Chapter VIII

Her ship was anchored in a small bay. An enormous full moon unveiled the shores of a tropical island. The sound of the jungle perfected the ambiance.

Sara teleported me from orbit right on the steering deck of the Anne Bonny's Revenge. The moment I had been nervous about the whole day, was suddenly there. And it was beyond my wildest dreams, of which I had many.

She wasn't wearing a pirate outfit and I felt stupid that I was dressed in full attire. She walked the deck with her bare feet, wearing only a peasant blouse, simple wrap skirt and a red flower in her hair.

"So... Is this, you know, the real you?" I said.

"What do you think? I'm a supermodel?" she said with a foolish voice, trying to joke away all the tension in the air. "No Argentinian girl is this tall, look at those legs! It's not humanly possible."

"Hey, maybe you have some Nazi refugee great-grandmother in your DNA. How should I know?"

"Idiota! Don't disrespect my grandmothers."

"And that angry face?"

"The face scan for my passport, renewed last year."

I was stunned.

"Hey, I can't help it, OK? Rich parents. Maybe they did some embryo tailoring or something. Everyone does in Buenos Aires. Better to be born with it than do painful surgery later on, right?"

I couldn't speak. For the first time in my life I actually wanted to pinch myself to check if I wasn't dreaming.

"Fuck you!" she yelled at me. "See, now you act all strange. Just pretend I'm a big, fat, old, smelly man, OK?"

Still searching for words, time was running out to say the right thing. It had to be all or nothing by now. There was just one possible reaction left.

I leaned forward and gave her a kiss. As real a kiss could get in the OASIS.

After a sweet, silent moment she pulled back a bit, looked up with big eyes and I noticed the insecurity again.

"Just so you know. I am really not this tall."

Sara proposed we would swim to shore. I agreed, fully aware she probably didn't bring an 18th century swimming suit either.

"You first," she said, pointing her eyes at my clothes.

I took off my hat and removed the coat I was wearing. She noticed the pistols.

"What the hell are those? You were going to assassinate me if I were ugly?"

"Yes," I said while removing the baldric across my chest, holding the sword. "Now, before I'm going any further, isn't it time to dismiss the crew?"

I had noticed some movement on the ship, although it was hard to see Sara's band of cutthroats in the dark.

"You think I'm some exhibitionist or something? I disabled them this afternoon already."

"Really? I could've sworn someone just walked near the foremast."

An uneasy feeling took hold of me while I pierced my gaze into the dark.

"You're just paranoid. Being on a big scary PvP world," Sara teased.

"Hush," I whispered. "Did you hear that?"

My panicking now made her nervous as well. We held our breath, listening closely for suspicious sounds.

The ship squeaked and creaked, as old wooden sailing ships usually do. There was a small breeze carrying sounds of the sea and the jungle. Nothing of that was out of the ordinary.

"It's nothing," Sara decided. "Maybe you start seeing Pokémon everywhere now."

She grabbed a lantern and started walking towards the foremast to prove my idiocy. As if the jury was still out on that one.

After inspecting the mast, Sara turned around with a playful smile.

"Nothing. Now, get back to undressing yourself. My ship, my rules."

That's when he rose up from behind a couple of big barrels right behind her. He stood still for a moment, as if to make sure I would see him. A soulless white mask, shrouded in a black cape, staring right at me. He raised his right hand and a long blade glittered in the moonlight.

"Behind you!" I shouted. "The killer is behind you!"

Thank god she didn't hesitate to question me this time. Sara dove to the deck, just in time to avoid a slash from Ghostface. She rolled away before he could try again.

I sprinted towards the killer with my rapier in hand. Adrenaline took over the moment I saw Sara in danger. As I approached, the masked killer lost all interest in her. He stood confident before me, sizing me up, before raising the knife again.

In the past twenty years I had been a Jedi, Zorro, D'Artagnan, Scaramouche, Captain Blood, Don Juan, Robin Hood and a bunch of sword-wielding warriors on Tamriel. My muscles still memorized the basics of it. I managed to parry the incoming strike instinctively.

Me and my opponent slowly circled around each other, looking for an opportunity. I had learned the hard way that a duel isn't flickering swords clashing into each other. It's about making one good move.

Meanwhile Sara got back on her feet, but didn't carry a weapon. She had to make a dash for the stern where my pistols and her cabin were. Sara seemed to be waiting for the right moment.

The killer ghost swirled his cape around, making it now hard to anticipate his next move. Sara started sprinting, but our enemy anticipated just that. He jumped towards the pirate queen, blocking her path, swinging his knife left and right. She had to crawl on hand and knees to dodge the attacks.

I charged, holding my rapier up in the air to strike the fucker down. Right before I was going to give a killing blow, my movement faltered.

"No, screw this, no lag, not now!" I yelled, thinking it was a hick-up in the OASIS.

But my enemy wasn't frozen, he turned my way and noticed the opportunity that just got presented to him. My rapier got stuck in the rigging above our heads. A thick rope had blocked my swing.

I jumped back and fell to the ground, leaving my sword hanging in the ropes. I had one last trick up my sleeve, the tiny one-shot pistol I grabbed from my boot. I aimed at my attacker, who quickly made another swirl with his cape.

A shot echoed through the bay. Ghostface went down on his knees. For a moment it looked like the bullet did enough damage to take him out. Then he rose again, looked straight at me and slowly paced my way to finish the job.

The killer pulled my sword from the rigging and pointed it at my throat. All I could see now was a dark shadow hovering over me. Despite it being static, the mask's gloomy eyes seemed to savor the moment.

Expecting a "Game Over" screen any time now I felt like rage quitting the game and throwing my vr-gear off the balcony. Then I heard a woman's voice screaming, Ghostface immediately turned around. A cannonball smashed into his face.

The mask broke and blood spattered over the cannonball. It was technically almost impossible for any avatar to carry such a heavy object with enough speed to wreck someone's head. But somehow Sara's stats went off the charts at this moment.

She jumped on top of the killer, lifting the cannonball again with both hands. With another primal scream, she dunked the round projectile into her victim's head. It made a mushy sound, indicating there was no skull left to break. Just a brain to squish.

Almost right after the second impact, Ghostface's body vanished. His empty cape lay flat on deck, together with the dozens of bloody shards that once formed the spooky mask.

Sara was out of breath, her hands and face covered in blood.

"He... disappeared..." was the first thing she said.

"Yeah..." I replied in disbelief.

Normally, the bodies of dead NPC's don't go anywhere. The avatars of players are the ones that vanish Obi-Wan Kenobi style when they die. Leaving their belongings up for grabs.

"You think it was another player?" Sara asked me, still gasping.

"I don't know, let's just get out of here. Maybe there are more."

She nodded. But instead of preparing to leave, she came in for a hug. She was shaking and holding back tears.

This wasn't her first kill in the OASIS, a place designed to stab and shoot each other for fun. But it felt different.

I quickly picked up a couple of our belongings and then teleported us to my submarine in orbit. I set a course for the nearest non-violent zone, just to be sure.

"Hey Sara," I said to the girl still slightly trembling in the seat next to me. "Maybe you should log out for a bit. Get some sleep, eat something?"

She shook her head.

We just sat there. An hour went by.

"OK," Sara then suddenly decided. "Time to go."

And she was gone.

The next day I told Finn about the freaky events on the pirate planet. Now that I could think more clearly, it was pretty obvious what had happened.

On the Rainbow Road it had been me that picked up the phone. So the game had waited for me to enter a PvP zone to resume the event. That had just taken a really long time. Any lead we might have had over other players surely went up in thin air because of it.

"So, what's next?" Finn said.

I opened my inventory screen and pulled out a Pokémon trading card. Right before leaving the Anne Bonny's Revenge the night before, it appeared out of nowhere hovering in front of me.

"Take a look," I told Finn.

The backside of the card had the traditional Poké Ball on a blue background. When he flipped it over, there was no creature to be seen. Just some scribbling.

The second riddle.