Page 33 of My Masked Shadow
The world rushes around me in shades of blue and gray—towering stacks of phantom lumber, puddles reflecting the stormy sky the sim is painting overhead. Rain isn’t falling yet, but the sound of it is building in the distance, a low hiss that makes everything else sound sharper.
Her footprints glow on my HUD, a ghost-pale trail that fades after three seconds. She’s quick, surprisingly agile as she weaves between stacks, her breathing ragged in my ear feed.
She has no idea how loud she is in here. How easy she is to track.
“Wrong way, firecracker,” I murmur.
I toggle her audio feed to directional and trigger a metallic clang somewhere off to her right. She startles, veering left—straight toward the cluster of crates I’d tagged as a funnel.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s steering herself into my hands.
My muscles burn as I push harder, my shoes thudding in the simulated gravel, actual soles gripping the soft training floor. There’s a thrill in my blood I haven’t felt in years, not since I ran down a high-value target through the back alleys of Kabul with my favorite drone squad.
Back then, it was about justice. Orders. Missions.
This? This is about Barbara. About giving her the fantasy she was brave enough to admit to—being hunted, being taken, being claimed by someone who’ll worship every breath she gives.
She skids around a corner, almost slipping, and catches herself on the side of a ‘stack’ with one hand. The system buzzes the tactile panel under her fingers so it feels like rough, damp wood instead of a blank wall.
I could close the distance right here. Two, three seconds, and I’d be on her.
But where’s the fun in that?
I thumb a control on my wristband, and the sim thickens the fog ahead of her—visual, not physical. To her, it looks like a bank of cold, rolling mist swallowing the path. To me, through the mask’s filters, it’s translucent. I can see her clearly as she hesitates, then plunges in.
Brave girl.
“Careful,” I let my distorted voice float down from above and behind, echoing off the stacks. “You don’t know what’s in there.”
She yelps and bolts faster.
“Jerk!” she shouts into the darkness.
I huff out a laugh. She really is going to try to sass me all the way to the ground.
Lightning flashes across the simulated sky, and thunder cracks a second later, deep and bone-shaking. The haptic floor vibrates under our feet, subtle but effective.
Her avatar flinches, shoulders jumping. She veers again, this time toward the old mill building I’ve rendered near the back edge of the sim. Worn brick, broken windows, yawning loading bay doors. I don’t have to steer her anymore. She’s picking the perfect arena for me.
I slow my pace as she ducks into the shadow of the open bay. Let her think she’s lost me for a second. Let her think she’s clever.
Inside the bay, the lighting drops another notch. Bare overhead bulbs flicker, some burnt out, some swinging faintly like something just passed beneath them. The sim pumps in the smell of oil and old sawdust, the faint metallic tang of rust.
Barbara edges between stacks of rendered pallets, her breathing loud in the enclosed space. She presses her back to one of the wooden columns, peering around it.
She doesn’t see me. Not yet.
I stop just inside the bay entrance, my back pressed to the wall. I dial the mask’s output down and switch hers towhisper prox—she’ll only hear me when I’m close.
“You lost, little bee?” I murmur under my breath, not sending it to the system. It’s just for me.
She’s hugging herself now, goosebumps rising on her arms—the temperature in here is a couple of degrees colder, and the system’s feeding a light draft along the floor, hitting her bare legs.
“You wanted gritty atmosphere,” I say loud enough to transmit this time. “You getting it yet?”
She jumps, spinning toward the sound.
“Ethan?” She turns in a circle, eyes wide, hair sticking to her damp cheeks. “This is messed up.”
