Inescapable Escapism

“Wait,” I said as Dina reached down towards the cabinet. “You’re not wearing gloves. I’ll do it.”

Dina looked down at her hands, her expression slightly surprised.

“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

She hadn’t put them back on after getting her hands covered in grease earlier; I’d spotted them in her inventory but hadn’t thought to mention them. It was impossible for Dina to get tetanus or anything like that from touching the handle, where the plastic coating must have disintegrated years ago, leaving a thin metal bar that I didn’t trust.

She could still get cut, though. It would just be in the game, but that was still bad. Her strength would be sapped, and if anything happened. She wouldn’t be able to fight properly, and that felt too risky.

Dina stepped away from the cabinet, her eyes darting towards the corpse on the ground as she edged away so that I could reach it. I scanned the metal closely, eyeing the faint pattern of rust that was etched into the surface. There was some, but not a lot, and that concerned me. We hadn’t found a key, and I wasn’t sure whether Dina’s plan of just trying to pull the drawers free was going to work, but I had to give it a try.

I paused, looking over my shoulder and scanning the room quickly before taking a deep breath. My fingers closed around the handle, and I felt the hard metal cutting into my palm even through the gloves, but still, I gripped it harder. Doubt washed over me again, but I pushed it away and pulled on the handle as hard as I could.

A crack echoed through the room, and for a moment, I was tumbling through the air, the broken cabinet door still clutched in my hand. Dina crashed into me, her arms wrapping around me and stopping me from falling on top of the skeleton. I stared at it, fear racing through me.

It was too close. I was so close to landing on it, and that realisation sent a shudder down my spine. I’d already touched it once to check its inventory, and I didn’t want to do it again. The sensation of aged bone crumbling under me was something I knew I would never forget.

“Are you okay?” Dina asked as she slowly let go of me.

I fought against the hysteria that was bubbling up inside me and making me want to cry or log out. It was ridiculous, and I knew that. It was just a game. That was all. I was stronger than that.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice slightly firmer than I expected. “Thanks for catching me.”

Dina grinned.

“Any time. I mean… you’ve caught me enough times. Seems only fair that I return the favour.”

I laughed softly.

“I guess so. Although, you’ve caught me a fair few times too.”

There was a pause as Dina considered that.

“Yeah. I guess we’re even now,” she decided with a grin that I returned before turning back towards the cabinet. “I think I can see the batteries.”

I watched as she crouched down in front of the cabinet. It looked strange, with a torn and jagged hole in the front, but that didn’t stop Dina from reaching into it.

“Be careful,” I warned her, eyeing the sharp spikes of metal around the hole.

“I’m always careful,” she lied before pulling her arm back. “Got them! They’re in a lock box, but… oh!”

Concern leapt within me, and I moved closer, trying to see what Dina was looking at over her shoulder.

“What?” I asked. “Do we need to find a key for that box or something?”

I started to look around the illuminated room, trying to work out where a key could be hidden. It could have been anywhere, and the vision buffs we’d picked up were entirely useless.

“No,” Dina said, causing me to stop searching the room and glance down at her again. “It wasn’t locked.”

“Are they damaged?”

I peered at the glass box in her hands. It looked almost like a heal pack, but instead of containing a syringe, it contained four long tube-shaped batteries. They were almost the length of my forearm.

“I don’t think so,” she muttered, staring down at them. “They look pretty much new. Man, the developers really half-assed these. I think they just scanned in some normal batteries and stretched them. Look, there’s no rust or marks on them or anything.”

Hope jumped in my heart, but it was soon smothered by anxiety.

“Quickly, work out how to get them into the projector before the programme catches up, and they degrade before our eyes,” I said.

I was only half joking, and from the panicked expression that crossed Dina’s face, I could tell she knew that. She darted back towards the giant metal projector on the desk, her eyes narrowed as she began examining it immediately. I started to follow her before looking down. The cabinet door was still clutched in my hand. I hadn’t noticed. I’d been too distracted by Dina and the batteries.

Slowly, I leant down, propping the cabinet door against the table leg, unsure what else to do with it. Blood rushed back into my fingers as I let go, and a ghost of pain flared in my hand. It felt strangely real, I realised as I straightened up and massaged them through my gloves. The pain in Ice Escape was always a bit distant, but they must have improved it with the latest update.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On one hand, it was a good thing. I liked that the game was becoming more realistic; that felt like a huge step for the development and programming team, but I didn’t really want that. It was meant to be an escape from our normal lives. It would still be fun and different, obviously. We weren’t on the surface, and there weren’t any weird and terrifying monsters down there, but something still made me feel a little reluctant.

Maybe it was just the idea of the pain getting more real. Sometimes, the way we died was bad. We were mauled by bear-type creatures, gouged by horns or thrown off an iceberg, and I didn’t want to know what any of that really felt like.

A loud clunk came from the projector, bringing me back to reality, and I quickly moved around the table towards it.

“I think… they should just slot in here,” Dina murmured, almost to herself. “It seems too easy, though. What do you think?”

I scanned the hulking metal object that she was staring at. It looked similar to the projectors they used at our school but more… rustic. Larger, too. The thing on the table was easily a metre tall and looked like it weighed more than I did. The side of it had popped open, I realised as I followed Dina’s gaze. There was a compartment there with a space inside.

Normally, our projectors were plugged into the outlets; they didn’t need batteries, so I didn’t really know where they would go. It seemed like that compartment made sense, though. It seemed to be about the right size, and the slots inside seemed designed to fit something tubular in shape.

“Yeah, I think they go in there,” I said. “Do you want to just try putting one in and see if anything happens?”

“That makes sense. If it explodes or short circuits or anything, then I’m sure we can find another battery somewhere,” Dina replied in a light tone that was edged with anxiety.

“Yeah, I’m sure we can,” I lied as she began to place the batteries carefully on the desk behind the projector, glancing uncertainly at the corpse in the chair. “Do you want me to hold those or anything?”

She hesitated for a moment before replying.

“No, it’s okay. I mean, they should be safe enough there, and if they’re not, then… well, if the projector explodes, we won’t need the batteries anymore,” she said with a shrug before peering into the battery compartment again. “There’s no rust or anything at the bottom. I think they should be able to connect, but… time to find out.”

Dina glanced up at me before slowly beginning to slot the first battery into the space. I followed the movement closely, watching for any smoke or signs of danger. Dina was right. It felt too easy, and I didn’t quite trust that something wouldn’t go wrong. Either the projector would blow up, or one of the batteries wouldn’t work, and we’d have to go on a hunt throughout the lab to find another.

Finally, Dina finished sliding the first battery into place. Neither of us moved. We were frozen in place, our eyes fixed on the projector as we waited for something to happen.

“I think…” I started before trailing off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

Part of me was scared that if I said it seemed to be okay, the devs would have programmed something bad to happen. It was paranoia, and I knew that, but I still couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“Yeah,” Dina agreed, clearly understanding what I mean. She leant towards the projector, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled deeply. “This seems… promising. I can’t smell any burning or anything, so… should I insert the rest?”

She looked at me, waiting to know what I thought she should do, but indecision ran through me. I pushed it aside, knowing that I was being ridiculous.

“I think so.”

Dina nodded, swallowing nervously before reaching for the next battery.

It felt like it took forever. Impatience burned through me, but I forced myself not to move or even say anything as I watched Dina slot the batteries into the machine. I couldn’t help but constantly scan the room as I waited, shifting my gun from my back and clutching it, just in case.

The office was sealed, as far as I could tell. There were no holes in any of the walls, the floor or ceiling. The window was barred too, but that didn’t make me feel much better. The creatures outside still scared me, and something could still find a way to sneak in. If it happened when we were distracted…

“Okay, that’s the last one,” Dina said, glancing up at me. “I think I just need to close this bit, and then… it should work.”

My heart leapt in excitement.

“Do it!”

Dina smiled, my own anticipation reflected on her face.

“Okay… here goes nothing.”

The noise of the compartment shutting made me wince. It was so loud, and it sounded almost like something was breaking. My eyes scanned Dina’s face, trying to work out if something had gone wrong or if it was meant to sound like that. She didn’t react at all, though. That had to be a good thing.

“So?” I asked after a few seconds. “What now? Are they working, or…”

“I’m not sure, but…” Dina trailed off, grinning at me before reaching out and pressing a button.

There was a moment of silence before a whirring noise came from the projector, making me jump. Confusion and fear washed over me as I stared at it before looking back at Dina.

“Why is it so loud?” I called over the almost deafening sound.

“I think it’s just old!” Dina shouted back. “Look!”

A light had appeared on the top of the device. It was faint at first, blinking in the bright room, but it quickly became more powerful. Soon, the red light seemed to be almost glowing. The noise was dying down too. It sounded like it was getting more used to being on or something because it was fading to just a gentle buzz.

“So… now what? Is there anything on it, or do we need to connect the databank?” I asked, glancing at the black box.

Dina cocked her head to one side, examining the projector again.

“I think we need the databank. There’s no way to control this thing that I can see, so maybe it had something. Like a ring, or maybe it’ll connect to my chip or something?” she guessed. “I don’t know. What do you think they used back in the olden days?”

I snorted softly.

“I don’t know. Something primitive, probably,” I said, glancing at the databank lying next to the corpse’s hand.

“Definitely. Can you pass that to me?” Dina asked. “We have the code for it already, don’t we?”

Reluctant washed over me, but I was closest to the thing. It made sense for me to grab the bank from the table. I kept my eyes on the skeleton as I moved, my heartbeat fluttering in my ears. It didn’t even twitch, though. The room was still as I grabbed the heavy black object from the table and passed it to Dina.

The pervasive sense of wrongness grew within me. It was all too simple and easy, and I didn’t trust it. Something had to go wrong at some point. Something had to attack us, or the floor had to collapse, sending us down into an ambush. There had to be something. Either the new update was way too easy, or it was just a matter of time.

“Yeah. It was on the corpse,” I said, my eyes darting around the room again.

“I wonder if we’ll need it or if the game will automatically input it,” Dina mused as she examined the databank. “We’ve never found a physical code in here before, have we?”

“No, don’t think so.”

Dina peeled back the black coating, revealing the ports at the bottom of the rectangular object, and grinned triumphantly.

“Yes, got it!” she hissed.

“I guess we’re about to find out then,” I told her with a smile as I shuffled forward to get a better look.

Dina had to place the heavy databank on the table before beginning to gently probe the side of the projector with her fingertips, and I knew what she was looking for. The older models, like the one at our first school, usually had something there. They weren’t like the newer ones that could connect to the system through the chip of the person operating. They needed to be physically connected to databanks, which was just annoying. Databanks got corrupted all the time.

Fear started to build within me. They wouldn’t do that to us, would they? The devs wouldn’t be that cruel. There was no way that they’d make us hunt down the batteries and search the corpses for the codes only for the databank to be corrupted beyond use… right?

“Ah, there we go,” Dina muttered as she pushed down on a section of the metal.

It slid to the side, disappearing into the projector and leaving a gap that seemed to be the exact size of the databank, which Dina had picked up again. Anxiety pulled at me as I watched her peer into the hole before looking back at the databank, turning it slowly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as Dina’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Nothing. I’ve just never seen a port like this before. Like, do you see the shape of this?”

She held the device out to me, showing me the connectors that had been hidden by the coating. At first, they looked normal enough, but then I looked closer.

“Oh,” I said, feeling my own eyebrows pull together. “Why are they so… irregular?”

It was the best descriptor I could think of. Unlike the ones I was used to, all of the ports and gaps on the databank were different sizes. Some were rounded, others were square, and a couple were even a weird mixture of both. Recognition pulled at me as Dina crouched to peer into the projector. I’d seen some of those ports before, but I couldn’t quite place where.

“I have no clue,” she muttered. “I mean, obviously, I know that back on the surface, they apparently did weird stuff like that all the time. Each company had a different port, so everyone had to buy their specific cables and stuff, but… I thought Mom was lying when she told us that.”

“Me too,” I replied, still distracted by the faint memory that was trying to float to the front of my mind.

It was too distant, though.

“Okay, I think it goes this way up. The projector has a bunch of weird connectors built into the other end, but it seems like it should just… slide right in,” Dina said.

I watched, trying to ignore my anxiety about whether or not the databank would even work, as she carefully eased it into the projector. The whirring noise returned as the cover slid back across the bank, sealing it inside.

“Look!” I cried in relief, pointing to the now-green light on top of the projector.

“Awesome! How do you think we control this? I mean, I hoped there would be something on the bank, but…” Dina trailed off, and I stared at the projector.

It didn’t appear to have any other buttons. There was just the one power button that Dina had already used, but there had to be something. I couldn’t see anything, though. There was no remote or controller, no ring or even input pad. I had no way of connecting it to my chip, like we usually did with the newer projectors.

An idea came to me. Maybe there was something on the notes I found. One of them had the code for the door and databank. Maybe they also had some kind of clue about how to control the projector. I pulled up my inventory, scanning the notes intently and searching for anything that might give it away, but there was nothing.

“Maybe it’s voice-activated,” I suggested after a few minutes.

“Oh, yeah. It could be, I guess,” Dina said before clearing her throat and speaking in a more firm tone. “Um… hello, projector. Activate databank.”

We waited, staring at the projector hopefully, but it didn’t work.

“I guess not, then,” I muttered. “There has to be something.”

“Yeah…”

Dina started to reach out towards the projector, running her fingers along the edges as she searched it, and I watched her for a moment before looking away. There had to be something. Something that we were missing. A remote or a ring or something. I knew there was; we just hadn’t found it.

My gaze roamed the desk. There were no drawers. None that I could see, anyway. Maybe there was one built into the underside of it. Or maybe we needed to search the filing cabinet better. It could have been in there, and maybe we were just missing it. Or…

I swallowed as my heart sank. The corpse was wearing a ring. It was black, dulled by age, but I still recognised it. The hand that had been resting right next to the databank had a control ring on one of the fingers. Surely, it wouldn’t still be working. It was so old. The hand it was on had decayed. Maybe that had damaged it in some way, and there was no point in even trying to use it.

But then, why was it there? The devs wouldn’t have left the ring there if we weren’t meant to use it. I’d thought things had been too easy since entering the office, but maybe that was why. They knew that people would be too horrified to touch a corpse, even if it were little more than a skeleton. It was meant to be scary and to feel wrong. Touching the corpse for even just a second to get their inventory had been bad enough, but now I was going to have to hold their hand and gently ease the ring off their finger.

What if it was stuck? The leathery remains of the skin on the underside of the finger looked wrong. I could tell that even without touching it. It was warped, seemingly wrapped around the ring, securing it in place. It wouldn’t come off easily. I was going to have to break it. I didn’t want to do it, but I knew that Dina wouldn’t, and I had to be strong for her. It was the only way. Reluctance fought against me as I started to reach out towards the hand.

“I knew it!” Dina cried.

I snatched my hand back, spinning around to face her.

“What?”

A victorious smile lit her face as she held her hand out to me.

“There’s always a spare,” she said smugly.

There, resting on her palm, was a control ring.

“Oh,” I breathed, having to lean on the desk as relief slammed into me, making me weak at the knees.

“Right?” she said happily, seemingly unaware of what I was about to do. “Do you want to control it, or shall I?”

“You can,” I answered, knowing my hands were shaking too hard for me to be able to use it properly.

Plus, Dina was better with tech than I was. It made more sense for her to use it, and she’d enjoy it more. She wanted it too. I could tell from how wide her smile was as she slipped the ring onto her finger, and that made a smile form on my lips.

The light on top of the projector turned green, and the room darkened slightly for a moment before words appeared, floating in the air in front of us.

“Huh,” Dina said, cocking her head as she read them. “Guess it was entered automatically.”

I snorted softly as the words disappeared.

“Good to know,” I replied before my mouth dropped open. “Oh, wow. There are hundreds of files.”

A window had replaced the words, showing the contents of the databank. It was all files. Row after row that stretched all the way from the floor to the ceiling. They weren’t sorted into folders or anything like that. They were all just… there.

“There are so many,” Dina muttered as she started to scroll, revealing even more. “What are they? Video files?”

“I guess so,” I said, trying to read the names as they raced by. “That’s what that icon there means, right?”

I assumed it was, anyway. It looked almost the same as the icon we used.

“Probably. Shall we find out?” Dina asked.

My excitement warred briefly against reluctance, but despite how uncomfortable I was for some reason, there was no way I was going to say no.

“Yes! Start at the top,” I suggested.

Dina grinned before scrolling all the way back up and selecting the very first file.

There was a moment of stillness before the room was plunged into darkness. My grip tightened around the gun as I waited, listening to the projector hum. The noise grew louder, taking on an almost whining quality before the sound disappeared suddenly, and the room lit up.

My eyes flicked back and forth as I tried to soak in everything about the projection. It was almost like a mirror had been placed in front of us, hiding the back of the room from view. The door had been replaced by the very desk that we were standing behind, but it looked so different, and so did the rest of the room around it.

It had been returned to its former glory. Light streamed in through the uncovered window, and the tables lining the room were filled with whole, unbroken and evenly spaced objects. There wasn’t even a hint of dust on them, but it was the desk that I was drawn to. It was a beautiful cherry wood, covered with a strange leather top. An old piece of tech, that I vaguely recognised as a computer, was placed in the centre of it, with files piled in one corner of the table. A small tray rested on the other side of the table, holding a single glass and a large, carefully etched bottle filled with an amber liquid.

Finally, I allowed myself to look at the woman sitting in the high-backed chair behind the desk. I wasn’t sure why, but it was hard to force myself to focus on her at first. My mind was screaming at me to look away, but the moment my eyes found her face, it stopped.

She was beautiful. Her tanned skin was flawless, despite the troubled expression on her face. There was a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her high cheekbones, and her rich, honey-coloured eyes were narrowed slightly as she stared at something in the distance.

“Is she… a scientist?” Dina asked, causing confusion to rush through me.

I blinked, tearing my eyes away from the woman to glance at Dina, but she was staring at her too.

“I… don’t know. She is wearing a white coat,” I pointed out, eyeing the lab coat that had been thrown on over her pale blue button-down shirt. “Could be a doctor?”

“Yeah, maybe. Do you… do you think she’s Amelia?”

It made sense. The achievement we’d received when we entered the room was called Amelia’s final goodbye.

“I guess so,” I said, hesitating before adding, “Did you notice the badge?”