CHAPTER FOUR ... (Continued)

Brother and sister readied to do battle with one of his older games, Ben reserving the newer ones for worthier opponents. As they lowered their visors, Alex and Nina moved closer to watch.

            Bessie’s eyes now fixed on the monitor, she reached out through force of habit, gripped her staff, and let go. Putting her handheld controller to work, she began humming a strange-sounding tune.

            Alex asked Nina, “What’s that, the latest top-40’s hit?”

            “Shush! It’s her spell song!”

            Making a rude sound, he turned back to the monitor.          

            The game opened to show gamers and watchers alike a broad topographic map of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and the outlying area in July of 1863. Side boxes denoted the various battles which had taken place from July 1 through July 3.

Ben said, “We’ll do the one that everybody knows!” Sliding his pointer to the box marked Picket’s Charge, he clicked Play. Automatically maximized to Level 2, the scene changed to a much closer panorama of Cemetery Ridge above a wide valley. Icons atop the ridge represented the Union forces and spread out in the valley were those of the Confederacy.

            Upon switching to Level 3 both players jerked straight up. The large-scale original level rendered average sized objects too tiny to be seen. Whereas, now they could even make out distinctive facial features of the human-like icons. By now in 2018 processes had evolved to make these computer-generated images virtually indistinguishable from live humans.

            Ben exclaimed, “Hey Bean, it’s not only clearer than ever! My guys look totally real-life! Do yours!?”

            She waved a free hand. “Yes-yes, Butt Brain, but shut up and let me think!”

            Alex said from behind, “Bean, my I-pad’s ready. You want me to take notes, call out.”        

            “You sound faint for some reason,” she answered.

            Ben put in, “You sound perfectly clear to me, man.”

            Alex raised his voice. “How’s this!?”

            This always happened the instant Bessie activated her headpiece, the voices of others around her sounding far-off. Still having no idea why, she was too fully absorbed at this point to care. “Yes, that’s a little better.”

            Play began when the last of however many players there were, in this case two, entered which army they would lead. This being Ben’s game, he claimed first pick. “I’ll be Lee! I mean to attack your guys!”

            She tipped her head toward him. “Speak up, I can barely hear you!”

            He came back louder. “Clean the junk out of your ears! I’ll be General Lee!”

            She laughed, “I hoped you would! If you’d studied your history you’d know that General Meade won at Gettysburg!”

            Boisterously, he chortled, “I’ve studied it, all right, but I won’t blow it the way Lee did!” He entered his choice.       

After Bessie did likewise with Meade they both organized their strategies. When satisfied with hers, she next added a technique she had borrowed from a sci-fi movie. This one showed the main character hurtling through time and space on laser beams. Promptly imaging up her own, her now familiar golden glow-beam appeared. Sending it a shaft of thought and muttering, “Come on, move for me…move-move-move!” she aimed it down toward her forces on the ridge. She nodded - Good! Now I’ll get closer…!  Back to humming her strange little song, Bessie began riding the beam down like a toboggan. Suddenly, everything around her went pitch black.

She blinked inside the visor. Rising out of the darkness was a swirl of freeze-framed images; her parents and friends, trees in her yard, Saturn’s rings, and her physics lab, all these and more, blooming up on all sides like flower petals growing in fast-motion, then separating to fly out of sight as others replaced them. Quickly as this phenomenon appeared, it vanished.

The monitor still displayed the game. But behind it and all around, Ben, her two friends, and the computer room were gone. Occupying Bessie’s personal space was her and the chair, the monitor and a portion of the console, and a small circle of carpet beneath her feet. Where the ceiling had been was now cloudless blue sky. Directly below, deep green treetops were rising quickly to meet her. Reflexively, she exclaimed at the same time her mind did, “No-no-no, I’m falling! Stop!”

As if from down in a well she vaguely heard Ben ask, “Stop what!?”

Un-answering and looking down, she gasped, “What is this!?”

            She hung suspended just above several large oak trees behind the position of the Union forces atop Cemetery Ridge. Almost directly below were blue-clad officers on horseback, one of whom was handing out messages and sending them off. Arrayed in the wide valley beyond, flag-bearing ranks of soldiers in gray uniforms and a mixed variety of other clothes were moving toward her ridge. Everyone in this chaotic scene was moving without her using the handheld or giving them any vocal or thought commands.

Raised with computers, including VR accessories, since kindergarten, Bessie knew what was Computer-Generated and what wasn’t. Her heart leaped– These aren’t CGI’s! Her headshake cut off the next thought – They’re…real!? No way!

She meantime felt the presence of an amorphous something, an invisible bubble of sorts, close around her. She had sensed it with their old headsets, but never as strongly as this. Reflexively reaching out, she felt a slight yielding. A harder push made it solid as a brick wall.

Hunched over his handheld to her left, Ben was unaware of her struggles. Behind their chairs Alex and Nina saw Bessie pushing her hands out. Having witnessed her unusual antics before with these VR sessions, they thought nothing of it. But what she did next, they did.

Hands to the sides of her head, she uttered plaintively, “Can you guys hear me?” A pause. “Or even see me? Nina, are you there!?”

            Hearing the little note of desperation, Nina frowned, “Uh-oh!” Stepping forward, she squeezed Bessie’s shoulder. “Of course I’m here! What’s wrong?”

            Reaching back with her own hand, Bessie grabbed Nina’s-tight. “Something very strange is happening! I need some time to figure it out!”

His forces repositioned, what Ben saw through his visor was more vividly enhanced for him than Alex and Nina, but for all three, the monitor’s battlefield scene was strictly standard variety. He groused, “Figure what out? Quit screwing around and let’s play, OK?”

            Laughing, Alex joined in, “Right! You’re squirming like your butt’s burning! What are you doing?”

            Their voices distant, her answer was loud. “Alex, you never mind my butt! You better take some notes!” Fired up a moment ago to beat Ben at his own war game, she had all she could do to take in what was going on just below.

Rows of cannons with their firing crews and blue-coated infantry bearing long rifles stood in trenches or behind barricades of wooden fence. Half turning, she saw lower down a white clapboard farm house amidst a muddy meadow of trampled-down earth. Horse teams and wagons either moving or parked were everywhere. Soldiers hurriedly entering or leaving the house marked it as General Meade’s headquarters.

It dawned – I was in that house…or its replica! During her family’s tour of the national park last year she recalled being up on this very ridge too.

“Come on, Bessie, talk to us!” Nina asked.

Alex echoed, “Yeah, what’s up!?”

Unhearing, Bessie saw a mounted officer depart from the others and ride toward her, probably for Meade’s HQ. Close enough for her to see his handlebar mustache, he looked about Ben’s age. Chancing to look up, the trooper’s legs shot forward into the stirrups. Drawing back hard on the reins, he reared the horse to a halt. Yanking off his cap and shielding his eyes from the sun, he stared up at her, his jaw dropped wide open. Heart pounding, she saw him trying to say something or yell it up to her. Giving a start, she saw behind him the cannons abruptly thrown backwards by the recoil of their opening salvo vomiting flame and smoke.

Inside her bubble Bessie heard only her own breathing. Staring back down at the trooper, she saw him still holding his hat while turned in the saddle and looking back toward the cannons firing. which had erupted. Shaking his head to clear it, he rubbed his sleeve across his eye and looked back up at her.

Without the faintest idea what to do next, she slowly raised her hand…and waved. Her own jaw dropped as the trooper raised her his hat! Clamping it back on and jerking the head of his mount around, he dug his spurs into its flanks. Slapping the reins across its withers, he threw her a last backward look. Crouching lower over the saddle to spur his horse even faster, he galloped pell-mell down toward the farm house.

            About two minutes had passed since all of this had happened. A distant-sounding voice...was it Alex's?...or Ben's?... called distant-sounding voice, “Hey, under the headpiece! What's going on!? Earth calling Bessie!!”

It was too much! Springing up from the console, she yanked off the headband. Looking around around wildly, eyes wide and unseeing, she gasped, "Everything's blurry! Somebody-anybody - am I back!?" 

Nina grabbed her shoulders. “My god, are you okay!?”

            Clutching Maxwell in one hand, Bessie pressed her forehead with the other. “Yes! No! I don’t know!” Slowly, she realized she was back in the computer room. Looking at the monitor,   she started, “No, it can't be! That’s still showing…?”

His own headset off, Ben finished, “It’s still just our war game, Bean!” Seeing the condition she was in, his puzzled expression became one of concern. Dropping the Bean tag, he added, “What’s the problem, sis? I don’t get it!”

Taking a second look at the monitor still showing Gettysburg circa 1863, Bessie shook her head so hard, her long red hair flew in all directions. “No-no-no! None of you do! The problem’s not me!” Before any could answer she called through the doorway, “Dad, would you come in here!? Something’s very wrong with my headband!!”  

                                   

END OF CHAPTER FOUR

           

 

 

 

 

 

END OF CHAPTER FOUR