be quiet now, Palla." Chaki stalked toward the lake. When she cleared the trees, she saw that it was as bad as Palla had said. Worse. Shaka was on her side, groaning.

"Shaka! What's -" Chaki saw the ankle as Shaka rolled the other way. It was even more swollen than it had been. A pus was oozing from the wound, around which the skin had blackened. Red lines trailed away from the source of the infection. "Shaka!"

"Chaki..."

Chaki fell next to her teacher and grasped her hand. "What is this? Didn't you treat your ankle?!"

"...your whipping...it was infected. I did not have the energy to spare."

"How long did you hide this from me?! You wasted your energy on me!"

"I made...a decision."

"I can heal this. Shaka, I can still heal this!"

"No."

"I can!" Chaki shouted. "We have to cut it off, but - we need a fire. We need to boil water, boil bandages. I will use what you taught me."

"Chaki..." Shaka's hand cupped her face. "Do not cry for me."

Chaki felt the water on her cheeks. She slapped Shaka's hand away. "I am not crying! I know how to heal this."

"...haa..." Shaka groaned, and grit her teeth. "You will return to the tribe, and live happily. Cutting my foot off may save me, but out here, I would only die from the blood loss. You do not have -" Shaka sucked in a breath. "...you do not have enough essence to do everything."

"No. I do."

"You are weakened by our captivity. I will not see you kill yourself with runes that take from you more than you can give."

"I have enough essence!"

"No you do not!" Shaka shouted. Her face tightened. She breathed for a moment. "Take Palla, and go."

Chaki stared at the thin old woman before her. She had never once considered Shaka feeble. All her life, Shaka had been strong. She was Chaki's invincible teacher, wise in the ways of the world, at peace with the spirits of the earth. Even with wrinkled skin and a clouded right eye, she could outshoot Chaki with her bow and arrows.

Shaka couldn't die. She was a pillar of Chaki's world. She was the soul of their tribe. When father had died, she had pieced Chaki's heart back together.

"I," Chaki said, "have had enough of abandoning people!"

"By the spirits, girl," Shaka said. "See reason."

"The only reason I'll see is the one that ends with you on your feet and outrunning me!"

"Warrior," Shaka said. "I see you, there. What is your name?"

"...Jackson Vedalt."

"Thank you, Jackson Vedalt. May I ask of you a favor?"

"Sure."

"Take Chaki and leave. She cannot do what needs to be done."

"It needn't be done!" Chaki shouted.

"Hey," Jackson said. He kneeled next to Chaki and reached into his tattered hide leggings. "It's a long shot, but do you think this would help?"

Chaki's eyes might have burst from her head. Resting in his hands was an essence crystal. She could see the fire, feel the burning power locked inside the black stone. "Mother Earth!" She prostrated herself before Jackson, clasping her hands together. "Please, allow me use of your stone, please!"

She looked up at him from where she was bent down across the ground. She could see the calculating look in his eyes - the same look he had when he asked her to learn runes. He had already given them so much for nothing in return. He felt no need to give them more.

Could she blame him? She had no right to demand yet more salvation. But she needed it. She needed Shaka to live. "Please, warrior. If you have any heart at all, Jackson Vedalt. Grant me the use of the stone!"

"...it will let you cast powerful magic."

Chaki nodded. "...essence, taken solid form. Crystalized. I have no right to ask more from you, but please. She is as a mother to me."

"...I wish I knew how you felt." Jackson held out the crystal. "If it will save her life, take it."

Chaki reverently lifted the stone from his palm. Cupping it in one hand, she began to trace lines across Shaka's ankle. They were crude words, simple, forceful. There was no prodding, here, no conversation, no bartering with this disease. Chaki held a fire strong enough to burn away such considerations.

She clenched the stone, tight. It shattered in her grip. White light glowed from her skin. She channeled it down into the runes. They rose up and raged against the infection. A ring of white light shone down Shaka's leg, leaving it unblemished and normal as it passed.

The magic died. Chaki slumped, spent from the effort. She laid her head on Shaka's breast, and she cried.

Shaka shifted. Normal color had rushed back to her face. She looked at Jackson. "That is four lives we owe you, Jackson Vedalt. And two of them are my own."

Jackson nodded. "Would you teach me runes?"

Shaka rumbled a sigh under her breath. Her wrinkled face settled down low over her eyes. "Hmmm."

She said nothing else.

###

Jackson watched them for a moment, then glanced at Chaki. "Do me a favor?"

Chaki looked up at him with her big brown eyes and freckled nose. "If is within my power, Jackson Vedalt, you may have any favor you wish."

Jackson considered several naughty answers to that invitation, then fell back on his original thought. "Watch over me for a moment."

"What do you mean?"

"Game menu." The transparent screen showing his picture and options appeared in the air in front of him. "Hey, can you see this?"

"See what? What are you talking about?"

So, the game menu was invisible to them. And he automatically spoke and understood their language. Cool. He tapped the logout button. The box warning him about the vulnerability period appeared again. Jackson tapped through it. The screen went black.

He waited in blackness, sensationless. For a moment, he almost thought something was wrong - and then he entered whitespace once again. Isis had made him wait the full 30 seconds before putting him back at the main screen of the Dream. He exited virtual space altogether.

He felt his mattress under his back, the helmet on his head. The thin pistons that held the Drive in place retracted. He slipped the machine off and ran for the bathroom.

He flipped the seat up, fumbled his fly open, and a moment later, he sighed in contentment. When you had to go, you had to go.

He was halfway to zipping himself up when he stopped.

The black scar was on his left hand. The twisted mark sat there, burned into his skin. Jackson touched it, rubbing at it.

He blinked, and it was gone.

Jackson gave his head a shake. He moved to the mirror. Same Jackson. Same messed-up hair. Still himself. Just an afterimage or something - like seeing spots. He took a deep breath.

He smelled something. He frowned. The bathroom was clean, compared to the rest of the house. He'd reluctantly given in there. He could avoid the kitchen and the living room, but the apartment only had one bathroom.

Jackson lifted his shirt. There were splatters of dried, black blood on his skin.

Jackson reached down with his hand. His finger felt at the crusty red patch. He scraped it off with his nail and rubbed it between his fingers. It flaked away.

He lifted his fingers to his nose and sniffed. It reeked of rattok.

That wasn't possible. That was virtual blood created in a virtual space from him killing a virtual enemy. There was no way it was real.

Shit. Oh, shit. He was hallucinating. He was now a proud member of the one-in-ten-million club that was screwed by the Dream Drive. Something in his brain had been poked the wrong way.

He ran his hands through his hair. He gripped the counter. Alright. Keep it together. Think. Think about how to prove yourself sane.

He dashed out of the bathroom. Still in his socks, his feet slid across the hardwood. "Mom, mom!"

She was still strewn over the couch. Her eyes were focused on the television screen. "Don't yap at me, this is the good part."

"Look, I just need you to -"

She raised a hand at him, grabbing for the remote so she could turn the sound up. "Shut up, Jacky!"

Some moron character in the sitcom made a statement of the obvious. The wife of the moron made a face and gave a one-liner response. A laughtrack rolled in the background. His mother coughed a smoker's hacking chuckle.

Jackson lifted his shirt and pointed at the black droplets of blood. "Can you see this? I just need to know if you can see this!"

"Jesus. What? That black stuff? Is it marker?"

Jackson dropped his shirt. He ran back into his room. He slammed the door shut and threw the bolt.

"Holy fuck!" He pinched his leg, hard. Ok, that hurt. Not a dream. Was this real? Was Isis actually real? What the shit?!

Ok. Calm down. Get analytical. How do we test this?

Jackson's eyes scanned his room. He spotted the little camera perched on his computer monitor. He brought up the program and angled it to record his bed. Then, he laid down, pulled on his Drive, and entered Isis once again.

When he woke up, he was lying next to the lake. Chaki was crouched near the water, hands around her knees. She leapt up. "Jackson Vedalt? How did you do that?! What happened?!"

"What did you see?"

"What?"

"What did you see, just now?!"

Chaki shrunk away. "I - you asked me to watch over you. And then, you just collapsed. I...I didn't know what to do. And then, a little later, you vanished entirely. Your body just melted away. And then, you reappeared, just now."

"Holy fucking shit. Holy shit! This is real. This is fucking real!" Jackson bit his lip. Okay, his camera was recording. He'd check it later to confirm, but it seemed as though he was being physically transported into Isis.

The implications spun in his head. He was shirtless again, back in his leggings. The only thing that traveled with him was himself, flesh and blood, and the smears that were directly on his skin. Did this mean he could use what he learned in the real world? Could he take magic back home?

Magic. Magic used runes. Was the pentagram on his data chip a rune? Was the scar on his arm part of that spell? And what did it all mean about Emil Mohammed, about Crux, the game company?

He thought back to what Emil said in his message. He realized it was all hinting at this fact. Emil had said he wanted to create a world better than the old one - and he had. He'd actually done it. He'd somehow combined magic and technology, and now Jackson was some sort of modified existence with a health bar and special abilities.

Had Emil discovered real magic back on earth? He must have kept it a secret for some reason. Why use it for this, for Isis? What was he planning? And if the world was real...were angels real? Was the tower of Babel real? What did that mean?

A hand grabbed his left arm. Jackson pulled away automatically. It was Shaka. She was hale and back on her feet. "What was that for?"

"You are marked," Shaka said. She crooked a finger at his wrist. "Great Mother Earth. I did not notice it before, but there it is."

Jackson turned on her. "If you've got answers, I'd love to hear some, because I don't know all that much about it myself."

"Not here," Shaka said. "Not now. We must return to the tribe."

"What for?"

"I will give you the answers you seek, Jackson Vedalt, as well as I can. And I will teach you a rune or two, perhaps. I will repay the debt I owe you. I ask only for your patience."

Jackson hesitated. He felt like he could sense the betrayal on the horizon. All we have to do is return to the tribe, Jackson. I swear we won't all gang up on you once we're there.

But, he had saved her life. She seemed intent on making up for that. And if there was one thing he needed, it was knowledge. That was worth the risk.

"...alright," Jackson said. "I'll go with you." And later, I'll put in a call with Crux's customer service department.

Chaki glanced between them rapidly as they spoke. "I don't understand. What is going on? Jackson Vedalt, what is the meaning of your scar?"

"...it's complicated," Jackson said. He looked down at himself. He was reminded of the blood still coating his skin. "I'm just going to wash this off. Is your tribe close?"

"Close enough," Shaka said.

"How close is that?"

"No more than ten miles or so."

"...how are we getting there?"

"On foot," Shaka said. "How else? We have no horses."

Jackson didn't think he'd walked ten miles together in his entire life. He sighed, considered his options once again, then shrugged and walked straight into the lake.

He rubbed the blood off his chest, washed away the grime, the scent of the rats. He felt his thoughts settle. Being clean always helped. He sucked in a big breath and floated on his back.

He'd let his panic get a foothold there, for a moment. Right now, his only realistic move was to go along with Shaka. Even if it turned out to be a waste of time, the runes alone made the trip worth it. Magic was a big deal when you didn't have any at all.

Alright. Go with Shaka. Get his info. Learn a rune or two. If it was a trap, and they had to destroy the devil-marked human...well, he'd cross that bridge when he got there.

That was still only a footnote in front of the larger realization that Isis was a real place. This water - it was real. Shaka, Palla, Chaki, they were all real people. The rattok were real.