Game 24: Home

Lazlo Cardona had arranged yet another meeting of the Game Masters. This time, Shinji Mitsuda was replaced by Jun Kitaoka, as always accompanied by his assistant, Toshiro.

“It pains me to say this, but approximately four hours ago, we lost Shinji Mitsuda,” Lazlo explained to them.

“What do you mean ‘lost him’, Lazlo?” Linda asked him.

“He's dead,” Lazlo continued. “He lost The Game, and so lost his life.”

The news frightened Linda and Jun. Up to this point, the last time one of their own had died was due to untimely natural causes. The three of them were aware of the dangers Mr. Set's kill code had on the players. Until now, they had no idea how close the danger actually was to them.

“What do we do about this?” Jun asked Lazlo.

“We have to accelerate our plans,” Lazlo answered. “We must neutralize any potential threat to the completion of The Game. Mr. Set, Eileen, Ishida and friends, anyone who would pose a risk.”

“And how do you suppose we do that?” Linda asked him.

“However we can,” Lazlo answered. “Hire whoever and however many you feel is necessary to get the job done. Is that understood?”

“Already working on it, boss,” Jun told him. “Let's go, Toshiro.”

As the two men left, Lazlo whispered to Linda, “Keep an eye on him. He seems unusually active lately.”

“How active?”

“It's been a while since I've seen him actually working on anything related to The Game,” Lazlo explained. “Just… make sure he's staying on the right track.”

•

Takeshi Ishida had woken up in the real world, gasping for air, and soaking wet. He hadn't taken a single breath for forty-seven days. He hadn't needed to. The first person he saw upon his return to reality was none other than Eileen Stewart.

“Where… Where am I…?”

“You're in Tokyo,” Eileen answered. “You've been stuck here for quite a while. This is the real world.”

“You're not lying to me this time, are you?” Takeshi asked, referring back to the last time she had told him he was back in the real world.

“No. This time, you're really home.”

“Where are the others?”

“Others?”

“Rita, Makoto, Proteus, Aisha…”

“Your friends… It took me a while just to find you. I can't even begin to imagine how long it would take to find the others.”

“I need to go back…” Takeshi was having trouble staying awake. For the first time in who knows how long, someone other than a Game Master had exited The Game alive. Takeshi definitely needed the rest after the kinds of intense stimulation his senses endured for all that time.

As Takeshi fell back asleep, Eileen simply told him, “You aren't going anywhere.”

•

The next time Takeshi opened his eyes, he had woken up in his bed. He was home. But something continued to eat at him. He could overhear Eileen talking to his parents. Something about a game and people disappearing.

He went downstairs to see what the commotion was about. There they were, Eileen Stewart and his parents.

“Oh, Takeshi,” Eileen noticed him standing there. “I was just about to leave.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.

“Well, what's up?”

“Actually, can we take this outside?”

Just outside the door, Takeshi had a demand for Eileen.

“I need to go back into The Game,” Takeshi told her. “I need to find my friends, we need to stop the other Game Masters, and -” As he tried to leave, Eileen grabbed his arm, interrupting what he was saying.

“You are not going anywhere,” Eileen answered. “I did not go through all this trouble to find you and bring you home just so you can run back into danger.”

“How did you even know where I live?”

Eileen handed him a missing person's poster. It had his name and picture on it. “You had been missing for forty-seven days. All I needed to do was call the number on the poster. It's going to cost me a lot in international calling fees, but I feel it was worth the price to bring you home.”

“So you arbitrarily decided I was so important that you had to personally pull me out of the only thing that made me feel alive, made me feel wanted, and pull me back into my dull, boring existence?”

“I did it specifically because you AREN'T important!” Eileen was now getting furious with him. “I'm sure you've forgotten about this since you've been inside The Game, but you're just a kid!”

“A kid who actually has a purpose now! I can do something about this!”

“Here's what you can do about it,” Eileen told him. Her voice grew stern and icy. “Forget me, Takeshi Ishida. Forget The Game. Forget about your so-called friends, because they were never real to begin with!”

“They're real to me!” Takeshi screamed at her. “And now you're telling me to leave them to rot and die?!”

“I'm telling you to let the adults handle this,” Eileen corrected him. “Now go on, go to school, do your homework, make friends, get good grades, and forget this whole nightmare ever happened.”

Takeshi took a while to figure out what to say next. “How many people died on the night of the Blue Moon?”

Eileen had started to walk away, but Takeshi's question stopped her in her tracks. She turned around to ask, “How did you know about that?”

“I was there that night,” Takeshi explained. “The Desert Rose attacked the Arena a bunch of us were in, and -”

“No, no,” Eileen interrupted him. “How did you know about the dying part?”

Takeshi began to recall what he could (barely) see inside the pod rooms. “The pods… bodies… some of them looked like they had been dead for months… How many people died? One thousand? Two thousand? Five thousand?”

“Sixty-five thousand,” Eileen admitted. “At minimum.”

Takeshi's memories from inside The Game were beginning to fade as he struggled to remember key details from close to the beginning. “Mr. Set's diary… the pods… they… They have something in them keeping people alive while they're playing The Game. And then when they lose, they die for real…”

Eileen came to a horrific realization while Takeshi was recalling these details.

“Mr. Set's kill code isn't in The Game… It's in the pods themselves.”

“It's like that… that one movie where the machines take over humanity and they… They hook us up to these battery things…”

“The Matrix?”

“Yeah, exactly like that.”

•

Takeshi and Eileen were running now, Eileen taking the lead, Takeshi following close by. Where they were going, only Eileen knew.

“But wait! There's still something I don't understand!” Takeshi shouted.

“What's that?”

“All this weird science fiction stuff doesn't make any sense to me. How did I end up in one of those pods? I remember talking to Mr. Set in the park, and then he snapped his fingers. Next thing I know, I wake up inside The Game.”

Suddenly, Eileen stopped in her tracks and forced Takeshi to stop as well.

“What's going on?” Takeshi asked.

“Look.”

It was the same park where Takeshi had met Mr. Set all those days ago. And there was Mr. Set himself, talking to a girl who had a pile of self-help books next to her. They couldn't hear what the two of them were saying, but it appeared that Mr. Set was offering this girl a chance to join The Game. She accepted.

He then snapped his fingers, and she collapsed to the ground. Somehow, he had noticed they were watching the whole thing.

“Mr. Ishida! Miss Stewart! Fancy meeting you here!”

The two of them acted as if they were frozen in place at the sight of the man. They had just witnessed how he forced people to play his little game.

And they weren't sure if they were going to be next…