Alexander Plansky - Arcadia

His eyes darted to a panel with green and red icons on its touchscreen surface: green for open, red for close. Lewis’s left hand sailed through both physical and virtual space as he forced the Touch controller toward the imaginary spot. In the game world, his fingers made contact with the CLOSE icon and the door abruptly slid shut on the tendril.

The severed appendage dropped to the floor and writhed around. Then it twitched and went still in a puddle of black blood. He heard the thing outside cry out – a noise that sounded like a cross between a banshee and a Tyrannosaurus – and stomp off back down the hall.

Words flashed in the center of his vision:

CHECKPOINT REACHED. AUTO-SAVING YOUR PROGRESS.

Then they vanished.

Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, Lewis paused the game and pulled the headset off. He was startled to find Jenna standing across the desk from him, looking worried. She’d turned the lamp on.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, barely believing it himself. “Just a very freaky game. You played much of it yet?”

“You should probably get out of this room for a little bit. You’ve been cooped up in here for hours.”

Lewis glanced at the analog clock on the wall. It was past 10:30; he’d been playing since just after 7:45. “That’s a good idea.” He put all the gear down on her desk and followed her out to the living room.

Once they were on the sofa, he leaned his head on her shoulder and she began running her fingers through his short hair, massaging his scalp. “You’re becoming like Charlie.” She forced a laugh. “He’s become obsessed with that game lately, too.”

“What’s he say about it?” Lewis asked, staring at a cubist painting hung on the opposite wall.

“Not much. He mentioned it was really disturbing him, giving him nightmares. He’d called to ask if I’d experienced the same thing.”

He looked up at her. “And have you?”

“I’m worried about you,” she said, gazing down at him with a sad expression. “I think you should take a break from it. At least give yourself some more time after Jake’s death.”

Jake .

The voicemail message played in his mind again. He heard his friend’s final warning, followed by a revving engine and a squeal of tires. Then nothing.

At that moment, it hit him.

Lewis launched to his feet, whipping his phone out. “Hold on a sec,” he said, frantically typing into the Google search bar.

“What are you doing?” she asked, more concerned than incredulous.

There was no website for Rogue Horizon . He guessed that would defeat the purpose of a secret beta. His hopes shot upward momentarily as he spotted a gaming forum that mentioned it, but when he tapped the link, he found the page no longer existed.

“Des,” she said, touching his arm.

Lewis barely noticed, dashing back around the corner to her office. He slid around the desk and crouched in front of her laptop. The pause menu was up on the screen. He exited to the main menu and scrolled to Extras, then found the option for Credits.

They were short and to the point, just a slow text crawl against a view of the derelict vessel and the black hole beyond:

Lewis turned his attention back to the phone in his hands, typing in the two words as fast as he could.

Luckily, there actually was a website for Galactic Games. Unluckily, it was little more than a space shuttle logo and the tagline “Games that are out of this world” with a black background. There was no location for a headquarters, no About section, no Contact, nothing.

“Des, what’s going on?”

He looked up. Jenna was standing there in the doorway drenched in blood from head to toe. A troubled look rested on her face.

Lewis blinked several times and shook his head.

Now the blood was gone, but her expression remained.

Very calmly, he said, “I was just curious about something. That’s all.”

Lewis opened his eyes.

It was dark, sometime after midnight. City lights filtered through closed blinds, illuminating segments of the ceiling. The distant sounds of cars drifted up from the street below. Jenna was somewhere behind him on the other side of the queen mattress. He could hear her slow, rhythmic breathing.

Lewis felt restless, as if he had been tossing and turning. It didn’t feel like he’d gotten very much sleep.

Then he froze. He heard a sound coming from beyond the open doorway to the hall. Something was out there. Every muscle in his body tensed up and he listened carefully.

Nothing. Somewhere a clock ticked. He exhaled softly and closed his eyes.

It came again, a footstep. Then another. He was sure of it.

Lewis squeezed his eyelids tighter. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look…

It was coming closer to the bed. He could hear the inhalation and exhalation through its respirator, could imagine the blue glow blanketing the sheets.

Open your eyes.

He looked at the last second before the footsteps arrived at his feet. A shadow stood there, its shape taking form as it lunged for him out of the blackness, its white-gloved palm split open and pouring blood.

Lewis turned and violently shook Jenna’s arm. His head turned back to face the menace–

The creature was gone.

His girlfriend groggily stirred awake beside him. “What’s happening?”

“There was…” He blinked multiple times, stupefied.

No, he hadn’t just woken up. That couldn’t have been a dream. He continued staring at the space where the apparition had been.

Jenna leaned over and kissed his shoulder, then gripped his hand tightly. “It’s just another nightmare,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”

He knew he’d been fully awake the entire time.

The atmosphere in the office that morning was full of unease. Lewis felt odd sitting at his desk and found himself frequently gazing out the window off to his left. Several hundred words of his latest article were sitting up on his screen, and he had his notebook from the interviews ready beside him, but the words just weren’t coming out of him today.

He minimized the document, found the website for Arcadia – this time searching for “Arcadia Virtual Reality Amusement Park”, and even then it was the fourth result – and located a phone number under the Contact section of the Tickets page.

After several rings, a woman’s voice answered. She sounded sour. “Hello?”

“Hi, is this Arcadia?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Desmond Lewis. I’m a reporter for the Technologist . I’m working on a piece about virtual reality theme parks, and I was wondering if I could book a private tour.”

“We don’t give those.”

Lewis massaged his chin. “Well, is there any way I can get tickets to come out and see it? It looks really great from the website, and I’d like to see how it compares to–”

“I’m sorry, sir. But tickets are sold out for the next six months.”

“Huh. I find that a little odd since you don’t advertise anywhere.”

“We are quite well known on the virtual reality circuit, and currently have more demand than our small facility can handle. We’ve begun construction on an expansion.”

“Okay, how can I get an interview with Mr. Zhao?”

A pause. “Mr. Zhao does not do interviews.”

Lewis picked up a pen and tapped the end of it gently against his desk. Was he really going to go this far? At this point, he saw no other option.

“Got many e-sports champions swinging by? Because I know for a fact that Jenna Bateman wants to visit your place.”