Massively Multiplayer (24 page)

It was also coming from behind him, which was impossible, since his back was to a wall three-stories above the ground.

Though admittedly stout, Gil hadn’t gained his early reputation by accident. His sword was whipped from its scabbard on the table, and his arm already extending as he whirled almost faster than a human eye could follow.

The eyes following him, however, were not entirely human.

“Gil de Wraithmorte...behold me.”

Gil didn’t find the command difficult to obey. Through the open window casement, he could see a wedge of black sky, and a sliver of ivory moon, but mostly he could see the lithe form of the Vampire Queen of Westerly, floating in the air and smiling cruelly.

“Oh...damn,” he breathed.

She was surrounded by a cloud of things that might have been bats, if they hadn’t had tiny human faces. The Queen’s raven hair stirred restlessly in the breeze of their wings. It was the only part of her which moved. Her strikingly beautiful face was icily composed, her hands immobile at her sides, mute recognition of the ludicrously inadequate threat posed by Gil’s raised sword. He let it drop to his side.

She moved forward into the room, seeming to stand on a platform of thin violet vapor which coiled seductively around her. Her simple gown was so black as to meld into the night behind her, making her ivory face and graceful hands seem to float in midair.

Gil was ambitious, proud, and not without personal bravery. However, he was also cunning enough to know when he was way out of his league. He replaced the sword carefully in its sheath, laying both on the nearby table, careful not to appear threatening and terribly conscious of the obsidian eyes boring into his spine. He did his best to ignore the bat-things which now swirled around him, chittering with laughter and pulling at his hair. Retaining what dignity he could muster, he turned back to the apparition and bowed carefully. “To what do I owe the pleasure, madam?”

The crimson lips tilted up at one corner. Score one for the polite approach.

“Gil de Wraithmorte, once before have we seen you. You and your companions trespassed in our domain. You slaughtered our vassals. You made free with our riches. You even dared imprison our consort. It has occurred to us to destroy you.”

Gil nodded carefully. The Great Swamp Trek. He might not yet be done paying for Druin’s mistakes on that fateful treasure run. He made a mental note to drop Dru out of a high window, if he survived his current scouting mission.

“However,” the Queen continued, “we are mindful that you might yet prove of use to us. Too long have my brood tolerated the petty incursions of your fortune-hunters, and we are minded to teach them painful lesson. You are conversant with the ways of these people. You will answer our questions in full truth, or you will die by inches in our deepest dungeon. Do you understand?”

He nodded again.

“Very well. How many inhabit this place? What are its defenses?”

For the next five minutes, she interrogated Gil about Bitter Edge and other towns in the region. Part of his mind knew very well that the gorgeous, deadly vision before him was an actress, a moderately famous one at that. That knowledge did not diminish the thrill of ecstatic panic which the Vampire Queen had brought with her. On the contrary, it increased his nervousness, as celebrity has done for centuries.

Yet another part of his mind was aware that this particular actress, the celebrated Moira Roth, was a clear indicator that he had the attention of Archimago Industries...they didn’t send their A-list Catalysts to jaw with every gamer who frequented their servers. Her presence meant his barracks plans were unnecessary – he was being involved in some major plotline in the game, an invitation, perhaps, to the professional contact he’d been hoping might get him out of his dead-end job at the hospital. That part of his brain was busy with mental picture of quitting in some dramatic fashion, maybe emptying his mop bucket over the Head Nurse as the Archimago limousine pulled up in front of the hospital to spirit him away.

The majority of his mind, however, was industriously answering questions as completely as possible, aware that he must play the scene well, both to cultivate the delicate thread of advancement which had been offered, and to keep himself from an ignominious death. Failure at this point would no doubt demand a severe punishment, the loss of several circles in rank, and maybe worse. He was so intent on doing a good job that he almost missed it when her questions veered from the generic to the personal.

“Very well, de Wraithmorte. Hmm...your name seems ill-suited for a champion of these cattle. Mayhap we will favor you further, should your report prove advantageous, by welcoming you into our twilight kingdom. You would make a suitable scion of this region, perhaps...”

Gil could barely resist jumping with excitement. There it was, proof positive that he was being seriously considered for advancement, in game or maybe even out of it.

It occurred to him that her proposal certainly meant a lot of virtual bloodshed, and probably the loss of any goodwill he had from his sometime friends and partners in town. But he frankly wasn’t concerned by that. The line between good and evil is, for some, a stark and certain barrier...for people like Gil, it was little more than a flimsy cobweb, discarded easily. He did not care whether his promotion came at the hands of the Council of Westerly or the region’s ostensible villains. This was, after all, a game, and Gilbert Morton was the soul of practicality, particularly if practicality might mean not putting up with the humiliations of his job for one minute more than he had to.

But she was still speaking: “...that there might be others of your acquaintance who share your ambition, who might prove useful to us. Tell me of the one called Druin the Reaver.”

Gil blinked in surprise. It was the last name he would have thought she might mention.

“Druin? Uh, madam, your Majesty, I don’t think he’s really the type who would fit your needs...”

The obsidian eyes narrowed, and her smile vanished. “Do you dare to instruct us? Have a care, little mortal.”

Gil retreated involuntarily, thinking fast. “No, no Majesty! I meant merely to present you more suitable, more powerful allies! If I might suggest my aide, MadHarp, he is...”

“You presume too much on our tolerance, insect!” she hissed. “You have proven a craven traitor to your kind, de Wraithmorte, and do not think us so naive as to trust a traitor far! Your opinions are insignificant to us! You have been a useful spy, and may yet gain a reward for it, but you will not take such liberties again! It is for us to determine on what souls our plans may hinge. Now...tell us of this Druin Reaver.”

So Gil told her.

Hearty applause greeted Moira Roth as she disengaged from her virtualounge. Blinking, even in the dim light of her studio, she sketched a polite curtsy and walked over to where a small knot of observers were clustered around the monitoring rig.

“Was what y’all wanted, Mr. Wallace?” she asked cheerfully.

“That was great, Moira. I was afraid Gil was going to throw you off at one point, but you really thought on your feet. You got just what I needed.”

“Okay, I’m still confused,” Marybeth Langridge admitted. “I understand why you wanted the background on the Hunter kid, but why the long buildup? That Wraithmorte guy would have spilled the beans for a lot less than you offered.”

“Sneakiness,” Wolfgang grinned. “I’m assuming now that our ghost has the power to monitor all the interactions we make with the main program, and particularly with the players he’s chosen, for whatever reason. So I needed to couch the early part of the conversation as a typical plot advancement. If he’s skimming our activities, he’ll see an example of our regular Catalyst operations, by our most visible employee, setting up a plotline, and hopefully ignore it.”

“Awww,” Moira Roth’s Texas twang sharpened with disappointment. “Does that mean I don’t get to raid Westerly? I was kinda’ looking forward to it. I mostly do public relations at cons these days, and plannin’ an invasion sounded a lot more fun.” She pouted.

“Oh yes, that’s the beauty of it,” said Wolfgang. “There’s no way to prove this
wasn’t
part of a regular plot advancement, because you’re going to go ahead with it. I got clearance from Content Development before coming downstairs. The Vampire Invasion is going to be a hot property, all next year. We’ve tentatively scheduled your first offensive for two months from now.”

Moira clapped her hands. “Yeehaw! Look out, Westerly, the Vampire Queen is gonna’ take a bite outta’ your behinds! I gotta’ get an updated map. And ask if I can get someone in CGI to whip up a chariot. I think I’ll have it pulled by dragons.”

“Remember,” Wolfgang cautioned, “clear it with Content first. The players always have to have a way out.”

“Aww, Mr. Wallace, don’t you worry none,” Moira Roth said with a wink. “I’m a
professional
.”

Chapter Twelve – Musical Chairs

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of other things...”

Time indeed, thought Wolfgang, puffing out a sigh through his moustache in a way which did make him resemble a walrus just a bit. He just wished he were going to be discussing shoes, ships, and sealing wax – anything, in fact, rather than the bad news he had to deliver to his new boss.

“Mr. Calloway will see you now,” Mrs. Hernandez said, with a conciliatory smile which implied that though she might not know the specifics, she could already tell he had come to deliver bad news.

“Thanks,” Wolfgang nodded, not really feeling thankful at all as he ushered himself through the frosted glass doors of Bernardo Calloway’s office.

Bernardo was busily scribbling away with a light pen on his desktop, a picture of diligence. Briefly, Wolfgang wondered if it were a contrived scene, meant to inspire the employees to new heights of industry, or a sincere reflection of Bernardo’s workaholic nature.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Calloway. I know you’ve got a lot to do, settling in here.”

“Not at all,” Bernardo grunted. “Mostly making contacts, getting to know our vendors, that sort of thing. You lot in division management do most of the work – that Kipling fellow relied on it. Seems satisfactory. I won’t be shaking anything up for a bit, yet.”

For a bit? Yet? Wolfgang wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that, but nodded cautiously.

“Any road,” Bernardo continued, “things seem smooth enough, particularly given the new product rollout. Been seeing to that, and my da– Mister Calloway, senior, that is, been very keen on it, as an example of new business models for technology...” He trailed off, seemingly lost in thought, and Wolfgang stepped into the conversational breach.

“Yes, about that, sir. That’s why I’m here. We have a problem.”

“Problem?” Bernardo flinched.

“Yes. With the rollout.”

Bernardo didn’t look surprised, merely pained. “What is it?”

Wolfgang told him. “...So far as we know, the incursions are limited to the Crucible server system and the house Intranet here at the Seattle headquarters. He can apparently terminate our processes and probes from any of the other server centers, but he can’t actually turn off the power, so we have hopes we’ll eventually be able to trace his signal from there. There has been no compromise to the financial or corporate databases, as far as we know, but I’m not ruling out anything at this point.”

Wolfgang found Bernardo’s reaction to the news fascinating. He seemed primarily interested in whether the hacking had disturbed the progress and reception of the rollout, interrupting several times to ask whether there had been complaints or discernible problems with content delivery to the players. Wolfgang found an executive’s apparent concern for the well-being of the clientele both refreshing and slightly disquieting. When he had finished, Bernardo sat back, looking out the window quietly for a moment.

“What have you done about this, so far?”

Wolfgang described the teams he had set up to monitor the illicit activity on the servers. He also confessed the slightly unorthodox employment of Moira Roth in his attempt to understand why the hacker was targeting certain users.

“And what has that told you,” Bernardo asked placidly.

“Not much,” Wolfgang admitted. “The player – victim, whatever – in question is a typical gamer, has routine access times within a normal distribution curve, pays his monthly fee automatically by credit card. He’s got a little bit of a reputation for unorthodox play, takes chances with teammates according to some of his past associates, seems a little too invested in the heroic mold to be successful in the long term, but by the same token has a reputation for being trustworthy in deals, and helpful to newcomers. Doesn’t seem the type to be involved in anything seriously criminal, if his character reflects his, er, character.”

“So what next?”

“As I said, we’re going to try to trace back the illicit commands from our other server centers. And I’ll want a closer look at how the mystery architecture was put together. Of course, I could dissect the code easily if we took the servers offline for a few—“

“No!” Bernardo spun his chair around. “No, we absolutely can’t!”

Wolfgang flinched at the vehemence of Bernardo’s reaction. Bernardo visibly calmed himself. “I mean, think about it...if we take the servers down, that soon after rollout, what will happen to client confidence? We’ll be admitting that there is something very wrong with the system, and no matter what sort of explanation we offer, the independent press will kill us. No, not until we have no other option. The servers have to stay on.”

“I was going to say the same thing myself,” Wolfgang admitted, surprised again by Bernardo’s awareness of the delicate psychology involved in the fickle gaming market. “It’s one reason we’ve been trying to keep a tight lid on this. That, and the hope that we aren’t tipping the hacker off to just how much we know.” Which isn’t much, he confessed to himself. “So my next step was going to be establishing trace routines for all known contact points we have with the—”