Dream Drive Ch. 02

"How so?"

"You didn't give up," Jackson said. "With the cage."

"Well, I thought that if I could make a difference, than I should."

"...you're pretty awesome, Chaki."

"Heh." She folded her arms and smiled. "I hope I have earned your trust, then, Jackson."

"Definitely."

She took in a breath. A soft hand was placed on his shoulder. She looked him in the eyes. "I'm glad."

Jackson felt a heat rise to his face. "Yeah," he mumbled lamely.

She let her hand rest on his arm a moment, then drew back as they walked forward. "So, is your world very different from the plains?"

"Extremely," Jackson said. "Um, do you know what a building is?"

"A building? Yes. I saw them when we were being sold at a market." She gestured a square. "Big stone structures, so that many people can live together in one spot. I can't imagine it. It must be terribly boring to sit in place like that."

"Take that," Jackson said, "and multiply it by ten thousand."

"Multiply what?"

"Everything," Jackson said. "The number of buildings. Their size. The number of people. Everything. Imagine a massive town of houses that never ends, so many crowded together you can't even see the sky. That's what my home looks like."

"...I'm not sure if I like that idea."

"Me neither." Jackson took a long breath, tasting the fresh plains air on his tongue. "I think this is better. People aren't supposed to be squashed in like that, living like ants. It changes you. Makes you paranoid. It's impossible to get to know them all. There's so many people that everyone's a stranger."

"That's awful."

"Yeah. It is."

"There can't be enough bison for so many people."

"There aren't," Jackson said. "Only the magics we've developed over the years are able to sustain that kind of population density."

"You play an important role, then, being a magician yourself. Supporting all those people."

Jackson stared at his feet as he walked. He could just let that impression stick. He didn't have to correct her. Yes - back home, he was a great magician, helping to keep society turning, a man of strange and powerful magics.

"...no," he said.

"No? I don't understand."

"I'll be honest with you, Chaki," he said. "Comparatively speaking, I was smaller than a speck of dust sitting on a single blade of grass in this prairie."

"Oh."

"I'm good with our type of magic," he said, "and I live comfortably enough. But that doesn't matter. There's so many people, so much happening, that unless you are at the very, very top, you just fade out into the background. If I died, no one would care. My own mother wouldn't care."

"Jackson, forgive my judgement," Chaki said, "but your world does not sound very pleasant."

"It wasn't," Jackson said. "It isn't."

"Maybe our meeting was fated."

"Fated?" Jackson asked.

Chaki nodded. She watched the horizon. "Perhaps you were meant to come here all along."

"It's a nice thought, I guess."

She smiled at him. "Well, if it was fated, or if it was simply a happy accident, I'm glad you came when you did. And I am glad to call you Jack."

"...Jack, huh?"

"I thought I would shorten it again," she said, "so that we would be even closer. If that's acceptable."

Jackson smiled. He wasn't an expressive person. His smile was just the slightest turn of his lips, the crease of his skin at his eyes. But it was a big smile, for him. "It's very acceptable, Chaki."

"Good, because I had no intent of calling you otherwise."

"Sounds like more proud-talk if you ask me."

"Ugh," Chaki said. "Do not quote Shaka at me."

"Or what?"

Chaki slapped his arm again. "Or I shall stiffly reprimand you, Jack."

"Oh, gee, that stings. Whatever shall I do, now that Chaki has reprimanded me?"

Chaki's foot swept out and hooked under his. He sprawled down onto the grass. His spear rolled away.

Chaki put her hands on her hips and laughed. "Oh, how the great warrior has fallen."

Jackson sat up and grunted. He rubbed a hand on his ankle. "...Chaki, that really hurt. I think I twisted it."

Chaki's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, Jackson. That wasn't my intention. Is it bad?"

Jackson reached up with a hand. "Maybe I can walk it off. Help me up?"

Chaki nodded and reached down. Jackson grabbed her wrist and pulled her down on top of him. She shrieked and started batting at his chest. "Liar, you liar, Jack!"

"Revenge time."

She had a lot of bare skin. He started tickling her, brushing up along her abdomen. She started kicking, half-laughing. "Stop! Stop it!"

"Make me." Jackson reached up under her arms and scratched. She went wild, squirming and laughing and slapping back at him. His health bar actually took the tiniest hint of damage when she scraped him.

He had a clear advantage, but after he'd had his fill he let her grab his wrists. She sat up on top of him, pinning his arms to either side, leaning over his chest. "Looks like I win. I've defeated the brave warrior."

"I surrender," Jackson said. He was getting an amazing view of the underside of her breasts. The small orbs stood out proudly under the leaves. The long, naked legs hooked around his abdomen weren't bad, either. "So, what are you going to do with me?"

Chaki grinned evilly, raising her hands, but when Jackson didn't react, she stopped frowning. "What?"

"Heh. Nothing."

She followed his eyes. He saw her face change as it hit her. She jumped off of him as if stung. "I - forgive me, I was lost in the moment!"

Jackson climbed back to his feet. "Did you hear me complaining?"

"But...my modesty..." Chaki narrowed her eyes. "Were you toying with me?"

"...maybe?"

"Jack!"

"I like the idea of a beautiful woman climbing over me. So sue me."

Chaki's face turned through several shades of white and red, as if she couldn't decide whether to be amused, frustrated, or embarrassed. "...sue you? What does that mean?"

There was a long, wailing groan that rumbled from under the ground. Jackson felt like it sounded like a combination of a whale's cry and a rockslide.

"You two!" Shaka called. "Get away from there, now!"

"Hoo-maaans..." A voice like crunched gravel rolled over Jackson. "Hoo-mans walking on me! Get off! Get off!"

Jackson and Chaki took off running. They jogged up and stopped near Shaka and Palla. When he saw the looks on their faces, he turned and glanced back.

A massive arm was lifting itself out of the ground. Clumps of dirt and grass rained back to earth as a two-story tall man climbed out of a hole it had been laying in. Only, it wasn't a man - it was made of solid rock. A moving statue.

"I leave you alone for a few moments," Shaka said, "and you wake a golem. Spirits save us."

"Hoo-mans woke me up!" the golem rumbled. "Played on my stomach, ruined my naaap!"

"...shouldn't we say something?" Jackson whispered. "He doesn't seem too violent. Yet."

"Say what, exactly?" Chaki hissed. "I don't speak rock!"

"Weren't you listening? He just said he was annoyed with humans playing on him while he was napping."

"The gift of tongues," Shaka said. "Jackson, speak on our behalf. If I were you, I'd start by begging for forgiveness."

Suddenly, it hit him. He could understand and speak to his new friends, though they didn't know English. He'd never even thought about that - it just happened. And now, he could understand this golem. It must sound like a bunch of chewed up rocks to them.

Jackson stepped forward. "I'm sorry, uh, great golem! We didn't realize you were there!"

"Aaaaahhhh?" The golem crouched down and peered at Jackson. "A hoo-man knows how to speak to the earth? But no matter. He walked upon me like a common paved road!"

"I'm sorry," Jackson repeated. "We didn't see you!"

"Didn't see me?!" The golem stood back to its full height. "Do you think me a fool?!"

"Jackson, you're just making it angry!" Chaki shouted.

Jackson ignored her. "You were covered in grass!" he said. "Look at yourself!" The golem paused and looked down. True to Jackson's word, most of its front was still layered over in prairie grass. It looked back where it had laid, a deep, man-shaped impression in the ground. "I never would have stepped on you if I could see you," Jackson continued, "but you blended right into the plains. You have our deepest apologies. We did not mean to disturb you."

"Hmmm..." The golem rumbled. "I see. I napped for too long, and hoo-mans walk here, now. I will move, then. Hoo-mans are much too noisy."

The golem turned. Its feet thumped away over the plains, mashing muddy holes in the grass as it went. Jackson sighed.

"That was amazing!" Palla said. "Jackson Vedalt, you are amazing!"

"Truly," Shaka said. "Come. We should keep moving."

Jackson caught back up with Shaka. For an old woman, she sure could move. "...you know about me. More than I do myself."

"Like I said, Jackson Vedalt," Shaka repeated. "We will speak further when we reach the camp."

"I've got one burning question."

"One, then," Shaka said.

"If I can understand you, and the golem," Jackson said, "why couldn't I understand the rattok?"

Shaka glanced at him, then back to the prairie. "Many things in this world do not wish to be understood, Jackson Vedalt. Be careful what you try to speak with."

###

Then they walked. And walked. And walked.

The sun began to rise in the east. The moon was still in the sky, but it faded as the air turned pink, then blue. Jackson found himself absorbed by it all. He'd never seen it quite like that - a fat, yellow-orange orb coming straight up over the horizon. He needed to get out more.

He turned from the sun. To the north, in the direction they were headed, was a small black spike. He pointed at it. "What's that?"

"The mountain," Shaka said.

"Right. The plains under the mountain." Jackson shrugged. "Huh. I just thought it would be bigger."

"It is big." Shaka chuckled an old woman's laugh. "We are just very far away. Perhaps a hundred and fifty miles. If the day were not so clear, we might not see it at all."

Jackson held idle conversation with Chaki and Palla. He learned a bit more about the tribe itself, how they lived, how they worked. He told them stories about home. It was interesting explaining it to someone who had no concept of it at all.

Chaki found public school to be a particularly fascinating idea. He told her about how good performance in classes was an important bar to judge matriculation into yet higher institutions of learning, and then performance in those places supposedly set you up for a productive role in society. In the end, though, a lot of it came down to who you knew, rather than what you knew. When he told her he hated the process altogether, she said she wouldn't like to be harvested for her intelligence, either.

It was an interesting way of looking at it. Children were grown and raised like crops, en masse, at the lowest cost possible.

Just when Jackson was starting to feel truly thirsty, they stumbled across a section of prairie pockmarked by shallow puddles. Apparently, these pools were called 'wallows' - spots where the bison had rolled on the ground, creating low spaces deep enough to collect rain. Jackson was worried about drinking water that had been sitting in the open like that, but a quick rune from Shaka solved the problem.

Two hours later, they'd reached the bank of a wide creek that ran through the plains. It was was difficult to see from a distance - a tiny, shallow canyon running through the grass. They started along the water's edge. He wondered how Shaka kept her bearings. Was it magic? Or did she just know the land that well?

Their idle conversation eventually turned to silence. They plodded along, all anxious to get where they were going. Jackson felt exposed, out here, in the silence. The heat of the day steadily increased as the sun grew higher, and their shadows turned to dots beneath their feet. And then they began to bend back the other way.

If he'd worn a shirt, he'd have taken it off. Walking was an easy task, but the endlessly repetitive motion was grinding an ache into his joints, extra Vitality or not. He started leaning on his spear as he trudged along.

"Doing ok, Jack?" Chaki asked.

Jackson made a grunt. "Lot of walking."

"That wasn't so far."

"Not used to it."

Chaki grinned. "Yes. And too used to your easy life. Would you like some help?"

"That eager to get your hands on me?"

"Perhaps I shall watch you suffer a bit longer."

Jackson grunted again. "Some way to treat your savior."

Chaki playfully turned up her nose. "More like a single-minded boy who is not thinking about proper things. Don't think I miss your wandering eyes."

"You didn't tell me to stop them from wandering, though."

"That is true," she said neutrally.

Jackson looked at her then, and let his eyes wander. She cocked an eyebrow at him, then faced the way they were walking. She stayed quiet.

He enjoyed flirting. It made him feel...masculine. Powerful. She was a wild animal, and their dance of words was a way to rear her in, bring her to his side, tame her. It was a little rollercoaster of emotion. There was the thrill of gaining ground, the victory of winning another smile from her face. But then, the slight chill when he thought he might have pressed too far, the half-panic when she seemed offended. And most of all, the heady sensation that he wasn't entirely in control, that the reigns were slipping in and out of his grasp, that he was a horse that she was trying to tame, a twisting duel of hormones and double-entendres.

In real life, he'd never have gotten this far. He wouldn't have tried. He wouldn't have bothered. He'd be too nervous to start, to fixated on everything that could go wrong.

What was it that had changed?

It was Isis.

Yes, it was real. Or, he was pretty sure it was real. But his mind still thought of it like a game. His heart felt that it was a game. And in many ways, it was. He could get stabbed in the gut and keep on living. He could strengthen his body with the souls of fallen enemies. He could talk to golems.

Jackson was a loner. He was an introvert, but he wished he was better with people. Everyone else always seemed to know the right thing to say, as if life was a movie and they were speaking from the script. He was the B-list actor who hadn't bothered to memorize his lines.

But games were different. Jackson loved games because they were safe. They were closed systems. He could pick them apart, study them, analyze them until he knew every nuance and crook and cranny, until he could set record times and high scores with one arm tied behind his back. With time, any game could be dominated utterly.

Life was different. It was open, unpredictable. He didn't handle it - couldn't handle it. Trying to understand it was like trying to hold a wet bar of soap. And when you bent over to pick it up, life screwed you in the ass.

In games, time didn't matter. Games could be paused, saved, reloaded, attempted again and again. Ironically, knowing he had all the time in the world let him make decisions faster, easier, and with greater success. In real life, with the clock of reality hanging over him, he was paralyzed by the potential consequences of his actions.

Isis made him feel different. Maybe it was the abilities, the game menu. Maybe it was the fact that he'd just brutally murdered a cave of rat people. Maybe it was the sheer unreality of it all, the fear that he might wake up and it would all be a dream, that it might not matter, that it had never happened in the first place.

It all came down to one single conclusion. It was the one he usually felt his way toward. Somewhere, in his heart of hearts, Jackson thought of Isis as a game, and in a game, he didn't have to give a fuck.

That made him invincible.

The most powerful force in the world was apathy. When he didn't care about the consequences, nothing could stop him. He didn't have to hold back, because if he failed, well - what did it matter?

"What are you thinking about?" Chaki asked him.

Jackson raised his head. He'd been staring at the grass as he hiked along the edge of the creek, lost in thought. He looked at her.

She seemed part of the landscape, a child of a prairie. Her skin, her eyes, her hair, all shades of brown set against the green grass. Clouds like gold ingots streaked the sky behind her, cast in place by the late afternoon sun.

"I find you attractive, Chaki," Jackson said. "I just don't want you to think I'm shallow. I know we haven't really known each other that long."

"You are a very honest person, Jack, not shallow. I am glad for that. I do not mind at all that you find me attractive. I find you attractive as well."

She gave as well as she got, he'd give her that. Jackson cleared his throat, but no more words came to mind. He wasn't sure where to take the conversation.

"When I asked you for the essence crystal," Chaki said, "you told me that you wished you knew how I felt. What did you mean?"

Jackson frowned over the change of subject for a moment. The memory came back to him. He nodded. "You told me that Shaka was like a mother to you. I don't really know the feeling, to be honest."

"Has your mother moved on?"

"No, she's alive. We don't have a good relationship."

"I see. What of your father?"

"He's dead."

"...mine too," Chaki said.

"Palla was telling me about him."

"He died just three years past," Chaki said. "It was hard, at first, but we have embraced his spirit in our hearts."

"Good."

"What happened between you and your mother?" Chaki paused. "I'm sorry. Perhaps that was too forward."

"It's fine. I'm just glad you didn't say 'I'm sorry'."

"Heh," Chaki said. "We have that in common. I hate the false pity directed toward the grieving. But don't blame them too quickly. What else is there to say?"

"Not much," Jackson admitted, "but I'd rather they say nothing at all then spout a few words about how sorry they are that some guy died seven years ago."

"You didn't like your father, either?"

"I loved my father very much. We both did."

"Then...your mother?"

"She changed after he died. Slowly. She buried it in drugs. Alcohol. She started smoking again. She stopped caring about me, so I stopped caring about her."

"...my mother had Shaka to help her back up. As did I." Chaki's eyes were distant. "Perhaps if Shaka was not there, I might have had a more similar tale to tell."

"Maybe."

"I won't bother you about it again. Thank you for sharing that."

"...it's not bad to talk about it," Jackson said. "We're more similar than I realized."

"I think so too. I'm glad, if this makes us closer."

"Why's that?" Jackson asked. "Planning on mothering my children?"

"You had to ruin a nice moment."

"I didn't hear a no."

Chaki's face held a devil's smirk. "Maybe I am still deciding."

"Let me just cut you off short, then," he said. "I'm not really crazy about children."

"Then I shall bear at least four of your children, if only to spite you."

Jackson choked on his own spit.

Palla's shout caught them. "Smoke!" He was several yards ahead, waving back at them. "I can see smoke!"

###

And then Chaki was running. She ran, and then ran faster, until her feet beat the grass and the wind whipped her hair behind her head. She left Jack and Shaka and Palla behind. The tipis rushed into view.

A darkness hovering over heart finally lifted. Jackson had pried it free, but now it floated away. She was home. She was free. She and her brother were free.

The men and women of the tribe shouted and pointed as she ran by. She heard others call out to Shaka. She ran through the nest of tents. It was a mess of campfires, men and women carrying water, cleaning new and old hides, sharpening tools, or just talking to one another. Chaotic to any outsider, but perfectly organized in her head.