Excerpt: PHX (aka Phantasai'i Hero X)

Antonia Hill had her hands in bowls of cold water, her nightly routine. Years of gaming had given her two arthritic thumbs and carpal tunnel; surgery had not alleviated her pain so she had to resort to more old-fashioned methods. The television was on low, another nightly routine. It was on just to provide noise. A quiet house made her nervous.

As a child she had learned that so long as she could hear them arguing, her parents couldn’t hurt her. They never hurt her in tandem, only each alone, when the other was away--because the other was away. And if she looked, if she went to find them when they were at it, they would both look at her, and one or the other would walk away--and the other would come to get her, for interrupting them, for offering herself up as replacement punching bag. Antonia, then Antoinette, came to love the game because it gave her something else to see, something else to listen to, a way to not turn around and look, and a way to fight things.

Nothing made her happier than beating the crap out of monsters, racking up a kill chain, because the more you defeated, the more neat stuff you could get. The more things you kill, the better for you.

However... the monsters, the phantoms, were coming to get you. You didn't seek them; they found you. You had to fight, or die. But some part of you becomes conditioned to want them to find you, you walk through forests and caves and deserts and you wait for them to come to you and you fight them. You don't run; you don't try to avoid them. Because when you do that, you don't improve. Being safe makes you weak, keeps you inexperienced. Because you know, you know, that there are worse monsters out there. And you have to be ready for them. The boss monsters, you don't get much out of beating them, other than the satisfaction of defeating them, and the knowledge that you deprived them of the chance to kill you.

All you get for defeating them is stronger... and you get to stay alive.

That was what she thought, when she heard the gunshots... she was in the game, deep, exploring the chaos caves--the mother lode of mini games and side quests. The best place to lose yourself, and come out a winner. Solving the chaos caves was much more fun than wandering around waiting for things to kill you. But there are no save points in the caves, so if you shut off the game while you're in it, you lose all the progress you've made. So when little Antoinette Miller heard the gunshots, her first momentary reaction was not to drop the controller and hide, it was to race to the exit of the cave; once on the worldmap she could save the game. She was almost at the exit when she heard someone behind her. She saw, in the reflection of the TV screen, her mother's silhouette. The monster was right behind her. She turned around, knowing that that was the last thing she should be doing.

She turned her twelve-year-old head, and saw her mother put a gun to her own head. She heard her mother speak, and saw her lips move, but didn't connect the two until years later.

Her mother's last words were, "I'd shoot you too, but I've only got one more... and I ain't going to prison for either of you."

Her mother pulled the trigger. Her mother fell one way; the contents of her head went the opposite way. After the horrific boom came silence.

Antoinette Miller stared at the lump on the floor. Then she turned back to the screen, and the on screen character emerged from the chaos caves into the red dawn. Antoinette saved her game. Then she stepped over her mother's body and went to go find a knife.

************excerpt 2************

Grace folded her paper to the crossword puzzle page just as she heard the squeal of bus brakes; she glanced up and it hit her in the face: a huge panel ad along the side of the bus, a bright red sunset on a horizon, and the words, "Comes a hero, among his octave... PHX 5. The Adventure Begins August 8."

Grace sneered at the bus and took her pen out. Doing the crossword in pen was her way of daring herself not to mess it up. "I'll be so glad when that thing premiers," she mumbled. "Three more weeks of this..."

A shadow fell across her page just as she started to put in one across, and she glanced up with her eyes, moving nothing else. She didn't recognize him at first. Then when she did, she went back to the crossword. "Officer Duquesne, was it?"

"Only in uniform," he replied. "Right now I'm just Phil."

"Uh huh." She tapped the blunt end of her pen against her chin. The shadow didn't move. "Something I can help you with?"

"Just wondering if I might join you."

Grace looked at him with wide eyes. She opened her mouth as if to say what was on her mind, namely "can't you see I'm trying to do a freaking puzzle?" but instead decided that he might actually have something worth hearing to say. "Yeah, sit down."

He was dressed in a polo shirt and trousers, like he'd just come out of the clubhouse. He looked even shorter than he had when he had come to her house before. His partner was nowhere to be found. "So," he began. "Doing the crossword, huh?"

Grace forced herself to smile. "Was there something I can help you with?"

"You asked that already."

"Really? Did I get an answer?"

"Um... no." He clasped his hands on the table. "I mean, I'm not here in any professional capacity or anything."

"Okay." She waited. He seemed paralyzed. "So, why are you here?"

"I just... I was wondering... if I could buy you a cup of coffee?"

She glanced down at her still full cup and said, "You mean, this one, or the next one?"

"Either one."

Grace frowned. Then she clicked the button on the pen, and stuck it back behind her ear. It took her a few moments to put the words together she wanted to use. "You want to buy me a cup of coffee."

"Or a danish," he offered.

"Might I ask why?"

He sat back. "What do you mean why?"

"Well, let's see... oh yeah." She wiggled the fingers of her left hand. "I'm, how shall I put this? Married? Yeah, I think that's the word."

Phil Duquesne pursed his lips together, forcing an uncomfortable smile. "Separated," he corrected her. "Look, it just seems..."

"Stop," said Grace, putting her hand up like a crossing guard. "Let's not go there."

"I don't..."

"Sure you do. This is the part where you tell me I'm not getting any younger and my husband's out of the picture and I should be grateful for any attention at all, being as I'm, what's the word? Oh yes. Fat." She folded her paper up into thirds and tucked it under her arm, along with her purse. She stood up, and he stood up right along with her. "And before you say it does't matter, believe me, it does. Because you're sure not attracted to my sparkling personality. You're a chubby chaser. You think I don't run into you guys twice a month? You think I'm so dense I can't spot you a mile away? Do you think," she added, her voice rising so that by now everyone in the restaurant was overhearing whether they wanted to or not, "that I'm so lonely and desperate that I wouldn't dare make a scene and turn you down in a crowded restaurant with a boatload of witnesses? Because I have news for you. I'm not. And oh, by the way, in case it hadn't sunk in the first time, I'm married." A twenty dollar bill materialized in her fingers and she slipped it to the waiter trying to pass by surreptitiously behind her and she added, "Thanks, Mike. Keep the change." And as she made her way through the crowd, which parted for her like she was Charlton Heston, she looked over her shoulder and added, "And I can buy my own coffee!"

Grace didn't remember much of the drive home. The coffee shop, the corner, the crossword puzzle by herself, that was her treat for the week. That was her "me time" moment, that she looked forward to like clockwork. And that, that guy... what the hell did he want?

Well, yeah, but besides that?

The thing that pissed her off the most was that that had been her last twenty until payday and she really really could have used a free cup of coffee. What the heck had gotten into her? What had really gotten her buttons pushed?

The banner, she told herself. The bus ad. The game.

By the time she got home she was calmer, and her heart wasn't punching through her ribcage Aliens-style. But she wasn't calm enough. She decided to take a nice hot bath and soak till the icky feeling went away.

Maybe he wasn't a bad guy. But still... there was something creepy-stalkery about the way he'd come up to her. Maybe it was her imagination. But better safe than sorry.

************excerpt 3************

"So," said Kestwyn, peering at the screen and copying it to the lenses on his glasses, "there are people in this world who write stories? About us?"

"Fanfic," said Cyan. "Yeah. Most of it's pretty awful."

"Most things usually are. Interesting. Now, What is a Kestszev?"

She shook her head rapidly. "Don't ask."

"No, really, I am asking." He straightened up. "I'm a scholar. I'm supposed to ask questions."

Cyan made a moue and put her hands on the keyboard. "If you insist, but remember, you asked for it."

Half an hour later Szev found Kestwyn bundled up in a corner, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself. The mage sighed deeply, overdramatic even for him. "What is it now?"

"You would not believe what I just went through," Kestwyn blurted. "There's KestSzev. Georjwyn. KeSzeDj-- you really don't want to know about that one..." He reached up and grabbed Szev's sleeve. "There are these people, and they spend all their time writing stories, imaginary stories, about us, but not about our adventures, not about our battles... it's about imagining us in compromising positions!"

"I see," said Szev. He flared his cloak and sat down beside Kestwyn. "Nothing these people do surprises me, frankly."

"And then there's the artwork!" Kestwyn gestured ambiguously, as if trying to model something in glue. "I just don't... Stars below, Szev, it's hideous! Even when it's well executed it's abominable!"

"They think we're characters in a story," the mage reminded him. "They feel free to embellish on it."

"You wouldn't say that if you saw what this one person wrote. So help me, Szev, when this is all over, when we've conquered the red mist and secured the safety of Phantasai'i, I'm going to come back here and find the kingdom of Minnesota and punch the daylights out of the person who wrote, and badly, that I prefer the company of small boys!"

Szev started to laugh.

"And that you gratify yourself by joining with a herd of octopox!" Kestwyn cried.

Szev stopped laughing. "Has this... person... a name?"

"Only a pseudonym. He, or she, goes by the name 'AlmostDK.' And Cyan, the poor dear, found this trove of the person's writings. Not only is it mind-dissolvingly awful, but anyone making the slightest criticism of the work is immediately flamed!"

"Flamed?" The mage arched his eyebrow.

"Insulted. Accused of being cruel. Denigrated. Take your pick."

A ball of fire erupted in Szev's hand. He contemplated it a moment. Then he said, very slowly, "When you find this person, let me know. I'd be happy to demonstrate what a real flame looks like..." He looked up; Geordj's shadow had crossed him. "Well?"

"They're back," said the soldier. "It looks like we're safe for now. The phantoms lost our track."

"For the moment," said Kestwyn, getting to his feet and reactivating the orbiting information windows. "They keep picking it up again. I think I'll just monitor the situation. Oh, and Geordj..." He drew the soldier close and whispered, "if Cyan asks you if you want to look at something, say no. Just... trust me on that one."

************excerpt 4************

Grace didn't notice that she had attracted spectators until long after they had arrived, and even when she did notice them, it took her awhile to recognize them. Or rather, one of them. She stopped digging and leaned against the shovel a moment. "Come to steal some dirt, there, lightfingers?"

The boy, whose name she remembered was Ted, turned bright red. The girl next to him stepped forward, taking charge, glaring at him not to answer. Grace found that an interesting dynamic. "Mrs. Houseman?"

"Yes?" she drew out the single syllable for about six times the normal length needed to pronounce it.

"Can we talk to you?"

"Aren't you?"

"Hey, come on," said Ted. "Can you stop being a jerk for five minutes?"

Grace straightened up, glaring at them. The girl seemed more worried than the boy at her reaction. Then she hefted the shovel over her shoulder. "Yeah, I think I can manage that. Can you stop being a punk for five minutes?"

The boy shrugged a little. "I'll take that as a yes," said Grace. She resumed her shoveling. "What did you want to talk about?"

"About the game." The girl shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Grace noted that the girl's ankles were about the same diameter as the shovel's handle. "If that's okay."

"The game," Grace repeated. She threw another spadeful of dirt by the wayside. "I see."

"Ted told me who you are," she continued. "Oh, sorry. I'm Cyan. This is my brother."

"Go on."

"Well, you see..." She flailed her arms a little, as if trying to catch the words she needed to use.

"Let me guess," said Grace, trying to suppress a smile. "You want to meet my nephew, right?"

"Huh?" She gasped. "Oh! Well, um, sure. Yeah that would be great, thanks!"

"That's not what we're here for," Ted stage whispered to her. "It's about what happened last week."

"Don't worry about it," Grace muttered. "The police told me the charges were dropped. It didn't even get noted on your record... assuming you have one."

"It's not that, its..." The words stopped cold. Grace waited for him to explain, but the silence continued.

"Oh for heaven's sake, kid, spit it ou--" She raised up, and saw what he was looking at, he and his sister, rooted to the spot.

It was looking at him. It looked like a dog, like some kind of mangy black stray, like a kind of cross between a doberman and a spaniel, but the glowing red eyes and the smoke that curled up from its disproportionally large paws were those telltale not-a-dog signs. "Crap," said Grace.

The dog-thing lunged; Grace brought the shovel back and whacked it full in the face like taking a fastball pitch; the creature reacted more from the physical sensation of contact with an iron blade than it did by the actual pain involved. It fell aside and stumbled, but it righted itself at once and snarled at her. It wasn't even bleeding.

"Phantom!" Ted cried.

"The hell it is," said Grace. "It's just a dog." She whacked again, in a blow that would have taken the mandible off of an actual dog. It barely reacted; the shock of the recoil travelled back along Grace's arms and she lost grip on the handle from it. The shovel fell at her feet as she scrambled to maintain control of it. The dog thing took the opportunity to lunge again, straight for her throat. The girl, Cyan, screamed.

Grace caught the thing by the throat with one hand and kept it aloft, digging her fingers into its flesh; the other hand she used to press against the snout as if to force the mouth open wide enough to snap it; the dog thing's legs dangled and scrabbled at her, scratching her chest and stomach, shredding her clothing and the skin beneath it. Suddenly Ted was below her, retrieving the shovel; he wound up like a cleanup batter and cracked the back of the spade squarely into the thing's ribcage; the force dislodged it from Grace's grip and it barrel rolled through the air a few times before landing--on its feet!-- in the dirt a little distance away. Grace grabbed the shovel back and took two steps toward the thing; it crouched and snarled, then chuffed its disdain and turned tail.

"That's right," Grace yelled after it, "you better run!"

Suddenly from behind her her supervisor and the rest of the crew appeared; apparently the screaming and the clanging of iron on bone had alerted them that something might not be going well over in the hidden corner. "What the hell," the supervisor yelled at her. He looked toward the retreating dog, then to the shovel in her hands. "Did you just hit a dog?"

"Dog?" screamed Ted. "That was a pha--" Cyan elbowed him into silence. Grace dropped the shovel and clutched her bleeding abdomen.

"That was a rabid dog," Cyan improvised. "Or something. This lady saved us from it. If she hadn't..."

"You beat up an animal," the supervisor repeated to Grace, a look of abject horror on his face. "What kind of sicko are you?"

"DIdn't you hear me?" said Cyan, her voice rising. "She saved us from..."

"Go get cleaned up and get out of here," the supervisor finsihed, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket and signing it. "I'll adjust your timecard. You're done here."

Grace just stared at him. His face was the same color as the blood on her hands, her blood.

"Yes," she said through her clenched teeth, "I guess I am."