Olympus: It's Not Just a Game

Chapter 9

           

Karl stepped down from the bus and looked around.  It was a drab town, tucked away in the New Hampshire pines.  A long brick mill building stood beside the shallow river, but the windows were all gaping holes.  The only booming business was the satellite dish outlet.  It was hardly the place one would expect to find CyberCamp.

            Karl pulled out his GamePlay magazine and read the ad for the fortieth time.  "Wizards and Warriors!" it trumpeted.  "Tired of feeding dollars into the machines?  Come to CyberCamp and LIVE in Olympus!"  And sure enough, there was the address: Salmon Falls, New Hampshire.  There was a pay phone dangling from the cinder block walls of the bus station.  Karl stepped over to it, shoved in a few coins, and dialed the number on the ad.

            "CyberCamp!  May I help you?" asked a pert voice.

            "Uh—yes.  Uh—my name is Karl, and I'm at the bus station, here at Salmon Falls.  How do I get to CyberCamp from here?"

            "Do you want to enroll in CyberCamp?" asked the voice.

            "Yes, that's right," said Karl.  "That's why I came here."

            "No problem, then!" chirped the voice.  "We'll send a car right out to pick you up.  How will we know it's you?"

            "Oh.  Well, I've got black hair.  And a knapsack."

            The voice laughed.  "They all do."

            Karl bought himself a Coke and nursed it, watching beads of sweat trickle down the cold can as time crawled by.  Finally, a sleek blue van pulled up with CyberCamp blazoned on it in futuristic lettering.  The driver wore a crisp, starched uniform.  It reminded Karl of Star Trek, somehow.  But it clashed with the tobacco stained teeth and the devil tattoo on his bicep.

            The driver leered at Karl.  "Ya got anything else besides that there back pack?" he asked, and spat out the van window.  Karl shook his head.  "Then get on in."

            The boy clambered up into the front passenger seat.  The van squealed away from the curb and roared down the blacktop.  They sped through the drab streets of Salmon Falls, past a "House of Pizza" and a run-down Citgo station that advertised "Cold Beer" and "Nite Crawlers" as well as gas.  Soon the two-lane road ran through forest, interrupted occasionally by granite cliffs where the road cut too deeply into the native hillside.

            Karl's chauffeur wasn't much for conversation.  "Is it far to CyberCamp?" Karl finally asked.

            The driver shifted his wad of tobacco and grunted.  He pointed with his chin at the road ahead.  "Right up there."  There were buildings of some sort, but all Karl saw was a "U-Store-It" franchise: row after row of low cinder-block buildings surrounded by barbed wire.  He wondered how much excess junk the people of Salmon Falls must have to keep such a business going.  The driver saw his gaze and laughed.  "Not that," he snorted.  "Up there."

            A modernistic structure gleamed ahead, just past the razor wire surrounding the storage sheds.  Karl breathed a sigh of relief.  Finally, here was something that looked like what he had expected ... although he had imagined there would be more to it than one single-story building.  Perhaps there were more buildings in the woods behind it.  The van pulled off the road and up to the doublewide glass and chrome doors.  Karl grabbed his knapsack and jumped from the van, glad to leave his uncouth chauffeur behind.

            He walked up to the front desk, where a young woman was filing her nails.  "Hi," he stammered.  "I, uh, called a few minutes ago.  My name is Karl."