(FADE IN ON...)
(INT. ELIZA P. FOSSA RESIDENCE)
(SAGUARO GULCH, ARIZONA)
When The Inimitable Pooh_Bah opened her eyes, the early morning light broke through the windows and cast a smear of white light across her face. The sound of a distant yodel whisped into her room.
"Shut up, Isaac!"
The sound of yodeling halted in an awkward crack.
She threw the covers off her and sat up, barely realizing that she'd slept in her clothes again. When she sat up, she could feel the rough texture of her cargo pants scrape against her.
Five minutes later, she made her way blearily to the kitchen. Sitting complacently on the dining table was Tamales. "Tamales, where's Pinocchio?" Pooh_Bah asked.
Tamales shrugged. Pooh_Bah rolled her eyes. Tamales was never of any help. Besides cooking and cleaning and generally flirting with Isaac. Stupid Isaac. He always lied about Pooh_Bah being his "one-and-only." Liar, she thought, and stomped off to the living room.
She never noticed the men lurking in the well-trimmed bushes outside her house. Not even their dog tags reflecting the morning light.
She went into the bathroom. Instinctively she smeared Arm & Hammer baking soda toothpaste on her toothbrush. She'd barely gotten used it, but her father demanded that only baking soda-heavy toothpaste
be used in the house.
The man standing by the roses was quite heavyset.
Isaac began to yodel again.
Before she could yell at him again, he stopped. She lifted an eyebrow (very Scully-like) and went back down the hall to see what happened. He never stopped yodelling unless she yelled at him.
He lay on the floor, unconscious. Before she could react with a "What did you do now?", hangs grabbed her, and someone rubbed a stained hankerchief across her face. Before she blacked out, she could make out the colors of army fatigues on the sleeves of the hands that held her.
(CUT TO...)
(INT. ROMANOV BASE)
(ALASKA)
Alexei Romanov was not a happy comrade.
Not only had Carla Jane resigned herself to sleep, leaving her latest installment of Harsh Realm Fanfiction Archive slash unfinished, but The Chaos Factor had given up on his little story he was willing to write. Alexei's vazmee koshka had dissuaded him.
Oh well, he thought. At least he had Carla Jane. Li Ann Tsei was gone on another errand for his dear author.
A fist clenched tightly around his prosthetic arm. He whirled around, grinned, and began to say, "I knew you'd come, my roguish Mike..."
It wasn't Mike Pinocchio.
The first thing the incredibly muscular Navy Seal did was yank off Alexei's prosthetic arm and pummel him to the ground.
He heard Carla Jane in the background, her voice muffled by the snowy blizzard outside the Romanov base and the sounds of a myriad boots all shuffling on the wood floor.
(CUT TO...)
(INT. MILITARY INSTALLATION)
(OUTSIDE FORT DIX, NEW JERSEY)
(TWO DAYS LATER)
Pooh_Bah's eyes fluttered open. Shapes began to take form, and she could make out that she was sitting, facing other people on a circular table. On the wall was an American flag.
"Mmmmmph . . . " She said lightly
She heard a man's deep voice speaking, but couldn't understand what he said. The figures looked familiar.
"Pooh_Bah?" A familiar voice called out from the confusion.
"Pinocchio?" She groaned. The smell of the liquid she'd inhaled stung her nostrils. "Is that you?"
The hum of a yodel transcended to her. Instinctively she smacked the swirling being next to her.
"Shut up, Isaac."
The deep voice grumbled again.
"Where are we?" Another voice asked.
"I don't know." The third did.
She recognized them. "Megan? The Chaos Factor?" She'd begun to get tired of constantly saying his full name.
"We're here. All of us."
The room stopped swirling, and she recognized everyone around her. Around her, seated about the circular table, was Hunter, Mike Pinocchio, Tamales, Isaac, Megan and Michael, Florence, Anthony Fuchs, Azar and Chance Harper and Angelo, amaresu and Fred, Geppetto and Markus and Mayhem, The Chaos Factor, Lance, Ianthe E. Higgins, Tom Hobbes, Ladyhawke, and Miguel.
"What are you all doing here?" She asked. She was beginning to regain her strength.
"A singular mission with a singular objective." The deep voice answered. Pooh_Bah looked at the man who appeared from the shadows. His hair was completely gray, and his eyes were a threatening shade of blue.
The Man In Charge kept his eyes focused on the group. He continued, answering everyone's questions without them ever being asked.
"The United States Army has been monitoring you since the beginning, and now we need your help, with all your expertise on Harsh Realm."
"Great." Fred grumbled from across Pooh_Bah.
"We crashed the Harsh Realm system a while ago, but Santiago created a source code in the system." The Man in Charge explained. "He's been able to restart the game, and Harsh Realm is under his control. We need all of you to defeat Santiago."
"Again?!" Pinocchio yelled. "Can't you idiots do anything right?"
The Man In Charge was not wavered. "Besides this, the game has been uploaded with rules now. I have free access to get in and out of the program. There's a portal code in my VC. I can leave whenever I want. But you can't. You have to band together and form a warrior tribe and defeat him."
"What's the objective?" Tom Hobbes asked. Deja vu swept over him. "Take out Santiago." Another voice in the shadows replied. It was a woman's. From the back stepped Inga Fossa.
Immediately Pinocchio lunged for her. "You backstabbing..."
Pooh_Bah held her father back. She shook her head. "Pinocchio, not now." She was surprised she even was talking seriously for a moment. And she was equally surprised to see her mother for the first time.
"I see our relationship remains intact." Inga said bitterly. Pinocchio threw her a dirty look and cursed at her under his breath. She turned to the Man In Charge. "The two final members of the team have arrived, Colonel."
Behind her, Carla Jane and Alexei Romanov appeared.
Pooh_Bah's eyes widened. "No, no, no, no, no!" She screamed. "You're not sending me in with that man!"
Alexei smiled gleefully. "Oh, moi vazmee koshka, don't act like you aren't delighted by this twist of fate!"
(CUT TO...)
(VIDEO ROOM)
"Watch the video."
Everyone was crowded in the room. The same room where the video was shown. "You know the video's deceptive, but it's the start-up screen for the game. Just sit back and watch, put on the headphones."
Hunter looked at Pinocchio for a moment before slipping the phones on. She watched the video intently. It began as the lights dimmed.
In a regal voice, the announcer chimed, "Technology, and the threat of nuclear annihilation in the last half of the 20th Century have changed the world forever. They've changed war, and its consequences, as they have forever changed the battlefield, and the warriors who must still fight on it.
"It's been estimated that a nuclear device the size of a small suitcase, smuggled in and detonated in New York City, would kill several million people instantly, and many times that amount with radioactive fallout. This scenario compelled the DoD to create the project codenamed Harsh Realm.
"Using the 1990 census, satellite cartography and other classified data, the creators of Harsh Realm have simulated a virtual reality, where landscapes and people are identical to our world, down to every man, woman, and child. By putting players in this simulated crisis scenario, we could protect national..."
The voice predictable faded. The lights came on, and everyone was amazed to see that they were wearing different clothes.
"Does anyone know what happens next?" Azar asked.
"If it's the same startup, then . . . " Hobbes stopped. The sound of helicopters echoed from above. The building shook with vibrations.
"Holy..." Pinocchio began.
(EXT. MILITARY INSTALLATION)
(HARSH REALM)
Everyone ran out of the building and into the sunny meadow as the Republican Guard chopper hovered ominously above, just before firing. The missile screamed as it neared it, and shattered the hut into a flaming ball of power. The group scrambled into the woods and watched as the copter lifted off and disappeared.
From out of the rubble, unscathed, the Man In Charge digitized into life.
