The Barsoom Project

The snow was receding, and Max could see hills now, and splotches of brown and grass-green spreading. An arctic hare, its blotches of pale brown conspicuous against this new backdrop, poked its head at them curiously. Its ears twitched, and it sprinted across the hill.

Fatigue was a dull, leaden throbbing now, balanced by a growing awareness of hunger. He hadn’t really realized how starved he was. At the end of this trek there would be a break, with fresh water and food. He scanned the sled as it slid along, its wheels furrowing the icy ground. What was in those packages? Tinned meat? Tinned cake?

Hmmm. Army rations had been a joke since Hannibal, but Max loved the pound cake in army surplus survival kits. He hoped that there was an envelope of that in there. Was it likely, in this crowd?

Thin broth, a lettuce leaf, six spaghetti noodles with no sauce. Bet on it. They’d told him the Fat Ripper didn’t exactly starve the weight off. Run it off, that they might do. But no beer…

“No cake,” he murmured.

“And,” Trianna said, in tune with the flow of his thoughts, “no lasagna or steak Diane or noodles Romanoff, and as for the crepes Suzette, forget it.”

“My very thoughts.”

Her laugh was musical. Without projecting it, this woman had more sexual amperage than the other three combined. She was holding it leashed: Max was getting no direct signals.

“Playing menus in my head is an old game,” she sighed. “It’s more fun than thinking about how tired I am.”

She was too pretty not to give it a try. “Do you play any other games?”

She gave him a playful chuck with her elbow and dropped further back in line.

Birds called somewhere, although the horizon was still clear no, wait-there, at the edge of the sky he saw a few dark shapes, coming closer until for a glorious few seconds the entire sky was filled with birds, a gigantic flock that divided the sky with wing and call. The clouds were more golden and a wider gray, moving slowly across the sky. The sun was burning higher and brighter, hotter, almost as bright as a normal sun.

Nice. He was falling into Dream Park reality. It was becoming easy to distract himself with the teeming sky, the chunky poncho-wearing Adventurers, and rifles twisted into bizarre variants of spears and clubs… it was easy to slip into the dream, and believe that they were on their way to a great adventure. And ignore Orson’s whimpering. Would a real Adventure be this tiring?

Worse! Dream Park went easy on the Fat Rippers.

The path twisted up the low rise of a hill. His ankle turned on the gravel. He slipped and almost fell, but caught his balance and straightened up again with Eviane’s hand on his elbow. He looked at her and she looked away quickly, but the moment of contact was blistering.

There: another distraction from hunger. Amazing. He walked a little behind her and wondered when they were going to get a break. A nice, hour-long break, and a chance to sit with Eviane and schmooze.

He liked her, without knowing exactly why. Mystery woman? Nothing like curling up with a good mystery…

At the top of the hillock they looked down on a shallow valley and a lake. The air was so warm now that some of the Gamers were taking off their jackets. Red Bear seemed overjoyed that the sled was pulling itself now, and ran arfing toward the distant lake.

The Gamers broke into a run. The lake swelled up in their sight surrounded by reeds and tall grass. Before they went too many more steps, Grant stopped them. “Wait! Something’s wrong here.”

Orson wasn’t the only one who groaned. But Kevin ran up puffing to the front of the sled, freckled face burning with curiosity. “Something like what?” His nose twitched as he scanned the lake ahead. He puffed out his chest, and glanced sideways at Trianna.

“I can feel something wrong. I don’t know how.”

Snow Goose knelt down, took a closer look at the ground. “Something scary big has moved through here, and recently.”

The group gathered at the lip of the hill, gazing down as the wind blew thinly around them. Yeah, the ground had a roiled look, but wouldn’t melting and refreezing frost do that? Snow Goose chewed on her lip, then shook her head. The waters of the lake reflected the sun, choppy wind-blown swells rolling up to lap at the shallows and the reeds.

“Oh, nuts,” Grant said finally. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

The surface of the lake erupted, and fifteen tons of madness intruded on their world.

It burst up, spouting, whistling like a blue and white nuke missile. It hung in the air an impossible moment, a thousand gallons of water raining from its back. With a roar that shook the earth, it slammed back into the lake.

Max’s mind worked at Mach speed, trying to correlate. This is a joke. This is a freakin’ joke! You don’t find orcas in lakes, f’ chrissakes!

Water splashed away from the immense blue and white mass.

The killer whale lunged again, but forward. The thud shook the earth. The whale had beached itself.