Dream Walker (35 page)

“Game on,” he said to The Q as he grabbed his gear off the nightstand.

“Find Mathis,” he commanded, after the console powered up.

The target icon zipped across the screen and through the Octaves, pinpointing the sergeant in the 5th walking with three other players, none of which appearing to be Ichiban. Raze had to wonder how Mathis could have made it this far without him.

The game did not allow players to level up without earning it. It was designed to maximize the players grind time, making them engage in repetitive, boring tasks. Once they were used to the game, players were like little rats, not wanting to figure out a new maze to get their hit. They didn’t want to try new things or take on harder challenges. Instead they would rather repeat a familiar scenario again and again to get to their desired goal.

It took even the best players several hours to make it this far when they started a new session and Infinium raked the bucks off them in subscription fees. Mathis had made it too far, too fast.

Using a gloved finger, Raze selected the soldier bringing up the rear and accessed his stats. He went by Neo4253, which meant he was the four thousandth, two hundredth and fifty third Neo in Demesne, which was four thousand, two hundred and fifty-three too many. Not only did the tag prove he was an ubern00b, so did his stats. This was his first time in the game; he had no assets, no kill count, and no skill points. The poor kid hadn’t even popped his cherry yet. He brought nothing to the team.

He selected the soldier hoofin’ it in front of Neo The Zero next. GrimGriever had a better name and smidgen more game, with three kills and a pouch of gold in his belt. But that wasn’t near enough to have gotten this clan this far.

Finally, Raze selected the green dwarf that was leading the league of losers and he found his answer. Dookie was an Alpha player, a tank with so many experience points racked up, he never needed to waste his time grinding through the Octaves. He had almost as unlimited access to the game as Raze did—and Raze was the Puppetmaster. There was a rare cast of characters that made it to the Master list, and Dookie was not a name Raze recognized from it.

“Player profile,” he told The Q. He wanted to know the Real Life details on this cat; like what his real name was and where he was from.

“Access denied,” The Q display read.

Really? Again?
Raze stared at the screen, almost disbelieving, and yet, all too accustomed to these high speed curveballs now.

Raze wondered if Grant, fearing Mathis would not trust his Ichiban character anymore, reinvented himself as this harmless looking ogre.

“Locate Ichiban,” he told The Q.

The scope icon flew across the screen, skipping to Octave 6 and the jungles outside the 9th Circuit. Standing in nearly the same spot he was the last time Raze saw him, was Ichiban. So much for that idea. Raze contemplated the scene for a moment. If Grant and Blake were still as one in Ichiban, than who was the little gnome?

Raze fought the urge to enter the game. He so wanted to phase in and fucking blast them all back to Base Camp, but what good would that do? That was not a permanent solution. It would only delay the inevitable. Grant would eventually find his way to Aislen—and to Preston Reed through her. If he interfered at this point, Raze wouldn’t be protecting Aislen
or
Infinium’s interests. He needed to play it wise, remain behind the curtain and bide his time until he had a real opportunity to change this game.

He continued to sit there, watching impotently as Mathis and his clan entered the teleport tube and slid into the Octave 6.

∞

The doors opened and Mathis followed Dookie into the jungle scenario he remembered from his last visit. If he was right, Ichiban would be waiting in the clearing just beyond the first grove of trees.

Now that he was nearly there, Mathis needed to figure out how he was going to ditch the clan. He didn’t need them anymore and it would be best if he confronted Ichiban on his own. He wouldn’t be able to play bad cop to its full effectiveness with an audience and there was no way Ichiban would take Mathis where he wanted to go with the tagalongs.

He wasn’t worried about the troll. Dookie just wanted to exact some revenge on a ho in the 9th then maybe knock naughties with another, but the other two geeksters needed to go.

As if on cue, Dookie turned around. “Here, let me take care of that for you.”

He whipped Big Bertha around his body, grabbed ahold of it with both nubby hands, and lit up the two players standing behind them with bullets of electric blue light. Mathis watched, in shock, as they both exploded in a rain of blood, guts and pixels. Mathis stared speechlessly at the chunky, gut puddle.

“Works for me. Does that work for you?” Dookie asked.

Mathis turned back to face Dookie and stared down the barrel of Big Bertha, now pointed at him. Dookie pulled a pair of shades out of his pocket. They matched the pair Mathis wore exactly.

“So
this
is how it goes,” Dookie said, matter of fact, sliding the visors over his bulging bug eyes. “You are going to take me to this Ichiban character. You are going to get that motherfucker to take us to this secret level of his. Then I am going to handle the rest. Comprendez?”

No. Mathis did not comprendez. How did this squat fuck know about Ichiban? How did he know about the secret level? And what exactly was he going to handle? With the deadly end of Big Bertha in his face, Mathis was not on the asking end of those questions. “Do I have a choice?”

Dookie frowned and rotated one eyeball in the direction of the gut puddle in the dirt. “Not unless you wanna end up like them. And trust me, you don’t.”

“Who are you?”
Mathis asked against his better judgment.

The troll snorted. “Who is
anybody?
” He flicked the muzzle of the gun toward the jungle. “Get moving. I got some shit to take care of.”

∞

Raze sat at the edge of the bed, immobilized by shock. What had just happened blew his mind.

Besides slaughtering the two n00bs without warning, the troll had just taken Mathis hostage and was now demanding that he get Ichiban to take them both into The Stratum. Most disturbing, was he had a pair of visors that, even in two-dimensional CGI, looked like the missing pair to Raze’s set.

That explained why Raze didn’t find them in the Parrish house. Someone else had them! The question was who? Who was this green, little shit?

“Take the visors off, Mathis,” Raze said to the sergeant through the television. “Get out of this while you can.”

But Mathis was too caught up in the game to think of such a simple solution, and began walking into the jungle with the troll trailing behind him.

∞

Reluctantly, Mathis slogged through the thick vegetation of the primeval forest toward his rendezvous point with Ichiban. The troll tailed him like a shadow, using his girth for cover. He stepped out into the clearing and immediately spotted Ichiban standing in the distance, arms crossed, tapping his foot impatiently.

“I was beginning to wonder whether or not you would show,” Ichiban said as Mathis approached.

“Uhhhh...yeah...uh, sorry. It took me a while to find what you are looking for.”

“So you found her? You know where the girl is?” Ichiban lost his normally cool disposition, his excitement causing his voice to tremble a bit.

“Uh...yeah. I guess I did.”

“Well, let’s have it. Where is she?”

Mathis stalled. He didn’t understand what kind of game these fools were really playing, but he knew that if he told Ichiban where Aislen lived, there would be no incentive to take him to the hidden level, which was the only reason he was here. Ichiban would just take the info and run with it. Then Aislen and Sabine would be in a world of hurt.

It crossed his mind then that he could just take the damn visors of his face, turn off the cube, then burn it like a Ouija board in his back yard and forget he ever ventured here. But that wouldn’t solve a murder and it wouldn’t protect Aislen or Sabine from these freaks. No, Mathis needed answers first. He had to go to that hidden level.

“Well, I do know where Aislen lives,” Mathis started cautiously. “As a matter of fact, I saw her there not an hour ago...and I would be happy to give you that address, but first, I want to be taken to that special octave you were talking about.”

“What? You don’t trust me?” Ichiban said, feigning hurt.

“No,” Mathis replied with a slow shake of his head. “I don’t.”

Ichiban chuckled. “Good guess. Maybe you aren’t as dumb as you look.”

“What? You mean to tell me you weren’t planning to take me there?”

“Yeah...no. It really isn’t a very good idea.”

“You can’t back out now!” Mathis was livid. “That was the deal. I bring you Aislen’s whereabouts—you take me to this secret level and show me how the ‘real action happens.’ You take me there or I don’t give you Aislen.”

Ichiban deliberated this for a moment, his mouth working in and out, between pout and frown. Mathis hoped Ichiban couldn’t tell he was bluffing. There was no way in hell he was giving him Aislen, but he never had been a good poker player. His copious sweat production always gave him away.

Mathis reached up and swept a cold palm across his forehead. He could feel the clammy sweat on his fingertips. He said a quick prayer and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“You really do not understand the consequences that going to that octave may bring,” Ichiban said.

“I don’t give a shit about any consequences,” Mathis responded. Really? What consequences could there be from a video game?

“Life as you know it—reality, as you perceive it—may never be the same.”

Oh, geez, these fools really took this shit way too seriously. It may affect some players that way, weak players like Blake, but not grounded, old men like Mathis. “Whatever. We had a deal.”

“Fine,” Ichiban finally gave in. “But you may end up regretting this.”

Mathis already regretted
everything
. He should have just left the whole mess to Jackson and Investigations from the start. But he was in too deep now. He had to see it through.

“Take me there,” he demanded.

“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ichiban said with irritation. “Blake! Activate his visor.”

Mathis was taken aback. Blake? Was it just a coincidence that he yelled for another player who happened to have the same name as a kid that was sitting in a padded cell right now? Mathis scanned the jungle, expecting another player to appear, but there was no one else around.

Mathis turned back and watched in horror as Ichiban’s neck broke itself in half, twisting perpendicular to his body. A violent twitched worked along the flesh of his cheekbone then his head jerked upright again.

“Don’t say he didn’t warn you,” Ichiban giggled in a squeaky falsetto. Mathis could have sworn that it was someone else’s voice speaking out of his mouth.

“Better hold onto your underpants,” Ichiban said before leaning toward Mathis and speaking slow and deliberate.

“This. Is. Not. A. Game.”

∞

“Holy fuck!” Raze shouted, as Ichiban recited the activation phrase.

“Visors activated,” The Womb announced calmly.

Raze leapt up off the bed and made a mad dash for The Womb. Within thirty seconds all three players would disappear off the television screen, out of the game and into Raze’s section of The Stratum.

Raze realized during the last interaction that Mathis had no intentions of telling Ichiban where Aislen was. He was a terrible liar. He just wanted to solve his little murder and rightly suspected the “secret game level” was a tool in that.

But, how dare that motherfucker, Ichiban, activate the visors. Those were
Raze’s
property, meant to access
Raze’s
realm of control. Grant had no right to take Mathis there without permission. It was bad enough that he had already trespassed there himself.

He shouldn’t be transporting Mathis to
any
part of The Stratum at all. It was a violation of Protocol of the highest order. Maggots were to be contained by The Stratum, not taken there. They were never to know it existed.

Grant could explain Aislen to The 8. They would understand if he was trying to catch Preston Reed and ensnared her instead. They would give the asshole a fucking bonus for finding her!

But Mathis? That was a whole different story. There was no good reason to take him there. The punishment for such a violation was worse than death. If The 8 found out about it, they would have Grant’s brain wiped and scrambled. He would be sitting in an institution somewhere, slobbering on himself for the rest of his life, not knowing his ass from a hole in the ground.

Grant would never risk such a thing, which only meant Grant was
not
Ichiban.

Raze dove into the chaise. “Theta 4. Stratum access,” he demanded. The Womb activated, immediately throwing the room into darkness and bringing up the brown noise. Raze didn’t have time to cycle down properly. This was an emergency situation. He had to stop this madness and figure out who Ichiban really was.