Day Twenty-Two
Voices. Shouting. I stop to listen. The shouting ceases, and the other voices soon follow, as if aware of my intent. Confusion, then. I rally my senses, trying to become oriented once more. I turn my head, trying to see where I am. After a moment, I realize my eyes are closed, and open them with difficulty, the light searing.
Figures near where I lay, staring silently. I try to sit up, to take up my gun. Where was I?
But I cannot move. Pain washes over me, accompanied by weakness, and I lay back, my vision fading. My arms and feet are tied, and only my head thumps back to the board on which I’m bound. One of the figures approaches, and, as they do so, a dark veil seems to wash over the others. The shadowy edge of my perceptions envelopes them, and they are nearly gone. I can sense them from beyond the barrier, but I cannot see them.
The form leans close, a black man in his late forties. His gaze, direct and speculative, locks to mine, and I can almost feel his mind assessing me.
“Can you speak?” he asks. I croak, then try again.
“Yes,” I manage. The sound of my voice, raw and grating, is familiar and disturbing. The shouting and screaming that had filled my sleeping mind had been my own voice.
“What’s three times seven?” he asked. My mind jumps on the question, as if starved for input, for a problem it knew it could solve. Still, the vortex of nausea and discomfort makes my answer long in coming.
“Twenty-one,” I manage. The man smiles.
“Good, good. Do you remember what happened to you?” I shake my head, and even this small motion leaves me dizzy. The darkness leaps closer, closing in like the surface of dark water, reaching between me and the man, threatening to seal me away from him like it had from the others.
At my distress, the terror that rose in me, the veil washed back, and I could see it held away from me at a distance, as it did all the others. But when I let my discomfort reign, it crushed in close.
What would happen when it washed over me?
The man saw my fear, and was calling my name, trying to keep my attention. I locked eyes with him, willing the darkness back. It withdrew to the edges of the room, allowing me to see the others as well. Julia stood with two other people, her concern obvious and touching. I felt a wave of relief at seeing her, and knowing that, whatever had happened to me, she had been spared.
“Tell me what happened to me,” I whisper. The man nods.
“I will, but first, let me change those bindings, and get some food into you while we’ve got your full attention.”
“Why am I tied?” I ask.
“For your own protection,” he says. But he lays a pistol on the table nearby as he approaches, and is careful to keep at the extent of my reach as he unties one wrist, allowing me to flex it as he prepares fresh wrappings. These he winds gently around the sore skin of my forearm, to serve as padding when he reties the ropes. After securing the first arm, he unties the other, and I’m allowed to use it to feed myself. My hand is awkward with the bandages around my palm. The soup is warm, but not hot. I drink it eagerly, feeling the tension in my jaws release. My teeth are sore in their sockets, as if I’d been clenching them as tightly as possible for an extended period.
I ran my tongue over my teeth, faint recollections playing at the edges of my consciousness. I hand the empty bowl back. “Can you tell me what happened, now?” I ask. My voice sounds nearly like normal. He nods, taking my bandaged hand and beginning to unwind the wrappings.
“Let’s go over what you remember, first,” he said. Tossing aside the stained and bloody gauze, he turned my own palm to face me. Even through the stitches, the wound was as distinctive as a signature, primal and terrifying.
A human bite pattern, cut into my flesh.
Memory returned in a rush.
I'm getting to the point where my concept is becoming more demanding. I want Megiddo to play quickly, as quickly as possible. The players should be able to decide and follow through with their characters action in about 35 seconds each.
Combat seems to work all right in this respect. So does movement and such mundane things as reloading. It's the searching system that's getting me down.
During many scenarios, the characters may need or want things from their environment. My idea is to have a huge number of game-enabled things, so the players could effectively rummage through the discarded material wealth of our modern culture. Some things have been abstracted away, so when the players need to build barricades for doors and windows, they don't need to know what the composition of the barrier is. Other things, like weapons and ammo, are more particular. but how to you set up finding car keys in an abandoned house? Or lighter fluid? Aspirin? Clean socks? The characters will have very limited abilities to carry things, but they should be able to take advantage of the surrounding clutter in order to enact some clever plans.
The idea so far is that all items will have a type, and a rarity. There are about six levels of rarity, and seven types (so far). Each level of rarity is about twice as rare as the one before it, and types are simply groupings like Domestic, Office, Enforcement, Commercial, Rural, Industrial, and so on. That way, you can still find that propane tank, but you won't look in office buildings for it.
I'll try to summarize my ideas about this tomorrow, to see if any of them make sense.
